Money Is Not Our God: The Anti-Commercial Ire of Killing Joke's "Extremities" Album
At the time of its release in November of 1990, Killing Joke’s "Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions" signaled a crucial shift for the band. Up until this point, Killing Joke had managed to morph its image like a demonic shapeshifter; retaining a common thread of underlying malicious intent woven throughout even their most commercial output. Combining harsh and jagged industrial with dark dance music, “Extremities” was the culmination of the band’s multiple faces up to that point. It is a heavy and unrelenting record, sharply political yet bluntly nihilistic in its pummeling approach. The album's lead single, "Money Is Not Our God," was a particular standout with its vehemently anti-commercial mantra, driving-hypnotic rhythm, and pounding drums.
However, when Killing Joke released the album, few fans knew what to expect. Their two prior albums, "Outside The Gate" (1988) and "The Courtauld Talks" (1989), had deviated from their perceived trademark sound. Subsequently both albums were commercial flops while managing to alienate much of their fanbase in the process. They were soon dropped by Virgin Records and half of the band members quit. The uncertain future of the band was further compounded after a recording session done in Germany during 1989 was scrapped. It was a time when all of underground music was headed into an unknown direction. This was not just applicable to Killing Joke, but to most of their contemporaries as well.
In 1988, Killing Joke's founding members Jaz Coleman and Geordie Walker began the process of revamping the lineup by first enlisting former Public Image Ltd drummer Martin Atkins. After trying out several bassists, former member Paul Raven rejoined the group. It is with this lineup that they recorded "Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions" in August of 1990, and it is the only album to feature this formation of Killing Joke. It was the direct influence of Martin Atkins during this period which returned the band to their earlier sound and put them back on the course to relevance. Without him joining and appearing on this album, it's arguable as to whether Killing Joke would be regarded as highly as they are today.
Here Martin reflects on his time in Killing Joke, the sound of the album, its influences, and much more. He fondly recalls the period and provides a slew of behind the scenes info on the band and album.
What was your relationship with Killing Joke before you were in the band? Did you know them from playing in PIL and Brian Brain?
Well, it's interesting, you know, I think now, people in bands are more social, like "Oh hey, I'm in this band, nice to meet you." And bands become a way that you make friends with people. Back in the '80s, I mean I was in the elevator with the Clash in the Iroquois Hotel in New York and it was like, no words were spoken in fact it was within a hair's breadth of all going off. It's like what the fuck stupid idiots were we, you know? I remember going into Gooseberry Studios to work on "Betrayal" with Jah Wobble, and Killing Joke were late with their session and we were like, arrrgh, scowl, and then we went and got some Chinese food and came back.
I was dating Bethan Peters from Delta 5 and she said we got to go see Killing Joke at the Clarendon in London, and so, she knew Youth because, I guess there was a bass players' union or something. And I remember, Youth came across and, he was just tripping his balls off, he's just got a new Trace Elliot bass cab with all these blue lights and he was just like… "It's blue…."
But other than that, other than actually listening to Killing Joke in the van on tour with Brian Brain, and weirdly, with John Bechdel, who played keyboards in Brian Brain. I suggested him for the job in Killing Joke, and of course now he plays with Ministry. John Bechdel would put a mix tape in, this has got to be '83, '84, '85, I'd be driving and I'm like "Ah, this is great, who is this?" And he's like, "Killing Joke." And I'm like, "Ah, OK. Killing Joke, I remember" blah blah blah… these stories. And then two hours later I'm like, "Ah, this is a good track, who is this?" "That's Killing Joke again."
So, definitely, I was a fan for sure, but up until Geordie called me, I hadn't spoken to them, but I was aware of their music.
That was actually part of my question. Here the big punk bands early on weren't on the charts or anything like that, but I know that some of the early British bands did actually make the charts in England, and I know that Killing Joke went on Top of the Pops and all that. Who was their audience in the early days, was it punks? Was it a mishmash? Who were they playing for?
