My Interview With Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke: Pt 2

As promised, the second half of my interview with Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke (read Pt 1 here). To bring us up to date: Jaz had just been discussing how the band's most vital work had been delivered in their latter years.

Fair warning - things get quite emotional (perhaps cloyingly so) towards the end of this section. I made a promise to myself to transcribe the entire interview, though, so I'll just have to deal with the embarrassment.

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I used to say that about Hosannas from the Basements of Hell. I think, up until this album, it was indisputably your greatest work – and it was released nearly twenty-eight years after you formed.

The trick is to keep going. It’s a cliché but the maxim that ‘a winner never quits and a quitter never wins’ holds true, I think. As you can see, looking back at the interviews we did, we were not always h – line cuts out briefly – and who gives a fuck? (laughs) You still pull out a record and you promote it and you get onto the next one and you just keep pulling out music. I can remember times in my career where it was almost impossible to do that.

When we did (1990 studio album) Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions, that was after three years of litigation and no record deal and all sorts of stuff. To survive, we were doing two hundred and fifty concerts a year, during this time – just to survive – and then, when we had the opportunity to record again, Extremities was recorded in three days – the album that we did with Atkins (former Public Image Ltd drummer Martin Atkins) and Raven – and I remember just being really, really grateful just to have the opportunity to record again. I thought it was so elusive at that time.

So, we’ve gone through all these kind of things, you pick yourself up, you throw yourself back into it and you just start punching! (laughs) It’s not been the most comfortable of rides always, Killing Joke’s thirty-one years, but it’s been one fuck of an amazing journey.

The way I perceive Killing Joke is very different to everybody else, of course, because, for me – especially with the original line-up, it really brings it home – Killing Joke’s been my entire further education. I mean, if you take into consideration that Youth left school at fourteen, I left school at fifteen, none of us have got any exams or O-levels or A-levels or anything to our names – yet here we are.

There’s three visiting professors in the band, everybody’s got multiple jobs, work, talents, you know – and everybody’s self-taught, is my point. If there is anything really valid about Killing Joke it’s, if you look at the individuals involved, look at what they’ve achieved and bear in mind that we are the people that society wrote off.

Hence the anger, I guess, as young men. The anger at being written off before we’d even started – just because we weren’t qualified et cetera et cetera. You know, we knew we were intelligent and we had talents but there was a lot of anger, when I think back – and there must be today when I see a lot of young people and academia or further education doesn’t work with them, again they’re written off by society as being economically worthless.

There’s the same anger that comes from low self-esteem that we had to sort of get through – and I think everybody’s achieved it in a very noble manner, frankly, when I think of all the things everybody’s achieved. I mean, Big Paul is a master of art, in terms of he restores some of the greatest masterpieces in the world – line cuts out again briefly – Museum of Modern Art and many other things as well – and then he does Killing Joke (laughs). I like this.

The interesting thing about the band is, when we’re together, we don’t spend a lot of time talking about music. There’s so many areas. There’s not many people in the world apart from my colleagues that I can move very easily from world politics or what’s happening in any particularly region to poetry or earth sciences or dancing or history in the way that I can move with these guys. They’re all so incredibly well-read – and yet, again, nobody finished school even!

I guess, if there is any great contribution Killing Joke has to make or has made, I think it’s to education, more than anything else. I put it down to that people come and see Killing Joke and think ‘well, if those arseholes can do that, anyone can do anything!’ (laughs) I really do think it’s that! I call it the mirror effect!

Killing Joke’s had such an incredible effect on so many people – and not just in the area of music. There was a play done two weeks ago that was using Killing Joke’s music. We have even one architect who’s influenced by Killing Joke’s music who showed us how his design in architecture is influenced by Killing Joke’s music.

In one sense, if you look at the early gigs, they were everybody kind of met – if they met before the gig, everybody used to talk. Killing Joke was like a forum of discussion, not just a gig, but lifestyle, how to survive...

I mean, God, when I moved to New Zealand, I remember talking to this young guy and he’s going ‘oh, New Zealand’s really shit. You only get twenty grand for a video!’ and I said ‘what do you mean you only get twenty grand for a video?’ He goes ‘yeah, all you have to do is prove to the government you’ve got distribution and they give you twenty grand for a video – you only get fifty grand for a recording’ and I go ‘what you talking about, fifty grand for a recording?’ He goes ‘yeah, as long as you can prove distribution to the government, they’ll pay for your recording’ (laughs) In the UK they tell you to fuck off!

I never knew these kind of things happened until I left the UK. When I think that the route that we took...God, I mean, we were squatting. That’s how we survived in the early days. We moved into squats – but that wasn’t long.

If you look at when I actually had the band complete and the time we put our first record out and were known universally throughout the UK and the best part of Europe – that was only ten weeks. From the time that we were altogether and the time that happened, that was ten weeks. It happened really quick. I think the same happened for The Clash – where it doesn’t seem to happen so much these days, you know?

I think it was our early lessons in media studies. You didn’t have to play all the small places. Getting people like John Lydon and John Peel to say ‘wow, have you heard this?’ – I mean, that was great media. Our first London gig was sold-out. We hadn’t really done the small places. We went to sort of medium-sized venues. It was a good lesson. A very good lesson. It’s been an incredible learning experience.

