Marshalling his mystic energies before warming up for a world tour, Coleman has found a "hidden history" in Prague.

Making a killing

Jaz Coleman sets out to save the world

By Jonny Tennant
For The Prague Post
(July 31, 2003)


Somewhere not too far away from Prague, beside a green forest, sits the enigmatic, cheerful Jaz Coleman, sporting a black felt hat and a very rock-star English accent. He's in an expansive mode, eager to recount the history of his band Killing Joke.

It's a story of fate. The young Coleman's parents were away on holiday in 1978 when he suddenly felt that something was going to happen. He hitchhiked from Cheltenham to London on a Friday, hitched back the next day, picked up his stuff and by Sunday night had moved into an apartment with a beautiful piano for only seven pounds (now $11/308 Kc) a month.
 

On Monday morning Coleman met an Indian man named Carlos in the welfare line and told the man he intended to start a band. Carlos replied, "I know and I'm going to introduce you to the drummer." He did so that day, in the form of Big Paul Ferguson.

"I was in awe of complete recognition," says Coleman. "I had never heard him play, but it was obvious we'd begun. As I've got Eastern blood in me, the ideas of reincarnation are very dear to me and I accept them fully."

The rest of the band came together in similar fashion: "Paul and I both had an interest in the mystery tradition. So we decided to focus our wills and our visualizations in a ritual which was held the 26th of February 1978 at three o'clock. And within two weeks of that we had Geordie [guitar] and Youth [bass]."

Youth has since been replaced by Paul Raven, and the band also has a different drummer these days: Ted Parsons, who was chosen by Dave Grohl. Grohl, the former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman, will tour with Killing Joke next year. He appears on the group's new, eponymously titled 11th album, a return to the band's hard-rock roots.

Coleman moved to New Zealand in 1992 as part of his spiritual quest, and the view from what he calls "an island at the end of the earth" continues to fuel and inform his music. "At the heart of Killing Joke is that farm," he says. "It's not enough to tour around the industrial centers of the world moaning about how bad things are without having some sort of blueprint of something that's better. At the end of the day, I believe very much in sustainable resources. The water wars and the resource wars are just beginning and [governments] are not being frank with us about it. I think the world is dreadfully corrupt."

Among the current items on Coleman's always-packed list of things to do: conduct an Arabic orchestra, get the Doors to speak to one another again, and play onstage with his metal band. Through all of these occupations, his mystic journey continues.

"All terrestrial life is amplified in certain areas," he says. "Prague is one of those places, and hidden in the masonry, in the architecture of Prague, is the hidden history of mankind. That's another one of my great passions."

The Killing Joke gig at Akropolis is being billed as a celebration. If Coleman in person is any indication, it should also be a lot of fun.