Very few words are needed to introduce Napalm Death, but here it goes:

The extreme metal band from Birmingham first formed in 1981 and established their distinguishable sound of rapid-fire riffery mixed with aggressive vocals, short, shotgun songs, and an overall ethos of soul at the core of each and every melody.

Today, none of the founding members are present within the Napalm fold, but the “newest” guy in the band, drummer Danny Herrera, has been involved for more than 25 years. The result is a unique musical chemistry and a collection of shared experience from which to draw and grow from.

Somewhere along a Mississippi highway, vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway moves to the back of the tour bus in search of clearer reception.

“We’ve got a day off today,” he pipes with a quiet British accent, the complete opposite of what one gets when tuning into the quartet’s latest album, “Time Waits For No Slave” [Century Media, 2009].

“Well, it’s not really a day off: it’s a drive day,” he admits. “We’re heading to Austin, Texas. We just left North Carolina and it’s a 1,300 mile drive, so our day off is kind of limited under these conditions.”

That’s a lot of mileage between shows, but Barney, who joined Napalm Death in 1989, is used to it and knows how to pack.

“Books. All the real basic stimuli,” he offers. “And then get out and about, breathe in some fresh air, and that’s about it. I’m a very simple person. I like to keep things simple.”

How will you get pumped for the show once you reach Austin?

I don’t prep much at all, actually. I don’t do vocal warm-ups. The only thing I’ll do is stretch sometimes, because I’ve had some problems before with knees and stuff like that – because I jump around like an idiot – but that’s about the extent of it. I like the feeling of flicking on the switch and just going for it.

How do you get your mind ready after all those hours on the road?

Once the gig time comes around, I’m ready to go. I mean, the kids are in there; all these people are there to see the band. It’s always been an automatic for me. And I either do things, or I don’t do them at all. I don’t half do things. I’ve just always had a passion for a really, really forthright delivery. It’s either 100 per cent or nothing.

How did you first get started as a vocalist?

I started up playing in bands on weekends when I was really young – at 18 or 19 – and, just like everyone else, just practicing with friends. I didn’t do a great deal, I just did a couple of things here and there; and then, because of knowing people and Napalm friends, eventually I had the opportunity to join.

And what is your favourite thing about being a vocalist?

The look on people’s faces, especially those who haven’t heard the band before, because they can’t believe that that could come out of someone’s mouth. The kids that know the band know what they’re gonna get [sound wise], but most people – when they see you screaming and your eyes are bulging out of their sockets – that kind of freaks some people out, and I always get a kick out of that. It’s kind of a perverse amusement.

What was your mum’s reaction the first time she saw your eyes popping out of their sockets?

She wasn’t too fazed, because I grew up on heavy, uncompromising, nasty music.

How supportive was she when you were first started to pursue music as a career?

At first she was just more concerned that she didn’t know what the band was, and she was worried that I might be starving to death because there was no money coming in; but, in terms of the actual band itself, she was all for it once she could see that it was keeping me busy.

You have been busy – in Napalm Death and as a guest vocalist in a number of other projects, as well.

If anyone gets in touch with me and asks if I can do something, if I’ve got the time, I’ll do it.

How do you keep rehearsals and writing balanced, especially when you add touring with Napalm Death into the mix?

With the guest vocals, it’s not usually too much of a process. I probably need a day or so to learn someone’s track, and then I just go in and do it. It’s very spontaneous. Spontaneity is the big key in music for me. I’m very turned off by stuff that’s very metronomic or very planned and polished up.

What else you listen for in music?

I want music with soul. And any genre of music can have soul, it’s not just restricted to soul music. Soul can be as extreme as possible. It can be pure white noise. But, it should still have a soul if you want people to put your CD or your album on and to put it on again. It has to have that feeling, that special something – that’s what keeps me going.

How has the band’s sound changed the most over the years?

It’s been very small steps with Napalm. We’ve always been keen not to stagnate, but we also don’t want to lose the core of the sound that made the band special in the first place. It’s all small steps, but they’re all steps that are absolutely quite quirky or different, too, in the Napalm context. We just roll along and we do what feels right, what feels spontaneous. If it’s something’s quite different, we’ll roll with it, as long as it sounds good to us and it sounds good in the context of a song or an album. If people like it or they don’t like it, well, okay. We’ll listen to what people have to say, but at the end of the day it’s there, it’s going to stick.