It was definitely punks, and then post-punks obviously. There was something different going on than a 1-2-3-4, right? So, when "Punks Not Dead" Exploited came out, I want to say '80/'81, it didn't feel like, although there's always been punks at Killing Joke shows, it never felt to me like Killing Joke were a punk band. I felt they were a tribal, post-punk, pop experiment. Really good songs. Nice and Sharp. If you look at… I used to delight in playing these songs live "Love Like Blood," "Kings and Queens," "Night Time," "Wardance," "Change," "Eighties." I mean, oh my god, hit after hit after hit.
Yeah, they look fun to play on drums too.
Yeah, it was a really good workout for me. Of course I'd done PIL and Ministry, but to play Paul's [Ferguson, original Killing Joke drummer] tribal rhythms, of course there were some connections with songs like "Under the House" and "Bad Life," and different PIL songs, but it made me physically a stronger, crazier drummer for sure.
"Outside the Gate" was released in '88, you released the "Courtauld Talks" somewhere around that time. Was that when you joined the band?
Yeah, shortly after. "Outside the Gate" is an interesting album. So, I do these presentations. I did a Ministry one. I've done several PIL Zoom memory events. I'm doing one for Brian Brain, my little punk outfit in a couple weeks. I'm doing a Flowers of Romance memory thing next weekend. When I did the Killing Joke one, I would do a little bit of research, and of course, I've got my old receipts, little bits of memorabilia, but I try to dig a little bit deeper. I used to just say "Outside the Gate" was an album that nearly caused me not to join.
I was living in New Jersey at the time, I'd say to people, "Hey, I’m going to fucking London to join Killing Joke! 'Change!' Eighties!' " And they're like "Yeah... have you, uh, heard 'Outside the Gate'?"
I listened to it and just sounded to me like 48 tracks of midi masturbation. Which it turns out it I think it kind of was. I think it was a Jaz solo album but at some point the label's like, "Fuck, there's no way we're going to get any money back on a Jaz solo album. If we call it Killing Joke, at least some people will buy it accidentally." And, I later found out, Jaz had a breakdown. Paul Raven quit. It was the reason Paul Raven just quit. Paul Ferguson quit, and asked to have his name taken off the album.
But he played on some of it, right?
Yeah. I'm like, fucking hell. I knew I was walking into some shit, but I didn't know I was walking neck deep into piles of shit.
Did they exist when you joined? What was the state of the band at that point?
Well, that's an interesting question. It was Jaz and Geordie and some guy who rented a sound system to PIL in Washington D.C. that was playing bass and he was alright, he was enthusiastic. But as we got tighter, it became apparent that he was not the bass player for us. Then Taif Ball, this kid from Wales came in. But I guess it was Jaz and Geordie, but for me, I was flying to London to join Killing Joke, the band that put out those first three albums, not the "Outside the Gate" tattered remnants of a band that used to be.
So, they hadn't broken up or anything…
No, but two of four members are gone. At that point Jaz would play the keyboards at rehearsals, so it seemed like it was a four piece. Later Dave Kovacevic, keyboard player, came in, he was the live keyboard player. But it seems, benefit of hindsight, etc., maybe it's a good thing I didn't realize exactly what I was walking into…
Considering that "Outside the Gate" came out in 1988, and "Extremities" came out in 1990, that's a pretty fast turnaround for a band that was in that state. What was the impetus for it going that quickly? Did they feel like they needed to recover from "Outside the Gate"?
Well, it was a new, different, more aggressive vibe and… maybe they did think that… Although that question, this thing that happens all the time when I'm talking about PIL or whatever. Somebody will ask a question that makes perfect sense in 2020/2021, but really there wasn't the strategy, the overall awareness of the global situation, and our need to reinvent ourselves.
I think it was more a case... you asked me about the "Courtauld Talks." I listened to a cassette of the "Courtauld Talks" and I thought, this is really interesting. Spoken word and there's some percussion, and Geordie's playing guitar, and I'd just started my label, Invisible Records, and we went on to manage Killing Joke, but, the "Courtauld Talks" was actually INV 004. It was the fourth album we put out on vinyl. And it just seemed like, as I very quickly found out, money was a huge problem.
