What about something like your really minimal work under the Final moniker?

Justin: You actually know about that stuff?

Yeah.

Justin: Oh. [Laughs] I'm always surprised when someone knows about that stuff. Final is, for me, just as emotional as Godflesh, but obviously stripped of virtually everything. It's just trying to get down to the sounds you hear everywhere. It's the soundtrack to existence, basically -- the silences and the spaces between things. That's almost what I'm searching for there: super minimal, super self-exploratory. It's very personal, but also mood music, you know? It's music that can be applied to situations or certain moods.

This is why I make so much music, so much different stuff. It reflects my listening tastes, really. The way I use music for different moods myself is how I sort of make music. I want to hear things that fit my moods. Everything I do has that function. Music for me is very functional as well as being very spiritual and ritualistic. It's the only sort of magical process that I can use. I'm an intensely ritualized person anyway. Everything for me is about ritual. Music has to have the same sort of function.

Do you think the kids are missing that sort of element in their lives?

Justin: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think people generally do anyway. Or, if they do search for it or find it, they end up with some sort of shitty religion or something. Essentially people are sheep; they want something to believe in. And I guess, to some extent, I do as well. I know ultimately that any sort of truth is in you, in yourself, as opposed to some great deity. I think people miss spirituality. I actually detest any sort of organized religion. It has fucked mankind since way back. Before that, when people were writing rocks and worshipping the sun and the moon and the planets, they had it more sorted. I think people got it then. Once people started to dominate other people, it all turned to shit.

Looking at any of your work and the repetitive nature of it -- well, what has been classified as repetitive -- the "looped" nature of it, you can see that it is an attempt to push the listener outside themselves.

Justin: That's it. Most of the music that I do -- and Godflesh being the most important of all that -- is extremely mantra-like. They have that element -- almost a meditative element -- a very trance-like element and you either get it or you don't. I think that is how you can lose yourself in it. That is what I am looking for. I don't really talk in rock and roll terms and I don't think what I do is rock and roll no matter how much Godflesh is really just, essentially, a rock band. It's not about the celebration of rock and roll. That means nothing to me. Music is purely a vehicle.

"Rock and roll" is an entertainment lifestyle.

Justin: Yeah, and I think it has its point and its purpose. It is just not something that I am a part or that I want to be a part of. What I was saying earlier about people missing spirituality is that I think they need religion. Without it, they are utterly lost and would probably end up killing people or killing themselves. I used to be very anti-control and anti-dictatorship -- a very libertarian sort of attitude -- and what I've come to realize over the years is that people need this sort of thing. People are mostly herd-like, and they need to be filed away into little corners or they'll just be killing each other. Before we made Streetcleaner and even when I was in Napalm Death, we had this notion that we could change the world. This naïve sort of crap. But with Streetcleaner we sort of went to the other extreme: to the idea of cleaning the streets of all of us. It was about wiping everything out and being happy about it. [Laughs]

A cleaner world all around.

Justin: But, obviously, this was never done in any sort of cabaret context. It wasn't like, well, I could name names about people now who've turned this all to shit...

I actually saw the last Limp Bizkit tour and that's exactly what it was: cabaret. We left after 10 or 15 minutes, thinking, "Okay, we've seen all that they've got to offer and another hour of it just isn't worth my time."

Justin: It's utterly vacuous. I can't see any difference between things like Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears. I've actually started thinking recently that Britney Spears is possibly more confrontational.

For the American audiences who are so hung up about sexuality, that's definitely true.

Justin: Yeah, because I think she takes more risks. [Laughs] It's a fucking joke, basically. I just don't get it. I've started to think: "Shit. Have I lost the plot or am I just too old?"

Let's talk about Techno Animal for a bit. You and Kevin Martin have been worked together for about forever now, and this project seems to have a similar idea about sonic weight. Do you guys share the same viewpoint on things or is it just a matter of two guys getting together and making a lot of noise?

Justin: No. We've known each for, what? 12, 13 years now. We share an awful lot in common. He's definitely one of my closest friends. We're almost like brothers -- not the sort of brothers who kick the shit out of each other all the time and disagree all the time, but rather the type who actually see eye to eye on things. We share a lot of the same opinions on humanity, on spirituality, even our musical tastes. A lot of the stuff that I do with him I couldn't even do with other people or would even wish to.

We're both obsessed with a lot of electronic music, a lot of hip-hop stuff, and way beyond that. I think that electronic music these days is a lot less conservative than rock music, and holds a true sort of spiritual independence. It's what punk was initially about (as opposed to the caricature that punk is now). He comes from same background as I do: we were both into Discharge and Crass and Killing Joke -- punk and post-punk -- as kids. That whole time -- the late '70s, early '80s -- when music was thriving and people were taking risks. It was just a very exciting time in music and it is something that we try to find now. We want to revitalize that old spirit through obviously very post-modern forms of music. What Kevin and I do to hip-hop is about as frowned upon as what Godflesh does to rock music. I mean, the latest album [The Brotherhood of the Bomb] is a blast. It's hellish in places, but it has grooves in it, it has funk in it. These were areas that we are really, really interested in as well, in making people dance and not just annihilating them. Again, it's about transcendence, about reaching higher peaks.

Noise is easy, you know what I mean? Just making a racket is too easy, it's not challenging. It's more challenging with Techno Animal to make people dance -- to get the grooves, to get the funk -- but also have these bombastic big rushes of sound on top of it. Excitement. That's what Kevin shares with me. We're looking for high energy and excitement in the music.

It looks like you were out on tour as Techno Animal, had a weekend off, and then went back out again as Godflesh.

Justin: Exactly. We did a two week Techno Animal tour and then, ah, I don't even think I had a day off, actually. I had a day to travel back to the U.K. and then we started straight on the Godflesh tour.

Is there much mental switching of gears? Or is it just a matter of strapping on a different instrument and away you go?

Justin: Totally different instrumentation, yeah. Techno Animal is a lot more electronic-based and we play at a lot more dance-oriented events. It's different audiences. I mean, we do share some of the same people. But, if you share a bill with other people -- not in a similar genre, but in, very broadly speaking, dance music -- it's all in context. It's really received differently. What you really do notice when your supporting someone like Fear Factory is that the audiences are so much more conservative than the dance audiences that we've been playing in front of as Techno Animal. Not only so much more conservative, but really very narrow-minded, very rigid. [Sighs] You can tell people don't see outside a metal record in any way whatsoever.

It must be strange going from Techno Animal shows where people are having a good time to Godflesh shows where the audiences are...not having a good time.

Justin: [Laughs] Yeah. With Techno Animal it was easier because we were playing our own shows. Still small, but highly eclectically-minded audiences. They know that the music covers a range. Unlike a Fear Factory audience which might not care for Godflesh record. [Laughs] They'd definitely loathe a Techno Animal record.