NAPALM DEATH BIOGRAPHY

NAPALM DEATH
Biography

Napalm Death are an English grindcore band from the Birmingham area. Their label, Century Media Records, dates the name to 1981. They started as a punk band built around Nicholas Bullen and Miles Ratledge, and their 1987 debut on Earache Records, Scum, laid down the template for what came to be called grindcore. Harmony Corruption, in 1990, took them towards death metal, and through the 1990s they pushed further, into mid-tempo material and experimental sound. Words from the Exit Wound, in 1998, was their last album for Earache; Enemy of the Music Business brought the speed back in 2000, and since 2004 they have been with Century Media, who count Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020) as their sixteenth studio album. Bassist Shane Embury, who joined in 1987, has been in the band longer than anyone, and with singer Barney Greenway and drummer Danny Herrera he has kept it moving. Since late 2014 John Cooke has played guitar on stage in place of Mitch Harris, who stepped back from live work.

Formation and the punk years (1981-1985)

The sources tell the beginning in slightly different ways. Century Media Records says the name Napalm Death has existed since 1981. The band profile the label supplied to Home of Metal, Birmingham's heavy metal heritage project, written by John Doran, starts in Meriden, a small town a few miles outside Birmingham between Solihull and Coventry, and has the band forming late in 1981 around Nicholas Bullen and Miles Ratledge, who were still at school. Decibel has the pair founding it in Birmingham in 1981, Bullen on vocals and bass and Ratledge on drums (2008). Bullen himself says the two of them had been writing and taping songs in their bedrooms since 1979 before they turned it into a group with other people (The Arts Desk, 2017). The band's own website presents it as a Birmingham band.

The roots were in political punk. Decibel describes a band that started out inspired by Discharge, and Century Media points to the post-punk and anarcho-punk scenes. John Doran's profile names Crass, Flux of Pink Indians and Discharge, and the band's music was first released on Crass Records' Bullshit Detector series, on its third volume (Decibel, 2008). Bullen recalls swapping cassettes by post with bands around the world because, as schoolchildren, they could not afford imports (VICE, 2017), and counts his generation among those who discovered every kind of music on John Peel's radio show (The Quietus, 2012).

Guitarist Justin Broadrick joined later. He came from industrial music and shared Bullen's taste for power electronics and for post-punk bands such as Killing Joke, and the band's home stage was the Mermaid, a pub in Birmingham (Decibel, 2008; John Doran's profile; Louder, 2019). The title of the second album, From Enslavement to Obliteration, was first the title of a demo from these years (Decibel, 2017). Mick Harris, a faster drummer, took over from Ratledge (Decibel, 2008 and 2017).

Scum and its two line-ups (1986-1987)

Earache Records describes the debut, Scum, as two recordings by different members. The first side is by a trio, Nicholas Bullen on bass and vocals, Justin Broadrick on guitar and Mick Harris on drums, with Bullen heard on the opening twelve songs; it was cut overnight at Rich Bitch Studios in Birmingham. Bullen left soon after it was finished, and Broadrick went too, later to form Godflesh. Shane Embury, offered the vacant place, turned it down; he is not sure why, but thinks he may simply have lacked confidence in his guitar playing (VICE, 2017; Decibel, 2008 and 2017).

For the second side Mick Harris was joined by singer Lee Dorrian, guitarist Bill Steer and bassist Jim Whiteley. Steer was playing in Carcass at the same time, and his bandmate there, Jeff Walker, designed the sleeve. The two sessions are nine months apart, and Mick Harris is the only musician on both (Decibel, 2008; Louder, 2019). The album came out in the middle of 1987 on Earache, a new Nottingham label run by Dig Pearson (Louder, 2019; John Doran's profile). It fits twenty-eight songs into about thirty-three minutes, and one of them, "You Suffer", went into the Guinness Book of Records as the shortest song in the world (VICE, 2017; Decibel, 2008).