There were a bunch of flexi discs in the office for the "Beautiful Dead." And I think I still have two or three. I remember Spike, who was one of the crew guys, "You can't move in the office for fucking t-shirts and these fuckin flexis, and there's no money!" "And I'm like, "Well… let's turn the flexi discs into money. Let's sell some t-shirts and then there'll be more space and more money!" And I guess that was the beginning of me starting to manage the band as well.
I was looking online earlier today and I saw something about EG Records not paying bands at the time, whatever I was looking at was about Robert Fripp, I think, but it was the same time period.
So, you've got a band that, "Outside the Gate" cost more money in studio bills than the studio was sold for as soon as "Outside the Gate" was finished. So that's one thing. EG was the label, and the management company, and they owned the studio in which "Outside the Gate" was recorded, and they were the music publishers. So, you would think that someone there would say, "Hey guys, I think we're going to sell the studio for £120,000, you know, maybe you should, kind of, buy it." Then you have this asset to move forwards in your careers.
I don't want to slander EG legally, but in terms of conflicts, there were just so many conflicts in that relationship. So, it was a band without any money, who had eroded their fan base, who hadn't toured America, who didn't have management, label, or publisher. Yeah, I know. Where do I sign?
The "Extremities" album is a little bit of a departure. It's a more aggressive like you said. It fit at the time with was going on with Ministry and everything else. How much of that was a conscious decision, and how much of that was, they had lost their audience and they were looking around saying this is what we need to do. Or how much of that was you joining the band?
Well, so, we know what Killing Joke was without me at that time, it was "Outside the Gate. We know what Killing Joke" was with me. I mean, to the people that said to me...... I don't mean to… I'm here, I'm going to make my case, right?
But to the people who said to me in New Jersey like, "Don't get on that plane. Do you know what you're… have you heard 'Outside the Gate'? Do you know what you’re joining?" And I'd say, "Outside the Gate" doesn't have me in it. If I had been in the band, I would never have allowed "Outside the Gate" to be released.
So, after maybe a year of gigging with Killing Joke and working on their US dates, I took some time off to tour with Ministry. I was living in Chicago. So, of course, I brought that, I think much needed aggression into the new material. If there was ever a doubt, I would go (growls) you know, that way. I think Jaz, most definitely, if there ever was a doubt would take it a little bit Billy Joel.
A grave illustration of that, there's a demo called "Everybody Feels Pain Sometimes." And I can sing it to you now. I still remember it from when the cassette was sent to me from Jaz Coleman's management company. [Singing] And now, you know, it's been re-released because Hooky from New Order played some bass on it and they've released it as some Remembrance Day thing.
I just saw that… K2 or something? [The project is called K÷93—ed.]
Yeah, whatever it is. That's a song from 1989 that I would not allow on the album. I could walk through a wall with my drumming at that time. I was probably 175 pounds; I'd been playing every day since I was 9. Then that Ministry influence. There're things like, "When was the last time you had a tender juicy steak?" That's a Chicago meat ad that I had someone from the local studio… "Record this, we've got to put this on 'Age of Greed.' " The lyrics to "Age of Greed" were… Jaz was singing… I'm like what the fuck is going on? He's singing about the difference between first class and business class travel. Business class is a rip off. And I'm like, can I ask you a question? Who the fuck is this aimed at? Some of our fans don't have bus fare to get to a fucking show. They're not gonna be down in the front going, "He's right… fucking business class…"
Somewhere, and I need to find it, because it's really great supporting evidence, there's the lyrics to "Age of Greed" and lines are crossed out. Me, Jaz, Geordie, Taif, and Phil, our crew guy who would make pots of tea, we sat there and tried to make it nasty, and part of the world in which our audience were in. That sounds like the strategy I said didn't exist, but it didn't exist in terms of a strategy. It just existed in terms of, "We're not singing about first class plane travel to our audience." It was just bullshit.
