Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris Talks About His New Band, Menace, Masks, and Museums

Menace, the rock/metal group masterminded by Napalm Death guitarist Mitch Harris, is far from your typical side gig. In fact, a more accurate description would be a music and multimedia blitz that begins with an album, Impact Velocity (out March 18 on Season of Mist), and extends into video, painstakingly-conceived theatrics, and art installation.

On Impact Velocity, Harris crosses a wide range of sounds from heavy guitar anthems to futuristic, winding prog experiments in a cyclone that draws from his interests in sci-fi, history, media and philosophy, along with reflections on his own life experiences and the complexities of the human condition. The music is a mix of past and present, with some seeds of inspiration taking root nearly twenty years ago and others culled from the same arsenal of riffage Harris prepared for Napalm Death’s crushing 2012 album, Utilitarian (more from that stock will likely find its way onto the band’s next record when they enter the studio again this spring).

To execute his vision, Harris pulled together an assembly of friends including Napalm’s Shane Embury, Derek Roddy (ex-Nile), Frédéric Leclercq (DragonForce), and multi-instrumentalist Nicola Manzan. Guest vocals catchy opening track, “I Live With Your Ghost” are provided by Harris’ daughter, Sequoia. The circle doesn’t close there. Harris has also reached out to a number of creatives around the world, and some of the results have been pretty amazing. His collaboration with Ukrainian sand painter and video artist Ksenyia Simonova, for example, has yielded videos for the songs “Painted Rust,” and “To The Marrow,” and has raised awareness and support for a Ukrainian children’s cancer charity.

I recently spoke to Harris about the journey he’s taken with Menace so far, the unique challenges of going from “screamer” to “singer,” and what happens when extreme music meets fine arts institutions.

Noisey: Menace started as a different project with Max Cavalera from Soulfly and Brann Dailor from Mastodon. At what point did you realize that you were going to take charge on your own and start bringing other people in?
Mitch Harris: I had enough material for an entire album. I sent it to Max, and he had enough songs for an entire album. He got too busy and wound up using his stuff, and I decided to use mine too. Brann was up for it, but he got super busy. Luckily, I got in touch with Derek Roddy. I sent him two songs, and within two days, he sent them back finished and I was like, “Oh my God! It sounds amazing!” So I sent him three or four files at a time, and he was just nailing them. It was a really exciting process because the guitar and vocals were already there, and he did such a good job of not overcomplicating anything.

I met Nicola when I was about seven songs into choosing the material for the album. He was a big fan of Napalm and that style of guitar, and he was really supportive about which song was better, arrangement, or if I had a harmony out of key. He’s musically trained, and I’m this guy who just lets my fingers walking and just remembers things. We became really good friends.

Shane Embury and I have been playing together for about 24 years. We were on tour and I was going through a collection of about a hundred songs. It could have gone this way or that way and he was good about saying, “Well, this part goes with this.” Of course he was going to play—we’re like brothers. Freddy Leclercq from DragonForce is a good friend as well. I only chose to work with people that I’ve connected with on a certain level. With these people, there is a like-minded way about us. At one point, I was thinking about going more electronic with some kind of programmed drums and bass, but wow, a real band!

A hundred songs? I guess it doesn’t surprise me with all the Napalm records back to back and everything else you do that you’d have a stockpile of material. Is that how most of your music starts?
During the past four Napalm records I was in the middle of having children and moving houses and all kinds of stuff. A lot of times I’d write the songs just before something, and almost be under pressure to do it. I always got to the point where I was happy, but it was a different approach.

We moved into this bigger house which had work space, and I decided to play 20 minutes a day, record everything, and not listen back. Two months later, I wound up with 17 hours of shit to go through. A lot of it was garbage, but I made some basic arrangements on the computer and later I’d be doing the dishes or something and I’d hear this song in my head. I put that into one hundred songs. I didn’t care—just arrange it, and decide later. It took me almost a day to listen through everything and make a quick decision. I was like, “OK, these songs are definitely for Utilitarian.” That’s what I was trying to do at the time.

I chose the 16 Menace songs out of that and I still have another 20 I really like, and we’re just going into the studio again with Napalm. Everything was written at the same time, but people are probably going to flip out and be like, “What the fuck is this? What is he going to do in Napalm now?”

Actually, that makes a lot of sense because Utilitarian, in retrospect, seems like a hint of what could come from the Menace project with all of the melodic passages.
The clean vocals on “The Wolf I Feed” [on Utilitarian] just made me feel so good when I heard it back, whatever criticism came from it. It was challenging, and it was something people wouldn’t expect. It was something that needed to be explored, but I wasn’t going to say, “OK, guys, I want to sing more and
more on the Napalm records.” I mean, I have my own view of what Napalm should be, but this wasn’t it. I wanted to develop the voice and try out these things. After a while, there were seven different vocal styles on there—and no screaming. Holy shit! I tried screaming, but it didn’t show the right emotion.

