Battleaxe are one of Britain’s best kept secrets when it comes to unadulterated heavy metal. Pure, riffy, masculine, no frills, working man’s ethos diaported metal, which embodies the best qualities of the genre. The band had been away for many years and only really got back in action in the past few years, painstakingly trying their best at recording a new album. It might have taken them more than they have anticipated originally, with literally no budget to speak of, but “Heavy Metal Sanctuary” really epitomizes what a good metal album should be. It takes the quintessence of the genre and delivers it with great conviction just like a clenched fist that lands on a table with a loud thud, to silence all for once and for all who had the band written off... “Paul At Kinson, Dave King & Brian Smith, and lift their axes” and report from the ramparts... all we can hear are the battle cries!
Hi guys, congrats on the new album! Thanks for doing this interview…
Paul: Thanks Dimitrios… it’s just great to be talking about it. It was a tough album to make, but we got there in the end.
Please give a quick story of the band from the old day up to date...
P: I’ll hand this one over to Brian…
Brian: The precursor of the band started out around 1978 as a band called Warrior, essentially the same line-up as the 1st version of Battleaxe, but with a different singer. Some of the earliest Battleaxe songs were writtten with this line-up, including the tracks “Battleaxe” and “Starmaker” only with different lyrics. This line-up broke up in 1980 and with the changing of the vocalist to Dave King, the band was renamed Battleaxe partly because another band called Warrior from Newcastle existed and ironically Paul our drummer was a member of that band for a while.
In 1981 after a few gigs we decided to record a self-financed single at Guardian Studios and in early 1982 released the “Burn This Town” single, only 1000 were pressed so it is quite rare. Then we decided to record some more tracks and ended up with 11 tracks, 10 of which made it to the 1st album. The 11th track “Lovesick Man” is now unfortunately lost.
Although we intended to record them again to a better standard, Roadrunner released them as they were together with the infamous cover! Not happy with the production, we realised we could get much better results with a more understanding producer and after the good sounding “Radio One” session recorded in April 1983, we decided to use the “Radio 1” producer Tony Wilson for our second album. Although again with a limited budget we succeeded in getting a much better production sound especially the drums, for “Power from the Universe” which sounded much more polished if perhaps a little less aggressive.
After the Saxon tour in Feburary 1984 Steve Hardy the guitarist left the band and we couldn’t promote the new album. After much searching we found Mick Percy and John Stormont as replacements so we now had two guitarists which allowed a fuller live sound. With this line-up we managed a couple of tours and in 1987 recorded a 3 track demo at Neat studios which ended up as “The Nightmare Zone” EP released many years later. However by this time the music scene was changing rapidly and this type of music was well out of fashion and the band sort of just drifted apart. We couldn’t continue and for many years everyone just got on with their lives.
“Heavy Metal Sanctuary” is the newest album... give us a bit of info about the circumstances surrounding it’s recording…
P: The idea of a new album came about around 2007, just after we filmed a video to “Chopper Attack”. When the video went on to Youtube, it sparked off new interest in the band for sure; fans were contacting us from all over the world from places we never imagined Battleaxe would have ever reached. Of course, this started us thinking about writing some new material, and we did in fact try to put a new track down called “The Self Destruction Machine”, but the time wasn’t right, the band was still in hibernation mode, so it just didn’t get finished for one reason or another.
But then came an offer from a fan and friend of the band called Juergen Hedgewald, asking us to play his Metal Festival (Headbangers Open Air) in Germany in 2010… so of course we said yes. It wasn’t until we played HOA that we realised we needed to get something new out there, so when we got back from Germany, we set about writing and recording demos? Album? We weren’t really sure what we were going to achieve at that point.
Indulge a bit on the themes of each song if you don’t mind?! What seems to drive you lyrically these days? Some songs seem to be politically charged and there’s even a ballad that has a very spiritual side to it... apart from the very pedal to the metal stuff.
P: I’ll hand this one over to Dave…
Dave: Well I suppose you could say shear frustration really... I can’t tell how much mental anguish we’ve all gone through over the last three years trying to put this album together and finish it off. I’m telling you man hand on heart how the hell we done this considering the situation we were in at the time as well as getting it released on a major label isn’t far short of a bloody miracle.
My lyrics and aggressive vocal sound have a lot to do with all that frustration as well as to what’s going on in the World right now. Regarding “Kingdome Come” the lyrics are a little spiritually motivated as I just needed to get a point across about humanity and how we need desperately to change things for the future of all of us. The track was previously titled “Can There Be a Light”.
