In an interview with the comedian and actor Chris Rock in the 90s, he outlined his chief objection. “The first line of that song is ‘Your butt is mine’,” he said. “Now I’m saying, ‘Who is going to sing that to who? Cos you sure ain’t singing it to me and I sure ain’t singing it to you so right there, we got a problem’.”

Funny that this was Prince’s issue with the song, rather than the fact anyone who was actually bad would never proclaim to be “really, really bad”. Prince insisted to Rock that he never felt there was a problem between the pair, but in an interview with Esquire a few years ago, Black Eyed Peas’ will.I.Am relayed to interviewer Steve Knopper that Jackson certainly felt there was after Prince had discovered Jackson would be present at one of his Las Vegas concerts and had ventured towards where the Thriller man was sitting and “started playing bass in Jackson’s face”.

“The next morning, Will went over to Michael’s house for breakfast, and they’re talking about Prince and the show,” Knopper reported. “And then Michael goes, ‘Will, why do you think Prince was playing bass in my face?’. Michael was outraged. And then started going on. ‘Prince has always been a meanie. He’s just a big meanie. He’s always been not nice to me. Everybody says Prince is this great legendary Renaissance man and I’m just a song-and-dance man, but I wrote Billie Jean and I wrote We Are the World and I’m a songwriter too.'”

Despite the fact that Prince turned down the chance to vocally spar with Jackson on Bad, earlier this year the Purple One’s ex-bandmate Sheila E. revealed on the podcast The Jason Time that he had actually recorded his own version of the song. “We went and we re-recorded Bad,” she said. “It was so funky, it was so amazing. It was an incredible rendition of what it should have been. We were like ‘Oh my God, we can’t wait for Michael to hear it.’ And then Prince went and he erased the whole thing.”

Now that the two are probably making moody faces at each other in the great sealed-off backstage area in the sky, we will never know.

To celebrate the genre, we've dug beyond the surface to find out some of the best songs buried in the backpages of nu metal history. 

P.O.D. - Snuff The Punk (Snuff The Punk, 1994)

P.O.D. may have hit big with 1999’s millionselling The Fundamental Elements Of Southtown and 2001’s follow-up Satellite, but they weren’t gatecrashers at the nu metal party – their debut album, Snuff The Punk, actually predated Korn’s self-titled debut by about nine months. 

OK, so P.O.D. didn’t have the same impact as hearing Jonathan Davis growling ‘Are you reaaadyy…?’ over that churning Blind riff for the first time, and Snuff The Punk sounds like it was recorded in a garage for $5 and a bag of communion wafers, but the rap-metal flow and squalls of distorted guitar hold their own place in nu metal history. PT

Deftones - Damone (Around The Fur, 1997)

Those who were there will remember the trend of hidden tracks at the end of CDs back in the 90s. If you didn’t hit the stop button at the conclusion of MX, the supposed final track on Deftones’ masterful second album, you’d get a shock about half an hour later when secret song Damone kicked in. 

Quite why a song of such exceptional quality didn’t make the main album remains a mystery, as Damone is as good as anthems like Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) or My Own Summer (Shove It). Stephen Carpenter serves up a driving riff as Chino Moreno and bassist Chi Cheng trade throat-tearing screams. The band have only played it live three times in the last 20 years, but old-school fans would dearly love to hear it again. SH

Spineshank - Grey (Strictly Diesel, 1998)

By 1998, there were already tons of also-rans in the emerging nu metal scene, making the jump to the upper echelons of an already crowded field a tough task. There were high hopes and plenty of hype surrounding LA industrial metal crew Spineshank, though, who were signed to Roadrunner Records off the back of Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares’s patronage. 

While the band did experience a significant level of success, it didn’t happen until their second album, 2000’s The Height Of Callousness. This leaves Spineshank’s debut album, Strictly Diesel, something of a long-lost, electro-metal gem that’s rarely spoken about. 

There are plenty of bangers, but the creeping, Deftones-style, quiet-quiet-LOUD dynamics of Grey is the record’s gold standard. In fact, frontman Jonny Santos arguably managed 1998’s most uncanny impression of Chino Moreno on the track, something he had plenty of competition for that year. 

The song was a highlight of the band’s set when they came over to the UK on the Strictly Diesel run, opening for System Of A Down. They split (for a second time) in 2016, rarely playing the song during those last few years. Shame. SH

Mushroomhead - Xeroxed (M3, 1999)

Most famous as a) the masked metal band who weren’t Slipknot and b) the band who had a running feud with Corey Taylor and co, Mushroomhead actually beat their rivals out of the gate. 

The Cleveland band were already on their third album by the time their Iowan nemeses released their self-titled debut, and Xeroxed stands as a terrific late-90s nu metal rager with more than a hint of death metal aggression. It resurfaced on major label compilation XX a couple of years later, but remains a cult classic. Always the bridesmaids, etc. PT

Machine Head - Five (The Burning Red, 1999)

Yeah, we’ve heard the jokes about Machine Head’s nu metal period: the rapping, the jumpsuits, the blond spiky hair, har de har! But for the all the hate The Burning Red gets, it contains one of Robb Flynn’s most powerful and vulnerable songs. 

Buried at the back end of the album, Five is a furious yet haunting burst of rage that sees the frontman reliving a sexual assault he went through as a child. ‘You molest and destroy just a five-year-old boy,’ he seethes. ‘And you make me suffer, motherfucker!’ Unsurprisingly, Robb’s said he’s never going to play it live – a buried track that’ll stay buried. MM

Coal Chamber - My Mercy (Chamber Music, 1999)

With their mad hair and facial piercings, nu metal first-wavers Coal Chamber were the scene’s freak squad. Their second album saw them experimenting with their sound in an attempt to step out of the shadow of scene kings Korn and Deftones. 

My Mercy had actually been written shortly after breakout single Loco, but as drummer Mikey Cox told KindaMuzik: “That song was supposed to be on the first album. But it was so different, we thought people are gonna say, ‘What the hell is this?’ But with this album we weren’t afraid to do anything.” 

The orchestral sweep still sets it apart from CC’s better-known songs, with guest appearances from Human Waste Project’s Aimee Echo and Elijah Blue Allman of Deadsy. PT

Korn - Camel Song (End Of Days OST, 1999)

After The Crow’s alt rock soundtrack topped charts and earned platinum status, countless blockbusters sought to recreate that impact. Few tried as hard as Arnold Schwarzenegger vs The Devil action/horror End Of Days, which prised the first original Guns N’ Roses song in eight years out of Axl Rose (the industrial-metal misfire Oh My God). 

Limp Bizkit, The Prodigy, Eminem and Rob Zombie also rocked up, but top honours went to Korn with the track that opened the album, Camel Song. Despite being unavailable on streaming services and never played live, the track presents imperial-phase Korn at their absolute best. 

A haunting opening where the guitars chime and disorient breaks into a funky swagger led by Fieldy’s clackety-clack bass. Jonathan Davis brings some classic Korn vibes in the addictive hook, wailing, ‘Sometiiiiiiime! Somewheeeeeeere!’ That all-out nu metal jam during the bridge is brutally heavy, too. 

Ultimately, End Of Days the movie sank without trace, and so did the soundtrack – a fate it didn’t deserve. Had it fared better, perhaps this Korn cut would enjoy its rightful, celebrated place in their back catalogue. MM

Kittie - Do You Think I'm A Whore (Spit, 1999)

Frontwoman Morgan Lander was just 15 when Kittie were writing their debut album, Spit. Tracks like Do You Think I’m A Whore brimmed not only with teen spirit but righteous anger at an industry and mindsets that both judged and packaged them based on their age and sex. 

It was one of the heaviest, most aggressive songs on the album but, as the band evolved, it was left behind and wasn’t played live for two decades. PT

Linkin Park - By Myself (Hybrid Theory, 2000)

Picking what non-singles to play from Hybrid Theory must be like choosing favourite kids; they’re pretty much all worldies. Still, it’s a shame that By Myself has been largely left on the shelf over the past 24 years, only being dusted off by Linkin Park once since 2003 (and that was for their full playthrough of Hybrid Theory at Download in 2014, so it kinda had to be played). 

By far the most unusual song on the album, it’s an off-kilter, mechanical burst of catchy, nu metal riffs, clanking, industrial samples and swathes of 90s ambient EDM. Add in a typically raw and angst-laden 2000s showing from Chester Bennington and you have a song that really should be getting more love. MA

Alien Ant Farm - Sticks And Stones (ANThology, 2001)

To many, Alien Ant Farm were nothing more than a teeth-grindingly wacky nu metal crew who covered Smooth Criminal and dressed up as Karate Kid characters in a music video. 

Dig below the surface, though, and you’ll find that debut album ANThology is a far more subtle, emotional and nuanced record than their public image suggests. On the rarely mentioned Sticks And Stones Alien Ant Farm show what a good band they really are. A scratchy, post-hardcore riff and a fantastic part-yelped, part-crooned performance from vocalist Dryden Mitchell steals a song that has far more in common with Glassjaw than it does Crazy Town. SH

Staind - Waste (Break The Cycle, 2001)

Staind’s third album, the five-million-selling Break The Cycle, was home to the inescapable It’s Been A While. Waste took a similarly angsty approach, building from a gloomy acoustic atmosphere to a raging finale, but it remains in the shadow of that monster hit. 

The sombre feel comes from the subject matter, inspired by when Aaron Lewis encountered the mother of a Staind fan who had died by suicide. “It made me feel like she wanted me to give her answers for it,” he told Rolling Stone. “I did get a little angry, but I was angry at everything – angry that he killed himself and angry that so many kids feel that’s the only way out.” PT

Slipknot - Skin Ticket (Iowa, 2001)

It feels bizarre that the nastiest, ugliest album to ever top the UK charts has buried treasure on it, but precious little of Iowa’s tracklisting has persisted in Slipknot’s sets, leaving a vault of gems for those who stick the record on in full. Of these, none are as arresting Skin Ticket. 

An extended, percussive intro draws you in, before Corey Taylor pours out misanthropy for the next six minutes: ‘Cancer and people conspire together / Running and running and going forever.’ It’s actually Sid Wilson’s favourite Slipknot song. “It takes you out of your everyday world to a super-dark place,” the band’s turntablist told Revolver in 2023. MM

Ill Nino - Liar (Revolution, Revolucíon, 2001)

Although they never reached nu metal’s top division, Ill Niño were a vital force within it. They infused their music with Latin American influences and a fiery polemic that was often lacking in a scene that tended to deal more with the personal than the political. 

Debut album Revolution Revolución boasted minor hits in What Comes Around and Unreal, but album track Liar hit harder than anything else on there. The song combines lilting acoustic guitar and Latin percussion with an absolutely crushing riff. It did grace the game Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter but remains a largely overlooked gem. PT

Static-X - Speedway (NASCAR On Fox: Crank It Up, 2002)

Working on the theory that fast cars and metal go together, the NASCAR On Fox: Crank It Up compilation threw up some remarkably bonkers covers, including Slayer playing Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild and Type O Negative putting their spin on Deep Purple’s Highway Star. 

Not to be outdone, Static-X recorded a version of Elvis Presley’s Speedway, originally from the King’s 1968 movie of the same name. It works surprisingly well, taking the quiff-quivering old-school rock’n’roll groove and repanelling it with that instantly recognisable electro-metal stomp. Jesus might’ve built Ministry’s hotrod, but Static-X proved they could floor the accelerator too. PT

Papa Roach - Singular Indestructible Droid (Lovehatetragedy, 2002)

Papa Roach’s career-making Infest album was a hard act to follow. Lovehatetragedy didn’t come close to its predecessor’s five million sales, but it had some great tracks, one of which was Singular Indestructible Droid. “It’s pretty wild and one of the heaviest songs we’ve written,” singer Coby Dick (as he was then known) enthused at the time. 

It certainly was, with slamming riffs, a powerful vocal and some atmospheric Native American chanting thrown into the mix. It also served as a tribute to Slipknot DJ Sid Wilson, with the title spelling out S-I-D and the screamed lyrics declaring their subject to be a ‘bloody human robot’.

System Of A Down - Ego Brain (Steal This Album, 2002)

Is SOAD’s Steal This Album a legitimate follow-up to 2001 masterpiece Toxicity or just a hastily bundled-out collection of offcuts? Tough one to call, though it has its share of great songs: Chic ’n’ Stu, Boom, Fuck The System, all the kind of things other bands can only dream of writing. 

But there’s one song that never gets its fair due – the swinging, swerving Ego Brain, which sees Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian’s voices working in perfect tandem against some warped acoustic country riffing. Serj himself certainly has a soft spot for the track. “I was listening to Ego Brain the other day,” he tells Hammer. “I don’t think we’ve ever played that live, so I was thinking how cool it’d be to do it.” SH

Crazy Town - Change (Darkhorse, 2002)

The nu metal band that all nu metal fans loved to hate, Crazy Town struggled to follow up their 2000 megahit Butterfly and platinum parent album The Gift Of Game. Follow-up Darkhorse was a relative flop, but there were some decent moments buried within the album, though, most notably Change. 

It followed much the same format of slick rap-rock, with frontman Seth ‘Shifty Shellshock’ Binzer tempering a little bit of self-aggrandisement with a surprising amount of selfawareness. Given he would struggle with addiction for the rest of his life before dying this year at just 49 years old, his questioning of whether he was capable of change takes on an extra poignancy. PT

Mudvayne - Skyring (The End Of All Things To Come, 2002)

This overlooked gem from Mudvayne’s second album features a very different vibe from most of the punchy nu-math-metal material that fuelled their rise to notoriety on debut L.D. 50. 

Rather than relying on technical chops and outright aggression, they lean into a funky psychedelic groove and hazy backing vocals that slowly build towards a climax of screaming and chaotic nu metal clatter. They’ve played it live just 15 times in total, though frontman Chad Gray has described it as “one of my favourite songs from The End Of All Things To Come”.

Taproot - Transparent (Poem B-Side, 2002)

When nu metal B-listers Taproot released their Besides boxset in 2018, it contained a staggering 134 alternative versions, demos and previously unreleased tracks. The one track that really stood out from this little lot was Transparent. 

Dating back to the sessions for the Michigan band’s 2002 breakthrough Welcome but never making the cut, it did appear as the B-side to their biggest single, Poem, and Japanese pressings of the album, becoming the deep cut of choice for the discerning super-fan in the process. There’s good reason too; heavy, churning and utterly infectious, Transparent is the finest album reject you’ve never heard. PT

Disturbed - God Of The Mind (The Sickness, 2002 reissue)

Disturbed’s debut album, The Sickness, was packed with classics – so many that God Of The Mind didn’t make the final cut. A pity, given how great it is. This is Disturbed at their Disturbed-iest, as animalistic snarls from singer David Draiman and some ominous bass usher in three minutes of adrenalised metal. 

It was eventually added to the 2002 reissue, and, later, 2011 rarities comp The Lost Children, but it remains an under-the-radar classic - it’s only been played live eight times. Let’s hope next year’s 25th anniversary tour rectifies that. MM

Drowning Pool - Numb (Desensitized, 2004)

Drowning Pool, of course, will forever be known for nu metal banger Bodies. The death of frontman Dave Williams just a year later understandably derailed the band, but they did get back on the tracks quickly. 

Their second album, Desensitized, featuring one-and-done replacement Jason Jones, didn’t have a Bodies but it did boast a minor hit in Step Up and some interesting moments like Numb. In common with a lot of bands of the era, they wanted to expand their horizons, and Jason helped them do so here, with a rasping wail and a song that straddled bluesy hard rock and grunge as much as it did nu metal.

Limp Bizkit - The Truth (The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1), 2005)

This largely forgotten EP saw nu metal’s most braggadocious offspring abandon the proud silliness of Chocolate Starfish… and relentless self-pity of Results May Vary for darker, more serious subject matter, with everything from abuse in the Catholic Church, to political sloganeering, to Fred Durst’s indulgence in conspiracy theories getting a look-in. 

Some of it worked, some of it really didn’t, but the title track(ish) remains one of Limp Bizkit’s great unsung anthems – a heavy, propulsive rager featuring one of Wes Borland’s finest riffs and a sneering, no-nonsense showing from Fred Durst. Six years later, Limp Bizkit released their next studio album and were writing about gold cobras, sharks and waving shotguns about. It was like this whole release never happened. Shame. MA

Evanescence - Like You (The Open Door, 2006)

There are no Evanescence deep cuts if you’re a fan of Amy Lee and co, but Like You doesn’t have the sheer cultural reach of Bring Me To Life or My Immortal. A hauntingly beautiful song tucked away on their second album, it was written by Amy about her late sister, Bonnie, who died at the age of three. 

“It’s affected my life and definitely affected my music writing, and it’s made me who I am,” she has said of the tragedy. The nearest Evanescence have ever come to playing Like You live is using a section of it as the intro to Lithium on their 2012 tour.

Incubus - While All The Vultures Feed (Monuments And Melodies, 2009)

A lot of bands would kill to have the sort of songs that Incubus have jettisoned. While All The Vultures Feed was casually included on 2009 compilation Monuments And Melodies, fully formed but entirely lacking in an origin story. 

The best guess is that it stems from writing sessions for the soundtrack to Stealth - a 2005 sci-fi thriller that made one of the biggest losses in cinematic history. At least one good thing appears to have come of it, though. Mixing churning guitars, brittle melodies and a pulsing groove, While All The Vultures Feed is a fantastic if little-known song. PT

But as you get older, sometimes you forget whilst you didn’t like people, or remember it was for no reason at all, and since 2012 Albarn and the elder Gallagher have become fast friends and collaborators. A few years ago, Gallagher recalled to Q how it happened.

“We literally bumped into each other at some bar one night,” he explained. “Literally at the bar. I think I was getting served first, I got him a drink and it went from there.”

Gallagher ended up appearing as guest vocalist and guitarist on the 2017 Gorillaz song We Got The Power, also joining the group on the tour to support its parent album Humanz, but he said he couldn’t recall specifically the moment Albarn had approached him about working on music together.

“I don’t remember asking to be on a Gorillaz record,” he stated. “I do remember being at [Clash bassist and sometime-Gorillaz member] Paul Simonon’s one night and “it” being discussed. He was supposed to play on Who Built The Moon? [Gallagher’s third solo album, also released in 2017] but we couldn’t make the timings work. Maybe next time. If you’d told my younger self that he’d one day be singing on a record by Damon Albarn he would have laughed and probably said, ‘If either of you are still going it’ll be a fucking miracle – a sick joke that will fascinate speccy, Guardian-reading journalists for years.’”

Gallagher said he always enjoyed being in the company of Albarn and his crew. “I really love working and hanging out with that mob. Not just Damon, but all his people. It turned out we had a lot of mutual friends and they’re all cool as fuck.”

Watch Gallagher perform We Got The Power live with Albarn, Gorillaz and former Savages singer Jehnny Beth below:

What is The Radicant? Band? Art project? Something else?

The Radicant is my artistic alias, if you like. From a practical standpoint, it’s the name I use for all of my audio-visual output. It started off as an exploration in composing for different media and technology, which allowed me the freedom to work in different, interdisciplinary techniques that were new to me. And at the moment, it’s a commercial music project because I’m releasing records.

You started The Radicant in 2017, before Anathema split, but you kept it under the radar until now. Why?

I’ve been doing work and collaborations since 2017 that have informed the music I eventually put out. In terms of public appearances, I played live in a south London gallery in 2018 – it was the soundtrack to an augmented reality piece combined with sculpture and music.

I recently did a collaboration with Sarah [Derat, artist and Vincent’s partner/collaborator], which was an audio installation at the Castor Gallery in north London.

Not everything that I do is going to get released to the public – I guess to fully understand it, you maybe have to come to some of the future exhibitions.

What is a ‘radicant’?

It’s a name that was given to me by a friend of ours, an art curator. She described this shift into composition in different media and artistic disciplines as “a radicant move.” ‘Radicant’ itself is a botanical term – it describes organisms that create new roots as they advance, which means they can adapt and grow.

An art curator/critic called Nicolas Bourriaud wrote a book with the same name, and he discussed how individuals and cultures are constantly uprooted and in flux all the time. He used it as a metaphor for how artists can see themselves in a more connected world – there’s no single route that you come from; your origins are always multiple.

Anathema ended in 2021, during Covid. What happened?

I chose to leave. The truth is that it had been in the post for a very long time. I’d come to the realisation that I had no other way forward with it, and that I had to set off on my own, as tough a decision as it was.

I felt a huge amount of responsibility for everyone else and the legacy and history of the band – but it was time for me to focus on myself, this project, my plans with Sarah. It was a very difficult, painful, sad time for everyone.

Anathema were a band. This is just you. Liberating or scary?

It’s scary in any walk of life to leave something that’s all you’ve ever known and to take that leap into the unknown. But the actual work itself is completely liberating. I’m able to produce work that there’s no way I would have had any kind of freedom to do in Anathema. People presume the lead singer is responsible for writing the music and is the leader of the band, and none of that was ever true in Anathema. I just fell into it and kept it going.

But now I have the freedom to authentically be myself and put something across that’s exactly how I wish to be perceived, as opposed to being the guy fronting that band with the leather jacket and the guitar. In all honesty, that wasn’t me.

You scrapped a whole album as The Radicant. Why?

This was in 2021. I had the whole thing written. I’d recorded drums with [Anathema’s] Daniel Cardoso in 2019 and I’d recorded the vocals. There weren’t many guitars on it, but it felt like a continuation of what I’d done previously; it was a bit too ‘rock’-ish. I was, like, “I’m not sure this is the right move.” So I scrapped it. Then I met [French co-producer/mixer] Ténèbre and started working with him. I passed him a song and that became We Ascend. I knew it was going to work right away.

There are no guitars on the new EP. Why not? You are a guitarist, after all.

I don’t think I’ve played guitar at home for years. I can’t even remember the last time I did it. I’ve got guitars right in front of me in my studio, but I never reach for them. I don’t know why that is. I’m a guitarist, but maybe I just got bored of it.

You’re working on a full-length album. How does it move things on from the EP?

I think it’s going to be more upbeat. A lot of the tracks on the EP are a slow-burn; they build. The album is a bit more immediate in certain parts. It’ll have clues and callbacks within the tracks, and also callbacks to the EP – people will hear something and say, “Where does that come from?”

But I grew up listening to albums that were designed to be listened to in one sitting – The Beatles, Pink Floyd. The EP is constructed like that, and the album will be the same. Not necessarily a narrative, but something that’s connected musically and emotionally.

Are you going to be playing live?

Yeah. I want it to be a modular setup; if I’m asked to DJ somewhere I can do it, or if there’s a traditional gig I can have as many musicians as I like – even six or seven. But I’d absolutely love to play or tour with a band.

I’ve got an amazing drummer, Ben Brown from [London jazz-experimentalists] Waaju and Charlie Cawood playing upright bass; I’ve got Amy Woods, the classical soprano, who sings on the EP; and Sarah is a brilliant singer, too – she sings on the EP and the album. It feels like anything is possible.

The Dixie Square Mall that stood at the junction of 151st Street and the Dixie Highway in Harvey, Illinois had its grand opening in November 1966. By November 1978 it was abandoned. That’s not to say the old girl had outlived her usefulness.

The following summer, director John Landis rented the site to shoot a demolition derby of auto destruction for his latest project, a musical comedy starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood, The Blues Brothers. Landis had new shop windows and merchandise put in; he signed up dealerships to stock the car park and mocked-up showrooms with the latest in shiny and fat-rubbered Detroit steel.

The mall was eventually razed to the asphalt in May 2012 but Landis and his team of stunt drivers gave the demolition crew one helluva head start on that summer night back in ’79. The new cars and the mall would be wrecked in one spectacular money shot that was over in a matter of minutes.

By all accounts, that evening’s filming was bang on schedule but then some of the cast and crew began to notice that one of their number was missing. “Nobody could find John,” Dan Aykroyd tells The Blues. “I couldn’t find him on set or in my trailer, his trailer, anyone’s trailer. The radios were going crazy. It was 2am and we had to leave by dawn. Time and money were ticking away. I could just see $150,000 disappearing.

“I went to have a cigarette and stood under the stars, under the street lamps,” he continues. “I could see broken street lamps and a path of tufts of grass and broken glass, with the lights fading into the distance, like when Frank Sinatra is in his raincoat as he walks away. It was a logical walk to follow and I went down it. Lights in the homes around were extinguished. It was a dark suburban neighbourhood.”

As he sauntered along the quiet street, Aykroyd spotted something glowing in the distance.

“One light was on,” he recalls. “I knocked and a man came to the door. I said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, I’m looking for a missing member of our film crew.’ The man said, ‘You mean Belushi? He’s been here two hours, raided my fridge. He’s asleep on the couch.’”

That evening is Dan Aykroyd’s favourite memory of his late friend: “He was the guest who wouldn’t leave.”

Debuting in 1980, The Blues Brothers movie is a light-hearted musical comedy that became a culturally significant event. It introduced a generation ignorant of the cultural significance of African-American music like jazz, blues and soul to legends like Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, James Brown and Cab Calloway.

Picking up his brother ‘Joliet’ Jake Blues from prison where he’s served a three-year stretch for armed robbery, Elwood Blues has the audacity to turn up in The Bluesmobile (Illinois licence plate BDR529), a decommissioned ’74 Mount Prospect, Illinois Dodge Monaco patrol car.

He swapped their Cadillac for a microphone. The new motor’s attributes will come in handy when the brothers try to stay one step ahead of State Troopers, Illinois nazis and a pissed-off country band called The Good Ol’ Boys… and Jake’s homicidal ex-girlfriend, played by Carrie Fisher. Says Elwood: “It’s got a cop motor, a 440-cubic-inch plant. It’s got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. It’s a model made before catalytic converters so it’ll run good on regular gas.”

The movie’s plot is simple. The boys return to the St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud orphanage in Calumet City, Illinois, where they were raised by Sister Stigmata – aka The Penguin – to find that she’s fighting closure. They need $5,000 to pay property taxes and stay in business. ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood visit the evangelical church service of Cleophus James (played brilliantly by James Brown), where Jake suddenly sees the light.

It’s a mission from God. Put their old band The Blues Brothers back together, put on a show and collect enough dough to save the orphanage.

All they have to do is find their old bandmates.

But hey, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. As Steve Cropper told us, “The Blues Brothers was a band way before it was a movie…”

In 1975, Belushi joined the cast of comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live. His trademark skit involved dressing up as a bumble bee and singing Slim Harpo’s 1957 Excello Records B-side I’m A King Bee (‘Well, I’m a king bee, buzzin’ around yo’ hive’). It was Dan Aykroyd that sparked Belushi’s initial interest in blues music (he was bored of rock and hated disco) but singer and harpist Curtis Salgado gets the credit for fanning the embers.

“He sure turned John on to blues music,” acknowledges Aykroyd. “He steeped him in blues culture. I listened to him for my own harmonica practice.”

Salgado first met John Belushi in October 1977, when the comedian was in Eugene, Oregon, filming another John Landis-directed picture, National Lampoon’s Animal House. Although he was a familiar face on TV, Belushi’s portrayal of John ‘Bluto’ Blutarsky – a cross between “Groucho Marx and the Cookie Monster” – in the movie would prove to be the role that made him a king bee for real; a Hollywood A-lister. Salgado however, had no idea who this guy was.

“When he saw me play, he asked a local cocaine dealer and hanger-on, ‘Who’s that guy on stage?’” recalls Salgado. “I was with The Nighthawks with Robert Cray in the King Cole Room of the Eugene Hotel in Portland. I was in mid-set when a guy comes up and says, ‘John Belushi wants to talk to you.’ I say, ‘I’m singing. Fuck off.’”

Despite Salgado’s charming riposte, Belushi was determined to make his acquaintance.

“I jump off stage and head to a group of girls,” he recalls. “This guy grabs me and spins me around, says, ‘Meet John Belushi.’ This other guy reaches out his hand. I’m looking around over my left shoulder at the girls when Belushi says, ‘I love your music. It reminds me of a friend of mine. His name is Dan Aykroyd. He looks like you, he plays harp too.’ I think, ‘Great, that’s just what I need, another harp player.’”

Belushi explained that in addition to filming Animal House, he was still fulfilling his Saturday Night Live commitments by flying back to New York at the end of each week.

“I never saw it,” says Salgado of the show. “I’m a working musician. No time for TV. We have radio in our house.”

As he tried in vain to brush Belushi off, Salgado finally heard something that really snagged his full attention.

“I’m packing up my harps, trying to break free, when he says, ‘I’m going to have Ray Charles on the show.’ I turn and say, ‘You got to ask him about Guitar Slim and The Things That I Used To Do. You can hear Ray shout at the end of the record that it’s a take.’”

Ray Charles was in his early 20s when he arranged, produced and played piano on Eddie ‘Guitar Slim’ Jones’ million-selling 1953 rhythm and blues smash. By now warming to Belushi, Salgado dropped another nugget about The Genius into the conversation. “I said, ‘Do you know Ray plays alto sax? He did on Live At Newport [released on Atlantic Records in 1958] on a song called Hot Rod.’”

“After the show finished we partied a bit and he flew out,” says Salgado. “Saturday Night Live plays the following weekend. On the Sunday morning, rumours are spreading that Ray Charles played sax for the first time in 17 years on Saturday Night Live with the Saturday Night Live Band, as a guest. I think, ‘I did this.’”

Belushi was paying attention. He was getting hooked on the blues and Curtis Salgado was to become his dealer.

“John calls me up, says, ‘Let’s get together,’” he remembers. “I start bringing him my records: Fats Waller, Magic Sam, Sonny Boy Williamson. 30 records… a big pile. Howlin’ Wolf, Bobby Bland, Blues Consolidated. He dug Magic Sam. He absorbed it. He was serious – a very nice guy – and intense.”

Pretty soon, of course, Belushi wants to perform this music…

“We played the Eugene Hotel every Monday, called ourselves The Cray Hawks,” Salgado says. “A good crowd, a couple hundred. Then John Belushi began coming in. The word gets out and it was tenfold. He wants to sit in, asking me can he do Johnny B. Goode or Jailhouse Rock. I tell him they’re corny. I turned him on to Floyd Dixon’s Hey Bartender [released in 1954 on Cat Records]. Sure enough, he’s there next Monday. I said, ‘I’ll call you at the end of the second set.’ The place was now packed. The audience goes apeshit when I announce we’re doing a song with John Belushi. He gets up on stage.”

Belushi made the mistake of performing Hey Bartender in character to get laughs from the crowd. Salgado was not amused.

“I felt a little bitter,” he admits. “He’s doing the song with a gravelly voice and his hands clenched. I’m on harp and looking to my left, thinking, ‘Is that Joe Cocker?’ The audience are peeing their pants. I’m a bit disgruntled. That’s not a serious way to do the song.”

During the post-show analysis, Salgado gave Belushi a dressing down.

“He asks me, ‘What did you think?’”

“I say, ‘John, it’s Joe Cocker.’”

‘Yes, I do Joe on Saturday Night Live.’

“I punch his chest and say, ‘You need to do this from here [pointing at his heart] and be yourself.’ After that he didn’t mimic any more. He was himself.”

“John came back from Oregon with a lust for the blues,” remembers his widow, Judith Belushi. “He had tapes in his pockets and went to clubs.”

The Blues Brothers concept was conceived when Belushi and Aykroyd met in a bar a few years earlier. John would sing; Dan would play the harp. Also present at this time was Saturday Night Live musical director Howard Shore, who dubbed the union The Blues Brothers. The name hit the spot and stayed there.

The concept gathered momentum at the recording of Saturday Night Live.

“I made an arrangement for The Blues Brothers of the song Rocket 88 and we rehearsed it with the Saturday Night Live Band,” says trombonist Tom ‘Bones’ Malone. “We developed the characters and their steps, but we didn’t get on the show. Instead, we were asked to warm up the studio audience. Their reaction was reasonably good.

“The next week we thought, let’s do Hey Bartender,” he continues. “Again, we didn’t get on the show. Lorne Michaels, the show’s producer, said he didn’t see anything funny in The Blues Brothers. The next week we did nothing. The week after, he said, ‘The show is three minutes short, what can we do?’ John suggested The Blues Brothers. Lorne said, ‘You may as well make fools of yourselves, but if the show goes over time I’ll cut your part.’ We did it and had an amazing reaction, with cards and calls from the TV audience.”

Things started to move quickly. Record executive Michael Klenfner took John and Dan to see Ahmet Ertegün at Atlantic Records. He signed The Blues Brothers up. The boys now needed a band.

“John was the leader of The Blues Brothers Band,” says Bones. “He chose me, [pianist and future David Letterman Show band leader] Paul Shaffer and [saxophonist] Blue Lou Marini. He told me to choose another horn player. I chose Alan Rubin [aka Mr Fabulous] from the Saturday Night Live Band. [Legendary songwriter of Viva Las Vegas, A Mess Of Blues and others] Doc Pomus was John’s blues guru in New York and he chose Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy to join the band. I recommended Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn and Steve Cropper.”

Dan Aykroyd remains grateful to Malone, Marini and Shaffer. “There would be no Blues Brothers without those gentlemen,” he says. “It was Tom Malone and Paul Shaffer who suggested we approach Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper, who were playing with Otis Redding. Then we became more than a comedy tribute. We became true blues with the full band and had the real essence of the music. Duck and Shaffer were both archivists and turned us on to so much. They were our musicologists, introducing us to songs like [James Brown’s ’69 hit] Mother Popcorn (You Got To Have A Mother For Me). They and Lou Marini helped us treat the music with knowledge, humour and with confidence that we were venerating it. They gave John confidence as a singer and me as an instrumentalist.”

Stax Records and Booker T & The MG’s alumni bassist ‘Duck’ Dunn and guitarist Steve ‘The Colonel’ Cropper initially thought the calls they received from John Belushi to recruit them for The Blues Brothers were bogus.

“I was mixing, and I tell the girls not to disturb me unless it is a friend calling me to go to lunch,” Cropper remembers. “When Belushi called, they figured it was important enough to put through, but I didn’t believe it was him. He’d be saying, ‘I want you in the band,’ and I’d say, ‘You’re not him!’ I pretty much hung up on him.

“The mix I was doing was for guitarist Robben Ford. He says, ‘What did he want?’ I say, ‘For me to go to New York and join The Blues Brothers Band.’ He says, ‘I’ll do it.’ I said, ‘No you won’t, I’m doing it.’ I finished the mix and arrived a day later than John wanted.”

Session saxophonist Tom ‘Triple Scale’ Scott and Saturday Night Live Band drummer Steve ‘Getdwa’ Jordan completed the line-up and The Blues Brothers began rehearsing for a run of shows at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, opening on September 9, 1978 for comedian Steve Martin.

While choosing the set-list should have been easy – especially with a couple of Stax legends onboard – Aykroyd admits he made a few odd suggestions.

“We thought of doing a blues version of Stairway To Heaven,” he says. “Duck said no.”

“The Blues Brothers had been rehearsing with Duck a day before I arrived,” adds Steve Cropper. “I get there and Duck says to me, ‘These guys are rehearsing songs no one has ever heard of.’”

Stairway denied, the band replaced it with the 1967 Sam & Dave Stax classic, Soul Man.

“I say to Shaffer, ‘You know Soul Man?’” remembers Cropper. John says, ‘I can’t sing it that high!’ but we played it in the key of E instead of the key of G and we have done ever since. A better key!”

The live cut of Soul Man eventually peaked at 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Cropper also had some thoughts on ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood’s stage presentation. “I saw them singing standing still and said, ‘You’ve got to move around more, like Sam and Dave.’”

The first Amphitheatre show was released as the 1978 Atlantic Records album, A Briefcase Full Of Blues. It was dedicated to Curtis Salgado.

“Nobody in the crowd expected to see Dunn and Cropper,” says Steve Jordan of the band’s live debut.

“We hit the stage on fire and played [Otis Redding’s ’65 B-side] Can’t Turn You Loose. The crowd was shocked and stunned. We just ripped it up. People were freaking out.”

“Afterwards, John pulled me into his trailer with Dan and opened a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne,” Jordan adds. “There was a knock on the door and Mick Jagger and Linda Ronstadt walked in. I’d seen that in my dreams. Jagger was all smiles – it was like a whirlwind, a congratulatory visit.”

“On the third night, I was the outside horn, nearest the audience,” remembers Marini. “I saw Jack Nicholson in the audience. He looked at me, lifted his sunglasses and went, ‘Wow!’”

When the decision was made to make a movie based around the band and its two leading characters, some line-up changes had to be made. Other commitments meant that Paul Shaffer, Steve Jordan and Tom Scott were unavailable. Willie ‘Too Big’ Hall stepped in on drums. Hall played with the Bar-Kays band at Stax and Isaac Hayes’s band The Movement; he played percussion on Hayes’ album Hot Buttered Soul and his Theme From Shaft.

Murphy ‘Murph’ Dunne took over on keyboards (the boys rescue him from lounge-band hell and his band Murph And The MagicTones). Tom Scott was not replaced, taking the band back down to a three-man horn section.

Dan Aykroyd spent six months writing the screenplay for what would eventually become The Blues Brothers movie. The result was a 324-page slab (bound in the covers of an LA Yellow Pages as a joke) that was too unwieldy to reproduce onscreen.

The movie’s director John Landis spent a fortnight whittling Aykroyd’s efforts into a workable script. The finished result contained some of the greatest movie dialogue ever. The Blues Brothers is second only to This Is Spinal Tap for killer quotes.

There’s the classic moment when ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood have the necessary scratch to save the orphanage and need to get it into the right hands. What ensues is an orgy of car crashes as they’re pursued by State Troopers – including John Candy as Burton Mercer – and Illinois Nazis, whose leader was brilliantly portrayed by Henry Gibson. And what dialogue kicks off the mayhem!

Elwood: “It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark… and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

Jake: “Hit it.”

Then there’s the scene where the brothers seek out Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy and Blue Lou Marini at Mrs Murphy’s (aka Aretha Franklin) Soul Food Cafe.

Nate’s Deli at 807 W. Maxwell Street in Chicago served as the backdrop for the exterior shots of the cafe. The interior was created on a studio lot. As Jake and Elwood approach the cafe, we’re treated to a performance of Boom Boom by Street Slim (played by John Lee Hooker); harpist Big Walter Horton (as Tampa Pete); Pinetop Perkins (as Luther Jackson) on electric piano; Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith on drums; guitarist Luther ‘Guitar Jr.’ Johnson; and Calvin ‘Fuzz’ Jones on bass. That’s Chicago blues royalty performing in an area that has been eradicated forever by modernisation.

The scene is a piece of blues history. The brothers head into the cafe and encounter Mrs Murphy. Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy is the short order cook in the kitchen; Blue Lou Marini is washing the dirty dishes.

Mrs. Murphy: “May I help you boys?”

Elwood: “You got any white bread?”

Mrs. Murphy: “Yes.”

Elwood: “I’ll have some toasted white bread please.”

Mrs. Murphy: “You want butter or jam on that toast, honey?”

Elwood: “No ma’am, dry. [“I love dry white toast,” Aykroyd tells us. “These days I like to take it with some American Michigan sturgeon caviar on it.”]

Mrs Murphy turns her attention to Jake.

Jake: “Got any fried chicken?”

Mrs. Murphy: “Best damn chicken in the state.”

Jake: “Bring me four fried chickens and a Coke.”

Mrs. Murphy: “You want chicken wings or chicken legs?”

Jake: “Four fried chickens and a Coke.”

Elwood: “And some dry white toast please.”

Mrs. Murphy: “Y’all want anything to drink with that?”

Elwood: “No ma’am.”

Jake: “A Coke.”

When she realises the brothers intend to lure her husband and dishwasher back on the road, the foot comes down.

“Now, you not going back on the road no more. And you ain’t playing any more two-bit, sleazy dives. You’re living with me now… and you’re not gonna go sliding around with your white hoodlum friends.”

After a smoking blast through her 1968 soul hit Think, Aretha’s character loses her man to the mission from God. Blue Lou follows seconds later. “I pretended to be scared – I was supposed to be,” says Matt Murphy on his confrontation with an angry, full-throttle Aretha Franklin. “But I was having a ball! I was almost cracking up when I looked at her.”

Lou Marini recalls the days filming for a couple of reasons. First there was a practical joke: “The scene where I was washing dishes in the Soul Food Café, there were four or five guys. Landis and me, a camera guy, lighting guy, sound guy. Landis said, ‘I want you to do the dishes, do what you like with them, get angry, throw them, break them. Whatever you do, don’t look up till I say cut.’ I was washing an eternally long time. I looked up and they’ve all split. I yelled and down the end at the coffee shop I heard them cracking up.”

He was less amused by his portrayal during the Think routine. Some critics made reference to the fact that Marini’s head was out of shot as he danced on the cafe’s counter, playing his sax. He’d put a lot of effort into practising the nerve-wracking stunt.

“It was a little daunting,” he says. “The counter was raised up to four and a half feet up and was just two feet wide… and there were pots and pans down below.”

