Corrupt Fucking System
Doom
Black Cloud Records
Released December 23, 2013
www.doomcrustpunk.com
Outspoken British crust-punk pioneers Doom have a stonking new album out and are heading to Australia. Guitarist and founding member Brian Talbot, aka Bri Doom, spoke to Green Left Weekly's Mat Ward.
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Tell us about the female spoken word vocalist on the seething title track of your new album, Corrupt Fucking System.
The vocalist is my wife, Lisa. She used to sing in a band called Corpus Vile. This is NOT her usual style of vocals, however - but we felt a female vocal would fit the song much better and it's not really [vocalist] Denis's style either.
LYRICS: We are all victims in a war for freedom. This is not their world it is ours and we must stand up and be counted. For centuries the powerful few have exploited and abused us from their ivory towers of violence and control. From the fortresses of state, capitalism and religion they control us with their unjust laws with their financial prisons and their supernatural lies and deceit. We are all victims of their system. A system created to protect the powerful ruling elite. A corrupt fucking system, that thrives on people’s acceptance and silence....
Read the full lyrics here.
Doom formed when former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was still in power and the new album features the song "Thatchercide". What were your feelings when she died?
Yeah. I was very happy. Had to drink to her rotting corpse. Trouble is now she's being hailed as some sort of British icon who did lots of great things - and not just by Tories! I just wished she'd died painfully many years earlier.
Thatcher's legacy continues, as noted by the inclusion of the song "Con Dem Nation". Tell us what effects you have witnessed on a personal level, living under the Con-Dems - that is, the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat Coalition government.
The same lies, the same "one rule for them and one for the rest of us". On a personal level, I have had my wages frozen - pay cut - for about three years while my bosses still have pay increases. Everything from food to heating to travel has gone up - and yet taxes for the rich have dropped under this farce of a government - the Tory bastards who maintain their ruling elite and the Liberal Democrat liars who are propping them up. It's the same corrupt deals behind closed doors with big business in the interests of the rich few rather the poor majority. This is not democracy.
Tell us about the loan advert samples on "Eat Shit and Buy".
The samples are taken from adverts - usually sown on daytime TV so to appeal to people without jobs - of what are called, over here, "Pay Day Loans". These companies are usually very unscrupulous and don't really check to see if people are able to pay back the loans, which have extremely high interest rates, sometimes 1000's of percentages.
Commercially brainwashed by cathode rays
Subliminal hypnosis compels you to spend
Cancerous preservatives help you rot
Murder medicines help you mend
Eat Shit and Buy
Extravagant packaging rapes the earth
Noxious fumes poison the sky
Toxic chemicals polluting the water
Witness the earth’s lifeblood run dry
Eat Shit and Buy
Convinced to buy things you don’t need
With money that you can't afford
By greedy corporate vampires
That profit from your stupidity
Eat Shit and Buy
- Doom, "Eat Shit and Buy"
Your album features the song "Yes They Still Test On Dogs". Radical US rapper Sole has noted how there is a disconnect between animal rights activism and the left generally. To what extent would you agree?
Not heard of Sole, but that is probably true these days. Speaking from the DIY punk/crust scene it does seem that many younger people involved don't seem to care about animal rights. Bit depressing really. The song "Yes, They Still Test on Dogs" was written after our experiences touring Europe, where punks thought it was liberating/rebellious for them to be able to smoke in squatted venues. One night after playing, we all felt like we were going to die due to the toxic fumes we'd inhaled. When someone asked me what I thought of the night I said, "Great apart from the smoke." He said, "Well you didn't have to come here!" I don't agree with many governments, but the law to ban smoking in public places is brilliant. Smokers are very selfish people.
Our demise won’t be jackboots
But lung disease and corporate suits
Fuck your egocentric stance
Let us breathe, give anarchy a chance!
Yes, they still test on dogs,
Yes, they still exploit you!
- Doom, "Yes, They Still Test on Dogs"
The late, legendary DJ John Peel championed your work. What did Peel mean to you and do you see any potential successors?
