Forget the bacon sandwich; let me sing death metal
MILIBAND’S RADIO 2 RENDITION
FORMER Labour leader Ed Miliband performed his best extreme death metal singing as he discussed “grimecore” and why the genre is more than “a bunch of noise” with the lead singer of band Napalm Death.
Miliband, who is sitting in for Jeremy Vine on his BBC Radio 2 show, was joined in the studio by Barney Greenway, who told him his attempt to sing in the extreme metal style needed “definitely more throat”.
Miliband played clips from bands including Morbid Angel and Wormrot before asking Greenway to tell critics why they are wrong to think the genre of music is just “noise”.
Greenway told him: “I understand it, this is the thing, we are not polarised like that.
“We appreciate that people feel that way and we kind of get a perverse sense out of annoying people because it’s kind of a paradox.
“The band is very sonically violent but actually the ethos behind it is about humanity, equality, tolerance, all the things that appear to be the complete antithesis.” He added: “A lot of musicians can be quite sensitive about their art, but we sort of welcome people’s revulsion, if you want to put it like that.” Miliband quizzed Greenway about the kind of extreme metal Napalm Death performs, known as grimecore, before asking him the inspiration behind the band’s Silence Is Deafening, the shortest song in the record books. After he played the four words that make up the track, the politician said: “Yeah, well you can sort of hear it.” He continued: “I’m now going to take my career into my hands, if it isn’t already down the pan, and you’re going to try to help me do a bit of this extreme metal.” After Miliband made two attempts to sing, Greenway replied: “I don’t know how to get that going.” Bands playing punk and extreme metal will have their own stage at Glastonbury for the first time this year.