The reason his head was chopped? The set didn’t have a false ceiling. “The cameraman couldn’t use the angle as the top was unsealed and the studio was in view,” says Marini. “Landis took me to see a screening of the scene, said it was ‘spectacular’. He said to me, ‘It was great, right?’ I said it sucked. ‘I learned to play and dance and you can’t see my head.’ I was told, ‘You signed up for a lot of money and a little head, and that’s what you got.’”

The scene at Bob’s Country Bunker (where the waitress cheerfully informs the band they have both kinds of music: “country and western”) sees the band incite a violent reaction from the patrons.

As bottles smash on the chicken wire that isolates the stage from the paying customers, the band change tack and play The Theme From Rawhide and Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man. The scene was based on real-life experiences and as Steve Cropper told Dan Aykroyd at the time, he had seen worse.

“I’ve seen guys shot, guys holding their guts and belly after being stabbed, people hit on the head with baseball bats – a lot of blood in the parking lot. By the time we did The Blues Brothers, Duck and I were both seasoned musicians. Dan went round interviewing the band and putting bits of useful information into the script.”

The tale of ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood Blues’ mission from God hit cinemas in 1980. The receipts for the ensemble talent and all those wrecked cars busted the movie’s budget by $10 million.

John Landis also encountered trouble getting The Blues Brothers into cinemas. For instance, Ted Mann, head of the Mann Theatres chain, was unconvinced that white movie-goers would be interested in a bunch of old black musicians. He also apparently didn’t want blacks congregating in predominantly white areas to see it.

Ultimately, The Blues Brothers only opened in half the theatres that a similar size movie would enjoy. Some critics hated the movie for its thin plot and reliance on car chases for entertainment, but they were in the minority. The finished product is a blast.

And despite Ted Mann and the critics’ best efforts, ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood Blues found their audience. The Blues Brothers made stars of Belushi and Aykroyd, allowing the latter to bankroll future box-office behemoths like Ghostbusters. It also reignited back-catalogue sales for James Brown, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker and the other legends that appeared in the movie. Even blues and soul musicians that didn’t feature in the film felt the benefit of the public’s renewed interest in their brand of music.

The discovery of John Belushi’s lifeless body on March 5, 1982 in Bungalow 3 at the Chateau Marmont on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood put paid to any notions of a sequel to the movie. Belushi was only 33 years old when he succumbed to the effects of a speedball, a combined hit of cocaine and heroin.

Aykroyd takes the opportunity to pay tribute to his late partner in crime by remembering one of his favourite scenes in the movie – the attempt to persuade Alan Rubin to quit his maitre’d post at Chez Paul, the high-end restaurant where “Even the fucking soup is ten dollars.”

“The scene with John catching the shrimps in his mouth, he missed a few. I didn’t throw them all. Landis threw some. John was like a seal! He could catch shrimps, sing, dance, he was a real negotiator, actor, manager. He managed himself and the band brilliantly. A woman put too much heroin into his injection and his lungs and stomach were already weak, and she did three years in jail for it. The world lost one of its greatest talents ever at the age of 33.

“Maybe he was trying to numb the past, dull the present and look for comfort in the future. He found it there and it killed him.

“If he was here now, he’d be a top director on Broadway, putting on plays with great actors, part of the theatre world. He was very literate in his theatrical pursuits.”

The temptation to make a sequel did eventually prove too strong and Landis and Aykroyd reconvened for the ill-fated Blues Brothers 2000 in 1997. Despite some great musical performances, the absence of John Belushi was too big a hole to fill – even by John Goodman – and the movie bombed. Aykroyd’s intentions, as ever, were honourable.

“Getting the blues more widely known was part of the message,” he says.

The manifesto is right there in Elwood’s monologue that kicks off the first track on Briefcase Full Of Blues…

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Universal Amphitheatre. Well, here it is, the late 1970s, going on 1985. You know, so much of the music we hear today is pre-programmed electronic disco, we never get a chance to hear master bluesmen practising their craft anymore. By the year 2006, the music known today as the blues will exist only in the classical records department of your local public library. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, while we still can, let us welcome, from Rock Island, Illinois, the blues band of ‘Joliet’ Jake and Elwood Blues, The Blues Brothers.”

Thanks to ‘Joliet’ Jake, Elwood and their mission from God, The Blues Brothers band, even their ’74 Dodge Monaco cop car, the blues is still going strong.

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock Presents The Blues issue 7, published in June 2013.

When you think back to 1968, when you first put Led Zeppelin together, how soon did you realize that you had something unique?

It happened in the first rehearsal, which was in London, in Gerrard Street. I said we should play Train Kept A-Rollin’, but I think I was the only one who knew it. I don’t really know what else we did. But as soon as we played together, everyone knew instinctively that we’d never played anything like that before, or heard anything like that before. And it was just so right.

Had you already written songs for the band before that first rehearsal?

There was material I already had in mind, like Babe I’m Gonna Leave You and some other things. And by the time I got everyone in my house and we were doing steady rehearsals, we were working on Communication Breakdown and You Shook Me. Laying down that material, it was phenomenal. We knew just how good it was.

What did you have in Led Zeppelin that was different to other rock groups of that era?

In those days, you’d find really great groups built around one instrumentalist. In Led Zeppelin you had four master musicians. I know Cream had three, but to get four guys together, all at this high level, that was something else. To be honest with you, I knew the group was dynamite. From the rehearsals we did at my house, I knew what we had. And after we did the first tour in Scandinavia, I knew it would translate in a live capacity.

The first Zeppelin album was released in January 1969. What do you remember about the making of that record?

It was great how the first album was done – by playing it live in Scandinavia, to really oil it up before going into the studio. That way you were able really work it out before you’d recorded it. If you’ve got the benefit to do that, it’s a really healthy way to go into the studio, especially with guys who haven’t been in a studio too much beforehand. Also you had to record very thoroughly, and it was pretty ruthless – you couldn’t go in there wasting time, certainly with a new band.

What were you aiming for with that album?

You wanted to get in there and make the thing explode. You put all the chemicals together and it explodes out of the speakers. The word is chemistry, or alchemy. And that album was a complete picture, you know? So may ideas and combinations that people had never heard before. John Bonham had so much power and so much character in his playing, and there was some great keyboard playing from John Paul Jones. To get that album the way that it was, that was very cool.

From the very start, the band created a huge buzz in America.

We just went in and just destroyed San Francisco, and that was it. The first album wasn’t even out. And it just spreads like wildfire – that this band was just incredible, and then they hear the album…

By the early 70s, Led Zeppelin were the biggest band in the world, outselling the Stones. How did you deal with that level of fame?

If you’re talking about the time of the private jets and all that sort of stuff – do you mean that sort of lifestyle? Because other people were doing that, basing themselves out of cities and using a plane. It made sense.

I meant how you, as the leader of the band, coped with that pressure. Was Zeppelin’s manager Peter Grant the key to this – taking care of everything so that you could focus purely on the music and nothing else?

Yes, to go that far creatively, you needed somebody to be looking after the business side of it. And Peter definitely took care of the business side of it – outside of the making of the albums, certainly. But he and I went to Atlantic in New York in the initial stages, to do the original deal. And at the time of the fourth album, when we wanted to put that record out with no information on the cover – no band name, no title – Peter and I had an interesting meeting at Atlantic.

How did that go down?

When we got there, the Atlantic lawyers separated us. Peter was in one office and I was in another. They were saying, “You’ve got to have the name of the band on the cover.” I smiled and said, “You can print it on the inside bag, so that when people pull the album out they can see ‘Led Zeppelin’…” I was taking the piss, basically. Because they weren’t going to get the album unless it was under the circumstances we wanted.

You got what you wanted – and that album turned out to be one of the biggest-selling records of all time.

Yeah. But we were getting so much bad publicity at that time. That’s why we thought: okay, let’s put out an album with no information and let’s see what people think about that. Never mind what Rolling Stone says…

The bad reviews you had in Rolling Stone – did it hurt?

It didn’t matter. You could tell, even from the concert reviews, that they probably spent their time in the bar. They definitely hadn’t concentrated on what was going on. What was going on, right from that point in San Francisco, was that people were just flooding to see us, and that never stopped.

Do you remember Rolling Stone’s review of Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self Portrait? It began, famously, with the question: “What is this shit?”

Yeah, well that’s what I would say about Rolling Stone. I wouldn’t say that about Bob Dylan.

But for you personally, were there moments when Led Zeppelin failed? Are there songs in which you hear the band struggling, or perhaps reaching for something that could not be reached?

I don’t think so. I can tell you how things were with Led Zeppelin. When we were working at Headley Grange, recording with a mobile truck, or if we were in the studio, booked for time, we would go in there and we would really work with what ideas we had. There would be things coming out of jams, on the spot. And if one had a riff and it didn’t quite make it, or if it sounded like something we’d done before, it wouldn’t be revisited.

So there are no Led Zeppelin songs that embarrass you?

No. None.

But there are some that sound a little throwaway. There’s one on Zeppelin’s last album, In Through The Out Door – the playful rock’n’roll number, Hot Dog…

Yeah. Hot Dog was just a bit of fun.

And earlier, on Houses Of The Holy, you did a reggae song with a phonetic joke title, D’yer Mak’er. It was a joke that was lost on your American fans.

In America they had no clue what it meant, and it was just boring to have to explain what it was. You’d think: why didn’t we name it something else? At least the Brits got it, thank God.

Are there Zeppelin songs you feel are underrated?

What would you say?

Poor Tom is one. Maybe it got lost on Coda, the outtakes album released in 1982 after the band split. But it’s a great track. Dave Grohl loves it: he said that it’s one of John Bonham’s best performances.

Yeah. He’s right. And okay, here it is with Poor Tom. I had an idea for the drumming in that song. I said to Bonzo, ‘This is what is.’ And I knew he’d got it within five minutes, maybe not even that. He’d got the syncopation in his playing. That’s what it was like playing with John. He and I were so in sync – it was so cool. You could be writing something and, bang, you knew exactly how it would all sound.

Another underrated song is For Your Life, from Presence. So underrated, in fact, that when Zeppelin played it at the O2 in 2007 – the first time you’d ever played it live – many reviewers thought it was a new song.

That was… interesting (laughs). The reviews for the O2 were wonderful. But in the euphoria, people thought For Your Life was a new number. They knew all the other things, but that one song they weren’t aware of.

I would suggest that anyone who didn’t know For Your Life should not have been at the O2 that night. Their ticket should have gone to a genuine Zeppelin fan.

Yeah, I think you’re probably right. But in context, it was so cool to do that song. It’s quite edgy to play. There’s a lot to remember in it, so many changes, unexpected changes.

Was it also hard to stay in the groove on that song, because you play it so slow?

To get the tension in it – yeah. It’s quite an intense groove on that one.

You’ve said that you were pretty nervous before the O2 show.

I always get nervous, but probably never more so than then. You only had one shot, for heaven’s sake. But we’d put a lot of rehearsal into it, so I knew it would work. And really, it was a great gig, which is why it was so important to me that we got everything right with the DVD of it (Celebration Day). It sounded so, so good. For people who didn’t actually manage to get to the gig, what they got as a DVD was not going to disappoint them. They didn’t get into the show, but my goodness that DVD is good.

And better than the bootleg DVDs that were on sale within days of the gig…

You know, there was a guy from Japan who filmed it. He was on the plane immediately to go back to Japan, and the DVD was out within a matter of hours, let alone days of weeks. It’s the same thing when you play in Japan. I know for a fact that if you do a tour there, you’re bootlegged instantly. So if you’re starting a tour, you’re warming up, you really don’t want to go over there and do a dodgy show. You’ve got to go in there with all guns blazing.

Surely the biggest problem is not bootleggers but fans filming gigs on their phones?

Oh yeah, everyone’s like that now. On the first Led Zeppelin tour we’d be doing stuff that was going to appear on the second album. But now, bands have to be so careful about playing new stuff in front of an audience. You’re confounded by YouTube.

Kate Bush found a solution. For her shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2014, she requested that fans did not film the performances, and it worked.

Did you see that concert? I did. And I can tell you: if somebody had held up a camera they’d have been lynched. There was such a feeling towards it. The people had so much respect for Kate.

You had your revenge on the bootleggers with the Led Zeppelin reissues – all nine of the band’s studio albums supplemented with previously unreleased tracks. Out of all that archive material, what for you is the very best of it?

I love the Bombay session from ’72 (featured on the new version of Coda). It was just Robert (Plant) and I that went out there. I was so mad keen to do something with Indian musicians. They were the equivalent of what you would now call the Bollywood musicians, except in those days it was really insular. They were classical players, and they’d never heard Led Zeppelin music before. The whole idea of the experiment was to see what it would be like for these ethnic musicians to translate from the guitar.

The first song you played with them was Friends, from Led Zeppelin III. Why that song?

When I’d written Friends, I’d thought of it in that sort of Indian style, with the complex rhythms from the tabla.

You can hear that in the original.

Absolutely! I thought we could do this song. They played it purely on their technique. It was so exciting. And because we were only in there for an evening, I didn’t want the moment to go, so I thought: right, let’s do something else. We had this great percussion: a tabla drummer and another playing a double-ended long drum. So I fired up Four Sticks (from Led Zeppelin IV), and these drummers were so technically adept, they just sailed through.

All of this additional material on the reissues was drawn from your personal archive. Is there more treasure that you have hidden away?

Yes. I have stuff that precedes Led Zeppelin as well – stuff that I did way, way back when I was a teenager, writing, trying experimental recordings at home, in a really sort of naïve way. Then, going on to when I was a studio musician, I have stuff from that period. And I’ve got lots of material from The Yardbirds.

Will any of this material ever be released?

Well, I started going through all this stuff, revisiting it with an idea of putting it all together in chronological order, to have a proper inventory of what it was – from Led Zeppelin and beyond. But once I hit the Led Zeppelin stuff, I just focused on that.

So in answer to my question…

For now, there is no answer.

What do you feel is the best record you’ve made outside of Led Zeppelin?

I don’t know. What do you mean by best?

Maybe the one that you most enjoyed making.

I had a solo album in 1988. Outrider. It wasn’t bad at all. I can still relate to it.

What about the records you made in the period just before Outrider? In the mid-80s, you recorded two albums with Paul Rodgers in your group The Firm, but that band seems to have been written out of history.

I enjoyed what I did with those albums. Paul is such a great singer. But I think, unfortunately, that The Firm’s second album (Mean Business) was one of those things recorded in the 80s that suffered a bit from the sounds of that time. The band was really good, but with that album you don’t get the full meat and potatoes.

And after that?

I enjoyed working with David Coverdale (for one album, Coverdale Page, released in 1993). What I really enjoyed doing was playing with The Black Crowes. That was phenomenal. There was only one downside. The set that we had was a mixture of Black Crowes songs and Led Zeppelin songs. So I was playing on their music was well.

But when it came down to putting together an album, their record company wouldn’t let them do a re-record. So that’s why that album (Live At The Greek: Excess All Areas, released in 2000) was mostly all Zeppelin stuff, with some old blues songs. It was really a bit upsetting, but nevertheless the Zeppelin stuff we did, playing it with them, was bloody marvellous. Just fantastic. I had a whale of a time.

Your love of music – is it still as strong today as it was when you were a kid?

I’m certainly very passionate about it. And it’s funny, really. I’m quite aware of the fact of being that kid who was on that bloody embarrassing TV thing when he was in a skiffle group when he was about twelve. But that passion that I had as a kid, it took me though the world of being a studio musician – and it was such a great schooling, you know? I learned to read music, and by the end of it I was doing arrangement and production. For an untrained musician, self-taught, it was so cool.

Did you always believe, as a young man, that you would be successful?

Oh my God. Not if I’d been thinking as an adult as opposed to a teenager.

Meaning what?

As an adult, you’d think: if you muck up, you ain’t gonna be seen again. You know, that pressure of not wanting to fail. But I just went in there and pulled it off. When I look back, I think that was quite something.

And when you think of what you went on to achieve with Led Zeppelin, what are you most proud of?

The fact that our music reached so many people. We couldn’t supply the demand of people wanting to see us. Even when we hadn’t played in England for a number of years and we played Knebworth (in 1980), there were record crowds for that time.

What was it about Zeppelin’s music that connected with such a huge audience?

It’s no one thing – it’s so many things. We touched on so many different areas of music. That’s why Led Zeppelin is such a vast, panoramic, all-encompassing thing. Over the years, you hear these artists that have been inspired by our stuff, and they’ve done something in the same sort of vein, but people can hear what we did first. Led Zeppelin is the forerunner, the catalyst, for a lot if ideas and movements. And the fact that this music has been so alive all through the years – young kids come to it, they learn from it – that’s absolutely brilliant.

The band is gone, but the music lives on…

That’s it, exactly. People are always telling me how important our music has been to their life. And that, really, is the whole heritage and the legacy of Led Zeppelin.

Considered by many – including Eddie Van Halen himself – as the band’s masterpiece, 1984 was one of Van Halen’s best-selling albums and one of the best-selling rock albums of the eighties. It has earned RIAA Diamond certification for surpassing 10 million units sold – a feat the band only matched with their 1978 debut album, with the two perfectly bookending the beginning and end of Van Halen’s classic era with David Lee Roth fronting the band.

Clocking in at a lean 33:22 minutes, 1984 was, as the saying goes, all killer and no filler. Even the best-selling album of all-time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, can’t make that boast (does anyone even remember Baby Be Mine and The Lady in My Life?). 1984 produced an impressive string of four hit singles, with Jump delivering Van Halen’s only US No.1 charting hit single in the band’s career. Panama and I’ll Wait both peaked at No.13, and Hot For Teacher came in at a not-too-shabby No.56 in the Billboard chart.

Even the album’s deep cuts – Top Jimmy, Drop Dead Legs, Girl Gone Bad and House Of Pain – were scorchers too hot for the Top 40, but found a welcoming home on more adventurous FM station playlists. The only outlier is the album’s title track, but Ed’s solo synth performance perfectly set the mood as a brief overture that boldly introduced Van Halen’s brave new world.

With 40 years of hindsight, it’s tempting to look back and conclude that the phenomenal popularity of 1984 was primarily a result of being the perfect album released at the perfect time. But its success also benefitted from several years of extremely hard work leading up to its release – along with a series of high-profile events that brought Van Halen prominently into the wider public’s awareness.

During the early 80s, Van Halen had become one of the world’s biggest touring acts. The band sold out every one of its 83 shows in the United States and Canada on its 1982 Hide Your Sheep tour, and in early 1983 they made their first ever appearances in South America during a month-long leg that introduced the band to thousands of rabid fans.

A few months later, Van Halen staked a claim as the biggest band in the world when they headlined Heavy Metal Day on May 29, 1983, at the US Festival, performing in front of an estimated audience of 375,000 – Van Halen’s largest ever. Their fee for the US Festival gig was $1.5 million, setting a new world record.

The band experienced a significant upward trajectory in record sales. 1984’s predecessor, Diver Down, was a commercial success thanks in large part to the hit status of the 1982 single (Oh) Pretty Woman, which peaked at Number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

But what truly catapulted the band into the public limelight was Eddie Van Halen’s increasing celebrity status, even though the guitarist never sought the spotlight and was never comfortable with being called a rock star. His marriage to popular television actress Valerie Bertinelli led to appearances on mainstream prime-time shows like Entertainment Tonight, making the Van Halen name a household word. Ed’s charming, down-to-earth demeanour won over many new fans who would have been shocked by the raucous atmosphere at a typical Van Halen concert, let alone the band’s backstage antics.

But perhaps the biggest turning point that made Ed a bona fide celebrity was his guest appearance on Michael Jackson’s 1982 album Thriller, on Beat It. Jackson wanted to record a rock song, and he knew that getting the world’s most popular guitarist to play a solo would introduce and endear the singer to an entirely new audience. What Ed didn’t realize at the time was that his performance on Thriller would similarly cause Jackson’s fans to notice Van Halen. Beat It went on to top the charts worldwide, and those 33 seconds of guitar shred became an immortal symbol of the most enduring cultural crossover of pop, R&B and rock.

Eddie didn’t want his name to appear on Thriller’s credits, mainly to keep the session a secret from his bandmates, but there was no mistaking who performed that solo.

“Believe it or not,” Ed told Guitar World in 1990, “I did the Michael Jackson thing ’cos I figured nobody’d know. The band for one – Roth and my brother and Mike – they always hated me doing things outside of Van Halen. I just said ‘Fuck, I’ll do it, and no one will ever know.’ So then it comes out and it’s song of the year and everything.”

Despite his request to remain incognito, record company and musician’s union agreements led to his name appearing four times in the liner notes. But it didn’t matter as David Lee Roth immediately knew it was Ed the first time he heard Beat It blaring from a car stereo.

“The new Michael Jackson song, Beat It, came on,” Dave recalled later. “I heard the guitar solo, and thought, now that sounds familiar. Somebody’s ripping off Ed Van Halen’s licks.”

Edward Van Halen’s creative inspiration increasingly grew during the early 80s as he broadened his horizons into new musical styles and techniques and explored instruments beyond the guitar. While he was initially pleased with Van Halen’s fifth album, Diver Down, he wasn’t happy with the rapid-fire approach to the sessions, which were completed in a mad rush over a period of 12 days.

On the band’s previous album, Fair Warning, Ed had finally become comfortable with spending considerably more time recording and crafting multiple guitar tracks in the studio while also experimenting with a broader palette of guitar sounds. He felt that the slam-bang live performance blueprint used on Diver Down was a regression to the band’s first three albums, and the outcome left him creatively unsatisfied.

“I was always butting heads with [producer] Ted Templeman about what makes a good record,” Van Halen said in 2014. “Diver Down was a turning point for me because half of it was cover tunes. When we made Fair Warning I spent a lot more time with [engineer] Donn Landee working on my sound. I became much more involved in the recording process.

"To me, Fair Warning was more true to what I am and what I believe Van Halen is. We’re a hard rock band, and we were an album band. I like odd things. I was not a pop guy, even though I have a good sense of how to write a pop song. When we started work on 1984 I wanted to ram it up Ted’s poop chute and show him that we could make a great record without any cover tunes and do it our way.”

In order to be able to do things his way, Ed took dominant control of the creative reins by building a professional multitrack studio at home in 1982. Initially, the plan was to build a studio for recording demos, but as work progressed the guitarist realized that, with Landee working by his side, he could record Van Halen’s next album there.

“I did not set out to build a full-blown studio,” Ed admitted. “I just wanted a better place to put my music together so I could show it to the guys. I never imagined that it would turn into what it did until we started building it. Slowly it turned into a lot more than I originally envisioned.

"Everybody else was even more surprised than I was, especially Ted. They thought I was just building a little demo room. Then Donn said, ‘No man! We’re going to make records up here!’ Donn and I had grown really close and had a common vision. Everybody was afraid that Donn and I were taking control. Well… yes! That’s exactly what we did, and the results proved that we weren’t idiots.”

Ed’s new home studio, named 5150 after the California law code for taking a mentally disordered person into custody when that person is considered a danger to others, was completed by the end of 1982. In a recent interview with Greg Renoff for Tape Op magazine, Landee recalls that the first recording session took place on January 2, 1983, with Ed on synthesiser and his brother Alex Van Halen on drums.

This was a calculated move on Ed’s part to appease David Lee Roth and Templeman, perhaps hoping to convince them that the studio was indeed up to the task after they worked there and heard the results. The fact that the song was never released and is still locked up in 5150’s vaults suggests that Ed may have never actually wanted to record it in the first place.

However, Ed boldly revealed his hand with his next move. Over the previous few years, the guitarist had worked on a synth-dominated song that would later be named Jump after Roth wrote the lyrics, and with the studio up and running he recorded an instrumental demo of the tune, performed on an Oberheim OB-Xa synthesiser with accompaniment from his brother Alex on drums and Michael Anthony on bass.

“When I first played Jump for the guys nobody wanted to have anything to do with it,” Ed said. “Dave said that I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards. But when Ted heard the demo and said it was a stone-cold hit, everyone started to like it more. Ted [Templeman, producer] only cared about Jump. He really didn’t care much about the rest of the record and just wanted that one hit.”

The band worked diligently recording new material there for most of 1983, with the exception of the month of May, which they spent preparing for their appearance at the US Festival. Ed particularly revelled in having “unchained” freedom to experiment whenever and for as long as he pleased.

In addition to equipping 5150 with a solid selection of classic studio gear that included a Universal Audio console purchased from United Western Studios, Ed also added a wide variety of new instruments to his creative arsenal. The musician had become enamoured with the Oberheim OB-Xa polyphonic synthesiser and its updated version the OB-8, and they played a major role in three of the album’s songs.

Keyboards had actually prominently appeared on all three of Van Halen’s previous albums – a Wurlitzer electric piano on And The Cradle Will Rock… (Women And Children First), an ElectroHarmonix Mini-Synthesiser on Saturday Afternoon In The Park and One Foot Out The Door (Fair Warning) and a Mini Moog on Dancing In The Street (Diver Down) – but they were distorted and usually employed as ersatz guitars. With 1984, Jump and I’ll Wait, there was no mistaking that Ed was playing synths.

However, Ed was still a guitarist at heart and to his core, and he made many new additions to his guitar collection. The most notable newcomer was a rare vintage 1958 Gibson Flying V. The V was Van Halen’s primary guitar on the album, used to record Hot For Teacher, Girl Gone Bad, the main riff of Drop Dead Legs and, as recently discovered, quite possibly for Jump.

The guitarist had also acquired a few of Steve Ripley’s stereo guitars, featuring hexaphonic pickups which gave the instrument a very specific sound. Ed put the Ripley to good use on Top Jimmy, using an open D7 tuning and playing harmonics that bounced across the stereo soundscape.

The finished product exceeded all expectations and then some. 1984 was a document of a band at its prime, where years of relentless touring had made their sound tight and their improvisational communication almost psychic. Ed’s songwriting talents had expanded and grown, with his knack for pop hooks balanced by ambitious excursions inspired by progressive rock and fusion jazz.

Perhaps the most surprising element of 1984 is the fact that the first note of guitar is heard after more than two minutes have passed. This was partly the result of Templeman’s late comment that he wished the album had a song called 1984. Engineer Donn Landee realised that he had about 45 minutes of Eddie improvising solo on the Oberheim that could be edited down to an instrumental intro, and voila! He had his wish. The 1984 synth instrumental made the perfect dramatic statement and lead in to Jump.

Jump was pure pop perfection that fit right in with the synth-crazy mid-80s, but Ed’s dynamic guitar solo was the secret weapon behind its success, giving Van Halen a competitive crossover advantage with a hard rock audience that would never be caught dead listening to groups like the Human League, Depeche Mode or Soft Cell. Panama may be the ultimate classic Van Halen tune, with David Lee Roth’s raunchy “fast car and faster girl” lyrics perfectly capturing the SoCal party vibe that made the band so irresistible from day one.

It’s also one of two songs on 1984 that were inspired by AC/DC, which was not a bad move considering how Back In Black had already become the best-selling hard rock album of all-time. The infectious, bouncy energy of Top Jimmy made it a strong contender for a fifth single or at least a hell of a B-side. However, it was probably held back by the difficulty of switching from an open tuning to standard for the solo’s delirious whammy bar workout, which prevented Van Halen from ever performing the song live.

Drop Dead Legs similarly should have been a hit, partly thanks to its relentless pile-driving Michael Anthony/Alex Van Halen rhythm section groove.

“That was inspired by Black In Black,” Eddie admitted. “I was grooving to that beat, although Drop Dead Legs is slower. Whatever I listen to somehow is filtered through me and comes out differently. It’s almost a jazz version of Back In Black – I put a lot more notes in there.” It was never played live until the final 2015 tour.

Jump and its supporting music video may have made Van Halen seem harmless and cuddly, but Hot For Teacher was the opposite, exposing the band as the bad boy party animals they really were. Alex Van Halen’s galloping Simmons drum intro sounds like a nitro-fueled dragster revving up before he switches to a Billy Cobham-meets-Buddy Rich swing that pushes Ed’s hot-rodded tapping into overdrive. Roth’s schoolboy-in-heat lyrics are downright horny and given extra punch and verve by Anthony’s high-pitched harmonies, while Ed keeps things loose and raunchy with ZZ Top-inspired bluesy finger-plucked riffs.

I’ll Wait was the album’s other synth-driven hit, with the yin of Ed’s sophisticated keyboard chords and a chorus with smooth yacht-rock lyrics penned by the Doobie Brothers’ Michael McDonald counterbalanced by the yang of Roth’s semi-goofball rants about “heartbreak in overdrive” and “such good photography!” The guitar solo similarly provides a contrast between Ed’s melodic phrasing and fusion-esque flourishes with explosive vibrato bar noise.

When the album’s final sequence was being prepared in late 1983, no one outside the inner circle had any inkling that the band’s classic era with David Lee Roth would soon come to a close, yet the final two songs on 1984 delivered about as perfect a send-off as any fan could ask for. Girl Gone Bad is simply epic and the closest thing to a prog rock song that the band ever recorded. Ed delivered a tour-de-force performance with dynamic shifts in emotion from elegiac tapped harmonics to dark, drama-filled riffs. This was Van Halen’s equivalent to Led Zep’s Achilles Last Stand with the added bonus of a truly blazing Van Halen solo heavily inspired by Allan Holdsworth.

Dating back to Van Halen’s early club days (demos were recorded in 1976 with Gene Simmons and in early 1977 for Warner Bros), House Of Pain was the only song not completely written fresh for the album, although the only element that remained from the early versions was the song’s main riff.

“I guess nobody really liked it the way that it originally was,” Ed said. “The intro and verses are completely different, and the fast part in the middle for the solo and the groove at the end are almost like entirely new songs.”

House Of Pain showed that Van Halen had grown and evolved considerably over the preceding seven to eight years without losing any of their hunger, intensity and power.

All good things must come to an end. They were too good to last. Always leave the people wanting more. These may be overused clichés, but it’s difficult to think of better ways to describe the aftermath of the 1984 album, its ambitious supporting tour and the eventual breakup of Van Halen’s classic David Lee Roth lineup.

Did success spoil Van Halen? Yes, and no. Eddie Van Halen’s ever-growing musical ambitions and desire to pursue different sonic paths collided with David Lee Roth’s incessant adoration of the spotlight and aspirations to pursue a career as a movie star. With two diametrically opposed forces in conflict, the tensions inevitably sucked all the air out of the room until no one could breathe. Trying to outdo 1984’s success would have been an unfathomable challenge for any band, so it sadly made sense for Van Halen to end that chapter at the top of their game.

The Van Halen brothers and Anthony joined forces with Sammy Hagar and his growing legion of fans to take the band in a different and arguably more progressive direction it couldn’t have tried with Roth. The Hagar-led 5150 didn’t reach the staggering commercial sales heights of 1984, but it became Van Halen’s third all-time best-selling album, going six times Platinum. It was also the first Van Halen album to finally reach the No.1 spot on the charts. [1984 likely also would have achieved that feat, but it had the disadvantage of going head-to-head with the best-selling album of all-time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller.]

Meanwhile, Roth put together one of rock’s greatest supergroups, recruiting the extraordinary talents of guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Gregg Bissonette to keep the rip-roaring party going full blast. Roth’s first full-length album Eat ’Em And Smile was nowhere near as commercially successful as the albums he recorded with Van Halen, but with Vai and Sheehan’s instrumental pyrotechnics and Roth’s inimitable character it kept the white-hot flame burning very brightly for classic Van Halen fans.

The split resulted in a David Lee Roth vs. Sammy Hagar argument as incessant as it is meaningless. For some fans, the change was the best of both worlds, but it didn’t last. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. Van Halen had won the victory over itself.

"We've heard from Tiggy Walker [Walker's wife] that Johnnie Walker has passed away," said Harris. "I've known Johnnie since the 1960s, when I first started listening to him on pirate radio, and we know what an incredible, warm, wonderful broadcaster he was.

"We also know how passionate he was about his music, and he went out on a limb many times to defend the music that he loved, and he was passionate about radio. And as the 60s moved into the 70s, he and I became increasingly close friends, a friendship that endured right up to the present day."

Walker made his name on Radio Caroline, the pirate station based on a former Danish passenger ferry moored in the North Sea, just outside the UK radio authority's three-mile jurisdiction.

Walker's 9pm-to-midnight show included such risqué features as ‘Frinton Flashers’, wherein he communicated with listeners in their cars on shore by asking them to flash their headlights in response to his questions, and the ‘10’o’clock Turn On’, in which a particularly lascivious slice of soul or bluesy rock was played.

“It was a bit like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones,” Walker says in his autobiography. “[Radio] London was The Beatles – slick and neat, the radio station you could take home to your mother for tea. Caroline was definitely the Stones – scruffy, anarchic, non-conformist and rebellious… It was there to give freedom and expression to the creative artistic explosion that was the Sixties.”

Walker joined BBC Radio 1 in 1969 but left for the US in 1975, where he worked at KSAN in San Francisco, KPFA in Berkeley, California and WHFS in Bethesda, Maryland, before returning to the UK in the early 1980s. He returned to Radio 1 in 1987, and began hosting a show on London station GLR the following year.

Fired after announcing that people would be "dancing in the streets" following the resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he went on to work for BBC Five and was involved in the early broadcasts of fledgling London alternative music station Xfm. Further stints at Radio 1 and Radio 2 followed, and he hosted Sounds of the 70s and The Rock Show until his retirement. He had been battling the lung disease pulmonary fibrosis.

Walker's last broadcast was in October, when he signed off from The Rock Show by saying, "'[It's] going to be very strange not to be on the wireless anymore. Also, by the same token, life will be slightly less of a strain really, trying to find the breath in order to do the programmes.

"Thank you for being with me all these years and take good care of yourself and those you love and may we walk into the future with our heads held high and happiness in our hearts. God bless you."

"He remained his charming, humorous self to the end, what a strong amazing man," says Tiggy Walker. "It has been a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. And if I may say - what a day to go. He'll be celebrating New Year's Eve with a stash of great musicians in heaven. One year on from his last live show. God bless that extraordinary husband of mine who is now in a place of peace."

“Hello folks!" says Dickinson, flashing his Access All Areas laminate at the camera. "This is my tour pass for 2024. That’ll get me anywhere in 2024, but I don’t need that anymore now because 2025 is gonna be something special. Not just because of the tour pass, honestly. We are pushing the boat out with the tour. Not that I need to tell anybody, ’cause basically the tour is sold out already.

"So, for those of you who have bought tickets, which is like all of you, it’s gonna be really, really cool. I’m really looking forward to it. We’re gonna be doing stuff we’ve never, ever done before, and it’ll be a setlist for the ages.

"So, I’ll see you there. And it’s not gonna stop in 2025. It’s gonna roll into 2026 ’cause there’s parts of the world that we need to get to that we can’t get to in 2025. So there you go.”

The Run For Your Lives tour will kick off at the Budapest Aréna in Hungary on May 27, and will mark the live debut of new touring drummer Simon Dawson, who is replacing Nicko McBrain on the road. The schedule currently ends on August 2 at PGE Narodowy in Warsaw, Poland, but only European shows have been announced so far. Full dates below.

Iron Maiden: Run For Your Lives World Tour

May 27: Budapest Aréna, Hungary *
May 28: Budapest Aréna, Hungary *
May 31: Prague Letnany Airport, Czech Republic *
Jun 01: Bratislava TIPOS Arena, Slovakia *
Jun 05: Trondheim Rocks, Norway ≠
Jun 07: Stavanger SR-Bank Arena, Norway *
Jun 09: Copenhagen Royal Arena, Denmark *
Jun 12: Stockholm 3Arena, Sweden *
Jun 13: Stockholm 3Arena, Sweden *
Jun 16: Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Finland *
Jun 19: Dessel Graspop Metal Meeting, Belgium≠
Jun 21: Birmingham Utilita Arena, UK ^
Jun 22: Manchester Co-op Live, UK ^
Jun 25: Dublin Malahide Castle, Ireland *^
Jun 28: London Stadium, UK *^
Jun 30: Glasgow OVO Hydro, UK ^
Jul 03: Belfort Eurockéennes, France ≠
Jul 05: Madrid Estadio Cívitas Metropolitano, Spain **
Jul 06: Lisbon MEO Arena, Portugal **
Jul 09: Zurich Hallenstadion, Switzerland **
Jul 11: Gelsenkirchen Veltins-Arena, Germany **
Jul 13: Padova Stadio Euganeo, Italy **
Jul 15: Bremen Bürgerweide, Germany **
Jul 17: Vienna Ernst Happel Stadium, Austria **
Jul 19: Paris Paris La Défense Arena, France **
Jul 20: Paris Paris La Défense Arena, France **
Jul 23: Arnhem GelreDome, Netherlands **
Jul 25: Frankfurt Deutsche Bank Park, Germany **
Jul 26: Stuttgart Cannstatter Wasen, Germany **
Jul 29: Berlin Waldbühne, Germany **
Jul 30: Berlin Waldbühne, Germany **
Aug 02: Warsaw PGE Narodowy, Poland **

* = Halestorm support
^ = The Raven Age support
** = Avatar support
≠ = Festival date

Get ticket information.

A sea of mullets, denim jackets and carrier bags containing vinyl albums washes around outside the doors of Berlin’s plush Four Seasons Hotel. AC/DC are here in Germany to play three shows with the Rolling Stones, having jammed together in Australia last year.

Last night they warmed with up a headline show at the city’s 3,000-capacity Columbiahalle – as intimate a setting as you’re likely to get for a band who have sold 85 million albums in the US alone during the past three decades. With the latest wave of their back catalogue about to be reissued, and having been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame back in March, AC/DC were more than happy to interrupt the writing of a new studio album in order to play the shows.

Their Hall Of Fame induction was followed by an acclaimed show at New York’s Roseland Ballroom, at which Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler had joined them on stage for a rousing You Shook Me All Night Long. Given how good AC/DC’s Columbiahalle concert was, it appears that the group’s advancing years doesn’t yet seem to pose a threat to the group’s impressive longevity.

Indeed, it was reported that police in Essen received numerous complaints of excessive volume when the band played with the Stones – even though they were playing in Oberhausen, several miles away.

The fifth highest certified band in music history in terms of record sales, AC/DC are still the subject of more than their fair share of conjecture. Several days after Classic Rock visited them in Germany, the band’s booking agent was denying an internet rumour that Angus had died. Thankfully the guitarist was unmistakably still very much in the land of the living in Berlin as he slurped a bowl of soup. His equally diminutive brother Malcolm seemed happier to do much of the talking on this occasion.

When a band like AC/DC plays shows supporting the Rolling Stones, who calls who to make it happen?

Malcolm: We’d gone home to Sydney for last Christmas and they were coming in to play. Everyone was calling us for tickets…

Angus: It’s strange when you’re in a rock’n’roll band, people sometimes think you’re a home box office.

Malcolm: On the day of the gig, we got a call from their production manager telling us that Keith [Richards] really wanted to meet Angus. We ummed and ahed, and eventually decided to go down there for an hour just to check out what was going on.

Angus: We’re not snobs or nothing, it’s just that being the Rolling Stones we knew there’d be lots of cameras; we don’t like all that media hoo-hah.

You ended up jamming with the Stones that night, so what happened when you got to the venue?

Malcolm: Keith came straight out to see us, and we all got on. Then somebody said: “Did you bring your guitars?” The next thing we knew we were up there with them. Then they called us to ask if we wanted to do this. We were doing nothing except writing, and we thought it would probably do us good to get back onto a stage.

I know the Stones charge a lot of money for people to come to see them, which we’re not into, but we’re here as a bonus. The tickets were already on sale before we were announced.

What kind of a show are they allowing you to put on – can you use your famous bell and cannons?

Angus: We’ve got an hour and a half. We can squeeze a few of the gadgets in, but we’d have done it without them if necessary. It’s a great show that the kids will remember for a long time.

Malcolm: As far as being a real rock’n’roll band, there’s only two of us out there. It’s a good show. I don’t know about the [ticket] cost, but it’ll certainly be fun.

Is there any element of competition between the two bands?

Angus: Nah, we’ve never been that sort of a band, and we’ve always had our own niche. They do their rock’n’roll show, we do ours.

Certainly the Rolling Stones are a legendary band, but don’t you want to remind them that AC/DC are, too?

Malcolm: Maybe, I suppose. But the main thing is that we’ve also got a lot in common. If we’re having a party, we won’t be sticking on an AC/DC record, it’ll be the Stones, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, that kinda bag.

Does gigging with the Stones give you encouragement that AC/DC can still be doing this when you reach the Stones’ age?

Malcolm: We’re not far off it now, mate. But I think we could be making music when we’re as old as them. From the beginning, this band has always gone for the throat. It was an energy thing. And it still is.

Angus: The gimmick’s always been me out there in the schoolboy suit, so people’d remember. Club owners in America might not have recalled the band, but they’d never go forgetting the little kid in the shorts and satchel – the one who behaved like a lunatic.

Malcolm: Some of ’em thought Angus was queer, especially in England in the early days. Then when he bared his ass… [laughs].

