Jesu interview
Justin Broadrick is perhaps best known as a founding member of Napalm Death and the mastermind behind industrial legends Godflesh, whose seminal 1990 album Streetcleaner is generally recognized as the blueprint for a sound later commercialized by Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. With nearly 100 releases to his credit, the insanely prolific Broadrick has performed and recorded under the guises of Head Of David, Final, Ice, Techno Animal, God, just to name a few, collaborated with the likes of John Zorn and remixed scores of bands including Pelican, Isis, Agoraphobic Nosebleed and the Cancer Conspiracy. In the wake of Godflesh’s demise in the spring of 2002, Broadrick took on yet another identity with Jesu.

MAGNET reached Broadrick at his home in Wales to discuss this latest musical incarnation.

Interview conducted by Matt Ryan. Magnetmagazine.com
 
What are you up to?
There’s such a huge amount of press interest in Jesu, the most I’ve had in years. I’ve just been doing interviews and trying to get the Jesu touring thing together.

Do you have any other projects spinning right now?
I always have a few things on the go. I’ve been doing a lot of remixing. I’m currently remixing Pelican. A track from Australasia. Prior to that, I remixed Earth. Another band I’ve recently remixed is a Swiss band called Knut. I’ve been getting an awful lot of requests for remixes, but because a lot of people seem interested in Jesu, I’ve been trying to work that. I do another project called Final, which is, for lack of a better word, ambient. I’ve been working on a double CD coming out on Neurot Recordings. I worked on that for probably four years.

I guess it’s no coincidence that the name of the last song on the last Godflesh album became the name of your new band. Was that just a natural transition or is there an overall thematic connection?
Even during the recording of that last Godflesh album, I was already aware of Godflesh’s mortality. Though I enjoyed a good amount of the album, I still felt a bit restricted. I started doing a lot of stuff during the recording of that album where I really trying to get past the limitations of Godflesh, which was self-created. I had this fantasy during the making of the Godflesh album that I had this new band called Jesu. I was writing the song at the time and couldn’t come up with a title so I called that song “Jesu.” It’s weird the way things come around like that. A lot of times I use titles which I could be tempted to use as a band name. Jesu is just one of those loaded, ultra-powerful things, quite like Godflesh in terms of its somewhat ambiguous, but very powerful suggestion of something epic and absorbing and consuming. I couldn’t really resist having something with religious overtones again, because I’m always kind of obsessed with that sort of thing.

As much as Godflesh tackled more universal issues, Jesu is more personal. It almost seems as if there are some relationship songs in there.
That’s very, very true. I started Godflesh when I was about 18. To some extent, I had this naïve rebellion or misguided nihilism. As I’ve matured, I think I’ve gotten past trying to fight the ills of the world. I think things have become a lot more internalized. I think an individual, when they are creating some sort of art, they definitely grow with it. Some of the things I’ve tackled in the past are now redundant to me. Instead of having this worldview, I view things in terms of relationships, which are kind of a microcosm of all things, anyway. But it’s not all so personal. Sometimes, I’m regrettably thinking about the fact that human beings tend to be very easily compartmentalized and even relationships can be a bit trite sometimes. I’ve been thinking about that sort of dilemma for the last few years with breakups and things that you think are infinite that are really quite mortal. So I think it’s me getting used to the fact that everything is quite mortal. All these things caused quite a bit of confusion in my life.

Do you feel more or less cynical as you’ve gotten older?
I think less cynical and a lot more positive about things, even though I’m making possibly the most depressing music I’ve ever made.

Yes, you wouldn’t know it from the lyrics, either.
[Laughs] Exactly. A lot of the Jesu songs were written in the most hyper-sensitive, frail emotional state I could be in. It’s weird, because I can easily go from being ultra-depressed to being the happiest, most bouncing-off-the-wall person you could care to meet. It’s all just extreme. I think I’m one of those people that are just extremely hyper-sensitive and live their whole life by the heart, purely on emotion. I’m incapable of being clinical with things. Godflesh could be so mechanized and clinical sometimes, which is pretty much the opposite of what I am, but would like to be. With Jesu, it’s definitely submitting to being a completely frail, emotionally weak, sometimes emotionally retarded human being. [Laughs]

Lyrics aside, that comes through in the music as well.
That’s something I was definitely trying to convey. It’s extremely personal, but I don’t think it’s so personal that I don’t think anybody can relate to it. I don’t think I am in any way special or go through unique emotions. That’s why I’ve put it into music—to see if people can relate to this, because sometimes I make music in such a vacuum that I have no idea of anybody else’s opinion of what I’m doing at all. Obviously it’s extremely self-indulgent to do that, but sometimes some of the best art is born from that pure self-indulgence. Taking your moods and trying to make music out of what hits you the hardest.

You’re extremely prolific. What drives you?
Virtually since the age of five when I started bashing away at my mom and stepfather’s records and already pretending I was in a band when I was six, it was obvious to anyone around that I had to make music. It seems absolutely essential to me. There’s not much drive besides that sense of creativity. I’m so immersed in it, it’s really hard for me to articulate the necessity of me doing this. Outside of any form of so-called success for any music I create, I would still do it regardless. I definitely use music as a therapy. Playing it and making it I find therapeutic and I almost find a sort of spiritual escape in it. Everybody has their own gods and I think I use music in that way. When someone else’s music touches me that strongly, it feels like a god-like experience or as close as you can get. There are many things that can get close to it—sex, all the stuff that comes close to that spiritual mindset. I’m trying to create something where I give off that same feeling or set of emotions that feel almost divine. I think I’d be pretty fucked up without [music]. I’d probably be on the couch permanently.