It was John Peel of BBC Radio 1 who carried the band to a wider audience. He played the records over and over, his famously varied listeners began turning up at the shows, and he had the band in several times to record sessions for his programme (Decibel, 2008; Louder, 2019). As for the word grindcore, Embury credits Mick Harris with coining it, for music judged by how abrasive it sounded rather than only by its speed, so that something slow could count as well (Louder, 2019).

From Enslavement to Obliteration and a new line-up (1987-1989)

After the first tour for Scum, Jim Whiteley left, and in 1987 Shane Embury came in on bass, bringing songs he had once written for the album's second side. He has been in the band longer than anyone (Decibel, 2008 and 2017; Earache Records).

From Enslavement to Obliteration, the second album, followed in 1988, made by the second side's line-up with Embury in Whiteley's place (Louder, 2019). They spent about six days in a tiny studio playing everything together, and Mick Harris mixed the result later (Embury in Decibel, 2017). The same four released the Mentally Murdered EP in 1989, and a split with the Japanese grind band S.O.B. came out around the same time (Earache Records). That April the band appeared in Heavy Metal, a documentary in the BBC's Arena series, which showed them playing "Scum" (Louder, 2019).

In 1989 Bill Steer left to concentrate on Carcass and Lee Dorrian on what became Cathedral, and by the next album singer Barney Greenway and two American guitarists, Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris, had joined (Louder, 2019); Pintado came from Terrorizer (John Doran's profile). From 10 to 16 November 1989 Earache sent Napalm Death round Britain on Grindcrusher, a seven-date tour with Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower and Carcass. The opening night in Manchester was the first show for both Greenway and Pintado, and afterwards the band toured Europe with Morbid Angel (Decibel, 2016).

Towards death metal (1990-1994)

Harmony Corruption, in 1990, turned the band firmly towards death metal. It was the first album by the new five-piece of Mick Harris, Shane Embury, Barney Greenway, Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris, and Scott Burns produced it (Earache Records). Mick Harris chose to record at Morrisound Recording in Florida, and Embury describes the new direction as a deliberate refusal to make the same record again, driven above all by Mick Harris (Decibel, 2017; Louder, 2019).

Mick Harris left in 1991 (VICE, 2017). By then, Embury says, he had been listening to Godflesh and Ministry and had lost the wish to stay; on the second of the band's two American tours that year, Danny Herrera, a friend of Pintado's, took over the drums without an audition (Louder, 2019; Decibel, 2017). Broadrick put Mick Harris in touch with Nicholas Bullen, and the two of them started Scorn (The Quietus, 2021).

The songs written after the 1991 EP Mass Appeal Madness became Utopia Banished, Herrera's first album with the band, in 1992 (Decibel, 2017). That year they spent two months in North America on the Campaign for Musical Destruction tour with Carcass, Cathedral and Brutal Truth. Mitch Harris calls it their first headline tour after supporting Sepultura, and says the name had already been used for a European tour with Obituary and Dismember (Decibel, 2020).

In 1993 came an EP built on a Dead Kennedys song, Nazi Punks Fuck Off (MusicBrainz; Home of Metal). Fear, Emptiness, Despair, in 1994, set out to dig into the slower, mid-paced riffs that had until then come and gone between the blasts. Embury remembers a band split into two camps, with Greenway living in London and writing for metal magazines while the others shared a house in Sparkhill, Birmingham; by 1993 Earache had gone into partnership with Columbia Records (Decibel, 2017).

Experiments, and the end with Earache (1995-1999)

Diatribes, in 1996, was the band's first album recorded in Birmingham since Scum, made at Framework Studios in the city with Colin Richardson producing. Embury sees it as the start of a trilogy that ends with Words from the Exit Wound (Decibel, 2017).

Before the next album the band let Greenway go. Phil Vane of Extreme Noise Terror sang with them while the songs were being written, but it did not work in the studio, and at Embury's request Greenway came back. Inside the Torn Apart, released in 1997, takes its title from those rifts inside the band (Decibel, 2017).

