"I'd rather sing on a wheelchair than cancel a show!"

Hours before their concert in Sofia on January 26, a crippled Mark "Barney" Greenway, vocalist of British death metal legends Napalm Death, entered Tangra Mega Rock's studio for a friendly conversation...

Vassil Varbanov: Hey, this is Mark "Barney" Greenway - finally face to face! How has the tour been so far?

Barney Greenway: Very good, actually. It's been Scandinavia and the Baltics.

V. V.: You've hurt your ankle very badly two days ago, as we can see. What exactly happened?

B. G.: First of all, I have to apologize in advance for tonight, because I'm gonna be playing possibly from a chair on stage, you know, as I can't move around very much.
What happened basically was that the stage we played on in Belgrade, Serbia, was uneven, and as people probably know, I cover quite a lot of stage area during every show, so unfortunately I misjudged and my full body weight went on my right ankle. My tendon is damaged, really quite badly, so at the moment I'm immobile. It's gonna be a couple of weeks for it to recover...

V. V.: This is going to be a very amazing thing… It never happened - you performing on stage sitting on a chair!?

B. G.: You know, it's happened to me once before, but never as bad as this. Mitch broke his foot a few years ago and played every night on a chair. I also would rather do that kind of thing than cancel a show. Some bands probably would, but I'm not prepared to do that... I've played shows with pneumonia, you know...
A lot of kids wanna see this show tonight pretty badly, I know that, so even if my ankle is quite bad, it doesn't mean I'm not gonna do it. Of course, it's not going to be a regular show, as I'm not gonna be running around, but hopefully people will understand that…

V. V.: I'm sure they will. In fact, where did this "Barney" come from? We know your name is Mark...

B. G.: It's an old nickname, as you can probably imagine. Ah, it's a long story... There was a band from England called Doom – a really old hardcore, Discharge type of band - and their drummer gave me the name. I had some quite severe drinking problems many years ago and I used to kinda fall around and break things - not on purpose, just by accident - but I could break anything, so he called me Rubble, as in "The Flintstones" - Barney Rubble.

V. V.: Ha-ha, that's a curious story! Now let’s get serious. Napalm Death set very high standards in good musicianship. Is it flattering for you or you don't care?

B. G.: Of course it's flattering, but there's a saying in England: You're only as good as your next album. So if you believe your own hype, you start believing you can do anything. You always gotta be creative and, in a sense, trying to think one step ahead, because you want people to listen to every album of yours and say: Yeah, that's something fresh!

V. V.: Now give us some joke about the queen and the royal family!

B. G.: Well, that's a serious point. I don't think we need a royal family anymore, because it takes up too many resources that would be better in the hands of the people, like generating more money for the health service, etc. That's my belief, of course, and there are many people that think otherwise, or just wanna preserve the family for historic and tourism purposes, but is it worth? I mean, they own so much land and seem to be immuned to a lot of things that the regular population has to go through. Up until last year, for example, the queen didn't have to declare her earnings for taxes, or something like that... So imagine how much money was being deprived from the ordinary people.

V. V.: I wanna make you feel a cultural shock now. Bulgaria is a very specific place, it's like people are divided in such who like the so-called shitty dance music, and those who listen to normal commercial stuff or metal. I'll play you a track of a locally very famous guy, and you'll tell me - without pluking on my mixer, please! -В  whether you like it.

B. G. (after having a listen to a nasty song a the local gypsy pop-folk star called Kondyo): Fantastic, ha-ha! No, seriously, that's a matter of taste and opinion, it shouldn't be a major issue. It's just what it is.

V. V.: It was just a shitty joke.

B. G.: Yeah, I know, but some people get quite serious about that. I personally find it really amusing sometimes.

V. V.: More than 50 years of rock'n'roll history now, and unfortunately most of the big names are already dead. Is there any rock legend that you really miss?

B. G.: Hm, that's a good question... The certain ones that influenced my life and Napalm Death in parallel are all still alive... Lemmy was probably the main, and he's not dead yet! For me, Motorhead was the band that started it - they blurred the lines between punk and metal, and you couldn't say they were either, because they were both, and Lemmy clearly didn't care about anything and did what he wanted to do. Although I might not like the later Motorhead albums, I think they are and were a band all on their own.

V. V.: To what degree are you guys aware of the so-called famous British rock'n'roll heritage, I mean, do you praise the fact that The Beatles and Pink Floyd existed?

B. G.: Yeah. If you're a music fan, you have your own taste and things you like. Certainly, in the earlier years all people who wanted to get into music really seriously tended to be a bit tunnel-visioned, but then you open up your eyes, because you realize that the more music you listen to, the more creative you get. Even if you don't get influenced by certain stuff, just experiencing different types of music makes you more opened up creatively. I acknowledge everything, because everything has a part to play, whether I like it or not.
And, by the way, there's another point to this. Bringing it forward into the modern context - the genre known as "emo"... It's really quite popular to attack it verbally within the rock scene. And what does that achieve? Nothing. As far as I'm concerned, whatever music you play, if that's what makes you happy, if that's what's in your heart, then you've got the right to exist as a band as much as anyone else.

V. V.: Well, in about a month we're going to have the guys of Cannibal Corpse here in Sofia. Talking about extreme, brutal bands that have been around for quite a while, we can say the Cannibals are something like your American counterparts. What do you think about them?

B. G.: We're different bands. Cannibal are pretty much a straighter death metal band, whereas Napalm is a mix of many things, you know, it's quite punky, so there's a definite difference there. Beyond that, they’re friends of ours, actually really nice gentle guys, opposed to the things they sing of, ha-ha!

V. V.: Well, what's next? After the show tonight you'll have two more in Greece, and then what?

B. G.: Then we'll have two months off, which is a long time for us. We've been on the road for quite a while, and Mitch (Harris) is going to have a baby, so of course we want to give him time to be there. It's also a good time, because I hurt my ankle very badly, as already mentioned, and I need to recover. It's pretty painful...

V. V.: OK, Barney, thank you very much for being with us in the studio! Until next time!

B. G.: Well, I thank you, too!

В© Tangra Mega Rock

More about Napalm Death's concert in Sofia can be read HERE.

Photos of the show are posted HERE.

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