SONIC SHOCKS - August 2011
we work together as a unit, we survived 33 years which Last time we spoke to Jaz if you consider the lifespan Coleman – or even better HE of a band is between two and spoke to us – was before Ab- three years… It’s not easy solute Dissent came out. We keeping a band together, were all dying to know what I’m sure many of them realit would be like, hoping not ize that, but us surviving 33 to be disappointed. Of course years means we outlasted all we ended up talking about of my marriages together!’ totally different stuff, like life, There’s something about hidden powers and nutrients. marriages and rnr that just The album however was what doesn’t seem to work… we were hoping for and more, ‘I know, look at me, I got and earned Killing Joke great divorced seven years ago recognition by both their fan and now I’m living with my base and the critics. ‘It got ex wife again! Do I get my album of the year, I can’t money back?’ complain, I’m very fond of it. But now we’re dealing You got awards from Claswith the 2012 recording and sic Rock and Metal Hammer it’s the heaviest album we’ve and even been honoured in ever done. I’m very excited. France, how does it feel to be And it’s good - as I get to this finally ‘recognized’? graceful age - to be increas- ‘At night? Well, it’s a long ing the workload. I think way from breaking entry being with these guys exem- into chemists! (laughs) It’s plifies what a band should been an incredible journey, be: they’re my best friends, as in the whole band we by Cristina Massei
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don’t even have an exam between us. I left school at 14 and I conducted for some of the world’s greatest orchestras, and three of the band are professors, we’ve got two architects… No one has a single exam and everyone has done really really well. One of the band works with David Rockfeller, looks after his art collection… We actually achieved everything without going through all the conventional routes, which I like to think will hearten some young people who don’t even have a high school exam yet and they’re already being deemed by society as useless, unfit and of no economic worth. There is another way, and it’s to self educate. It’s your duty to educate yourself. From the age of 21 I used what little money I made from Killing Joke and I went and studied again. I studied intensely orchestration, then by the time I was 30 I had another career, two careers as different as two parallel universes. And I’m amazed, I never thought this could happen.’ Does self educating prepare you for life better than today’s academic system? ‘… And you don’t get a big bill at the end of it! I think if you have a round the world ticket and you go really slow around the world for a year or two, you’ll learn more in that
time than by going to any scholastic establishment. It depends on what type of person you are, there are different types of intelligences, there’s a more ‘academic’ intelligence that absorbs lot of information and regurgitates it in an exam, but there’s a creative, emotional intelligence as well, and I guess we’ve gone down this path. There weren’t any schools to cater for people like us. Killing Joke has been my entire university and it’s a great way to learn about life. I’m really happy with the decisions I’ve made and I’ve been lucky considering one in a hundred are successful in this industry; and when you consider that one in every eight rock musicians dies before the age of 35, it’s a higher rate of mortality than being sent to Afghanistan as a soldier.’ What’s next for Killing Joke? ‘There’s a movie about Killing Joke that will be released in 2012 at the same time as the new album being recorded now; it has been shot over the last 7-8 years and it’s 2 and a half hours long. Should be a bumpy year! I want to play Great Barrier Island (where Jaz currently lives in New Zealand) on the 21st December 2012, that’s the aim. That’s the date when it’s believed we’re going out of one age and into another and nobody knows
really what is going to happen. What do I think? I have a good idea of what is going to happen, and I hope it’s completely wrong. The magnetic North Pole – which is meant to move at a rate of 2 inches every 10 years – is moving at a rate of 100 miles a year and it’s left Canada and is looking towards Siberia; what I think might happen is that we have a complete pole shift where the magnetic pole flips; that means the Earth will cease to go around the way it is and stop, and then start going around the other way. What happens when this happens is Earth displacement. If you imagine a carpet with a lot of rocks going underneath it, that’s Earth displacement. If you can imagine a one mile high tidal wave, that would be the outcome. If that – God forbid – should happen, there will be possibly two places in the world that are safe: the Pole, high up in the mountains or South America on the Andes. Where are you gonna go? Me, I don’t look at life like that. I believe that when fate and destiny are sealed you’re set, when your time is up your time is up. The most important thing for me is to complete the things that I have to do in this life. I’ll keep touring and keep playing until there’s no more world to play.’