Earache released a live album, Bootlegged in Japan, in 1998: the band's concert in Tokyo on 5 August 1996 (Earache Records). Words from the Exit Wound, from the same year, was the band's last album for the label, the end of its management deal and the last album produced by Colin Richardson; it was also where, with Embury and Greenway both taken with the Swedish band Nasum, the speed began to come back. With almost no tour budget, they got round Europe only through Embury's friendship with Nick Barker and Cradle of Filth (Decibel, 2017).

Back to speed (2000-2003)

Without a label or management, the band made Enemy of the Music Business, released by Dream Catcher in 2000. Embury's old friend Simon Efemey and his engineer, Russ Russell, recorded it, and Greenway's lyrics went straight for the music industry; television appearances followed, and John Peel handed the band an award (Decibel, 2017). Russell went on to become the band's long-time producer (Blabbermouth, 2026).

Order of the Leech, in 2002, was again made with Efemey and Russell and was licensed to three labels around the world. In its statement of 2006 the band gave Pintado's years as a member as 1989 to 2004 (Blabbermouth, 2006).

The Century Media years (2004-2015)

After Order of the Leech the shows thinned out and there was no label. Embury had begun to think it was the end when, during a stay in Japan, he received an email from Greenway suggesting one more try with Century Media (Decibel, 2017). Napalm Death have been with Century Media Records since 2004 (Century Media Records). The first release there was a covers album finished more than a year earlier, Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, which Embury calls the band's second covers record (Decibel, 2017); an EP titled Leaders Not Followers had appeared in 1999 (MusicBrainz).

The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code, in 2005, was recorded at Foel Studio in Wales with Russ Russell alone producing (Decibel, 2017). According to John Doran's profile, the band's cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" had caught the attention of Jello Biafra, who sings on the album.

Jesse Pintado died in August 2006; the band said on its website that it was shocked and saddened by his sudden death (Blabbermouth, 2006). Smear Campaign, recorded in the Welsh countryside, came out the same year, with Anneke van Giersbergen singing on the opening "Weltschmerz", and Time Waits for No Slave followed in 2009, made by a band that had settled into a four-piece and produced by Russell (Decibel, 2017). Greenway explained the title of Utilitarian, in 2012, as the name of a philosophical theory open to many readings, among them the idea that good actions make for good consequences (Blabbermouth, 2012).

In November 2014 the band announced that Mitch Harris would not be performing with them for the time being, that this was not a permanent arrangement, and that other guitarists would stand in; the same report carried a North American tour with Voivod for the following January and February (Blabbermouth, 2014). The guitarist who filled the gap was John Cooke, who worked at the Birmingham studio where the band rehearses and went from driving the members to selling their merchandise and managing their tours before taking Mitch Harris's place on stage (Loudwire, 2018). Apex Predator – Easy Meat, in 2015, was put together during the last year of touring for Utilitarian; on its title track Embury beat on metal tins and iron, and Russell arranged the sounds (Decibel, 2017).

Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism and after (2016-2026)

In December 2015 a six-week American tour with the Melvins and Melt-Banana, the Savage Imperial Death March Tour, was announced to open in Phoenix on 26 March 2016 (Blabbermouth, 2015). In 2017 Napalm Death played the Glastonbury Festival (Louder, 2019; Earache Records). In June 2018 Greenway said that Mitch Harris, away since late 2014 to be with his family, had not left the band and had played on the new album; the same report had Napalm Death joining Lamb of God, Anthrax and Testament on the second American leg of Slayer's final world tour (Blabbermouth, 2018).

Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in 2020, is the record Century Media counts as the band's sixteenth studio album (Century Media Records); it was made with Russ Russell, with artwork by Frode Sylthe (Blabbermouth, 2026). In February 2022 the mini-album Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw of Throes gathered further material from the same sessions, a format Greenway put down to the band's old punk liking for stripped-down releases. It includes covers of Bad Brains' "Don't Need It" and SLAB!'s "People Pie", and its title track is a remix Embury made with Russell as Dark Sky Burial (Blabbermouth, 2026; Century Media Records).

Embury's autobiography, Life…? And Napalm Death, was published by Rocket 88 Books in 2023; the publisher presents it as both his own story and a history of the band's part in the development of grindcore (Earache Records; Rocket 88 Books).

