Godflesh's Breakup and Demise
“I’d been doing Godflesh for so long, but it was also stuff happening within the band,” he says, addressing Godflesh’s dissolution. “GC ‘Benny’ Green [bass] left the band after we recorded [2001’s] Hymns, two weeks before a two-month European tour with Fear Factory. I was in a complete and total dilemma, wondering if this is where we pack it in. Ted [Parsons, drums] was like ‘Fuck it, let’s get [Paul] Raven [Killing Joke, Prong] in.’ He learned the stuff quickly and came over at the drop of a hat. To be honest, I didn’t even have time to digest the fact that Benny had just walked out because, next thing you know, I was rehearsing with Ted and Raven and we stepped out on the tour. About a week into the tour I was like, ‘This is all wrong.’ Raven is a fantastic bass player, but it just wasn’t Benny, who I had been playing with for thirteen years and was a whole part of what Godflesh was. It really started to get me down, and I knew it was the fucking end.“I’m not the sort of person who can do anything I’m obliged to do,” he continues, “and during the European tour, a headlining tour of North America was being put together without my input and I felt things were out of my control. When the European tour finished, I felt really disoriented and disengaged from the whole experience. I told Ted and Raven and they were like, ‘The tour is on paper. If you want to do any soul-searching, we suggest you do it after the American tour.’ That didn’t make sense, and I literally didn’t get on the plane to leave for the tour. I couldn’t even get out of bed. It was like the Brian Wilson job. I was just paralyzed by the stress, anguish and the thinking that this was the end of something that’s been mine for thirteen or fourteen years. That was just the beginning of it, because I was made to pay for canceling the tour and was financially ruined for about a year. You’d be surprised what sort of shit you can get into by splitting up your own band.” [-- Justin Broadrick discovers Jesu and life after Godflesh Decibel March 2005]
The origin of the name and the last track on Godflesh's "Hymns"
Even during the recording of that last Godflesh album, I was already aware of Godflesh’s mortality. Though I enjoyed a good amount of the album, I still felt a bit restricted. I started doing a lot of stuff during the recording of that album where I really trying to get past the limitations of Godflesh, which was self-created. I had this fantasy during the making of the Godflesh album that I had this new band called Jesu. I was writing the song at the time and couldn’t come up with a title so I called that song “Jesu.” It’s weird the way things come around like that. A lot of times I use titles which I could be tempted to use as a band name. Jesu is just one of those loaded, ultra-powerful things, quite like Godflesh in terms of its somewhat ambiguous, but very powerful suggestion of something epic and absorbing and consuming. I couldn’t really resist having something with religious overtones again, because I’m always kind of obsessed with that sort of thing. [-- Magnet Magazine Interview]
The transition from Godflesh to Jesu
I felt like I'd become a bit of a caricature, to some extent. Godflesh was always perceived as this industrial, metal, grinding, brutal thing. I'd really gotten tired of it; I'd backed myself into a corner. In hindsight, Godflesh lasted a few years too long, anyway. For me, the challenge was saying goodbye and moving on. I knew I'd lose a load of fans, but I was also quite confident that I'd gain people from other areas who weren't so single-minded about what they listened to. Not that Godflesh fans were that way, particularly. Jesu is kind of single-minded in a way, too, but I'm trying to use melodies that I've derived from the pop music I've listened to all my life. I could never sufficiently get it through my music before; it was always dominated by the aggression factor. [-- The A.V. Club April 2007]
Music and creativity
There’s not much drive besides that sense of creativity. I’m so immersed in it, it’s really hard for me to articulate the necessity of me doing this. Outside of any form of so-called success for any music I create, I would still do it regardless. I definitely use music as a therapy. Playing it and making it I find therapeutic and I almost find a sort of spiritual escape in it. Everybody has their own gods and I think I use music in that way. When someone else’s music touches me that strongly, it feels like a god-like experience or as close as you can get. There are many things that can get close to it—sex, all the stuff that comes close to that spiritual mindset. I’m trying to create something where I give off that same feeling or set of emotions that feel almost divine. I think I’d be pretty fucked up without [music]. I’d probably be on the couch permanently. [-- Magnet Magazine Interview]
"Jesu" - first LP
I honestly expected this Jesu album to have a lot of problems. I made it without having any concept of [musical] scenes at all. I thought that when it came out, it would have met with a lot of derision; that it would be too indie for metal kids, and too metal for indie kids. [Maelstrom Issue no. 39, 2004]