Heavy Metal Sanctuary: This song was written some time ago along with “Romeo” and “Give it More” only I changed the lyrics and is now the title track on the album. It really does say a lot about us having originally starting off as a heavy rock band then suddenly being thrust into a different genre and now classed as a heavy metal band where we are today.
Hail to the King: Written about the charging of the light brigade back in the mid 1800s. Great fast energetic track.
Rebel with a Cause: I wrote the lyrics to this song in regards to the recent London riots where the frustrated and deprived youth of today just went mad with rage, looting and damaging anything they could as an act of vengeance.
Give It More: This song is one of two that made it through on to the new album with out any changes great typical Battleaxe stomper all about a nosey neighbour reporting to the police every time I put my music on loud.
Too Hot for Hell: All about Transformers the movie. We have been approached by a video games company for some music to add to a new game still in development hopefully they will use this track as the title of the game, one of my favourites on the album.
Revolution: Contrary to the title it’s not written about revolution against governments. It’s all about a revolution in the way we all live in the World today to many people to much want need and greed...
A Prelude to Battle: A great symphonic intro written by Paul leading into Legions... We also use this a lot at live gigs as our intro.
The Legions Unite: Written all about the Knights Templar and their siege of Jerusalem and also a little bit to do with the band members getting back together; uniting as such.
Spirits of the Fallen: Just a fast paced song lyrics all about the fallen heroes in the great war as their spirits rise up to fight once again in the Second World War…
Devil Calls: Not a typical Battleaxe track I know but we did need a change of pace on the album so we put this in and I wrote the lyrics to the song about a guy in a motor bike gang in the US called the breed selling your soul to the Devil under the influence of what ever and just being craze.
Kingdom Come: I actually wrote this song and the lyrics starting on piano just as a did like “Thunder Angel” and “Fortune Lady” and it hung around for years then Mick added the meaty guitars and we finished the song off which became our ballad song previously titled “Can There Be a Light” now “Kingdom Come”. Rather a spiritual song i don’t mind saying all about a cry for help on behalf of all the poor kids around the world trapped in war zones starving to death and mentally tortured by political greed and religious shit...
Romeo: Straight back to our roots this one. One of the songs I mentioned earlier from the past just a solid rock and role bouncy head banging track about a rock star who has it all… tacky and simple lyrics I know from when I was younger but very effective yeah…
How did the deal with SPV come about and will both the old albums come out as remasters under it? Give us a bit of info – about the one that’s coming out now “Burn This Town”.
D: Well, as we were recording the album we realised that’s there would be little point of finishing it without a label behind us to distribute it. Suggestions were made to self-release on to such sites as CD Baby but this would have been the nail in the coffin and the end for Battleaxe as far as I’m concerned.. Battleaxe has always had a record deal previously with RoadRunner and Music for Nations so with a lot of hard researching work getting back in touch with old contacts as such we managed to make contact with Udo Dirkshnyder through Tony Wilson our dear old friend from “Radio One” who then gave us a direct line to Nuclear Blast. They actually loved the new tracks but weren’t signing NWOBHM bands however they kindly gave us a direct contact straight through to the main A & R guy at SPV…
Our luck was in, as the A & R men were all big fans of the band from the eighties. When they were younger, many of them had our old albums in their record collection, how mad is that? So that really helped us to get our foot in the door straight away. Any way after sending some new material to them they became very exited and offered us a four albums deal which included our two older album on a thirty year anniversary special re release, “Heavy Metal Sanctuary”, and an optional forth album for 2015 which can’t be bad guys after all this time.
Contrary to what people are saying, the deal with SPV didn’t just land at our feet, we had to work extremely smart and hard to find the right contacts to have a listen to our new stuff, other wise our material like many hundreds of other bands would have just been shelved or thrown into waste bin.
Also the “Live Album” from 85, could that see the light of day? Maybe as a second CD on “Power from the Universe” when that gets re-released and will that feature the EP “Nightmare Zone” as “bonus” material?
B: There is not, and never was an official “Live Album” from the band ever. Anything that is floating around is unofficial or simply a bootleg from long ago. We know there are a few poor quality bootlegs around but this is something many bands have problems with. If we ever do release a live album it would have to be of a good quality and representative of the band.
It is alleged that by the tail end of the 80s it was attempted to record a third album under the title of “Mean Machine” has that thing “Survived”? Will it ever see the light of day?