Savage Imperial Death March, made together with the Melvins, first came out in 2025 as a six-track record on Amphetamine Reptile Records (MusicBrainz), and in April 2026 Ipecac Recordings issued an extended eight-track version with new artwork. Both bands play on all eight tracks; the credits list Buzz Osborne (vocals, guitar) and Dale Crover (drums) of the Melvins alongside Barney Greenway (vocals), Shane Embury (bass) and John Cooke (guitar) (the Melvins' official Bandcamp; Ipecac Recordings).

In September 2026 Embury said that the seventeenth studio album, which he was writing with Russell at Russell's Parlour Studios in Kettering, would probably not be out before the end of 2027 because of touring (Blabbermouth, 2026). The twenty-one-date European and British tour of 27 January to 20 February 2027, from Paris to London with Misery Index, Author & Punisher, Habak and Piece, carries the name of the 1992 North American tour, Campaign For Musical Destruction (theprp.com, 2026). As of 2026 the core of the band is Greenway on vocals, Embury on bass and Herrera on drums, with Cooke on guitar (Blabbermouth, 2026; Loudwire, 2018; the Melvins' official Bandcamp).

What the band stands for

Century Media presents Napalm Death as a band known for an uncompromising political stance and for ethical principles it holds with pride, and Bullen describes the band as a product of politicised punk, in which everything turns on ideas (VICE, 2017). John Doran's profile records that the proceeds of the cover of "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" went to anti-fascist charities.

Greenway has spoken about animal rights many times. In 2012 he said factory farming as it exists has to go, and that farming should be organic and leave the animals free (Blabbermouth, 2012); in 2021 he said he had been a vegetarian since the age of fourteen and a vegan for a little over ten years (Blabbermouth, 2021).

Napalm Death and Japan

Japanese hardcore mattered to Napalm Death from the start. Bullen says that before Scum was recorded he and the others were soaking up the intensity of Japanese punk bands such as GISM, Kuro and Crow (VICE, 2017).

Japan: the releases

In 1989 VAP issued Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration together on one CD in Japan, with the band's name in Japanese as its title on the obi (Discogs; MusicBrainz). From Harmony Corruption to Time Waits for No Slave in 2009, Toy's Factory issued the band's Japanese editions (MusicBrainz; the Toy's Factory obis). Some of those editions carried titles of their own in Japanese: Utopia Banished came out there in 1992 under a title meaning "Paradise Lost", and Fear, Emptiness, Despair in 1994 under one meaning "Elegy". The Japanese Fear, Emptiness, Despair had liner notes by two BURRN! writers and three bonus tracks found only on that edition, and the obi of Time Waits for No Slave gave the album a Japanese headline title as well and announced three extra tracks (the Toy's Factory obis).

Trooper Entertainment became the band's Japanese label in 2012, issuing Utilitarian on 29 February 2012 and Apex Predator – Easy Meat on 28 January 2015, both produced by Russ Russell and both with bonus tracks in their Japanese editions (Trooper Entertainment; CDJapan; HMV). Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism followed in Japan on 18 September 2020, the same day as in Europe, under a Japanese title meaning "Eternal Paradox" (Trooper Entertainment; CDJapan). In 2018 the label also issued Coded Smears and More Uncommon Slurs, two discs of 31 tracks the band had recorded between 2004 and 2016 that were missing from the albums (Trooper Entertainment; HMV). Earache's own live album Bootlegged in Japan (1998) was packaged with the Japanese market in mind: its tray card and disc print every song title in Japanese script as well as in English (the Earache sleeve).

Concerts in Japan

The band's longest Japanese thread runs through Extreme The Dojo, the concert series of the promoter SMASH. In January 2004 Napalm Death headlined Vol.7 with Nasum among the support, at Club Quattro in Osaka on the 9th, Nagoya on the 10th and Tokyo on the 12th; the Osaka night, the first of the run, was released in 2009 as Live in Japan (Grind Kaijyu Attack!), a split live picture disc with Nasum on Shane Embury's own label FETO Records (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours; SMASH; Nasum's website; Blabbermouth, 2003). On 18 October 2009 they played the second day of Loud Park 09 at Makuhari Messe, in the festival timetable's ULTIMATE STAGE column from 14:40 (Loud Park's website).

