COIL – Interview from 1986 plus Introduction

“Jhonn Balance (aka John Balance and Geff Rushton) died at home on November 13 in a fall, leaving the music world and the wider world of magick without one of its most gifted and vivid voices.”

The news was shocking to many people interested in “industrial” and “experimental” music. Personally I was surprised at John Balance’s (as I knew him) relatively young age – 42. Not because it is such an unusual fact dying from an accident at that age – for accidents any age will do. But my mind would zoom back to late 1986 when I was exchanging letters with him for the purpose of an interview I was conducting for a zine I was doing at the time. This was a time before the internet and emails – it was hand-written pages that were sent back and forth. I was 20 then but a large gap seemingly separated me from the somewhat admired 24 year old.

I had come to music relatively late and had entered a rapid development in my late teens. The Coil album “Scatology” was a very special discovery for me: With a black and white cover filled with text and literary references it caught my attention by chance in a local record store, and when I listened to it I was blown away. Co-produced by Clint Ruin a.k.a. Jim Foetus, the sound is still astonishing now, a tough to-the-point production. This was a debut album by a then new formation, but of course the story didn’t start there.

Peter Christopherson had been a member of Throbbing Gristle, one of the most important music groups of the 1970’s. Throbbing Gristle pioneered, defined and embodied the concept of “Industrial Music” probably like no one else. Simon Ford has charted this history in his book that was reviewed by Stewart Home in Datacide . With four “official” albums in four years they created an extremely influential body of work with a band that consisted of four highly creative members. When TG broke up everybody continued in one way or another. Chris Carter and Cosey Fanny Tutti formed “Chris & Cosey” crafting their brand of industrial ambient and techno pop, while Christopherson and Genesis P.-Orridge formed Psychic TV.

If Throbbing Gristle was “more than just a band” in the sense of trying to explore subject matters that lay beyond the normal range of rock, pop and even punk, then Psychic TV went one step further by actually fashioning a cult. One can see this in different ways, it remains important that in this period people tried to transcend the limits set by the parameters of being a “rock band” etc., not just in the case of Psychic TV. Nevertheless they went further than most by founding the “Temple of Psychick Youth” (also known as T.O.P.Y.). They even managed to blag a major label deal for their first two albums “Force the Hand of Chance” and “Dreams Less Sweet”, while producing an extremely prolific output on their own “Temple Records”.

Geoff Rushton seems to have come out of this scene as have a few other musicians, such as David Tibet of Current 93. Both were involved with the excellent second album. Rushton soon called himself John Balance and started a solo project called Coil. First recordings date from 1982 and partly feature on a cassette tape release on the Austrian label Necrophile Records (a split tape with Zos Kia, titled “Transparent” which has been re-released on CD recently).

Christopherson soon left the increasingly P-Orridge-centered PTV and joined forces with his younger lover, becoming a part of Coil. The masterpiece “Scatology” – with the collaboration of Jim Foetus and Gavin Friday of the Virgin Prunes came out in 1984, along with the accompanying 12” with the cover version of “Tainted Love” and the extended mix of “Panic”.

This is roughly the time the interview was conducted: Obviously Coil already recorded their next album “Horse Rotorvator” and the 12” “The Anal Staircase”, which at the time of the interview I had heard, but not the album, which proved another very accomplished work, in terms of content very much in tune with what Balance says in the interview.

In view of passed time the interview seems to cover just an early section of Coils career. However to me it seems to sit right in the centre of their activities and existence. The third album “Love’s Secret Domain” seems to close a trilogy of extremely strong albums that will remain worth seeking out for a long time. “L.S.D.” was a more psychedelic album that picked up some influences from the new acid house sound.

Balance was involved with productions of Death In June and Current 93 around that time (of the interview and shortly after), two involvements that would deserve some attention. Death In June already were the subject of an article in datacide 7, but it’s worth pointing out that their album The Brown Book came out in the year after the publication of the interview. DIJ in particular made a rather strange political career, from their beginning as the left wing punk band Crisis to a cult band of the New Right in recent years.

With hindsight one will see this as a more or less coherent development from their first records, but I would still insist that their output in the 80’s had something much more ambivalent, investigative and anarchic about it. As Stewart’s article shows however this is a scene that made it possible that a supposedly subversive use of “fascism” and an anarchist attitude could age into a very ordinary and embarrassing right wing attitude. Death In June don’t stand alone in this, another example is Boyd Rice/Non, who is also mentioned in the interview, who has subsequently joined the Church of Satan and is a self-declared social darwinist. These people have of course been the spearhead of a far right “industrial” scene, where a clear shift from the investigative to the affirmative from a more anarchic to a totalitarian point of view has taken place in the 90s.