In the best way possible, this album was a fucking fight. It was a fucking fight. There's a song called "North of the Border" and it starts with this [screeches], like fingers on a chalk board. It's actually a metal tea tray that was at the studio. I want to say Marcus Studios in London, and we just ran it, scraped it across the ceiling. But it left this like, I wish I had a photograph, silver pattern on the ceiling, but that's what made that sound. And it's a kind of beauty, it's disharmonic, it's like, "Ooh, what is that sound?"
There was definitely like, we're Killing Joke, fuck off. In my mind, and in I think in Raven's mind. After gigging for a while, I think Paul Raven came back to make this album with us and rejoined until I quit. So, it was really, "We're Killing Joke, fuck off," and like, just standing there. And yeah, that was definitely PIL-vibe influence and Ministry influence. It was a struggle to make that album, that's for damn sure.
I didn't realize you were in Killing Joke before Ministry because the live Ministry thing came out—I don't know if it was before or after—but it's pretty close, so I had assumed it was the other way around.
No. Here's the thing. So, I started my thing Brian Brain before I joined PIL. So, when I arrived in America in 1980, my first single, "They've Got Me in The Bottle" was in the alternative charts as Brian Brain. And then here's this other period in the early '90s, where I'm in Killing Joke, I've been in Killing Joke for over two years. I took time out, I thought it was going to be six weeks, but the tour was postponed twice, so it was like ten weeks. So, I was in Killing Joke when I toured with Ministry. The day the Ministry tour ended, I took as many people as I could find into the studio to start my band Pigface. So, I did Ministry and started Pigface. I did the first Pigface album, while I was still in Killing Joke.
Yeah, I've got a note here how close those came out and it’s a period of a year or something that all that came together.
Yeah, it was crazy. And then I left Killing Joke, and we made the Murder, Inc. album very quickly. It was just this crazy, very productive two-year period.
How was the song writing done, was it all done after you were in the band? Did they have anything when you came in?
Yeah, I mean, Geordie has nothing but riffs. We started to write in the studio, we'd work on lyrics together. Sometimes I'd have a beat, I'd go, "Hey, what about this?" I'd be experimenting with one of my floor toms—I don't have a double bass drum, I have a single bass drum—so I'd do these push-pull rhythms between the floor tom and the bass drum. I'd be just be playing around with that beat and Geordie would just start playing something. So, we very much wrote all the songs on the album together.
Did all the playing take place in England? Or was some of it in Chicago?
There is an amazing demo of "Money Is Not Our God." I call it the "Steve Albini Black Cassette" because it's a black cassette and it's got Steve Albini Demos written on it. We recorded in Steve Albini's 8-track studio. Me and Geordie recorded with Steve when his studio was in his house. He had an 8-track ½" machine, which I bought from him, and a ¼" tape, which I bought from him. I bought his studio.
It's Geordie playing bass, me playing drums, and there are six or seven songs on there. I played little bits from my Killing Joke memory sessions, and people were like. "Oh! This is 'North of the Border' with a bit of this, which became that…" So, I was experimenting with playing against drum machines, in the same way that I'd done that a little bit with Ministry. Geordie and I had these sessions and that's when Jaz's cassette tape of whatever that song was called arrived from his management company, and I was just like, "No, that's just not happening."
And then, we did some shows—we were always doing shows because the money had to keep coming in—and we were getting really good, really tight. And then we did a deal with Noise International in Germany and we started recording in London.
So, we rehearsed a lot, and I think unusually. Most PIL stuff was first take in the studio, no notes, no nothing, but with the Killing Joke stuff, we'd practiced the songs, we'd written the songs, so we practiced for a couple more weeks, as well as doing shows, and then I recorded all of the drums in Studio 2 in the Townhouse in London, which is the same room I did "Flowers Of Romance" in, the same room that Phil Collins did "In The Air Tonight" in. I did all the drums for "Extremities" in one 10 or 11 hour session. We just did 'em. We just really knew what we were doing, and we just killed it.
