British band NIGHTWING existed in the ’80s, releasing a number of albums. Another band that had oppportunities and connections during the NWOBHM, but never quite made it big. They did have some great fantasy art album covers, recorded a few interesting cover versions, as well as a couple of songs penned by Uriah Heep’s Peter Goalby – guitarist Alec Johnson and drummer Steve Bartley having been part of Goalby’s project ‘Destiny’). Nightwing also included singer Max Bacon on a couple of album. who went on to the bands Bronz and GTR, keyboard player Kenny Newton (ex Nutz), bass player Gordon Rowley (ex Strife), and on the live album – singer Dave Evans (ex AC/DC). This set covers the bands period up til 1985, though the band did record a few albums beyond this period (w/ Evans on vocals). *For ordering and full tracklist check out the link below. Due out at the end of August.
Nightwing formed in 1978 in time to take full advantage of the burgeoning New Wave Of British Heavy Metal scene sweeping the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Formed by ex-Strife bassist Gordon Rowley, with keyboard player Kenny Newton, guitarists Eric Percival and Alec Johnson with Steve Bartley on drums, they released four studio albums and one live album between 1980 and 1985. This set kicks off with debut album ‘Something In The Air’ (CD1). With a sound that mixed boogie with elements of prog rock against a core hard rock sound, ‘Something In The Air’ features the single ‘Barrel Of Pain’ (Graham Nash), plus a cover of ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’.
Developing a cult following between tours with the band Gillan, and important appearances at the Reading Rock Festival, Nightwing released their second album ‘Black Summer’ (1982) on Gull Records (originally home to Judas Priest). The album is notable for its iconic cover art by famed fantasy artist Melvyn Grant (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest). Recorded at Amazon Studios in Liverpool and Morgan Studios in London, it was mixed at Spindletop Recorders, Los Angeles, and features eight songs written by guitarist Alec Johnson.
Gull released their third album, ‘Stand Up And Be Counted’ (CD3), in 1983. Featuring the single ‘Treading Water’, the band still featured bassist Gordon Rowley, Steve Bartley, Alec Johnson with Kenny Newton on organ and synthesiser, but now with lead vocals from Max Bacon.
Their fourth studio album ‘My Kingdom Come’ (CD4) was released in 1984, once again featuring an iconic album cover, this time illustrated by famed artist Roger Dean (Yes, Asia). The album featured a cover of Steve Hackett’s ‘Cell 151’.
Nightwing enlisted Dave Evans on vocals and Glynn Porrino on lead guitar following the departure of Max Bacon and Alec Johnson, leading them to record their first and only live album, ‘Night Of Mystery – Alive! Alive!’ (CD5) taken from concerts in Yugoslavia and West Germany.
British guitar player Sam Wood has had a busy career so far, and in the last few years his name has rose amongst us classic rock fans, having joined Thin Lizzy spin-off band BLACK STAR RIDERS a few years ago, guesting once with SAXON, and more recently substituting in for Mick Box of URIAH HEEP, for the band’s Scandinavian tour in January & February.
This was a very enjoyable interview as we discussed the bands Sam has played with, such as WAYWARD SONS, and including the details of his recent shows with Uriah Heep. As I go to post this Sam has a few dates left on a UK tour with one of his other bands THE DEAD COLLECTIVE, who have just announced their self-titled 4-song Ep is available for Pre-order (on limited red vinyl, no less!). We also chatted about Sam’s favorite bands and record collecting. Enjoy! *Check out the links below.
I want to go back and you can give me talk about some of your early stuff and how you got into recording and, playing in general as a professional musician. And what kind of got you to where you are?
Well, I suppose since I probably, like a lot of other people who are in this game when you start, you never really think about, when you’re a kid and first sat down with a guitar, you don’t really think about what I’m going to be doing when I’m older. You just find something that you love doing and you do it because you love doing it. You’re not doing it because you think there’s going to be a future there. But before long, you start to realize, ‘Oh actually, I really love this’. Yeah. And wouldn’t it be great if one day I might be in a band that might be playing in front of people or whatever. And so, quite quickly, I suppose it became apparent that it was going to be something that I wanted to dedicate my life to really or pursue at least.
So, when I was playing in a few bits and bobs here and there, but it wasn’t until I went to Uni when I when I moved up north. I went to the music college in Leeds, which is only about 15 miles away from where I am now. And that was when it really started.
And all of a sudden you go from being just a guitarist or a drummer or a singer or whatever you are – all of a sudden you’re put into this mixing pot of really talented people, and that just brings your game up.
That was that was a wonderful experience having all of that. And then I suppose I’ve just been playing in bands ever since, really. And it depends how in depth you want to get with it. But there’s a there’s a nice sort of lineage from being there all the way through to Blackstar Riders and everything. We just as with everything, it’s meeting the one right person. And they’ll say, ‘Oh, you might be good for such and such’. And before you know it, that link has been made and you go from there really.
If you sit down and think about it for too long, it gets quite scary – thinking, well, if one link in that chain hadn’t happened, you don’t know what you might be doing instead.
I find it interesting, because I gather you’re in your late 30s, so you kind of kind of came after that whole ‘classic rock’ tag had already started. So, a lot of the guys you play with are probably a lot older than you, so…
Yeah, as I like to remind them.(lol) But, I was very much brought up on my dad’s record collection. He was he was big into his 70s rock, glam-rock – T-Rex, Slade, Sweet, Thin Lizzy, all those guys. And so that was very much my musical education. That’s sort of informed, I suppose, how I play and the kind of where I’m I feel myself headed as a player. All the things that come more naturally to you because that’s what you’ve been listening to your whole life. And so and so it does mean, as you say, now you find yourself often in or around members of bands or playing with members of bands that you grew up loving, which is such a such a treat, but it’s an honour more than anything else. What an incredible situation to find yourself in.
It’s funny because I grew up in the ’80s mainly and I get the whole, ‘well, you’re listening to bands that are from the 60s and 70s’. But here you are playing with bands that your dad kind of grew up with.
Absolutely!
Can you give me your shortlist of some of your favourite players and albums and stuff?
Oh, great. I mean, probably the obvious ones….Mick Ronson, obviously. All the Thin Lizzy guys, particularly the Scott and Brian Robertson era. But all of them, all the way through from Eric Bell, all the way through to John Sykes; we’ve got Gary Moore, Snowy White in there as well. And Randy Rhoads and Michael Schenker.
I’m not really allowed to class all the Thin Lizzy as a guitarist as one, but I am for the purpose of this, so.. I’d say those four really are, the kind of foundation of probably what my style, or my interests really is as a guitarist. There’s a lot of other stuff in there. I was always a huge fan of Ritchie Blackmore. He’s playing Deep Purple and Rainbow. Hendrix as well, I always, always loved. But it was mostly those guys.
And a lot of the earlier I’d say the glam-rock guys, Andy Scott out of Sweet – What a fantastic player he was… and still is, of course. It’s one of those things whereas time goes on, you realize there’s a lot of a lot of other players who have made their way into your playing, the Saxon guys, for instance, Paul Quinn and Graham Oliver. I listened to a lot of Saxon when I was a when I was a kid. And I got the incredible opportunity a few years ago to step in with them, take the place of Paul’s side of the stage. So, learning the parts, I didn’t realize how much it kind of already seeped into my subconscious, and is there in my that I’ve picked up as part of my own playing style, which is lovely. It’s lovely when you when you find those parts that you didn’t realize were in there.
Yeah. Saxon was a band I got in later on in life. I’ve kind of seen them a few times because they’re not over here too often, but they came over with UFO a couple of times. So that was good. I love the Randy Rhoads stuff with Ozzy and that run of the Sweet albums in the 70s. People always put them down as a glam band, but if you are kind of a pop band, if you listen to four or five albums in a row, there’s pretty hard rock stuff.
Oh, absolutely. listen to all the B-sides. That’s the thing. They had the hits on the A-side that were written for them, but they were allowed to do their own B-sides. It always sounded to me like they just wanted to be Deep Purple. You know, they’ve got big riffs, big solos. What a band! And they had these huge harmony vocals as well. They could do it, as could most of the bands from that time, to be fair.
What was kind of your first professional recording type gig?
First, well ‘professional’ is a tricky word. Coming out of Uni, I was in a couple of bands that were getting out there as much as we could. You know, young kids, 20, 21, bought a van, just driving around the country, playing as many gigs as we could. Without a clue, really what we were doing, we just saw if we’re playing, playing more gigs, that’s what we need to do. We did some really cool stuff. Actually, we ended up supporting Wishbone Ash, a few other reasonably good sized gigs for where – for a band on our level we got quite fortunate with that. That was a band called ‘Treason Kings‘. And it was through Treason Kings that I ended up meeting Toby Jepsen from a band called Little Angels. And he ended up producing two EPs for us. And the whole time we were in the studio I was hounding him and saying, you know, ‘If you need a guitarist for anything, if I can be of any help. Please let me know. I’d always like to do it.’
Then one day out of the blue, I got a call from Toby saying he was he was putting something together. Now, originally, this was meant to be, he had a record contract for a solo album and he wanted to put a solo record together. So, he got he asked me if I’d play guitar on it. And we had Dave Kemp, who was one of the horn players in Little Angels, but he was on keys, and Nic Wastall from a band called Chrome Molly. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them (?), another new wave British heavy metal band from the UK. Fantastic band. And Phil Martini on drums, who I knew from The Choir Boys and Joe Elliot’s Down and Outs. None of us had played together before, but we all sort of came down and met in the middle, came from our various locations in the UK and just had a couple of days of rehearsal. Not even rehearsal, just room and time in a rehearsal space to have a play about with some ideas that Toby had.
And very, very quickly it became apparent that something really gelled. And that doesn’t always happen. You can put huge bunches of musicians together, really good musicians together, and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn’t. And that’s not a slight on anyone; it’s just sometimes the chemistry with, not even as people, but with your playing doesn’t fit or whatever. But this really did. It really slotted together really nicely. And before long, we’d sort of turned it into a band instead. Instead of it being this solo album for Toby, it became a band. And that was where Wayward Sons came from. So that, in terms of being the ‘first’, that was the first band where it felt like I’d moved up. Because where it was with Toby’s past, we got a running start and we could start off with, his fans. He’s had a good solo career in the meantime, The Little Angels fans. So you can start off on quite a good footing. It felt like a real gift to be to be brought into that world, for somebody in my position where we’d just been in a transit van driving around the country trying to do what we could. That was the first real thing, and that was 10 years ago now, 10 years since we first got in a room together. And it just feels like it’s been just a very exciting journey from then, really.
What’s the current status of the band? It’s been a few years since you guys have had anything, right?
Yeah, well, it’s still very much ongoing. We were playing last year. There were plans for us to be doing something this year. But that has ended up, as often happens just through one reason or another, I think that’s looking like it might not happen now, but it’s still very much an ongoing concern. And we will be back at some point with some new music and some new dates. But no real concrete plans for that as yet. We all we all want to, and we will do it. That’s just been like so many, you know, COVID was terrible for lots and lots of bands and lots of artists and everything – we all know that. The biggest trouble that we had during COVID was not only that we were we in different parts of the UK, some of us were in different countries as well. We lost so much momentum through COVID that it that it has been a struggle. We’ve still been working since then, obviously, we’ve had had an album since then. But just felt like it’s taken a while to kind of get the wheels turning again on everything. But what it what it also has meant is that because we haven’t been on the kind of treadmill of it all, we now can afford to take the time and do things properly and just come back when we’re ready, and when the time is right. And I know we will. I’m looking forward to that.
What have kind of been the highlights as far as festivals and stuff you guys did over there?