Current 93 has taken another development – from the early material which was primarily influenced by Aleister Crowley to a “neo-folk” style that provided the backdrop to David Tibet’s esoteric ramblings about Noddy. Recently he seems to have found Christ – and lost himself, disowning his former “incarnation” and calling himself David Michael now. Bizarrely he announced that he was organising a Catholic Mass for Jhonn Balance (which may well make him turn in his grave).

Thankfully, despite collaborating with both DIJ and C93, John Balance managed to avoid the ridiculous and dodgy sides of their developments, and Coil for a while resurfaced in the 90’s under the pseudonym Elph with ambient music. As far as I can judge there was never a follow up to the early three albums, not really anyway. For a while Coil releases were few and far between, before they picked up pace again in the last few years. Among them are a number of retrospective compilations as well as newer material.

Even more amazing is that the last few years saw a number of live appearances of Coil which also have been documented on a series of CD’s. The reason for this, apparently, is that Balance was a heavy alcoholic and managed to stop drinking for a while, which made it possible for the first time to go on tour. Sadly only for a while – it was under the influence of alcohol that he fell to his death.

cf: When SCATOLOGY came out, and I heard it for the first time, I thought, wow, that’s it, and though I like the other stuff you did, SCATOLOGY is COIL to me. How do you see the record now, in comparison with other releases?

john balance: We always treat albums as perhaps the most important output in COILs releases. In that we take a long time and infinite care to get the finished record exactly how we want it to be. So it “resonates” for us. It has to vibrate – between the ideas we are exploring in the lyrics and the overall concept and the musical style and content. We will admit that with records, i.e. tracks we give to compilation albums – that we do take risks and as a result these tracks become secondary in overall importance to LP tracks or the choice of the 12” single or whatever. We are very deliberate in our plan of releases – and are getting much more determined to not release items which are perhaps merely a ‘filler’ – to keep somebody happy with a COIL track.

We have done that in the past. But no more!!! Never again. From now on it will be very hard to persuade COIL to be part of someone else’s conceptual LP type project. Because it spreads the COIL impact much thinner. It dilutes it. People argue by saying “But don’t you want the exposure – just think of all these people who will buy this good value compilation album and you will get heard by so many people.” But I don’t want to be heard amongst a lot of other groups – no matter who – because it is like a market place and you fight for attention.

We now want to concentrate on a detailed and linked series of singles, e.p.’s, albums, special packages that we can strengthen the vision we have of COIL ourselves, and ideally transmit this potency – this solidity to people who come across us, we want, for the most part – there are a few exceptions – to be isolated.

Bring in the Age of Isolation – Reduction – Decimation – Retreat – Conference and … Direct SadoSurrealist Attack – Straight for the pineal g1and! Psychosurgery again ! To touch on an old subject ! We have spent 3 years getting the name about and being generous when it hasn’t really advanced ourselves – now we knew that partly at the time – like a swimmer we were treading water – watching and waiting. And now we’re diving for the pearls we’ve seen. Maybe we’re out to drown a few of the groups/people we saw around us during that time. —-Yes, I still like SCATOLOGY. But I’m always a record ahead of the one we’ve just recorded. So I let other people discover it. Maybe in 5 years time I myself wi11 rediscover SCATOLOGY!

cf: You contributed to samplers like A DIAMOND HIDDEN IN THE MOUTH OF A CORPSE. Was it because you thought, your music would fit into a record like that or merely due to Burroughs? In what sense are you influenced by Burroughs or the Burroughsian universe?

john balance: We’ve been in touch with Burroughs and his secretary James Grauerholz for a long time — the same with John Giorno and – until his recent death – Brion Gysin also. It’s nice to realise you are perhaps in some ways continuing researchs – avenues of thought,action and example, these ‘pioneers’ in a sense have established. Regardless of public images and Beat-poet status – all are/were very ‘wise men’ – and I’m only young and I realise I can learn so much from such people. I hope that doesn’t make them sound like ancient grandfathers figures – no! Because they have occasional unnatural energies. We do owe so much to these guys! Basically I am inspired by them – and like them as human beings.