Angus: In Aussie you could do that in the pub and nobody gave a shit.

Do you think you’ll still be wearing the shorts on stage when you’re Keith’s age?

Angus: I guess I’ll have to. These days, when I see them my legs just look like two fucking bowling pins. I’m not trying to compare myself to Elvis, and I never saw him live, but if I had done I’d have wanted to remember him being young and wearing one of his rock’n’roll outfits.

I read that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame tried to prevent you from wearing your shorts at the induction?

Angus: They tried to make us all wear fucking tuxedos. Fuck that.

Malcolm: When we got there it was like playing in front of a bunch of fucking penguins in a restaurant. The guys from The Clash were up before us, and The Edge of U2 got up to introduce them. Fuck, he made this 40-minute speech [about late Clash guitarist Joe Strummer].

He was the most boring bloke I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. We were at the side [of the stage], waiting, and getting madder and madder, even though we had sympathy [for the rest of the Clash]. So when they said to go, we fuckin’ took off. It was an anger-fuelled performance. We ripped the place apart. They were dancing up in the balconies in their tuxes. It was quite a moment for us. The rest of the bands were pretty mild by comparison.

Mark Evans, who was AC/DC’s bass player in the 70s, very publicly expressed his anger at being dropped from the list of inductees. Did you have any sympathy for him?

Malcolm: Not really, no.

Why? Because he left the band such a long time ago?

Malcolm: We all helped to get the band to where they are, and to get what we wanted. He was there [pause]… but wasn’t there.

Angus: I don’t see what all that shit was about. People say he was our original bassist. No he fucking wasn’t. The first guy we had was called Rob Bailey. Some nights Mal even played bass.

Malcolm: We had about four bass players [before Evans]. Mark actually got picked by our manager. We never wanted him, we didn’t think he could play properly. We could all hold our own, and so could Rob Bailey. What we thought was that when we’d kicked on a bit more we could override the manager and get in a good bass player. We had Simon Wright [former Dio drummer] in the band for longer than Mark Evans.

We’re also here to discuss the AC/DC back catalogue reissues. Are you happy with the job that your new label Epic have done with them?

Malcolm: Yeah. They’ve sorted out the packaging and everything. The other lot [long-time label Atlantic] had become a bit too complacent. They probably figured we’d always be around; we’d been with them for over 20 years. We finally decided we’d have to pull the plug because a lot of kids complained about the quality of the packaging.

Sound-wise the reissues are better than ever.

Malcolm: Yeah, they really got the welly up. The needle sits on the red all the way through now. The kids can save on batteries now!

You’ve always maintained that your recording sessions didn’t generate out-takes. When Columbia revised the Judas Priest catalogue, in the absence of unreleased studio material they at least used vintage live tracks as bonus material where appropriate.

Malcolm: We just didn’t wanna do that. We work on 12 songs at a time – that’s the album.

Angus: And we’ve never been a singles band, so we couldn’t exactly go putting the B-sides on there. Who remembers the Top fucking 40? I couldn’t remember a fuckin’ tune from them times… Maybe In The Navy [by the Village People], but that’s it.

Malcolm: The way we’ve always worked, especially on the early albums, was to write songs to fill the live set, not the album. If we knew we needed four or five fast songs to please the punters, we wrote them for the stage, not to put onto the next record. That’s the way we still work.

Yet despite all this repackaging, the track Crabsody In Blue is still missing from Let There Be Rock, and Powerage continues exclude Cold Hearted Man.

Malcolm: Is that right? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.

Absolutely. Those tracks are on the old vinyl albums, but they’re missing from the supposedly definitive CD editions.

Malcolm:There’s been a lot of confusion in the past as to what came out in Australia, America and in Europe. Some albums were missing certain tracks. But I know we laid everything out for [Epic] – spot-on for them. We made it clear that [the versions for each territory] should all be the same. If that’s not the case we’ll get it sorted out.

You mentioned earlier that you’re writing for an album. A lot of AC/DC fans have been getting excited that the name Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange – producer of the Highway To Hell, Back In Black and For Those About To Rock albums – seems to be in the frame again.

Angus: Sorry to disappoint you, but we haven’t made any of those type of decisions yet. It’s way too early.

What sort of time frame are you working to?

Angus [dismissively]: Ah, we’ll know when it’s ready. Sometimes you’re lucky and the ideas come quick, and sometimes they don’t.

Malcolm: It’s good to get one good one, because that sets the standard and gets things moving.

How many ideas like that do you think you have in hand already?

Malcolm [sighing deeply]: We haven’t even started to go through them yet. There’s so many.

Angus: Believe you me, the good ones will stand out. Me an’ him bounce things off each other once we’ve got a whole pile of ideas. Sometimes we have thousands of ideas – just a guitar riff or something – but the gems shine out. You don’t always use ’em right away, either.

Even a track like Back In Black, Mal had the riff for that one for a long time before we did anything with it. We’d toured all through Highway To Hell but it took us all that time to sit down and bounce things around. Then one day it was: ‘Oh, shit. There’s that fucking old riff.’

Are you saying that you nearly forgot to write the song Back In Black?

Angus: Well, not exactly forgot, but we did put it to the side and worked on something else. It was only a riff back then, not a fucking tune. But it had something about it.

When do you get your best ideas for songs?

Angus: You can guarantee it’ll be when you’ve got no fucking guitar, or a tape recorder. You’ll be walking down the fucking road and bingo, something’ll go off in your head. Or you’ll get up for a piss and it’ll happen then. That keeps you awake all night, because you can’t get back to sleep. It’s happened to me. The trigger can be something somebody says to you, a chord on the guitar or just about anything. It can even be a fucking drum.

People say we make the same album over and over again, but there’s some clever things in our songs that haven’t been picked up on to this day. Listen to the guitar at the beginning of Who Made Who, for instance, and you’ll recognise that it’s actually truck horns. Y’see, there is thought and subtlety that goes into it.

Does the carping of the critics still irritate you?

Malcolm: No. They’re the irritation, not what they write. If you can’t loosen up, get your shirt off and enjoy a band like AC/DC… well, we don’t make records for those fucking stiffs.

Angus: In my dealings with them they don’t fucking want to talk about the music, it’s all about the art or the statement you’re supposedly trying to make. These days it’s fucking worse – it’s all about the grooming and looks.

Okay, I still wear the school uniform out there, but my first thought isn’t how I’m going to [duck]-walk across the stage, it’s: ‘Is my guitar in tune?’ And then when you’re happy you get a spring to your step.

AC/DC are still one of the loudest bands I’ve ever seen. Is there a reason for that?

Angus [grinning broadly]: To keep you awake. Yes, but even a volume fiend like Ted Nugent doesn’t play at the volume he once did.

Malcolm: We’re not going to fall into that trap of old age. We can’t get up there and play things like Highway To Hell, For Those About To Rock and The Jack quietly. You gotta stay young.

Angus: The intention is not to deafen anyone… but you can’t be fucking timid about these things. This might make you laugh. In our earlier days we were touring South Australia, and during the daytime we once did a gig for a school of deaf children. They sat at the front of the stage, put their ears to the ground and soaked up the vibration. And they fuckin’ loved it, even the youngest ones.

Okay, from the sublime to the ridiculous…

Angus: That’s us! And we admit it.

What can you tell us about Brian Johnson’s much rumoured collaboration with the Sarasota Ballet of Florida on a new version of Helen Of Troy? I read that Malcolm McDowell [Clockwork Orange] had agreed to play the role of Zeus, but that there was some kind of problem with the funding.

Malcolm [laughing]: I know fuck-all about it, mate.

So you guys were as surprised as everyone else to learn about it?

Malcolm: Yeah. I read it in the paper and thought, what the fuck’s this? It sounded like he’d got pissed in the pub one night and agreed to do it. You’d have to ask Brian about it.

Angus [raising an eyebrow]: But the ballet dancers sound good.

Have you seen any bands that you reckon might one day succeed AC/DC when you decide to call it a day?

Malcolm: I tend to like things on a one-off basis. You might hear something that’s great and then wait for the next thing the band does, but they disappear. Time is the ultimate test. I haven’t seen anything with a good act – like we’ve got with Angus and Brian, and used to have with Bon [Scott]. And look at the Stones, with Jagger. The problem is that there’s a serious lack of showmanship. You need a good tight act, with a star out at the front. There’s not a lot of those around.

What’s the strangest rumour you’ve heard about yourselves?

Angus: It’s not particularly strange, but the one we hear most often is that the band have split up. That one seems to come up between each tour. And somebody once tried to say that we had poisoned Bon.

Malcolm: The most annoying one is with Brian and the lyrics to Back In Black. [It has been alleged that it was Scott, and not Johnson, who wrote the words to some of that album’s biggest songs before he died]. That’s complete bollocks. Poor old Brian’s had to deal with that one for the past 20 years. It just won’t go away.

At your gig last night I was handed a flyer for a Berlin show by Dave Evans; no relation to Mark Evans], AC/DC’s original singer, and his backing group, the German tribute band Overdose. Are you still in contact with Dave?

Angus [sounding slightly irritated]: How many bands has he fuckin’ got?

Malcolm: Every time we go back to Australia there’s something in the local paper about, ‘I made the band AC/DC into what they are’ [cackles dryly]. The day we fuckin’ got rid of him, that’s the day the band started. How we got rid of him is quite a good story. We were playing at this pub in Melbourne.

Dave was almost like Gary Glitter in the gear he’d insist on wearing. It was ridiculous. All these hard-nosed, beer-drinking Aussies were after him, so we told him to go for a walk for ten minutes and we’d play a boogie number. But it went on for half an hour and the place was rockin’. After that we realised that we didn’t need a singer.

Angus: No, we realised we didn’t need that singer! Actually, to call him a singer is being a bit polite.

It’s interesting to hear you tell the story that way, because according to some versions Dave left the band due to being stage-struck, and Bon Scott, at that time the band’s chauffeur, was quick to fill the gap.

Malcolm: Nah, that’s bullshit. Bon was driving us around at the time, and he was forever telling us to get rid of our singer because he was crap. He kept saying that he would love a crack at it himself – this was when he was oiled. One day we mentioned it to him but he wasn’t keen any more. So he went back to painting ships. We get to Melbourne, and the phone rings and it’s [in slurred, belligerent tones]: “Mal, I’m on me fuckin’ way. I’m sick of painting ships.”

Evans had been screwing this chick that the drummer at the time fancied, so he woke him up at five in the morning and smashed Dave in the face. Gave him a fucking good beating, he did. The next day Dave came to us to complain and we told him: “You haven’t got a job any more.” But it was Bon that called the shots on that one. He said: “I want in.”

Speaking of Bon, do you ever think he might be looking down – or up! – at what AC/DC have achieved after he died?

Malcolm [smiling wryly]: To be honest, if there is anything in the after-life, he’ll probably be saying, “C’mon, guys. Play that one fucking faster. Put some fucking grunt into it.” That’s what he was like. Bon wasn’t one for compliments, but he’d always be funny about it.

But surely he would be proud of the band’s accomplishments?

Angus: Well, don’t forget that things were going pretty well for us at the time of Highway To Hell anyway. But the biggest kick that Bon seemed to get – and he often remarked on it – was that he could be himself. He’d been a drummer in rock’n’roll bands since the age of 15, then he realised that the singers got all the chicks and became a singer.

When he joined us his first words were: “How do you want me to fuckin’ sing, guys?” We told him to do whatever he fuckin’ wanted. And he was finally able to follow his own path.

Malcolm: He had years of lyrics that his previous bands wouldn’t let him use. He could knock up a set of lyrics for a song overnight – with the help of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. You’d read ’em and go: “That’s fuckin’ eloquent, Bon.”

Angus: If you asked him about his lyrics he’d always just say it was toilet poetry. But he was gifted, believe me. He’d write things like Downpayment Blues – owning a Cadillac but not being able to afford the gasoline. Nobody’s doing that shit any more. You just don’t hear it.

Malcolm: And this from a guy who’d until then had been painting ships. When he joined us he took us by the scruff of the neck. On stage it’d be: “Don’t just stand there, you cunt.” So whatever AC/DC went on to achieve, Bon was also very responsible for.

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 57, August 2003

There've been comebacks - Nails, Bruce Dickinson, Job For A Cowboy, Kerry King - ascendant new bands like Heriot and Lowen making their stunning debuts and an all-round bounty of all things extreme and interesting, but the time has come to rule which albums best represented the heavy music world in 2024. 

That in mind, we asked Hammer's extensive pool of freelancers, staffers and contributors to submit their picks for the 20 best metal albums of 2024, and below you'll find the fruits of those labour as every vote has been tallied to create a comprehensive rundown of the finest 2024 had to offer. Don't recognise a name on the list? Stick 'em on! We'll see you for more brilliant new music in 2025.

50. Fever 333 - Darker White (Century Media/333 Wreck Chords)

Jason Aalon Butler certainly knows his way around a rap metal anthem. Only, with Fever 333 he hadn’t really shown it – until now. Rebuilding from scratch in 2022, the all-new and revitalised Fever took a massive leap towards the huge anthemia Jason had commanded in Letlive. 

Singles Higher Power, No Hostages and Desert Rap stuck massive hooks to his soaring vocals and maximised the band’s funky, incendiary alt metal, resulting in a bouncy and galvanising record that went some way to realising the band’s potential.

49. Caligula's Horse - Charcoal Grace (Inside Out)

Before 2024, Caligula’s Horse made music on a pendulum, going back and forth between proggier and heavier albums. Charcoal Grace smashed that swing, presenting grand epics with bleak, brutal themes. The four-movement title track took the perspective of an abused child seething at their father, and represented the Aussie band at their biggest, darkest, and absolute best.

48. Hamferd - Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk (Metal Blade)

Sounding as bleak, powerful and starkly beautiful as the natural forces that batter their Faroe Islands home, Hamferð’s fourth fulll-ength turned death-doom’s propensity for disaster into a gorgeously affecting modern fable. 

Conceptually based around a disaster that claimed the lives of 14 men on a whaling expedition, the record dredged up an ocean’s worth of low-end to subsume all in its wake, offering serenity only beneath its crushing waves.

READ MORE: "Hamferd probably has more crying than moshing."

47. Kati Rán - Sála (Svart)

Kati Rán put together an impressive crew for this voyage, with black metal legend Gaahl, Mitch Harris of Napalm Death and members of Heilung, Sígur Rós and more taking turns on the oars. 

But this was very much Kati’s vision, as she navigated a journey of selfdiscovery through dark Nordic folk waters filled with oceanic swells of primal power and moments of calm introspection. Sála was mythic in scope yet deeply personal and stunning on all its many levels.

READ MORE: "It's been a long time in the making!" Dark folk enchantress Kati Ran is a songwriter like no other

46. While She Sleeps - Self Hell (Sleeps Brothers)

There’s the kitchen sink, and then there’s Self Hell. WSS’s sixth album felt like the end-of-level boss for everything Sheffield’s finest had been building to this point, slapping together their anthemic but gritty brand of metalcore with lashings of arena rock, EDM, hip hop and even alt pop, producing an album that leaked ambition from every pore. It was a headspinning ride, but for those willing to jump onboard, greatness awaited.

45. Undeath - More Insane (Prosthetic)

With the possible exception of Frozen Soul, nobody’s done more to sustain the rise of death metal’s new generation than Undeath. The New Yorkers’ third album fulfilled all the promise of their first two, widely acclaimed albums. 

Bolstered by an absolutely crushing production, More Insane blended old-school incisiveness with contemporary levels of aggression. From the punishing entry point of Dead From Beyond to the bilious slurry of Bones Clattering In The Cave, it loudly confirmed that Undeath were serious heavyweights.

44. Satan - Songs In Crimson (Metal Blade)

What’s your da doing right now? Sitting on the couch, yelling at the latest Premier League debacle? What he’s not doing is continuing to rewrite proto-thrash metal and the NWOBHM with precision guitars, unrestrained drum galloping and cloud-poking vocal heights with the same wiry intensity of a hardly misspent youth. 

Forty-five years ago Satan helped invent a sound and scene; Songs In Crimson helped to reshape that invention in 2024. All hail the old flesh!

43. Grand Magus - Sunraven (Nuclear Blast)

From the doomy blues of their early albums, Grand Magus have gradually distilled their sound to the essence of pure heavy metal. Sunraven raised its burnished steel to the living gods of Judas Priest and the departed great one Dio, while weaving in epic threads that were all the Swedes’ own making. 

Sunraven was also the trio’s first foray into concept album territory, with a heroic but surprisingly nuanced lyrical take on the Old English poem Beowulf

42. Winterfylleth - The Imperious Horizon (Candlelight)

From the snowcovered peaks on the cover to enlisting Primordial’s Alan Averill for the glorious hymn In Silent Grace, everything about Winterfylleth’s eighth album saw the epic dial turned up another couple of notches. 

Maintaining the savagery and craft that’s made them the UK’s most consistent black metal band of the last 15 years, the sheer presence of songs like The Insurrection and the title track ensured The Imperious Horizon would be carved into the mountains.

41. Tribulation - Sub Rosa In Æternum (Century Media)

In both a left turn yet some kind of ordained inevitability, Sweden’s masters of the mystical went more goth rock than ever on album six. Johannes Andersson flexed his clean, crooner muscles and shook up their sound with cuts of dark Wild West Americana and slithering giallosoundtrack synth-prog. 

There was still the metallic Tribulation you know and love, but as part of the most diverse record of their career, as one of metal’s 21st-century iconoclasts continued to tinker with their own building blocks.

40. Kalandra - A Frame Of Mind (By Norse Music)

On the follow-up to sublime 2020 debut The Line, Kalandra mixed Nordic folk and contemporary rock even more skilfully. Early standout The State Of The World bridged those realms both musically and thematically, classical strings scoring vocalist Katrine Stenbekk’s lamentations about humanity’s current callousness. 

Meanwhile, Bardaginn attempted the opposite, seeing Katrine chant in Old Norse atop modern, anthemic prog. Countless acts, from Wardruna to Heilung, have reappropriated Scandinavian tradition for modern times, but Kalandra’s approach to it still proved distinct.

39. Pijn - From Low Beams Of Hope (Floodlit Recordings)

Fans of Pijn had to wait nearly six years for a follow-up to 2018’s excellent debut album, Loss, but it took less than a single spin of From Low Beams Of Hope to show that every second spent in anticipation was worth it. 

Across four songs and 45 minutes, the Manchester post-metal sextet delivered an encapsulating, exceptional body of work that soared seamlessly between elation and melancholy, and took listeners on an instrumental journey of sheer beauty and wonderment.

Job For A Cowboy - Moon Healer (Metal Blade)

Arizona’s tech-death titans vanished without a trace after 2014’s seminal Sun Eater. A decade later, they returned in blistering form. Moon Healer was the perfect sequel to the labyrinthine savagery of its adored predecessor. 

Smart, intricate and full of inspired melodic touches, songs like Etched In Oblivion and The Agony Seeping Storm fulfilled fans’ high expectations and ensured that JFAC’s relaunch was an unequivocal success. When it comes to refined, neck-threatening virtuosity, nobody did it better this year.

37. Melt-Banana - 3 + 5 (A-Zap)

Nothing on Earth is like Melt-Banana. The Japanese duo’s ninth album and first in 11 years, 3+5, offered a jubilant reminder. 

Yasuko Onuki’s idiosyncratic yelps zipped across grinding hardcore, blissed-out noise-pop and everything between; Ichiro Agata’s wild musicianship zapped along 24 minutes of neon abandon, heavier than every other album this year but always catchy, forever fishing a hook or 12 from his back pocket. Mind-melting and completely bananas, 3+5 was the sound of a migraine made flesh.

36. The Obsessed - Gilded Sorrow (Ripple Music)

Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich is perhaps the most totemic figurehead in doom outside of Signor Iommi himself. After stints with multiple scene leaders (including Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan and Shrinebuilder), his contribution to the world of slow’n’low is incalculable. 

Returning in his 60s to the band he formed as a teen, Gilded Sorrow really tugged the heartstrings; the weight of soul and grizzled lifer wisdom that Wino brings to any party was multiplied tenfold on these classy biker grooves.

35. Big|Brave - A Chaos Of Flowers (Thrill Jockey)

A companion piece of sorts to last year’s Nature Morte, A Chaos Of Flowers found Big | Brave taking their avant-garde yet emotionally ravaging take on post-metal into sparser but no less crushing places, summoning both the delicate, plaintive folk of their earliest material and the chasmic drone of early Earth. 

Woven around Emily Dickinson and less remembered female poets, this was a clarion call for repressed voices from the most precarious of precipices.

34. Zetra - Zetra (Nuclear Blast)

For those who wished to exist in an alternate universe where The Human League dressed as Immortal and collaborated with The Jesus And Mary Chain on songs for the Lost Boys soundtrack, Halloween came early when London duo Zetra released their debut album. 

Their mix of classic, icy, goth melodrama, late 80s Creation Records roster worship and early synth-pop cool was brilliantly realised on the sublimely catchy, yet delightfully evil-sounding likes of Suffer Eternally and Gaia.

33. Thou - Umbilical (Sacred Bones)

Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based sludge swamp monsters Thou have historically been recognised as premium purveyors of sonic anguish and psych-ward despondency through the medium of sound. 

Umbilical absolutely didn’t scrimp on the gloom, but what the band did to make their sixth album uniquely special was add engaging layers of melody and, dare it be said, hooks to the mix that spun a purgatorial web where frowning doom metal was forced to crack a smile and tap a toe.

32. Kerry King - From Hell I Rise (Reigning Phoenix)

As Angel Of Death would put it, “He’s baaaaaeughhhhhhck!” Unsatisfied with Slayer’s decision to go into retirement, and with vast reserves of hellfire still to expel, six-string legend Kerry King instead assembled an all-star force of thrashers to create his debut solo record. 

With Mark Osegueda up front and an engine of Paul Bostaph, Phil Demmel and Kyle Sanders, Kerry got back to business in the fiercest way possible. Top grade thrash metal, pure and simple.

READ MORE: Inside the rebirth of thrash metal titan Kerry King

31. Dodsrit - Nocturnal Will (Wolves Of Hades)

Dödsrit’s shtick was always an easy sell: foe-vanquishing, epic black metal riposting gutter-worthy crust-punk. The Swedes’ fourth album made that pitch even simpler, paddocking the d-beats into one track and leaving the rest to flourish in a fashion most grandiose. 

Nocturnal Will was a supreme display of melody amid muck; Lamp Of Murmuur’s M. even turned up for a church-kindling solo. A record so throat-squashingly vital, you forget half of it was instrumental.

30. Touché Amoré - Spiral In A Straight Line (Rise)

Touché Amoré’s Stage Four was beloved upon its 2016 release, inspired by the loss of vocalist Jeremy Bolm’s mother to cancer. Where 2020’s Lament felt like it was processing that contrast of tragedy and applause, Spiral In A Straight Line marked a new era, “grieving in a forward direction” to paraphrase Jeremy on opening track Nobody’s. 

There was a sense of rejuvenation to their spirited post-hardcore, raw and playful in delivery, full of surprising twists and their biggest choruses to date.

29. High On Fire - Cometh The Storm (MNRK Heavy)

Solidifying High On Fire’s status as sonic pioneers, Cometh The Storm blended their brutality with probing psychedelic nuance. Fans revelled in Matt Pike’s timeless, riff-driven fury, while critics lauded the album’s rich textures and gutsy ambition. 

From the primal aggression of Lambsbread to the sprawling, doom-laden Darker Fleece, their latest collection showcased a band at the peak of their creative powers, loudly reaffirming that HOF could be as audacious as they were relentless, marking it as a career-defining release.

28. Orange Goblin - Science, Not Fiction (Peaceville)

Continuing to fly the flag for heavy metal’s real, old-school deal, Orange Goblin went bolder and deeper for their 10th full-length, as proggy detours and huge melodic refrains elevated every song to potential new classic status. 

Ben Ward had never sounded more powerful or authoritative, and the arrival of new bassist Harry Armstrong induced a renewed sense of urgency. Science, Not Fiction rocked like an absolute bastard, and may just be the band’s finest album to date. OFG, baby!

27. Oceans Of Slumber - Where Gods Fear To Speak (Season Of Mist)

With a point to prove and a new label following the muted reaction to the more dulcet Starlight & Ash, the Texans came out all guns blazing and hearts clearly tattooed on sleeves. 

Combining all the elements that have made OOS such a cerebral, magical force over their previous five albums, Where Gods Fear To Speak was an unashamed emotional and visceral statement of intent, with the likes of The Impermanence Of Fate acting as cathartic, captivating calls to new fans.

26. Slift - Ilion (Sub Pop)

An intergalactic odyssey powered by unlimited fissile material, Slift’s third album proper maintained a whiteknuckle, synapse-frying intensity across 80 minutes and stretches of space vaster than the human mind can safely comprehend. 

From the off, riffs dazzled like sparks flying from a Catherine wheel, grooves pumped as if pushing magma up from an alien planet’s core, and the Toulouse trio redefined stoner/ psych as Sleep in inverse: frazzled, but wide-eyed and staring directly into the blazing heart of the cosmos.

25. Nails - Every Bridge Burning (Nuclear Blast)

As the clock ticked towards eight years since cult powerviolence crew Nails’ last album, and with frontman Todd Jones the only remaining member, surely few people expected much, if anything, from the band ever again. 

For Every Bridge Burning to exist at all felt like a win. For it to showcase Nails being as brutal, spiteful, viscous, manic and panic-inducing as they always were, in a mere 17 minutes over 10 tracks, was unquestionably one of 2024’s greatest comeback stories.

24. Solstafir - Hin Helga Kvöl (Century Media)

On their eighth album, snow-blasted postrockers Sólstafir split the difference between Sigur Rós and Slayer. Hin Helga Kvöl offered a series of deep contrasts: where the heads-down title track and Nú Mun Ljósið Deyja’s blizzard-roar called back to the Icelanders’ extreme metal past, the slow-burning Sálumessa and Kumi’s tribal-goth chants and ghostly sax offered something more evocative and enigmatic. 

But its disorientating brilliance was embodied by the R’n’B style female backing vocals dropped in Vor Ás – proof that few bands today match Sólstafir for sheer inventiveness.

23. Devin Townsend - PowerNerd (InsideOut)

Intense Devin? Mad Devin? Devin With His Hand Up A Puppet’s Arse? It’s anyone’s guess which Devin Townsend we’ll get with any given album. But here we got Accessible But Epic Devin. 

His 22nd solo album found this habitual over-thinker giving himself just two weeks to write it. The result was uncharacteristically direct; heavy on great, sweeping melodies and massive choruses. There was still some soul-searching, but tracks like Gratitude and Younger Lover sugared the pill brilliantly. And not a fucking puppet in sight.

22. Zeal & Ardor - Greif (Redacted)

Nearly a decade into the project, Zeal & Ardor mastermind Manuel Gagneux shows no signs of letting the restlessly creative spirit of his band diminish. Greif was another superbly unique and idiosyncratic release from the bluesy black metallers.

This time, though, there was far more in the mix than just those two unlikely genre bedfellows, as progressive song structures, tech rhythms and massive hard rock hooks all congealed together. It meant that Greif was paradoxically both Zeal & Ardor’s most challenging and complex record, yet also their most instantaneous.

READ MORE: "I got high on mushrooms with Brent from Mastodon." How Zeal & Ardor went from grotty squat-punks to the most inventive band in extreme metal.

21. Leprous - Melodies Of Atonement (InsideOut)

After years of tempering their guitars with symphonic textures, Leprous brought the riffs back. Melodies Of Atonement was a response to frontman Einar Solberg’s largely un-heavy 2023 solo album, with Silently Walking Alone and Like A Sunken Ship exploding from the speakers with blasts of metal. 

Proggier entries, such as the vocal harmony-stacked Self-Satisfied Lullaby, showed the Norwegians were still forward-thinkers: not regressing, but reviving their earlier aggression as they push forward.

20. Rotting Christ - Pro Xristou (Season Of Mist)

Greece’s premier extreme metal exports have undergone one of the most impressive and enjoyable evolutions in the game over the past two decades, and it reached new heights with this year’s magnificent 14th studio album. 

Striving further towards the arena-ready sonics the band have flirted with for some time, Pro Xristou managed to produce hooks that stayed embedded in your cranium for days without sacrificing an inch of the metallic might that has driven this band ever forward. Epic stuff.

19. Lucifer - V (Nuclear Blast)

The fifth full-length from these Stockholm-based throwbacks saw them perfect their fusion of doom, occult and 70s shock rock. Led by Johanna Platow Andersson and featuring husband Nicke Andersson Platow of Hellacopters fame, Lucifer V was littered with deliciously creepy, darkly comic sermons about sin, wickedness and forbidden love affairs. 

Dialling everything up to 13, the likes of the anthemic At The Mortuary and irresistible power ballad Slow Dance In A Crypt had hooks sharper than Old Scratch’s trident.

18. Dvne - Voidkind (Metal Blade)

Punchier and more direct than Dvne’s hypnotic 2021 breakthrough Etemen Ænka, Voidkind concertedly advanced the Scottish quintet’s post-metallic prog-sludge magick to a more immediate, accessible level, adding meatier hooks and craftier riffs while maintaining the chemical flow of jam-toned interplay. 

Dvne’s precociously expert blending of light and shade dynamics reached a rolling boil during this hour-long odyssey, heightening the album’s dramatic intensity and bringing a satisfying sense of emotional completeness to the organic and immersive whole.

17. Bring Me The Horizon - Post Human: Nex Gen (Sony)

After multiple delays, Bring Me The Horizon’s seventh album finally arrived in a blaze of glorious technicolour. A playful, genreagnostic romp through metal, hyper pop, R’n’B and breakcore, and even a Deftones-ian crawl on Limousine, was delivered with head-spinning energy. 

Meanwhile, a cheeky nod to pop punk on anthems Lost and Top 10 Statues That Cried Blood ensured BMTH kept a finger on the zeitgeist, while looking resolutely forwards. Post Human: Nex Gen was everything we’ve come to expect from the alt metal innovators.

16. Nightwish - Yesterwynde (Nuclear Blast)

After 2020’s sprawling Human. :II: Nature., Yesterwynde emerged as a rebirth, returning to the band’s heavier roots while blending intricate storytelling and powerful orchestration with bombastic blasts of metal. 

From the epic An Ocean Of Strange Islands to the iron-clad The Antikythera Mechanism and immersive Perfume Of The Timeless, each track exuded symphonic grandeur, driven by Floor Jansen’s dynamic operatic prowess, cementing Nightwish as one of metal’s most accomplished exponents and Yesterwynde as one of their most invigorating releases in years.

READ MORE: How death, cancer and a pandemic couldn't stop Nightwish making their most positive album yet

15. Julie Christmas - Ridiculous And Full Of Blood (Red CRK)

To be reductive, Julie Christmas’s second solo album was Björk by way of ArcTanGent Festival. To be accurate, Ridiculous And Full Of Blood was an emotionally wrought, uncanny plunge into post-metal, hardcore, glistening pop and sundry other subgenres. 

Tracks such as Supernatural detonated with chorusminded precision, while Julie’s dextrous wails parried Cult Of Luna’s Johannes Persson, guttural as per, through End Of The World. Much like eternal enemies Robert Smith and Morrissey, Julie proved possessed of a voice that never weathers. Magic.

14. Ulcerate - Cutting The Throat Of God (Debemur Morti Productions)

These Kiwis had been twisting death metal into increasingly unforgiving and avant-garde shapes since the early 00s, but no one saw their embrace of melody in the 20s coming. 

Here they were more unique and hypnotising than ever, their dissonant death metal now reflecting a dark night of the soul with intimate, tragic atmospheres and raw emotional textures. All the more impressive for being a trio, the horrifying scale of their labyrinthine cacophony cast the listener as a speck of insignificant cosmic dust. 

13. Dool - The Shape Of Fluidity (Prophecy)

Rarely had an album title been so apt. The Shape Of Fluidity was not only informed by vocalist Raven van Dorst’s exploration of their intersex identity, it was driven by wave upon wave of sinuous musical forms that defied genre without losing cohesion.

There were hints of progenitor outfit The Devil’s Blood’s slick occult rock, but there were also broad progressive and psychedelic strokes along with crashes of classic and gothic metal. Style, substance and wonderful songs bled together in shadowy perfection.

READ MORE: How Dool are challenging gender-norms with The Shape Of Fluidity

12. Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition (Nuclear Blast)

Arizona ragers Gatecreeper have been steadily but assuredly expanding their modernised Swedish death metal template for a decade now, but with third studio full-length Dark Superstition they scaled nefarious new heights. 

Never a band to shy away from drawing on their influences, this was the album where the five-piece let some of their more extracurricular inspirations run wild, resulting in not just their most convincing and diverse offering so far, but one of the essential extreme metal albums of 2024. 

From obvious touch points like Bolt Thrower, Dismember and early In Flames to more surprising (but welcome) tips of their grotty cap to Paradise Lost, Black Sabbath, Kyuss and Cradle Of Filth, Gatecreeper and producer Kurt Ballou crafted a record that sounded colossal, modern and invigorating while rooted in underground metal’s murkiest traditions. 

From the searing gothic metal of The Black Curtain to the swaying melodeath of Caught In The Treads to the straight-up heavy metal majesty of Tears Fall From The Sky, Dark Superstition is like a bulletproof guide to making modern extreme metal that will still appeal to old-school diehards.

11. Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja (Nuclear Blast)

Oranssi Pazuzu’s= sixth album was their most nightmarish trip yet. If 2020’s Nuclear Blast debut, Mestarin Kynsi, was a distilled entry point for the Finns’ blackened, reality-warping rites, here they plunged into ever deeper, lightless realms of human consciousness, where only the most exotic of monsters reside. 

From the jarring countdown intro through Jupiter-force sonic storms; primordial, instruction-relaying lizard chants and cavernous expanses, Muuntautuja instilled awe and unease in vast and equal measure, boldly venturing where no band had gone before.

10. Unto Others - Never, Neverland (Century Media)

Unto Others made an instant impact (then as Idle Hands) with 2019 debut Mana, seamlessly fusing trad metal and goth rock with a thrilling razor’s edge. As with 2021’s Strength, Never Neverland replaced that initial urgency with stadium-filling grandiosity, while refusing to be a nostalgia-baiting throwback. 

Gabriel Franco’s plaintive baritone and stellar songwriting prowess were possessed with a rare verve and wit. Here they aimed to further distinguish a sound already distinctive among their peers in 2024, playing with an expanded sonic palette covering everything from riffing madness and pealing solos to wistful romance, pitch-black gallows humour and radio-friendly rock. The sound of a band with huge ambitions and the charisma to deliver.

9. Lowen - Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran (Church Road)

Drawing on the ethereal power of prog metal, apocalyptic dread of doom and a very healthy dose of singer Nina Saeidi’s Iranian heritage in their songcraft, melodies and subject matter, Lowen stepped forth as an emerging force in British metal in 2024. 

In truth, Do Not Go To War… continued a sonic journey started on their 2018 debut EP, A Crypt In The Stars, albeit with a laser-focus that highlighted the sheer potency the band could harness, while a sleek production ensured an undeniably cinematic scope that made the album a sonic monument to their burgeoning, towering talent. 

Nina’s sublime vocal patterns showcased her as a powerhouse talent, each soaring note tinged with both liberating empowerment and sadness at a culture she is cruelly restricted from.

READ MORE: Meet Lowen, 2024's breakout prog metal sensation.

8. Ihsahn - Ihsahn (Candelight)

Ihsahn had long mastered the art of blending classical instrumentation with the intensity of extreme metal, but never had he achieved it with such unparalleled sophistication. 

The Emperor mastermind’s eighth solo album, released as two versions including a standalone classical arrangement of the same songs, was a towering achievement, with tracks like The Promethean Spark and Twice Born epitomising his bold integration of black metal, progressive structures and cinematic textures. 

With a deepening reliance on orchestral elements marking a significant evolution for Ihsahn, his compositions were pushed to new heights while At The Heart Of All Things Broken elevated listeners to his new spiritual plane, marking this eponymous release as one of the sharpest fusions of Ihsahn’s finest skills.

READ MORE: How Ihsahn went from black metal icon to prog metal master

7. Heriot - Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell (Century Media)

2024 was the year everything fell into place for Heriot. The Swindon/Birmingham quartet were one of the most talked-about bands in metal long before the release of their debut, Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell, and the album delivered on that early promise. 

Taking their dynamic and experimental brand of metalcore, industrial and hardcore to even greater heights, while Harm Sequence and Siege Lord were unfathomably heavy, tracks like Opaline and Visage blew their ambient, shoegazey tendencies – only hinted at in the past – up to full scale. 

It was the sound of a band in control, aware of when to temper their heaviness and when to let it run rampant. We’re only beginning to see what Heriot are truly capable of.

READ MORE: How Heriot became the UK's hottest underground metal band. 

6. Opeth - The Last Will And Testament (Regining Phoenix)

Five years on from the acclaimed In Cauda Venenum, Opeth took a new and intriguing path on their 14th studio album. The Last Will And Testament was the Swedes’ second bona fide concept record, and one of the most adventurous and subversive things they had recorded to date. 

A spiky, sardonic tale of family betrayal and shocking revelations, its eight chapters represented some of the most complex and challenging music in Opeth history. And yes, Mikael Åkerfeldt’s peerless death metal growls returned. But this was no cynical return to the band’s earlier sound. Instead, it amounted to another grand leap forward for prog metal’s most creative crew, and their heaviest record in decades. Prog on.

READ MORE: Opeth spill the tea on The Last Will & Testament.

5. Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project (BMG)

Iron Maiden’s unstoppable frontman took his sweet time to make his seventh solo album, but the wait was more than worth it. The Mandrake Project was a sprawling, prog-tinged, doom-laden heavy metal masterpiece, full of dark, ingenious songs that showcased the unerring strength of Bruce’s voice and the enduring vitality of his long-term partnership with guitarist Roy Z. 

A concept piece focusing on notions of power, abuse and identity, its tumultuous battles between science and the occult ensured that the legendary singer’s return looked, sounded and felt like a momentous event. Songs like the doom-driven opener Afterglow Of Ragnarok and closing epic Sonata (Immortal Beloved) were heavier and more immersive than anything in Bruce’s already magnificent solo catalogue. Comeback of the year.

READ MORE: 50 years in, Bruce Dickinson is making some of his most ambitious music ever

4. Knocked Loose - You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To (Pure Noise)

Knocked Loose were already one of the biggest bands operating in a vibrant and overflowing hardcore scene, but You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To turned them into one of the biggest heavy bands on the planet, period. 

Following sets at Coachella and shoutouts from pop stars like Billie Eilish and Demi Lovato, the Kentucky quintet well and truly smashed their way into mainstream consciousness – a feat made all the more mind-boggling by the fact their third album was their most uncompromisingly, terrifyingly heavy record yet. 

Every track here showed off their multi-faceted brilliance, from the sheer power and panic of Piece By Piece to the surging, tar-thick breakdowns of Sit & Mourn, while the reggaeton switch-up of Suffocate was one of the year’s finest musical moments. A masterpiece.

READ MORE: "We want to be the biggest band in the world." How Knocked Loose are taking hardcore into the mainstream

3. Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (Loma Vista)

Following 2017’s Hiss Spun and 2019’s Birth Of Violence, Chelsea continued her excellent run of releases with She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. Inspired by the singer’s newfound sobriety and the phases of the moon, her seventh studio album was dense with witchy, emotional energy, exploring her touchstones of goth, folk and otherworldly doom. 

Tracks Everything Turns Blue and Tunnel Lights built a sense of drama that was both majestic and nightmarish, while The Liminal, peppered with Depeche Mode and NIN-inspired industrial electronics, felt like a natural evolution. Closing with the darkly hopeful Dusk, and the lyric ‘held anew and whole again’, this was a bewitching journey out of darkness and into the light.

READ MORE: We visited LA's weirdest and most wonderful book store with Chelsea Wolfe

2. Judas Priest - Invincible Shield (Sony)

Judas Priest’s 19th studio campaign was not just a latecareer victory, it was a reaffirmation of their towering legacy. Across 11 marauding tracks, Invincible Shield harnessed the relentless energy that defined 2018’s Firepower and amplified it into a deafening proclamation that silenced any whispers of retirement. 

With Rob Halford’s vocal power on full display and the unbridled force of Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton’s twin-guitar assault, bangers like Panic Attack and The Serpent And The King proved Priest could still raise the stakes in a genre they helped define. Fans and critics united in hailing Invincible Shield as a fist-pumping testament to heavy metal’s staying power, cementing the album as one of the year’s most essential releases. Judas Priest had, once again, shown the world how it’s done.

READ MORE: Rob Halford talks Judas Priest, Dolly Parton... and kittens.

1. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)

Reactions to Absolute Elsewhere crash-landing into Hammer’s Album Of The Year beacon will probably be split into two responses: “What the fuck is this?” and “Didn’t see that coming, but yeah, of course.” Both are entirely appropriate. The record felt simultaneously like a piece of alien technology fallen from the heavens and an excavated artefact central to human and heavy metal civilisation.