The whole trip of that of that band so far was such a big part of my learning curve, as I suppose, a professional musician, on that level. So there’s been a lot of stuff that has that has been an amazing first time doing this or that. Download Festival really was a particular highlight. We were actually offered the main stage in 2020, but obviously, Covid came along and scuppered that, and so we were bumped onto 2021. Then that got cancelled again. Covid. But they stuck to their word and they gave us a slot in 2022 to open the main stages. I’ve been to Download, Download Festival was the Donington Festival, the Monsters of Rock in the UK. This is the legendary rock festival in the UK. And I’ve been there as a teenager and in my early 20s and camped for the week and seen all my favourite bands coming through. So, to get the opportunity to play on that stage was incredible. Absolutely incredible! And the fact that we opened the main stage on the Friday. the first day of the festival. And it was the first day back after Covid, after all that long period of nothing happening. It just felt like this this triumphant kind of return to everything. It was wonderful; It was absolutely wonderful. What an honour to be up there. I loved that. That is a real highlight, it’s got to be there for me.
That must have been crazy because you guys have those festivals over there. We don’t have a consistent festival, I don’t think, over here. Like, that one central one that everybody looks forward to every year.
I suppose we have the added benefit of being such a small island. And Donington is pretty much slap bang in the middle of it. So, everyone is able to congregate in one place where I suppose for you guys over there, it’s a much bigger place, it’s much harder for it to be a kind of central point, I suppose.
What led to the Black Star Riders gig? I’ve seen the band a few times over here with I think Judas Priest.I saw them as Thin Lizzy with a few other bands as well. But so they’ve been over here quite a bit. There’s obviously had a number of guitarists before you, so you’ve kind of followed Scott Gorham and Damon Johnson in that.
Yeah. BSR I know obviously, that it’s a modern band and a current band, but still very much a band that I grew up with. The first album came out in 2013, I was 24 at that point and a massive Thin Lizzy fan. So all of a sudden there’s new music coming out with the Thin Lizzy guys. Scott’s on guitar, Ricky singing. What’s not to love!? And it sounds like Black Rose era of Lizzy. Fantastic! Wayward Sons did a UK and a German tour with BSR in 2019, and I had been out on an acoustic tour with Ricky and Damon the year before that, which was both of those were a lot of fun. I just stayed in touch, I suppose. And I had heard through the rumor mill that Scott had been thinking of stepping down from BSR, keeping the idea of doing something with Thin Lizzy alive, but wanted to step down from BSR and nothing had been announced or anything like that. I just thought I’m just going to message Ricky and just, basically said to him ‘I’ve heard this might be the case.’ I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least make contact just to say Hello, just as I had done with Toby in the studio with Treason Kings years before that – ‘If ever I can be of any service or any help, please do let me know.’ …No one ever feels completely qualified for a job, you know, it would be arrogant or it would sound arrogant to say so. But I mean, for me, being such a huge Thin Lizzy fan, I sort of felt like I know that I can approach this band from the right point of view, playing wise. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
I’d hope I would be able to give it a good shot. So I got a nice reply from Ricky, saying they weren’t looking for anyone or anything. Then probably about a year or so later I got a call from Ricky about stepping in with his solo band, the Fighting Hearts. If you haven’t seen or heard Ricky’s solo stuff, you’ve got to check it out because it’s absolutely fantastic. Some fantastic albums, great tunes. And so, I was I stepped in for a few gigs with them. And not long after that, I got the got asked about the BSR thing. Again, this was after covid. After Damon Johnson they got in Christian Martucci from Stone Sour, Corey Taylor’s band, who’s a fantastic player. But they it was working because (obviously) Corey Taylor was busy with Slipknot, and when he wasn’t busy with Slipknot, he’d be doing Stone Sour, so that would be the time that Christian was with him. And then in the time that Corey was with Slipknot, Christian would be on a cycle with BSR. And that was how I understand it, that was how that was planned to work. But then obviously Covid came along, levelled the playing field. Blackstar Riders was ready to go with a new album and a new campaign at exactly the same time that Stone Sour was. And so all of a sudden that threw all that out of balance and they needed a guitarist. So I, again, very fortunately, found myself in the position of getting that phone call. And obviously you say Yes to that when that comes along.
So, you were obviously familiar with all the albums, the catalogue?
Oh, absolutely! As I said, I’d been a fan since day one of the band. So learning the stuff, so much of it I already had and already knew, at least to listen to. That was such a such a ‘pinch me’ moment, on two levels. Firstly, sitting down to learn those songs to actually be a part of that. But then actually getting in a room, and you turn up and there’s all the flight cases, Black Star Riders flight cases, and Lizzy stuff’s all there. And you get in the room, and it’s the band – it was Ricky, Scott, Jimmy DeGrasso and Robbie on the bass. And it’s like, ‘What dreamland have I entered into here?’ And then counting in and away you go. And you’re there, stood stage right and Scott Gorham’s on stage left. Yeah. Mad. Absolutely mad!
Well, it’s excellent because there’s such a history already with the band and they’re still current. So, what is currently up with you guys, Is there any plans as far as recording or touring?
Well, we’ve got a got a European tour coming up, which would be nice because we had one show about 18 months ago in the UK, and that was the last that we had done. So, we’re off to off to Europe in September and October. The band, the band is still very much alive and still very much going. Ricky obviously is very, very busy with The Almighty and with the solo stuff. For this tour we’ve got Marco back on bass.
Will it be a 5-piece?
No, it’s a 4-piece. Scott isn’t there anymore. We did a tour in 2023. We did half the set as a 4-piece, and then Scott would come out and we’d do the last half of the set. And that was great, because I think that’s all he really wanted to do. I think he’s happily retired from Black Star Riders now.
That’s understood.
Yeah, you can’t say he hasn’t paid his dues. He’s still very much working away; he’s got his artwork he’s doing. He’s still very active, which is great.
So, we’ll be going out as a 4-piece. What I think a lot of people don’t understand about Black Star Riders, because it’s always been a 2-guitar band from day one, but Rickey has also played guitar as well. But because he’s the frontman, he’s never really had the chance to be the lead guitarist. He’s a fantastic guitar player. He’s a really good guitarist, and can absolutely hold his own with the twin leads, and the riffing, and everything. Not to mention that he’s responsible for a lot of the riffs and the guitar parts that are in the songs anyway. I think he surprised a lot of people on that tour, and on subsequent gigs to see Rickey playing those lead parts and having such an active role as a guitarist in what has always been a 2-guitar band. He can do it, and he does it. It’s really great to play with him; it really sounds fab!
Have you guys talked about doing any writing or anything new?
I really hope that will be on the cards. That always very much been the plan. No real concrete plan at the moment, but I’m sure there will be, at some point. We’ve all got to get back in the same country, at the same time, before any of that can happen. All in good time.
Do you collect much? (showing my BSR LPs)
Yeah. To be honest, modern albums, I don’t have so many, but I love record fairs, record shops, and just being able to flick through and finding odd things you just fall in love with because of the sleeve. You just go ‘Oh I wonder what that’s like?’, which is getting harder to do because, obviously they are getting more expensive, whereas it was nice just to be able to spend less than a dollar, just flicking through and you could see something that you liked and try it out. And if you liked it, great – If you didn’t, you spent less than a dollar on it. So, yeah, I love it… But great, you’ve got the BSR, all on vinyl.
I’ve got the five of them. It’s funny because back in the ‘90s when vinyl went out of style, you could buy tons of it for two bucks a piece, and now that stuff is all suddenly worth 10, 20 bucks, 30 bucks each, right!?
Absolutely, yeah… And up sometimes, all of a sudden things can be very, very valuable.
The thing about it as well, and I feel that like the younger generation, like sort of kids in their teenage years now who have only they’ve grown up in a digital world, they are now the ones that are buying vinyl, cassettes, CDs, because actually they want to hold something. They want to have something that is theirs. You know, when I was a kid, when you were a kid, I’m sure you’d save up your pocket money or your allowance or whatever, and you would save up when you go down, you buy an album that you really loved and you’d be on the bus on the way home kind of looking at the cover, reading all the sleeve notes and everything. And that was yours. And it was a was a sacred text to us because, ‘this is mine’.
‘I’ve saved up for this, and I bought it and it belongs to me’, this physical thing. And so, you took it home and you listened to it over and over and over again because, you’d spent all that money on it. And so, you really knew it.
Whereas these kids today have grown up with everything with Spotify, with Apple Music and everything, just being there. So, it doesn’t have any value to us anymore in the way that it used to. And it does feel like they are coming around to that as well, which is wonderful, wonderful to see that.
Yeah, when I get stuff to download for review or whatever the case is, I really don’t have anything but the opportunity to listen to it. But most of the things I’ll buy if it’s something I really like that I’m reviewing or whatever, I’ll go look for it eventually.
Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, we we’re all guilty of it. We’re all guilty of streaming and whatever. And you know what I’ll do – if there’s a band that I really like and I want to own something of theirs, if I can, I’ll buy it at a gig, because then that is the sort of purest way of getting it from, showing your appreciation for it. If you can just pay them for it at a gig. That feels like the to me, that feels like the right thing to do. It might be a bit more expensive than getting it off Amazon or getting it delivered or whatever. But, that’s sort of not the point at that stage.
Are you a completist when it comes to collecting bands?
No, not at all. (Ha!) There are there is there are so many bands. If you if you get a really good ‘greatest hits’, you can learn a lot about so many bands, that with the best of intentions, you always mean to go back and revisit properly. But no, I mean, with certain with Lizzy, The Sweet, they’re probably the only the only two bands that I know I definitely have everything they’ve ever done. And if more stuff were to become unearthed, I would go and seek it out. But no, they’re probably the only two that I know I’ve got everything of. I do love that, I love being so into a band that you really have every corner covered. And you really feel like you understand them. But it’s also nice finding a band and finding an album that you haven’t heard before or there is a different side of them that you haven’t expected. And then when you come across that, that’s still a nice little happy accident, isn’t it!?
I’m almost afraid to discover new ‘70s bands now, because if I go back, I’m thinking I got 20 more albums to go find.
But the flip side of that is that if you discover a new band, and it becomes your favorite band, you haven’t got to wait for them to bring out the new album to go and listen to it. You can just go back and get them all in bulk. And you’ve got their entire discography at your fingertips. So brilliant.
Do you have any favorites from Black Star Riders catalog?
I really love pretty much all of the first album, because when I was 24, 25, I, I bought that and had it on CD player in my car. The Another State of Grace album as well. I think that was the first one with Christian on it. That’s got some fantastic songs.
“Tonight the Moonlight”, I’ve always loved. It was the first single. But “Bound For Glory”, when that came out, it was just such a such a big…it felt to me – as a massive Thin Lizzy fan, but as a young fan… Phil Lynott died three years before I was born so, I’ve seen Thin Lizzy, Ricky with Lizzy and I’ve seen the John Sykes fronted version of Lizzy. But, I’ve never heard new music from it. I’ve never been able to get excited about new music from Lizzy before. And hearing that first BSR album, and “Bound For Glory” got quite a lot of radio play over here, it was just felt so special. It felt like I was able to take part in enjoying this, you know, the legacy of Thin Lizzy. I was able to actually enjoy being part of that as a fan.
Like a new chapter!?
Yeah. And it being a new chapter that was there for me. Do you know what I mean? As a listener, I wasn’t just listening to my dad’s records, records that came out 15 years before I was born. This is new music, it’s current and is for me. And that just felt so exciting. And yeah, “Bound For Glory” is always a favorite to play.
Well, I’m looking forward to more. The last one was good. The one song that stands out for me sounds strange is the version of “Crazy Horses”.
Oh, It’s great, isn’t it!?