A DIAMOND…: We sent John Giorno SCATOLOGY and he 1iked it so much he asked us to do a track for this new compilation – which actually was already completed – but we rushed into the studio and did it and he squeezed COIL on…I like Neither His Nor Yours a lot – it’s one of my favorite non-LP COIL tracks. I liked the idea of sharing with HüSKER Dü and a few of the other contributors – Diamanda Galas etc. We know – vaguely – most people associated on that album. We did a track we instinctively thought would fit on to the record. A lot of people on the John Giorno Poetry Systems Label have very recently decided to donate the royalties we would normally recieve to New York based AIDS-related research organisations! i.e. Society For Tibetan Medicines.

Groups who are rigourously searching to break through the unsuspected barriers and boundaries in this time of modern plague – Ancient Tibetan texts predict such plagues, that come every so often over the ages, and also have methods for dispersing and neutralising them. We have to explore these ideas. Everything comes in cycles — years of massive repeating wheels – the aeons are changing. This is the Kali Yurgat, the Age of Iron—the dawn of the age of Thelema of Horus – and with the change is bound to come disturbances of the Land – the mind – the collective & the individual – the soul – the imagination. COIL believe you have, in some respects, to aggrevate these symptoms to get the process over with quicker – like getting pus from a boil by pricking it!

Burroughs has a gift of genius organisation.He is one of these people who can scientifically observe madness, delirium, decay of the body and soul – see things most people never can or dare, and even more incredibly he can ‘report’.He is like a Reuters agent reporting from the hinterland of modern society…he makes his reports even more potent, poisonous, because he has also seen, lived among the less developed peoples. I’m not sure which I mean by ‘less developed’ – USA today or South or Central American 20 years ago.It depends what sort of development we might pick on. Burroughs is a ‘Brujo’ – a shaman in literary clothing – Gysin could paint innerspace,and even trigger off journies with his pictures – he fashioned “gateways” – he could paint psychic roadmaps!! Giorno is the stable centre of New York. He is a stable blackness – Zen Anarchist vortex – there’s notenuf space here to say things well…

cf : How important is the work you do or did oudside of COIL ? I mean Peters work with THROBBING GRISTLE, early PSYCHIC TV, or your collaboration with David Tibet’s CURRENT 93 ?

john balance: Well, Peter does videowork – popvideos and adverts – He directs them. Such ones as Nick Kershaw, Marc Almond, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page etc.etc. and the money he makes allows COIL a certain independance from the usual group problems with money.

THROBBING GRISTLE of course was very important – because it was a stage Peter took – lived to reach where he is now. I think he’d say COIL is more important because it is now,as I said before. You are always thinking of the next project to keep things interesting for yourselves. There is always a strange gap in time between the group and their listening audience. So early PTV was valuable to do.

We left when we felt things in the PTV setup were not as valuable, as essential as to make staying a reasonable thing to do. With 5 or six people in PTV at that time – who all had extremely strong individual ideas and strong wills – it is really inevitable that even small disagreements, especially in regard to group directs, ideals etc, would be very important, we spent days and absolutely days working to get to the first booklet the Temple of Psychick Youth released – exactly as we all collectively felt would be useful.

Now — we have left. COIL is the most important to me, especially because it’s more a vehicle for my personal ideas – through the lyrics and the ideas I put into songs – but Sleazy contributes so much in this respect too. As we live together, we know exactly what to do as COIL – it just happens.If we disagree then it never reaches the public. We cannot afford to dilute our ideas; we do everything we want. we record the music we would like to hear as far as you possibly can do that. When we work on a song we don’t think about – should we make it more so and so to try and please any particular type of person. Sometimes we play around with peoples expectations, I think, but to remain pure we indulge ourselves at the beginning. It’s the only way.

CURRENT 93 is essentially David Tibet 93’s group. When I work on stuff with him, I add my own ideas, but Tibet has the last,final – overall say; and I like to work like that sometimes as with COIL I feel so much responsibility at every stage , from soundsamples byse to the lettering on an album innersleeve or whatever. CURRENT 93 is essentially Tibets mind – in action – manifesting its dark and intricate interior outwards onto the European cultural arena.

COIL is my vehicle for my perverted little nightmares which for some unexplained reason I feel I have to share with everyone I can get to listen. COIL is perhaps a more stable group. Now there are 3 of us.Me, Sleazy and Steve Wyndham (Thrower), who was a temporary member for SCATOLOGY but who has now joined properly. Not that we sign papers or anything. But we all feel more of a solid entity to confront people with.With common aims and ideals.