He was brilliant. A very nice man. I met him twice, both at gigs. Very genuine and extremely dedicated to discovering new and non-mainstream music and sound. It was amazing growing up listening to his radio shows, it just opened whole new worlds of music. There is no-one like him now. I cannot listen to British music radio at all - 99% of it total commercial wank or ultra pretentious, self-indulgent shite - as are the presenters. Fucking Kerrang radio - utter, utter shit.
You're repeatedly hailed as one of the pioneers of crust punk. What crust punk bands would you recommend and why?
I don’t listen to a lot of it these days, but I see a lot live or record them. Off the top of my head and probably not all classed as “crust punk”: Black Code, Putrefaction, Burning Flag, Distress, Infernöh, Napalm Raid, Morne, etc.
Organised religion crops up again and again on the album. can you tell us where your dislike of it originated?
Probably from my childhood. I wasn't brought up with religion much, but had to have it forced down my neck all the time. Praying first thing in the morning at primary school before lessons in assembly, or being forced to go to Sunday church service when I was at Cubs, or I'd get into trouble, or being forced to pray at "Modelling Club" - making Airfix models, not on the catwalk! - before I could start modelling. Little things that have always stayed with me. I don't trust anyone who believes these stupid infantile stories - it's pathetic and very worrying. These fucking idiots are prepared to die/kill themselves for this stupid shit. It is also just a crutch, as people are afraid of death. It's a way to control people based on fear and sexist, twisted morality. Whether it is moderate or fundamental religion is bullshit. In fact, moderate religion is actually worse than fundamental religion as it perpetuates these lies. At least these fundamentalists are staying true to the "Word of God". Moderates just make it up as they go along, constantly re-inventing and watering down this shit to make it more acceptable as society changes. Fucking hypocrites. Religion is holding back the natural evolution of the human race. We'd probably be travelling the solar system at 10 times the speed of light free from stupid wars and famine if it wasn't for these fuckers. Anyone with any intelligence should have grown out of it at the age of six. Everything written in the Bible or Koran was written by ignorant men who still thought the world was flat!
The Vatican protects the paedophile priests
Immune from prosecution
The perverts hide behind the grand facade
Of respectable institution
They pray on their knees for divine forgiveness
Prey upon a frightened child
Abuse of position, of power & privilege
The fascist pontiff smiles
- Doom, "Prey For Our Souls"
Who is the speaker sampled on the final track, "Cults of Human Sacrifice" and why did you choose him?
Sam Harris. He is an American Anti-Theist who I have a lot of respect for. I’m in the middle of reading his book The End of Faith - VERY inspiring and powerful. I’ve listened to a lot of his debates with Theists and he fucking destroys them every time with evidence, logic and reason.
What do you make of the media's fawning over the new Pope?
I ignored it. Another fucking gangster.
Your song "Prey for our souls" - pronounced "pray for arseholes" addresses abuse in organised religion. In that context, what did you think of the Pope's comments the other day that the internet was "a gift from God" - especially as it came the day after he tweeted support for an anti-abortion rally?
A "Gift from God"? How patronising and condescending to the people who actually thought of the internet and did all the hard work! Anti-abortion and anti-contraception. Arseholes who are just afraid of sex - unless it's with little boys and girls.
Check out these:
www.doomcrustpunk.com
www.ukdoom.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/doomcrustpunk
https://libcom.org
https://antifascistnetwork.wordpress.com
http://www.samharris.org
Of course, all of these internet sites wouldn’t exist without god.
You're coming to play Australia next month. What are your impressions of the country and its politics?
I've been twice to Oz on holiday and loved it - apart from the spiders. I found most people really laid back. However, it was quite hard to experience the Aboriginal/Indigenous people that I met, who were chronic alcoholics, and the things I learned at their cultural centres I visited. Not a pleasant history - like many places across the world. I have also recently read about your Prime Minister's plans to dump silt on the Great Barrier Reef and to de-classify Tasmania’s forests as world heritage sites so they start logging again. He sounds like a bit of cunt.
Listen to and buy Doom's new album here.