Blood Incantation made their name as a forward-thinking death metal act with 2016 debut Starspawn and 2019’s landmark, gloriously maximalist The Hidden History Of The Human Race, but Absolute Elsewhere saw them set a course for a place where genre strictures were nonexistent. 

Their molten death metal riffing flattened skulls, but it was the foregrounding of their prog, psych, krautrock and ambient sensibilities that really twisted heads from shoulders. While these elements had played a part in the band’s sound since day one and were let of the leash for 2022’s instrumental synthscape, Timewave Zero, every element now felt fully synthesised and folded into a greater whole, as though the band had emerged from a strange, sticky pupa and evolved into an entirely new state of being. 

Huge riffs and searing harmonics interwove with woozy bass emanations, craggy, cracked-meteorite roars and, at the album’s close, one of the year’s most breathlessly thrilling black metal climaxes. These moments, however, were laced with Eastern melodies, unexpected bongos, dashes of dappled acoustic prettiness and Mellotron workouts from members of Hällas and Tangerine Dream. 

Just as they filtered different sounds, the quartet threaded together multiple philosophies, mythologies, histories and lines of scientific inquiry to form an immersive worldview. This grand vision elevated their metal and imbued it with a galactic scale, speaking to an insatiable hunger for cosmic truth that placed them within a lineage of far-sighted metal mystics that ran from Cynic and Morbid Angel to Nile and to Oranssi Pazuzu. 

A yearning soulfulness at the core of the album made the unquantifiable vastness Blood Incantation explored thrilling rather than terrifying. While dazzling in scope and delivery, there was also a sense of togetherness that was capable of satisfying our primal need to feel part of something bigger and meaningful. After all, community and belonging are fundamental to life as a metal fan: the ritual of the moshpit; the camaraderie of a festival crowd; the subtle nod to a stranger on the street whose band shirt you recognise. 

With Absolute Elsewhere, this experience was writ large and magnetic – a glowing orb on the landscape drawing everyone towards its radiance. 2024 was Blood Incantation’s year, from proving the signature draw at Roadburn, as metalheads, hipsters and more nearly burst a 3,000-capacity venue for their ambient and death metal sets, to finding themselves trending on X when the album was released. 

Coming in at 45 points above the nearest competition, whether its prime placing was a deus ex machina anomaly or preordained, Absolute Elsewhere was a landmark album whose mysteries and repercussions we’ll be picking apart for years to come.

READ MORE: How Blood Incantation made the most essential album of 2024.

If they handed out an award for Hardest Working Man In Metal, then Devin Townsend would be a shoe-in. Since kicking off his career as vocalist on guitar god Steve Vai’s 1993 album Sex & Religion, the maverick Canadian has barely paused to draw breath.

His CV speaks for itself: as well as numerous albums released under his own name, there’s been Strapping Young Lad, Devin Townsend Project, The Devin Townsend Band, Ocean Machine, Zimmer’s Hole, IR8, a brief stint in The Wildhearts and guest appearances with everyone from Lamb Of God to GWAR. Oh and a glove puppet.

It’s a body of work unmatched in modern metal: sprawling, deranged, frequently brilliant and occasionally frustrating – just like the man who made it. From Strapping Young Lad’s extreme metal showboating to the kaleidoscopic beauty of his work as The Devin Townsend Band, the multiple facets of his music reflect a complex and often conflicted personality.

But sift through the chaos and themes emerge: the wall-of-sound approach that Devin deploys whether ramping up the volume or floating blissfully away; the sarcasm and self-laceration that make up his lyrics; the Canadian brand of ‘wacky’ humour that plunges a drawing pin into the proceedings when the grandiosity threatens to balloon out of control.

In the flesh, he looks less like a troubled metal iconoclast and more like a born again Christian about to thrust a pamphlet into your hand. The all-black ensembles have been replaced by a silver-grey suit; a pair of granny glasses perch on his nose; the ‘skullet’ hairstyle that gave him the air of a lunatic scientist has long gone, leaving a stubble-free dome. When he talks, it’s with the measured self-analysis of a man who’s spent years try to make sense of what goes on in his own head.

”It’s been a long road,” he says. “The irony is that I never wanted to be the centre of attention, I’ve always wanted to be invisible.”

Devin says he was four when he first picked up a guitar and five when he wrote his first song. Music was all around him – his half-English, half-Irish family loved traditional bluegrass and Celtic folk.

“Dad played 12 bar blues and he had an old acoustic guitar,” he says. “My aspiration was to be better than my dad. When I was eight, I was able to play the same things. I think it pissed him off. He never jammed with me again.”

In his mid-teens, Devin joined a proper band – punk-metal outfit Grey Skies. “The bassist was older and he came from a punk background, and it had an element of that,” he says. “I liked the ethos humour of punk but I played too much Dungeons & Dragons so I could never really hang with the punk guys.”

More important was his next band, Vancouver thrashers Caustic Thought. That’s where he first crossed paths with future Strapping Young Lad bandmates Jed Simon and Byron Stroud.

“They were the big band in town; everyone wanted to open up for them. When Jed quit they hired me… and fired me after two months. I was playing guitar with a dildo and being an idiot.”

It was the first glimmer of a willfully obnoxious streak that would come to define large parts of his career. After Caustic Thought, he began work on a thrash, industrial-tinged solo project called Noisescapes. In an attempt to get signed, he bombarded record labels with demo tapes in unconventional packaging.

“To get attention I wrapped them up in my underwear – piss stains, leftovers, everything,” he says. “I taped the demo to the crotch. Ha ha! It worked, though. Cliff Cultreri from Relativity called and said, ‘What are you doing tomorrow? We’d like to fly you to New York and sign you.’”

Relativity had an ulterior motive for offering the 19-year-old a deal. Steve Vai was looking for a vocalist for his new album, Sex & Religion, and Devin’s new paymasters asked if he wanted the gig. Against his better judgement, he agreed.

“When I was 15, Vai meant the world to me,” he says. “When I was 19, my connection to music was Jane’s Addiction, Godflesh, Napalm Death. I was like, ‘I’m angry all the time.’ I remember hearing the music and hearing the lyrics, and thinking, ‘Oh, this is not where I’m at.’’

A subsequent tour with Vai supporting Aerosmith found him lashing out like a surly teen. While his guitar playing was improving, he’d go onstage in a tutu and chicken slippers in an attempt to sabotage the shows and his relationship with Vai.

“I couldn’t articulate the anger to him at that time, so I took a shit in his guitar case and took photos of me with every one of his guitars with my balls on them. Like, ‘Fuck this – please let me go, I just wanna make my music.’”

The pair parted ways soon after (though Devin would guest on subsequent Vai albums and says that they’re good friends today). The next year found him guesting with The Wildhearts and Canadian industrial titans Frontline Assembly, and forming IR8, an ad hoc metal supergroup with Metallica bassist Jason Newsted.

“It was a reaction to the Vai period,” he says of his pinballing musical adventures. “I felt I had something to offer musically and I wanted to find avenues to make that known. I also got dropped by Relativity at the same time.”

The label’s reasoning was that the music he was making was too schizophrenic – some of it was heavy, some of it was mellow. Devin thought the two styles could exist side by side; Relativity disagreed. The label had the last word, though some of the songs he had written would later be recycled for both SYL and his less abrasive Ocean Machine project.

“Why didn’t just I separate them? I don’t think I was asked,” he says. “Well, to be honest, I probably was but I was too busy sulking about something inconsequential.”

If the loss of his record deal was a body blow, then it was at least one that Devin was going to absorb and use as fuel for his next musical project: Strapping Young Lad.

“I was nihilistic,” he says. “All the things that I thought were important about music had been treated with such ambivalence. So I said, forget about all the sensitive stuff – the stuff that’d become Ocean Machine – I’m just gonna make some noise at this point. Something that says ‘Fuck you’ in the most profound way.”

Taking his cues from Godflesh, Napalm Death and Fear Factory’s game-changing debut album, Soul Of A New Machine, he worked fast. Devin sang and played the majority of the instruments; the resulting record, Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing, was released in April 1995 via Century Media. While its energy, anger and humour were undeniable; it lacked the barmy ambition and finesse of subsequent albums.

“I kind of threw together Heavy As…,” he says. “In The Rainy Season was a really good song, as was S.Y.L. But really, that record was a bunch of mish-mashed demos. What defined that period was an authentic sense of self- destruction: ‘I don’t care about me any more.’”

If Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing was a barf of profanity and rage, the follow-up, City, was a different beast. With his old Caustic Thought mates Jed Simon and Byron Stroud onboard alongside man-mountain drummer Gene Hoglan, SYL were now a band rather than just a Devin solo project, though any notions that surrounding himself with other musicians would help ground him were way off base.

“For City, I tried to focus more,” he says. “I enjoyed the first Meshuggah record, and I was listening to [cult New York art-noise outfit] Cop Shoot Cop – they were dirty and junkie-sounding. Before City, I’d never done drugs, never experienced the true dark. Then I was like, ‘I’m gonna start doing drugs and drinking.’ Acid, hallucinogens, mushrooms, marijuana. That’s when things started to get serious and dark.”

City remains SYL’s highwater mark: brutal, epic, futuristic and funny. It was David Cronenberg’s Videodrone re-imagined by a crazed Canadian who fancied himself as metal’s Phil Spector.

For anyone who hadn’t been paying close attention to his career, Devin’s next move was surprising. Between Heavy As… and City, he’d released a zany punk-metal concept album under the moniker Punky Brüster, suggesting that his bow had more than one string. But 1997’s Biomech – credited at the time to Ocean Machine but later rebranded as a Devin album, titled Ocean Machine: Biomech – broadsided expectations laid by SYL. The serene comedown after SYL’s all-night party, its prog-tinged fluidity echoed Pink Floyd rather than Napalm Death. Some of the songs, including Funeral, The Death Of Music and Regulator, were songs that had sat on the shelf for two years.

“After City, I still had all this Ocean Machine stuff. The Vai record had gone gold in Japan, so [his Japanese label] Sony said, ‘Why don’t you start your own label and we’ll distribute the record.’ So I did. Without that, I would have given up on the fact that it had any validity.”

Artistic triumph aside, Ocean Machine also laid out an alternative path for Devin – one that led away from the confines of extreme metal. But the punishing workload, drugs and general mental disposition pushed Devin to a break- down. He was diagnosed as bi-polar, though that didn’t stop him mixing his prescription medication with acid.

“If you have a genetic predisposition for mental illness, which my family has, and it’s undiagnosed, any sort of stimulant you consume can exacerbate those symptoms to the point where you have an episode,” he explains. “I was angry over some things, depressed over others, and at other times I was full of energy. I had delusional senses of self-importance. I’d ended up having these delusions about God and my role in the universe. I thought I was the centre of the universe. I became fascinated in the infinite. That’s when I ended up writing [the grandstanding alt-metal opus] Infinity.”

Even by Devin’s standards, it was an indulgent affair. Flashes of over-reaching genius were kneecapped by smart-arse zaniness. It was a glorious – and sometimes inglorious – mess with a troubled soul at its centre.

“It was confusing but artistically validating, because it was so complicated,” he says. “The sense of self-importance that I attached to that record ended up being the point of it.”

In ’98, Devin checked into a mental hospital, although dealing with his problems wasn’t the main reason. “The image of being a crazy artist was romantic, so when the option came to being in an institution, I leapt at it. I saw people who had schizophrenia and bi-polar people who were not on drugs, who hadn’t exacerbated it the way that I had. It was incredibly humbling.”

Devin entered the new millennium as confused as he’d exited the last one. His first album of the 00s, the forgettable solo effort Physicist, sounded like a drab, watered-down SYL (it featured both Jed Simon and Gene Hoglan). “It’s a really grey, apologetic, poorly produced album,” he admits.

By contrast, 2001’s towering Terria was the sound of a man who had found his way again: great sweeping washes of guitar and keyboards daubed epic colours all across it.

His next move was a surprise: reuniting SYL. He’d parked the band five years earlier, after City, disillusioned that “this thing that started as an ironic ‘fuck everything’ ended up becoming this legitimate, angry entity.” Reuniting the old lineup in 2003, he assumed it would be easy to reconnect with what made the band work first time around. Easier said than done, and the resultant album, Strapping Young Lad, wasn’t as well received as City.

“It didn’t sound as good. I didn’t have my mind on what I was doing. The fact that it came out at the same time as Accelerated Evolution (his first album released as The Devin Townsend Band) didn’t help.”

After a brief deviation into ambient noise territory with 2004’s Devlab, Devin reconvened SYL for their fourth album, Alien. There was one simple driving factor for the frontman: “If you want crazy, I’ll show you fucking crazy.”

“At the time of Alien, I was on psychiatric meds and I stopped taking them,” he says. “It would have been fine if I hadn’t compounded that by smoking tons of weed and drinking every night, trying to reach artistic depths. That was among the stupidest things I’ve done.”

As twisted and extreme as he got, Alien sounded like the work of a man who was too far down the rabbit hole. His unhinged mental state manifested itself in the way he looked and his self-destructive behaviour. “The hair and the mad scientist thing…” he says. “And doing tons of interviews high on mushrooms.”

Devin admits to being “toxic” around at the time of Alien. But he stands by the album. “Alien is awesome,” he says. “It makes me cry sometimes, I like it so much.”

But doubts were creeping in. “With Alien, I was reaching into the depths of my psyche, and it drew schizophrenics towards me who were saying, ‘I understand.’ I was thinking, ‘Jesus, that’s not what I wanted… I was just trying to be honest about it’. I started to doubt whether my artistic sentiment was toxic by nature. And then I figured what I needed to do was finish SYL, because I couldn’t leave it open-ended.”

That final SYL record would be The New Black, written before the band were due play on the 2006 Ozzfest tour (though not before yet another solo album, Synchestra, which found Devin coming back to Earth after the excesses of Alien). In typically perverse style, Devin saw The New Black as an opportunity to reclaim SYL back from the fans,

“I thought, ‘I’m gonna write a pop record that essentially summarises that whole thing in a po-faced, ‘We suck, so do you’ way. That was the only way I could stick to what the real meaning of SYL was for me. ’Cos that way it could still be SYL saying, ‘This is bullshit.’”

The band played their last show on August 13, 2006, in West Palm Beach, Florida, as part of the Ozzfest. A month later, it was announced that they were going on “extended hiatus.” It had been a tough decision to make:

“It was horrible. SYL meant so much to me. I’ve never played with a drummer that I’ve been closer to than Gene. I’d played with Jed and Byron since Caustic Thought. We were doing all this good shit, and I pulled the rug out from under it. My buddies were like, ‘What the fuck?!’”

“After I quit SYL, I quit drink, I quit drugs, I had a baby, four people in my family died, my sister had two kids, I cut my hair off, I moved, I ran out of money, I opened three studios, I produced a bunch of good bands and a bunch of shitty bands. That was more change in one period than I’d had in my whole adult life.”

Over the next few years, his work rate slowed to what was a snail’s pace by his standards: a second ambient solo album, The Hummer, in 2006 was followed by love-it-or-hate-it cartoon rock opera Ziltoid The Omniscient, about an alien puppet who threatens to destroy Earth unless he can find the perfect cup of coffee, followed in 2007. And then he decided to take two years off – or at least that was the plan.

“I picked up a guitar and the first thing that came out was this riff for Gato. I was, like, ‘I guess that’s the direction we’re going in!’”

Gato would appear on the brooding Ki, the first of four interlinked albums released by The Devin Townsend Project between May 2009 and June 2011. The other three – the eclectically heavy Addicted, the chaotic and darkly funny Deconstruction and the starkly beautiful Ghost – show off every side of his personality in a way that he’s been striving for his whole career.

“My fear manifested itself as an innate destructive tendency,” he says. “The Devin Townsend Project is an exercise in me confronting that fear and recognising that not only am I in full control of it now, but that that self-destructive tendency was a result of my chemistry not working with drugs and alcohol.”

Today, Devin finally seems to be at ease with himself. His look might have radically changed since the 1990s, but the imperative to make music and salve the sounds in his head hasn’t gone away.

“I’m so far away from the skinny kid shitting in Vai’s guitar case,” he says. “You’ve got to deal with the repercussions of the music and the financial elements of it and that people are angry at you. I had to learn that accountability was on my shoulders for everything I did.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 232, May 2012

It was their lone record with keyboard player Patrick Moraz, and found the band at their most experimental, veering towards the jazz fusion that so appealed to singer Jon Anderson at the time. Both Anderson and Moraz reveal the secrets of the album that gave us just three tracks, but what amazing pieces of music they remain, while there's input from Alan White from an interview the magazine conducted before his death.

Elsewhere, Marillion tell the story of 1997’s This Strange Engine; Clannad reveal the secrets of their BAFTA-winning 1984 album Legend; David Surkamp of cult US prog rockers Pavlov’s Dog looks back over a fascinating career; we pay tribute to the late Peter Sinfield, best known for his contributions to King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer; and there's the Prog writers' best albums of 2024.

Klone, Swallow The Sun, Dilemma, Mercury Rev, Joe Deninzon and And So I Watch You From Afar bring us up to speed with their latest releases. There's a free digital sampler from the excellent Nice Weather For Airstrikes label and four Yes postcards reflecting the Relayer era.

Also in Prog 156...

Peter Sinfield - remembering the man who gave King Crimson their name and who sadly died last month.

Marillion - the inside story of 1997’s dark This Strange Engine album.

Klone - the atmospheric French proggers unlock the secrets of 10th album The Unseen.

Clannad - Moya and PÓl Brennan look back over 1984’s groundbreaking Legend.

Swallow The Sun - Finland’s dark proggers talk a love of Marillion and Queen choruses and their new album Shining.

Mercury Rev - the US art-rockers discuss their passion for the natural world with Born Horses.

And So I Watch You From Afar - there’s no place like home for the Irish post-rock quartet on Megafauna.

Dilemma - the Dutch proggers are back with their first new album for six years.

Critics' Choice - so what was the Prog writers’ album of the year? And do you agree? Read on!

Ross Valory - former Journey bassist Ross Valory discusses his new solo album and the arena rockers’ prog roots.

Pavlov's Dog - David Surkamp of cult US proggers Pavlov’s Dog looks back over the band’s career. And as for those Geddy Lee comparisons? Yes, he’s heard them!

Joe Deninzon - Kansas violinist Joe Deninzon on a prog life full of Rush, Yes, Frank Zappa and Bruce Springsteen.

Plus reviews of new releases and reissues by Mogwai, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers, Wardruna, Jean-Michel Jarre, Nektar, Hawkwind, Matt Berry, Jonathan Hultén, Oddleaf, Cardiacs, Man and loads more.

And this issue we went to Prog The Forest and saw gigs by The Pineapple Thief, Focus, VOLA, Von Hertzen Brothers, Wheel, Animals As Leaders, Colin Blunstone and more!

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Allow founder members Kerr and Charlie Burchill to take up the tale, as they explained to Q’s Tom Doyle a few years ago:

“Iggy came in looking for a bit of hash,” guitarist Burchill began, before frontman Kerr took up the thread.

“Bowie comes in wearing a black jumpsuit, holding a can of Heineken and a big bit of cheese. I think he had the munchies,” the singer said.

The pair stuck around until the early hours, Kerr continued, when they suddenly had the idea that Simple Minds should come and sing on a song they’d been working on for Pop’s new record.

“About two in the morning, they said, ‘Oh, we’ve been working on this song and we want everybody to come in and join in on the chorus’,” Kerr recalled. “It was a track called Play It Safe.”

“Especially in that weird, surreal Rockfield environment, it was off the scale,” Burchill stated.

Kerr elaborated on the strange experience to Billboard. “It was unimaginable to us that Iggy Pop would be in the Welsh countryside, where there’s nothing going on except sheep and hills,” he said. “We ran through the track a few times, and very diplomatically Bowie said, ‘Not bad, but why doesn’t everybody who doesn’t sing for a living take a few steps back from the microphone.’ Of course, that just left me sandwiched between Bowie and Pop at the microphone and we did it and I got a credit on the album and it was fantastic. A lot of stories grow arms and legs as they get old, but that one’s true.”

Listen to Play It Safe, which featured on Pop’s 1980 album Soldier, below:

The celebrations to mark The Holy Bible’s 30^th birthday, which was in August earlier this year, were a little more muted. The band’s only public event was a one-off screening of Kieron Evans’ excellent concert film Be Pure – Be Vigilant – Behave but speaking to this writer recently, singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield said he had marked the milestone in his own way.

“I’ve been playing all the guitar parts from The Holy Bible,” he said. “We posted me doing the solo from Faster up on Instagram. In a strange way, The Holy Bible was probably my most involved guitar album. There’s so many parts there where I kept thinking to myself, ‘I’ve got to do better than John McGeogh, I’ve got to do better than Stuart Adamson, I’ve got to do better than Andy Gill, I’ve got to do better than Paul Weller, and so it was a lovely challenge and I’ve been strangely playing and relearning the solos from The Holy Bible lately.”

Asked about another solo that his bandmate had also posted online, the berserka, monumental lead part that brings the menacing Archives Of Pain to its frenzied conclusion, Bradfield said he had put a lot of thought to it.

“The Archives Of Pain solo was one of my biggest being an utter pretentious fuck with method guitar playing,” he stated. “I had a whole theory in my head about the power of a legal state, the illegality of the power that the state wields upon you and how it kind of turns people into automatons and how they eventually rise from the yoke of real state power. I had it all in my head, I wrote the solo with that in my head. It was a bit of a folly. It was me being a complete and utter dunderhead. But it's nice to be pretentious when you're that young. It's good, it's an adventure and it gives you power.”

Bask in the glorious folly below:

By the time Tinyfish played their last show at Celebr8 in 2012, they had released three highly regarded studio albums and played festivals from Poland to Philadelphia, gathering a fiercely loyal following. Main man Simon Godfrey left his motherland and moved Stateside, from where he continued to work remotely with the band’s lyricist, narrator and self-described Chief Audience Frightener, Robert Ramsay.

In 2013 the duo released Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed under the Shineback moniker, aided by members of Touchstone, DeeExpus, Darwin’s Radio and The Fierce And The Dead. Now Ramsay is set to frighten audiences in the relative safety of their own home with a solo album, Confound And Disturb. Largely spoken word, this is not your typical prog album – so we needed to find out more.

What led you to record a solo album?

I’d always joked about doing one. I looked around and there’s a whole bunch of material I’d gathered that had been chucked in a drawer, and I realised that maybe there was enough stuff to make an album. I took the best bits and thought of a few more. It really took off when I went over to Philadelphia for RoSfest last year and we [Ramsay and Godfrey] recorded the vocals for three or four of the songs. I thought, “Right. This is actually happening now.”

You’re chiefly a lyricist/narrator. Did that present a challenge to making the album?

Well, people keep telling me I’m a musician. I play the harmonica extremely averagely. It did turn out I was the only member of Tinyfish who could read music! When I first told people I was really serious about doing it, all my lovely musician friends were going, “I’ll help you out!” and I’m like, “I don’t know what to do with you!” I couldn’t think how best to use their talents.

Matt Stevens I knew what to do with. I did the spoken-word bit for The Black Box Society and I said to Matt, “Just imagine that you’re trapped in a black box and you have to play your guitar to escape.” I wanted the transdimensional guitar of madness!

I’ve put a sticker on the front of the album that says ‘Advisory: Mostly Spoken Word’ so people don’t come up to me and say, “Hey! I bought your album and there’s hardly any songs on it.”

Or, “This doesn’t sound like Tinyfish!”

I hadn’t even thought of that, but now you say it… [hyperventilates]

How did the title come about?

It was actually Tim Lawrie [of Bad Elephant Music] who named this album Confound And Disturb. It was going to be called The Cosmic Poo Experience. Sometimes when you’ve had a really good poo it expands your mind.

The artwork is quite special. What can you tell us about that?

My mate Andy Hall suggested to me that you couldn’t have a real prog album unless you had a map like Tolkien. So I went, “Go for it!” and he very sensibly subcontracted it to Mark Buckingham, the famous comic artist. His work is so fabulous. I first met him when he and Matt Stevens did a double header at Orbital Comics. He was signing the last volume of Fables. I passed over my copy and said, “I’ve been a fan of yours ever since Marvelman,” and he goes, “Oh, I’ve got all your records!”

It’s a varied album for something that’s ostensibly spoken word. It’s got rap, rock, poetry, comedy, a cappella chickens…

As you say, it’s a potpourri. At the moment, me and Simon are planning out the next Shineback album and I said, “If there’s one thing I want, it’s not a concept album.” We’ve done ‘concept album’. Because this was stuff that’s been gathered over years, there was no theme.

Sometimes I just have ideas that I can’t get away from, like Hawaii Fried Chicken. The minute I found out you could do the Hawaii Five-0 theme in chicken noises, that became the challenge. Once somebody suggests that to you, you start doing it in your head. [Clucks the Hawaii Five-0 theme] “No! Stop!”

It’s not all fun and games – you’re a scholar of magical theory and there are some serious metaphysical ideas here.

I’ve taken the opportunity to do a few bits of propagandising and a few bits of truth telling. The Real Rap is talking about the fact that we make things real ourselves. One of my favourite bits of wisdom is from Bill Hicks, when he talks about, “It’s just a ride,” and says, “Everything’s brightly coloured… you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are.”

As Buckaroo Banzai put it, “No matter where you go, there you are” – you cannot escape from your own identity. They say travel broadens the mind, but at the end of it, you’re still there. I’ll probably have to give away the album with copies of my book once I’ve finished it!

What can you tell us about the book?

It’s called The Engineering Of Coincidence and it’s going to be explaining the scientific basis of magic. Everybody who tries to explain magic just ends up with another model. We can’t experience things directly – there’s too much data. We put together a representation in our head and we tell ourselves that’s actually what’s out there, but it’s actually all a model.

My explanation is also a model, but I’ve tried to make my model consistent and congruent with our current scientific explanation of how the universe is put together.

Now you’ve recorded one solo album, will you do another?

It’s bizarre – I thought, “There’ll never be a second one,” and now I’m beginning to get all these horrible ideas!

That sounds ominous.

As far as dangerous is concerned, I’m about as dangerous as a cheese sandwich.

Grönwall, whose departure from Skid Row was announced earlier this year, describes his cover as "dark and slow", and while it retains the original's epic sweep, it definitely isn't as upbeat as Joey Tempest & Co.'s version. To add to the sombre vibe, the video finds Grönwall exploring the rather stately environs of his local castle, Noors Slott, about 20km north of Stockholm Airport.

The Final Countdown is the latest in a series of covers Grönwall has released since leaving Skid Row to focus on his recovery from leukaemia, including Aerosmith's Dream On, Amy Winehouse's Rehab, Linkin Park's Numb, John Farnham's You're The Voice, The Animals' House Of The Rising Son (an "epic, dark" version) and Black Sabbath's perennial classic Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

This year Grönwall also released an autobiography, Power - Music, Death, Life, which talks about his journey from reality TV to Skid Row via Swedish AOR band H.E.A.T., as well as his battles with illness.

"I never thought I would release an autobiography, even less at the age of 36," says Grönwall. "But sometimes it feels like I've lived two lifetimes in like a third of my life and I hope it can give hope to more people who are struggling. Life after an illness may actually be better than ever."

Power - Music, Death, Life can be ordered online. Although you'll probably need to read Swedish.

"In My Shoes was inspired by the relationships between parents and their sons, and how they guide you through life," says Moore. "It explores the themes of the values they imbue in us, and how we put them to practice in our own lives. We’re proud of how the song came out and we hope people enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it.

"I worked on the track with Quentin while we had been paying tribute to my father around Europe with shows. We discovered that we shared musical inspirations so doing our own original project was natural. I think it’s the start of an identity that we’re comfortable with going for.”

"The guitar and classic sound fit well with our style. I think my father would have loved this song. There’s a nod to Thin Lizzy’s unmistakable dual guitars in there too, and I think it’s very much up my father’s street in terms of style."

Moore got his break playing live with his father in 2008, and has since shared stages with the likes of Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple, Joe Bonamassa and Otis Taylor.

In addition to touring with the Gary Moore Tribute Band, who released the Moore Plays Moore Acoustic album in 2021, Moore Jr. also contributed to Bob Daisley's 2018 tribute album Moore Blues For Gary (A Tribute To Gary Moore), playing the solo on This One's For You.

Moore is also a member of Los Angeles-based indie-folk trio Smith Lyle & Moore, alongside producer Andrew Smith and Tyler Lyle from synthwave band The Midnight.

January

Chris Karrer: January 20, 1947 – January 2, 2024
Former violinist, guitarist, saxophonist and singer with Amon Düül 2

David Soul: August 28, 1943 – January 4, 2024
Actor and soft-rock crooner

Del Palmer: November 3, 1952 – January 5, 2024
Bassist and former partner of Kate Bush

Tony Clarkin: November 24, 1946 – January 7, 2024
Magnum guitarist and songwriter

James Kottak: December 26, 1962 – January 9, 2024
Drummer with Kingdom Come, Scorpions and more

Annie Nightingale: April 1, 1940 – January 11, 2024
Trailblazing BBC DJ and broadcaster

Mary Weiss: December 28, 1948 – January 19, 2024
Lead singer with vocal group the Shangri-Las

Melanie: February 3, 1947 – January 23, 2024
American singer-songwriter

Frank Farian: July 18, 1941 – January 23, 2024
Founder of the Far Corporation and Boney M

Dean Brown: August 19, 1955 – January 26, 2024
Celebrated jazz-fusion guitarist

Paul Brett: June 20, 1947 – January 31, 2024
Guitarist with The Strawbs, Arthur Brown, Roy Harper and more

February

Wayne Kramer: April 30, 1948 – February 2, 2024
Leader of the MC5, who kicked out the jams!

Toby Keith: July 8, 1961 – February 5, 2024
Country music singer, musician and songwriter

Hans Sahlén: Died February 6, 2024
Early bassist with Canadian melodic rockers Boulevard

Donald Kinsey: May 12, 1953 – February 6, 2024
Guitarist with the Kinsey Report

Mojo Nixon: August 2, 1957 – February 7, 2024 North Carolina-born musician, actor and radio host

Damo Suzuki: January 16, 1950 – February 9, 2024 Vocalist with Krautrock group Can

Paul Martinez: October 6, 1947 – February 9, 2024
Bassist for Robert Plant and more

Steve Wright: August 26, 1954 – February 12, 2024
…In The Afternoon, BBC radio DJ

Ian Aimy May 15, 1944 – February 15, 2024
Tich from 60 pop stars Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

Greg ‘Fritz’ Hinz: January 23, 1956 – February 16, 2024
Drummer with Canadian hard rockers Helix

Bobby Tench: September 21, 1944 – February 19, 2024
Guitarist and vocalist who played with the Jeff Beck Group, Humble Pie, Streetwalkers and more.

Vitalij Kuprij: July 7, 1974 – February 20, 2024
Multi-instrumentalist with Artension, Ring Of Fire and Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Steve Cheyne: October 11, 1956 – February 20, 2024
Unsung hero of the Glasgow music scene

Keith Martin: April 2, 1934 – February 21, 2024
Radio Caroline DJ and pioneer of pirate broadcasting

John Rowe: April 13, 1942 – February 22, 2024
Pianist with pre-Beatles group The Quarrymen

Dave Myers: September 8, 1957 – February 28, 2024
One half of the much-loved Hairy Bikers

March

Jim Beard: August 26, 1960 – March 2, 2024
Pianist with the Mahavishnu Orchestra

Brit Turner: February 14, 1967 – March 3, 2024
Drummer with Blackberry Smoke

Brother Dege: Died March 8, 2024 Grammy-nominated American musician and songwriter

Vince Power: April 29, 1947 – March 9, 2024
Promoter and nighttime industry kingpin

Karl Wallinger: October 19, 1957 – March 10, 2024
World Party’s fontman and songwriter

TM Stevens: July 28, 1951 – March 10, 2024
Bass guitarist who played with James Brown, Tina Turner and more

Blake Harrison: Died March 10, 2024
Member of grindcore band Pig Destroyer

Paul Nelson: Died March 10, 2024
Producer, manager and bandmate of Johnny Winter

Eric Carmen: August 11, 1949 – March 11 2024
Solo artist, and ex-frontman with The Raspberries

‘Big’ Mac Baker: Died March 15, 2024
Former guitarist with heavyweight ‘supergroup’ Mammoth

Steve Harley: February 27, 1951 – March 17, 2024
Solo artist and the voice and spirit of Cockney Rebel

Jimmy Hastings: May 12, 1938 – March 18, 2024
Saxophonist for Caravan, Soft Machine and more

Chris Cross: July 14, 1952 – March 25, 2024
Longstanding bassist with Ultravox

Mark Spiro: March 28, 1957 – March 28, 2024
AOR songwriter, recording artist and producer

Pegi Cecconi: Died March 28, 2024
Long-time management employee for Rush

Gerry Conway: September 11, 1947 – March 29, 2024
Drummer with Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, Steeleye Span, Cat Stevens and more

April

Chan Romero: July 7, 1941 – April 2024
Writer of the Swinging Blue Jeans’ 1959 hit Hippy Hippy Shake

John Sinclair: October 2, 1941 – April 2, 2024
Poet, counterculture figure, political activist and manager of the MC5

Jerry Abbott: April 8, 1942 – April 2, 2024 Father of Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul, and country music songwriter

Brian Bethell: November 18, 1949 – April 3, 2024
Bassist with Nine Below Zero

Keith Leblanc: November 10, 1954 – April 4, 2024
Drummer with Tackhead and Little Axe

Graeme Naysmith: Died April 4, 2024
Guitarist with British alt.rockers Pale Saints

CJ Snare: December 14, 1959 – April 5, 2024
Frontman with American melodic rockers FireHouse

Rocket Norton: Died April 5, 2024
Drummer with Canadian hard rockers Prism

Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry: March 19, 1937 – April 7, 2024
American rhythm & blues singer and guitarist

Jon Card: December 11, 1960 – April 8, 2024
Drummer with DOA, SNFU and The Subhumans

Max Werner: December 29, 1953 – April 9, 2024
Drummer with Dutch progressive rockers Kayak

Dickey Betts: December 12, 1943 – April 18, 2024
Former guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band

Larry Page: November 9, 1936 – April 19, 2024
Producer of The Troggs’ iconic hit Wild Thing

Eddie Sutton: Died April 19, 2024
Singer with New York City hardcore crew Leeway

Mike Pinder: December 27, 1941 – April 24, 2024
Keyboard player and founding member of the Moody Blues

Marty Hill: Died April 24, 2024
Guitarist with American southern rockers Preacher Stone

Robin George: Died April 26, 2024
Midlands-born guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer

Duane Eddy: April 26, 1938 – April 30, 2024
Pioneer of instrumental guitar rock

Gary Floyd: Died April 30, 2024
Frontman of The Dicks and Sister Double Happiness

May

Richard Tandy: March 26, 1948 – May 1, 2024
Keyboard player with the Electric Light Orchestra

Steve Albini: July 22, 1962 – May 7, 2024
American underground rock icon who worked with Nirvana, Big Black, Pixies and more

Tommy Viator: February 8, 1969 — May 7, 2024
Drummer with American heavyweights Disincarnate

John Barbata: April 1, 1945 – May 8, 2024
Jefferson Starship and Jefferson Airplane drummer

Dennis ‘Machine Gun’ Thompson: September 7, 1948 – May 9, 2024
Former drummer with the MC5

David Sanborn: July 30, 1945 – May 12, 2024
Saxophonist for Bowie, the Stones, Eric Clapton and more

John Hawken: May 9, 1940 – May 15, 2024
Keyboard player with Renaissance and Strawbs

Charlie Colin: November 22, 1966 – May 17, 2024
Founding member of American pop-rockers Train

Jon Wysocki: Died May 18, 2024
Dummer with US rockers Staind

John Koerner: August 31, 1938 – May 18, 2024
Member of influential folk-blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover

Doug Ingle: September 9, 1945 – May 24, 2024
Lead singer and organist with American psychedelic rockers Iron Butterfly

Doug Dagger: October 17, 1967 – May 30, 2024
Frontman of American punk band The Generators

June

Ed Mann: January 14, 1954 – June 1, 2024
Drummer and percussionist for Frank Zappa

Tony Bramwell: Died June 2, 2024
Tour manager for The Beatles, and Apple Records employee

Anna Meek: July 1, 1948 – June 4, 2024
Singer with cult Britishs progressive band Catapilla

Adam Lewis: Died June 5, 2024
Bassist with American pop-punks Fenix*TX

Ranch Sironi: Died June 5, 2024
Bassist with stoner-rockers Nebula

Leon Medica: Died June 9, 2024
Bassist with Louisiana’s LeRoux

Buzz Cason: November 27, 1939 – June 16, 2024
American singer, songwriter and record producer

James Chance: April 20, 1953 – June 18, 2024
Singer and musician from New York’s ‘no wave’ scene

Shifty Shellshock: August 23, 1974 – June 24, 2024
Frontman of rap-rockers Crazy Town

Richard ‘Kinky’ Friedman: November 1, 1944 – June 27, 2024
Texan singer-songwriter, novelist, writer and politician

Peter Collins: January 14, 1951 – June 28, 2024
Producer for Rush, Queensrÿche, Gary Moore and more

July

Tom Fowler: June 10, 1951 – July 2, 2024
Bassist for It’s A Beautiful Day and Frank Zappa

Joe Egan: October 18, 1946 – July 6, 2024
The ‘other half’ of Stealers Wheel

Jack White: Died July 6, 2024
Drummer for Rick Springfield

Paul Haslin: Died July 12, 2024
Drummer with Waysted

Eddie Rosenblatt: Died July 16, 2024
Longtime president of Geffen Records

Happy Traum: May 9, 1938 – July 17, 2024
Greenwich Village folk veteran

Pinche Peach: November 24, 1966 – July 17, 2024
Singer with masked death metal band Brujeria

Jerry Miller: July 10, 1943 – July 20, 2024
Guitarist with Moby Grape

Duke Fakir: December 26, 1935 – July 22, 2024
Original member of Motown vocal group The Four Tops

John Mayall: November 29, 1933 – July 22, 2024
The godfather of British blues

Dick Asher: March 1, 1932 – July 23, 2024
American record industry figure

Bill Crook: Death reported July 24, 2024
Former bassist with Spiritbox

Pat Collier: Died July 27, 2024
Bassist with punks The Vibrators and music producer

Mick Underwood: September 5, 1945 – July 28, 2024
Drummer with Episode Six, Gillan and more

August

Shaun Martin: August 23, 1978 – August 3, 2024
Multi-instrumentalist with jazzfusion band Snarky Puppy

Paul Gilmartin: June 6, 1961 – August 6, 2024
Drummer with the Danse Society

Jack Russell: December 5, 1960 – August 7, 2024
Former lead singer with Great White

Dave Sweetapple: November 8, 1965 – August 7, 2024
Drummer with American rock band Sweet Apple

Carl Bevan: Death reported August 9, 2024
Drummer with Welsh rock trio The 60ft Dolls

Carl Weathersby: February 24, 1953 – August 9, 2024
American blues vocalist, guitarist and songwriter

Charles R Cross: Died August 9, 2024
Acclaimed rock biographer

Chon Travis: Died August 11, 2024
Lead singer with American punk outfit Love Equals Death

Greg Kihn: July 10, 1949 – August 15, 2024
Leader of the Greg Kihn Band

Tore Ylwizaker: August 16, 1970 – August 16, 2024
Multi-instrumentalist and producer for Norwegian band Ulver

Corey Sterling: November 7, 1970 – August 23, 2024
Vocalist for Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Richard Mcphail: September 17, 1950 – August 26, 2024
Key member of Genesis’s backroom team

September

Herbie Flowers: May 19, 1938 – September 5, 2024
Bass player for Bowie, Elton, Lou Reed and more

Robin Guy: June 14, 1970 – September 8, 2024
Multi-talented drummer for Rachel Stamp, GMT, Bruce Dickinson and many others

Zoot Money: July 17, 1942 – September 8, 2024
British keyboard player and bandleader

Simon Fox: July 12, 1949 – September 12, 2024
Drummer for Be-Bop Deluxe, Trevor Rabin and The Pretty Things

Michelle Kerr: March 31, 1968 – September 14, 2024
Publicity dynamo and music industry totem

Gerry Robinson: Died September 14, 2024
Mandolin player for the UK psychedelic band The Purple Gang.