When I moved to Iceland in ‘82, I woke up on February 26 in Iceland and the first thought I had in my mind was ‘I want to be a composer, I want to compose for orchestra’ and then, basically, Killing Joke funded all my studies with symphony orchestra from that point – so it really has been my university.

Consider, I’d never been in a hotel room and I’d never flown on a plane until I was in Killing Joke. It’s been my everything. It’s not just a band. It’s broader.

It’s always been a network of other individuals in different parts of the world and that’s what it is. You meet somebody – and through Killing Joke I’ve met so many people that a new world was born – and now, instead of having just a fanclub, The Gathering offers itself to anyone who is interested in Killing Joke. We always thought the term ‘fan’ was derogatory, really. The Gathering and gatherers – the idea of gathering knowledge – has always been dear to us. The Gathering is sort of an extended family. That’s what it’s become.

So, while I’d consider ourselves a corner shop next to a supermarket like U2, what we’ve got is real precious. Someone said to me last week ‘you know, the greatest thing about Killing Joke is its audience’ and that’s fucking amazing when you think about it – but true. You look at all the cretins, for example, that might go to a U2 concert or an Iron Maiden concert – our audience is not like that (laughs). Our audience is very well-read, they’re very intelligent, they can think for themselves! (laughs) It might be smaller but it’s better!

Awesome. Well, I think we’ve run slightly over time but I do have two things to say. First, so I don’t lose my time, is that –

Operator: Excuse me, we –

Hang on, we’re just finishing off with one question.

Well, the thing I do have to say is that you and Killing Joke are the single greatest influence on my adult life.

Really?

Yep. As a writer, as a musician, as a theatre maker – it all comes back to Killing Joke 2008, when I bought your albums. I bought all of your albums in the space of about two weeks.

Great. Well, we’ll make a point of coming to Brisbane next year. It’s high on my list to do Australia again. The last time we went to Brisbane, it was so, so unfortunate.

What happened was – I have to tell you this – was that Ted Parsons, who was playing drums for us on the 2003 record tour, he missed the fucking flight to Australia, so we had to re-schedule Brisbane on that 2003, and we hired an Australian road crew to move all our stuff because the drummer hadn’t turned up. We wouldn’t have used this road crew. Of course, they had an accident and one of the roadies died in the accident and it’s left us feeling very sad about this. Geordie hasn’t spoken to Ted Parsons ever since – because he missed that gig. It just goes to show you that, being late for something, the repercussions that can have sometimes is just horrible.

So, we want to go to Brisbane and I want to find the family of the roadie who died and invite them to the show. It’s been something I’ve been thinking about since 2003. Sad, sad...A small footnote. We’ll make it to Australia.

It’s the people that make Killing Joke – I’m always mindful of this – it’s the people that love our music that make it happen. They, the gatherers, are almost more important than the members that make up the band. I’d consider myself a huge gatherer and aficionado of Killing Joke – but I’ve never seen the band, you know. You can look on a screen but you can’t feel it – so I’ve never seen it – but I like the feeling I’m left with when I come off stage.

I feel like it’s a divine experience in one sense. I feel like calm inside me, tired – but a good tired. I think it’s essentially a force for good. I’ve had to sort of reflect on it deeply over the years – whether it is or whether it’s not – and I think it is. When you have a Killing Joke concert, in that space you’re free to say anything, do anything. That space is a very special place and long may it continue.

My vision for the band is very simple and that is that, one by one, we’ll bury each other until there’s one man standing (laughs).

That’s it, really. It’s a life, isn’t it? It’s a life and people make it a life and wow. I have so little, I’m not interested in money, I live on subsistence money really compared to most people, but I’m certainly the richest poor man you ever did meet. I do feel like this. I do feel like this.

I feel that Killing Joke is an incredible, incredible force and I’m so proud to be part of it. I’m so proud of my colleagues that they can overcome all of the trauma of being with Killing Joke and that we can all come together to resolve our differences to keep making music for the right reasons. It sure isn’t for the money (laughs)

So, yeah. What can I say? The entertainment business has brought me nothing but happiness.

Well, it’s been an absolute honour to speak to you and I really hope to see you soon.

Hey, well, make it there! Make sure you come to the soundcheck. What’s your first name?

Matt.

Matt, of course. Well, Matt from Brisbane, on any Australian gigs – or indeed any gigs worldwide – you can be at any Killing Joke for free for the rest of your mortal life.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Just let me know. Any Australian gigs I do, I’ll put Matt from Brisbane on the door – just in case you’re out there.

Thanks, man. That’s amazing. I really, really cannot wait.

And make a point of seeing me in the flesh when we come through. God willing, we’ll take our discussions further.

Awesome. This has been one of my greatest ambitions as a journalist, to interview you.

Oh, good. Everyone’s born gifted. Everybody – we believe this in Killing Joke. Life is the location of your gift and then the selfless execution of it and that’s it. Everyone’s born innately gifted. I think that’s Killing Joke. It’s the realisation of what you can do.

Thank you so much. I’ll see you when you get here.

I’ll see you when you get here. You’re coming to Europe, I trust?

I’ll try.

Everyone should leave their homeland and go around the world regularly. It makes you stronger with every journey. Especially people stuck out in the world where you are – you have to leave, get a global perspective. Take into consideration, this: I don’t think travel’s going to get any cheaper. Do it now. Act on the impulse (laughs).

Cheers, man.

Alright mate, cheers!