Only a short few months ago, Killing Joke frontman Jeremy “Jaz” Coleman went mysteriously missing. Canceled shows happened and, well, a bunch of (admittedly European) press covered Killing Joke when they would’ve anyway. Turns out Coleman was running around the Western Sahara, working on a solo album and a book. Neat. Coleman’s never been a sedentary type. When Decibel first tried to contact Coleman for the induction of Killing Joke’s self-titled debut into the Hall of Fame [dB #80, HERE] he was uncontactable whilst scampering around New Zealand. His bandmates had no idea how to get in touch as well. They had to call Peter Jackson to see if Coleman was staying in Hobbiton. OK, that’s a not-so-killing joke.
OK, puffery aside, this is “In Cythera”, from Killing Joke’s new long-player MMXII, and a revealing unpublished quote from Killing Joke’s Hall of Fame article [dB #80, HERE] in which Coleman describes the circumstances of the group’s formation back in 1978. The more things change the more they stay the same it seems.
“It started with Big Paul and myself. In short, we did a ritualized prayer and two weeks later we had both Youth and Geordie. Ten weeks later, Europe and United Kingdom knew about Killing Joke. We were very lucky in our first lessons in media. It was the result of the two Johns, as I put it. By the time we got together for our first jam, 10 weeks later our first London gig was sold out. It was all John Peel. He played our first EP [Turn to Red] non-stop. Then he asked us to do a Peel Session on the back of it. Then, John Lydon, from PiL [Public Image Ltd.] and [Sex] Pistols, saying we were the only band thinking for ourselves. It all happened very quickly.”
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** Killing Joke’s new album, MMXII, is out October 30th on Spinefarm Records. It’s available HERE for those interested in what the End Times are gonna be like. Through the lens of Jeremy “Jaz” Coleman, of course.