And you said Raven came back, you said Taif Ball played on, I don't know if he played on the demos or on the album. When did Raven come back in? Song writing era or recording?
A little after the song writing, but he obviously contributed. I think we'd been gigging, I think a year, maybe longer. We'd definitely been to the States at least once, if not twice. I think we played in London. I think Raven was in Amsterdam. And I start hearing this (whispers) "Raven’s coming back." Oh, alright, the bass player's coming back. I didn't know then, what a massive person, character, legendary pirate Raven was, and how impactful his presence would be. It was really awesome when he came back.
Taif is a really good bass player, he's still playing now. Taif was a really good bass player, but he wasn't going to tell anybody in the band to fuck off. He was just a great bass player. Raven was a bass player who would kill you if you said something bad. He would attack you. Just that energy that a band like Killing Joke requires.
On the back of the album, there's a Latin quote – often imitated, never replicated. Do you know what the story behind that is?
Yeah, that's Raven. He was on a real kick. I've got files up in my office. We had a really great Xerox machine in my office, so he was always… He got an X-Acto knife and he was constantly enlarging, reducing, this is a design for a button... Here's this, here's that. I think he was responsible for finding the photographer who had the gauze over our faces, who projected our photographs on to the gauze. I think he might have done the layout for the album as well. He's just one of those people that you want in the band. Trouble, difficult to deal with, confrontational at times. You know, "I've got 35 people on the guest list." What the fuck? And their all from a clothing company in New Orleans called Archaic Smile…OK… and for the rest of the tour Raven is just wearing Archaic Smile. It's like, "Alright, I see what you did there." But you want people like that in the band. You want people who are out there exchanging stuff for interactions and relationships. He did a couple of Pigface shirts as well. I mean, he was just always doing stuff.
The other night I watched a documentary about the Mekons, I don’t know a lot about them, but the singer, like you, moved from London to Chicago and he made a comment that Chicago was very similar to the way that London was in the late '70s. I was curious what you thought of the comment and was just wondering what that meant.
I've known John for a long time. When I joined PIL in '79 or it might have been the beginning of 1980, Bethan and everybody from Delta 5 lived in Leeds. I was seeing her and I went up, and there was a back room of a pub in Leeds. And there's probably 30 people in the back room and it was Gang of Four, Delta 5, Mekons, PIL, and somebody. I was like "Fuck, I wish I had a photograph." But nobody thought about it. But John's right, John's in Chicago now. Our paths cross every now and again.
There's a reason I'm in Chicago, and there's a reason he's in Chicago. In '89, '90 probably until '95-'96, I had a 9000 square foot loft space that cost me a grand. Cause nobody wanted to be there. H-Gun Video is on the seventh floor. Flavor Flav is trapped in the elevator with a bag of coke and a couple of strippers. It was just this energy. Wax Trax. Touch and Go. Chicago Trax Recording Studio. Warzone Recording. All this energy. House music. Hip hop. Punk. Industrial. I think we all just felt that energy.
For me, industrial was the natural progression from post-punk. And if you listen to "Flowers of Romance," I'm playing drums to the ticking of my pocket watch. I mean, if that's not industrial, I don't know is. So, we were, all of these experiments were ongoing.
Yeah, that's one thing I'd say about "Extremities" is that it fits in very nicely with the more industrial things that were going on at the time, but it feels like a natural progression to me. There's even some of the singing like from "Brighter Than A Thousand Suns," but it doesn't sound out of place. It doesn't sound like a big left turn.
Right.
So, you said that you quit the band, I didn't know that. I know afterwards that you played in Murder, Inc. with... everybody. I think I read that even Paul Ferguson was involved.
Yeah, he joined the band. Paul Ferguson, Geordie, Raven, John Bechdel.
Was Paul playing drums? Two drum sets?
