Ether Festival 2011 - An Interview with Killing Joke

Ether Festival 2011 - An Interview with Killing Joke

30 March, 2011
by: Domzig

Shifting priorities...

It’s always a total cop out to say this, but Killing Joke is a band that definitely doesn’t need an introduction from the likes of me. Emerging from the late punk scene and forged around the pairing of Jaz Coleman and Paul Ferguson, the band’s blend of monolithic guitars, cold synth pop, urgent stabs of post punk and a love of shocking, controversial imagery has influenced everyone from the early goth scene to the modern death metal, disco and industrial dance scenes.

They're due to play Ether festival this Friday, and I caught up with bassist Youth to find out how it feels to go from being banned from playing Glasgow – for distributing pictures of the Pope blessing hordes of Nazis – to headlining the biggest stage at the Southbank Centre.

So you started out with Nazi imagery and now you’re playing the Royal Festival Hall. Do you ever catch yourself thinking, “what the hell happened?”

Ironic, isn’t it?  I think as you get older people’s perceptions change and things that didn’t seem that significant suddenly become very significant. I don’t know how or why it’s happened, but over the last couple of years post-punk has suddenly become this important cultural moment and people are taking it a bit more seriously. After all, bands like us, The Clash and the Pop Group were relevant then, and they’re even more relevant now.

It’s good to be at the centre of an establishment like the Royal Festival Hall – it’s like being in the heart of the machine, which is a good place for Killing Joke to be. If you’d have asked me if I thought we’d playing there when we started, I probably would have laughed. I didn’t even think we’d be around for this long.

So do you think that you’ve been accepted into Britain’s cultural elite as it were?

Sort of, yeah. I mean Killing Joke was never just about being an art/post-punk band, but we always had that sort of perspective on it (although one of us did go to art school, so that definitely helped).

In France, Jaz Coleman was awarded a Chevalier of the Arts last year for his work with Killing Joke, and I was incredibly proud that he got that, as those people really recognise music’s contribution to the arts.

Over here, I’ve always felt that we’ve been more recognised by the fans than the establishment, so it’s always nice to be included in a major arts festival like Ether.

Killing Joke was certainly not afraid of pissing people off back in the '70s. Do you feel that we’re lacking controversy in today’s music scene?

It’s hard to say really. I don’t really like controversy for controversy’s sake; I’d rather people had a provocative answer to real questions. On the one hand quite a lot of modern bands have the attitude going on, but what I don’t really see is any real politics going on. I see a lot of sound bites and clever ideas, and I sort of miss people who were just angry.

I think today’s kids get it, but music itself has become more about being ironic and clever than actually saying anything. I mean it is out there – Crystal Castles, for example, have the attitude and some interesting things to say, but it’s really not so prevalent anymore, which is a bit of a shame.

OK, last question – you guys still hang out in Ladbroke Grove right? Can you please recommend us somewhere to eat?

Ha ha, yeah I still have a lot of friends there. You can’t go wrong with Portobello Road really. On Golborne Road, get some fish from some of the Nigerian stalls. Just watch out for the ley line, or the cosmic vortex that runs along there – all sorts of strange and unexpected things seem to happen for no reason at all.

So basically, go for the fish and stay for the vortex?

Yeah, something like that...

Ether Festival runs until the 28th of April, with Killing Joke playing the Royal Festival Hall on April 1st. Click here to check out our picks of the fest.

Tickets are available from www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Royal Festival Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Purcell Room

Check out more  live music

Domzig