Andy produced and mixed Killing Joke’s 11^th studio album featuring Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters on drums.

The album was recorded in Andy’s studio, except for the drums which Andy recorded with Grohl in Los Angeles at Grand Master studios.

“[Grohl] loved the programmed stuff. He actually said to me, ‘I’m not just doing this because I love Killing Joke. I’m also doing this because these are really interesting drum parts’.” – Andy, Tape Op, 2009.

A previously unpublished excerpt of Andy talking about the making of the Killing Joke album in December 2018. 

“My take on it was that they thought it was a good idea if Youth didn’t produce it and that someone else did. It was a lot to do with Jazz Summers at Big Life. He really liked me and my production and as an artist and thought I’d be a good fit with them. He was looking after both of us. They thought that was a great idea.

“We had many conversations about how to go about it. There wasn’t a game plan. I remember at one point Geordie turning to Youth and going ‘Are we going to record on two-inch tape?’ and Youth said ‘I don’t know. Ask Andy’. I was totally in the digital domain at that point.

“They all came down and played me a demo of ‘Loose Cannon’. We started some rough work on it and then I said ‘Ok, let’s listen to the rest of the songs from the album’, and everybody started looking at their feet and it became obvious very quickly that there were no other songs, at all. ‘We’ve got lots of ideas,’ said Geordie. It then became obvious that this was a writing process, not just a recording process.

“Over the next couple of weeks, the pattern for how it was going to work unfolded, which is that I would have my samplers and my favourite set of loops and drum sounds and they’d just encourage me to come up with beats. They didn’t really come in as a band; they came in as individuals. Very rarely were there more than two of them there at a time. When they weren’t there, I’d program some stuff and store up a few different things so when they came in and said ‘Play us something’, I’d say ‘What do you think of this?’

“I just went about it in the way that I did – interesting, rhythmic, funky grooves. Jaz would often go ‘That’s great. Make it 20 BPM faster’. ‘But you’re going to lose all subtlety. You’re going to lose all the groove’. And he’d be totally insistent and say ‘Because you’re arguing make it 30 BPM faster’. That’s a good snapshot of Jaz’s personality in the studio. I’d have to reluctantly admit that it worked.

“Then you end up with something which is not unlike North African/Arabic rhythms. I didn’t set out to give it any kind of North African vibe, but the beats I programmed, when you sped them up, did feel like that. You wouldn’t listen to it and think ‘There’s a really strong Arabic influence in this’, but there’s a subtle one with the beats. But then of course it kind of suited what the record was about, the lyrics, which was mainly about the Iraq war – songs like ‘Total Invasion’. This was in the build-up to it. Jerry (Kandiah), who was my assistant, one day said to Jaz ‘Jaz, supposing there isn’t an Iraq war then?’ and Jaz said ‘There’d fucking better be!’”

Excerpt from a July 2022 blog post by Catherine Mayer:

“If you look at Killing Joke’s album credits for their eponymous album containing ‘The Death and Resurrection Show’, you’ll see they thank me for my ‘tolerance’. The months they spent recording the album at Andy’s studio in the home we shared were entertainingly eventful. Not infrequently, the band befriended strangers in local pubs and brought them back to meet us. One man, already bleary, thrust a bunch of wilted garage forecourt flowers at me, explaining that he’d bought them for his girlfriend, but they’d just broken up. At 2 am the following morning, he leaned on our doorbell. ‘We’ve patched things up. Can I have I have my flowers back?’”

Album reviews:

“Grohl’s pounding presence throughout lifts Killing Joke right back to the savage intensity of their early records…. The best punk album in years.” –  Mojo Magazine, August 2003.

“Grohl’s furious playing fits perfectly with the wall of rage erected by Joke vocalist Jaz Coleman and fellow founders Geordie Walker on guitar and Youth on bass.” – Billboard. 

“Rarely have they sounded more comfortable with themselves.” – Alternative Press, October 2003.

“Fiercely intelligent, heavy as fuck, powerful and utterly concise, it’s a perfect reminder of the potency of great guitar music and a kick up the jacksy of rock bands everywhere. Yup, it’s that damn good.” – Playlouder.