Kenny Hyslop: February 14, 1951 – September 15, 2024
Drummer of Slik, The Skids and Simple Minds

Tito Jackson: October 15, 1953 – September 15, 2024
Lead guitarist and synthesizer player for The Jackson Five

Roli Mosimann: November 7, 1955 – September 15, 2024
A member of New York’s experimental noise band Swans

Juan Brujo: Died September 16, 2024
Leader of American grinders Brujeria

Billy Edd Wheeler: December 9, 1932 – September 16, 2024
Songwriter, performer and writer across several genres

JD Souther: November 2, 1945 – September 17, 2024
American singer, songwriter, and actor

Dick Doamande: December 28, 1947 – September 18, 2024
Founding bassist with The Easybeats

Nick Gravenites: October 2, 1938 – September 18, 2024
Guitarist with Electric Flag, Janis Joplin, Mike Bloomfield and others

Freddie Salem: May 15, 1953 – September 23, 2024
Former guitarist with The Outlaws

Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 – September 28, 2024
Pioneering outlaw country figurehead

Billy G Bang: September 27, 1956 – September 29, 2024
Former lead singer for Kill City Dragons.

Dave Allison: January 5, 1956 – September 30, 2024
Original guitarist with Anvil

October

Nell Smith: Died October 5, 2024
Canadian teenage music prodigy and collaborator of The Flaming Lips

Matt Long: November 7, 1993 – October 6, 2024
Guitarist and frontman of the five-times UK blues award winners Catfish

Johnny Neel: June 11, 1954 – October 6, 2024
Member of the Allman Brothers Band and the Dickey Betts Band

Jack Ponti: February 16, 1958 – October 7, 2024
American musician and record producer

S.S. Priest: Died October 8, 2024
Guitarist with D'Molls and Diamond Rexx

Inger Lorre: August 2, 1963 – October 16, 2024
Founder of The Nymphs

Paul Di'Anno: May 17, 1958 – October 21, 2024
Former Iron Maiden singer

Linda LaFlamme: April 13, 1939 – October 23, 2024
Founding keyboardist with It's a Beautiful Day

Phil Lesh: March 15, 1940 – October 25, 2024
Longstanding bassist with the Grateful Dead

Bill Beach: August 8, 1932 – October 28, 2024
Pioneering rockabilly musician

November

Quincy Jones: March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024
Multiple award-winning record producer, composer and arranger

Andy Leek: December 16, 1958 – November 3, 2024
Original drummer with Dexys Midnight Runners

Jim Gaines: October 2, 1941 – November 9, 2024
Grammy-winning music producer for Carlos Santana, Journey and others.

Shel Talmy: August 11, 1937 – November 13, 2024
Producer of The Who, The Kinks, The Easybeats and more

Dennis Bryon: April 14, 1949 – November 14, 2024
Drummer with Amen Corner, The Bee Gees, Steve Marriott and more

Vic Flick: May 14, 1937 – November 14, 2024
Guitarist on the theme song of the James Bond movies

Pete Sinfield: December 27, 1943 – November 14, 2024
King Crimson lyricist

Colin Petersen: March 24, 1946 – November 18, 2024
Original drummer for The Bee Gees

Mike Pinera: September 29, 1948 – November 20, 2024
Guitarist with Iron Butterfly, New Cactus, Alice Cooper

Bob Bryar: December 31, 1979 – November 24, 2024
Former drummer with My Chemical Romance

Will Cullen Hart: June 14, 1971 – November 29, 2024
Founding guitarist of psychedelic band the Olivia Tremor Control

December

Jon Camp: Died December 13, 2024
Renaissance and Roy Wood bassist

Zakir Hussain: March 9, 1951 – December 16, 2024
Tabla player for George Harrison

Mike Brewer: April 14, 1944 – December 17, 2024
Founder of folk-rockers Brewer & Shipley, writer of One Toke Over The Line

Slim Dunlap: August 14, 1951 – December 18, 2024
The replacement Replacement

Casey Chaos: October 9, 1965 — December 20, 2024
Singer with Amen

Mick Moore: June 6, 1959 – December 20, 2024
Bassist for Avenger and Blitzkrieg

Richard Perry: June 18, 1942 – December 24, 2024
Producer of Captain Beefheart, Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr and more

Alex Dmochowski: Death reported December 21, 2024
(Known by Frank Zappa as ‘Erroneous’), bass guitarist

Eric Carlson: May 22, 1958 – December 29, 2024
Guitarist with The Mentors

Jimmy Carter: October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024
The 'Rock & Roll President'

Johnnie Walker: 30 March 1945 – 31 December 2024
Pioneering pirate radio DJ, advocate for rock music

At the time he bought The Wick, in 1971, Woody was coddled in cash from the double-whammy success that year of Rod’s Maggie May solo single and Every Picture Tells A Story album both going to No.1 in Britain and America simultaneously. Ronnie played guitar and bass on both and co-wrote the title track to Every Picture. He bought it for a suitcase of cash and began filling the basement with recording equipment.

“I didn’t do it with any sort of plan,” he later told me. “It started with somewhere to put my guitars, then a piano, pool table, some drums…”

With time to kill until the start of a Faces Japanese tour, Woody spent the first weeks of 1974 corralling every muso that wound up at The Wick with a joint in their hand to help come up with material for his own forthcoming solo album, I’ve Got My Own Album To Do. Chief among them was Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard (still sans ‘s’ back then). Keith and his ‘old lady’, the witchy Anita Pallenberg, had moved into The Wick’s coach house.

Busted for drugs and guns at their Chelsea abode the previous summer, Richard was convinced “the cops were out to get me”, after the judge gave him an unexpectedly lenient sentence of a £250 fine. Woody’s coach house “was a good hideout”.

Other basement regulars included Mick Jagger, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Ringo Starr, Mick Taylor, and various other ‘vibe merchants’ such as rising acting star John Hurt and the crew from Monty Python. “Before any of us knew it we’d be up for days drinking, getting stoned and making music,” Ronnie recalled with a beaky grin.

It was during another such journey into night, fuelled by pharmaceutical cocaine, that Woody found himself gleefully jamming with Jagger, Bowie, session bassist Willie Weeks and Faces drummer Kenney Jones on a loose-limbed jingle-jangle that Jagger later described as “a very Chuck Berry song” but with “a different feeling to it than a Chuck Berry song”.

When Jagger and Bowie started improvising and having fun around the phrase “I know it’s only rock’n’roll but I like it”, it began as a coke-joke take on comedian Dick Emery’s national catchphrase, heard on BBC1 every Saturday night that year: “Ooh, you are awful – but I like you!” Suddenly the whole room was singing along: “I know… it’s only rock and roll… but I like it!”

Some accounts have Bowie whipping out his tenor sax and fattening up the nursery rhyme chorus. Some have Richard elsewhere, with his connection in the coach house. But they kept tooting and returning to it, “…like it… like it… yes, I dooo…” until the sun came up and went back down.

“We all knew it was good,” Ronnie told me matter-of-factly, “but no one thought for a minute it would be such a big hit.” No one except Jagger, who was determined not to leave The Wick without it. The same star-tripping jam also yielded I Can Feel The Fire, the rock’n’reggae track that would open Ronnie’s solo album. “Mick and I cut a deal,” he recalled. “He said: ‘You keep I Can Feel The Fire, I’ll keep It’s Only Rock ’N Roll.’”

Destined to become one of the totemic anthems of classic 70s rock, It’s Only Rock ’N Roll (But I Like It) was only a medium-sized hit by previous Rolling Stones standards when it was released as a single in July 1974 (No.10 in the UK, No.16 in the US). But it became one of the most fitting aphorisms of the times, as 60s ‘we’ became 70s ‘me’.

Suddenly “I know it’s only [insert subject] but I like it” became a good enough excuse for anything. Jagger got it straight away and ran with it. He liked it liked it so much, in fact, he decided they should name the next Stones album after it.

Released in October 1974, It’s Only Rock ’N Roll was the first truly 70s album the Stones would make. It was also the last Stones album to feature their most potent line-up: the one that recorded Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St., three of the greatest rock albums of all time – no arguments allowed. It turned 50 in 2024. Blissfully, it has not grown old gracefully at all.

Despite the accidental birth of its title track, there was little else that was spontaneous about It’s Only Rock ’N Roll. A patchwork of ideas stitched together in a panic by Mick Jagger as he strove to drag the Rolling Stones into a new era, it “was up and down like a toilet seat”, deadpanned Charlie Watts.

By 1973 the Strolling Bones, as NME had started to call them, were showing their age. Jagger and Richard both turned 30 that year – last orders for rock stars in that hope-I-die-beforeI-get-old era. Bill Wyman was 37, for chrissakes – nearly as old as Elvis. Keith – Keef – still sported a chipped front tooth and deathly white pallor, his matted black hair the result of his habit of not sleeping – ever; he bragged that his record was “nine days without a wink”.

When that year he came top in a new NME poll, Rock Stars Most Likely To Die – a title he would hold for 10 years – he shrugged. “It’s like they want me to die,” he drawled, purring with barely concealed pleasure. Jagger, however, saw the danger. Were the Stones becoming a parody of themselves? When comedian Freddie Starr now did his absurdist impersonations of Mick for chortling family audiences on TV, the likeness was disconcertingly uncanny.

On stage they still enjoyed ‘greatest rock’n’roll band in the world’ status, but their latest album, Goats Head Soup, despite going to No.1 in Britain and America, had largely been met by indifference, signposted by the glaciar-paced single Angie. The sight of Richard nodding off in the video summed up most people’s feelings about the song. Meanwhile, Jagger had taken note of all the attention now devoted to ‘glam rock’ stars like Alice Cooper and T.Rex, Roxy Music and David Bowie, all of whom had bigger and better hits in 1973 than the vanilla Angie.

Even junkie-implacable Keef wasn’t immune to the gnawing sense that the Stones were being overtaken. He developed a deep antipathy towards Marc Bolan, skidding to a halt in his silver Ferrari on the King’s Road one day then leaping out with a hunting knife to slash at a T.Rex poster.

Rubbing metatextual salt into the wound came the New York Dolls, fronted by garish Mick ’n’ Keef burlesques David Johansen and Johnny Thunders. When the Dolls appeared on music TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test in November, an ultra-glam, Biba-clad Johansen jokingly told beardy polo-necked presenter Bob Harris that he had “bunny teeth”. After they’d finished miming outrageously, Harris got his own back pronouncing the band “mock rock”.

But it was the Stones who were now being mocked. Jagger chose not to see this as an existential crisis, but rather a career miscalculation, something that could be adjusted and fine-tuned. He had already identified Bowie as the one to beat. Jagger had been there at Hammersmith Odeon when Bowie retired Ziggy that summer, the most celebrated farewell stunt since The Beatles rocked the rooftop.

On the same day in October that the Stones played their final show of the year, in West Berlin, Bowie released Pin Ups, a stopgap album of hurriedly recorded cover versions, which went straight to No.1. Also in the UK top five album chart that week was These Foolish Things, a collection of covers by the only glam artist considered as innovative and stylish as Bowie, Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry.

Ferry’s champagne-bubble version of Sympathy For The Devil thrilled Jagger almost as much as Bowie’s same-sex reset of Let’s Spend The Night Together on Aladdin Sane, his earlier No.1 album that year. It reaffirmed the Stones’ connection to the now and suggested a way forward to Jagger. The Stones would do their own covers album, he decided. Unlike Bowie’s mid-60s nostalgia trip, though, the Stones would focus on timeless blues and soul yardsticks.

Two weeks in November were booked at Musicland Studios in Munich. There the Stones put their familiar stamp on quickfire stuff like Jimmy Reed’s Shame, Shame, Shame, which they’d done in their club days (and ripped off for Little By Little, the B-side of Not Fade Away, in 1964). They tackled oddities like Trouble’s A-Comin, an obscure Chi-Lites album track from 1970, and embarrassed themselves with an awkwardly pale imitation of Drift Away, the rock’n’soul classic that had just been a huge US hit for Dobie Gray. The only cover that really popped was their proto-punk version of Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, a signature hit from 1966 for Motown stars The Temptations.

According to Richard: “We were really hot [from touring] and ready just to play some new material.” But when he got to Munich the plan had changed to a quickie album: one side covers, one side live recordings. It was a decision taken partly to compensate for Richard’s latest attempt to get clean, at an exclusive Swiss clinic, where his joke about going there to have his drug-contaminated blood changed for some fresh virgin plasma would also enter the lexicon of 70s-hip-speak. Going for a blood change: leave me the fuck alone.

With Keith on Mick’s shit-list (again) for putting his drug habit before the band, the singer filled the time writing with guitarist Mick Taylor. A 20-year-old, non-smoking vegetarian when he joined the Stones in 1969, Taylor was now on the verge of self-destruct. He had become that most pitiable creature: the pampered junkie with enough money to never need to stop.

His exquisite ability to fly his guitar straight into the Sun remained as yet undimmed, however, and the two Micks wrote several numbers together, at least three of which would appear on It’s Only Rock ’N Roll, albeit credited as usual to Jagger/Richard. It had happened before, of course; Stones songs Taylor should have received a co-writing credit for. Back when he didn’t know what to say. Taylor was now 24 and a million miles from then and he vowed it would not happen again.

“I felt I should have been credited with co-writing on It’s Only Rock ’N Roll,” he said in 1997. He and Jagger had been “quite close friends and co-operated quite closely on getting that album made”. Jagger, however, rolled his eyes and allowed that Taylor “maybe threw in a couple of chords”.

When recording sessions reconvened at Island Studios in London in February 1974, Jagger began with the Wick demo of the now officially titled It’s Only Rock ’N Roll (But I Like It).

As Keith later told Ronnie: “I took the precaution of removing your guitar parts.” They did leave Woody’s 12-string acoustic in the mix, however, along with Kenney Jones’s drums, with Charlie Watts generously claiming he “wouldn’t have done it any other way”. Willy D. Weeks’s bass was also retained. As were Bowie and Wood’s backing vocals – that’s them singing ‘like it, like it, yes I do’, although Bowie’s vocals are so low in the mix you’d never know.

As with Taylor, neither Wood nor Bowie would receive a co-writing credit. That so peeved Bowie that he retaliated by writing Rebel Rebel – a straight take-off of the Stones classic (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. According to Alan Parker, an uncredited guitarist on the track, Bowie said: “I’ve got this riff and it’s a bit Stonesy, I just want to piss Mick off a bit.”

Jagger’s growing rivalry with Bowie is at the heart of It’s Only Rock ’N Roll. Bowie had started it when he referred to Jagger by name on his 1973 hit Drive-In Saturday. Four months later the Stones released Angie, and Jagger allowed rumours to flourish that it had been written after a tryste he’d had with Bowie’s wife Angie.

While the Stones were working on It’s Only Rock ’N Roll, Bowie was across town recording Diamond Dogs. When Rebel Rebel was a hit in February ’74, Jagger shrugged it off. But when he discovered that his first choice to design the next Stones album sleeve, Guy Peellaert – then at peak fame for Rock Dreams, his ’73 book of impressionistic paintings of rock stars – had also agreed to provide a painting for Bowie’s album, Jagger was livid.

Sure enough, Peellaert’s painting of a naked half-man half-dog Bowie with full canine genitalia on display remains more celebrated than the orgiastic fin de siècle that adorned the sleeve of It’s Only Rock ’N Roll.

Jagger was now a man on a mission. He took the bones of the Munich covers, inlaid some new material, and padded it out with leftovers from the Goats Head Soup sessions at Dynamic Studios in Jamaica the year before. Following the firing of long-time Stones producer Jimmy Miller, whose smack habit had become “a problem”, Mick and Keith now co-produced the album under the suitably 70s nom de plume The Glimmer Twins.

The finished results were patchy, at best. Opening track If You Can’t Rock Me set the tone with its trite doubleentendre chorus and jaded delivery, its overexcited pleased-tameetcha guitars and no-messing drums. ‘Now I ain’t looking for no pretty face,’ Jagger yowls, ‘or for some hooker working roughish trade…’

It may not possess the tank-like force of Brown Sugar or the cinematic scope of Gimme Shelter, but as a trigger-happy album opener If You Can’t Rock Me lit things up. The mix might be muddy but the message was crystal: it’s the 70s, baby, get over it.

The juddering cover of Ain’t Too Proud To Beg that followed was the Marmite selection. Taking The Temptations’ smooth-talking original and punching it up with such power-chord energy was not to everyone’s taste. Unless you were high. Then it sounded daring.

The impish title track, half Wood’s Wick demo, half Mick’s retooling, was the real clincher. Richard told Jagger: “Come on, we’ve got to steal that motherfucker back. And we did, without too much difficulty. Just the title itself was so beautifully simple.”

Side one’s obligatory big ballad, Till The Next Goodbye, was another from the Jagger-Taylor collaboration, and was so arch it could have been one of Lou Reed’s sick jokes, the ringing acoustic guitars and Jagger’s high-camp vocal suggestive of the idea, introduced by Angie, that he could no longer sing a love song with a straight face.

Indeed, the idea that the Stones might come up with something new or original were concepts that felt almost quaint in 1974. That is until the track that closed side one, a new peak in the more heightened musical arc Mick Taylor had introduced to the Stones, the imperious Time Waits For No One.

Another Jagger and (uncredited) Taylor original, Time Waits For No One is simply a masterpiece, a journey not a race that builds and builds until the tension is released by Taylor, marinading in smack and Santana, who delivers an exquisitely tortured solo. A siren sound over midnight rooftops. Jagger’s lyrics like suicide right on the page: ‘Time can tear down a building or destroy a woman’s face/Hours are like diamonds, don’t let them waste…’ His voice tremulous and pained: ‘…dreams of the night-time will vanish by dawn…’

Side two of It’s Only Rock ’N Roll also suffered from a 50-50 hit ratio, beginning with the ick-inducing Luxury. Demoed during the Goats Head Soup sessions, Luxury is toe-curling to listen to now, Jagger chirruping in a fauxJamaican accent: ‘I’m working so hard, to keep you in dee luckshurry…’

Dynamic’s owner Byron Lee claimed Jagger had originally written a reggae song called Man Eating Woman, which he planned to hire a Jamaican band to record, for a mooted solo album. Certainly reggae was breaking through to the rock mainstream, with both Zeppelin (D’Yer Maker) and Eric Clapton (a cover of Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff) ‘dabbling’ successfully with the form around the same time.

“I think reggae could be as popular as the blues,” reckoned Mick. “Black music is all about getting into a groove. What matters is where you put your feet and how you wiggle your ass.”

Dance Little Sister, which followed, was all about wiggling your ass. Pure Keef, it starts promisingly with a nasty, snub-nosed riff and some Rebel Rebel-style lyrics (‘On Thursday night she looked a fright…’) but soon descends into repetitiveness and cliché, so that it’s a relief when it finally ends. Same with Short And Curlies, a bawdy barrelhouse blues featuring Taylor’s adroit honkytonk guitar. Another leftover from the Goats Head Soup sessions, a song about a woman squeezing a man’s hairy balls, was never likely to transcend its tawdry subject matter regardless of how deftly it was performed.

Sandwiched between those obvious fillers, though, was one of the album’s surprise highlights, If You Really Want To Be My Friend. Unlike the fey and prissy Till The Next Goodbye, If You Really Want To Be My Friend was the most heartfelt love song Jagger had written since Wild Horses. It’s a song about grown-up sentiments such as true sexual freedom, real platonic love, and the bile that builds when those things are quashed or denied in a relationship.

In this case, Jagger’s troubled marriage to Nicaraguan-born beauty Bianca Pérez-Moras Macias, whom he wed in St Tropez in May 1971 when she was four months pregnant. ‘I know you think life is a thriller/You play the vamp, I play the killer…’ When he goes on to sing about how ‘people tell me you’re a vulture… Say you’re a sore in a cancer culture’, it’s clear the jive talk is over. That Jagger the cunning deceiver is for once being honest. With Philly Soul outfit Blue Magic adding lush backing vocals, and the band – augmented by regular guest keyboard players Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston – at their most tasteful, If You Really Want To Be My Friend is an unexpected moment of emotional truth on an album otherwise built to grind its groin muscles.

“I’m not in the least domesticated,” Jagger told Viva magazine. “I try not to hang around my family any more than I have to.” In the same article, Bianca pondered: “Perhaps Mick isn’t attracted to me any more.” A disingenuous remark, given that at the time she was in an on-off affair with Hollywood movie star Ryan O’Neal. While Mick, as Bianca put it, “screws many but has few affairs”.

The album ends on a Kafka-esque note with Fingerprint File. A funky chunk of post-Watergate paranoia, it’s the longest track on the album and its most mysterious. Many critics disliked what they saw as it’s tricksy production – the treated lead vocal, the manipulated guitars, the phased, deliberately woozy production. Adding to the sense of otherhood, Jagger plays rhythm guitar, Mick Taylor plays bass, Bill Wyman switched to synthesiser, Charlie Watts was supported by tabla player Jolly Kunjappu, and Keith enjoyed himself hugely on Superfly-style wah-wah guitar.

Looking back, Keith put it best when he observed: “Rock’n’roll can’t be planned or prepared. Goats Head Soup to me was a marking-time album. I like it in many ways but I don’t think it has the freshness this one has.”

In America, It’s Only Rock ’N Roll became the fourth of eight consecutive Stones albums to go to No.1. In Britain it reached No.2, breaking an unbroken chain of No.1 albums going back to 1969’s Let It Bleed. Music videos were shot for several of the songs. The most famous is the one for It’s Only Rock ’N Roll (But I Like It) featuring the band, for reasons never made clear, in US Navy sailor suits performing in a tent, which gradually fills with foam – again, for reasons no one could be bothered to decipher.

Videos were also done for Ain’t Too Proud To Beg and Till The Next Goodbye. But when the It’s Only Rock ’N Roll single proved to be a poor-selling follow-up to Angie, plans for further singles were quietly shelved. Ain’t Too Proud To Beg became the second and last single from the album, scraping the Top 20 in the US, but was not released in Britain.

By January 1975, Mick Taylor had officially quit the Stones. The official reason given was that he wanted “a change of scene”. Richard sent him a telegram: “Thanks for the past five years – it’s been a pleasure working with you.” Jagger took it as a personal betrayal and remarked sarcastically: “No doubt we can find a brilliant six-foot-three blond guitarist who can do his own make-up.”

Meanwhile, back in the smoky basement of The Wick, Keith, his new gold tooth glinting, turned to Ronnie and asked: “I know it’s only rock’n’roll, but how about it?” To which Ronnie replied: “I like it, like it, yes I dooo…” Honest.

All three emerged out of the fertile late 60s British music scene, and their paths crossed man times during their respective rises and beyond. Inevitably, there was both respect and rivalry between them – not least Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, both of whom had ties to Birmingham, the industrial city in which both the members of Sabbath and Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham served their early musical apprenticeships.

Speaking to Classic Rock in 2014, Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi looked back on the friendship and competition between his own band and Led Zeppelin.

“In the early days there was a rivalry between Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but not a bad kind of rivalry,” he said. “We weren’t horrible to each other. Deep Purple we really didn’t know, but we were friends with Zeppelin.”

Iommi revealed that their friendship with Zeppelin dated back to their days on the Birmingham scene before either band had gotten off the ground.

“We knew Planty and John Bonham. John and I used to see each other in the days before Sabbath,” Iommi said. “Bill [Ward, Sabbath drummer] and me were in a band called The Rest, and John used to be in two or three other bands. He’d be in one band, then they’d fire him because he was too loud, and then the next week he’d turn up in another band. John used to have this bass-drum case where he had the name of the band he was with.”

When Zeppelin took off, Bonham garnered a reputation as a wildman, though that didn’t stop Iommi – who himself had no compunctions about getting into scuffles with journalists who badmouthed Sabbath in the press – from asking the drummer to be best man at his wedding.

“I think it worried everybody, though my wife was fine about it,” said the guitarist. “Of course, the night before my wedding we went out in Birmingham for my stag. It was getting on for two o’clock, and we went to this one last club. We go in there and John orders 12 bottles of champagne. I thought he was going to treat everybody in the club, but he turned to me and said, ‘Go on, drink it – that’s yours.’ I said, ‘I won’t be fucking get married if I drink all that!’ So he went along the bar and drank 12 glasses, one from each bottle. Within 30 minutes, he was gone – absolutely gone. I eventually got him home and put him in the hallway, up against the radiator. I said, ‘You’re not going to turn up tomorrow, are you?’ And he just slurred and stuck his thumb up.

“The next day, he turned up alright, his suit on, his top hat and tails. I’d literally just got out of bed. Of course, he had some coke on him. He said, ‘Here you are – have one of these.’ And that’s how the day went. The embarrassing thing was when we were in the church. My wife’s family were quite well-to-do. And on my side there was our band and other musicians. And they’re all nipping out of the church, three or four of them at a time. My wife’s mother said, ‘What’s the matter with your friends, all coming and going all the time?’ They were behind the church doing coke…”

Any rivalry between the two bands fell by the wayside as they both began to become successful. During one memorable session, members of Sabbath and Zeppelin actually staged an impromptu jam.

“We actually jammed with Zeppelin,” said Iommi. “We were in Morgan Studios, doing an album, and they turned up. Only Jimmy Page wasn’t there. John [Bonham] said, ‘Can I have a play?’ So our session went totally out the window. We just started jamming. John said, ‘Let’s play that song of yours I like.’ That was Supernaut. So we played that and, well, I don’t remember what else. We were just jamming, making stuff up. It was good, but it totally ruined our session. But it was good fun.”

It’s not clear whether this mythical jam was ever recorded, let alone released, meaning a Black Zeppelin/Led Sabbath supergroup remains something fans of both bands can only dream of.

It’s a grey and drizzly Monday night in the centre of Stockholm. Hammer is in the warm but unremarkable confines of a downtown rock pub known to its regulars and staff as Pub Anchor. There’s not a lot going on tonight, save for the low-level murmur of post-work conversation and the occasional chink as full glasses become empty and vice versa.

But somewhere in the shadows at the back of the bar, seated around a candlelit table, one of the biggest and best metal bands in Europe are settling down for a night of ale and soon-to-be-not-sober reflection. These five long-haired figures – that, if we didn’t know any better, could be any group of 30-something metalheads on the planet – are poised on the brink of major success that they have worked their collective fingers to the bone for over the last 15 or so years, and it’s time to celebrate the glory to come. Raise a glass, ladies and gentlemen, to Amon Amarth. This is their local and 2009 is going to be their year.

“This is the classic Stockholm rock bar,” states giant frontman Johan Hegg, the man who most precisely embodies his band’s proud, strong Viking-obsessed worldview. “This just became our main pub, and we’ve been coming here since the early 90s. At one time, we were like an institution in here. There could be three lines of people at the bar, but if we wanted to order we’d just put up a hand and we’d get a beer.”

As if to demonstrate, he raises a cleaver- sized hand and within seconds a barmaid appears and takes everyone’s order.

“This place has been around the longest time,” continues Olavi Mikkonen, guitarist and Amon Amarth’s other chief spokesperson. “We were good friends with the bouncers, so it didn’t really matter how drunk we were. They’d always let us in. But then they changed bouncers and it wasn’t quite the same anymore”

“We were supposed to have a launch party for our album The Crusher here,” adds Johan Söderberg, the band’s other six-string wizard. “We all came here, the whole band, and everyone got in except for me because I’d been thrown out before. They were saying, ‘No, you’re not coming in!’ but we were supposed to be playing! We had to speak with some people and eventually they let me in but they said I couldn’t drink! Ha ha ha! In the end, they decided that I could drink, so it was OK.”

“We’ve been let in through the back door before too,” grins Hegg. “When the bouncer closed the front door, the barman must have seen us somehow and he opened this door at the side of the pub and said to the bouncer, ‘These guys are with me!’ So yeah, that kind of thing is pretty cool. I don’t know how many times we’ve been here, but it’s a lot. We came here every Friday and Saturday for many years, maybe six years in a row.”

2008 was a year of many metal milestones, from the triumphant return of Metallica to the ludicrously long-awaited release of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy. But for Amon Amarth – completed by bassist Ted Lungström and drummer Fredrik Andersson, both also present and downing beer with great enthusiasm – the year will be remembered as the time that this most hard-working of bands made that all-important forward step between the worthy but undemanding comfort zone of being revered underground mainstays and the metallic equivalent of mainstream acceptance.

Their eighth album, Twilight Of The Thunder God, had such an impact that the Swedish band’s fanbase seemed to double almost overnight. For many of the people recently won over by Amon Amarth’s bombastic and brutal blend of bone-crunching death metal and stirring traditional metal melody, this band may carry the air of being a new and fresh proposition. Indeed, listening to Twilight Of The Thunder God will give you little indication that this band have, in fact, been around in one form or another since the late 80s and that their current upsurge marks the culmination of nearly two decades of hard work and dedication.

But speaking to the band in person, there is an undeniable sense that these are men motivated not by the careerist concerns that turn many bands from wide-eyed hopefuls to jaded and ruthless hacks, but instead by a fulsome and genuine devotion to and love for the music that they make and the scene that spawned them. Amon Amarth are metalheads through and through, with all the laidback affability and unpretentious charm that you would expect from your own metal-loving buddies. As a result, their rise to prominence is one of our genre’s more heart-warming tales. Put simply, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

“I think the main reason that we’ve arrived here is that we always believed in what we were doing,” shrugs Hegg. “We always felt that we had something to contribute and we’ve always been pretty down to earth. I’m still a big fan of all the stuff that I listened to when I was growing up. That’s why it was such a big deal to tour with Slayer. That’s what we are. We’re metalheads. When we started, we were just playing to have fun. All of our friends were playing in bands. It was just to have shows and get drunk together and play for beer!”

“We often got paid with beer in the early days,” Ted chips in. “But not always very much beer!”

It’s great to be reminded of that simpler era, when bands formed just to enjoy themselves and each other’s company rather than because they wanted to become rich and famous. The age of celebrity has rather tarnished that attitude has a prerequisite for being in a metal band, but Amon Amarth are still flying the flag for that honest and humble ethos, despite their subsequent achievements.

“We never had any great ambition to get signed,” says Olavi. “We were always interested only in having fun. Obviously it was a big dream, to get signed and tour the world, but we weren’t searching for it. When we formed our own band, our policy was that we would never send our demos to record labels. We just waited for them to contact us. That’s why everything took so long for us! Everyone else in the Stockholm scene got signed, but we were just sitting around and waiting. It’s not so smart when you think about it, ha ha ha! Back then, we were proud that we did it that way.”

Having stormed the gates of the music industry palace in a fairly naïve and haphazard fashion, and having subsequently embarked on a forward march towards an enduring career, starting with the release of their debut album Once Sent From The Golden Hall in 1998, Amon Amarth have steadily built up a reputation as underground metal workhorses. A steady stream of album releases and tours across Europe and the US have garnered them much acclaim and a slowly expanding fanbase, but it’s undeniable that until fairly recently they have never really been considered major players or a band likely to step up to a higher level of popularity.

Consistently big in Germany, that unerring bastion of meat ’n’ potatoes metal, Amon Amarth were able to keep afloat for several years without ever threatening to emulate the commercial clout of fellow countrymen like In Flames and Arch Enemy. Instead, they’ve long exuded an air of stoic reliability, but it’s not hard to imagine that there have been many times during the Amon Amarth story when the band have felt that they’ve been banging their Viking helmets against a brick wall, particularly when it comes to the UK. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that they very nearly decided to give it all up.

“When we made the Versus The World album, the working title for it was The End,” growls Hegg. “We felt really tired. We felt that we’d been treading water and that we weren’t getting anywhere, so we thought that it was probably going to be the last album. I genuinely thought that it was time to quit, but somehow everything started to turn round.”

“The last four or five years have really shown that it pays if you stick with it,” nods Olavi. “If you really have something special to offer to people it’s worth going through the shitty times. All our other albums had lots of fire, but Versus The World was going to be the ashes, because we were burnt out when we made it. During the process, we just got some more energy from somewhere and decided that maybe we could do it for a few more years. Ever since then it’s just been going up and up and getting better and better.”

“We had another low point during the recording of Fate Of Norns,” Hegg continues, referring to the band’s 2004 album. “We toured a lot for Versus The World, but we hadn’t got to the point where we could stop our daytime jobs, so right after the tour we had to go back to work and then we’d have to jump straight into another tour and then back to work again, so there was no time really to take a breath. Then we had to record a new album. We didn’t really have enough songs and it was very hectic and we were fighting a lot in the band. That’s maybe why Fate Of Norns is not as strong as it could have been.”

And perhaps the reason why With Oden On Our Side, the album that truly cemented Amon Amarth’s status as European metal notables, was such a strong and confident follow-up?

“Exactly,” says Olavi. “After Fate Of Norns we said we’d never record another record like that. Next time we have to record together, as a unit, as a band, and also we’d never try to produce an album on our own again. After we decided that, we went and recorded With Oden On Our Side and it was like a rebirth. Everyone was so hungry and it was really cool to record together again. It really felt like a band again, and the record came out great. I talked to a good friend of mine, who’s also a journalist in Germany, and he said, ‘You know what? You’re never gonna top With Oden On Our Side!’ I think we did top it with Twilight…, but it wasn’t that easy.”

A few hours have passed, many beers have been consumed and some impressively tasty steaks have been wolfed down by everyone present. It’s no surprise that these men are such easy company. They’ve spent such a colossal amount of time with each other over the last decade, and they are, after all, friends from way, way back in the mists of metal time.

But what is most striking is how all those slightly contrived parallels between the life of a metal band and the exploratory existence of their Viking forebears are really beginning to resonate now. Amon Amarth really are travelling the world, discovering new territories and winning people over, fan by fan, crowd by crowd.

Of course, they’re not turning up in a new town brandishing huge, gleaming swords and raping and pillaging their way through the local population, but then this is not a band that needs to cheapen their proud Viking heritage. If you’re going to spend eight albums singing about this stuff, you need to probe a little deeper into the historical material that you plunder along the way. Johan Hegg is keen to state that while his lyrics may focus on battles and mythological events from the past, he is not averse to expressing his own feelings and beliefs via such allegorical means and that it would be a betrayal of the Viking code to reduce many centuries of culture down to a few froth-lipped psychos on a mindless rampage. As with Amon Amarth’s deceptively sophisticated music, there was so much more beneath the surface of the average Viking warrior than such cartoon reductionism would suggest.

“You have to remember that the Vikings were not just skilled warriors, they were also skilled diplomats, merchants and politicians,” Hegg states. “In the old sagas and legends, there’s a lot of politics and diplomacy, maybe even more than the battles and violence. That’s the way it was. It was a group of people trying to survive in a very harsh environment, and in doing so they had to learn how to trade and how to communicate and it wasn’t just about attacking people.

“Vikings had a really good reputation around the world, especially if you look at somewhere like Constantinople and how they integrated into that culture and society. Not only were they really skilled warriors, they were also incredibly loyal and if they gave their word then it was almost impossible to break that, no matter how much money they were offered. You had to be true to your own, and loyalty was everything. There’s a lot of values that the Vikings had that still have relevance today. It’s about fulfilling obligations and showing loyalty.”

At this, every member of the band nods in agreement. It almost seems a shame to spoil the moment by pointing out the obvious similarities between the Viking ethos of loyalty and truth and the loyalty and pride that exists within the metal scene. But fuck it, we’ve been drinking for several hours and it’s just nice to still be able to talk without drooling. So, Vikings and metalheads… same thing, right?

“No, you’re right,” grins Hegg. “It is the same thing. When I started writing these lyrics, I just wanted to write about something that I could relate to. Everyone was singing about Satan back then, but I don’t believe in Satan so I needed something that was real to me.”

“The Viking thing is obviously very important for us as a band,” adds Fredrik. “But I don’t think we have to go over the top like a lot of other bands do. We write songs about Vikings, but we don’t feel that we have to arrive at the pub on horseback! Our focus has always been being a great metal band and I think we can always deliver solid albums and do great shows by just playing metal.”

The night is now drawing in and, despite their obvious love for getting hammered in their favourite watering hole, Amon Amarth begin to go their separate ways and head off into the night. They’re rehearsing tomorrow for their forthcoming European tour, and being in this band is a serious business these days, so after six or seven pints it makes sense to call it a night and head home for some much-needed sleep.

Heroically, however, Johan Hegg is made of sterner, boozier stuff and keeps Metal Hammer company for a few more hours and many, many more drinks. Somehow, through a haze of beer and mysterious shots, we team up and take on all-comers in Pub Anchor’s weekly metal quiz. Tonight’s theme: Iron Maiden. When the most metal magazine in the UK joins forces with the most metal band in Sweden, there’s only ever going to be one outcome. We decimate the competition and win ourselves some more booze. Much high-fiving and manly bonding ensues. That’s what happens when you hang out with Amon Amarth. A very metal time is had by all. 2009 is going to be a fucking great year.

“When I joined Amon Amarth, we were happy to make music and hang out with our friends and get drunk,” concludes Hegg, as he drains the dregs of his last pint. “Now we’re still doing that, but we’ve got friends everywhere in the world – in the UK, in South America, in Japan. It’s getting better and better all the time. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but we’re very happy metalheads right now. Cheers!”

Originally published in Metal Hammer, January 2009

The 60-year-old, who joined the chart-topping San Francisco band in 2003, says in a new interview with Toby Morse that his role is to support longer-serving members James Hetfield (vocals/guitars), Lars Ulrich (drums) and Kirk Hammett (guitars) and respect their way of working.

“I’m joining Metallica, and these guys write amazing songs, and I’m just not going to suddenly insert myself into [it],” Trujillo says (via Ultimate Guitar).

“I like to keep people happy and comfortable. My role is always to support what’s needed for the team. I’m writing a song with the guys, I’m contributing that way.”

The bassist then describes the way Metallica write, saying it’s often a collaborative process with every member in the room.

“I mean, we’re always contributing. Whether you see the name on the song or not, I’m in the room every time we’re working on music: I’m there, with Lars and James.

“There are times when I’m like, ‘I’ve got some cool ideas,’ and James is always receptive. If you listen to the middle section of You Must Burn! on the new record [2023’s 72 Seasons], that’s James and I jamming in the tuning room, and then it becomes a part of this particular song.”

Trujillo finishes by saying the ultimate goal is furthering the sense of respect among his bandmates: “As long as the river flows the right way, that’s the most important thing. [Also] how you cater to the personalities.

“It’s like, you’re going to live with these people; it's like a family. It’s a brotherhood. You gotta respect that, and respect people. And when you’re in each other’s space, you gotta respect each other. You gotta help lift people, and all that kind of stuff plays into it.”

Trujillo joined Metallica shortly before the release of their 2003 album St Anger, the bass tracks on which had already been recorded by producer Bob Rock. Along with everyone else in the band, he’s credited as a composer on every song on 2008 followup Death Magnetic.

On 2016’s Hardwired… To Self-Destruct, the bassist’s sole credited writing contribution is to the song Manunkind. He’s also listed as a co-writer on three of 72 Seasons’ 12 songs: Screaming Suicide, Sleepwalk My Life Away and You Must Burn!.

Arguably the biggest metal band on Earth, Metallica have won 10 Grammys, including the inaugural Grammy Award For Best Metal Performance in 1990 with their single One.

The band are currently in contention for an 11th, Screaming Suicide having been nominated for the Best Metal Performance prize alongside songs by Judas Priest, Gojira, Spiritbox and Knocked feat. Poppy. The winner will be named on February 2.

The 60-year-old makes his pick while listing his top five guitarists of all time. Talking on the Lipps Service With Scott Lipps podcast, he names Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, Van Halen’s Eddie Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne player Zakk Wylde and his personal “favourite”, Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest.

“And I think he’s the most overlooked,” King adds when talking about Tipton (via Blabbermouth). “’Cause if you look at the leads he was doing and when he was doing ’em, he kind of innovated a lot of that stuff.”

King, who co-founded Slayer in 1981, has never been shy about expressing his love for Judas Priest. Talking to the Phoenix New Times in 2017, he called the Birmingham metal legends his “idols”.

“Rob [Halford, frontman] is what I call a vocal ninja,” he said. “The stuff he does in the 70s, 80s, even 90s, and even today, he can’t hit the notes from his heyday, but he goes out and puts on a hell of a show.

“But the thing he does, the shrill crazy Rob Halford scream is I think what got me. It wasn’t about wearing leather and chains, but, of course, Priest are idols of me, and I think you spend the early part of your career emulating your idols, and we were definitely guilty of that.”

Slayer retired in 2019 but announced their return in February and have played two US festival shows since then. They’re set to perform at Louder Than Life in Kentucky next September.

This month, King ruled out the band touring or making another studio album ever again. “Mark my words: we're never gonna make a record again, we’re never gonna tour again,” he told Metal Roos.

“Because that [final world tour from 2018 to 2019] was the last thing. We said, ‘This is our final tour.’ It [then] took five years for us to come and say, ‘Hey, here’s a couple of shows, five-year anniversary.’”

Though Slayer won’t be especially active going forward, King will keep himself busy with his new solo band. He released debut album From Hell I Rise this year before touring extensively, and he’s already set to play across North America, South America and Europe in 2025. See dates via the official Kerry King website.

Meanwhile, Judas Priest are set to tour Europe in the summer on the Shield Of Pain run, which will celebrate material from new album Invincible Shield and 1990’s Painkiller. The jaunt will include a blockbuster show at London’s O2 Arena, co-headlined by shock rock master Alice Cooper.

Formed by brothers Paul and Chris McMahon in Sheffield way back in 1978, Haze have been a fixture of the music scene in a career spanning six decades – albeit with the occasional interregnum.