I just heard that song a few years before and I thought what an odd song for that band (The Osmonds). That was a great cover. The Dictators did a cover the same year. There’s a few others.
It’s an absolutely fantastic song. I mean, even the Osmond’s version rocks! It really rocks. It sounds great. It’s an energetic record. Big overdriven guitars all over it. And the mad sound effects all over it. That’s great. t’s such a such a fun song. We do that live. That’s been in the set ever since I joined. I love it. The room when it when it first starts is normally split. Half the room is like ‘Oh, cool Crazy Horses. That’s great. I love that song.’ And the other half of the room is like ‘Crazy Horses? The Osmond’s? I thought I was here to see a rock and roll band!?’ And then hopefully, they have been converted by the time we get through this. Because yeah, absolutely love it, love playing that. I would love if, as and when time allows for new material, I would love to be able to ‘officially’ be a part of the BSR journey.
I don’t think there’s a Blackstar Riders live album yet.
No. I need to get my elbows in a few ribs about that maybe.
Now, when you talked about album covers, kind of picking up albums. That’s kind of the way I got into Uriah Heep, I was just looking at those album covers, and one day I thought ‘I’m just gonna take this! And that was what got me started.
Which one; Which album was the first one for you?
Demons and Wizards.
Oh, great.
I think I picked up like a two or $3 version of it at flea market and went back a couple weeks later about a better version of it.
Fantastic. And that was it. You were hooked.
Yeah.If you know the history of the band, it’s confusing, because you go to that album, then you buy something from the late 70s, and it’s a different singer, different sound.
Yeah, they have three completely separate periods. There’s 70s Heep, 80s Heep, and then modern day Heep. It all sounds, you know learning some of the newer stuff that I was playing with them on the tour, I just did, listening to the newer stuff, and this this sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it sounds exactly how you would want Uriah Heep to sound in the modern day. It does. It’s got it’s got Phil’s magnificent Hammond playing, obviously Mick, Mick’s guitar work is brilliant, Davey and Russ. Bernie’s a fantastic singer. Yeah, what a band. What a fantastic band.
And still a bit progressive, right!?
Absolutely. Still progressive. And what’s great, you know a lot of bands that are still going end up kind of going down, or it feels like they’re going down like a heavier, almost more ‘metal-y’ route, whereas Heep have just remained a very melodic hard rock band, which is great. They’re still doing that thing. It still sounds like it exists in the modern world. It doesn’t sound old. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It sounds modern, but it just still sounds like them, it doesn’t sound like a betrayal of everything that’s come before.
And I think for them, the one thing about them now is that they’ve stayed current, putting out albums every few years, Deep Purple does the same. But there’s that old group of bands that just are content to put out the ‘greatest hits’ and be done with it.
Yeah. There’s a real feeling like they’re always pushing onwards, doesn’t it!?
So, I want to ask how that whole thing (tour) came about; I assume it’s through the management that you guys share(?)
Well, yeah. So, Uriah Heep’s manager, Adam Parsons, he’s also Black Star Riders manager. He’s a wonderful friend. Anyway, a few years ago, he was also managing Saxon, and he got me a gig filling in for Brian Tatler, who had replaced Paul Quinn. Brian Tatler had Diamond Head, and because Diamond Head had another gig that same day, but Saxon had a festival in Denmark. And so, I had to I had to fly in. I had plenty of time to learn the set. But he asked me if I could do that. So it was flying in, meet the band, no rehearsal and just go and do it, which was nail biting anyway. But it went really well. As long as you’re prepared enough and if you make sure that you know the songs inside out, you can do it. And that was a lot of fun. And Heep had the situation where they had the Scandinavian tour booked. This was in January, February this year. And a few days before the tour, Mick Box got very, very ill and was in hospital. He was in hospital and couldn’t stand up, let alone play guitar, let alone go to Scandinavia in January to play the guitar. So, I think this was maybe the Thursday night or the Friday night(?) I got a call from Adam, the manager, explaining this, saying ‘We’re in a real we’re in a real pickle here. Is there any chance you could do it? You fly out on Wednesday, first gigs on Thursday or fly out on Tuesday’. It was such a small amount of time. But I think, you know, the show must go on. And I’m so obviously… I was a mixture of completely honored and completely terrified to be asked. But I’ve got to say fair play to Adam and for the rest of the guys for still wanting to go ahead with that, because that’s a lot of trust that they’re putting on someone… I’ve played with Russ, the drummer before, but only a couple of songs at the Cozy Powell Memorial bash that we do every year. They didn’t they didn’t know me as a player. They didn’t know me as a person. I don’t know(!?) I feel that that is a lot of trust to put on someone. I’m very, very grateful that they did.
So, yes, a long story short – I had a few days to learn an hour and a half’s worth of the Heep back catalog and go out. I thing the first gig was the middle of the next week. I flew to Finland, met up with the guys. We didn’t have a rehearsal; we did have a sound check so we could run two or three songs. And I went through everything on the tour bus with Davey, the bass player. We just sat there with our guitars to kind of make sure I’d got the stops and starts and everything in the right places. But yeah, it was really flying by the seat of your pants.
Were you familiar with any of the catalog or much of the catalog at all or…?
To my to my shame, no. I knew as songs, but I’d never played them, but as songs I knew “Easy Livin” and “Gypsy”. But that really was the extent of it.
Heep had always been one of those bands that I’ve known that I liked them, and I’ve always enjoyed what I have heard of them, but for whatever reason, they were never a band that I had gone in and done a deep dive on. I really don’t know why, because it’s absolutely up my street – it’s heavy ‘70s, great guitar work, there’s the Hammond organ where I love anything with a Hammond organ on it. I’ve got no idea why their back catalogue hadn’t been on my radar like it should have been. So, “Gypsy” and “Easy Livin”, I knew. And that was it. And I don’t think I’ve played as much guitar as that – per day, probably since I was about 15. (LOL) I don’t think I’ve sat down with a guitar in my hand for that long.
So, they just gave you a set list and that that’s what you went with?
Yeah. Just ‘here’s the set list’. And I had a chat with Phil Lanzon, the keyboard player. I had a zoom call with him. It was the same set list that they’d done on the previous tour, when they toured Germany at the end of last year. He said, ‘I think there’s a full show that someone’s put on YouTube. Go and find that.’ Which was great for me, because not only does it kind of show what’s going on, but you’ve got all the guitar parts that Mick’s playing right there, and all the beginnings and all the endings, because they’re the things that can throw you off or can be different live to in the studio or whatever. So, it’s just like, ‘Right, here’s a definitive… This is how the set is. This is how it’s going to be.’ There you go, just learn it. I spent three days just glued to that screen. It sounds.
It was I suppose, more of like a ‘fight or flight’ thing when you get offered something like that. It’s just like, I know the end goal. There’s no margin for error, really. The end goal is on Wednesday, I’m going to be on stage with Uriah Heep for an hour and a half in front of a sold out gig in Finland. I have to know this set. I need to know every stop, every push, every solo. I just have to know it. And so, when you’ve got that as the end goal, it’s amazing what you can be capable of when you have to be.
I almost don’t want to ask but was it more terrifying knowing that Mick is the founding member and people look at him as, you know… ‘Well, he’s not there, so what are you guys doing.’ That type of thing…
Absolutely!
Because obviously there’s online commentary…
Yeah, yeah.
But if you want to see the band this is what you’re seeing, right!?
I know. But I mean, the fact that, I think I’m right in saying it’s the first time that Mick had not played a Heep gig, or they might have been.
I think there’s one in Germany in the early ‘70s where he got sick.
Yeah, but I think I think that was it. And obviously, Phil and Bernie have been in the band for 40 years. And Russ and Davey as well; everyone there has been in the band a long time. Mick, obviously founding member, and such an integral part. His guitar playing and his guitar sound is such an integral part of that band and how that band is. Weirdly, I think I think for me, because I was coming to it, when I when I started with BSR and because I was such a huge Lizzy fan, I was so aware of the weight of what these songs meant to me that that in itself was terrifying, because the notion of what you’re doing. Whereas with Heep, because they weren’t a band that had been on my radar in the same way, it was easier to kind of get on with it because I didn’t have that feeling of… I don’t know!? I suppose because I was coming to it fresh, I didn’t have time to get bogged down in worrying about that side of things. I was just like, ‘Right, I just have to learn the songs. I need to get up there and I need to do it. I need to do it as best as I can.’
When the announcement was made, I think I was as much scared about how it would be reacted to by the fans as I was about actually playing the songs as well. Because even though Heep, what Thin Lizzy represents to me, I know that the people that are going to see Heep on tour, that band means that to them. And you know that Mick is a figure in that band is as important as Scott is to me as in his role in Thin Lizzy. So that weighed on my mind quite a lot. And, you know, as usual, there’s a lot of people online before the gigs are even starting, going ‘This shouldn’t be going ahead. Mick’s a founding member. We should wait till he’s better.’ And the simple fact is that a band can’t afford to do that, really. As an absolute worst case scenario, if a tour like that has to be cancelled, then so be it. But it’s the sort of thing that could literally bankrupt a band. The amount of expense and logistics that are involved. I mean, when I got the call I think the truck with all the equipment was already on the way. It was already on it’s way, and already left the place in the UK where all the gear is held. It was already traveling to the gigs. And there’s three weeks worth of logistics and people who are relying on this tour happening, not just as fans, but like the bands, the crew, the support bands, the promoters. These people are relying on these gigs going ahead as their livelihood. You know, I totally get it. I totally get where people are coming from, where they say ‘Oh it should be postponed.’ And in an ideal world, maybe that would be something that would be nice if that could happen. But the reality, sadly, especially at the moment, the cost of touring being what it is, it simply can’t happen. Unless it’s completely unavoidable. But what amazed me was the reception, once we were there, was just fantastic, all across the board. I think people were so pleased that we’d shown up and the gig was still going ahead. And even though it wasn’t Mick, they’re still getting the songs, and they’re still getting the rest of the guys. And still, hopefully, getting a show that has the same energy, because Heep on stage have always been fantastic. When I’ve seen them over the years, even if I haven’t known the material as well, I’ve always enjoyed seeing them. So, if you can give a performance that is in keeping with what the fans are wanting or what the fans would expect. And I hope that we were still able to do that. Everyone seemed to come away having had a great time, which is such a relief.
I gathered from the clips I’ve seen that the fans were really receptive. Did you keep any souvenirs from the tour?
Souvenirs!? Not that I can tell you about. (Lol). I always keep a setlist that has come from the stage. I’ve the Saxon one, and I’ve got the Wayward Sons’ one from the Download Festival. I’ve got those framed, just as little artifacts. So, I always keep one of those. And there’s some lovely gifts that we got along the way, which is fantastic. Someone had sent me over the tour poster for the whole thing, Someone made some jewellery for the band and included me in that. Everyone was so lovely, and so receptive to it. I think it’s such a fine line when you’re dep’ing with something like that. I was trying to be very careful, because I didn’t want to copy Mick. I didn’t want to play his stuff note for note because that’s his. In the same way, Mick’s thing is all the stuff he does visually is fantastic to watch, but that is him, and it would’ve wrong for me to try and do any of that. So, you had to tread a line of ‘I need to be respectful to his guitar parts’, and there are some solos and bits that need to be exact, like the guitar solos in “July Morning”. Those solos are iconic. There’s room for you to put your own spin on it, but there are certain parts that do need to be exact. So, it’s finding that space where you’re being respectful of the original but not copying it. You’ve got to enter into it with the right spirit. I think as long as the spirit is right, people can enjoy that and hopefully see what you’re trying to do.
Was there anything that, as the tour went on, that you liked playing more or stuck with you more?
