(From the NME, UK weekly, 3 April 1982.)

Jaz Speaks:  "Sod Off!"

 Jaz Coleman, the singer who walked out on Killing Joke, is still refusing to explain why he left the band in the lurch.  And when NME contacted him in his Icelandic hideout last weekend, his response was a curt "fuck off."

Asked why he had left Killing Joke and gone to Iceland, Jaz's only comment was: "You can wonder all you like.  I hate NME. You'll see what's gonna happen.  Just fuck off, right."

Three weeks ago, Jaz 'vanished' after a gig in Brighton, leaving no clue as to his future whereabouts, then resurfaced last week in Reykjavik, staying with local band Theyr (or Peyr, depending on your translation), a group who share Jaz's interest in the occult.

Theyr manager Gudni Agnarsson told NME that Jaz had not joined the band but was helping them with a recording project called "Iceland," and that a gig together in Reykjavik was tentatively planned for April 12.

Jaz, said Agnarsson, met the band when he first went to Iceland a year ago, "and he told me then he knew we would work together soon". He added that the band had known Jaz was returning to Iceland "two or three weeks beforehand".

Theyr are not your typical rock band.  According to Agnarsson, they are part of a large group of people "building our own community, beyond the system that is forced upon you from birth to death."  As well as experimenting with electro-magnetic waves to "create an atmosphere of harmony in concerts and living rooms", the band have begun to build a studio just outside Reykjavik that is designed to operate underwater.

"We just know there will be disasters from both natural catastrophes and human acts," explained Agnarsson, "so we want it to withstand the Last Wave. After that, we know a New Age is coming.

"Jaz had his reasons for coming.  I can't tell you now, but I think he will reveal them in time."

This is not an April Fools gag.

--Njal Saga