This interview shouldn’t be happening. He’s pulverized our ears since the mid ’80s in such anvil-heavy operations as Napalm Death and Godflesh – but most media requests to Justin Broadrick, the reclusive godfather of industrial-metal, are met with silence. Forget about Zoom, suggests his press officer, but try emailing a few questions about a catalog whose shuddering highlights have influenced Nine Inch Nails, Metallica and more.
Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, we get the word: Broadrick is willing to talk. And how: in a world of say-nothing, media-trained stars, the Birmingham-born songwriter is a bucking bronco of an interviewee, daring you to interject in his bitingly funny, brutally honest five-minute screeds.
And while Godflesh’s penultimate album, Decay, is the hook, Broadrick – who attributes his “hyper” personality to a late-life autism diagnosis – is happy to drag us all over the map of his seminal four-decade career.
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You don’t normally do phone interviews. We appreciate you doing this one.
I’ve just always hated speaking on the phone. It’s fucking horrible. I mean, the best of people get anxiety about it.
Do you remember the moment you knew you wanted to play guitar?
It was prompted by a photograph in Sounds magazine of Micky Geggus from the Cockney Rejects. They were a pretty remedial punk-rock band. But he was stripped to the waist, he had a really gnarly-looking face, and he was holding a barre chord on, like, a Gibson SG. That photo just captured me. I wanted to know how to play that chord.
When you first picked up the guitar, was it a toy, a weapon, a comfort blanket?
All of those things. Even though I come from a poor council estate in Birmingham, I had a stepfather who played a Strat, which he couldn’t really afford. He barely spoke, my stepdad. In hindsight, he was clearly autistic himself. But he was a brilliant guitarist and painter.
He taught my mum to play bass and they were in a short-lived but somewhat legendary punk band called Anti-Social. He showed me how to play this chord. I ran it up the neck and I was like, “Wow, I can play Discharge riffs!” He tried to say, “I can teach you more,” but I was like, “Nah, I don’t need to know anything else!”
Punk rock was your founding influence?
The record that got me straight away was the first Stranglers album [1977’s Rattus Norvegicus]. JJ Burnel’s bass was the lead instrument, which was a life-changing thing for me – that’s why the bass in Godflesh sounds like it does. I was buying any seven-inch single I could get, even though we had no money, because we were just “dole-dwellers” or whatever.
What emotional impact did punk have?
I was a frail, scared kid. At my infant school and junior school, I couldn’t speak to people. I was mute; I was isolated – I couldn’t deal with anything. My sensory shit is off the charts. So I often say that punk saved my life, because it got me out of my ultra-introspective autistic state.
At my first year of senior school in 1980, where I would have normally been bullied the fuck out of, I went armed with all these punk rock records. And these tough kids who’d have kicked the shit out of me for being a fucking freak, I would speak to, because they were into punk rock too. It was a survival thing.
How did your own music-making progress?
I was bought my first cassette recorder when I was nine. I started recording myself on any instrument I could pick up, just making a fucking noise. I was doing these shit punk demos with guitar and my stepdad’s really basic drum machine. So I was literally already a one-man band at 11 years old.
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You played guitar on Napalm Death’s 1987 grindcore classic, Scum, then joined Head of David still aged 17.
In Head of David I was drumming, but also writing guitar and bass parts. When we did Dustbowl [1988] I was the only guy who worked on the mixes with Steve Albini – the rest of the band had given up by that time. They kicked me out because I was writing what they called “noisy bastard music.” They basically left me at a bus stop.
But I was already writing these grinding, evil basslines, dissonant guitars, beats that I wanted to crush with. I was living with Ben Green [Godflesh bassist] at the time. So I was like, “I want to use these songs,” and that was the genesis of the first Godflesh album.
I was like, ‘For the sake of self-preservation, I’m finishing Godflesh right now.’ And I was made to pay for that
What was your approach to the Godflesh material?
For a start, I wanted to tune everything down as far as possible. I wanted this repulsive sound – I wanted it to be an expression of pain by going as low as possible, making a terrifying sound, you know? As a scared little kid who was terrified of everything, it was my way of communicating that horror. I wanted to make fucking terrifying music, in any which way I could. Filthy, dirty, mechanized but organic painful fucking music.
What gear did you use to create that?
Shitty stuff, back then. The first two Godflesh albums was the same Westone ST guitar I used on Scum. I’ve still got it now in my studio. I was just using junk prior to that, from second-hand shops. The Westone had a tremolo arm, which I used a lot on Godflesh’s debut mini album and Streetcleaner [1989].
I was using a shitty amp borrowed off some kid who lived on the street. An HM-2 pedal, a cheap Boss delay, half-broke cables – council estate equipment, basically. After that, the band started earning money, so I got a Strat. And my wish was always to use what I’ve been using since 1990: a Marshall JCM800 and 4×12 Marshall speaker.
Phoebe said, ‘You do something that people in melancholy music don’t do, and it’s the heavy factor’
By the early ’90s Godflesh were a pretty big deal. Did you have the personality type to cope with being a well-known musician?
Not at all. My fantasy of expressing myself that began when I was eight years old – by the time I started getting on stages, I was like, “This is fucking horrible!” The whole thing was so overwhelming that the only way I could get by was with alcohol and whatever substances would nullify the experience.