B: The track “Mean Machine”, was a track written just after the “Burn this Town” album and nearly made it onto the “Power from the Universe” album. A version of it was recorded on our 1983 “Radio 1” session and is now available on the remastered “Burn this Town” album. We did attempt to make a third album in 1990 but we simply ran out of funds and could not complete it. We still have the unfinished masters but very little can be salvaged from that session.
Paul: Thanks Dimitrios… it’s just great to be talking about it. It was a tough album to make, but we got there in the end.
Please give a quick story of the band from the old day up to date...
P: I’ll hand this one over to Brian…
Brian: The precursor of the band started out around 1978 as a band called Warrior, essentially the same line-up as the 1st version of Battleaxe, but with a different singer. Some of the earliest Battleaxe songs were writtten with this line-up, including the tracks “Battleaxe” and “Starmaker” only with different lyrics. This line-up broke up in 1980 and with the changing of the vocalist to Dave King, the band was renamed Battleaxe partly because another band called Warrior from Newcastle existed and ironically Paul our drummer was a member of that band for a while.
In 1981 after a few gigs we decided to record a self-financed single at Guardian Studios and in early 1982 released the “Burn This Town” single, only 1000 were pressed so it is quite rare. Then we decided to record some more tracks and ended up with 11 tracks, 10 of which made it to the 1st album. The 11th track “Lovesick Man” is now unfortunately lost.
Although we intended to record them again to a better standard, Roadrunner released them as they were together with the infamous cover! Not happy with the production, we realised we could get much better results with a more understanding producer and after the good sounding “Radio One” session recorded in April 1983, we decided to use the “Radio 1” producer Tony Wilson for our second album. Although again with a limited budget we succeeded in getting a much better production sound especially the drums, for “Power from the Universe” which sounded much more polished if perhaps a little less aggressive.
After the Saxon tour in Feburary 1984 Steve Hardy the guitarist left the band and we couldn’t promote the new album. After much searching we found Mick Percy and John Stormont as replacements so we now had two guitarists which allowed a fuller live sound. With this line-up we managed a couple of tours and in 1987 recorded a 3 track demo at Neat studios which ended up as “The Nightmare Zone” EP released many years later. However by this time the music scene was changing rapidly and this type of music was well out of fashion and the band sort of just drifted apart. We couldn’t continue and for many years everyone just got on with their lives.
“Heavy Metal Sanctuary” is the newest album... give us a bit of info about the circumstances surrounding it’s recording…
P: The idea of a new album came about around 2007, just after we filmed a video to “Chopper Attack”. When the video went on to Youtube, it sparked off new interest in the band for sure; fans were contacting us from all over the world from places we never imagined Battleaxe would have ever reached. Of course, this started us thinking about writing some new material, and we did in fact try to put a new track down called “The Self Destruction Machine”, but the time wasn’t right, the band was still in hibernation mode, so it just didn’t get finished for one reason or another.
But then came an offer from a fan and friend of the band called Juergen Hedgewald, asking us to play his Metal Festival (Headbangers Open Air) in Germany in 2010… so of course we said yes. It wasn’t until we played HOA that we realised we needed to get something new out there, so when we got back from Germany, we set about writing and recording demos? Album? We weren’t really sure what we were going to achieve at that point.
Indulge a bit on the themes of each song if you don’t mind?! What seems to drive you lyrically these days? Some songs seem to be politically charged and there’s even a ballad that has a very spiritual side to it... apart from the very pedal to the metal stuff.
P: I’ll hand this one over to Dave…
Dave: Well I suppose you could say shear frustration really... I can’t tell how much mental anguish we’ve all gone through over the last three years trying to put this album together and finish it off. I’m telling you man hand on heart how the hell we done this considering the situation we were in at the time as well as getting it released on a major label isn’t far short of a bloody miracle.
My lyrics and aggressive vocal sound have a lot to do with all that frustration as well as to what’s going on in the World right now. Regarding “Kingdome Come” the lyrics are a little spiritually motivated as I just needed to get a point across about humanity and how we need desperately to change things for the future of all of us. The track was previously titled “Can There Be a Light”.
Heavy Metal Sanctuary: This song was written some time ago along with “Romeo” and “Give it More” only I changed the lyrics and is now the title track on the album. It really does say a lot about us having originally starting off as a heavy rock band then suddenly being thrust into a different genre and now classed as a heavy metal band where we are today.
Hail to the King: Written about the charging of the light brigade back in the mid 1800s. Great fast energetic track.
Rebel with a Cause: I wrote the lyrics to this song in regards to the recent London riots where the frustrated and deprived youth of today just went mad with rage, looting and damaging anything they could as an act of vengeance.
