After many years of uncompromising noise Killing Joke have started selling records without selling out. The secret of their success? Booze...

On the afternoon that Killing Joke kept me waiting for one and a half hours, they threatened to beat up a friend of mine who was interviewing them for Smash Hits, and also managed to destroy EG Records' boardroom table during a photo session for Sounds (I wondered why all the furniture had been removed from the interview room).

Killing Joke are one of the few groups whose behaviour reflects the content of their music. From their formation in 1979, through five albums, numerous tours, not to mention splitting up and reforming, the group have defined the word 'uncompromising': grinding synthesizer backdrops overlaid with furious violent guitar and fusillades of tribal drumming; anthemic chanted vocals, typified by monotone modulations and occult overtones; distinctly dubious political content, and overtly amoral behaviour; tales of verbal and physical violence in (and on) the press... Killing Joke interviews are known as the 'graveyard shift' amongst experienced music hacks. Gulp.

Adjectives (and alliteration) akimbo, I waited my hour and a half with sweaty palms, and a trembling notebook. But the three quarters of Killing Joke that I was allotted (bassist Raven was elsewhere) were obviously in high spirits as their current single Love Like Blood, had just charted at number 32.

While photographer Les snapped away, I asked the obvious question: had Killing Joke compromised in a bid for musical success? Drummer Paul, who turned out to be the most articulate of the three, replied: "It's not quite as brash... not such an instant assault on the ears — "

" — but the next one will be," interrupted Jaz gleefully. Jaz is the singer and keyboardist, and is known as chief psycho in the band. "But we didn't think Love Like Blood would be the single off the album. The one we thought — Kings & Queens — will be the next one, and it will kick you hard between the legs." He leered happily, carefully enunciating each word. Back to Paul:

"The whole LP was written with commerciality as far from our minds as could possibly be."

"We write to impress ourselves," Jaz agreed.

Photographs over, Jaz, Paul and Geordie (the silent guitarist) joined me on the four remaining chairs in the otherwise bare room. Then Jaz noticed my tape recorder, and before I had time to hurl a question in his way, he launched into the following:

"I dont think there's a more interesting time in Killing Joke's musical history than now. On reflection, with the Night Time LP, I find the emotional content... I find it a very moving and very disturbing LP to listen to. I find it has more depth than anything else we've done before. At the same time it's very beautiful and has an explosive quality... and the balance of the LP is perfect, spot-on. We've had difficulties in the past capturing the intensity without losing the music. Most people have been put off by the individual intensity of the music which prevents them from listening to the content."

This obviously pre-prepared statement set the tone for the next hour, as the trio reeled off answers to questions I hadn't yet asked. Most of them were quite good answers, though, so why complain?

"There's nothing complex at all about our set-up, but the fact that every sound is so powerful makes it difficult to mix"

Jaz told me about the recording of the album, Night Time:

"We had an amalgamation with Chris Kimsey — the Stones' producer — to cut the crap, it was to our mutual advantage: he wanted the credibility in one circle, and we wanted to expand our market in another. Simple as that.

We'd met on a social level before we worked together, and we did Eighties (almost a hit last year and included on the LP) together: his father died four days before he took the decision to work with us... he just felt it would be appropriate to work with us. Eighties was a very successful recording, so we went to Berlin to record the LP.

"Berlin was the perfect situation. It was a place that was compatible with the atmosphere of the new music, and we captured this... beautiful mood. Apart from a lot of disturbing events that went down during the recording, a lot of emotions, a lot of conflict and all that, the album remains to this day our most significant work."

Aside from tales of massive alcohol abuse, I could draw Jaz no further on these disturbing events in Berlin. He went on about Kimsey's production techniques:

"The emphasis is on the recording of the band, not on a massive mixing or production job. Once you've finished the recording process, there's very little between that and the finished work."

Does recording take a long time? You must use lots of overdubs getting such a full sound...

"We always record in a very live situation, that's the way we prefer it." Paul described the set-up: "We'll be in one room with very little screening, and we'll just play the songs until they're right as the band. We record imperfections — we don't iron things out — we just want to keep the live feel."

"We just play until it feels right," Jaz continued. "I shut my eyes and I can feel it inside. Chris says 'we're ready', and we do four or five takes of each number in a row — bang bang bang — like that. We'll have just had a bit of whiskey before, and we do it non-stop, almost like a gig."

Chris Kimsey's great virtue, apart from his ability to record live bands, is his power over Geordie's guitar sound, described by Jaz as "200 orchestras synchronized".

"We're imperfect together — it's half of the excitement"

Geordie is coaxed into saying "it's taken five years to get the right amps, and to know where to put the mikes."

"It takes up so much room because of the density of the sound, to say nothing of the separation we need for Big Paul's drums," Jaz continued. "The mix for Killing Joke is a very thin line between perfection and fucking it up completely."

Added Paul, "There's nothing complex at all about our set-up, but the fact that every sound is so powerful makes it difficult to mix."