Yeah! There were loads of lovely guitar moments, “July Morning” being one, that awesome solo at the end that I was lucky enough to play every night. The other one, we had “The Magician’s Birthday” in the set. When I was first listening through the set, because I just went through it song by song when I was learning the songs…there’s no point in half learning everything, so I just need to learn each song one by one. And I got about two-thirds of the way through the set, and I’m ‘OK, we’re getting there.’ This was maybe Sunday evening, flights on Tuesday, OK “Magician’s Birthday” – what’s this? Ten Minutes long, ‘Oh, OK, let’s have a listen!’ And half of it is a guitar solo (Lol), this guitar solo that’s only accompanied by drums! That was the closest thing I came to picking up the phone and calling Adam, saying ‘I can’t do this!’ (Lol), or ‘Can we find another song?’ But, I stuck with it, obviously. And the first few gigs, I was enjoying myself on stage a lot, even from Day 1, I was enjoying it. But you see “The Magician’s Birthday” on the setlist coming closer and closer, and there’s this feeling of – not dread by any means, but worry, real worry seeing this coming up. But after a few gigs, once that sort of starts bedding in you go ‘OK, I can enjoy this now. Have fun with this.’ Because it’s basically just five or 6 minutes of just you in the middle of the stage, with a spotlight on you, with Russ playing the drums, just playing the guitar. And you’ve got 1500 people who’ve got no choice but to listen to you. (Lol) This captive audience, trapped. In many ways, it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. (Lol)
Have you had a chance to go back and check out more of the (Heep) catalogue?
I have. I’ve been starting at the beginning. I did have a copy of Very Eavy, Very Umble, so I’ve been going through. I have to be honest, when I got off the tour I did need some time away from Heep, because it felt like it had been quite an intense awakening to a band. But now, Ok, I really want to get in to this, because it’s so great.’ So, that’s where I’m at, I’m starting at the beginning and working my way through.
Well, it’s a long way to go!
I know.
What else do you have on the go?
Well, I’m on tour this coming month with The Dead Collective, which is Ollie Brown, who is a fantastic guitar player, and Wayne Proctor. So, the 3 of us have this band. We’re out over the UK, and we’ve got some new music coming out, which is lots of fun, very different, a lot darker, maybe a bit heavier. I really love that. And then more Black Star Riders stuff coming up at the end of the year. Keeping nice and busy; I just love being out and playing. It’s wonderful.
Do you get out to a lot of shows yourself?
I do. Where I am in Huddersfield, we don’t have a large venue, but we’ve got a very good venue, maybe 400 capacity, but a lot of bands come through; a lot of bands you see warming up or doing intimate gigs there. So, I’m lucky. And I do have Leeds and Manchester either side of me, which are big cities. So yes, I am still able to get out to a lot. The tricky part can be if I’m out gigging that does take up a lot of your time that I could be out seeing gigs.
This is an interview I posted in early 2001. At that time I’d been sent British band TEN’s latest album ‘Babylon’. It was a story based or concept album, with some spoken words between songs to tie things together. I really liked the songs on Babylon, and could’ve done without the between songs speaking, as there is a lot of very good songs here. I also ended up with the previous album ‘Spellbound’ and ‘Far Beyond The World’, released later in 2001, which would be the last album to feature founding guitarist/writer Vinny Burns. Vinny had previously been with ULTRAVOX, DARE, and ASIA. He also played with Bob Catley (MAGNUM), Gary Hughes (solo), as well as his own solo album (‘The Journey’, 1999), and later returned to DARE in 2015. Dare’s latest album was 2022’s ‘Road To Eden’.
Anyway, back to this interview. In it I did via email, and covered much of Vinny’s career up to that point – Dare, Ten, Gary Hughes solo…. He left TEN later in 2001.
(01/01) UK band TEN’s latest release is the excellent “Babylon” disc. The band remains somewhat of a mystery in North America, but in parts of Europe and especially Japan – Ten are a big band! TEN has a string of albums released overseas, and a growing fan-base that will [Hopefully!] eventually see them get some credit in North America someday soon. The band’s catalogue is available through Frontiers Music. Ten is fronted by singer/songwriter Gary Hughes, and here I had the opportunity to swap some questions and answers with guitarist Vinny Burns. Burns is co-founder of Ten, and also worked with Dare, Ultravox, and Asia. [Thanks to Vinny for answering my Qs, and to Mark Ashton for arranging it.]
Can you give me some of your biggest influences growing up? and perhaps a ‘top 5 list of favorite guitar players that have been influential to you as well ? VB: UFO, Nazareth, Thin Lizzy, Rush, ELP, Foreigner, Journey, Y+T etc… As far as guitarist’s go, my main influences are Michael Schenker, Kee Marcello, David Meniketti [Y&T], Steve Lukather.
What bands / music did you grow up on ? Can you give me a ‘Top 10’ list of all-time fave albums ? VB: I have an older brother Russell. He is five years older than me so I got into rock music that little bit earlier because of hearing his records. He was really into Nazareth, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent and UFO. That was a big influence on me. He also played guitar so as you can guess I wanted to play as well. He showed me chords and helped me out. By the time I was getting better though he got married and moved out of the house so I was on my own from there on. My top ten albums would be (in no particular order). 1) Pink Floyd ‘Wish you were here’ 2) Nazareth ‘Rampant’ 3) Lynyrd Skynyrd ‘Street Survivors’ 4) UFO Obsession 5) Foreigner ‘Four’ 6) Toto ‘Isolation’ 7) Journey ‘Frontiers’ 8) Neal Schon ‘ Late Nite’ 9) Y&T ‘Black Tiger’ 10) Thin Lizzy ‘ Black Rose’
Prior to TEN, you were with ‘DARE’. Could you give me the Dare story in a nutshell’ ? Highlights? Biggest hits? VB: Dare was formed by Darren Wharton and myself in 1985. We spent a couple of years getting a record deal. Signed to A&M in 87. Did the first album in 88 with Mike Shipley and Larry Klein producing. It was recorded in the UK and US. The album was called ‘Out of the Silence’ and was very well received by press and public. A tour with Jimmy Page in the UK in 88 got us used to playing to bigger crowds than we were used to and in 89 we did a four month tour with Europe. We played to about 12,000 people a night and had a great time. After that a few UK headline tours followed and also a tour with Gary Moore. We did the second album in 90/91. Darren and myself got an apartment in Los Angeles and stayed there until the album was finished. It was produced by Keith Olsen and mixed/ engineered by Shay Baby. I still like the album now. A lot of people thought the album was to heavy but it was a good album. It was also the album that we wanted to make at the time so I have to stand by it. We went to tour the album in the UK and Germany but I got a little fed up with the band. Me and Darren had a big fight in Berlin and I left the band. We were under a lot of pressure to sell a lot of albums and we were both still quite young. Darren was fronting a band and it was a lot of pressure to handle for someone who was used to just playing keyboards. We made him stop using the remote keyboard he used to use and become the frontman of the band. Looking back it must have been a really tough thing to do for him. I cannot imagine someone taking my guitar off me and then having to go on stage. Not surprisingly Darren started to drink before the gigs and that lead to friction between us. No big deal really but when the press get hold of stories, they want to make more out of it. Dare was 99% of the time a great band to be in. I think if we had all been a bit older we may have held it together. There are no hard feelings anymore. We were very good friends for years before we started to fight. I saw him (Darren) just before Christmas and we had a lot to drink and it was a good laugh. Just like it used to be. I grew up in Dare and have nothing but fond memories of my time in Dare. There is nothing better than starting a band from Scratch and taking it that far. It was quite an achievement. I cannot remember chart positions or anything like that but make no mistake, Dare was a very successful band. We created a massive amount of press and interest. We had all the top producers wanting to work with us and all the top labels wanting to sign us up.
What other recording acts, big gigs have you been involved in ? [Did you have an association with Asia?] VB: The biggest gig I ever did was 55,000 people at the Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami for Hurricane Relief in 92. It was with Asia and we opened the event. The next day we played on the back of a truck on Virginia Beach to about 250 people. Talk about one extreme to the other. I played guitar for Asia on the ‘Aqua’ world tour. We started in Japan in ’92 and took in Russia, Europe, Canada and two tours of the US bringing proceedings into 93. It was a great time for me. I had been to the US a lot to record and do video’s with Dare but never played a gig there so to play to 55,000 people for the first gig was unbelievable. {ED: the following is from manager Mark Ashton : “He didnt record any albums with them but he did do a World Tour. I know that he did all over Europe, the U.S. and even Japan with them. It was when John Payne, Geoff Downes and Trevor Thornton were in the band, and Steve Howe toured as Special Guest, playing an acoustic set before they came on and then joining them on stage for most of ASIAs set”.} After we finished the world tour nothing seemed to be happening. I sat around for a few months then my old manager rang to say that Ultravox needed a guitarist for a festival in Germany the next week. I was doing nothing so I went to London, rehearsed, got the new singer fired on the first day because he could not sing, auditioned Sam Blue for the gig and we (Sam and myself) stayed in the band for a couple of years.
When / How did TEN come about ? What can you tell me about the other guys? VB: Ten came about from a phone call from Mark Ashton in 1985. Mark had started a new label called Now And Then Records in the UK. His first signing was a singer song writer called Gary Hughes. Gary was doing a solo album and wanted a session guitarist to play on it. I had known Gary since about 87/88. we both used to go to the same rock club in Manchester. It was called The Banshee. He had just signed to Polygram and Dare had just signed to A&M. There were a lot of bands who went in the club but we were the only two people who had got a deal. I knew he had a great voice. we kept in touch. I tried getting something going with Gary when I left Dare but he was busy. We wanted to get something going after that but I was in Asia and then Ultravox. Finally it was Mark Ashton who got us working together. When we started work on what was supposed to be Gary’s solo stuff, we had such a good time that talk again turned to getting something together. We thought that it would be best to just start the band there and then and that’s what we did. We spent a long time working on the songs in the studio and we knew they were good. We went after Mike Stone to mix it. Back then it was just the two of us in the band. The first mix had programmed drums so we decided to remix the album and use real drums. That is when we brought Greg Morgan in (second Dare drummer). After that we asked Shelly (our old Dare bass player to join. We went to do a video for ‘After The Love Is Gone’ and need two more members and through various suggestions we brought John Halliwell (2nd Guitar) and Ged Ryland (keyboards). Thus Ten was formed.
Gary Hughes is writer / singer / producer. Is Ten ‘his’ band ? What can you tell me about Gary as far as his role in Ten, his reputation as a singer in the UK [comparisons, possible influences…] ? VB: The amount of work put into this band by myself, Gary and the other guys is unbelievable. Yes, Gary writes the songs, but he does not tell me how to play guitar and I do not tell him how to sing. The songs just evolve into what they are. Everyone’s comments are taken in as to how an album is taking shape from record company to studio engineer. As far as reputation as a singer goes. He is the best singer in this band :-). That is a hard question to ask anyone on the ‘inside’ of a band. Gary is well rated and respected round the world as a singer. He was good enough for me to want to work with him for a long time. What else can I say. As far as influences go (you would be better asking Gary this one), I would say John Waite, David Coverdale etc are the biggest influences.
Prior to the latest album what have been some of the biggest highlights, chartings, and tours you guys have had ? VB: We charted higher than Metallica in Japan on ‘Spellbound’. Higher than the Spice Girls on the first album:-). We have sold over 250,000 records in Japan alone with Ten. All of them Chart round about the top ten in The Japanese National and International charts on the first week of sales. Our tours out there have always been very successful. We are just trying to get Europe to the same stage.