I like to collaborate with others i.e. Boyd Rice was great to work with on NIGHTMARE CULTURE. We like to introduce a few selected people because it makes for interest while you can actually record – and you get fresh viewpoints – a new colour scheme in the usual permutations!!

cf: Do you see yourself rather as a ‚pop-band’ or as a unit of people working with the magickal powers of music ?
HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS is called ritual music with which you create a relationship between you and the listener leaving it up to him what his ritual behaviour will be while listening.
Except the fact, that the approach is very different, would you totally reject a comparison with e.g. 50’s Rock’n’Roll used as ‘sex music’? How important is sexuality to you/to COIL ?

john balance: Sexuality is of deep value importance + significance because sex controls every aspect ofeveryone in some way. It’s the key to ‘work’ other people. You notice how much easier it is to get a job done for you if you know someone likes the look of [unreadable] . Sex may not be involved – on a day to day level. But’attraction’ is usuable.As is the fear-guilt-pain-pleasure-reward-aspects that it introduces. So yes – we’re interested in exploring and documenting these things. It doesn’t necessarily mean we fuck everyone who turns up on our doorstep – we gave that up about 4 years ago—

I think as you suggest some Rock’n’Roll music can be very sexual. But apart from a few obvious drum tempos = heartbeat pulserate type physical reactions that are almost universal in their application – that the real sex – the ‘magick’ lies in a more subtle and variable element in things. Maybe childhood memories play a big part – or associations with early adolescence when sex is so much more magnified as an awareness. Who can really say – it’s so subjective. I think we believe in generating creative pleasure – Ecstasy.

Yes we are latter day worships of PAN and DIONYSIS – But we are also well aware of overindulging any particular aspect of the universal God within. Each god to us represents a certain area in the psychological/neurological makeup of a person. And like muscles you have to exercise – feed these areas equally or you become unbalanced. In magick – in Quabalah Balance/Equilibrum is always vital!

With HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS we wanted to do a ritual record for ourselves…really we did a ritual and recorded it! It had many specific details about it that perhaps only we ourselves will ever know – we added many hidden ingredients to strengthen the basic idea – the framework on which we draped the actual sound sources – which in one way – one secondary to the original idea,we are very pleased if people want to follow our suggestions – as use the record to accompany any ‘ritual’ activity they want – but that might be a fuck – or having a bath – or writing a diary!

As long as we made the point that the record had a function, that it was a tool, and was not merely a decoration – a decorative noise to hang around the room like tinsel paper.If it did something ‘special’ as well then that is even better. We are recording a follow-up record, another ritual mini-LP. But we are still working out details etc. It always starts slowly and the bit by bit – the I-ching tells us things – directions as do my dreams – modern technology – etc. It a11 goes into a COIL record esp. a longer conceptual piece like that. But our instinct, our intuition always rules us because we believe we can trust it.We have trained it!!!

cf: THE POPE HELD UPSIDE DOWN refers to ideas of inspiration mentioned by Leonardo and later the surrealists. In the second Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton speaks of a generation of young artists who’d come some day to fulfill the surrealist revolution. Do you see yourself in this tradition – from the Marquis de Sade, Lautréamont to Breton and/or Artaud ?

john balance: Well. I am always very wary of dracketing myself along side certain people who I might admire. I almost believe I should earn,work at provoking people to make these comparisons naturally. But I do feel certain affinities with some of these people. de Sade? In a manner I like the systematic exploration of boundaries of human experience.He tried to find limits – he is like an explorer of morality – as if morality was a new continent! But he bores me in great doses. I hate Andre Breton – like a schoolmaster to keep all the surrealists in order. A dreadful entity.

I love Salvador Dali – because he is a complete bastard – and a catalyst. He is turmoil incarnated on earth! grat god chaos mixed with Leonardo. He is contradiction – and access and I like these opposites – these people who live like a forest fire! devouring and consuming.