You’ve described the music on Impact Velocity as your life’s work. You just mentioned some of the songs started 17 years ago? Can you tell me a little more about the path that’s led to this?
I had a band called Meathook Seed, and an album came out in ‘92. then I had a daughter and it totally changed my life. When I came back and tried to write a second record, I felt like a totally different person. Life is difficult, there’s always this underlying thing between people and our lifestyle of coming and going doesn’t make anything easy. Whenever I needed an outlet, I would play and record. I had these songs that didn’t fit into the second Meathook Seed album and they didn’t fit into Napalm, but I thought I’d eventually do something.

Did it feel natural to take a more laid back approach?
No. It was more discipline, if anything, but in fact, the arrangements that I’ve been doing all these years have a lot in common with them. They’re quite basic, but it goes right past you if it’s not arranged in a way to get you to notice the most important parts. Less space between the riffs makes it sound chaotically arranged because there are so many changes and it goes so fast.

With the Menace album, you’re using it as a way to work out some things in your personal life. How did it differ from other records you’ve worked on?
There’s always some tension in someone’s life. At this point, I needed an outlet. Not just for the lyrics, but on a creative and artistic level. I do a lot of video. I was teaching media and video editing at a college after a while. I assigned an editing project on The Beatles, “A Day In The Life,” which is so easy to do, “Woke up / Got out of bed / Dragged a comb across my head…” It’s boring, but it will teach you how to edit. I noticed that there were 150 different videos for the same song. I decided to write the lyrics like a storyboard where you can expand on every aspect. As you read it, it’s visual. Also, I work so spontaneously I’ll sing over the same song seven times and listen back until I find something that works with the mood.

Napalm has a huge touring schedule this spring, but do you have plans to tour with Menace too
We do. It’s been a bit delayed. A lot of it was coordinating my schedule with Russ Russell, the producer. He’s the fifth Menace, or sixth, or however many people we have now. The team is growing and I’ve got people making masks and there’s a concept for each member.

How does all of that fit together?
In 2000, before I studied media I wanted to make a soundtrack album and then I wrote a film, so I went to school to learn how to edit because I couldn’t expect anyone else to do it how I wanted. So I went to college, and they made me write a script. I submitted that, and they were like, “Wow, this is like a trilogy, or a TV program.” It was based on the song, “Seamless Integration.” It’s something I’ll get around to making eventually, but with the Menace album, it’s all sort of falling into place. The media, the story, and the characters. I took some ideas from the characters in the film and applied them to each member of the band. Even the names have their own special meanings.

It almost sounds like superheroes.
I’ve always loved superheroes, and the mask, the way it’s been used in the past in theater to express mourning, glorifying the living, provoking, admiration, celebrating love, poetry… It can’t be worn thoughtlessly. It has to be precise and it involves participating in another side of yourself where you don’t know what you look like, but you know how you feel. What we’ve been developing isn’t just for the sake of it. It has to tell a story or be something thought provoking. I have a massive interest in photography and that’s what I like about it, seeing things in a certain way.

I really want to do soundtrack stuff and work from home at some point. A well placed song in a film tells a story based on everything you’ve seen and gives more meaning to it. Plus, working with these guys, I have access to the best musicians on Earth and a full orchestra. It’s pretty crazy what can be done.

There’s a guy I’m working with right now, Jean-Michael Crapanzano, who was doing an installation that had to do with music and science and art. I came to him with three songs and now we’re doing an 11-minute piece. The synopsis is almost finished and we’re looking for funding. We have plans to do it in museums everywhere and it will probably be a traveling show.

Didn’t Napalm just participate in an art installation?
Napalm was going to play at the V&A Museum in London. This guy Keith Harrison wanted to do an installation. He’s from our area and he wanted to do something that resembled his life and society with our sound that came through the speakers made this ceramic thing deteriorate through the course of the show. Russ was going to do sound and he went to see the place and he was like, “Oh my God, are you sure? You want Napalm to play here? Right above their heads is Ming Dynasty china.”

Surprise, surprise, the day before the event they realized there would be health and safety issues all the way around and it got cancelled, but then Sky News, BBC News, Yahoo! News, and everyone picked up on it. All the stories were like “Napalm Death’s music would damage the structure and destroy all of these priceless artifacts.” It made us sound louder than Motörhead. It paints this crazy picture, and you get all of this publicity for not playing the show.

I’d been working on my stuff for years, and then to get that offer, it was like, “Hell yeah, I’m into it!” I’ll support anyone’s theory. We did the event recently at the De La Warr Pavillion, and it was a good thing to do, and now that the next thing I’m doing is music and audio--that’s what I’m talking about, really. I’m halfway through what I wanted to do, and then there’s a second half I’ll start dealing with soon. Will it be a continuation of this album or its own separate thing?
It will be it’s own separate thing because it’s veering into different kinds of art. Somehow telling a story with music and art, you never know how far it’s reaches.

Jamie Ludwig is on Twitter - @unlistenmusic