But to cut to the chase, do the ever-eclectic outfit regard themselves as prog? Lead vocalist/guitarist Paul McMahon responds: “It’s the closest description. We’re certainly not a heavy metal band – more of a rock band that’s strayed into prog quite often. It never quite spills into pop music, because it’s too long and the ideas are developed deeper. We may drop in something that’s vaguely metal or folk or from ambient – anything that interests us.”

Paul’s wife, fiddle and flute player, Catrin Ashton, says Haze aren’t overly concerned about the progressive scene. “We’re too old for creating a sound or being a part of any movement. It’s more that we’re in the service of the song. The song goes where it wants to go – and that could be anywhere.”

Bassist/keyboardist Chris reports: “We started out trying to copy the bands we liked; basically Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and The Moody Blues.” Subsequently the brothers were seduced by Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, King Crimson and Soft Machine. “We’ve always pretty much just followed our taste in music,” Chris adds.

While the 80s saw them lumped in with the neo-prog scene, there’s a significant stylistic gap between them and the likes of Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Pallas et al. Haze have arguably always been far more diverse than any of those bands; and Chris suggests their 1984 album, C’est La Vie, provided early evidence of their variety. “There’s two full-fat-prog Van der Graaf-esque epics, a pop song, a ballad and a rock song.”

Perhaps Haze might have proved more successful had they been prepared to focus more tightly. “We’ve occasionally discussed it,” Chris says. “We could chuck out all the complicated ideas and become a pop band, but we have no desire to do that – just as we have no desire to chuck out all the ideas that don’t fit with being a prog band.

“We see prog as a broad church. And to me, a band that dabbles in a lot of genres is as prog as you can get. I don’t think there should be a template of, ‘This is prog: push this button and you get prog.’”

Haze do recognise that their musical diversity is a double-edged sword.“Commercially, it’s a curse,” says Paul. “You can’t say, ‘Go and see Haze –you will get this.’ On the new album there’s a straightforward ballad with acoustic guitars, one song that’s got everything in it over 11 minutes, a quite aggressive Who-type song, classic prog, Van der Graaf prog, Zeppelin blues with Jon Lord-type playing...”

“But as a musician it’s a blessing,” Catrin interjects, “because it’s never boring. You never know from one gig to the next what we’re going to be playing. It’s always different, always fresh – it’s joyful.”

Their eclecticism has never been reined in by third parties. “We’ve never had management,” Paul says. “So we’ve never had anyone saying, ‘Look, guys, you’d do a lot better if you did this.’ It’s always been the people playing the music making the decisions. Which commercially may not be the best way of doing it!”

The band were at their most active in the mid-80s, when they sought an ultimately elusive record deal. “We were playing pubs all over the country, from Cornwall to Scotland,” says Paul. “We weren’t just doing the prog venues.”

Chris laughs: “We’ve done biker festivals, who booked us for some reason. We’d just say ‘Yes.’ Three or four songs in, when it was obvious we were actually about to die, we’d launch into some Status Quo and Lynyrd Skynyrd to save our lives.”

“The first time we played the Marquee in London was such an eye-opener,” Paul adds. “There were about 400 to 500 people who genuinely wanted to hear nothing but prog! We were used to going to Ulverston in the Lake District, where there were half a dozen sheep farmers and a couple of dogs and you had to play to them. We played pubs where IQ or Pendragon probably wouldn’t have survived, let alone gone down well.

“We had to learn a tougher edge – how to play to an unresponsive audience. We weren’t preaching to the converted until we got to the Marquee and thought, ‘God, this is easy!’ Our one and only headline show and we were only four people away from selling out!”

Whatever slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have flown Haze’s way – including the retirement of long-serving drummer Paul Chisnell in 2013 – they’ve emerged largely unscathed, even if their business approach has probably constrained their career. “We’ve always been rubbish at communicating to people what we do; we’ve always had this cottage industry approach,” Chris admits.

“We do everything in-house and just get on with it. Maybe we’ve never had anyone with the ability or the vision to go, ‘You need to do this to become famous.’ We’ve always just written these songs, recorded them and played them live.”

He adds wryly: “We’ve always been good at living like students. We got good at being poor! But you don’t stop doing something that you love doing.”

The track is a new version of a song originally written in 1997 and which features on the band's upcoming Parallel Matter, a double album of unreleased songs, alternative versions, remixes, live versions and demos, which is released on January 16.

The new album is available as a gold-embossed double disc Parallel Matter, or as a three-disc edition which also features an extra disc entitled Mick Moss Prototapes: The Home Recordings 1995-99.

At the same time the band have also announced an extensive run of live dates around Europe for the first four months of 2025 which also includes an appearance at next year's Winter's End Festival in Chepstow in April. You can see all the tour dates and ticket details below.

Pre-order Parallel Matter.

Antimatter: Parallel Matter

Disc One: Antimatter - Parallel Matter CD 1
1. Carve It In
2. Angelic (New Recording)
3. Play With Fire
4. Heathen (Acoustic)
5. Breaking The Machine (Remix)
6. Redshift (Remix)
7. SleepParanoid Carbon (Acoustic)
8. RefractionComrades (Live w/ string quartet)

Disc Two: Antimatter - Parallel Matter CD 2
1. Kick The Dog (Live)
2. Leaving Eden (Live)
3. What Do You Want Me To Do? (Demo)
4. Little Piggy (Remix)In Stone (Live)
5. Leftover Wine (Live@An Club)
6. Firewalking (Acoustic session)
7. Monochrome (Acoustic session)
8. Landlocked (Live)
9. The Immaculate Misconception (Live w/ string quartet)

Disc Three: Mick Moss - Prototapes: The Home Recordings 1995-99

1. Sea Of Tranquility
2. Saviour
3. Running Out Of Time
4. OriginOver Your Shoulder
5. The Last Laugh
6. One More Sunrise
7. Psalms
8. Angelic
9. Nemesis 5
10. Blackout

Antimatter European Tour Dates 2025

XXV Leg I

Jan 16 - NED Alkmaar Victorie
Jan 17 - NED Enschede Theater De Kleine Willem
Jan 18 - BEL St Niklaas De Casino
Jan 19 - NEd Hoofddorp Theater Cpunt
Jan 21 - GER Bochum Die Trompete
Jan 22 - NED Arnhem Luxor
Jan 23 - NED Roermond ECI Theater
Jan 24 - NED Uden Markant Theater
Jan 25 - GER Ubach RockFabrik
Jan 26 - GER Dusseldorf Pitcher
Jan 27 - GER Frankfurt Das Bett
Jan 28 - GER Neunkirchen Geblasehalle

XXV Leg II

Feb 26 - TUR Istanbul If Performance Hall
Feb 27 - TUR Ankara Kulüp Müjgan
Mar 1 - GRE Athens, Piraeus Club
Mar 2 - ARM Yerevan Tonelab Studio
Mar 4 - GEO Tbilisi Venue TBC

XXV Leg III

Apr 2 - BEL Ittre Zik-Zak
Apr 4 - POL Poznan 2progi
Apr 5 - POL Gdynia Blues Club
Apr 6 - POL Warsaw Terminal Kultury
Apr 7 - POL Krakow Gwarek
Apr 8 - POL Piekary Slaskie OK Andaluzja
Apr 9 - POL Wroclaw Liverpool
Apr 10 - GER Leipzig Geyserhaus UnterRock
Apr 11 - GER Stuttgart Club Zentral
Apr 12: NED Helmond De CacaoFabriek
Apr 27 - Winters End, Chepstow, UK

Get tickets.

The Seattle prog/power metal unit, initially active from 1991 to 2011, seem set to return in 2025, as guitarist Jeff Loomis has posted a video to social media promising a “new chapter”. The clip also shows Loomis walking side-by-side with the band’s longtime drummer, Van Williams.

Nevermore released their debut album in 1995 and became underground favourites through their distinct mix of prog, power, thrash and traditional metal. Despite putting out their every album via major metal label Century Media, their sole release to chart on the US Billboard 200 was 2010 swan song The Obsidian Conspiracy.

Nevermore effectively split in April 2011, shortly after a planned North American tour with Symphony X was cancelled. Loomis and Williams simultaneously left the lineup, saying in a statement, “The time has come to pursue our own paths from the group. Due to internal struggles and ongoing issues within the band, we feel it is our time to move on.”

Several ex-Nevermore members have become famed for their work in other metal bands. Before he played on first two albums Nevermore and The Politics Of Ecstasy (1996), guitarist Pat O’Brien was known for his work with Cannibal Corpse. Live member Chris Broderick went on to join Megadeth and, later, In Flames. Loomis played in Arch Enemy from 2014 to 2023.

Rumours of a Nevermore reunion swirled for several years after their disbanding, but were cast into doubt when founding vocalist Warrel Dane died of a heart attack in 2017, aged 56. Loomis paid tribute to the fallen frontman, calling him “one of the best lyricists in metal”.

The guitarist added that he and Dane had discussed reuniting Nevermore “like maybe a year, a year and a half ago”, but completely ruled out a comeback without Dane. “Obviously, now it’s not going to happen,” he said.

The singer for the reactivated Nevermore is yet to be named. It’s also unclear whether the band will record new music as they enter their second stint.

For a band whose original mission statement was to be the new Black Crowes, The Temperance Movement did a good job of not sticking to their own plan. Their second album, 2016’s stellar White Bear, gave their revivalist rock’n’soul a glinting contemporary edge. It was hardly the sound of a band going glitch techno, granted, but still a bold move from five men who looked like refugees from Ronnie Wood’s wardrobe.

A Deeper Cut, released two years later, proved that The Temperance Movement knew the value of a good tune. Built-In Forgetter might have had the worst title in recent memory, but it salvaged itself from titular ignominy by erupting into a chorus of truly joyous proportions. Conversely, Another Spiral was a slow-burner that perfectly balanced poise and emotional charge (the band definitely gave good ballad – Children is the kind of weepie that Ryan Adams would have given Gram Parsons’s right arm to write).

What helped even more was singer Phil Campbell. Campbell is alternately sandpaper-rough and honey-smooth, slipping effortlessly from the lung-busting testifyin’ of Love And Devotion to the restrained emoting of the plaintive title track. It’s an approach that Paul Rodgers perfected 50 years ago and few people have managed to pull off since. Campbell is a notable exception.

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Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.

Join the group now.

Other albums released in February 2018

• Awolnation - Here Come the Runts
• Don Broco - Technology
• Saxon - Thunderbolt
• Franz Ferdinand - Always Ascending
• Band-Maid - World Domination
• Ought - Room Inside the World
• Pop Evil - Pop Evil

What they said...

"A Deeper Cut proves how consistent The Temperance Movement have been with their albums. Managing to reshape their sound to make it feel fresh yet unmistakably them, they’ve made their best album to date. Bending sounds of the past to make it feel modern to make some incredibly upbeat and honest songs, it’s the most real album I’ve heard in years." (Moshville)

"The classic rock parameters don’t adjust for much wiggle room, and with the limited resources they have, A Deeper Cut is about as good as The Temperance Movement are likely to deliver. There are far, far better albums out there, make no mistake, but this is enjoyable enough, and hardly ever sinks to the level of total dirge that so many of their ilk are all too familiar with." (The Soundboard)

"Maintaining musical integrity in today’s market is a challenge for any musician and this feat is even harder with genres like rock’n’roll. It is thus only fair to compliment the courage and boldness of The Temperance Movement in sticking to their musical identity in an environment where other bands may have faltered in such a resolve." (My Global Mind)

What you said...

Gary Claydon: I've always had a lot of time for bands like The Temperance Movement. A bunch of 'journeymen' musicians who honed their skills through hard work and came together to take a well-deserved turn in the limelight. Like a lot of these bands, they weren't trying to re-invent rock'n'roll. Their roots and influences are plain to hear. The result is foot-stomping blues-rock and r'n'b with a southern-boogie groove and enough of a 'contemporary', edge to keep them fresh and relevant. The sort of band that makes it impossible to sit/stand still and absolutely dynamite live.

If you like early '70s rock, it's likely you'll enjoy The Temps. The nods to the likes of Small Faces, Jeff Beck Group, Free plus the inevitable (slight) shades of Zeppelin are easily discernable.

The Deeper Cut is the band's most successful album to date. Classy and assured from the get-go, The Deeper Cut kicks off with a raucous one-two of Caught In The Middle and Built-In Forgetter. Bluesy, with some downright dirty guitar and powerhouse Phil Campbell vocals, if these don't get you moving then you need to consider the possibility that you're actually dead from the floor-up.

Campbell is the star show, stretching out from raunchy and rocky, through raw emotion and smooth as honey. If I have a criticism of A Deeper Cut it's that, overall, it slows things down a little too much. Not to the point of being hard work but I prefer The Temps when they step on the gas a bit, as with the aforementioned opening salvoes or Beast Nation and the album just seems to run out of energy. It may be one or even two tracks too long as well and the excellent Higher Than The Sun would have been my personal choice of album closer.

It'll be great to see The Temperance Movement return to gigging in 2025. They really are a fantastic live band. Hopefully, they will also be enticed back into the studio as well. I'm not sure they have a truly 'killer' album in them but cherry-pick their three very good studio albums and you've got one heck of a 'best-of' on your hands.

Greg Schwepe: So, sometimes it’s that initial musical hit that keeps you engaged. And after 30 seconds into Caught In The Middle, I’m going “What is kind of familiar about this, even though I’ve never heard The Temperance Movement before?” And then it dawned on me, it’s Steven Tyler’s vocal mannerisms with a totally different accent. OK, close enough, but you get the idea.

And then as I listened to the rest of A Deeper Cut, I ran into more stuff that kept me hanging around. A little southern rock, a little boogie, a little blues, and as I got deeper the vocalist shook off the “Tylerisms” I was hearing and standing on his own. And one track kept me going to the next. “Velcro” as I say. Kept me sticking around.

This was a nice find to end the year. And as I finished the album I had yet another “well, here’s another band where I’ll have to check out more of their catalogue” moment. Overall, they had this “clean feel that rocks” that I can’t totally describe. 8 out 10 for me on this one. Raise a glass to The Temperance Movement.

Steve Ballinger: Have been a big fan of TTM since the band's early days. A great group of musicians with a proven track record coming together to produce the music they love. They’ve always worn their influences on their sleeves but that’s not such a bad thing. This album was a really solid production, slightly more mellow than the one before but a hugely enjoyable listen. Check out their self-titled debut, it’s a cracker. For me A Deeper Cut is a good solid 8/10… and looking forward to seeing them live again. Always a treat.

John Davidson: I like this sort of thing. Straight-up rock with a southern blues twang. Despite being from Scotland they pull it off and play with plenty of character. The southern-ness is not overdone.

Less southern than Blackberry Smoke, (coming from Bishopriggs in the north of Glasgow will do that to you no matter how many line dances your parents dragged you to). Less alt-rock psycho/frantic than Biffy Clyro (not being from Kilmarnock helps). Less Glasgow University than Twin Atlantic. And more popular than Tax The Heat

Anyway, with my not-so-subtle name checks for bands you might also like over for now, what do I think of A Deeper Cut?

It's good. Indeed it's very good.

Is it the most original music I've ever heard, no, but is it well-executed classic blues rock, oh yes it is. Either a 7 or an 8 from me. I'll see how I feel after a few listens.

I'd like to see them live and I'll definitely be adding them to my watch-out list - sadly both of their planned visits to Glasgow (Garage first, then Barrowlands) are sold out.

Mike Canoe: I have read about The Temperance Movement in our host's primary publication and listened to the occasional recommended song but I never listened to a full album until this week.

At first, I was put off by the number of ballads, which equals the number of faster songs but, with each successive listen, I started gravitating towards the ballads more, especially the title track, Another Spiral, and There's Still Time. It doesn't hurt that they usually build up to big rousing climaxes chockablock full of vocal harmonies. Among the faster numbers, Beast Nation, Built-In Forgetter, and opener Caught in the Middle stick with me the most.

Based on this album, The Temperance Movement offer strong evidence that classic rock as an ongoing and healthy genre is worth checking out.

Final score: 7.81 (27 votes cast, total score 211)

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Mick Abrahams (guitar, 1967-1968)

Best thing about being in Tull?

They used to let me sit in the front of the van when we were on the road.

Funniest moment?

Walking around Woolworth’s one day with Ian Anderson. We were both trying lampshades on our heads. Ian looked beautiful and I didn’t. An assistant came up to me and said, ‘Are you mad?’ So I replied, ‘He is, but I’m not. Now get us a mirror so we can see which lampshade looks best as a hat.’ And she got us a mirror!”

Favourite Tull album you played on?

This Was.

Clive Bunker (drums, 1967-1971)

Funniest moment?

Our set in America got longer and longer, and Ian’s flute solo would also get increasingly stretched out. On one tour our tour manager, Eric Brooks, would bring out a card table and two chairs, and set it up behind Ian when he went into his solo. Martin Barre and I would sit down and play cards. Eric then came up with a pot of tea for us.

All this was going on while Ian played, and he had no clue what was happening. This went on for a couple of gigs, with Ian puzzled as to why the audience was laughing as he played. Then one night he turned round and saw us. But fortunately he thought it was hilarious!

Favourite Tull album you didn’t play on?

Roots To Branches.

Jeffrey Hammond (bass, 1971-1975)

Best thing about being in Tull?

Having the good fortune and privilege to play a small part in their journey. But unquestionably the camaraderie between us at that time was what I value the most.

Worst thing about being in Tull?

Having to share a bed one night with John Evan in an overbooked hotel in Vienna!

Favourite Tull album you played on?

Thick As A Brick.

Peter-John Vettese (keyboards, 1982-1989)

Best thing about being in Tull?

It has to be dealing with Ian Anderson. From the time I joined the band, we had a gentleman’s agreement that he would ensure I always got publishing royalties for anything I had contributed to Tull songs. He told me this even before I knew what publishing was. And to this day he has kept his word. His influence on me, and his kindness, has probably been more than I deserve. His moral and ethical compass is unquestioned.

Favourite Tull album you played on?

That’ll be The Broadsword And The Beast, which is a good transitional album from where the band were to where we wanted to go.

Tony Iommi (guitar, 1968)

Best thing about being in Tull?

Ian had great discipline, and was very professional in how he went about things. He put me on the right road and when I went back to Brum, I made sure Black Sabbath became a lot more organised in everything we did.

Favourite Tull album?

This Was. It made me think about wanting to join the band.

In a post headed "What a man! What a life! What a loss!", Gabriel says, "President Jimmy Carter was a truly extraordinary man and a rare politician who always stood up and spoke out for idealism, compassion and human rights and particularly for the rights of women and those who suffered real oppression.

"He was always there to support those whose struggles had gone unseen or unheard, a champion for the homeless with yearly visits house building with Habitat for Humanity, he was the flag-bearer for so many minorities.

"He championed those with rare diseases whose cures would never make much money for big pharma. Some killer diseases, like Guinea Worm and River Blindness, the Carter Centre had a critical role in eradicating from many countries.

"He also, endlessly, campaigned for the right to proper representation, to free and fair elections in so many fledgling democracies and, closer to home, he proudly stood behind all Rosalyn’s [Carter's late wife] work prioritising and bringing mental health out of the shadows."

Gabriel went on to talk about The Elders, the non-governmental organisation of Global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007. The NGO, which Gabriel and businessman Richard Branson initially drove, benefitted from Carter's influence and ability to open doors.

"He then became one of the most active and influential Elders since its creation, travelling to Darfur, Israel and Palestine, North Korea, the Cote d’Ivoire and South Sudan," says Gabriel. "At all the meetings, however many years he had on his belt, he was always one of the first out exercising and retained his extraordinary sharp mind full of facts, experience and history with an engineer’s passion for precision."

Read the whole of Peter Gabriel's statement.

Other musicians to have paid tribute to Carter include Heart's Nancy Wilson, who called him "an incredible bridge between policy and our humanity" and Drive-by Truckers, who said, "All our love and warm thoughts are with the great Jimmy Carter and his wonderful family and all of those who love and admire that greatest of great men. 98+ years of making this world a better place."

Jimmy Carter love of music was captured in the 2020 documentary Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President, which explored how this passion gave him an unlikely edge as a presidential candidate, when he would call on bands like the Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, James Brown, Jimmy Buffet and the Charlie Daniels Band to raise campaign funds at benefit shows.

"It was The Allman Brothers helped put me in the White House," said Carter, "by raising money when I didn't have any money."

Once elected, Carter regularly invited musicians to the White House to perform, including Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Dolly Parton, Charles Mingus and Willie Nelson – who famously claimed to have smoked marijuana on the roof of the building – as well as Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Dizzy Gillespie and Herbie Hancock.

Nobody was hurt in the fire, although a number of homeless people were only able to escape via fire department ladders.

“In the fire department, we say there are no vacant buildings in the City of Los Angeles,” the Los Angeles Fire Department's David Ortiz told Fox 11. “A lot of the large unhoused community uses these vacant buildings as their temporary residences. Several dozen were seen self-evacuating at the time of the fire.”

After lying vacant for a decade, the property was purchased in 2013 for almost $12 million by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who planned to turn it into more than 100 affordable housing units. The building, which now has no roof, has been "red-tagged" by the city, meaning it is not considered suitable for habitation.

"Last week when we cleared the building, there were about 15 [homeless people inside]," the foundation's Mark Dyer told Fox 11. "As soon as we secure the building, the homeless come up with power tools within hours and just cut the locks off."

The hotel that gave the Doors' 1970 album its name was originally a low-rent, single-room occupancy guest house that opened in 1914. Keyboard player Ray Manzarek discovered it while he was driving around, and photographer Harry Diltz was on hand to capture the iconic image of the band seated in the lobby window.

“We came inside and I told the guy at the desk: ‘We want to take a couple of pictures, we’ll be just a minute’", Diltz told Classic Rock in 2005. "He said: ‘You can’t unless you have permission from the owner.’”

Initially, Diltz planned to compromise by shooting the band outside, posed in front of the window bearing the Morrison Hotel logo.

"It wouldn’t have looked as good," he told us. "Then as I looked through I could see the guy leave his desk." The band ran inside and "they hit their markers, none of it was planned – Jim was in the middle like that. Bang-bang-bang. One roll of film and they were out of there."

The Summer of Love was over. The 60s were fizzling out, the hippie dream fading like a cheap T-shirt. If the new decade needed some symbolism, then 1970 had the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin within three weeks of one another. After Woodstock came Altamont. In a time that was all about the vibes – the new vibes were heavy, the new vibes were bad.

Yet between 1970 and 1972 came a golden age – perhaps the golden age – of rock music in Britain. Led Zeppelin recorded Led Zeppelin III and IV; Black Sabbath made Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality and Vol 4; Deep Purple cut In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head; The Rolling Stones released Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed; Free recorded Fire And Water, Highway and Free At Last; Genesis made Trespass, Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot; Emerson Lake & Palmer recorded ELP, Tarkus and Pictures At An Exhibition; Jethro Tull managed Benefit, Aqualung and Thick As A Brick.

“Things moved at a different pace then,” says Yes’s Chris Squire, some 40 years on. “The ‘tour, album, tour, album’ thing was much shorter. In those days it was a tour of England, the States, a run down to Japan and Australia and you were ready to do another one. Now it takes forever.”

As the 1970s opened, Chris Squire and Yes, the band he’d formed with Jon Anderson in 1968, were on the brink of a tasty little run of their own. In that same golden period they recorded and released genre-defining albums The Yes Album, Fragile and Close To The Edge.

“We also managed to fit in a couple of line-up changes and couple of tours of America, too,” Squire chuckles. “All in all we were quite busy, I suppose.”

Squire had survived a psychedelic dalliance of his own, playing in a band called Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, where he first met Jon Anderson and guitarist Peter Banks. He’d also been in a flower-power outfit, The Syn, around the same time that Anderson had sung on a couple of singles for Parlophone under the shameful pseudonym Hans Christian.

Yes were a less druggy, more serious proposition from the start. Squire, Anderson and Banks found a gifted drummer named Bill Bruford and keyboard player Tony Kaye and teased out a couple of formative albums called Yes and Time And A Word, made up of band originals and covers.

“When we were doing Time And A Word, Peter Banks was not very happy that Jon and I were very keen on using orchestration,” Squire recalls. “I suppose that caused a bit of a rift and that’s why… it was definitely a musical difference we had going. We parted ways.

“I frequented the UFO club and I’d seen Steve Howe playing in a band called Tomorrow there and at whatever the Reading Festival was back then; the Richmond Festival, I think. I’d seen him play at the Speakeasy in a much smaller environment with his own band. He was definitely number one on my list. I thought he was a blazingly good guitar player. He did take a bit of persuading [to join Yes].”

Steve Howe had been on the edges of getting somewhere. Tomorrow had a minor hit with My White Bicycle, later covered by Nazareth, and he’d rejected approaches from The Nice and Jethro Tull while in his own band, Bodast.

“Even though I was only in my early 20s, I’d been through a few ups and downs and I’d just been in a group where most probably the musicians weren’t as strong as me,” Howe remembers. “I was looking for a group where we were all equal in terms of capabilities. There had to be something right about this group, because besides living on the breadline, my music wasn’t getting a chance. It was very much about the internal chemistry. I believed that you had to have that to get things going. I felt that this was the time for me. I was getting noticed, and I wanted to do something that would pull this together.”

Howe took a guitar and a few effects pedals down to Yes’s rehearsal room in Barnes, West London, a small basement space in a house owned by their manager.

“I didn’t know Yes, “ he admits. “I’d seen them written about but I didn’t know what they were about. And although I can’t underestimate how good it was to hear Jon sing or Chris play the bass, or Tony Kaye, who was very funky on the organ, it was Bill who made me realise: ‘Hang on, this guy over there, how does he play that?’ The group was one I thought I could be part of, because everyone shared a very broad appreciation of music.”

Within weeks, Howe and the rest of Yes were out of London and ‘getting it together in the country’, living in an old farmhouse in Devon, home to Langley Studios. The idea was that they’d write an album’s worth of material and get to know each other.

“I roomed with Bill and maybe that’s why Bill and I are quite close, because we kind of had to share things and get along with each other,” Howe says. “The concept was to be a reasonably organised professional musician. I don’t think Yes had any other criteria. It was a bit like an orchestra: ‘Here you are, you play this instrument.’ One of the first things I played them was The Clap, and they said: ‘Great. Put that on the album.’ That got me really committed. I threw in everything I had. And I had quite a lot of instrumental sections, I had the middle of Yours Is No Disgrace, I had Wurm.”

“I suppose we were all on a similar, pot-smoking wavelength,” Squire considers. “That side of it was covered, really. We got on quite well. The arguments we had were over music, at that time.”

Yet, as Squire hints, the character of the group was emerging.

“We didn’t have the baggage of all that stuff we eventually accumulated over 10, 20, 30 years,” agrees Howe. “We weren’t overly living in each other’s pockets. We worked in Devon to create The Yes Album. Then we started doing gigs – and we couldn’t wait to get away from each other at times. It’s a fiery sort of creature. You need to go away and cool down. I don’t think we anticipated any big problems in those first few years, because it was all about the music then.”

The Devon sessions produced a blueprint for the future of Yes. Howe worked his guitar lines together with compositions by Squire and Anderson to form long, themed pieces. The Yes Album would feature three nine-minute songs: Yours Is No Disgrace, Starship Trooper and Perpetual Change.

There then followed what was an odd few months, when, as they prepared to record the new material, Yes also released Time And A Word, which had been completed with guitarist Peter Banks, before Howe joined, but nonetheless with Howe in the photo on the sleeve. It was a halfway house of a record, already superseded by the time it came out. The Yes Album followed just eight months later.

“There is an odd story about that too, which is kind of a stroke of luck, “ says Squire. “When The Yes Album was released, they had this postal strike. Back in those days, Fred Bloggs who owned the local record shop used to mail in to the record retailer how many of this they’d sold, how many of that. On Monday they used to open the envelopes, and the chart would come out on Tuesday. When there was a postal strike there was no way of getting this information, so they decided to take the whole of the British charts from Richard Branson’s new Virgin record store in Oxford Street. Our manager, Brian Lane, was straight down there, I’m assuming buying a whole load of records. So we went to No.4 in the Virgin store, therefore we were No.4 in the national charts. And when the postal strike was over, because we were No.4 in the charts, all the provincial stores ordered the record. I’m not saying it was dodgy, I’m just saying it was very fortunate there was a postal strike.”

The Yes Album was a Top 30 hit in America, the band followed it out there, and the new life of Yes began.

“There was a sort of personal upheaval about the time I joined Yes and started to rise to success,” says Steve Howe. “A relationship just broke up, and it was a very painful one. It was partly because I did start a new life. It wasn’t that I wanted to sacrifice it, but I’d always sensed that when you joined a band you pushed some of your life away to deal with it. The moment Yes really started to get big, there was a painful but necessary change in my life. Other people came into it and I started a fresh one. My wife Jan, who I’m happily still with, she started with me then and she saw it all happen.”

“It was very exciting to go to Sunset Boulevard and play at the Whisky, stuff like that,” Squire says. “I could feel the energy of what was going on too.”

Within weeks of returning to the UK Yes were headed for the studio again. But the speed was beginning to open further divides in the band.

Squire: “I don’t know exactly what it was, but there was a lack of communication between Steve and Tony Kaye. It looked like that for the band to move on we needed to change one or the other – and Steve was proving himself to be a very valuable part of the organisation. I’d spotted Rick Wakeman. I suppose you can say I head-hunted him. It wasn’t easy, it took a lot of persuasion, but eventually he agreed.”

Wakeman would become a force majeure, both for the music and for the band. His willingness to embrace orchestration, his classical training and session man’s speed acted like rocket fuel on Yes’s music. His character added some torque, too.

“To put it blatantly, we were pretty much pot-smoking hippies and Rick was a pub guy,” says Squire. “Some of the magic comes when you knit someone in who isn’t like the last person. The angle twists and we go off in a new direction.

“We suddenly found that, because of the demand, we’ve got to get another album out and we’ve got to get it done in a couple of months. And in actual fact, from day one to the end of mixing we did Fragile in six weeks. We knew that we didn’t have enough organised pieces to fill an album, so we went: ‘Tell you what. Let’s do our solo efforts and use them as links between the band tracks.’”

Fragile was Yes’s first truly great record, a landmark of progressive rock. Short on time, long on inspiration, each band member spliced a short solo piece between three epic songs: Roundabout, South Side Of The Sky and Heart Of The Sunrise. Deeply ambitious, strangely quirky, gloriously indulgent, the songs summed up what the new genre was about: fiercely committed musicianship and challenging music. Anderson’s opaque lyrics and high, plaintive singing contrasted with the rasping toughness of the Squire/Bruford rhythm section and the virtuoso flourishes of Wakeman and Howe. It was a heady brew, of and for its time.

“We were learning and perfecting what we’d started doing on Starship Trooper, ” says Squire. “Heart Of The Sunrise almost fills out Yes’s blueprint – doing pieces that were longer, the style of us having a song with movements. It has a very fast instrumental and a melody and some quirky instrumental parts, then the song again.”

“I think we believed we were incredibly commercial as well,” says Steve Howe. “I’m saying this slightly tongue in cheek, but we sort of thought, obviously the artistic endeavour and development was so good that it was going to be an enormous hit. And then it was!”

Yes returned to America as headliners, sold out Madison Square Garden and set themselves on a path that would lead them to the commutes on Concorde, the private jets, the garages full of cars.

“I had four cars,” says Howe. “Trevor Horn said to me: ‘They never work, do they? You never know which one’s got petrol in, which one’s been serviced.’ He went back to one car and so did I.”

“We rolled with the times,” Howe remembers: “I could see that Bill and I were good moderates early on. We liked to have fun too, but we were stable people. The 10 years of me nurturing and trying to do the right thing for Yes, and all the success we had, was hugely rewarding, but there seemed no end to it. We were pushed around a bit. We created a scenario where we barely had time to live.”

With a formula established, Close To The Edge, recorded between April and June 1972, was in the shops by September that year, little more than nine months after the release of Fragile.

“We weren’t writing pop songs,” says Steve Howe. “When we did Roundabout, that was big, but in Jon’s and my mind we hadn’t got to the biggest. When we started writing Close To The Edge we started talking bigger, bigger. A whole different mood. We started getting new age, really; we got kind of floaty and gloomy, and those bits make the other bits sound even more powerful.”

The album featured just three songs: on vinyl the title track consumed side one, while And You And I slugged it out with Siberian Khatru on side two. Like Fragile, the album was esoteric in feel, cut through with Anderson’s strange words and the band’s rich, evocative prog rock.

“Jon had a way of taking my simplistic lyrics like, ‘Close to the edge/down by the river’ – meaning the Thames – and making them sound like something else,” Howe explains. “So sometimes people would criticise the lyrics and they were mine. He did write the majority of the lyrics, and he had a little bit of new age, new world concept all flowing together, a bit like the great artists. Dali was always throwing together obscure things, and Jon was throwing together the most obscure words. Sometimes perilously. But in a way, he didn’t think so much of meaning but the way they would sound.”

“The song Close To The Edge we did rehearse and play from beginning to end before we went into the studio,” Squire remembers. “Although we’d record in sections, we knew where the end was going to be. We had a game-plan. And that was really the last time we were ever able to do that. By the time we got to Tales From Topographic Oceans [1973] we didn’t have a sense of the ending, and that created another set of problems.”

As Squire suggests, Yes’s period of genuine excess was about to begin. A live triple album, Yessongs, preceded the perturbing and impenetrable Tales From Topographic Oceans.

“The private jets started in ’74, I think,” Howe says. “I was on the cover of Melody Maker about six times in the 70s, purely because I was the guitarist in Yes. Your life does become different then, and a lot of the arguments and so on were not about music any more. But the period up to Close To The Edge, times were different and we were part of a generation of groups who had albums as hits, rather than singles. If you look back at an album and it’s 20 years old and still selling copies, then you’re not doing much wrong.”

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 138, October 2009

It was the album that firmly brought The Moody Blues into the 1980s. It was also the one that precipitated a potentially damaging court case between the band and a former member, while also seeing them finally recording in their own studio – nearly a decade after it was built. The album was Long Distance Voyager, and it gave the Moodies a massive commercial and artistic boost, proving their decision in 1977 to reunite after a three-year hiatus was a credible move.

“The Octave album [1978] was a difficult one to make,” recalls bassist and vocalist John Lodge. “We began it at the Record Plant in LA, but it burned down. So we moved to Indigo Ranch Studios, but we had a lot of trouble there.”

Adding to their problems, keyboard player Mike Pinder decided he didn’t want to tour any more, forcing them to bring in former Yes man Patrick Moraz for the road trip in support of Octave. And he was the obvious choice to replace Pinder for the next album.

“Patrick brought a greater awareness of modern technology into the band,” says guitarist and vocalist Justin Hayward. “He introduced us to programming, sampling and what computers could do in general for our music. Our personal relationship with him wasn’t great – but there’s no doubting he did a lot of brilliant things musically.”

The loss of founding member Pinder wasn’t the only radical change facing Lodge, Hayward, Ray Thomas (flute/harmonica/vocals) and Graeme Edge (drums). Long-time producer Tony Clarke, who had worked on every Moody Blues album since 1967’s Days Of Future Passed, also decided to bow out.

“We were all having personal problems at the time of Octave,” says Lodge. “Tony decided to walk away. The guy I immediately thought of to produce us was Pip Williams. I’d worked with him on the song Threw It All Away, which was the B-side of my 1980 solo single Street Café. Pip had worked with Status Quo, and he brought that edge into what we were doing.”

Hayward also feels that engineer Greg Jackman played a crucial role in the studio. “I met Greg when I was doing some recording at RAK Studios in London. He’d been closely associated with Mickie Most, and we felt he would be a great partner for Pip on the production side.

“Greg had a very modern approach to recording. This was, for instance, the first time we’d ever used timecode. That meant we didn’t have to get things spot on all the way through. If I made a mistake it could be easily corrected without having to do the entire sequence all over again.”

For the first time, they used their own Threshold Studios in Cobham, Surrey, for a Moody Blues record. “Justin and I had done the Blue Jays album there in 1975,” says Lodge. “And I’d done my Natural Avenue solo record there two years later. But we’d just not done a Moodies album at the place.”

“There’s a simple reason,” says Hayward. “It might have been built in 1972, but it hadn’t been ready for us to go in and do a Moody Blues record. By then it was, so it seemed daft to spend money elsewhere when we had this facility available.”

The band were originally to start recording in October 1980. But in the end the work was delayed by four months, due to changes they’d been going through.“We just had to rethink what we were doing,” admits Lodge. “We just weren’t ready to go into the studio by the time we were supposed to. But it worked in our favour – when we did get things finalised, the songs and our attitude couldn’t have been better.”

The album was recorded in a two-month period. Both Hayward and Lodge giving enormous credit to Williams for the way it came across. “Pip worked so well with us,” says Lodge. “He made the entire process painless, and also gave the music a real lift.”

“What Pip did was update The Moody Blues without changing us,” adds Hayward. “We’re difficult to produce, yet strangely easy to engineer. But Pip got beyond the problems and revitalised us. It was such a breath of fresh air after Octave.”

It’s often been debated whether Long Distance Voyager is a concept album at all. It turns out that the definitive answer to this question from the band themselves is… well, there’s no definitive answer.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s a loose concept linking some of the songs,” says Lodge. “I suppose you could say it’s about, ‘The further things are taken on a personal level, the more they remain the same.’ But not all the tracks are linked in that way, which is why there was no preconceived plan to make it a concept album as such.”

“There’s no concept at all,” states Hayward. “No subject matter links the songs. We actually had the title Long Distance Voyager in mind before we finished recording, but it was just a jumble of words that appealed to us. There was no grand design behind the choice at all.”

The cover also happened by accident, as Lodge explains. “We did a photo session in London, at a museum, and on the wall was a sepia print that caught my attention. It seemed to tell the story of the Long Distance Voyager, so I suggested we should use it for the album sleeve, just adding in the Voyager spacecraft – and it worked really well. Some time later, I came across the original painting in a South London antiques store and bought it.”

“It’s amazing how many people look at the cover and don’t spot the spacecraft,” laughs Hayward. “I think it was so much better than the Octave cover, which has the band on it. There’s a lot more detail to hold people’s attention.”

In May 1981, when Long Distance Voyager was scheduled for release, it was turn of the band’s label, London/Decca, to undergo major upheaval. That would have been of considerable concern to most big acts signed to the company – but as Hayward explains, it worked to The Moody Blues’ advantage.

“A lot of people working for the label saw us as being well past our commercial peak. Octave had done OK (No.6 in the UK and No.13 in America), but there hadn’t been a big hit single on it (although Steppin’ In A Slide Zone got to No.39 in the US), and the feeling we got was they didn’t care about the band any more.

“Then, suddenly, all these people were gone, and the new lot who came in were incredibly enthusiastic about us! They thought Long Distance Voyager fitted perfectly into what FM radio was doing in the States, which was becoming more pop-oriented. Our approach was exactly right for the new format.

“We’d been lucky once before with US radio, because Days Of Future Passed came out when FM first happened, and it had had the right sound to come across brilliantly on air.”

However, the band faced a court battle before they could finally relax and get the album out. It was a lawsuit brought against them by a combination of Pinder and Clarke. “Mike had brought the original case against us,” explains Hayward. “And his lawyers decided to add weight to their side by including Tony Clarke.”

What was the crux of the lawsuit? “Mike and Tony felt that without their involvement, we shouldn’t be using the name The Moody Blues,” shrugs Lodge. “We knew it was coming – the label had inside information on what they were planning, and warned us what to expect. But we kept on the sidelines and let our legal people deal with it all. The case did end up in court, but the final judgement was in our favour so it didn’t derail us at all.”

Pinder appeared to feel that the band had sidelined him, and while he wasn’t prepared to tour, he’d been ready to contribute in the studio. But the claim is hotly disputed by Lodge. “As far as we were all concerned, Mike had fully left us. He never said he wanted to remain a recording member. He gave us the impression he was quitting The Moody Blues permanently. We never froze him out.”

Long Distance Voyager got to No.7 in the UK charts, a place lower than Octave, but in America it was their second chart-topper following Seventh Sojourn in 1972. Its success was propelled by two Top 20 hits in the States: Gemini Dream, which peaked at No.12, and The Voice, which got to No.15.

“Gemini Dream was originally called Touring The USA,” says Lodge. “It was the first song we recorded for the album, and it was written after we’d spent 18 months on the road in America. It was about the way you become two different people when you’re in a high-profile band – there’s the person onstage, and then there’s the private version of you.”

“We never thought Gemini Dream would be a big single for us,” admits Hayward. “Come to think of it, The Voice never stood out for us either. Those choices were left to the label. They understood that sort of thing better than us.”

Both Hayward and Lodge now believe Long Distance Voyager should be considered one of the Moodies’ most crucial releases. “I regard it as being the natural successor to Seventh Sojourn,” says Hayward. “It was a case of the right album at the right time. It was very introspective yet also accessible.”

