I think on face value you can look at it and [think] we might be sparking off on some fuckin' righteous trip or whatever, but it's not so much that, really, as a case of documentation of all the shit that we went through. I mean, I like to think - without trying to sound too cliched - that in a way it's a lesson for other people, to be honest: not to be sort of trapped into thinking that 'cause you've signed this deal suddenly everything's a better road. It wasn't just the record label, it was the whole situation we were surrounded by, y'know. I can point to a lot of things wrong with Earache, but it's not completely their blame. I mean, we used a lot of people around us who nearly suffocated the band and didn't really push the band or like the band for the right reasons, I don't think. And I think towards the end of the last album we were basically thrown into the studio so many times that as much as we had the enthusiasm for writing songs it was just not enough time to breathe and fuckin' sort of work out where you wanted to go. And of course we had loads of personal problems between us as well, which we managed to get through, but I think this record, for us, as a band, we're all pretty much on the same level with each other now - for the first time in a long time, probably. And it was a conscious decision for us to just go, "well fuck it, y'know, we just want this one to be a kick in the face", really. Obviously there's bits and pieces there that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for us experimenting, so to speak, but we went back to what we felt comfortable with. I mean, I myself, I've come full circle, in a way, after doing the Lock Up album with Nick from Dimmu and stuff like that. It just, it just... I don't know! I mean, I'm just sitting here now with my four track just churning out riffs and all of a sudden they're just coming to me, y'know. Which is good because that's kind of how I was around the '92, '93, '94 period.
Shane Embury / Napalm Death interview, Chronicles of Chaos, 2001
NAPALM DEATH released their ninth album, Enemy of the Music Business, on this day in 2000 through Spitfire Records.
I think the thing is, with the label, it's a fairly new one, which is good for us and the guy behind it; he used to run Music for Nations, so he knows what he's doing. But, at the same time, I think it's like a fresh start for him and a fresh start for us. Obviously with the title and all that: that really just represents a lot of the crap we had to deal with. It was a bit of a weird title to pick in some ways.
Shane Embury / Napalm Death interview, Chronicles of Chaos, 2001
...we're just sick and tired of some of the music scene. Whether we're old bastards I don't know. I sit there and think: am I getting this? And some new bands come along and I do think they're fuckin' good. It is a whole different scene. I am not trying for fuckin' people to be like "they're the mods, they're the fuckin' rockers", that kind of thing, y'know. I am not crying for that again, I just think that music's so intertwined with each other that people don't know where they're going or whatever the fuck. And I just think people are just... people don't search for music anymore, they are told what to buy. And obviously with marketing this record in magazines people are going to see Napalm and they might check it out because they think that's what they've got to get, y'know, but at the same time we just wanted a record that says "fuck all that shit, we are what we are and we're outside all that". We make no bones about it. Some of it we don't know where it comes from.
Shane Embury / Napalm Death interview, Chronicles of Chaos, 2001