[kj] Jaz speaks to MTV Radio

[LONESTYLE at aol.com]

Good work Alex!
 
Cheers,
 
~LB
 
 
In a message dated 4/30/2006 3:17:45 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
vassifer at earthlink.net writes:



Alright again, gang, I managed to  transcribe the interview Jaz did with 
MTV2's Headbanger's Ball Radio (oh, the  humanity).  I'm not sure how much of this 
I'll be able to use in the  piece, but I figured some of you all might give a 
toss. Here are Jaz's quotes  on a variety of subjects.  It's a bit rough. 
Bolded print indicates  topics. Enjoy.... - Alex in NYC  




ON KILLING JOKE 2003 vs.  HOSANNAS:
"We did the 2003 one with Dave Grohl. It was  just really me and Geordie, to 
be honest, the 2003 album. Youth played on, I  think, two tracks and Geordie 
played the bass of the rest of it. So, it was  just the two of us with Dave 
Grohl, really. This album, for me, is really  special, `cos we all went 
collectively to Prague and hammered out loads of  demons and had a great time with the 
beautiful excesses that a beautiful city  like Prague provides. We recorded at 
will in an inferior studio with a wine  cellar below it, where we actually 
put the drums down…. I think it was  probably one of the more honest Killing 
Joke albums, if you’re looking at  collective input. Everyone hammered out their 
demons. It was a huge pressure  on everyone. HAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !"


On Beer vs. Wine in  Prague:
"When beer is as cheap as  fucking water in Prague, who the hell wants to dri
nk wine? Anyway, it sucks,  their wine.   


On the "25th  Anniversary":
Well, actually this is our  28th year, and we did actually three recordings 
before that 25th anniversary  [recording], so someone’s cheating me out of 
fucking two years of my life, and  I think it was the promoter. 25 years sounds 
like a marriage or something,  doesn’t it? HAHAHAHAHA. It’s harder than fucking 
marriage, hahahahaah and I  should know. I just got my last divorce last 
years, and now I’m back with her.  Do I get my money back?"


On Killing  Joke:
"For me, Killing Joke will  always be how I deal with my anger; how I deal 
with waking up to this world  where we’re just basically destroying everything. 
These thoughts that I have  -- how I deal with my sleep deprivation, because I 
can't fucking ever seem to  sleep without sedatives. It's how I deal with 
these things. I guess, for me,  it has a social function. It's my exorcism, it's 
my catharsis and it is a  tradition, and not just for me. There's actually 
quite a lot of people out  there that really love the ceremony of it all also."


On Trends & the band &  Geordie:
"We don't have anything to  do with fucking fashion. We're a sound and we're 
a lifestyle.  HAHAHAHA. We're just a sound and a lifestyle again. That's all 
it is, in the  end. It's a way of life for a lot of people including myself. I 
see myself  kind've outside of the band a lot of the time. I look at this 
sound from the  outside, but then of course, I'm in it. I've got sort've a strange 
 relationship with it. I need it and I love it and it drives me mad, but I 
keep  doing it, y'know? Geordie Walker and I -- we like making music together 
and we  have a very, very special relationship. As long as "our Kevin," as I 
call him,  wants to keep making music, we'll do it. I intend to improve on every 
record I  do in my life for the rest of my days, really. I'm a very lucky man. 
There's  not many people who have a band after 28 years."
On bands they've influenced &  recognition: 
"I get a fucking cd every week with a Killing Joke cover song, and  they all 
go in the bin. HAHAHAHAA." 

On "success": 
If I'm really honest with you, and anyone  who really knows me will back this 
up, I only weigh press or count numbers of  interviews for fun. Where I live, 
you can't get it anyway. It doesn't really  come into my life. When I meet 
wonderful people like the Tool boys and Dave  Grohl, --- they're lovely people. 
People always talk about this damn success  thing, and I don't really get it, 
myself. It's a short life and we all eat  shit and die. I can't see the big 
rush to get a fucking huge house. I wouldn't  swap my life for anything. 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. It wasn't so long ago that I did an  experiment. I walked through 
London with twenty-thousand pounds cash in my  pocket, and I took myself to 
lunch, then I went to Atlanteers bookshop and  bought myself a book and then I 
bought some cigars, and then you know what? I  didn't know what to do with my 
money. I'm that kind've person, really.  I  want less as I get older, not more. So 
I feel really quite wealthy.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA 

RE:  re-mastersI have plans to own the entire catalog. HAHAHAHAHA. When I 
finish  one record, all I'm doing is thinking about the next one. It's old news 
for  me. I try not to look backwards; Just forwards. There's only this moment, 
and  what we're going to do tomorrow. That's it, really  


re; a New  album? 
Definitely. There's so much I want to do,  and killing Joke's never been 
better. Working with Geordie Walker -- he's a  magic player. He's one of those 
guitarists who sounds like fucking eight  guitarists. There'll never be anyone 
like him. It's my deepest pleasure to  have spent more years with him and more 
time with him than my own blood  brother. 