Ten’s market is mainly in Europe and Japan !? Have you guys been to the USA at all, or plan to ever tour over here [North America], and perhaps break it here? Do you see a growth in the North American fan-base ? VB: To be quite honest, until we get decent distribution out there in the US we have no plans of coming over. We have a lot of US fans if going off messages left on the Ten web-sites are anything to go by but it’s hard to tell what we are selling as a lot of them can’t find the records in the shops and are buying them on the net.
What happened to keyboardist Ged Rylands ? And how did you guys get Don Airey involved ? [Is he a permanent member?] VB: Ged left. Don’t really know why and I don’t really care. I met Don at a gig in Manchester. He was playing with The Company Of Snakes. My friend Robert Hart was singing for them so I went down mainly to see Robert. I had met Don at a festival we did with Dare in Northern Ireland years before. We were talking and he asked what I was up to. I mentioned Ten and he said that if ever we need any keyboards doing to get in touch with him. A week later Ged left so we got in touch with Don. He is a guest member and that suits both parties. Don can work on whatever he wants and we just give him enough notice for him to keep things free for when we tour.
Was the new story based idea of ‘Babylon’ mainly Gary’s ? How did the whole ‘concept’ thing come about? VB: Yes it was Gary’s idea. You would be better asking him about that. The concept was designed not to get in the way of the songs on the album. By that, I mean that each song can also stand independently from the album. There is no big message being forced on the listener. You can just listen to it as an album if you don’t want to be involved with the concept.
You guys must draw some comparisons to the likes of Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Foreigner … [!?] Are these fair comparisons? What sort of ‘class’ of bands do you see yourselves in ? 😉 VB: We think of ourselves only as a British rock band. Nothing else. As far as ‘class’ is concerned, this band can hold it’s own against any band. We are a very powerful and proud band live. On our day we fear no one:-)
How has critical and fan reaction been to Babylon? What track[s] are getting air-play? What markets is it having biggest success in, so far ? Err, any plans to undertake promotion [tour] in North America ? VB: Both have been superb. The album was our first chart entry in the German National charts, has been our biggest selling album in pretty much every country in Europe and the letters / e-mails we`ve had from the fans suggest that they like it a lot. At the moment there are no plans to visit the US. There has been plenty of talk in the past about coming over to do promotion and a gig but nothing ever happened.
Can you give me a few lines about a few tracks from Babylon , such as The Stranger, Barricade, Love became The Law, Timeless, Valentine ..? What are your personal faves from Babylon ? As far as your own playing, what riffs or solos are you happiest [proudest] with ?? VB: I think that my favorite is ‘Love Became The Law’. I love the way that I split the solo into two and the build that happens when the second part comes in is great. I used a similar thing on the main solo in ‘The Name Of The Rose’.
What are the band’s current plans as far as touring and promoting Babylon? How much of it will feature into the band’s live set ? Any plans for the next album ? VB: We are currently planning how we are going to structure the Babylon tour. We hope to do all of Babylon on any headline tours. We are about to start the next Ten album in the first quarter of this year.
[For someone like myself in North America who has never seen the band live] What can you tell me about Ten as a live act ? VB: Ten is a very powerful act. I love the gigs when they happen. If this band had been around in the 80’s we would have cleaned up. That sounds really arrogant but I really believe that it is true. Right band, wrong decade.
What other projects are you and Gary involved in these days? Do you have any side projects / other recordings happening ? VB: Yes, we are just putting finishing touches to the new Bob Catley album. After that I will be starting my next solo album. There is a Gary solo album and also the next Ten album.
What are you listening to these days? What’s your thoughts on the music scene over there ? VB: I seldom get time to sit down and listen to music anymore. If I have spare time I try and do something with it. I have just discovered Tom Petty though and have been buying lots of his stuff. I play it all the time in the car. I love the songs, lyrics and the guitar playing (Mike Campbell). great stuff.
IAN HARRIS has had a lengthy career as a musician, as a songwriter, and as an album cover artist! In this interview, Ian details his career early on as a musician in a band with Alan Parsons, as well as his lengthy association and some of the album covers he did for WISHBONE ASH. And along the way some interesting stories of those he came in contact with through his art or through his music.
Can you tell me a bit about THE EARTH? What was the time frame of this band, and can you tell me about a few of the other players, whom had some interesting rock connections, as well as big opportunites, opening slots, etc…?
The Earth evolved from my previous band in the mid 1960’s – Conviction – formed in 1964 with 3 mates from school in North West London. We were Mods, loved Blues & Soul music and thought it would be a great idea to play cover versions of our favourite music to fellow Mods. We would check out bands playing at our local clubs and go ‘Up West’ to The Marquee, Flamingo etc. in Soho. The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, Graham Bond Organization with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, Zoot Money, Chris Farlowe, even seeing Howling Wolf, Sonnyboy Williamson and many more play live. At that time the band members were Ian Harris vocals, Barry Mitchell Bass guitar, Phil Brockton Drums and Alan Owen Guitar. We were semi pro and played local gigs.
As our music progressed, we needed a more proficient lead guitar player and in 1967 we put an ad in Melody Maker for a lead guitarist, very few answered but along came a guy who knocked us out – Alan Parsons – who at that time was working in the EMI factory in Hayes. His audition piece was Jeff’s Boogie by Jeff Beck; we couldn’t believe our luck!
With Alan Parsons in the band our set list expanded beyond our expectations playing cover versions of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Cream and Blues songs. We began getting more gigs, changing our name along the way to The Earth. In 1968 I answered an Ad in Melody Maker for a band to run Ronnie Scott’s Old Place in Soho, we got the gig, played Friday and Saturday nights from 10pm to 4am and changed the name of the club to The Coffin. This was the autumn of 1968 the time of the Blues Boom in the U.K. we became well known and the club was packed out; we even had jam sessions in the small hours attracting jazz and blues musicians. An A&R scout from Mercury Records spotted us one night and offered us a deal to write and record an album, with one proviso, he wanted to expand the band and add an Organ player, we agreed apart from Alan Owen who sadly left the band. So now with new member Roy Quilley on Hammond Organ, we booked a rehearsal studio and wrote 8 or 9 songs in a week.
I had been writing lyrics for a few years and had an exercise book of ideas, the band wrote the bones of the songs, and I sang the top line melodies. It was quite amazing how well Roy fitted in; we had only just met but the guys were all great musicians and gelled immediately. In December 1968 we recorded the album in Studio 2 Regent Sounds Studios. The whole album took only one day, it was a Sunday, I can visualise it now, the band playing the songs live in the studio and me overdubbing my vocals nearly losing my voice in the process, a truly great experience. We were all very pleased with the result and Alan Parsons helped mix it (by this time he was George Martins 2nd engineer at Abbey Road Studios working with The Beatles). I still have the songwriting publishing contracts, one shilling in old money up front!
Did the band name ever come into conflict or overlap with the band ‘Earth’ that went on to become Black Sabbath?
This is where Ozzy Osbourne comes into the picture…just after the recording the band split up, we disagreed about musical policy with Roy, Barry and Phil joined another band and went pro and Alan Parsons was too busy at Abbey Road, so I was left with the only shellac copy of the album. I had a good job as a commercial artist at the time. I do think that Ozzy and co had seen us at the Coffin Club, liked the name and called themselves Earth. They later went on to record ‘Paranoid ‘and the Black Sabbath L.P. at Regent Sounds studios by coincidence and I wonder if they heard the tapes of our album, as one track I wrote ‘Angel of Death’ (I too was a fan of Aleister Crowley) could have given them ideas, I will never know!
Barry Mitchell went on to become the Bass player in Queen for a year. He left just before they had their first hit because they weren’t doing enough gigs. He could never talk about it, now very ill and living in a nursing home. Phil Brockton became a structural engineer, never played the drums again and died at the age of 47. I am still in touch with Alan Parsons who lives in Santa Monica.
During this time, I did many speculative designs for album sleeves for my favourite bands, I was a great fan of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and one night I saw that he was playing the Marquee Club in Soho. I Had designed some sleeves for his next LP to show the band so went to the club and sneaked in through the stage door while the band were bringing their gear in. The manager of the club asked me who I was and I said I had Artwork for Arthur Brown and he let into the dressing room! Arthur arrived, I showed him my designs, and he asked me to see him the next day at Track Records offices in Old Compton Street, he introduced me to Kit Lambert and they liked my Art. I did some more rough ideas for Track Records including the next Jimi Hendrix album, but nothing came of it sadly. Arthur Brown left the label, and the Jimi Hendrix album Electric Lady Land had the notorious nude cover!
The music business back them was very loose, everyone was hustling and winging it but it was an exciting time to be alive! I also pitched an idea for a new Beatles album sleeve. My design featured a Lunar landscape with the Beatles heads carved into a rock formation (like Mount Rushmore) , this was before the first Moon landing! I did get a thanks but no thanks letter from them (now lost) and that LP became The White Album.
How did The Earth (limited) edition LP come about via Record Collector? When were these recordings from? And why/how did they come out in 2015?
In 2015 I noticed an Ad in Record Collector Magazine seeking anyone who had an unreleased album from the 60’s / 70’s for their limited edition ‘Rare Vinyl’ series, that would be me then! I called Ian Shirley, the writer and expert on rare vinyl, told him about The Earth LP and took my precious shellac album to him and he loved it, the clincher being Alan Parsons, it was Alan’s first ever recording, Ian loved it and described it as Underground Blues/Rock – Proto Prog Rock! During our conversation I told Ian I wanted to do the artwork for the sleeve as I had by this time designed quite a few L.P sleeves. I came up with the name Elemental as the four original members of the band Astrological signs were the four elements Earth Wind Fire & Water. The design just appeared once my creative juices got flowing, the lyrics being the inspiration – UFO’s – Magic – the elements – and I begged Ian to get my black pen &ink artwork printed onto Silver reflective card, ala Wheels of Fire by Cream, it cost a fortune apparently but looked amazing. The limited edition of 500 sold out within weeks and had great reviews and I re connected with Alan Parsons after many years. Alan complimented me on the cover and invited me to Abbey Road studios where he was doing a gig talking about the recording of Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd ‘s masterpiece on which he was the engineer. During his talk mentioned the fact that his first band was The Earth and the LP had just been released after 50 years gathering dust, he made me take a bow!
You also had a period as Terry Tonik in the late 70s, which is a fascinating story. Were you surprised the initial single didn’t lead to a bigger deal? You obviously have fond memories of that period.
After the demise of The Earth, I settled in to married life working as an Art editor and illustrator for Hi Fi Sound and Practical Hi Fi magazine although I continued to write and record my own songs and send cassette demo tapes to record companies, I have a pile of rejection letters! 1971, I was introduced to Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash by an old school friend of his who I knew, we hit it off right away having similar working-class backgrounds and music taste. During the 1970’s I met up with Andy backstage at many Wishbone Ash gigs and we became good friends.
In 1979 I wrote and recorded a demo of a song I had written called ‘Just A Little Mod’ about my experiences as a Mod in the 1960’s, the ‘Mod Revival’ was in full swing and I had something to say about being an original Mod! I gave the tape to Andy Powell who played it to his manager John Sherry who was planning on forming a new record company and wanted my song as the first release. (The name Posh Records derived from the first 2letters of both their surnames PO SH). We used a small recording studio I knew called Gooseberry Studios in Gerrard Street Soho which was legendary as a rehearsal room in the 60’s, Led Zeppelin had their first rehearsal there in 1968 (around the time I was playing opposite at the Coffin!). The studio was also used by The Sex Pistols and Gary Newman who recorded Are Friends Electric and Cars there.
I wrote another new song – Smashed & Blocked – for the B side, Andy produced it, played lead guitar and got an amazing drummer and bass player in for the recording session. I now needed a stage name, after a long boozy lunch next day we came up with Terry Tonik, my brothers name was Terry and Tonik was the name of the Tonik mohair suits I wore in the 60’s. I had a photo session dressed in my mohair suit and became Terry Tonik.