In August 2012 the series reached its thirtieth edition and brought back Napalm Death, the band that had prompted the series in the first place, as headliner, with Nasum and Pig Destroyer: Shibuya on the 23rd, Umeda on the 24th and Nagoya on the 25th, all at Club Quattro. The band then toured live houses in Tohoku, the region struck by the earthquake of the year before, with the Sapporo hardcore band Slang, playing Miyako on the 27th, Ofunato on the 28th and Ishinomaki on the 29th (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours).

In November 2014 Napalm Death returned for Double Titans Tour Vol.5 with Brutal Truth, on what was Brutal Truth's last tour, and with the Japanese grindcore band S.O.B as guests: Ebisu LIQUIDROOM on the 26th, Umeda Club Quattro on the 27th and Nagoya's Electric Lady Land on the 28th (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours). On 11 October 2015 they played Loud Park 15 at Saitama Super Arena, on the EXTREME STAGE from 17:00, after At the Gates and before Carcass (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours; Loud Park's website). A six-date headline tour followed in September 2016, opening in Ishinomaki on the 3rd and running through the Club Quattro halls of Shibuya, Nagoya, Umeda and Hiroshima to Fukuoka's DRUM Be-1 on the 9th; at Barney Greenway's suggestion the Japanese hardcore band Systematic Death and the punk orchestra Turtle Island were invited as guests (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours).

In March 2019 Extreme The Dojo returned after six years with Vol.32, at Umeda Club Quattro on the 5th and Shibuya Club Quattro on the 6th, sharing the bill with Eyehategod, Misery Index and Melt-Banana, the last of them new to the series. Napalm Death and Melt-Banana then went on together to Ishinomaki on the 8th, the band's third show there, and Sapporo on the 10th (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours). In December 2023 came their first headline tour of Japan in seven years: Umeda Club Quattro on the 11th, ell.FITS ALL in Nagoya on the 12th and Daikanyama UNIT in Tokyo on the 13th (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours). In April 2026 they headlined Extreme The Dojo Vol.36 at Club Quattro in Shibuya on the 27th and Umeda on the 28th, with Merzbow and the Mongolian deathcore band Growl of Clown, and then played two shows of their own, at EARTHDOM in Tokyo on the 29th and ell.FITS ALL in Nagoya on the 30th, both of which sold out (Trooper Entertainment's archive of past tours; SMASH).

Records with Japanese bands

A split flexi-disc with the Japanese band S.O.B was issued in Japan in 1989, and a split 7-inch with Melt-Banana came out on Ipecac Recordings in 2016 (Discogs; MusicBrainz). Napalm Death's two songs from the latter, "Like Piss to a Sting" and "Where the Barren Is Fertile", are on Coded Smears and More Uncommon Slurs (Trooper Entertainment).

About the sources

This biography is based on the band's official website; Century Media Records' band profile, and the profile by John Doran that the label supplied to Home of Metal; Earache Records' product pages; Rocket 88 Books' page for the autobiography; the Melvins' official Bandcamp and Ipecac Recordings' release data; Decibel, including Shane Embury's own album-by-album retrospective of 2017; Louder (Metal Hammer); VICE; The Arts Desk; The Quietus; Loudwire; Blabbermouth.net; and theprp.com; and, for Japan, Trooper Entertainment's artist page and its archive of past tours, SMASH's concert pages, Loud Park's own timetables, Nasum's website, the obis of the Toy's Factory editions and the tray card and disc of Bootlegged in Japan (as photographed on Discogs), and the product pages of CDJapan and HMV. The years of the demos, EPs, live albums and compilations, and some labels and catalogue numbers, were checked against MusicBrainz. The English Wikipedia was used only as a starting point. Where the sources disagree, as on the year and place of the band's formation, the text says so.