“It was the start of a new chapter in our career,” says Lodge. “Every song on the album was approached differently; we were firing on all cylinders, the atmosphere in the studio was great, and it gave us a new lease of life.

“But it did spoil things a little for us,” he adds. “We tried to recreate the vibe on our next album, The Present, working again with Pip and Greg. But it didn’t work. That made us appreciate how special Long Distance Voyager was.”

The pop punk heroes say the fact they've never won any major awards in their long career, despite huge success in terms of chart positions and record sales, means the chances of the Rock Hall considering them at all is pretty unlikely.

But unlike a lot of other artists, they won't dismiss the Rock Hall as meaningless. In fact, they'd quite like to be included.

Guitarist Kevin 'Noodles' Wasserman tells Tuna On Toast: "So many great bands have been snubbed, it's almost kind of more elite to be in that club, it can be argued.

"I think would be a great honour to be in it, but I'm not gonna hold my breath."

Frontman Dexter Holland agrees, saying: "We've never won any awards. We haven't gotten a Grammy, we've never been on the cover of Rolling Stone, any of that stuff.

"So I don't know if that's on the cards for us. But I mean, sure, it'd be nice to be recognised."

As for the perception that the Rock Hall has diluted it's importance by including artists from musical genres other than rock and roll, Noodles says that argument doesn't make sense.

He adds: "I think rock and roll should be inclusive. Willie Nelson people think of him as a country artist. 'Doesn't he belong in the Country Hall Of Fame?'

"You know, screw that. He also writes great songs. He rocks in his own way. So does Dolly Parton, of course.

"There are all the hip-hop guys. Like when NWA was inducted, people came out of the woodwork for that. That's great. They're punk as hell. They were defiant. That's what rock and roll is all about – being defiant."

The Offspring will play a UK arena tour in 2025.

The Offspring UK tour dates 2025

Nov 10: Utilita Arena, Cardiff
Nov 14: The O2, London
Nov 15: Utilita Arena, Newcastle
Nov 16: AO Arena, Manchester
Nov 18: OVO Hydro, Glasgow

“The five of us were brothers,” Steven Adler says of the classic GN’R line-up. “We lived together. We ate together. We fucked together. And Axl and all his lawyers will never be able to take away what we accomplished at that time in our lives. There are millions of musicians, but to get five in a room that can actually make magic happen, that’s rare. We had that on Appetite For Destruction.”

Twenty-three years later, the drummer believes the legendary debut has aged “like a fine brandy”. True enough. The most dazzling album of its era, and the reason why thousands still flock to Axl’s travelling freakshow in 2010, Appetite… is the sound of undiluted anarchy: a musical simulation of fighting bikers, fucking strippers and shooting smack that gives a vicarious thrill to armchair hedonists. It’s an album built on chemistry – both kinds – and with respect to Matt Sorum (who is arguably the better drummer), the gang mentality never truly recovered from Adler’s 1990 dismissal, when his heroin habit left him too weak to nail Civil War for Use Your Illusion II.

Now clean, and having just released a memoir – My Appetite For Destruction: Sex & Drugs & Guns N’ Roses – the drummer bears no grudge. “I have wonderful memories of Appetite…,” he says. “Because we just knew. Me, Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy… we all knew where it was gonna take us. We’d go into the booth and listen back, looking at each other, saying: ‘This is gonna be the greatest record ever’. The first time we heard it on the radio, we were like little kids, jumping up and down, screaming, singing along, dancing in a circle.”

The backstory of Appetite… is well-known: the band wrote most of the material in a squalid LA headquarters known alternatively as the Hell House and The Garden, and began work with producer Mike Clink at Rumbo Recorders in August 1986. The material was graphic and autobiographical, equal parts sex, drugs, porn and poverty.

“The songs were everything we’d lived though,” says Adler. “They were part of our lives. It was just the five of us, our crazy friends, and all the crazy experiences. You’re living on the streets, you got nothing… Thank God we had strippers! Because strippers make great money, and if you’ve seven or eight of them on your side, that’s a lot of money. They wanted to take care of us rockers…”

Slash has previously described songs like Mr Brownstone as being written “at the height of our chemical bliss”. When it came to recording, Adler insists they lived a dual existence. “We were young guys, and had nothing but parties and pussy on our minds, but when it came to going in that studio, everybody straightened their ass up. First we work, then we party. I was a big pot smoker, a little alcohol… but heroin around the band during Appetite? I’m telling you, none. Well, not with me personally. Our guitar players, they’d fiddle-faddle every once in a while. But we took it seriously. We’d sleep all afternoon, go record, then go out and party.”

All except Axl: “He’d do his parts by himself. Axl’s a lone wolf. He’s like… I don’t want to say Dracula, but he likes his space. Axl’s vocals are what took the longest, because he’s a perfectionist: some of the vocals, he’d record one word at a time. But most of the songs are first or second take. Sweet Child O’ Mine was first take.”

Quite a smooth process, then?

“There was one incident,” recalls Adler. “As a band, we always said we’d never let anyone tell us how to write our music. There was this one part in You’re Crazy… it was originally full-time from beginning to end, but Mike Clink goes: ‘Hey, why don’t you do the verse half-time?’ Thinking that everybody else was gonna jump up and say: ‘Fuck you, don’t tell us what to do!’ I was the only one who jumped up and said it. Everyone else was just looking at me.”

Ask Adler for a favourite song and he reels off the tracklisting. “Rocket Queen… Nightrain… Welcome To The Jungle… Think About You… Sweet Child O’ Mine… Brownstone’s a good one. You know what? Every single one. I felt for sure we were gonna have the first album ever that had twelve singles.”

What did you think of Axl screwing a groupie/girlfriend of yours (since revealed to be Adriana Smith) on Rocket Queen?

“Oh, that was just an old girlfriend, a stripper,” Adler laughs. “We had, like, eight or nine strippers who were part of our little clan. She just happened to be one I was making out with at the time. But I didn’t mind that Axl fucked her. Of course not. He was doing it for the band. Fuck away!”

Adler was equally relaxed about royalties, with Axl taking 25 per cent, the other three on 20 per cent, and himself on 15 per cent. “It was split perfectly,” he maintains. “The lyrics were Axl’s, so I thought it was only proper for him to make a bit more. Without a fight, I offered it: I said, ‘Dude, you take five per cent of mine; I’ll take 15, you take 25’. Lyrics are important. You drive around in your car, you’re singing the lyrics. But of course, I made a lot of money from Appetite… You can’t sell that many records and not make money.”

The bonhomie couldn’t last. “Our relationships didn’t change during Appetite…,” he says. “Things only started changing after we’d been on the road, and there was so much drugs and alcohol. We didn’t even have to ask for drugs… All we had to do was think it, and it magically appeared. You just think: ‘I want a big line of coke’ and bing! I was very naïve with heroin. I did it for two months straight, got sick, and the doctor gave me this opiate blocker. I got even sicker, and we had to go in for Civil War, and I could not perform.”

All logic dictates that Appetite… represents the never-to-be-repeated peak of Guns N’ Roses. Adler refuses to accept it. “The thing that bothers me is that we didn’t finish what we started – because of me,” he says. “Use Your Illusion would have been bigger and better. If they didn’t have that drummer [Sorum]… He’s like a machine, nobody wants to hear that. You want to hear swing, feel, groove – that’s how I play. I did the demos for Use Your Illusion; we’d play the songs, go to the booth and say: ‘This is gonna be bigger than fuckin’ Appetite…’ And it would’ve been. But because of my fuck-up, we didn’t finish what we started.”

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 150, October 2010

Morton, 52, says he had been drinking heavily and for "decades" and taking opiates for 10 years before he finally got clean and sober. And in case any fans who need help are worried about the challenge ahead, Morton wanted to share some encouragement.

In a social media post, he writes: "I woke up this morning with six years clean and sober.

"This comes after decades of drinking nearly every day and with the final 10 years of that compounded by an aggressively progressive opiate addiction that almost killed me.

"I’m writing this just in case someone out there who feels as hopeless, helpless and crippled by addiction as I once did might read it and start to believe that recovery is possible.

"You can get clean and live a life beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed of. Find an alcoholic or addict living in recovery. Ask them what they did. You’re worth it."

Morton has been open about his road to recovery. Earlier this year, he explained how Guns N' Roses icon Slash was one of the people who helped inspire him to stay clean.

In his memoir Desolation, out now via Hachette Books, Morton wrote: "Drinking and drugging had been an ingrained part of my creative process, freeing me from the barriers of self-doubt and inhibition. Could I even do it without being fucked up on something?

"I tried picking up a guitar and riffing around, but everything felt empty and lame. What had once been a natural, free-flowing relationship between my instrument and me now felt stiff and unfamiliar. I asked around for some insight and help, as I had been advised to do in rehab.

"A mutual friend put me in touch with Slash, who had gotten clean some years earlier. Slash graciously called me one afternoon and patiently listened to my tale of creative insecurity and fear. 'You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,' he told me sympathetically. 'It’s unrealistic for you to think that you can tap right back into your creative element so soon after the shock of getting clean. You’re learning a whole new way to live. You’re going to have to prioritize staying clean over everything else right now if you want it to stick.'"

All rock bands want to be loved. Some may claim that their only real concerns are creative and artistic, but the truth is that everyone who has ever picked up a guitar and written a riff wants to pick up a few fans along the way. But rare are the bands who can move steadily forward for a decade or two, weathering the vagaries of time and fashion while gradually gaining momentum and earning respect and credibility in increasingly huge amounts.

Although ostensibly a band that have long belonged to the progressive rock world, Porcupine Tree have spent the last few years expanding their audience – and, fittingly, their sound – and now find themselves in the enviable position of being one of the coolest and most intensely revered rock bands on the planet, and it’s by the world of metal that these hardy veterans have been most enthusiastically embraced in recent times. Thanks to founder member Steven Wilson’s brotherly relationship with Mikael Åkerfeldt and Opeth, and, more pertinently perhaps, to the mounting number of skull-flattening metal riffs that have been seeping into Porcupine Tree’s adventurous and subtly experimental sound over their last few albums, the band are one of the few acts to gain widespread acceptance from metalheads without making a wholesale shift to a metallic sound.

“It’s been very surprising to me how much of a crossover we’ve made into the metal side of things,” Steven tells Hammer. “We’re clearly not a metal band like Opeth, who’ve come from the metal tradition and combined other aspects into their sound. We’ve gone the opposite way. I think metal fans are generally very open-minded compared to certain fans of other styles of music. I speak as someone who started out as a metal fan and the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was the first music I loved. It was an incredible education, it opened a doorway to many other kinds of music, and that’s perhaps the way that Porcupine Tree works. There’s enough of a doorway for people to walk through if they love metal music. There’s a hook for them, something they recognise, but then they immerse themselves in all these other elements and they realise that actually, despite themselves, they quite like some of those other things! If that leads them onto other styles of music then that’s fantastic because that’s exactly how it worked with me.”

A metal fan as a teenager, Steven partly abandoned his metal roots as he began to make music of his own, forming Porcupine Tree in 1987 as a pastiche of the psychedelic and progressive rock bands of the late 60s and early 70s that had become essential parts of his listening habits.

A decade or so ago, however, a fan presented him with a CD full of new and overtly progressive-sounding metal bands, including Opeth. Converted anew to the ways of the metal world, he has made no secret of his love for bands like Tool and Meshuggah, and you can hear their influence in Porcupine Tree’s more recent music, as crunching, polyrhythmic riffs and moments of startling heaviness mingle with the band’s more restrained and atmospheric moments. It’s a frequently stunning combination and one that has been essential to their current popularity.

“I still like metal in principle,” he says. “but as a texture it’s very samey and I can’t listen to it all the time. I find it hard to listen to for any length of time, so that naturally led me to our sound where you get these little bursts of metal. It explodes out of something that is patently not metal, so it has this great impact. That’s why Opeth are so powerful for me. You get this incredible light and shade, so that when the brutality kicks in it’s incredibly powerful! I like to think that that’s how the Porcupine Tree dynamic tends to work.”

Challenging expectations and taking music fans into unfamiliar territory has long been part of Steven’s ethos, but even by his band’s usual standards of idiosyncrasy, new album The Incident is a bold and audacious piece of work. A single 55-minute “song cycle” which takes in every conceivable element of Porcupine Tree’s sonic world so far, plus numerous unprecedented elements and ideas, and moulds them into a consistently fascinating musical journey; it’s a defiantly ambitious and unapologetic concept album, but one that has as much to do with the modern age as it does with the story-telling pomposity of 70s prog bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis. It’s hard to imagine any other modern rock band getting away with it…

“Let’s just say that I wanted a challenge this time and I didn’t want to repeat what had gone before,” says Steven. “One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is to do an album-length piece of music. But it’s actually very hard to do. The best analogy I can give is that it’s like going from writing short stories or commercials to writing a full-length novel or a feature-length film. It’s a whole different kettle of fish because you have to get structure and you have to get development and a sense of shape and evolution across the piece. It sounds easier than it is! I thought it was time to have another go at it, particularly coming off the back of [our 2007 album] Fear Of A Blank Planet where there was a very long piece of music that went down extremely well with people. When you have a situation like that you kind of feel slightly vindicated and more confident about playing to your strengths, and our strengths have always been in the more long-form pieces.”

Now that the word ‘prog’ is no longer regarded as a mark of shame, Porcupine Tree are finally able to reach and delight the kind of huge audiences that they have really deserved all along, such is the brilliantly inventive but accessible nature of their trademark sound. With so many plausible peers like Tool, Mastodon, Opeth and Muse producing music that is bending and broadening the minds of eager music lovers, there has never been a better time for an album like The Incident that takes an eclectic mix of sounds and atmospheres as its base level starting point.

“We set out to make music inspired by the music that we love, and you can hear the very natural consequence of that,” says Steven. “So people say to me all the time, ‘It’s really weird, your music, because one minute it’s really ambient and the next it’s like death metal’, but to me that’s not weird because that could be my listening diet. I could be listening to Abba one minute and then Morbid Angel. It doesn’t seem strange to me. It doesn’t occur to me that it’s a bizarre leap. That’s ultimately our trademark: this incredible range of styles all woven together, even though on paper it should fall apart and be a horrible mess.”

In stark contrast to Fear Of A Blank Planet, which enabled Steven to rage against soulless consumerism and the vacuous, material obsessions of the modern age, The Incident is an almost unbearably poignant and personal lyrical piece that hints at – while never quite focusing in on – an intimate and vulnerable tale of loss, grief, sorrow and resignation. While reluctant to be more specific about the subject matter, he admits that this is an album that looks inward, rather than lashing out at the world, and one that has immense emotional impact as a result.

“Yeah, …Blank Planet was very much raging against the outside world,” he notes. “It was that well-used approach of the artist singing about the alienation he feels from the world he lives in. Everyone’s done that, from Radiohead’s OK Computer back to Dark Side Of The Moon, but this one is much more insular. It’s more personal and it’s more stream of consciousness and less self-conscious, but I think it’s impossible to write about anything, whether it’s something that appears to be fiction or something auto- biographical, without delving down into this well of experience and emotional experiences. Whatever I write about, whether it’s drawn ultimately from something fictitious, of course I’m investing a lot of my own personal experiences in that in order to invest the lyrics and the song with some kind of emotional credibility. I’ve written songs about nuclear war and of course I’ve never experienced a nuclear war, but you can still delve down into your- self and pull out something relevant.”

In their earlier days as a primarily studio-based project, Porcupine Tree’s live appearances were few and far between, but in recent times the band have become veritable road hogs – another factor in their ever-increasing profile. Seldom afraid to take a risk or two, either on record or on stage, they are currently preparing to take The Incident out on the road and, in true prog fashion, they will be performing the album from start to finish each night, eschewing all applause in favour of delivering the ultimate musical trip for their faithful supporters.

“I was terrified before rehearsals that we weren’t going to be able to play the fucking thing!” laughs Steven. “You work hard on the record and you don’t think about the logistics of performing it live, but we’ve cracked it and I’m looking forward to rolling it out now.”

In keeping with rock’n’roll tradition, will the second half of the show be the traditional ‘greatest hits’ set?

“Well, we don’t have any hits! Ha ha! You mean the popular fan favourites? Well, it’s always slightly tricky because we could go out for evermore and play our better-known songs but it’s not the right thing to do if you feel dead inside when you play them! If you’re really bored, it’s not fair to you or the audience to go through the motions. The über-fans are sick to death of those songs too, so we’re walking a delicate line here! But we’re pulling out a few things that perhaps are a little bit more obscure and the hardcore fans will appreciate, but we’re trying to keep enough of the hits. There should be enough to satisfy everyone. I’m looking forward to it!”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 198, October 2009

Metal moves in cycles, just like everything else. If you don’t believe us, just listen to George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher, the frontman of Cannibal Corpse, the goriest death metal band there’s ever been.

“In 1997, black metal had risen and everyone had a death metal band!” says Corpsegrinder, “Some of them weren’t so good...”

Cannibal Corpse were one of the most successful death metal acts in the world for a couple of years at this point, despite – or perhaps because of – the horrifically graphic nature of their songs. Their fifth album, Vile, appeared in 1996 and was the first to feature Corpsegrinder, who had left his old band Monstrosity to replace CC’s first singer, Chris Barnes. Making history by landing on the bottom end of America’s Billboard chart, Vile made it clear that the new lineup meant business.

Many metalheads were fixated on the new wave of black metal emanating from Scandinavia, the UK and the US. Just as grunge had killed glam back in 1991, a new movement of corpsepainted bands was making the death metal scene look tedious, or worse, obsolete. Only the best would survive.

CC’s solution was to record an album that would take the legacy of Vile, make it darker and more atmospheric and prove that death metal still had balls. It helped that the band had finally come into their own as musicians.

“By this point, we’d got a grip of our instruments and we’d hit our stride,” bassist Alex Webster recalls. “Every album sounded tight, and by the time George joined the band we were tuning lower too.”

Required to play faster, deeper and tighter than ever before, CC hit a stroke of luck when one of their guitarists, Rob Barrett, departed after Vile and was replaced by Pat O’Brien, a supremely technical player – just what they needed in order to re-stake their claim.

“It’s a crazy coincidence,” recalls Corpsegrinder, “because Pat added technique to the band that we didn’t have before. We’re not super-technical, but we were definitely heading in that direction.”

“When Rob left, we’d written about three songs for the new album,” Alex adds. “We carried on writing and took a couple of months before we chose another guitar player. This was one change that we didn’t have to make in a hurry, for once! He left around February 1997, and we didn’t do any recording until October that year.”

Nowadays, when a band need a new guitar player they just send out a few emails, stick a post on MySpace and the applications roll in, but back then it was entirely different.

“None of us had computers,” laughs Alex. “1997 was still way before the internet age. None of us had computers until about five years ago! We didn’t have cellphones, so there wasn’t really a way to get the word out – it just spread in the old-school way of people hearing about it from this person or that person.”

From the off, Pat – then with melodic metallers Nevermore, a world away from the blood-freezing violence of Cannibal Corpse – was the obvious contender to take over from Rob.

“I’d met Pat before he came down to audition, because we hung out when I was still in Monstrosity,” remembers Corpsegrinder. “He was cool. He keeps to himself.”

In fact, Pat came with many approvals.

“Our soundman said that he knew him and that we should meet him because he was cool and into death metal,” says Alex. “Also Steve Tucker, who was in Morbid Angel at the time, had played with Pat and recommended him, so there’s another person who was pushing Pat in our direction, and we ended up reaching out to him. Once he came down to Florida, it was clear that he was going to be the best guy.”

Alex adds that Pat, who is one of those huge, silent geezers that you should really never irritate, is naturally reserved.

“I’d probably have been disconcerted by his seeming lack of enthusiasm, if I hadn’t been warned by a few people that that’s just how Pat is – he’s not going to be jumping around getting excited about things!”

Despite his reserved outward appearance, Pat was keen to get to work, and came to the first sessions for what would become Gallery Of Suicide with a fully formed song, Stabbed In The Throat. The track meshed instantly with those contributed by the rest of the band, such as Blood Drenched Execution, Dismembered And Molested and Every Bone Broken, making Gallery… an hour-long symphony of cruelty. So where did Cannibal get their ideas for these frankly terrifying songs?

“Just by watching the news you can find plenty of inspiration – and then on top of that you’ve got all the great horror movies and novels out there,” Alex explains. “There’s an unlimited amount of bad things happening in the world, real and imagined, so it’s not too hard for us to come up with stuff.”

Once the songs were written, Cannibal moved down to the famous Morrisound studio in Tampa. Corpsegrinder remembers this time with a chuckle, saying, “I lived in a house with Paul [Mazurkiewicz, drummer] and another friend of mine, and it was a crazy time. We were slobs and just partying!”

When recording time came around, however, the fun and games stopped: Cannibal were there to demonstrate the fearsome skills of their new lineup, and went into the studio sessions with all weapons drawn. Producer Jim Morris had a shock coming to him, recalls Corpsegrinder, whose vocal delivery was astounding.

“Jim did a great job. I talked with him about some of the lyrics and he was dying with laughter! One time, he was laughing while I was recording – so I said, ‘Dude, did I mess up?’ and he said, ‘No, no – how are you doing this? What the fuck are you doing? These lyrics are out of control…’ There’s some fast shit on there!”

The songs were laid down one by one, with all-time classics such as I Will Kill You and Centuries Of Torment joining Cannibal classics like 1993’s Hammer Smashed Face. Several of the songs, notably the title track and From Skin To Liquid, which deals with the subject of human decomposition, contained atmospheric sections that contrasted with the warp-speed blast- and-roar that fans had come to expect.

“Gallery… is one of the most experimental albums we’ve done,” Corpsegrinder explains. “The title track itself is a little bit different: some parts are almost black metal-ish with blastbeats. It wasn’t on purpose – it just turned out that way.”

Although Cannibal Corpse hadn’t intended their album to appeal to black metal fans, that sector of the head- banging community heard the darker, more thoughtful side of Gallery Of Suicide and liked it. In addition, both death and black metal bands were seen for the first time on the same bills at about this time.

“We played on some smart tour packages, like with Marduk and Dark Funeral,” says Alex. “Black and death metal come from the exact same roots, from mid-80s stuff like Sodom, Kreator, Celtic Frost and Possessed, so there was no reason why they couldn’t tour together, and that worked out really well.”

The final step was the artwork. As with most CC covers, Gallery Of Suicide boasted a highly explicit cover, designed by the band’s long-time sleeve artist Vincent Locke. It depicts a grim dungeon in which a group of characters are hanging, shooting and disembowelling themselves.

“People go in there and commit suicide, and if you’re unfortunate enough to be curious to see what this gallery is about, or crazy enough, you can go inside,” George explains.

A toned-down cover with less gore was also commissioned from Vincent for the benefit of high-street stores.

“I love the censored cover as much as the uncensored one,” Alex claims. “It’s really dark and eerie-looking.” After years of commissioning covers that are a combination of horror and high art, Alex is relaxed about the subject of censorship.

“Some day, every major world leader is going to have grown up with heavy metal or hip-hop, and it’s not gonna pack the same kind of fear for them, and so eventually the whole censorship problem will extinguish itself. But for the time being, it’s still around.”

After 11 years, how does Gallery Of Suicide sound to the band?

“Actually I listened to it not long ago because we wanted to hear some of the old tracks, and I think it’s really good,” says Alex. “It’s one of the darkest albums we ever did: there’s dark melodies, dark lyrics… I mean, all our albums are dark, with songs about murder and so on, but there’s something extra-dark about that one!”

And if you’re wondering whether Cannibal Corpse managed to beat the decline of death metal to reclaim their position at the top of America’s extreme metal scene, the answer is obvious. Looking back, it seems that the death metal movement needed to rid itself of a few lesser bands to keep moving forward.

“A genre of music can only be a brand new thing for a couple of years,” says Alex, “and then it becomes established, which is what had happened with death metal by that point. We were lucky enough to have fans who stayed with us, so with the whole dip in death metal, we didn’t see it the same way that other bands did.”

“Death metal never went anywhere,” Corpsegrinder concludes, with immense satisfaction. “Deicide, Immolation, Mortician, Morbid Angel and us – we were all still out there touring. We knew the fans still cared.”

We still do, Corpsegrinder, we still do.

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 198, October 2009

Jimmy Page/Robert Plant

We recorded our second album, You Can’t Stop Rock’N’Roll, at Jimmy Page’s house [in Cookham, Berkshire]. Jimmy was the invisible man at the time – he would visit at night, things would be moved around, but nobody would ever see him. Jimmy wasn’t actually living there, he was at Michael Caine’s place nearby which had some enormous security system, to Jimmy’s liking. Later I met Jimmy at a private party honouring [late Atlantic Records mogul] Ahmet Ertegun. I remember standing in the buffet line with Jimmy, Mick Jagger and Henry Kissinger, thinking: “How the hell did I get here?”

I know Robert a little better than Jimmy. One time we went to a mutual friend’s wedding. We promised each other that under no circumstances would we sing at the reception. Well, we couldn’t have been there more than 20 minutes when Robert got up on stage. So I thought: “I’m getting even with you, Plant, I’m going to do Rock And Roll.” People didn’t believe I had the sack – the bollocks, as you might say – to sing a Zeppelin track. Towards the end, Robert snaked his way through the crowd and sat on the side of the stage, tapping his feet. I wailed ‘lonely, lonely, lonely’ and Robert sang the final word, ‘time’. That was pretty funny.

Manowar/Hanoi Rocks

I was surprised when I first met Manowar. Contrary to their oiled-up bodies, they are a tad slight. The Hanoi Rocks guys are actually quite tall, but reed-like. I got into a disagreement with both bands in the early 1980s. Manowar told the media they couldn’t understand what all the hoopla was about Twisted Sister. They said we were just a bar band who played wet-T-shirt contests. Hanoi Rocks had referred to us as “ugly”. So I called them both out for a fight.

We publicised the challenge in Sounds, whose offices were in London’s Covent Garden. I prowled the streets with a baseball bat while [Sounds writer] Garry Bushell followed me with a loud hailer. A couple of hundred punters showed up and we had fun with it. Neither band showed up. In the next edition, Sounds renamed Manowar ‘Manowimp’. After Manowar’s no-show we decided to go to one of their concerts, pull them off stage and give them a beating in front of their fans. I was an angry young man back then, ha-ha!

Later, Hanoi Rocks sent a letter to the press: “Peace, we meant no offence, we apologise, we are the flower children and we don’t want a problem with Twisted Sister.” I also got a private letter from [then Manowar guitarist] Ross The Boss. I cannot divulge its contents. Let me just say we called off the fight. So that was the end of the war.

Gene Simmons

I host a radio show in America, and Simmons was my guest. He gave me his card and said: “Dee, here’s my phone number. Give me a call some time.” I’m not a Kiss fanatic but certainly I bought my fair share of their early records. I give Kiss massive respect. Gene, along with Ted Nugent and myself, is one of the few rock stars to go: “No drugs, no alcohol, ever.” It’s surely no coincidence that we’re three of the most rational, intelligent people you’ll ever meet, and still with ongoing careers of some sort beyond music.

A few months later, I decided to give Simmons a call. “Gene! Dee Snider!” Long pause. Then he said, angrily: “How the hell did you get this number?!” I replied: “You gave it to me. Do you want me to hang up?” That was when I got the idea that we weren’t going to be best buddies.

Metallica

One of Metallica’s first major gigs was supporting Twisted Sister in a 3,000-seater hall in New York. This was when they had Dave Mustaine and Cliff Burton in the line-up, and they were living in [Megaforce Records boss] Johnny Z’s basement.

Later, Metallica supported us on our Stay Hungry tour. We got to a small town in Holland and were surprised to see a poster billing Metallica above us. I said to my tour manager: “Metallica are clearly the headliner. Go and tell them we’ll open for them tonight.” My tour manager came back and told me: “They said no. They seem somewhat suspicious.” Eventually I convinced Metallica that it wasn’t a trick, and that night I got to watch their show. I remember saying to someone: “These guys have got a lot of heart but they’re never gonna go anywhere.” So much for what I know! I thought Metallica were too heavy and there was no way society would ever catch up with that.

Pete Way

I am a huge UFO fan, so when we heard their bass player, Pete Way, was going to produce our debut album, Under The Blade, I couldn’t believe it. Pete came to meet us in New York. He arrived at the airport and got off the plane in the freezing cold with a drink in his hand, no luggage, no jacket. Ultimately, working with Pete was… let me just say he’s a great guy to hang with. As far as being a producer goes… well, he’s more of an attitude guy than he is a technician. I love the man dearly.

Frank Zappa/John Denver

Back in 1985 I was fiercely opposed to the idea of placing warning labels on records. I appeared before the US Senate – along with Frank Zappa and John Denver. Frank and me were both concerned about how Denver would handle it. He had a successful TV show and a movie career; he was the clean-cut and mom’s-apple-pie John Denver. They invited him assuming he would be on the side of truth, justice and the American way. But Denver hadn’t forgotten how Rocky Mountain High had been banned for being a drugs song, which it wasn’t. And Oh, God!, the movie he did with George Burns [in 1977], was thought by many to be sacrilegious. So when Denver compared the idea of stickering records to Nazi book-burnings, the Senate was kind of surprised.

Zappa’s children – Moon Unit and Dweezil – turned out to be Twisted Sister fans. I was there with my father, Bob, who’s a police officer and an ex-Korean War veteran – a tough guy. Frank asked my dad to look after his kids while he testified. To this day it’s one of Bob’s fondest memories: “Hey, Dee, remember the time we were in Washington and Frank Zipper asked me to watch Dweezil Unit and Moon Zipper?” Bless him.

Johnny Cash

So we’re in Canada and we’re at the height of Twisted Sister mania. We’re playing an arena in Saskatchewan. The road can be pretty boring, and you know how bands like to play pranks to alleviate the tedium? [Twisted Sister guitarist] Jay Jay French comes into my dressing room and says: “Johnny Cash is here.” I reply: “Oh, really? Johnny Cash is in Saskatchewan, Canada, backstage at a Twisted Sister show? Pull the other one.” Then a few seconds later I hear the words: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Just like on TV. I look up and there he is, this big guy standing in the fucking doorway. Turns out Johnny’s kids are huge Twisted Sister fans and they want our autographs. Was Johnny upset that his children were growing up Twisted Sister fans rather than country & western fans? If he was he certainly didn’t show it.

Robert Englund

I got to meet Robert when I did my movie, Strangeland. We pitched him as being one of my victims, and I was delighted when he took the role. For me, as a horror fan, to be the one brutalising and tormenting the actor who plays Freddy Krueger was amazing. In real life he’s very slight, very genuine; an incredibly positive and open kind of guy, not at all like his character.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

I’m a huge Arnold fan, going right back to his bodybuilding days. Throughout his career he’s always aimed for the stars. When Arnold announced his candidacy for Governor of California, people asked me if I was surprised. I wasn’t. The big surprise was when I got a call from his campaign manger, saying they wanted to use We’re Not Gonna Take It as their theme song – a song Arnold inspired me to write. They also asked me if I would like to perform the night before the election, at a big rally in Sacramento. So I’m up there, singing to a sea of Republicans, at the epicentre of this huge press deluge. Arnold walks down the red carpet towards me and, in the most surreal moment of my life, comes up and shakes my hand. This is insane. Then Arnold says: “Ein zpecial zanks to Herr Dee Znider.” I’m thinking: “Holy shit! Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mangling my name!”

Michael Jackson

We were recording our Stay Hungry album in a studio in LA where Michael’s producer, Quincy Jones, worked. Michael came in to hear some remixes and do some singing on his Thriller album. I went to get a cup of coffee and bumped into Michael in the little kitchenette. He was still black. Well, relatively black. Sans glove, sans military jacket. Just like a normal guy. I said: “How’re you doing? I’m Dee Snider. Congratulations on all your success.” Michael said: “Thank you very much.” He shook my hand. I didn’t see him break out the hand-wipes or anything. I was stunned by how casual it was. We just went about our business and that was that.

Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper is a great hero of mine. Early on in my career I had been so vocal about being inspired by Alice, he actually came to see Twisted Sister in concert. First he sent me a dozen black roses and a personal note. Later I remember doing a photo shoot backstage, putting on my make-up, and Alice standing there and making fun of me. I said: “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m doing this because of you! You’re busting my balls because I’m putting on make-up? C’mon, man!”

To be honest, I don’t approve of Alice playing golf. Golf, to me, is not metal. Once I told him: “Can’t you at least get some studded-leather golf club covers?” But Alice just piddled off to do his golf game, because the guy is serious about golf.

Mick Jagger

We recorded the earliest Twisted Sister demo with [producer] Eddie Kramer at Electric Lady. The Rolling Stones were recording Some Girls in another studio. We were working on a track, and suddenly the door opened and Mick Jagger came flouncing in, doing his chicken-wing dance. He jumped around the room and exited out of the door. Again, it was a moment of immense surrealism. To this day I’m not even sure it actually happened.

I finally got to meet Jagger properly in the studio’s communal area. Eddie introduced me to him: “Mick, I’d like you to meet Dee Snider from Twisted Sister.” For some fucking reason I reached over to shake Jagger’s hand and said: “Hey, man, I’ve seen you around.” He just smiled and walked away. I’m still kicking myself. “I’ve seen you around?!” Jesus Christ almighty.

Originally published in Classic Rock magazine issue 135, July 2009

“I wasn’t so much of a classical music fan at the start, more folk rock,” says guitarist and vocalist John Lees, looking back at the early days of Barclay James Harvest. “Woolly Wolstenholme would play tenor horn as well as keyboards, I’d play recorder and Les Holroyd had the cello as well as bass. It set us apart – gave us something a little bit different than other people who were setting off in that progressive music scene.”

But as the 60s moved into the 70s, the group’s classical leanings developed and their ambition quickly outgrew their tentative beginnings. Their self-titled 1970 debut album featured the grandly-named Barclay James Harvest Symphony Orchestra, and they became the first rock band to tour with a full orchestra – an exercise that made their name but almost bankrupted them. “The songs had a quality of melody that lent themselves to being orchestrated, and I think that’s been an ongoing thing,” says Lees.

In September 2023, under the banner John Lees’ Barclay James Harvest, the group played their first full orchestral concert in the UK for 50 years at Huddersfield Town Hall with the Slaithwaite Philharmonic, conducted by Benjamin Ellin. The extremely well-received show has yielded the recently released CD and DVD set, Philharmonic! The Orchestral Concert. “It was a lovely idea, because it’s a local orchestra to us,” Lees says. “They’re amateur musicians – but they’re retired professionals as well, so they’re no slouches.”

The idea was prompted by “pressure from friends” after the band played two sold-out nights in 2018 at the Herodeon Theatre, Athens, in the shadow of the Acropolis – perhaps the ultimate prog concert setting – along with the Athens State Orchestra, augmented by musicians from the Prague Philharmonic. “The view from the stage was a floodlit Acropolis. How often do you get the chance to play there?” Lees says. “We look back at the photographs and it’s just ridiculous.”

Bass player and vocalist Craig Fletcher – who still refers to himself as the “new boy, the apprentice” – joined the band in 1998 when Lees and original Holroyd parted ways to run two different versions of BJH. He says of the night in Athens: “I usually speak to the audience while John settles in. I said, ‘Good evening, everybody. I’m sure you know who we are. For those that don’t, we come from a small fishing village in England called Manchester. It’s very similar to this, except our weather is a lot better.’ They all went, ‘Waaaggh!’ It was the most gorgeous setting with the Moon just beginning to come up, a balmy 20°C evening. One of the best things I’ve ever done.”

Back in the 1970s, rock bands playing with an orchestra was a rarity and could be an uneasy alliance. Classical musicians didn’t always take the new musical hybrid seriously. During rehearsals for the 1969 première of Jon Lord’s Concerto For Group and Orchestra, where Deep Purple combined with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the cellists flounced out of rehearsals, likening it to “a second-rate Beatles.”

Andy Latimer has recalled that, when Camel played The Snow Goose at the Royal Albert Hall in 1975 with the London Symphony Orchestra, two French horn players got bored, started chatting to each other and played out of tune. Rick Wakeman experienced problems in timing – a rock band will usually play on the beat while an orchestra tends to play just behind it – when rehearsing Journey To The Centre Of The Earth with the LSO in 1973.

Although BJH produced one of the most successful amalgams of rock and classical, they initially experienced their own timing issues with the Barclay James Harvest Symphony Orchestra, who were music students. “I think the musicians, and the conductors, are more attuned to it now,” says Lees. “Ben Ellin was directing and conducting the 2023 Huddersfield concert, and there were no timing issues; it sat very well.

“We were watching him; but in the early concerts with the Barclays, it was us and them. The conductor was for them and you didn’t take that much notice. We got away with it mostly, but in certain songs we didn’t, like Dark Now My Sky. If you listen to some of the original EMI recordings, you can hear there’s a bit of a wobble in timing.”

Fletcher says: “There weren’t so much issues, but occasional bits of uncertainty, which Ben and Kev Whitehead, the drummer, worked out. Kevin said, ‘I’ll do a four hi-hat count there,’ and Ben had that in his cans and the orchestra came in perfectly.”

The band also had to rearrange their own parts in some songs after they’d encountered a bit of a problem during the Athens shows. “There was a dispute between the members of the orchestra on The Poet and After The Day, which we had orchestration for,” Lees recalls. “They were arguing with the conductor in rehearsal, saying, ‘You didn’t tell us about this bit.’ They were expecting it to stop after The Poet and wouldn’t play the big rock outro – so we played our version of the whole thing and it was every bit as powerful. It was their loss!”

The first person to orchestrate BJH’s music was Robert John Godfrey, later of The Enid. Martyn Ford made subsequent orchestrations, and most recently Ellin had an input with some suggestions from the band. Each orchestrator has left their personal stamp on the arrangements. “We were lucky to have the original scores,” says Lees. “But the main thing was some of the original parts were quite testing, right on the limits. I think Ben made those a bit kinder for the orchestra. Plus he did some of the newer tunes that didn’t have orchestration.”

Moonwater from Baby James Harvest (1972) was essentially a solo piece written and orchestrated by the late Wolstenholme, who sang much of it in falsetto. But on Philharmonic! his parts are sung by guest singer and soprano Eleanor Sandars. “Woolly went to London to do the recording,” Lees recalls. “And bless him, it must have been in the wrong key, because when he came to try and sing it, it was too high for him,” says Lees.

Fletcher adds: “When it came to doing it live, I thought, ‘I’m not going up there!’ So Eleanor came in, and she did it justice.”

As well as Philharmonic!, JLBJH have been working on a new double album since 2019, which was disrupted by the pandemic, but is now close to completion. Lees and Fletcher have a working title, but after some deliberation, they decided not to reveal it. Still, they’re clearly enthusiastic about this record, with Lees reckoning that sonically it’s like an extension of 2013’s North. “But in quite a quirky way. It’s quite unusual.”

“There’s a theme running through some of it, although not intentionally,” says Fletcher. “Me and John had about three songs that were kind of connected. We thought, ‘Why don’t we write a piece that tags on the end of that?’ So it almost became a concept album. We’ve gone quite progtastic on a few tunes. There are some big, banging things, 12 minutes long with mad key changes. It’s pushing the boat out.”

Lee adds: “One of the things it does have, because of the orchestral gig... we brought the old Mellotron out of retirement, which makes a big difference to using samples.”

“You can hear the tapes slipping and it’s noisy, grinding away, but it’s really beautiful,” says Fletcher. “Jez Smith has got an old 70s Wurlitzer piano and I got my old Rickenbacker bass out, and I’ve gone proper progtastic with that too.”

“And there’s my £129 Fender guitar as well,” says Lees. “Squier Stratocasters – amazing guitars, fantastic sound.” The Squiers are Fender’s budget range, but how close are they to a Strat in sound? “Absolutely bang on,” says Lees. “I think they’ve got their own sound, but they’re lighter and they’re shorter scale, so they’re easy to get along with for someone of my age!”

He presents a gorgeous-looking Fender Stratocaster, explaining: “This was made from a redwood railway bridge in California. They can’t source exotic woods any more – it’s not allowed. So Fender bought the bridge and turned parts of it into Stratocasters, Telecasters and basses, and did them as limited editions. This piece of wood could be 1,000 years old. It cost me £1,500, I don’t know how many years ago. But £129 gets you a better guitar!”

He announced in December 2022 that 2023 would be the last full year of touring for John Lees’ Barclay James Harvest, but that they might be playing selected dates or festivals in the future. He offers an update: “From my point of view, it’s a big commitment to be taking shows on, because the older you get, the more anxious you get about being able to fulfil those kinds of commitments. I wanted – and I still do want – some clear time away from it. But that doesn’t rule it out.”

Another factor is the far-reaching negative effect of Brexit on every working musician who want to connect with mainland Europe. Historically, Barclay James Harvest had a huge fanbase in Germany; and Holroyd, who lives there, will be playing German dates with his own version of the group in autumn 2025. But Lees lists the problems facing a British band – including taxes, bureaucracy and sourcing merchandise – if they want to play mainland Europe.