I designed the logo for Posh records and the 7” vinyl single sleeve, I also wrote a one-off fanzine called Talkin’ ‘bout My Generation which was all about my favourite bands in the 1960’s which we sold separately. Safe to say the charts were untroubled by the release of Just A Little Mod so Andy decided to have another crack and I recorded 3 more songs – a cover version of the 60’s protest song Eve of Destruction and 2 more of mine, Lost In A World of My Own & Wishing Your Life Away, recorded at De Lane Lea studios in Wembley with my old friend Terry Murray on guitar and the drummer from Big Country. In 1994 Record Collector mag published an article about Mod Revival and included my single as one of the rarest 7”vinyls worth £25 (now changing hands @ £70)! They didn’t have a clue who Terry Tonik was, even saying they thought it might have been Ian Dury! …. I wrote to them and they published my letter. Since then Just A Little Mod along with the other Terry Tonik tracks has been released on C.D. by Detour Records ‘A Tonik For The Nation’ available on Spotify etc., also last year Mod writer Eddie Pillar included Just A Little Mod on his Mod Revival C.D. Box set, gratifying!
Had you been around much for the Wishbone Ash album Number The Brave, with John Wetton? Any recall on John with the band?
In 1980 I did more design work for Wishbone Ash and pitched some designs for what was to become the ‘Number The Brave’ Album all of which were rejected! I found out that the design company they used – Cream – copied a WW1 poster exactly and were paid thousands for it! I was introduced to John Wetton at one of their rehearsals in London, there was a lot of tension around the band at that time, bit of a transition period after Martin Turner left, John Wetton was only bought in for the recording of that album as far as I remember, he didn’t want to tour as I recall. I do know they paid a lot of money for the design of Number the Brave and many years later I found out that the design company they used – Cream – copied a WW1 poster exactly!
Were you around for the making of the album? (Any co-writes?) As it was an interesting period with Trevor Bolder on bass (ex Bowie, Uriah Heep) and producer Ashley Howe. Any stories?
I persevered offering ideas and finally got a commission for the new WA album sleeve. I met Andy at ‘The Sol’ studios in Cookham Berkshire (owned by Jimmy Page) during the Twin Barrels Burning recording sessions and showed him some rough sketches. The band decided on an image of twin exhausts on an American Hot Rod style car and arranged a photo session of the band posing with a Hot Rod car and with further research in magazines etc I managed to capture. I painted the designs (front and back covers) with gouache on art board. The whole thing took about 2 weeks including the lettering and artwork for the actual record label. They also used the artwork for the vinyl single ‘Engine Overheat’ and a cassette release. The band were delighted with the result and I got paid £800. I was pleased with that in 1982! The album was released on AVM Records Ltd, John Sherry’s new label and peaked at No.22 on the charts in the U.K. their last showing on the charts I believe.
I do remember going to Surrey Sound when they were recording the track “My Guitar” where I was introduced to Trevor Bolder who was very reserved, nice guy. I was a bit in awe as I was a huge Bowie fan! Stuart Copeland was around then; The Police recorded at Surrey Sound and Stuart was a good friend of Andy. I wasn’t involved with any songwriting on that album and the remix and new cover was probably because of a licensing deal later on?
You did a couple of other Wishbone Ash covers, such as Strange Affair and The Power of Eternity. Both kinda old comic book / sci-fi (?) Love the Strange Affair cover, kinda like an old Dick Tracy comic. Can you tell me a wee bit about these 2, such as where ideas came from, suggestions, techniques, antidotes….?
‘Strange Affair’ was recorded at Andy Powell’s house in Buckinghamshire. He had a barn in the garden and built a modest studio there. It was all a bit weird in that place, he was trying to sell the house and move to America where his wife and kids had already moved to. Ted Turner was back in the band and Martin was the recording engineer but things were difficult. They got a deal with IRS Records (Miles Copeland’s label) and Andy got me to design the sleeve, he gave me a free hand on this one and I only liaised with the record label people. Martin Turner tried to get me to use one of his ideas, it was very hippy dippy with angels wings and not my style at all. I didn’t know what to say as Martin was a friend too so it was a bit awkward, I just did something more in keeping with the title. I love comic book art and had a ‘Strange Tales’ comic from which I adapted the lettering. I came up with a kind of Spy image, two guys in a film noir style. I thought Miles Copeland would like it ( his father was in the CIA )! Again I painted it with Gouache on art board, the record company loved the design and said it was one of the best they had seen.
The ‘Power of Eternity’ name came about when Andy was speaking to his brother Len about having the power of attorney of his affairs, Len apparently said power of eternity by mistake! I had by coincidence written a song called The Power with new guitarist Muddy Manninen who had just joined the band after his friend Ben Granfeldt left WA ( both from Finland ). The green man idea was an image I had already painted, I have been writing songs and making paintings about the environment since 1989, showed Andy the painting and he liked the idea. I added the title to the painting in a simple tattoo style of lettering and it worked out well. That album was recorded in Finland, Muddy is a great guitarist and was a perfect fit bringing a bit of heft to the sound. The Power is the opening track on the album, Muddy and I wrote many songs for Wishbone over the next few years and continue our collaboration on his and my solo projects to this day.
The other cover you did of interest, was the Indian Summer release for Record Collector. This was quite a package, along with the cover, which was obviously inspired by the original LP cover, but also all the photos, and things inside. Do you recall how you created this one? Did you get any help or feedback from bandmembers?
The Indian Summer cover came about after The Earth was released. Ian Shirley liked my work and I designed covers for 3 more releases in the Rare Vinyl series – Flare – Small Town Scenery and Indian Summer. The only clue Ian gave me about Indian Summer were the words Cactus and Fox……. That’s all he said. I had never heard of the band, knew nothing about them and he didn’t play the original album to me, all I had was the original band logo, so I had to come up with something original for a triple gate fold sleeve. I decided on a desert theme and painted slightly surreal images in neon fluorescent acrylic paint; I later found out that the original album was released by Neon Records! I played with the images of foxes and cactus and particularly like the cactus as record deck, made me smile along with the fox urinating against the cactus! I never met the band and got no feedback or input, Ian got all the ephemera and photos together, a big project.
What else have you been up to in recent years? Any new art, music, or songwriting projects?
I never stopped writing songs and in 1988 began worrying about the environment, my daughter had just been born and I wondered what kind of world I was bringing her into. I knew a couple of musicians in Brighton where I was living and we got together and wrote some songs with an environmental theme which we recorded at Martin Turners home studio. I named the band Global FX but the world wasn’t ready for us! We did get an interview on Radio 1’s News Beat at Broadcasting House and an article in the Brighton Evening Argus as “the words first environmental band” – no one cared. Not to be out done I teamed up with a musician and computer geek and we recorded some house music with an environmental theme which I released in 2017 on Spotify along with a video.I was a huge Beatle fan in my youth and actually shook hands with all four at the first Beatles convention in December 1963 at Wimbledon Palais. In 1992 I wrote a tribute song for John Lennon called The Dakota which was recorded in Connecticut with Andy Powell on guitar which you can hear on Spotify. In 2005 I was invited was invited by the BBC to add to the 25th Anniversary tribute of John’s slaying on Radio 4. They played my song The Dakota.
I have written more songs with Muddy including one for his original band in Finland Gringos Locos who made a brief comeback with an album called Second Coming. Gringos Locos toured here in 1988 and supported Status Quo at Wembley Arena, made a few albums but same old story…..! Muddy has released 2 solo albums for which I wrote a song on each and got to sing on one track. He is living in the U.K. and still gigging.
I have worked in the creative arts since leaving school at 15 in 1963. I started out as a Commercial Artist in London, followed by a period in publishing as an art editor on magazines and then in the1970’s becoming a freelance artist, painting murals for quite a few musicians including in 1979 a mural for George Harrison at his mansion Friar Park Henley on Thames where I met George and told him we last met in 1963 at the fan club convention, he thought that was great! A lovely man.
In the 80’s I dabbled in the fashion world and had a successful company designing and manufacturing high end knitwear which caught the eye of the likes of Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Howard Jones and many more musicians here and in America.
In 1995 I gave it all up and got a place at Chelsea School of Art which was a wonderful experience and changed my perspective on art. I have been painting ever since and will continue until I drop.
Chrysalis Records are proud to present the latest in the acclaimed UFO reissue series: the classic 1981 album ‘The Wild, The Willing and The Innocent’.
Reissued on stunning 3LP tri-fold sleeve 180gm vinyl and 2CD Digipak formats on May 1st, 2026, the album now sounds more dynamic and detailed than ever, thanks to new remastering from the original tape transfers.
Originally released on January 16th, 1981, this pivotal album captures the band at a creative high point, blending soaring melodies, powerful performances, and Phil Mogg’s unmistakable voice. The lineup had modified a little with the debut of keyboardist/guitarist Neil Carter, replacing Paul Raymond. Carter also supplied backing vocal and saxophone on ‘Lonely Heart’.
Lead singer Phil Mogg recalled, “Neil had a box of tricks. Getting the backing vocals was great, though I still don’t think he’s forgiven me for making him play saxophone. He was a great add to the band. Plus, he was a nice bloke.”
Drummer Andy Parker said “Neil was just an incredible musician. He brought another energy into the band.
This deluxe edition also includes a brand-new mix of the previously unreleased Live at theHammersmith Odeon, recorded on January 29th, 1981, by Brian Kehew, offering an electrifying snapshot of UFO’s energy on stage. Original 7” edits of the two singles “Couldn’t Get It Right” and “Lonely Heart” released with this album are included as well as an alternative mix of album standout “It’s Killing Me”.
The set is rounded out with newly written liner notes by Michael Hann, featuring fresh interviews with Phil Mogg and Andy Parker, alongside a collection of previously unseen photographs from the era — making it an essential addition for fans and collectors alike.
TRACKLIST:
CD1 – The Wild, The Willing & The Innocent – 2026 Remaster
Chains Chains
Long Gone
The Wild, The Willing And The Innocent
It’s Killing Me
Makin’ Moves
Lonely Heart
Couldn’t Get It Right
Profession Of Violence
Couldn’t Get it Right (7” Edit)
Lonely Heart (7” Edit)
It’s Killing Me (Alt. Mix) *
CD2 – Live at Hammersmith Odeon, London, 29th January 1981 – Newly Mixed *
Long Gone
Chains Chains
Lonely Heart
Cherry
Mystery Train
Only You Can Rock Me
Too Hot To Handle
Lights Out
Rock Bottom
Doctor Doctor
Shoot Shoot
*Previously Unreleased
LP1 – The Wild, The Willing & The Innocent – 2026 Remaster
Chains Chains
Long Gone
The Wild, The Willing And The Innocent
It’s Killing Me
Makin’ Moves
Lonely Heart
Couldn’t Get It Right
Profession Of Violence
LP2 / LP3 – Live at Hammersmith Odeon, London, 29th January 1981 – Newly Mixed *
After disbanding 5 years earlier, and after a number of line-up changes, British progressive rockers ATOMIC ROOSTER were reformed as a trio with keyboardist and founder Vincent Crane was rejoined by guitarist / singer John Du Cann, and new drummer Preston Heyman.
This was the first Atomic Rooster LP I picked up, likely on a trip to Toronto, and out of curiosity, seeing as I knew nothing of them then, and this album never got released here. This would be the band’s heaviest and closest thing to ‘metal’, and having come out during the NWOBHM, I guess I can see where they got lumped in with the heavy metal crowd. But the interplay of Du Cann’s heavy guitar riffs and solos, with Vincent Crane’s 70s sounding Hammond organ, and the the way they feed off each other throughout this 10 track release, makes for a great album for the period, and an underrated gem in the band’s catalogue. Favorites include the lead off cut “They Took Control Of You”, “She’s My Woman”, “Don’t Lose Your Mind”, and the instrumental “Watch Out”. “Do You Know Who’s Looking For You?” was issued as the lead off single.