It sounds like you grapple with depression.
Yeah, that’s it. I use music to deal with that. We’ve all got our gods and I think that’s something I really find fascinating that were all trying to find some sort of…I’m always looking to be spiritually cleansed by something. I think I find it through music or relationships. I’m not known as being a particularly depressing boy and I’m not even remotely moody.

Surprisingly, you sound like a well-adjusted guy.
Actually, people who have known me for years see me as entirely humorous. [Laughs] I spend most of my time laughing, but if I’m not laughing, I think I could be crying. I’m just one of those people. My own state sometimes I would parallel with someone like Woody Allen. It’s that black comedy. It’s so dramatic that it’s funny. Laughing and crying are the two extreme emotions that I know most. There’s not much neutral ground.

Tell me a little bit about making the Jesu record. Are you a perfectionist, laboring over the music, or is it more improv?
It’s a combination of those things. Before the break-up of Godflesh, I had a couple of these songs already written and partly recorded. That was the end of 2001. The album has been three years in the making for one reason or another. I have so much more material, it’s truly ridiculous. I have about 20 songs already. I was totaling up the titles the other night and it was like, shit, I’ve got an album and three EPs. I feel so prolific with Jesu. Since I actually finished Godflesh, I just cannot stop writing material. It feels like quite possibly the most creative period of my life. It’s just fuckin’ weird that it took until 35 years old to get there. Especially since I’ve been making records since I was 16. It’s quite ridiculous that I’ve just now come to some sort of huge epiphany in the last year and a half. There’s just been so many radical changes in my personal life, it’s been reflected in the music.

Is some of it that you’ve thrown off the constraints of the Godflesh name?
Absolutely. With Godflesh, we basically created our own prison. It was just sort of this musical void that I felt naturally had to continue in the same sort of direction, even though each album was quite different, really. I think we managed to transcend the usual trappings of rock bands, repeating themselves ad infinitum for seven albums, or whatever. I think we still did retread ground, though, and kind of lost the impetus by the last two albums. It was certainly self-imposed, though. It was like we came up with our own Godflesh rulebook. I think all bands do, to some extent. Getting trapped in wanting to please themselves, wanting to please the fans. With Jesu, all that didn’t mean anything, I just completely indulged myself. That was the conclusion I came to, that there was no point in worrying about anything else whatsoever, and if doesn’t sell records, it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m happy with the outcome and somebody fuckin’ wants to listen to it. But the odd thing is, this is the most self-indulgent I’ve ever been and the most selfish, yet it seems to be the most popular record I’ve made in years.

Sounds like you’re onto something there.
I guess I need to continue to be completely self-indulgent. The album and the EP are by no means an absolute blueprint for the rest of Jesu’s career. That’s the thing, I’ve made this as open as humanly possible so it’s always going to have different people coming into the band and I’m going to change gears a lot with the music. But I think the basic premise has been set, which is this combination of the beautiful and the brutal and just being overwhelmingly sad. That’s fundamentally what Jesu’s about, but it will still change up quite a bit. I don’t want to be stuck with repeating the same album or people expecting the same album. I’m just not going to listen to people this time [laughs]. It’s like Streetcleaner with Godflesh. I made it in 1990, but people still wanted it repeated in 2005. It becomes a fucking albatross around your neck.

It’s interesting that the vocals are treated like another instrument in Jesu. They aren’t way up in the mix.
Exactly. They’re just another texture. That’s completely what they were designed to be. They’re no more important than a single guitar part. They’re just in there, but this time I’ve really worked on the vocals and I want to work on them further. Things I’ve never tried before, like multi-part harmonies. Things I’ve never really done in the past. Things I absolutely gravitate to now and trying to push things much further like that. On the next record, I want to go much, much further, almost into Beach Boys-style harmonies [laughs].

I can’t picture that.
I’m a big fan of pop music. A lot of guitar pop, indie pop and some of the sweet sort of ’60s stuff, and I’m definitely trying to blend these naïve, sad, emotional little melodies into this really intensely heavy sound. It’s a meeting ground that I don’t think has been touched upon and it’s something that’s going to take a lot of work to highly craft the things, but that’s the area I’m trying to work in.

I think you really nailed it on “Friends Are Evil.”
That’s not a coincidence that you say that, because an awful lot of people are saying the same thing. They find that it’s the perfect marriage of the beautiful and the brutal. So yeah, I’m really, really pleased with that song. That’s set me up for a lot of future songs, and it was one of the biggest bastards to mix on the entire album. It went through about 15 different mixes and it was the most laborious, almost work-like experience I can imagine with a song.

There’s an interesting juxtaposition of sounds on “Man/Woman” and I’m wondering if that’s intentionally reflective of the song’s title. It’s the only song where you employ harsh vocals.
Exactly. Yeah, it’s the only track, isn’t it, that’s close to Godflesh? Again, with the dynamics heightened in that song, I think it’s so much more progressive and stylized than Godflesh was. But yeah, the song is about coming to terms with the somewhat obvious differences between male and female. It has a part where it’s almost fuckin’ pure noise, an absolute rage of frustration. That’s the frustration of relationships, that song, I think almost entirely.

The cover art for Jesu is very powerful. Very bleak. Did you select it?
Yeah. Aaron Turner from Isis and Hydrahead wanted to put together the sleeve from my photos. He’s an art designer anyway. We just went in with the agreement that it’s got to be a really special package. I came up with the photos and he came up with the design and layout and we just went through it until we were both happy with the final product. Especially in this day and age where people just download. This will hopefully give them some incentive to buy the fuckin’ record instead of going online to download it for free. [Laughs]