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Napalm Death - Metal Hammer #388 "The 100 Songs That Changed Our World"

NAPALM DEATH SCUM (SCUM, 1987)

With their debt album Scum, Napalm Death pushed the frontiers of noise back further than anyone could have ever imagined. The line-up that recorded this two-and-a-half minute grindcore landmark - singer/bassist Nicholas Bullen, guitarist Justin Broadrick and drummer Mick Harris - took in a disparate set of influences (Swans, Killing Joke, Siege, Metallica) and spat them out as something that was filthier, faster and bleaker than anything that had come before. The mainstream world was baffled and/or repulsed by its seemingly impenetrable din, but over time its revolutionary racket became fused into metal's DNA, in the process helping establish Earache Records as one of the most influential underground labels in history. Today, any band who profess to be remotely extreme owe a massive debt to Scum. Here, former Napalm Death guitarist Justin Broadrick looks back on the making of the seminal album.

Scum was such an important album. What do you remember about writing it? "I was a barely functioning 15/16 year old during my time in Napalm Death. Everyone else in the band was two years older, but what I could do prolifically was write music and create songs. I was writing the majority of the music, and Nic was writing pretty much all the lyrics. Scum was one of the last songs I wrote for Napalm Death, that is for sure [Justin and Nic Bullen left after recording Side A of the Scum album, with an almost totally new line-up recording Side B). I would have written it in my bedroom in Shard End, Birmingham, being 16 and still living at home with my mum and stepdad at that point."

Did it feel different to earlier songs you'd written for Napalm? "I felt my riffs and writing were essentially getting better, that was for certain. This was evident by the responses we were getting at our shows in that period. We, as a band playing these songs, had something special by this time."

Scum alternates between slow, sludgy sections and lightning-fast parts. What were the influences? "We were totally obsessed with Celtic Frost! Ha ha ha! That mid/breakdown riff is a direct take on a Hellhammer song breakdown, changed very slightly as it progresses. The main slow riff was me trying to emulate Am I Evil?, the Metallica cover [of Diamond Head], combined with a variety of Black Sabbath riffs. The fast parts are all essentially a take on Discharge riffs, but sped up and perhaps 'noisier'. Also, Siege had seeped into the riffs there."

What did Nic Bullen and Mick Harris bring to the song? "Everything, from Nic's vocal stylings, lyrics and bass playing, to Mick being able to reach speeds we hadn't heard before. Without Mick, that wouldn't have been achieved. Mick and I first rehearsed at his mum and dad's house, and we literally sped up every Napalm Death song I taught him. Mick's energy and fierceness on the drums was unrivalled."

Who was Scum aimed at? "Nic wrote the lyrics, so he would be best person to comment. But how the I saw it back then was an attack against our overseers, those who chain us: those in power. We were both becoming increasingly disenchanted with the human race as a whole. I think initially we intended to inform/protest, but both Nic and I became more nihilistic, especially from this period onwards."

Do you remember playing it live for the first time? "Not the first time, but the shows around that period were when people and audiences really started noticing us. There was a huge buzz."

How do you look back on Scum now? "Very proud of it. I'm proud of the whole A-side of Scum. It's sad, but I lost the sense that it was my music for many years, while watching different forms of Napalm Death perform it time and time again and endless reissues of the album. But, I've felt like it's mine again; it's a part of my musical identity, my music as a 16-year-old. As a band, for a moment, we were amazing, and Scum, as a song, was the peak of that for me."