Last year Cherry Red issued a 2 disc set from this, which included the album, a couple of outtakes, some very good sounding demos, and a not so great show of the band at London’s Marquee, which included songs from this record mixed in with the Rooster classics. Again, not a proper pro recorded show, but listenable, and historically interesting for Rooster fans.
ATOMIC ROOSTER, one of the foremost heavy bands from the early Seventies, have re-formed with original members Vincent Crane and John DuCann. Their first single to be released by EMI is Do You Know Who’s Looking For You, followed by an LP, Atomic Rooster, in September. (Record Mirror, 08-02-80)
ATOMIC ROOSTER: ‘Atomic Rooster’ (EMI EMC 3341), By Malcolm Dome NO, ‘ATOMIC Rooster’ isn’t the greatest comeback album of ’em all and cynics will doubtless suggest that the reason for this once all -conquering band’s return from beyond the grave was something to do with the singular failure of its two prime protagonists, Vincent Crane and John DuCann, to make their solo mark. However much truth there may be in such idle thinking, the fact remains that this Is a worthy effort and a 1980 recording. ‘Do You Know Who’s Looking For You’ could almost be the Boomtown Rats with a glossy metallic sheen, so catchy Is the heavy melody, while ‘They Took Control 01 You’, taken at almost Olympic sprint – speed, Is propelled along by some vintage firebrand guitar work from DuCann and the slower, subversive ‘In The Shadows; allows Crane to stretch out a little on some claustrophobic keyboard passages. The album’s classic cuts though, are saved for the latter half of side two with ‘Watch Out’ proving to be a red-blooded and lar from pompous ‘theme tune’ that, given free-reign from the production viewpoint’ could Join Iron Maiden’s ‘Transylvania’ and The EF Band’s ‘Instrumental Dufort’ as the year’s most outstanding HM instrumentals. Finally, closing ‘AR’ we have ‘Lost In Space’, a spine-tingler, I assure you. All In all, the Rooster crow once again means happy listening, although in the final analysis I must admit to having serious doubts as to whether the Crane I DuCann re – alliance can sustain its initially promising momentum and EMI would have been better advised to Inject their sagging, moneybags into a younger, more long term prospect. (Record Mirror, 09-22-80)
ATOMIC ROOSTER Atomic Rooster. EMI EMC 3341. Producers: John Du Cann and Vincent Crane. The old ones are still the best ones, yet good though this reformation album is, they do not seem to know quite whether to return to their roots or become an out and out Heavy Metal band. No matter as they succeed on both counts and this should find them a whole new audience, while drawing back much of the old one, (Music Week, 09-13-80)
Legendary British rockers MAGNUM’s debut album was 1978’s Kingdom Of Madness. The band recorded throughout the 80s, took a break in the mid 90s, and returned in 2002. Aside from classic tracks like “Kingdom Of Madness”, “On A Storyteller’s Night”, “How Far Jerusalem”, “Days Of No Trust”, and many others, much of the band’s catalogue would become eye catching detailed works of art, created by Rodney Matthews, who started on the band’s fourth album Chase The Dragon, from 1982. He would do many others following that, particularly since the band returned in the early 2000s. Magnum’s last studio release was 2024’s Here Comes The Rain. The band’s guitarist & songwriter Tony Clarkin passed away just at the time of the album’s release, and the band took a long break. Before the year was out Magnum reformed to put on a number of shows paying tribute to Tony. Rodney Matthews also announced his retirement from creating artwork for album covers as well. Earlier this year Magnum released Live At KKs Steel Mill, recorded on the last tour with Tony Clarkin. Below I have selected 10 of my favorite Magnum album covers, mostly done by Rodney Matthews, but not all. I’ve left few explanations. Feel free to drop your own favorite Magnum covers in the comments!
I did not choose these based on my favorite Magnum albums, just the covers….(though the first 3 might happen to be in my top 5 Magnum albums).
Escape From Shadow Garden (2014)
Not sure what’s going on in many of these covers, usually a lot, with lots of details,
On A Storytellers Night (1985)
The first Magnum song I recall hearing way back would be the title song to this one. A fitting cover theme for the title.
Into The Valley Of The Moonking (2009)
The album that really got me in to Magnum. Love the circle frame, like looking into a crystal ball.
Chase The Dragon (1982)
Again, the first Rodney Matthews Magnum cover, and easiest one to find in Canada, which most of the band’s catalogue not getting released here.
Here Comes The Rain (2024)
The band’s last studio album. Love the idea and the colors.
Sleepwalking (1992)
I really like this one. Very colorful, different, a few references to other Magnum albums. A US flag (and “Only In America” single), despite not getting a North American release.
Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow (2007)
The first album of Magnum’s early 2000s return to feature Rodney Matthews work. Somewhat reminiscent if Storyteller’s Night.
On The 13th Day (2012)
Just like this one for the colors, the lettering, and the flag holding the title.
The Valley Of Tears (2017)
One of a few created by then-bass player Al Barrow. Love the concept and the colors in the the sky. Al also worked on a number of Magnum cover layouts, photos…..
Wings Of Heaven Live (2008)
The bands live recording from their 2007 of Wings Of Heaven (anniversary) tour, so it retains a few aspects of the studio album cover, again using the circle .
Hey folks, this is an interview I did with Peter Goalby on the occasion of his new archival album Don’t Think This Is Over. Kevin Julie has graciously accepted it for publication. It was a delightful, wide-ranging chat, but yes, if there’s any one thing I’d like you to gather from it, it’s that based on these songs, Peter should have been a big league songwriter to the stars, not to mention a famed vocalist past his well-graded run of three albums for Uriah Heep—enjoy!Martin Popoff
I guess to start with, why don’t you explain to me just a little bit, where these new tracks were recorded, like what sort of time period and what they were indicated for, I suppose. I mean, did you think you were going to end up in another major act kind of thing or were they going to be a solo album?
It’s exactly the same story as withEasy With The Heartaches andI Will Come Runnin’. After I left Heep, I tried various things to get back up there with the music scene. What happened was with the new album, which is obviously an old album, the songs are about 30 years old, just over 30 years old. And I signed a publishing contract and a recording deal with Rak Records in the UK; that’s Mickey Most. He was known for all the pop stuff, you know, Suzy Quatro, Mud, Hot Chocolate, all that kind of malarkey. Anyway, I signed with Mickey and we did we did two singles – both failed. But whilst I was under contract, I was on the publishing side of things, I was writing songs; that’s what I’ve always done, I’ve always written songs. And there was a falling out. He let me out of my contract. There was supposed to be an album. In fact, he did go over to America to sort me a record deal. And the story I got back from the people in the offices at the publishing company was he was offered a deal for me, an album deal, but they couldn’t or he wouldn’t agree with the terms. In other words, he wanted a lot more percentage than they were willing to give. And so, he walked away. Martin, that’s the story I got. So, the whole thing fell apart and that was the end of it. And I hand on heart, I totally, because I moved on, I was looking at other things as well. And those songs just got forgotten. And the reason that they reappeared is because the people that are looking after me now went to Rak Records and they said, would they consider releasing the songs? In other words, reverting the songs back to me, the copyrights, because they haven’t kept their side of the bargain. The publishing side of the contract was they would endeavor to try and get covers on my songs, from other artists, which they never did. So no, it was it’s called ‘non exploitation’. It’s in the contract that’s in my favor. In other words, if you don’t roll your sleeves up and do the job, the songs will revert back to the artists. So, it was absolute joy when Daniel Earnshaw told me these songs now belong back to Peter Goalby. I couldn’t even hum you a melody of one of them. I hadn’t got a clue. I mean, I’ve written a lot of songs anyway. I got an email and which said there’s a DAT been found in the offices at because RAK was sold and that whilst they were clearing everything out, there was a DAT and it hadn’t got a name on it. But somebody recognized some of the titles to be my songs. And in all honesty, I didn’t get very excited because I’ve heard all these stories and been there so many times before. But…I played the first song and I was absolutely delighted, I thought, my God, this is good. And then I played the second song and I thought. This is really good. After the third song, I thought, I don’t believe this. And I looked up to the sky and I said, thank you, God. I got my songs back, and not only did I get my songs back – they’re really good! I believe them to be very good songs. And for the time, if you look back and think of the late 80s when I wrote them and recorded them, and they still stand up today. We’ve done a lot of overdubbing. We put some good guitar work on there. And there it is – “Don’t Think This Is Over”. I’m absolutely thrilled with it, Martin.
Yeah, they are very solid songs. And you would think these could be absolute smash hits. How would you describe this kind of music if you were going to put on your rock critic hat? How would you describe these songs?
To be totally truthful, because it was what you got to remember, if you go wind the back, Easy With The Heartaches and I Will Come Running – All those songs would have been written anyway, whether I was in Uriah Heep or not in Uriah Heep. And most of those songs would have ended up, as I believe most of the songs or some of the songs, on the new album would have been treated differently because Mickey and the guys would have recorded them a lot heavier. A lot heavier. I mean, if you look back when we did, for instance, Bryan Adams “Lonely Nights”, it’s a pop song. But if you if you get the right players playing the song, it takes on a new meaning. I totally believe that I automatically write commercial songs. I can’t get away from the fact that I started off in a cover band singing everything from “My Way” to all the pop songs of the day when I was 17, 18 years old. And so I naturally write with introductions, with verses, with chorus, with middle eight, what I call a proper song. And part of the magic, and a lot of the magic that we had with Uriah Heep was. I would take a song, for instance “Too Scared To Run”, and I wrote “Too Scared To Run” two years before I joined Uriah Heep, but when I joined Uriah Heep and I did my audition, and I don’t know whether you know the story (?) – I’d already auditioned the year before, and it didn’t work out. Anyway, the second time around, when we were in rehearsals, I said, why don’t we try a song from scratch? In other words, I can sing “Gypsy”, I can sing “Easy Livin’”; I can sing pretty much all the stuff that they’ve done, we did it. So, we all started at the same place. And they automatically played “Too Scared To Run” in a lot heavier vein. And so I believe, the stuff on this album that’s coming out now, as we speak, it’s AOR. That’s what I think it is.
Were any of these (on the new album) worked up with the band? Were any of these put through the paces with the band, towards the tail end, say Equator, were any of these ever put through the paces by the band?
No. All of these songs were written after I left Uriah Heep. There’s nothing… I wrote “Blood Red Roses” for Mickey after I left. He phoned me up and he said, “We’re doing a new album. Have you got anything that would suit?” And to be totally truthful, I hadn’t at the time. But within about three or four days, I consciously sat down and I thought if I was still in the band, what would I like to put forward as a song? So, I wrote “Blood Red Roses”. But everything on this – my third solo album now, and every song that is on these three albums were written after I left Uriah Heep.
Did you have any interaction with Ozzy on losing or gaining Bob Daisley?
No, not at all. I didn’t know Bob previously, so there wasn’t really a relationship outside of the band, if you know what I mean. But Bob’s great. Absolutely fantastic. I love him dearly. And him and Lee were just fantastic. But going full circle, that’s what the point I was trying to make about 10 minutes ago. It’s because people like Bob and Lee and also John Sinclair and Mick, they think in a heavier vein than I write. And I think the magic that we had was because of what I do is a bit poppy in construction wise – and what they do is heavy. And the two meet, and then you end up with a song like “Too Scared To Run”. I could play you the original version of “Too Scared To Run”, and it’s nowhere near as punchy and as heavy. It’s exactly the same; It’s exactly the same words. It’s the same melody. It’s the same guitar riff. But it’s the way that these rock players, the professional, what I call ‘rock players’; it’s the way they interpret the song. I think that’s what the winning formula was. Definitely.