Give It More: This song is one of two that made it through on to the new album with out any changes great typical Battleaxe stomper all about a nosey neighbour reporting to the police every time I put my music on loud.
Too Hot for Hell: All about Transformers the movie. We have been approached by a video games company for some music to add to a new game still in development hopefully they will use this track as the title of the game, one of my favourites on the album.
Revolution: Contrary to the title it’s not written about revolution against governments. It’s all about a revolution in the way we all live in the World today to many people to much want need and greed...
A Prelude to Battle: A great symphonic intro written by Paul leading into Legions... We also use this a lot at live gigs as our intro.
The Legions Unite: Written all about the Knights Templar and their siege of Jerusalem and also a little bit to do with the band members getting back together; uniting as such.
Spirits of the Fallen: Just a fast paced song lyrics all about the fallen heroes in the great war as their spirits rise up to fight once again in the Second World War…
Devil Calls: Not a typical Battleaxe track I know but we did need a change of pace on the album so we put this in and I wrote the lyrics to the song about a guy in a motor bike gang in the US called the breed selling your soul to the Devil under the influence of what ever and just being craze.
Kingdom Come: I actually wrote this song and the lyrics starting on piano just as a did like “Thunder Angel” and “Fortune Lady” and it hung around for years then Mick added the meaty guitars and we finished the song off which became our ballad song previously titled “Can There Be a Light” now “Kingdom Come”. Rather a spiritual song i don’t mind saying all about a cry for help on behalf of all the poor kids around the world trapped in war zones starving to death and mentally tortured by political greed and religious shit...
Romeo: Straight back to our roots this one. One of the songs I mentioned earlier from the past just a solid rock and role bouncy head banging track about a rock star who has it all… tacky and simple lyrics I know from when I was younger but very effective yeah…
How did the deal with SPV come about and will both the old albums come out as remasters under it? Give us a bit of info – about the one that’s coming out now “Burn This Town”.
D: Well, as we were recording the album we realised that’s there would be little point of finishing it without a label behind us to distribute it. Suggestions were made to self-release on to such sites as CD Baby but this would have been the nail in the coffin and the end for Battleaxe as far as I’m concerned.. Battleaxe has always had a record deal previously with RoadRunner and Music for Nations so with a lot of hard researching work getting back in touch with old contacts as such we managed to make contact with Udo Dirkshnyder through Tony Wilson our dear old friend from “Radio One” who then gave us a direct line to Nuclear Blast. They actually loved the new tracks but weren’t signing NWOBHM bands however they kindly gave us a direct contact straight through to the main A & R guy at SPV…
Our luck was in, as the A & R men were all big fans of the band from the eighties. When they were younger, many of them had our old albums in their record collection, how mad is that? So that really helped us to get our foot in the door straight away. Any way after sending some new material to them they became very exited and offered us a four albums deal which included our two older album on a thirty year anniversary special re release, “Heavy Metal Sanctuary”, and an optional forth album for 2015 which can’t be bad guys after all this time.
Contrary to what people are saying, the deal with SPV didn’t just land at our feet, we had to work extremely smart and hard to find the right contacts to have a listen to our new stuff, other wise our material like many hundreds of other bands would have just been shelved or thrown into waste bin.
Also the “Live Album” from 85, could that see the light of day? Maybe as a second CD on “Power from the Universe” when that gets re-released and will that feature the EP “Nightmare Zone” as “bonus” material?
B: There is not, and never was an official “Live Album” from the band ever. Anything that is floating around is unofficial or simply a bootleg from long ago. We know there are a few poor quality bootlegs around but this is something many bands have problems with. If we ever do release a live album it would have to be of a good quality and representative of the band.
It is alleged that by the tail end of the 80s it was attempted to record a third album under the title of “Mean Machine” has that thing “Survived”? Will it ever see the light of day?
B: The track “Mean Machine”, was a track written just after the “Burn this Town” album and nearly made it onto the “Power from the Universe” album. A version of it was recorded on our 1983 “Radio 1” session and is now available on the remastered “Burn this Town” album. We did attempt to make a third album in 1990 but we simply ran out of funds and could not complete it. We still have the unfinished masters but very little can be salvaged from that session.
Take us back in time... how was it then and how is it now? What has changed in music and in the world in your opinion, if anything? What’d be your fondest memory and what’s your deepest regret? Oh and how was it, touring with Saxon, “back in the day”?
