Goldblade Charting The Terror of Modern Life

On May 26, 2013

Since WithGuitars first heard material of the new Goldblade album, ‘The Terror Of Modern Life’, (read Ray Nicholl’s album review) we were totally onside, struck by the energy both of the music and lyrics, as well as the focus and subject matter of the first offering by the Manchester band in five years. Put simply, if you like Punk, you will get this, the album is even more relevant, a virtually lyric documentary of the current political and social malaise of current days. Rotten Johnny enjoys an entertaining chat with frontman John Robb.

Five years since your previous album ‘Mutiny’. Why such a long time?

We were waiting for the apocaplypse!

The album was meant to come out last year, last summer, but there was a change of label when we went from Southern to Overground which held it up for some time. Before that we were touring and we also wanted to get the songs perfect. We didn’t want to make a run of the mill punk rock record so we were in intensive training – like training for the Olympics – pumping up or noise muscles, cranking the bass, getting deeper and darker, daring to step it up and take a lot of risks.

We wanted to make a record that was as raw and on the edge as we were live and not play safe at at all. And that sort of thing takes time. In the middle of that we had to tour the world and play places like Algeria, Russia, the USA and then festivals all over Europe and that sort of thing takes time as well. We also had to wait till the world was ready for us to come steamrolling back into the fray as loose and unhinged as we could possibly be. The time isn’t right for safe bands who play a tame take on punk rock- it’s all got too tidied up and turned into a cosy brand, a musical equivalent of a shirt with skulls on it that looks a bit naughty but yelps like a well behaved puppy dog and we wanted to sound like a pack of feral wolves and I think we have achieved that.

Much has changed in the world in those 5 years, we’ve had the banking collapse, austerity etc. You deal with many of these topics on the album, therefore I’m assuming that this album was written recently.

Some of the stuff was written right up to the wire, a lot of the time I’m chopping and changing the lyrics as I go along, punk rock can be anything it wants to be and there’s plenty to thread into the words from the politics of banking collapses and austerity to the rise of false shamanic prophets in times of confusion to the eternal wars that we present as a kind of sick version of strictly come dancing, a strictly come to war! There are songs about the demolition of thinking, the end of feeling, the politics of fucking, the end times. There’s so much going on that we couldn’t keep it out of the record. It was important that you could still dance to it though and we don’t ever preach. It’s a party record – if you like partying on the bones of the end times!

There’s no sitting on the fence with Goldblade, you don’t like the Tories and you think obviously think we’re being shafted by the politicians. Who do you blame for our current predicament and why?

What’s the point in bands that sit on the fence? That’s so boring it makes you feel sick. Saying that we don’t blame politicians for the crisis – the bankers started that and the greed of the times has choked everything, the politicians are trying to keep up – things are moving faster and spiralling out of control. We fully understand the contradictions of rock n roll though, we know we are in a decadent business and we are not providing answers, we are tapping into the anxiety and the unease – the terror of modern life infact. It’s a natural cycle that things run out and the panic sets in, but we remain optimistic and believe that things will be ok, there’s still a lot of good in the world.

We’re All In It Together video

You’ve got an excellent video for ‘We’re All In It Together’ where you’re all wearing David Cameron masks and sending up the Tories. If David Cameron turned up backstage at a Goldblade gig what would you say to him?

We are polite people. We don’t hate people. We are not rude. We would not agree with his day job though and that may well get a mention and we would wonder why he was there as much as he would wonder why he was there! We would ask him to feel the power of rock n roll instead of asking his PR for hip bands to mention in interviews.

Also if he came backstage we probably would not be there as we would be in the crowd watching the other bands play and chatting to everyone who has honoured us with their presence.

Someone Stole My Brain video

The album has a noticeably darker feel than previous albums. Why is that?

These are darker times and that’s bound to affect the album. We grew up with punk but also with bands like Joy Division and Killing Joke and the Stranglers Black and White album, those are records made by our contemporaries and we have the same kind of cultural DNA. We are making a genuinely alternative music, not watered down ping-pong guitar music that gets marketed as indie. We don’t think we are cooler because of this, it’s just the way it comes out. We live apocalyptic lifestyles and we believe in the noise, oddly we also seem to be able to write tunes as well and we can’t deny that we are playing a sort of pop music, albeit a dark and heavy pop music. An artist has to be sensitive to the environment and any music that is not dark in these times is lying.

The title track to the album is an 8 minute monster that closes the album. It’s almost ‘industrial’ in its sound. I like it a lot, but has it divided opinion amongst fans?

Of course, but surprisingly most people seem to be with us with this one. A band has to take chances or it’s boring. We knew what we wanted with that song and we went in the studio and just played and it came out and it felt like the terror of modern life and gripped that fear that is the undertow of modern living, that sense of dark unease and panic that these could be the last days of Rome.

Punk rock was always a very wide palate, it was never just about singalong songs, it was all styles of music – it was really an attitude. It was death to trad rock as well as being rock n roll. Few forms of music have ever been so contradictory and that was the beauty of it. We wanted to end the album with a piece of music that you could get lost in like a dark and evil forest of sound and I think we achieved that.

I’m intrigued by the album’s title. I took it to reflect the current state of the world yet the cover features an image from Roman times. I’m confused, please explain the title and artwork?

Well it could refer to the last days of Rome. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of the end of Rome, they thought they had the eternal city and the eternal empire and it fell so quickly – are we living the in the same kind of historical place? Of course we hope that’s not true, we like living in these times, there’s a lot of beauty to contrast with the darkness, maybe it’s that contrast that thrills and inspires us as musicians, the contrast of the decline and fall of the modern Rome.

You’re involved in the ‘Louder Than War’ website. Please tell us something about that site?

It’s a music website, it covers anything we like, it comes from punk rock but we are never boxed in by anyone, we write about and celebrate music and pop culture constantly from new bands to old bands from all styles of music, opinion and even campaigns to sort stuff out like the American visa campaign and the upcoming ‘Celebrate the NHS’ tour.

And I believe you also run a label under the same name?

I do, although its having a rest at the moment, there’s so much great music out there that I want to release that we will return soon…

What next for Goldblade?

The album is getting brilliant reviews, the best reviews we have ever got for an album that it’s suddenly changed things for us. We took a hell of a risk with this record but the reaction has been amazing – people say it’s the best thing we have ever done so it’s going to be great to get it released finally – we will tour it and play the festivals for the next couple of years, but we have already started writing new songs for the next album…

The Shaman Are coming video