I like René Crevel, surrealist poet who committed suicide. I like Yves Tanguy as a painter,as well as Roberto Matta (a bit) – Jean Benoit –

Lautréamonts: MALDOROR is the following chapter to Revelations, written by the same evil angel a few centuries apart—Artaud I respect because of his fury, his articulate disgust and exposure of the ultimate human condition. I like Tex Avery,the cartoonist,pure surrealism – Huysmans – Alfred Jarry,because I can still feel the whiplash of his destructive black energies even over the years. Phillip Lamantia, a poet, one of our new songs BLOOD FROM THE AIR is one of his titles and it’s partly inspired by that phrase alone :

nine knives of ice – draw blood from the air-

he hears nightcalling, and has dreams of waking, here in this darkness

that burns like slow lightening – he sees words burnt in the ice

and reads:” the world is a wound in the body of Christ.”

also a modern/contemporary surrealist called Dado, aiso a photographer called Joel Peter Witkin who does astounding photos.We wanted to work with him on an LP cover but he’s such a reclusive he didn’t agree.We have a couple of his pictures though.One he has done we want to do a track called THE TORTURES OF THE POPE IN EXILE – I wanted to do an album called that! So beautiful!

I think in many respects we do follow in the surrealist tradition – but which one – because they never really had agreement. I feel generally we explore the unconcious – we push limits in some respects – we want to reveal the human psyche to learn – to amuse – to frighten. We want to provoke a sensory delirium in people…but complete attack won’t occur until we play live… I personally am always searching for my limits – I always want to push things to the edge, I like extremes – I despise deliberate mediocrity, to always take the soft options. I need to be continually provoked – amazed – amused — and I,perhaps wrongly, assume that other people want the same – even if they don’t acknowledge it at at first. Ignorance is such a security to people,but it is a falsehood and a lie!!!

cf: In the industrial scene there was always a special interest in movements of the 20th century who tried to establish myths or societies to destroy the domination of Christianity – like anarchism, but also fascism and bolshevism. Some new bands use images of such movements (e.g.DEATH IN JUNE, TEST DEPT., FOETUS) – what do wou think about that?

john balance: Er…I think I know what you mean. Foetus, I think, tackles these issues on a very personal, human level – sex – He aims first for the groin but the message does eventually reach the brains – of those who have functioning ones. Test Dept.: I admire their power,the workunit,but to me it seems a terrible energy waste like a powerdrill roadmaster out of control, with no surface to attack. They put me off with assuming the role of the “common man”. I’d like to think of them as more anarchist – with no respect for any ideology.
I think of COIL in that respect, but we don’t actively demonstrate it – whereas Jim Foetus lives it nowadays. But to be outwardly so ‚I’ll rip off your face’ attitude takes a strong constitution inside – Jim is pretty moralistic – after all he appears to me to be the living ultimate 2OOO AD hero antihero stance…I love it…THAT’S surrealism – maybe more actual Zurich DADA perhaps! Spitting at priests in photographs etc.
Death in June – I know Doug of course and he always comes across as a very idealistic, almost romanticist type person. I don’t know what other people see in these groups – how they relate I mean. I know them as people and so for me it is naturally different.
I feel an affinity with Jim Foetus yes, because he generates fear and loathing and attempts to convert it into energy – It’s a very difficult and possibly destructive way of creating.But I use his energy when he’s around, so I don’t complain.

—with regard to Xanity: I despise it – because it’s like a whole coat of dead clinging skin. Like the whole of society is trapped inside the body of a dead man, a rotting corpse, and cannot get out to breathe…it’s this changeover period again. Rats are always the most dangerous when you corner them. So are the christian organs getting very vicious! How 2000 of docile acceptance ever ever ever came about I cannot comprehend. It makes me despair for the Human Being/Makeup — Are humans genetically submissive?! It’s a horrible genetic trick to ensure survival of the species or something.

People should grab at any, at all responsibility… How many times do people need telling, need waking up from this deep sleep? I wonder is it really worth it! But then it gives me something to do — I can annoy society – on however large or small a scale…In this sense I think we are following on in the surrealist traditions ——

cf: In fact I don’t really like questions as the following in interviews. Which bands do you like? What kind of art, literature, films? etc. I ask them anyway –

john balance: What Bands—Peter doesn’t listen to much, he listens to what I play loud enough. I like BUTTHOLE SURFERS – some classical stuff like Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Carmina Burana… it very much depends on my mood.I do like stuff like Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins,Scott Walker,Leonard Cohen; sort of metaphysical folksongs full of death, bad love and floods! I have really gone off so much music! I feel FOETUS is probably driving a few nails into the foreheads of
deserving youths—I like a mixture of delirious overflowing ecstasy mingling with menstrual blood and mud from tiny childrens gravesides.. misery and bliss combined — and not too many people can provide that anymore!

