Miles Ratledge

The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981.

The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.

Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981.

Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years.

The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on bass and lead vocals, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982.

Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982.

Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.

The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made four demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.

The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK).

During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene.

Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.

In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final.

The group consisted of a four-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge on drums; Bullen - performing vocals, bass and guitar; Graham Robertson on guitar and bass, and Damien Errington on guitar.

After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player.

The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).

The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing two concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.

In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass.

The four-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's fifth demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail.

Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.

The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.

None of the band's original members have been in the group since 1986, but since Utopia Banished (1992), the lineup of bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris, drummer Danny Herrera and lead vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway has remained consistent through most of the band's career.

The group recorded a sixth demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a seventh recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records.

After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.

With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the remaining members started looking for people who could fill in the roles.

Guitarist Bill Steer played in a death metal band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the two, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in the former.

They had also asked another friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the group, even though he had never been in a band before.

The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community.

According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at 1.316 seconds long.

Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.

This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.

The band then faced a number of line-up changes.

Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player.

The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play drums for local band Head of David.

The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege).

This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in early May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.

The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum.

According to former vocalist Lee Dorrian, Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988) have sold a combined total of 400,000 copies worldwide.

From 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer.

Following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece.

The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals that consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs, and sociopolitical lyrics.