We’re big fans of grindcore here in Alberta and you can hear its influence in a lot of the local bands around the province. Word on the street has it Napalm Death coined the term “grind.” Is that true?

Yeah, that’s true. Mickey Harris, the – he wasn’t the original drummer, he was the drummer out of Scotland – he came up with the term grindcore and it could apply to anything that was painfully slow, like bands like Swans, or something over-the-top fast. That’s how much of a wide parameter for him personally it was. And then the press picked up on it and people started using the term. It was an unheard of word back in the day, so I know for a fact it was Mickey that invented it.

I’ve always enjoyed that Napalm songs aren’t long and drawn out. They move in, move out, get to the point. They’re a little longer on “Time waits For No Slave.” Was this intentional?

I was a little bit worried at first. They’re mainly [guitarist] Mitch’s songs and I said, “Mitch, let’s not start writing five minute songs, because it’s just not Napalm, and I don’t want Napalm to lose the impact.” I think the short songs give us a great impact; but, in the end, these songs sounded fine. They don’t sound as if the drag on.

What goes into writing a Napalm Death song?

I don’t use any real type of process. It starts with music, lyrics on my computer, and then we just build it from there. Mitch usually writes some songs, [bassist] Shane [Embury] usually writes some songs, and then we just build them from there.

Which song off the new album was the most fun to write vocals for?

I think “Time Waits For No Slave” is a really good one, because it has lots of different moods in the song, and it’s got a lot of textures, vocally. It’s got that very “alternative” vocal thing that comes from bands like Swans, My Bloody Valentine, The Birthday Party – the “alternative” dimension to Napalm that people don’t often speak about, but that we’ve always had as a band.

Which were you most looking forward to performing live when you were first working on it?

I think that’s “Time Waits,” definitely. And there’s another one that we’re not playing called “Work To Rule.” I really enjoyed that one. I wanted to play that live. We did play it at the start, but the problem is that the set list is just getting out of control. It was too long. To be honest, you don’t want to watch a band like Napalm Death for an hour and a half. You’ve got to get it done in an hour, leave people with their teeth on the floor, and then leave. That’s the object of the exercise.

What would you say is the most bizarre or surreal show you’ve ever played?

The most surreal one never happened. We were meant to play in a bull ring somewhere in South America and, of course, the very notion of doing that really turned my stomach because I’m really opposed to bull fighting and any animal exploitation like that. But it didn’t happen, because the army came and shut the show down before it even started, so I was quite happy about that. I really didn’t want to be in a place like a bull ring. It was in the week of election and in their opinion – this was in Columbia – they didn’t want any of what they deemed to be “subversive activity” going on around the election, and they considered Napalm to be subversive.

I remember reading about – years ago – a show in the ’90s in Russia where a performance revue opened and they smashed cars with hammers and then set them on fire…

That’s slightly exaggerated. We went to the Soviet Union – we were one of the first bands to go there independently after the Soviet Union dissolved – so it was an interesting time. The kids were sort of energetic and, because they were kind of used to being under the fist of control, I don’t think the police or the army knew what was going on, and they started getting a bit heavy-handed. There wasn’t any car burnings or anything like that, it just got a bit crazy. But it wasn’t crazy from my perspective. I guess the authorities just weren’t too keen on kids self-expressing too much.

Mystery solved – now, crazy or not, you’ve performed uncountable live shows. Any pointers or tips you can give Alberta bands on how to survive the tour circuit or being in a band in general?

I would say, in general, always follow your heart. Musically, do what you want to do. Don’t let other people tell you what to do, because the minute you do that with your music, you’ll start to become bored and you most likely won’t be in the band that you liked in the first place. So always do what you want to do. And if someone offers you the world on a plate, they’re usually f**king bullshitting you, so be realistic about things. Go out there and do your very best, and if your band is good and exciting, then people will catch on. They will.