Barney Greenway tells a good story about the first time Napalm Death played in South Africa. It was 1991, during the final days of Apartheid, and as part of the band’s trip – done with the blessing of the ANC (African National Congress) – the singer had been invited onto a national radio station for an interview, in which he discussed a lot of what he calls “the ideas” of his group: anti-racism, anti-xenophobia, equality, anti-homophobia. Part of said radio programme included a phone-in segment. It was not liquid radio. “I felt sorry for the guy doing the manual bleeping!” he laughs now. “There were people phoning in while I was on, threatening me – ‘Oh, you fucking n-lover, you step outside that studio you’d best fucking watch it.’ It was fucking brutal. At the time I was a bit naïve...