“One of the suggestions was that we don’t use our UK crew anymore, that we use a German crew,” he says. “Do I fire all my crew? I mean, where does it stop? And on top of that, you’ve got the fact that we as artists make absolutely sod-all cash now. I’m really glad I’m not starting out.”

Although no live dates are currently planned, he’s hoping that the Huddersfield Town Hall concert that produced Philharmonic! won’t be their last hurrah. “You can’t work for nothing. Well, I can’t; I’m not prepared to. But if the album that we produce is sufficiently good, then people will want to see a performance, and that will hopefully inspire the promoters to pay us enough for us to be able to work. It’s still possible.”

Providing a pivotal sonic bridge between the slick Philadelphia soul of Young Americans and the harsher rock-literate funk of Station To Station, Golden Years gave Bowie his twelfth UK Top 20 hit single and, over the next four years, Murray was a central cog in Bowie’s rhythm section (the so-called D.A.M. Trio with drummer Dennis Davis and guitarist Carlos Alomar) underpinning Station To Station, its subsequent Low/‘Heroes’/Lodger Berlin Trilogy, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), ’76 and 1978’s Isolar and Isolar II world tours, and Iggy Pop’s transformative, Bowie-produced ’77 post-Stooges ‘comeback’ album The Idiot.

At this point, Bowie was arguably at his peak, embracing myriad new sounds and new styles, consuming and reconstituting hitherto alien musical genres into visionary, punk-adjacent, future-proof pop. Inveigling - alongside Brian Eno - ambient electronic music into the heart of the mainstream, and making the role of Thomas Jerome Newton his own in Nicolas Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell To Earth.

Nothing appeared to be beyond late-70s Bowie. But, as George Murray found to his ultimate cost, Bowie harboured one crucial character flaw: he was more than a little deficient in the field of human resource management. Specifically, the hiring and firing of staff.

“What drew me to the bass was the magnetic nature of early rock’n’roll,” Murray begins. “I started developing a fascination with music when I was a young teenager. I was infatuated with it. But when I first started out I wanted to be a drummer.”

Murray took drumming lessons but “couldn’t possibly afford the kind of kits the Dave Clark Five and The Beatles were playing on TV. There’s no way that I’d ever be able to get one of those by shovelling snow and cutting grass. So I bought a bass.”

Cobbling together a rig composed of a Hagstrom early issue short-scale bass and a Guild Thunder bass amp “with two twelve-inch speakers and a little head on top that looked like a robot”, George (carted around by his parents), rehearsed and gigged in and around New York City with various band line-ups, gradually honing his craft.

Eventually, as is so often the case in such stories, destiny came calling. While speaking to a former Western Union work colleague, he was asked: “Do you want a gig?” Soul singer George McCrae (hot from having sold 11 million copies of his ’74 debut single Rock Your Baby), needed a touring band. Murray auditioned, was accepted, and within 48 hours was out on the road. From a Toronto debut, through two European tours in a Volkswagen bus, to South America, Murray, “acting like a brat”, earned his touring spurs before being finally disgorged into the humdrum reality of home.

Back living with his parents in Queens, he decided to go back to school. Following an unsuccessful audition for the Manhattan School of Music on upright bass, he enrolled at Bronx Community College. There, a fellow student recommended he meet Dennis Davis, a drummer of his acquaintance who was apparently “excellent… You’ve gotta play with him”.

“So Dennis and I started playing together,” Murray continues. “And it was through Dennis that I met Carlos [Alomar, guitarist], who I worked with in his band Listen My Brother.”

Listen My Brother were a big deal, early musical regulars on ubiquitous educational kids TV show Sesame Street, and Alomar was connected; he’d been in both The Main Ingredient and the house band at the Harlem Apollo. “I was enamoured of both of these individuals,” Murray remembers of Davis and Alomar. “I liked playing with them, they were good folks and we had fun. I also knew they’d worked with David [Bowie]. This was right around the time of the Young Americans tour [1974].”

When Alomar and Davis returned from the tour (both having played on Bowie’s Young Americans album), “I was playing with them around lower Manhattan and having a grand old time, going to school at Bronx Community College and driving a Yellow cab on the side to make a little extra money. And then, in September ’75, I received a call from Dennis. He said: ‘David Bowie’s looking for a new bass player, are you interested?’ Well, he didn’t have to ask me twice.”

Three days and one long-distance flight later, Murray met Bowie in a rehearsal studio on Cahuenga Boulevard in Los Angeles and they immediately set to work on Golden Years.

“It was a live audition. I wasn’t offered anything except to come and do a few recordings, and that was where we started. Golden Years is still one of my favourite songs. There’s a certain feel to it that’s part of its magic, it just takes you and pulls you with it without being obtrusive, it just grooves along.

"The second song we rehearsed was Station To Station, the actual song, which was completely different from Golden Years and constructed of different parts. When he rolled out its first part, he played the piano chords for about eight measures and gave me the rhythm and timing of the bass line.

“When we finally came to record its rhythm track [at LA’s Cherokee Studios] it was Carlos, Dennis and myself, with maybe David on piano.”

Was Earl Slick there?

“I don’t remember… Anyway, we recorded the whole thing as one piece because that’s the way we rehearsed it. It was three or four movements put together as one composition, a ten-minute song that starts slowly and then takes off. It set the tone for the whole album and the 1976 tour, which it also opened.

"I remember watching audiences with their mouths open as David hit his spot. Setting the stage with a long, drawn-out intro, through the second movement – ‘Drink, drink, drain your glass, raise your glass high’ – and then, as it hit the ‘It’s not the side-effects of the cocaine’ line, all the white lights hit you. It was an amazing piece of music.”

Guitarist Earl Slick revealed that the use of chemical stimulants was a key element of the creative process of the Station To Station album, so might we say that the song itself was a side-effect of the cocaine?

“My experience with cocaine came a lot later, but in all honesty some of it showed up here and there. I don’t know what anybody else’s experience was, but it did take a long time for David to do those rhythm tracks. My experience with rhythm tracks before I did Station To Station were you’d come in, do them and move on. You’d be on a budget and do as much as you could in the time allotted. So five weeks to do six rhythm tracks? That was unheard of for me.

"So yes, there was some partying going on, where cocaine was readily available, but my problems with cocaine started a little later than that, still within the time that I was working with David, but not while I was performing with him. I don’t recall ever performing while being impaired by drugs or even alcohol. Only because what was required of me, to replicate or to create the things that he needed, required all of my attention and creativity.”

Even as the Station To Station sessions drew to their close, Murray remained on his best behaviour.

“As far as I was concerned I was still involved in a live audition, almost all the way to the end of the album, so I just concentrated on whether the bass parts fit together with how the rhythm worked, keeping David happy. I wasn’t making waves anywhere.”

It seemed that no one was ever going to put him out of his misery as to whether he was actually the new Bowie bassist or simply a convenient session player for a single project.

“It eventually became clear that David was happy with the product, and he started talking about a world tour,” Murray resumes. “He’d spoken to everyone but me. I’d heard nothing, neither directly nor via his business manager, and I’m stressed about this."

“One evening an opportunity arose for me to ask Carlos. Now, I’d known since before working with David that Carlos was a practising Buddhist, and the sect he followed was Nichiren Buddhism, the ones that chant ‘Nam-myoho-renge-kyo’ for happiness, individual and world peace, and he told me: ‘Chant these words - “Nam-myohorenge-kyo” - and something will change.’ So I said okay, and in my solitude later that evening started chanting for a few minutes and it felt better, so I left it at that.

“Nothing happened the next day, but the day after, I’m going in one direction and [Bowie’s day-to-day manager] Pat Gibbons is going in the other, and as we passed he said: ‘George, are you doing anything between January and June next year?’ I said no, and he said: ‘Good, David wants you on the tour. So I’ll see you later.’ I was flabbergasted.

“So I started practising more and more, and I’ve continued over the years. And I’d have to say that of all the benefits I got from my six years of working with David Bowie – two world tours, fabulous albums, critical acclaim, a gold record – the biggest benefit of them all came courtesy of that conversation I had about chanting ‘Nammyoho-renge-kyo’ with Carlos. I’ve continued throughout my life and it’s brought me to this point here.”

How was life on the road on the Isolar tour, at the height of Bowie’s fame? What was it like inside the madness? Possibly not quite as mad as one might expect.

“It was structured; you need to do this today, then get up tomorrow and do it all over again. Doesn’t matter what you do in between, but you need to hit your marks. David didn’t fly at the time, so the highest stress came from everyone wondering if the Thin White Duke was going to make it to the show on time, because David would always tell his driver to stop the car whenever he saw any kind of roadside attraction.”

Murray, meanwhile, embraced the tour as an excellent opportunity to explore the more flamboyant end of his wardrobe, wearing a self-styled stage costume that featured both top hat and stack-heeled snakeskin boots.

“Those were actually my stage clothes from George McCrae,” he admits. And what reaction was elicited in Bowie when he first took sight of this near-seven-foot-tall disco-tastic vision? “He stopped dead in his tracks. It was actually on stage, and he just stopped and looked. He eventually kept going, but yes, I do remember that look.”

Following the ‘structured’ excesses of the tour, Bowie’s inner circle (of which Murray was now a fully accepted member) made for Berlin’s Hansa studios, via Château d’Hérouville, France, where work initially commenced on Iggy Pop’s The Idiot.

“We did the trilogy David wanted to do with Brian Eno, which was Low, ‘Heroes’ and Lodger, but, to be honest, I can’t remember recording anything on The Idiot with Iggy Pop. I do remember working with him here and there on some things that David was doing, but I don’t remember that at all.”

One thing that Murray can’t help but remember is the song credit he picked up on Low’s Breaking Glass, which came with certain benefits: “Welcome financial benefits I still get to this day.

“Dennis and I brought the riff to him. It was something that came up during ‘the off season’, which was what we called the time when Dennis and I played together. Dennis thought that rhythm up and said play this, he gave me the riff to perfect, so it was the two of us. Carlos was instrumental, behind the scenes, advocating that Dennis and I should get a credit, so that was Carlos looking out for us.”

Eno arrived into Low’s production process after the backing tracks were recorded, but was present for the entirety of ‘Heroes’, co-writing four songs and employing his infamous ‘oblique strategies’ cards - a pack of instruction cards, which meant creative decisions were occasionally taken more by accident than by design - which would be utilised to an even greater extent for Lodger.

How was working with Eno?

“Whatever the objective was between David and Brian, the direction I took from Brian was challenging, and it took a lot more effort on my part to support it. Not because I didn’t like it, but it was foreign to me. It didn’t come as naturally as direction from David.”

Following 1979’s Lodger and 1980’s New York City sessions for Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), Murray’s working relationship with Bowie came to an end, but (in much the same way that an interminable live audition drifted haphazardly into his eventual employment) the manner of his expulsion left a great deal to be desired.

“My last experience with David was playing Saturday Night Live,” says Murray. “As I said earlier, my experience with cocaine came years later in my relationship with David. I moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1979, after the ‘Heroes’ tour and Lodger, just before Scary Monsters, and I came as one of those California dreamers.

"I thought I was going to have the same level of success in Los Angeles as I’d had in New York. But that was not to be. I’d acquired bad habits during the years I’d worked with David, and they continued after. It was not a formal end, I wasn’t fired, they just didn’t call me back. I didn’t even get a note from David saying it’s time to move on… It was difficult.”

Murray persisted with his musical career for a while, playing with a number of bands while delivering flowers for a florist, but his past wouldn’t leave him alone.

“My wife used to work at the Westwood Marquis Hotel, and when David was out here for his Serious Moonlight tour [’83], that’s where the band stayed. Anyway, I had to go see her for some reason, and I ended up sharing an elevator with Carlos and Carmine Rojas, the bass player who’d replaced me. Even though it was a heartbreaking moment, I said okay, nice to meet you, and that’s how it ended. My life in music just sort of dissolved from there."

In January 1987, George Murray answered an ad in the LA Times for an entry-level full-time supervisory position at the Alhambra Unified School District, because “I can only do one thing well at one time, and I wasn’t making enough money from making music and delivering flowers to do anything of any consequence with my life”.

After 33 years of putting his “whole heart into managing a crew of young individuals, some of whom were as wild as I was”, raising a son, and being steadily promoted, he finally retired as an Assistant Superintendent in December 2022.

As he ultimately reveals that he’ll be returning to the road in the autumn with the D.A.M. Trio, with Carlos Alomar at his side and an undisclosed drummer standing in for the late Dennis Davis, I ask George if he ever heard from David Bowie again. After a long, telling, 10-second pause, he states simply: “I do not recall hearing from David at all, or being in the same space with David after our appearance on Saturday Night Live. And I do not remember actively seeking him out or trying to make an opportunity to meet with him.”

It should be noted at this juncture that the backing tracks for Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), upon which, its sleevenotes insist, George played all of the bass parts, were not actually recorded until two months after Bowie’s Saturday Night Live appearance. The side-effects of the cocaine? Well, it should be further noted that early in our encounter Murray offers the disclaimer: “I’m 72 years old, and what I’m telling you is how I remember stuff.”

Finally, philosophically, he concludes: “Going right back to Station To Station, there were times when I could tell Dennis and Carlos were having conversations about the former bass player, my predecessor, and I overheard Dennis saying to Carlos that so-and-so called him again and ‘What do I tell him?’ So I could tell that that individual was suffering because he just didn’t know. And that one day, and I didn’t know when that day would come, I wouldn’t be there either.”

Frontman Robert Del Naja says in a new NME interview that the trip-hop frontrunners, whose last song dropped in 2016, have been sitting on unreleased material for four years, due to what he describes as a “dispute at the label”.

“Hopefully we’re going to be able to release it next year and do some gigs,” he says.

When asked how he feels about the new music, Del Naja elaborates: “Yeah, I hate sitting on stuff for too long because I’m the first person to get bored of it. I deliberately don’t play it for months so that I can maintain some enthusiasm for it.”

However, he finishes, “It’s good – I’m looking forward to it!”

Del Naja doesn’t specify whether what Massive Attack have at bay is an album, an EP or some singles. The outfit haven’t released an album since Heligoland in 2010, which marked the recording return of collaborator Grantley “Daddy G” Marshall after his absence from 2001 to 2005.

Since then, the duo have put out just three songs: Four Walls (featuring electronic musician Burial) in 2011, and The Spoils and Dear Friend in 2016. They also shared a remix EP, Eutopia, in 2020.

Massive Attack suffered numerous setbacks in the early 2020s, including an unspecified illness forcing them to drop out of Primavera Sound 2022, then the death of longtime live guitarist Angelo Bruschini in 2023. They played their first live show in five years in June 2024 and announced a US tour shortly afterwards, however the tour was later cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

In the same NME interview, Del Naja reveals that Massive Attack were approached to play US megafest Coachella in 2025, but that the band declined due to the festival’s environmental impact.

“We said no to Coachella for next year because again, we’ve been there once, and once was enough,” he reasons. “It’s in Palm Springs. It’s a golf resort built on a desert, run on a sprinkler system, using public water supplies. Mental. If you want to see something that’s the most ludicrous bit of human behaviour – it’s right there.”

In a new video interview with Metal Hammer, the New York band’s co-founder says the station objected to the content of their music video for 1985 single Madhouse, to the point Anthrax were banned from making the airwaves.

The clip depicted people in straitjackets moshing around an abandoned mental hospital, and was received as being demeaning to the mentally ill.

“It was submitted to MTV, which was a bit of a long shot anyway for a band named ‘Anthrax’ and playing the music we played,” Ian remembers.

“And MTV came back to us and very politely said, ‘We will never air this. You are banned from MTV, because we feel that you are making fun of the mentally impaired. We were like, ‘What?!’”

Being the anti-establishment thrashers they were, Anthrax wore the rejection as “a badge of honour”. “We were like, ‘Fuck MTV anyway! Who need this shit?!’” Ian continues. “This was before [popular rock and metal programme] Headbangers Ball became a thing in the 80s.

“We were very excited about it. I think the label put out a press release saying we were officially banned from MTV. Of course, that gets people excited.”

MTV changed their stance on Anthrax as they rose to prominence during the mid-to-late 80s. Their cover of Trust track Antisocial became a mainstay on the network and, in 1989, it held a competition where the winner could have their home trashed by the band.

Longtime bassist Frank Bello reflected on the contest in a 2014 Loudwire interview: “It was fun because we could legitimately break things. We broke things and they [MTV] were gonna pay for it. Think about that: ‘Go in there and break stuff.’ ‘Fine!’ I think the owners got a little scared ’cause we were going for it […] but we had a ball, man.”

Anthrax released their latest album, For All Kings, in 2016 and are currently at work on its long-anticipated followup. In September, drummer Charlie Benante told Hammer: “As of right now, we have 13 or 14 songs [recorded]. They’re not all going to make the record, but we know which are.”

Of the album’s musical style, Benante added, “There’s a song which has the same kind of epic feel as In The End [from 2011’s Worship Music] and Blood Eagle Wings [from For All Kings]. It revolves around the journey we’ve been on in the band. And there are three songs that don’t sound like anything we’ve done before. One called The Edge Of Perfection I had way before Covid, and it has just stayed with me – the melody and the chords, but also the aggression.”

Watch the full interview with Ian, where he details the five songs which have defined Anthrax’s career, below.

Speaking on the podcast The Town With Matthew Belloni, producer Peter Jaysen – whose company, Veritas Entertainment, was involved in securing the rights to Dylan’s musical archive and life story for the film – revealed that both Barrett and late The Mamas & The Papas singer Cass Elliot are in line for the big screen treatment.

“Due to our involvement with Bob doing A Complete Unknown, we’ve been fortunate enough that right now we’re working on, with Wash Westmoreland, the great writer-director, a Syd Barrett movie, one of the founders of Pink Floyd.

Jaysen added: “We have had multiple Zooms with the estate of Mama Cass Elliot and met with her daughter, Owen, and are close to acquiring the rights to her book, My Mama Cass.”

While he didn’t give specific details or release dates for either project, both Barrett and Elliott would be ripe for the biopic treatment. Barrett founded Pink Floyd 1965, before drug and mental health issues forced him to leave the band and eventually live out of the spotlight in Cambridge until his death in 2006. Elliot, aka Mama Cass, rose to fame as one quarter of The Mamas & The Papas, but died in 1974 at the age of 32.

A Complete Unknown opened in the US on Christmas Day to positive reviews, with star Timothée Chalamet reportedly in contention for an Oscar for his portrayal of Dylan. Chalamet apparently spent five years training himself to sing like Dylan for the movie.

The real Dylan has given the movie his blessing, posting on X: "There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role. Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me. The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book."

A Complete Unknown is just one of several music biopics to arrive in the next couple of years, including Bruce Springsteen movie Deliver Me, which stars The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen and focuses on the making of his 1982 album Nebraska, and Sam Mendes’ untitled four-part biopic of The Beatles, with a separate movie dedicated to each member.

A Complete Unknown is in US cinemas now. It opens in the UK on January 17.

Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience will feature the band's entire concert set from the time and features three additional tracks, Interview, Timing and Ray Shulman's Violin Feature. The new release, which has been mixed and produced by Dan Bornemark, will also be available in Stereo (96/24), 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Atmos.

"This definitive release delivers the ultimate Gentle Giant live performance as it was originally intended," the band say. "Complete with restored in-between-song commentary, band introductions, and the authentic ambience of each venue. It also includes the full original setlist and three unreleased tracks.

"The Complete Live Experience brings a fresh level of clarity and depth to Gentle Giant’s live recordings, capturing the full scope of the band’s artistry as they were meant to be heard."

Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience will be available on vinyl, CD, Blu-ray and digital. The band haven't released pe-order information yet.

Vocalist Kennedy, who also fronts hard rockers Alter Bridge, has told Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk that he and the Guns ’N’ Roses guitarist are demoing the followup to 2022 album 4.

The frontman says all but one song on the project’s fifth record – set to also feature rhythm guitarist Frank Sidoris, drummer Brent Fitz and bassist/vocalist Todd Kerns – has been written and promises some “exciting stuff”.

“[Slash] was sending me demos of the tunes,” Kennedy says (via Blabbermouth). “Then I was spending time with him, coming up with melodies and lyrics. And so that’s all done – I think with the exception of one song. Now I just have to find a moment to get in the studio and all that, knock that out.”

He continues: “But I will say that just even in the demo process and where we stood there before they went in to actually make the record musically, it is really exciting stuff. I’m really, really stoked about where this one’s going. It’s gonna be cool.”

Slash, 59, is currently in one of the busiest eras of his career. The guitarist released his blues album Orgy Of The Damned this year, with such iconic musicians as ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and pop/rock figurehead Demi Lovato appearing. He toured with both the Conspirators and all-star band S.E.R.P.E.N.T. in 2024, and he’s also set to trot around the globe next summer, a GNR Europe/Middle East tour having been announced for May to July.

As if all that weren’t enough, there have also been rumours about new GNR music. The hard rock titans haven’t released a record since Chinese Democracy in 2008, but bassist Duff Mckagan recently told Trunk Nation, “There’s definitely a desire and a plan for new music.”

Meanwhile, Kennedy remains active not just with Alter Bridge, but a solo career of his own. His third album under his own name, The Art Of Letting Go, dropped in October and the singer/guitarist recently completed a European tour promoting the release.

Sepultura were one of the greatest and most unexpected success stories of the mid-90s. Four kids from the cultural backwater of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, they journeyed from sub-underground death metal no-hopers into global ambassadors for their home country, and for metal as a whole.

The band’s still-explosive 1989 album Beneath The Remains served notice of their impending genius, but it was their fifth full-length record, 1993’s Chaos AD, that found Sepultura jumping several gears, pushing them far beyond their contemporaries. Its groundbreaking mix of jagged noise and South American influences sounded like nothing that came before it, while frontman Max Cavalera raged against corruption and stupidity with the conviction of a man who had nothing left to lose.

The album connected instantly, smashing into the UK Top 20 and the US Top 40 like a Molotov cocktail. Successful tours with the likes of Pantera and Ministry followed.

“During the making of Chaos AD, we were very focused, very organised, very connected,” says guitarist Andreas Kisser. “We were together, it was a very special moment in Sepultura’s career.”

But there were downsides. The pressures of success, and the responsibilities of being flagbearers for a new generation of metal bands soon began to have an effect on the ‘classic Seps’ line-up of Max, Andreas, bassist Paulo ‘Jr’ Pinto and drummer, Max’s brother Iggor Cavalera.

“All of a sudden we’re this really big machine and we couldn’t really comprehend it,” says Max. “We didn’t know how to deal with it.”

On October 1995, Sepultura entered Indigo Ranch Studio in Malibu to record the follow-up to Chaos AD with rising nu metal producer Ross Robinson. The album built on the indigenous Brazilian influences of its predecessor, simultaneously taking them further away from their death metal past towards an incendiary, groove-driven battery.

Max: “There was no pressure on the music side. We’d proved that we could take this thing in any direction we wanted, and it was great.”

Iggor: “It was very early where Max came up with the Roots song, and from then on we were building, thinking about what would be the ‘roots’ of our music. We did a lot of crazy experimenting.”

Andreas: “Ross Robinson had a whole new perspective. He came and showed a lot of new possibilities for us. He really brought that idea of the ‘Brazilianness’: the jams, the free approach to everything.”

Iggor: “He was pushing a lot of crazy ideas. I remember coming back from the studio with a tape we’d done there, and I didn’t know what we were going to do with it, ’cos there was so much going on – a thousand guitars on a take with noises and percussion, that kind of thing. I was a bit confused.”

Max: “The greatest thing was having the combination of Ross and [engineer] Andy Wallace. Ross recorded it on his own and it sounded like total dogshit – not for human consumption. We’d send it to Andy. It would be like sending him a diamond covered in shit, and he had to clean all the shit from it to make the diamond shine, which is what he did.”

Paulo: “When Andy came into the mix, he knew how to make that really noisy, grungy mass sound good.”

Andreas: “It came out very positive. I think that was a merit of the band – to funnel the stuff that was going on in our lives into our music.”

Released in early 1996, Roots built on the success of its predecessor on both sides of the Atlantic. But imperceptible fault lines were opening up within the band. On one side was Max and his wife, the band’s manager Gloria. On the other were Andreas, Paulo and Iggor.

Andreas: “Things had started to go kind of weird before that. When [Max and Gloria’s son] Zyon was born, instead of putting a band on the cover of a magazine, they had Max with his kid. That’s nothing to do with the band. To have a kid is not that special. I have three myself. I love them, but I don’t use them as a trophy.”

Paulo: “I guess things weren’t right when we started to tour Roots. We saw things were not being represented the way the three of us would like. The other party was taking credit for everything and not really giving the rest of the band the credit for what we worked for.”

Andreas: “Concepts of what Sepultura should be were changing. Max was already being detached from the unity that we had. It was a lead singer with his support band type of vibe. And Gloria was doing a horrible job – she was not trying to keep anything together.”

Iggor: “There was a lot of stupid stuff. Just a lot of drama over nothing. You get to the point where you travel so much, little things can be super- dramatic. It’s like Spinal Tap – people would freak out over not having the sandwich we wanted.”

Max: “We started seeing all these shady guys in the dressing room, managers meeting with the other three guys, trying to steal the band from Gloria’s management.”

Andreas: “Sepultura only works if we are a band, if we can talk to each other and respect each other. We were at a point where we were just going onstage to play, and that’s how they wanted to keep going.”

On August 1996, Sepultura arrived in the UK to play the Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington, opening for Kiss and Ozzy. They were greeted by the tragic news that Gloria’s son, Dana Wells, had been killed in a car accident at home in Phoenix.

Andreas: “We just arrived in England to play Castle Donington, and we got the news. I was the one to bring the news to Gloria. I took her away from her room and told her.”

Max: “The minute we arrived, there was a knock on the door and it was Andreas – he had this pale, ghostly expression that I’d never seen before, and I knew that something was incredibly wrong. He told Gloria, ‘Your son died.’ From that moment on, the whole day just spiralled out of control. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne really helped us a lot, they’re the ones that helped us get back home. Without them, we couldn’t have got home so quick.”

Andreas: “We had a big show, in our heads probably one of the biggest shows in Sepultura’s career, and we decided to go ahead and do the show as a trio. I’m glad we did. There were mixed emotions. A profound sadness for a huge loss, but at the same time playing at Castle Donington. It was very weird. I don’t think I’ll ever experience anything like that again.”

Max: “I spent the night before the funeral with Jason Newsted, making a cassette tape with Dana’s favourite songs. We put a cassette player on his coffin and we let it play until the batteries ran out. During the funeral there was a jam session between Andreas and Jason, playing acoustic guitar – they made that for Dana. It was beautiful, really touching.”

Andreas: “But from that point, the whole emotional instability just got bigger. Especially from Gloria’s family.”

Rather than bring the two warring factions together, Dana’s death only drove them further apart. The tensions that had been simmering came to the boil post-Donington. Andreas, Paulo and Iggor decided that they no longer wanted Gloria to manage Sepultura.

Andreas: “We had the contract. We had a legal tool on our side, where we could exercise an option not to continue with Gloria because we wanted to change the way Sepultura’s business was done. And they didn’t want to hear it.”

Max: “The other three guys, they just stopped talking to Gloria completely, which was really cold. Who does that? I had my own brother doing that, which was really hard to understand.”

Paulo: “We tried to talk to Max but it was hard.”

Max: “You don’t just change people for no reason. If it wasn’t working, I could see the point of changing: ‘Yeah, let’s change, we gotta do something.’ But that wasn’t the case at all. We were more successful than ever. It was incomprehensible.”

Andreas: “We had a big fight with Gloria in Buenos Aires [on November 14, 1996]. That’s where Sepultura ended. But we decided to go to Europe to do the tour, to try and make Sepultura possible for another year. It was crazy.”

Sepultura’s European tour began in Belgium on November 20, 1996, and ended just under a month later at London’s Brixton Academy on December 16 – the day their contract with Gloria Cavalera ended. Immediately after that final show, all the issues that had been brewing finally came to a head. Interestingly, the former bandmates have very different views on how the show itself went.

Max: “The show was fantastic, super-energetic, high energy – we were playing really good.”

Andreas: “I know it was great and everything, but it could have been much better if we were a band.”

Paulo: “It was a very shitty show.”

Iggor: “At the end of the show, it was, like, ‘It cannot continue like this.’ That’s when we took the decision we did.”

Andreas: “We terminated our deal with our manager there, and [Max and Gloria] decided to leave Sepultura.

Max: “I don’t think it was in the dressing room. It was more on the bus ride going to the airport. I probably had a little bit to drink, so I was on the edge. I told them, ‘If that was how it was going to be, fuck you all, I’m out of here.’”

Iggor: “I don’t know if anyone tried to talk Max out of leaving. It was a lot of turbulent times.”

Andreas: “Of course we tried to talk Max out of leaving.”

Max: “Gloria tried to talk me out of it. She told me go with them. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I’m not that kind of person. I cannot fuck people over like that. That’s how great of a person she is – just go with them, stay with them. I’m, like, ‘I’m not doing that to you. It’s absurd.’ They had a meeting to try to get me back.”

Andreas: “It’s really hard when you do a meeting with Max and Iggor. You can spend two hours talking, some explanation of stuff, and somehow they leave there and nothing happens. It’s really weird way of doing business.”

As the shock news of the split between Max and his former bandmates broke, both parties retreated to take stock. Inevitably, the shattered relationship turned poisonous, with barbs thrown in the press. Privately, both parties were facing an uncertain future.

Max: “I could have gone, ‘Fuck you all, this is my band.’ I could have if I’d wanted to. It was my band, invented by me, the name and everything. I just felt it was easier to walk away. But it was six months of hell. I lived in my room, just drinking and taking drugs all day long. I didn’t want anything to do with music.”

Andreas: “We were abandoned. We lost everything that took 10 years to build. We had to cancel shows in Australia and Japan – it was really bad. Bad blood with promoters and everything. All the budgets and big money went to Soulfly. Ross Robinson and Andy Wallace went to Max. We had to rebuild everything.”

Paulo: “Nobody gave us the credit we deserved. We had to start from scratch.”

Max: “I didn’t know what they were going to do, honestly. But Andreas is a very ambitious guy. I knew he was probably going to find someone and give it a go. I thought they might even get somebody like Robb Flynn. I was, like, ‘If that happens, I’m fucked.’”

Andreas: “We wanted to change the name, start something totally different. But slowly we put our heads in place and balanced all the options and talked to a lot of people. We were nine months working to find a new manager, a new singer, a new producer – to find a new way to keep Sepultura going.”

Max: “The hardest part was Iggor, because he was my brother. I was, like, ‘How could you do that to me?’ I don’t know, man. It had a bit to do with greed, it had a bit to do with human nature.”

Iggor: ‘It was horrible. Me and Max being so close together for so many years, doing our little thing, it was very hard. But anybody who has brothers knows how it is a completely different thing than dealing with a friend. With a brother, it doesn’t resolve just by talking. It needs something extreme to happen so you both understand what was going on.”

In the race to release an album, Max’s new project, Soulfly, were first out of the gate. Their self-titled debut emerged in April 1998, produced by Ross Robinson and featuring members of Fear Factory, Deftones, Limp Bizkit and Dub War. The reconstituted Sepultura, now fronted by American singer Derrick Greene, followed six months later with Against. Both albums were accompanied by potshots directed at the other camp in the press – a pattern that would be repeated over the next few years. But further upheaval struck Sepultura in 2006 when Iggor jumped ship to reunite with his brother.

Iggor: “The decision to leave Sepultura wasn’t hard. It was harder to continue without my brother. We’d just had a son, and my wife was really sad: ‘Your brother has never seen our son, that’s not right.’ And I was, like, ‘She’s right.’ So I reached out and talked to him. That was the first step.”

Max: “He came back and apologised. He told Gloria he was wrong, which is great. To admit that he was wrong on that whole thing, it was really cool of him to do that.”

Iggor: “I flew to Phoenix to hang out with Max. We were influenced a lot by the whole thing with Pantera, the Dimebag thing – like, ‘Look, these guys cannot do what we’re doing right now.’ We know how life, it’s super-short. So I was, like, ‘Fuck it, I just want to hang out with my brother.’”

As both sides warily circled each other with teeth bared, there seemed little chance of a reunion of the classic Sepultura line-up, despite huge offers dangled in front of them by promoters. Then, in late 2010, rumours circulated that the band were planning to reunite. Sepultura released a video statement refuting the rumours.

Max: “I was trying for it. I thought it’d be very cool. Especially after I saw Faith No More get back together. It’s like, ‘Why can’t we do the same?’ I actually talked to Andreas on the phone about it, like, ‘Come on man, let’s do this. Let’s fucking do it. The whole world wants it. It would be a great thing.’ And he agreed with me, then a couple of weeks later it was all back to shit again. So I was, like, ‘Fuck it, I’m not going to try any more.’”

Andreas: “There’s been many reunion conversations, especially with Gloria. It’s always them approaching us.”

Iggor: “I think there was some talk. But I never sit down with those guys to discuss anything, so I don’t know how serious those things were.”

Andreas: “We both played at a festival in Germany [in 2009], Sepultura and Soulfly, for the first time. Our bus was parked here and their bus was parked a few metres away. I went out there, Gloria was there. I give her a hug: ‘Hey, what’s up, how’s it going?’ And since then, she was like, ‘OK, maybe we could put all this bad stuff back and we could try again.’ It didn’t go further, because it’s something that’s completely out of reality. It’s not a part of what we are. That Sepultura they have in mind, it’s not us.”

Max: “It was Gloria’s idea for me and Iggor to tour the Roots album (2017’s Roots Reunited tour). I think a lot of fans just wanted to hear the original voice and original drumming. They didn’t care that Paolo and Andreas weren’t in the picture, which was proven by the success of the tour. It sold out everywhere. It was a great tour.”

Andreas: “It’s sad to be dragging up the past. That’s why we don’t spend our time doing tribute tours and shit. We’re very much focused on what we’re doing now, today. We put our energy and efforts into creating a new Sepultura every day.”

Today, the gulf between Sepultura and the Cavalera brothers is as wide as ever. Both camps continue to release albums to varying degrees of acclaim, though with only a fraction of the commercial success they enjoyed with Chaos AD and Roots. When it comes to what could’ve been, all members remain philosophical on the subject.

Iggor: “I have no idea how things would be if we’d gotten through the problems.”

Max: “I think we would have been extremely big if we had stayed together. Not as popular as Metallica, but popular. But then Soulfly came about, so it was a blessing in disguise. I last spoke to Andreas six years ago, and I’ve not spoken to Paolo once. Never.”

Andreas: “Do I miss being in a band with Max? No. Not at all. I don’t know him today. I don’t know the person he is.”

Max: “There were some good times, it wasn’t all bad. We actually had a lot of fun. The friendships were cool, you know? I miss that sense of, ‘We can do it, we can conquer the world.’”

Andreas: “There’s no regret at all. I don’t see why we should be regretful when we are in a better place now.”

Max: “Maybe we should have took a year off and come back better than ever. Maybe we would have found a solution for the whole Gloria thing, the whole management thing. At that time, we were not thinking about that. Hot heads prevailed. Would I have done anything differently? I don’t know. I think it was meant to be.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer 307, March 2018

The California thrash metal favourites took six years to release latest record The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, the followup to 2016 Grammy winner Dystopia, but seem intent on being quicker this time.

Singer/guitarist Dave Mustaine says via X (formerly Twitter) that he’s currently working on Megadeth’s next album with engineer Chris Rakestraw. He hopes his bandmates will join him in the studio shortly after the new year.

Mustaine comments (per Metal Injection): “Right now I’m in the studio working with Chris Rakestraw. And everybody else is gone. Teemu [Mäntysaari, guitars] is in Switzerland and James [LoMenzo, bass] and Dirk [Verbeuren, drums] are in Los Angeles. So it’s just me here by myself with Chris.”

He continues: “And Chris leaves tomorrow to go on a vacation, and I’m working up to the last second today to get as much done as I can before he takes off because we won’t be starting again until he returns somewhere around New Year’s Day.

“And at that point, it’s only a matter of a couple weeks before everybody converges on to the studio. And for that I’m pumped. And you guys are gonna be excited.”

Mustaine’s statement echoes one Mäntysaari recently made to Megadeth Digital. The lead guitarist, who replaced Kiko Loureiro last year, said he’s been remotely working with Mustaine on new music over the holidays.

“So Dave is in the studio in Nashville, and I’ve been working from home, and now from the vacation location where we are with the family,” he explained (per Metal Injection).

“But I’m working a little bit every day. And just today I was working on some solo ideas, and [I am] talking with Dave on the phone every day and doing Zoom meetings and exchanging ideas. So, there’s progress every day, which is nice.”

Though he stopped short of saying what the new Megadeth is sounding like, Mäntysaari continued, “I feel really good about the album. We have already so many good ideas. I think it’s gonna be a great one.”

The news of another Megadeth album first came from LoMenzo in June. The bassist told Metal Global: “We’re actively working on music right now. We’re talking with Dave every day. Dave really wants to do another record and just get something fresh out there.”

The new album will mark Mäntysaari’s studio debut with Megadeth, as well as LoMenzo’s re-debut. The bassist played on 2007’s United Abominations and 2009’s Endgame before being replaced by returning co-founder David Ellefson in 2010. In a twist of fate, LoMenzo then replaced Ellefson in 2022, shortly after The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!’s bass tracks were recorded by Steve Di Giorgio of Testament.

Darker and knottier than anything by their ultra-melodic Scandinavian contemporaries, they side-stepped clinical perfection and recorded these songs without a click track – or indeed brakes. The result is a collection of songs powered by youthful exuberance and intense collective chemistry.

It’s also a prog record that eschews the most obvious influences in favour of the unhinged and obstreperous clatter and skronk of Van der Graaf Generator and Red-era Crimson. Plenty have paddled in the same murky waters, but few have done it with such eye-popping vigour.

City Of The Sun has countless moments of prodigious prog indulgence, but it’s the tooth-dislodging controlled chaos of Eschaton Horo that most loudly confirms Seven Impale’s mercurial brilliance. A labyrinth of mutant syncopation and inspired tempo changes, its eight, frenzied minutes whistle by in what seems like half the time.

As the Norwegians lock into one of their lurching, counter-intuitive grooves, all six musicians are locked in and audibly exhilarated. Sweat drips from the walls. Saxophones are honked with mischievous glee. Blisters are displayed as badges of honour.

Elsewhere, different extremes are explored. Windshears is a beautifully languorous moment of restraint, but a fiendishly inventive one. Closing epic God Left Us For A Black-Dressed Woman goes the whole prog hog, mixing complexity and raw power for the sheer convoluted hell of it.

One of the finest prog debuts of the 21st century, the record showcases a hopeful young band neck deep in magic and clicking effortlessly into gear.

City Of The Sun: 10th Anniversary Edition is on sale now via Karisma.

The September 2023 event at the Royal Albert Hall was billed as An Evening Of Sonic Destruction 50 Years On... Celebrating The Rituals And Odyssey Of Space. It ostensibly celebrated Space Ritual’s half-century – while actually revelling in a career-spanning set.

What Live At The Royal Albert Hall emphatically proves is that, shorn of the lasers, lights and the other visual ephemera that are an integral part of their live experience, Hawkwind’s current line-up of linchpin singer/guitarist Dave Brock, singer-guitarist Magnus Martin, bassist Doug MacKinnon, keyboardist Tim ‘Thighpaulsandra’ Lewis and long-serving drummer Richard Chadwick is the band’s best since their mid-70s heyday.

The material from then-current album The Future Never Waits sits comfortably with the classics with which Hawkwind made their name. The expansive and pummelling heaviness of Rama (The Prophecy) – which is punctuated by a triumphant “Woo-hoo!” – matches the full-throttle delivery of You’d Better Believe It, while The Beginning hints at what ELO might have sounded like if Jeff Lynne had experienced an ayahuasca ceremony in the early 70s, as its five-minute opening grind gives way to baroque pop.

MacKinnon’s bass growls throughout like a guard dog roused from its slumber by interlopers at an ungodly hour as Lewis’s keyboards gurgle and bubble to great effect during Arrival In Utopia.

Augmented by electronic music producer and über-fan William Orbit, Lewis’ keyboard effects link one song to the next, creating a continuous suite of music that rarely lets go.

Chadwick’s gloriously metronomic drumming, along with his daring fills – witness Right To Decide – is the anchor that frees up Brock and Martin to blast off into gloriously amplified sonic realms as Brainstorm hurtles at warp speed towards the untrammelled raw power of Master Of The Universe.

What’s interesting to note with this recording – and as evidenced by a third disc of rehearsal takes and jams that includes unused readings of Mask Of Morning and a then-unreleased Frozen In Time – is how muscular and bedded-in this incarnation sounds.

So much so that fanciful thoughts occur: perhaps Hawkwind would do well to hire a venue and record their next album live without studio embellishments. But this will more than do for now.

Live At The Royal Albert Hall is on sale now via Cherry Red.