I mean, I stopped proper touring almost 20 years ago. At most I do six shows in a row, and that’s it. I will not tour because I can’t fucking stand it. I just go into self-destruct. Even now, every time I’ve got a show, the lead-up is utter distress for me. I don’t want to leave the house. I don’t want to leave my things. I don’t want to be in unpredictable situations with unpredictable people.
Luckily I jacked the alcohol years ago. Now it’s all just medication. I used to be brought onto a plane, pissed out of my mind. Now I take benzos to fly.
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Godflesh had a US tour around the turn of the millennium that you canceled. What happened there?
Ben had already left the band, so the band had changed – it felt like it had run away from me. The day of flying out to a seven-week tour in America, having just done two months in Europe, I knew, “The only way I’m getting through this is by alcohol.”
Every time I was on tour I’d turn into an alcoholic. Back then, I couldn’t communicate it to people. I’d tell them: “Touring is a fucking major problem for me,” and they’d say, “Well, you get onstage, you play your music. What’s the fucking problem?” You were bullied into everything, by labels, by everyone.
The day I was meant to leave for that tour, I hadn’t slept for three days, I was having panic attacks, and I was lying in my bed, paralyzed, just crying. I was like, “I can’t fucking do this anymore. If I’ve got to keep doing these tours, I’m going to end up dead by the end of the next one. So for the sake of self-preservation, I’m finishing Godflesh right now.” On the day of the fucking tour. And I tell you what – I was made to pay for that.
What were the repercussions?
The tour had no insurance, so everyone came to me for compensation, and I was fucking broke. It took two years for me to financially recover. I had to get credit cards to pay off credit cards; you know, that shit. I even had death threats from the tour bus company. He got me on the phone and said, “I am a fucking Vietnam vet. I know people in your fucking area. If you don’t pay me within two weeks, I wouldn’t like to say what’s gonna happen to you.”
It got so out of hand. So for two years I had zero money. I had to remortgage my house three times. It was terrible. Luckily, while Godflesh was gone, I was working on material that became the first Jesu album. My whole experience of this shit went straight into that.
Tell us about your recent collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers.
I’m on Bobby and the hidden track Best Dressed. The collaboration was nothing to do with Godflesh. People in the media wanted to run with, ‘Godflesh man works with Phoebe Bridgers!’ I was really upset, because I’m not there because of Godflesh.
I can’t perform this music live. If I shout like that again I’m going to break my abdomen wal
On the album I’m credited as Justin Broadrick/Jesu. Phoebe doesn’t even know Godflesh. She’s got no fucking interest. But she loves Jesu. She knows every fucking song. She was like, “You do something that people in melancholy music don’t do, and it’s the heavy factor. I’ve got to get you in there, fucking doing that.”
Bobby sounds great – Best Dressed is even better, though. It’s slower; even more melancholy. It’s a sad fucking track, man. It’s much more droney, played on an ultra-low-tuned eight-string guitar. You know, loads of minors, open strings, open tunings, shit like that.
Decay has some seismic guitar moments, from Fodder to Feral Colony. How did you approach them?
My main guitar on the album was a seven-string Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid. But ultimately, the guitar is just a tool to me. I probably spend more time on computers, taking my guitar and chopping it up, than I do physically making the music.
On Decay I used the guitar sparingly for hyper-focused moments. It’s really quick shit that I do with guitar on this album; I don’t sit there and jam. I don’t rehearse. I don’t do that shit.
Decay is supposedly Godflesh’s penultimate release. Why stop?
I can’t perform this music live. I had surgery for a debilitating hernia, and if I shout like that again I’m going to break my abdomen wall. I had a six-and-a-half inch incision and really complex surgery. It’s fucking brutal, man.
All that shouting I do with Godflesh is all rooted from my abdomen, you know? It’s so physical and I don’t fake anything. I can’t go through the motions. When I get on a stage, it’s got to feel like this is the end – it’s the last performance I’m ever going to do, and I could fucking die right now.
So what’s next for you?
Jesu can do anything because it’s essentially shoegaze metal, so I don’t have to shout or move much onstage. I’ve got my heavy electronic project, JK Flesh. The last Godflesh album will come out, then I’ve got my new project, White Light District. It’s not a Godflesh replacement. It’s heavy and guitar-oriented, but more all-encompassing.
Any artists who are close to being as prolific as me seem to be spectrum-dwellers themselves
I was tiring somewhat of the Godflesh template. I wanted to step outside of guitar/bass/drum machine and samples; it’s too restrictive now. Obviously I’m fucking autistic, so I’m entirely ritualized and entirely restricted – but the Godflesh template, I’m starting to tire of it.
I want to step outside of it, make heavy, ugly music that isn’t written whatsoever to perform live. I want it to be cinematic and really fucking ugly. Way uglier than Godflesh. Really terrifying. A massive wall of sound.
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Looking back over your career, do you have a theory on why you’re so productive?
Oh, absolutely: it’s my autism. I never knew about any of this shit – why I operate like I do – until I got diagnosed. I’ve been surrounded by people all my life who have always questioned it. Like, “How are you so prolific?”
It’s no coincidence that any artists who are close to being as prolific as me seem to be spectrum-dwellers themselves. It’s singular, hyper-focused obsessive behavior – and a bludgeoning need to express myself.