B: Overall the 80s seemed to be a much happier time than today and a much healthier music scene in general.When we started out vinyl was still in production and albums sold in much larger quantities than today. Also the metal scene in Britain and the USA has died out far more than in Europe and other territories. This makes it difficult for bands such as ourselves to survive in such a musically arid climate. For many years since the late eighties classic metal has been ignored and only the biggest bands continued though those years. Even bands as big as Accept disbanded for many years, but now the musical climate has changed back considerably and I think we have to thank some of the Eurobands and even the symphonic metal bands for bringing more melodic and classic sounds back into metal. Our fondest memories are probably the wonderful gigs and tours we did in the eighties, especially the Saxon tour, which by the way was superb, the Saxon fans really loved our music. Our deepest regret was probably not being able to continue through the nineties and beyond.
What was the whole NWOBHM movement to you and what do you think about the music scene nowadays with the internet (pros/cons)? Where do you think, Battleaxe fits in all this...?
B: We always regarded ourselves as just a metal band pure and simple that’s how it was then, nowadays it is called “classic metal” and the NWOBHM logo was thrust upon us by the press as it was all British metal bands that emerged in that era.
Only Maiden, Saxon and Leppard seem to have lost that NWOBHM logo. That is mainly due to their more mainstream success. It is true there is a lot of variety in the NWOBHM bands, but Battleaxe’s sound to us seems more akin to what is now called “classic metal”…
You’ve got Keep it True coming up in April and I dunno if you’re preparing for any other performances?! Will the “Axe” be taking the stages once again? Could Greece be on the cards?
P: There’s a couple of things in the pipeline, interest from Europe and South America, but Greece is definitely on our wish list… having played The Rodon in Athens and rock clubs up in Thessalonica back in the 90s with Skyclad, I know it would be just brilliant for Battleaxe, the fans out there are just the best… seriously; I will never forget my time there. (i.n.: The Rodon club does not exist anymore but that fans are still crazy!)
Provided that all goes well with this album, what do you think that the future of the band will be (short term plans)… ? Do you intend to stick around for a few more albums?
P: For us, the success of “Heavy Metal Sanctuary” is crucial… I’m not talking about financial success and album sales or anything, that’s not the most important thing to me. I’m talking about being able to play to our fans around the world. We want to play everywhere of course, but it comes down to demand and money at the end of the day. So if people want to book us… we’ll be there… let’s just hope people like the album and it happens.
Time for a few weird/funny questions!!! If you were “God” for a day – what would you do?
P: Ah man, trust me to get these questions! Anyway here goes: I would probably go back to the 1980s and re-design the CD… it would be 12 inch! So bands could still make great full size artwork… I would also make sure the record companies and retailers sold CDs for a third of the price… hopefully then, the music business would not be in the state it is in today?!
If you were not – yourself – who would you like to be and why?
P: I don’t think I can answer that… this is my journey, I don’t know where life is going to take me, but I would rather live it as me rather than someone else… at least I know who and what I am, for better or worse!
Tell us some weird/funny thing that has happened to you in all your years as musicians and you still remember vividly.
P: There’s so many funny stories man, I could go on all night, but I think the funniest thing I ever saw was back in the early 1980s, when one of my very first bands (Warrior) was playing a rock club in Newcastle; I had left the band about a year earlier. Anyway, their manager thought it would be a good idea to install some small industrial type explosives and smoke bombs to set off during the show. I decided to stand at the back of the hall… so the intro tape comes on and the lights go down… the band strikes up with a ‘Big E’, a true NWOBHM beginning… then 4 on the Hi Hats and BOOM!!! The industrial explosive packs went off… and then there was silence! When the smoke finally cleared, the extent of the damage could be seen… a hole in the Bass Drum, various holes in amps and a little blood, I shouldn’t laugh really but it was quite funny at the time… but hey, the band played their full show.
Warrior (Dead When it Comes to Love) are playing Brofest II in Newcastle UK with Battleaxe later this month, and myself and Sean Taylor from Satan are playing drums for them in honour of two of the original members who tragically died recently… it going to be a night of true metal.
If your wife/gf – sold all your albums to buy herself something expensive like a ring, how would you react?
P: I would sell all of her designer clothes on eBay and get myself a new drum kit… I’ve got all the tracks on the computer anyway! (i.n.: Hehehehe…)
Salute the readers of Grande Rock and all the Greek fans!