ART — see surrealists list, also Clemente,modern artiste,who I really like sometimes against better judgement. I like Gunter Brus who used to be in Hermann Nitsches omtheatre setup Vienna-Aktion-group. He does weird twisted but very beautiful nursery type drawings, delicate crayons etc.
Also I like Dali…a fantastic religious english landscape painter:John Martin.FILMS we do watch quite a bit – Roeg, Fe11ini – ultraviolent gore horror – Russ Meyer, John Waters — quite a lot of films can impress me actually_”Terminator”,”Salo”(Paso1ini),”The Crystal Cage” a recent Spanish film about a nazi perverts past being relived in front of him by a beautiful and insane Spanish youth — it was such a dilemma,a problem to watch that film because you morally agreed with both sides of the idea of Evil – it was very excellent.

I like Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, a London based occult artist, who often drew spirits and demons he conjured up. I like Clark Ashton Smith a contemporary of H.P.Lovecraft, who wrote astonishingly visionary stories. His imagination is so well developed, vivid so strong it can make me unsteady, unsure of reality for days, after reading some things. I respect many of my friends, but I don’t feel I want to name them – people we work with etc. we don’t as a rule like things or people until they prove some good points—because in London you get crushed by the amount of CRAP that exists.You have to barricade yourself away from all these negative vibes—- so consequently we don’t have many friends by choice,and we like it that way.

I hate smalltalk! I like 3-D comics,films that gross me out — I want to see FROM BEYOND so badly, the followup to HERBERT WEST-REANIMATOR also I may go to the USA to see TEXAS CHAINSAW II as it will never get shown in the U.K.! Basically we as COIL are pretty average people. Steve Wyndham watches heavy horrorfilms all the time, or used to when you could get them.He likes THE FALL, BUTTHOLE SURFERS, THIS HEAT, CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, a group called THE SPACEMEN 3 who I’ve never heard on record yet! Sleazy likes the bit in DUNE,when the spotty evil captain pulls the boys heartplug out and he dies as the man floats to the ceiling laughing!

cf: Do you suffer that we’re living in a decade where people rather listen to stupid and boring shit than to musik that forces them really to listen and to act.—Would you make a ‘disco record’ to enlarge your audience?

john balance: Yes we would, but only if we had something waiting for them once we had managed to draw their attention!
But we don’t feel the urge at present – THE ANAL STAIRCASE 12”remix is a quite heavy discotype style.-It is a little too violent for most ‘disco-ears’—people expect the same “vocabulary” of modern sounds before they can relate to a song. Retarded dancers — autistic disco.

cf: What do you think about live-performances ?
Do you work with video or film ?

john balance: I like a few people when I see them live. But until COIL can do it well – in the way we would ideally like – in the place we’d like – for the money we’d like, we won’t do it. Yet anyway! —-We do films all the time! for other people. We’re working on a horrorfilm Soundtrack for next year release called HELLRAISER – we cannot get good finance to do a decent film for COIL – yet!

We did a video for THE WHEEL and also for TAINTED LOVE the last one cost £8,000 – and because we know people in the business and everyone did it for nothing, we got a video for £8.000 which would have cost £40.000 or so. The TAINTED LOVE video is on display permanently in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art – which we’re proud of!

We want to do a video called LIVE AT THE BAR MALDOROR and loosely do live stuff but in a way that will twist the viewers brain inside out;
Sadosurrealist beauty and Purification—Pure Anxiety and naked shivering Fear…and Fire and Petals and Raw Flesh and gilded Sickness… but we have no money at present time so…..No Raw Flesh etc.

cf: In some of your tracks e.g. IN THE HEART OF IT ALL there’s a lot of beauty. It is still possible to see and create beautiful things.What role does beauty play in your work and to what degree is it linked with sex/love/death/pain/spunk/blood/shit etc….

john balance: I think that there are points when sex-death-pain-pleasure- beauty and horror are the same,we have a song-as yet unreleased – called PARADISIAC,about that ecstasy that can so often turn to sickness.These borderline areas interest me. Crossing over borders- threshholds – Gates of Experience —-we have dealt with these things so much more on the new album HORSE ROTORVATOR with lyrics like ‘sledgehammer crashes as the killerboy kisses – heavy calm blood on the doctors hands’

+ ‘Kiss to kill – the giver kills receiver’
+’ ‘You get eaten alive by the perfect lover’ etc.

pleasure/pain is one

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