Re: RAVEN 
God bless his soul. Paul is always part of  our family. Always, right? To be 
perfectly frank, what we have here is  geographical differences. hahahaha.  
Two of like living in Europe very  much and Paul has got commitments to his 
children and his gorgeous, gorgeous  lady [in the States] and we're completely at 
peace with working him with "our  Al," Al Jourgensen, who I've known over the 
years since he was a young lad to  our early gigs. I'm very happy for them. 
It's the extended family. The only  thing I really regret about it about it is 
not smoking some cigars with my old  mate, Raven, at the moment. But that'll 
come later.  HAHAHAAHAH 
Will he be back? 
Y'know what? You just learn as you get  older. The Killing Joke family -- 
we're just a family. We do what's easiest  for all of us. It's logistics and it's 
what's best for all involved. I've  never had a bad word with Paul, and 
certainly not in the last year.  It's  just geography. I love going through the 
States. But the fact is that Paul  NEEDs to be in the States at the moment and he 
has to do what he's got to do  with Ministry. He's got commitments there, and 
we've got our commitments also.  They're just different at this moment in 
time. But I love Paul like my own  brother. I'd stop bullets for him and I love 
him and I miss smoking cigars  with the fucker. HAHAHAHAHA 
re: the Euro perspective: 
Yes, I'm afraid that's true. It started from  the fact is that none of us can 
sing a song of our forefathers, so we decided  to make some, and that's 
Killing Joke music. We certainly consider ourselves a  European outfit, with Celtic 
roots. I consider us a very European band, I'm  afraid. It's funny, we worked 
with Conny Plank and we did this film called  Friespiel...   which means free 
speech -- and all the contributors  to European music -- there was a movement 
of NOT drawing from American music.  As much as I love a lot of American 
music and blues and everything -- but we  are Europeans. We are not Americans, and 
blues is anathema to us.  And I  think there was a whole movement. Everybody 
from Joy Division, Peter Hook's  influence and Eno -- I'm just speaking of the 
English contingent, and then  Germany -- when you think of Kraftwerk, when 
you think of Can, when you think  of Neu! when you think of Neubauten when you 
think of D.A.F, and the of  course.when you think of the contribution that 
Rammestein have made to  European music. I guess we've always been on this side of 
the fence. Or the  pond, I should say. HAHAHAHAA 

re: summer festivals 
Not really. Not at all. Instead of playing a five-thousand seater,  I'd 
rather do small gigs. I do it for fun, and I do it for quality of sound.  Killing 
Joke in a fucking 2000 capacity venue cranking is something else. I  don't 
really seek the bigger and bigger. We're just like a little cornershop,  but it's 
very expensive if you want to come in and buy  anything. 
 