Since they are regarded by many (though not themselves) as a Punk band, very little attention is paid to the technical difficulties of creating Killing Joke's gloriously hideous maelstrom of sound. But a good deal of thought and expertise has gone into perfecting the individual sounds of the interconnecting elements. Geordie volunteered further information about the problems involved.

"A lot of the time you're actually hearing in your head what it's supposed to be sounding like; then you spend your time getting something that actually matches. I started with an AC30, but as soon as we came to London, I got Burmans. The guitar I use now is a Gibson 295 semi. I always used to have problems with solids; I could get a really intense sound, but you lacked the music side. So I thought, I'll get a semi-acoustic, plug it into the amp, then get a contact pickup to mix in the acoustic sounds. So I got the guitar, plugged it in, and the sound was there already."

Jaz's opinions about his keyboards are as firmly held as his other views:

"The Oberheim OBX — not the OBXa. It's got a ring mod and all sorts of things I use, like distortion, which aren't even on the OBXa, which I think is a pathetic instrument. The OBX is the only synthesizer compatible with the sound of Killing Joke. I couldn't even consider another keyboard."

"And it's probably as temperamental as we are," muttered Paul.

"You can hear it on the LP, on Darkness Before Dawn, I use this string sound — it's a cross between a really distorted Mellotron and the nicer side of a Hammond... quite a decadent sound. I've only ever heard this richness of tone on the OBX, and this is the only thing we could ever use with Killing Joke."

Jaz pronounces the name with the emphasis on the first word.

I asked about sequencers, mistakenly believing I had detected one or two on Killing Joke records...

"Listen," roared Jaz, "we are the very antithesis of Frankie Goes To Hollywood — understand that right from the beginning. We play live. We go for real. Our whole approach, in the studio and live is one of human rhythms, utilising imperfections and sweat. Sequences don't come into our programme at all."

Er... but what a bout those repeated notes?

"We do use repetition, yeah, certainly that's part of Killing Joke. The way I use a sequencer with Killing Joke is a delay on the echo; so I can hit one note and I get the note repeated; it goes dig dig a dig, and it can accelerate. It sounds accurate because the whole band is there doing it. If we were using sequencers, you'll hear the music dragging — time changing where it shouldn't. And we can't play to click tracks! Collapse of singer in guffaws. Geordie took over:

"We're imperfect together — it's half the excitement. The music starts to breathe; it slows down a touch, it speeds up. I think for a band to master that excitement on stage or in the studio — it feels incredible."

Even though Killing Joke claim not to resemble FGTH, they aren't averse to the occasional Emulator. Paul?

"We used it on the third album... we used the sound of a rally... well, actually it was the Nuremberg Rally!" he laughed. "We put that with Jaz's voice, so the crowd was actually singing what Jaz was singing. Vile!

"We go for the most extreme aural imagery we can capture."

Aside from Geordie's guitar, and the group's dodgy taste in sound effects, the other important parts of Killing Joke are Paul's drums, and Jaz's voice.

"I play Gretsch drums. Big ones. I swear by them. and have done since I had money to buy drums. I've just acquired a Simmons SDS7; I could never replace the Gretsch with electronic drums, but they are useful. I use a Claptrap — that I find is a great effect; and the SDS7 is a great thing — it's a great toy, a great computer. It's a versatile thing to use."

"Our main effect is alcohol"

And how do you get such a harsh vocal sound, Jaz? It can't all be your throat?

"Kimsey doesn't like using any effect, which is quite irritating sometimes. At Hansa-Ton studios in Berlin where we did the LP, there's a little TV screen where you can see into the vocal booth. It seems that I did my best vocals when I forgot about everything and thought I was on stage. With a voice like mine we just try and capture character, my identity (which is quite considerable), and the feeling is there. I know when I've got the right take because it's got the 'grip' — the emotional content. Like on Tabazan, on the second side of the LP, that's got the 'grip'... it's very disturbing — a lot of the vocal tracks on Night Time are very disturbing. I was very disturbed."

Geordie cut in: "I use an echo and two ADTs on my guitar — "

"But our main effect is alcohol," concluded Paul.

"Like when we write songs, we record various ideas onto a ghettoblaster, sit down and listen, have a drink, do it again, have another drink, do it again, have another drink, do it again, have another drink, then we can't get up anymore!"

Thank you, Jaz. But do you write together?

"Yes we certainly do — that's what the band is."

"Nearest we get to communism," Geordie interceded, smiling.

"When we're living properly, to the extreme, the music's already there within us. The writing process is really just arranging what's already there. We get together, have a drink and play; there's not much analysis about it. That's always the way we've written in Killing Joke."

A more sober comment from Jaz.

In spite of my earlier misgivings, and all the horror stories I'd heard, interviewing Killing Joke wasn't too unpleasant. They have far more sense of their collective identity than any other group I have encountered.