Yeah, I played drums too and I put the band together and it was on my label. It got to a point where I didn't want to be in Killing Joke anymore. If I hadn't done anything ever, I might have just been happy going along, but I did the Ministry tour and then I started Pigface. And then we did Pigface shows. With Pigface, we played for four hours. We were experimenting on stage with Jim Thirlwell, Flea, members of Gwar, I mean fuckin' everybody. And it was definitely open, and audience friendly.
And then we'd go and do a Killing Joke tour, and I felt like we were shortchanging the audience. I remember a show in Philadelphia, actually, a rainy Tuesday, '90-'91. It was raining, we sound checked for a long time. Nobody cared that the audience was getting wet. If this was a Pigface show now, I'd be like, "Well, let everybody in and I'll buy everybody a beer, and they can listen to a soundcheck."
After that, we went on late, which I thought was disrespectful for a Tuesday, and we didn't play for very long. But the audience were really enthusiastic. And I spent ten minutes in the fucking dressing room screaming for us to go back on stage. And everybody reluctantly went onstage and did one song. And I think I remembered that as a moment. We could be doing ourselves a much larger favor here. I understand the economics of scarcity, but, look, we're only around once every two years maybe, let's play another 15 minutes.
But the last tour that I did, after "Extremities," we played two sold out shows in Brixton. All over Europe. It coincided with the first Gulf War. I kept overhearing Jaz on the phone with a travel agent reserving flights. Am I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, "Well, if the world explodes and the war happens, I'm straight off to New Zealand. I'm like, "Well, the way the budget is, the budget works and we make money on this tour, but if we don't do the two sold out shows in London for 25 pounds a ticket, 2,000 capacity… All the expenses get paid that night. All the profit is made there. If we don't do that, what do we do? What does the crew do? What do we do with the bus?"
And Jaz obviously didn't care. I think Jaz would say, and there's reasons for this I don't want to go into, but Jaz would say I tried to start Killing Joke without him, and I actually didn't do that. I took great pains to not do that. I called Chris Connelly who sang with Murder, Inc. and I said, "Chris, this is kind of a weird fucking thing to ask you, mate. But at any point, starting now, Jaz might get on a plane." And I was aware of Jaz's history, he got on a plane to Iceland right before the band were about to celebrate on Top of the Pops. Once again, what craziness have I gotten involved with?
And I said, "Can I ask you to rehearse these twelve songs, "Eighties," "Wardance," you know. I think, if it all goes down, I think we could get away with the last week and two shows in London. You know, Jaz has disappeared, boo, but Chris Connelly… I think we could get away with it and still get paid. "It's a strange thing to ask you, but would you learn these songs and be ready at the drop of a hat to get on a plane?" And, he said yeah.
So, in many ways, I think Jaz planted the seeds of Murder, Inc. We went into the studio with Steve Albini. I paid for it from my label. And I think, Paul Ferguson and I might have done a Pigface album. We hadn't done that album yet, but we worked together later on a Pigface album. I just really like Paul. I liked his drumming. You really feel like you know somebody when you learn their parts. And I thought it would be interesting for me to deal with that situation musically, socially, from a production standpoint, in every way.
And did Chris Connelly end up singing or did Jaz make it through?
No, Jaz made it through, but as I said, the seed was planted.
Interview conducted by Hard Rock Piss Strunker Erik in Philly. Check out his band The Brood who play Poison Idea/U.K. influenced hardcore at broodphilly.bandcamp.com. To purchase their 7", PayPal $6 to miskatonica@hotmail.com in the US, world send email.
Killing Joke "Extremities..." era photo from the archives of Martin Atkins/Invisible Records.
Killing Joke "The Beautiful Dead" flexi 7" (ODIC Production, 1989) from the collection of Carl Thomas, who received it free while standing in the queue for a Killing Joke gig at the Kilburn National Ballroom on May 18, 1989.
Photos of "Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions" 2xLP from the collection of Negative Insight staff.