Paul / Dave / Brian / Mick: From all of us… “we can’t wait to come to your country and play some British metal for you, thank you Grande Rock for your support… we’ll see you soon”…
B: Overall the 80s seemed to be a much happier time than today and a much healthier music scene in general.When we started out vinyl was still in production and albums sold in much larger quantities than today. Also the metal scene in Britain and the USA has died out far more than in Europe and other territories. This makes it difficult for bands such as ourselves to survive in such a musically arid climate. For many years since the late eighties classic metal has been ignored and only the biggest bands continued though those years. Even bands as big as Accept disbanded for many years, but now the musical climate has changed back considerably and I think we have to thank some of the Eurobands and even the symphonic metal bands for bringing more melodic and classic sounds back into metal. Our fondest memories are probably the wonderful gigs and tours we did in the eighties, especially the Saxon tour, which by the way was superb, the Saxon fans really loved our music. Our deepest regret was probably not being able to continue through the nineties and beyond.
What was the whole NWOBHM movement to you and what do you think about the music scene nowadays with the internet (pros/cons)? Where do you think, Battleaxe fits in all this...?
B: We always regarded ourselves as just a metal band pure and simple that’s how it was then, nowadays it is called “classic metal” and the NWOBHM logo was thrust upon us by the press as it was all British metal bands that emerged in that era.
Only Maiden, Saxon and Leppard seem to have lost that NWOBHM logo. That is mainly due to their more mainstream success. It is true there is a lot of variety in the NWOBHM bands, but Battleaxe’s sound to us seems more akin to what is now called “classic metal”…
You’ve got Keep it True coming up in April and I dunno if you’re preparing for any other performances?! Will the “Axe” be taking the stages once again? Could Greece be on the cards?
P: There’s a couple of things in the pipeline, interest from Europe and South America, but Greece is definitely on our wish list… having played The Rodon in Athens and rock clubs up in Thessalonica back in the 90s with Skyclad, I know it would be just brilliant for Battleaxe, the fans out there are just the best… seriously; I will never forget my time there. (i.n.: The Rodon club does not exist anymore but that fans are still crazy!)
Provided that all goes well with this album, what do you think that the future of the band will be (short term plans)… ? Do you intend to stick around for a few more albums?
P: For us, the success of “Heavy Metal Sanctuary” is crucial… I’m not talking about financial success and album sales or anything, that’s not the most important thing to me. I’m talking about being able to play to our fans around the world. We want to play everywhere of course, but it comes down to demand and money at the end of the day. So if people want to book us… we’ll be there… let’s just hope people like the album and it happens.
Time for a few weird/funny questions!!! If you were “God” for a day – what would you do?
P: Ah man, trust me to get these questions! Anyway here goes: I would probably go back to the 1980s and re-design the CD… it would be 12 inch! So bands could still make great full size artwork… I would also make sure the record companies and retailers sold CDs for a third of the price… hopefully then, the music business would not be in the state it is in today?!
If you were not – yourself – who would you like to be and why?
P: I don’t think I can answer that… this is my journey, I don’t know where life is going to take me, but I would rather live it as me rather than someone else… at least I know who and what I am, for better or worse!
Tell us some weird/funny thing that has happened to you in all your years as musicians and you still remember vividly.
P: There’s so many funny stories man, I could go on all night, but I think the funniest thing I ever saw was back in the early 1980s, when one of my very first bands (Warrior) was playing a rock club in Newcastle; I had left the band about a year earlier. Anyway, their manager thought it would be a good idea to install some small industrial type explosives and smoke bombs to set off during the show. I decided to stand at the back of the hall… so the intro tape comes on and the lights go down… the band strikes up with a ‘Big E’, a true NWOBHM beginning… then 4 on the Hi Hats and BOOM!!! The industrial explosive packs went off… and then there was silence! When the smoke finally cleared, the extent of the damage could be seen… a hole in the Bass Drum, various holes in amps and a little blood, I shouldn’t laugh really but it was quite funny at the time… but hey, the band played their full show.
Warrior (Dead When it Comes to Love) are playing Brofest II in Newcastle UK with Battleaxe later this month, and myself and Sean Taylor from Satan are playing drums for them in honour of two of the original members who tragically died recently… it going to be a night of true metal.
If your wife/gf – sold all your albums to buy herself something expensive like a ring, how would you react?
P: I would sell all of her designer clothes on eBay and get myself a new drum kit… I’ve got all the tracks on the computer anyway! (i.n.: Hehehehe…)
Salute the readers of Grande Rock and all the Greek fans!
Paul / Dave / Brian / Mick: From all of us… “we can’t wait to come to your country and play some British metal for you, thank you Grande Rock for your support… we’ll see you soon”…