Touring the  States? 
Fuck yeah, we're gonna come through. I never  know, from one day to the next, 
which gig we're doing. Everything changes, and  then of course I've got my 
orchestral career. They ring me up and say "we've  got a gig here," and then 
I've gotta out the conductor's bat and look at the  fucking score and swap lives. 
There are so many things I want to do. I didn't  want to just do music. 
Literature is very deep in my heart and I've done some  spoken word stuff -- which 
I did with Paul Raven, and I think that'll be  coming out soon. I haven't 
tackled literature properly. I like to do lectures.  I really like composing. I 
really like recording with orchestra, because  unlike rock music, a record 
happens in two days, and it just comes back to you  finished and beautiful and it 
just gives me fucking orgasm after orgasm.  HAHAHAHAHA 
It's a wonderful thing. I like different  mediums and I've gone from changing 
a national anthem to Walt Disney. It's  been a colorful career and the best 
is yet to come. 
I only think in future tense. I get a lot of  people asking me about the good 
ol' days, and these kind've nostalgic  projections. And frankly, the present 
tense is  better. 
Things you haven't tried  yet? 
I'd like to do one year working for the  green party in New Zealand and 
possibly the experience of a political career.  Because I'm a green, and even Bill 
Clinton's green these days -- Slick Willie,  ya gotta love him, haven't ya 
HAHAHAHAA. We've got to do something about this  fucking planet. My response is: 
get rid of fan clubs and start eco-villages  with sustainable resources.  
There's a Killing Joke movie coming out.  We've got one scene to shoot on it, 
and it's done. It's taken like eight years  of my life to put this together. 
That's good fun. I'm working on a big  Hollywood movie soundtrack at the end 
of the year, then I'm moving to Sydney  and working on a great Australian 
orchestra. Life's colorful, what can I say?  Get the barbecue out. Let's go 
fishing! HAHAHAHAHAA! 
People in America could learn from a  Mediterranean lifestyle. You wake up 
and go to work at half past eight. Work  until about twelve o'clock right. And 
then you go for a seafood lunch with  nice bottle of wine with your lover, and 
then the sun comes out and it's a bit  hot, so you shut the shudders and you 
FUCK all afternoon, and then you open up  the shop again for about another two 
hours and then do it again all evening.  What's wrong with that? And the 
food's good! HAHAHAHAHAAH. You should try it  some time. Hahaha. 
Great  Britain: 
I might not have lived there for twenty-five  years, but I can tell you this: 
it's real special to me. I love the people, I  love the sense of humor, I 
love the marmalade, I love the BBC World Service,  and the rest of it can go to 
fucking hell. 
New Music you  Like? 
New artists? It ain't the fucking Arctic  Monkeys, I can tell you that. 
HAHAHA. I can tell you what I don't like more  than what I like, and there's lot of 
shit I don't like. To be honest, I listen  to the voices in my head. A bit 
like Joan of Arc, really. I listen to the  music that's going on in my head. I'm 
just forever scheming up something else.  I don't like listening to too much 
music, to be honest, because I find that it  influences you almost on a 
subconscious level. So, I cut myself off from  really most music, apart from the odd 
bit of classical music or whatever I  perceive as genius. 
We got the [Kerrang's] lifetime achievement  award last year, and I was only 
45 when i got it. That's probably the youngest  lifetime achievement award 
you're going to get. And we never expected gongs  and shit like that. Everyone 
knows who we are. Everyone knows from Jimmy Page  right the way through. You 
don't have to shout about it. I just enjoy making  the music in a very simple 
way. 
re:  Invocation 
For me, it's the second time I've ever put  strings with Killing Joke, and it 
was a real special moment putting strings  down with Killing joke with this 
massive sound. I wanted to capture the  madness that's going on with the world 
and the Middle East and this terrible  conflict that's going on and just 
literally capture this atmosphere.  Everyone's really uncertain of what we're going 
to do next. Iran's a problem.  Israel's a problem. The whole fucking Middle 
East is a problem. And then  there's fucking China, which is an even bigger 
problem. So, I wanted to thing  to sound not just middle-eastern, but Eastern 
generally. Here in Europe,  Germany is going to be a depressed nation, and so is 
the European Union,  because it's as simple as this: our manufacturing 
industry is going down the  fucking toilet, because they can do it cheaper in China 
and fucking India for  one-fortieth of the price. And there's no health 
insurance or no fucking  pollution problems -- you can just pay off corrupt 
officials. We can't compete  with that. So leisure time is really important, and to 
watch the world go  nuts, that's important because it reminds you to eat, drink 
and be merry with  the people you love, because sometimes that's the only way 
out of this  madness.  
I wake up in the morning and I say to  myself, "It's great to be Jaz 
Coleman." 
FINAL WORDS? 
When we started the band, we asked  ourselves: what do we want to get out of 
this, this band thing? I think the  first thing we all agreed on was, "let's 
get the fuck out of England." The  second thing was to inspire people to go out 
and do for themselves; a creative  project or something beautiful for 
themselves. Killing Joke is just a mirror.  The word that  
If there's I could say about Killing Joke is  you can do it. You can do 
anything you fucking want, mate. I left school at 15  with no education. I've 
worked with the great symphony orchestras of the  world. Everything is fucking 
possible. You've got to lift your self-confidence  up. If there's one common 
denominator that I see that are having problems in  this world, it's a lack of will 
or self-confidence. Just remember: Everyone’s  scared. HAhahahahaha. Push 
yourself through that fiery hoop. You'll get out  the other side, and it wasn't 
so bad, eh? You can call me Papa  Jaz.  

















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