If Bob, Lee, Mickey and John had worked on the songs on this new album, they would have been a lot heavier. I mean, this album is a bit heavier than my last two in that there’s not so many keyboards on this album. Mickey loves the new album. In fact, I sent Mickey “Sound Of A Nation”, one of the tracks, because I could picture him doing it. not in the exactly the way that I’ve done it, but again, a far heavier version, like a rock anthem.
I knew Ozzy quite well. I’ll tell you a story about Ozzy because at the time we were doing Head First and Bob was splitting between us and Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz. And he was in the band, then he was out of the band. And the one day we were in the studio with Ashley Howe and I’d just done the vocal on “The Other Side Of Midnight”, from Head First. In walks Ozzy absolutely out of his tree, drunk with Bob. Bob was practically holding him up. And I’ve met Ozzy before and. They sat down and Ozzy had got a bottle of whiskey in his hand he’d walked in with. Well, I say a bottle of whiskey, about a half a bottle of whiskey, because half had gone. They sat down and I’d finished the vocal, and Ashley was playing it back and fiddling with something. I don’t can’t remember what he was doing, but he played” The Other Side Of Midnight”, and at the end Ashley pretended that it was a guide vocal. And Ozzy said, Fucking Hell! That’s a fucking guide vocal? I can picture him saying it right now. It wasn’t, it was the actual master vocal, and it was a fabulous vocal. And he took a swig of the whiskey. And, you know, like in the cowboy films and they take a swig and they screw the face up and say, “Oh God”(?) And he said, I hate this. I said, What!? He said, I hate drinking this stuff. I said, Well, why do you drink it? Then he said, I love what it does to me.
Was Ashley part of the heaviness because Abominog is recorded pretty harshly, right? It’s really exciting and visceral and distorted. What did he do to make that album sound as heavy as it did?
I think each member of the band would discuss the sound – like Bob, Ashley would say, I’m going to get you a good bass sound. So, Ashley would get the bass sound for Bob and said, Bob, what do you think? And Bob would say, yeah or nay. And in fact, another very quick story on Head First on “The Other Side Of Midnight”, you’ll notice the bass is quite actually too loud that was because Bob was in the studio when Ashley mixed the song. And when he was doing when he was doing the final mix, Bob leapt up from the seat and just pushed the fader up on the bass. He said, turn the bass up. It was a team effort, Martin. I mean, Abominog and Head First were both team efforts. There was just a great atmosphere. There I say there was no leader, Mickey Box is a born leader, but he doesn’t know it and he doesn’t show it – If that makes any sense to you. He doesn’t rule with a rod of iron, but he just suggests, well, what if we and let’s try it like this or whatever. But as I was saying, had the Heep lineup played this album, the songs would still be the same songs, but the solos would be heavier. The bass line would be. I mean, it’s a drum machine on a few of the tracks that wouldn’t be there, obviously. You’d have Lee thundering through. And if we were at a rehearsal, Bob and Lee would lay the scaffolding down and it would be a far heavier scaffolding than what’s on my album.
Peter on stage, 1981, photo Lynn Everett
It could be a nice story that two or three of these show up on the next Heep album and it gives everybody something to talk about.
Yeah. I mean, the reaction to the album…I’m bound to say this anyway, but hand on heart again, I’m absolutely gobsmacked. People really do get it! John Sinclair iiplayed on “I Don’t Want to Fight”, In fact, John rearranged “I Don’t Want to Fight” for me. It captures the time. “Heart What Heart”, it sounds ridiculous, but I wanted to write a song… My favorite singer in the whole world is Dusty Springfield. Somebody told me that Ian Gillan (?), (another singer?), Dusty Springfield is their favorite singer as well. I can’t remember who it was…It was somebody out of a big band.
Ian might’ve said that…
And I was absolutely thrilled to think, well, it’s not just me.
How about did to what extent did Bob Daisley write any of the lyrics through those Heep albums?
Bob played a big part of the writing of the lyrics of the album. I wrote that it was Bob and I. OK. No one else. We wouldn’t let anybody else touch. The thing is, at the end of the day, Martin, I’ve got to sing those words. And Bob and I would sit down together in a quiet room and we’d work, work on the song together. As I say, it’s me that has to stand there and sell the words. So, it was me and Bob.
Any interesting stories of how you picked any of these cover versions on the album, the Russ Ballard song or…
Totally down to Ashley. Ashley had got a nest of songs, even before I joined the band. Ashley was such a massive part of Abominog. It was almost as though it was his baby. He obviously had plans even before I joined. Whoever had gone into the singing seat, I think it would have still ended up exactly the same. The band were under a lot of pressure. I don’t know whether I should tell you this, but obviously you want to hear it….when I’ve told it anyway. Mickey was given a whole bunch of money for Abominog. I mean, at that point, it was just the next album.
He had to put the band together. He had to sort the whole thing out. And a lot of the record advance had been already been spent when I joined. And so, we were in a bit of a dire straits situation, which nearly spent all the money. And we hadn’t even started the album. We were under a lot of pressure.
What were you paying for, like paying flat sums to the new members or..?
Yeah, and the rehearsals and the gear and all that. And to be fair, there are probably a lot of bad stories about Gerry Bron. But to be fair, as Mickey always pointed out, Gerry Bron always put his money where his mouth was. They never wanted for anything. So anyway, there was a lot of money being spent, and they hadn’t even got a full band together. He got Lee and Bob and then he got John. When they asked me to join, I was going to America with Trapeze at the time. And I said I was flattered, and I would jump at the job. But the problem was I’ve got to go to America for six weeks. I thought they’ll find a singer easily, but I went to America for six weeks, and before I went, I said, if you hadn’t found anybody, I would come down and rehearse and see if we could make it work. When I came back from America, I’d been back a couple of weeks and Ashley phoned me, and he said, “Do you want this fucking job or not?” That’s exactly what he said to me. Yeah. And I said, “sorry, but I thought you’d buy now you would have found a singer”. And he said No. Do you know they auditioned 84 singers!? It’s a fact. I’m not lying. Ask Mickey. They auditioned 84 singers! But, all of this time was going by, and Mickey was spending more and more money trying to hold the thing together. So, when we finally got a line up, when I actually joined the band, we were under so much pressure to do an album for Gerry Bron to recoup some of his money. Had had we been given the time to write more songs there would have been less covers. But to be truthful, Ashley and Gerry Bron had a vision, had a picture of making the band more commercial. So, we were on a bit of a loser because everything that we wrote. Gerry would say No. too heavy. And Ashley would be saying, “I’ve got this song …this would be perfect”. So I think between Gerry and Ashley, they steered us in the direction of a lot more commerciality. They wanted us to go to America and sell the band in America. Gerry and Ashley were a massive influence on not only picking the songs, but the whole direction of it all.
To what extent was anybody in the band aware or inspired of this great New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement around you and how you guys could fit inside of that?
Consciously, no, because we were automatically part of it. I remember when I first started rehearsing with the band, I used to stand there, Martin, and I’d think, wow, let’s just listen to this. It was just fantastic. And the band naturally played in the direction of what was becoming very fashionable. Again, I keep mentioning Ashley’s name; Ashley was such a big part of it all, but obviously the actual playing was down to the players. And I think we were all influenced consciously or subconsciously just by standing next to a jukebox in the pub, and you’re listening to Bon Jovi coming on and all the all these different bands. We used to do a lot of festivals and with Lemmy and Motorhead and all those guys. So, I think it just rubs off. I don’t think it was a conscious effort at all.
Looking back, I don’t think we purposely said we want to try and sound like this. Ashley might have thought that, and Ashley might have pushed it a little bit, to the way that he and Gerry wanted things to turn out. But we just played what we played. I was very proud of what they did to my songs, because there was “Too Scared To Run” and “Chasing Shadows” were my songs. It’s just the way that they played them.
Absolutely. What else would be a favorite of a Heep original on here and why?
“Think It Over”. I love that song. I didn’t know that already bloody recorded it. No one told me. I didn’t know, but they’d recorded it a year before with John Sloman. I thought it was just Ashley bringing in another cover. I love “Prisoner”. What I do get an absolute fantastic buzz from is when I, if I go on onto YouTube and put on one of those songs on and see the comments that people have put underneath. And they get it. And it really touches me that people get what we were doing.
It’s interesting. I like what you said about Ashley. I mean, the covers fit perfectly. And then if they’re steering you a little bit to, you’re less all-out heavy metal originals, that now melds with the covers and then there’s a couple pretty heavy songs on there still. So, you’ve got this nice range where it’s and we know the UK, and Kerrang, they love their AOR music, their American influence music. And then obviously there’s going to be a big hair-metal explosion soon. So, this is like a perfect proto-setup for that big hair metal explosion kind of…
As I say, direction-wise, we were just playing the way that we played. If we were pushed at all, it was Ashley that was pushing. He had a picture; he had a vision for this album. He wanted to take the band out of the 70s and put the band into the 80s.
Did you guys talk about the album cover?
Oh no, I Hate it. Absolutely.
What did everybody say about it, and how did the dialog go to come up with that?
I think we were all too polite to say, it’s yuck. I think what happened was because of Bob and Lee, and because of Bob and Lee’s background with Ozzy, the people that were doing the artwork for the album probably…I wonder, in all honesty, whether they actually listened to any of the songs, because I don’t think they did. Because if I was an artist, doing an album sleeve, I’d listen to the songs, and I wouldn’t come up with that picture. Would you?
Exactly. And how about the title? Where does the title come from?
Bob Daisley, I think it started off with ‘Abomination’, and it was taken from there. Maybe what went wrong was Bob did the title, and then the people looked at each other over the table and said, What picture can we put with this!? But to be fair, we were all too polite. Nobody would stand up and say, “Well, I don’t like it”. They’d say What do you think? Well, it’s okay. We were more interested in the music. I certainly had no say at all in the sleeve. And I think pretty much everybody in the band were in the same situation. I think it was just presented and we thought, well, yeah, we’ll go with that, not knowing that in a lot of areas, it probably did us a lot of damage, because a lot of people would look at that sleeve and think and run a mile. They’d run away and say, no, no, no; they would have this vision of some death metal band, which “Prisoner” and “The Way That It Is” certainly aren’t (haha). To be fair, it sort of worked against us, but it also worked for us, because here we are today, 40 years later, or whatever it is, and we’re still talking about the sleeve,
I think it gave you guys an extra little link to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. You’re part of this trend that’s, going strong for three or four years?
Yeah.
What is that story of your interaction with Rainbow?
Well, I’ve never told the story, and really for two reasons. One, because I was embarrassed. I’ll tell you the story briefly, and at the end of it all, I felt that I’d failed, and it wasn’t something that I really wanted to talk about Martin because it hurt. I was with Trapeze, and I was sat in my apartment, (or my flat) at home, and the phone rang, and the voice on the other end said, Is that Pete? And I said, Yes. He said, Pete, this is Richie Blackmore. And I said, Fuck off. Who is it? And I tell you I thought it was; do you know John Thomas of Budgie?
Yeah…
I thought, because we all knew each other, and we’re all from the Midlands. I said, Fuck off, John. He said it’s Ritchie Blackmore. I was given your name, and he told me who, somebody given him my name and my phone number. And then I thought, Oh shit, it is Rittchie Blackmore.’ He said, the reason I’m calling you, I’ve heard a lot about you. A lot of people are talking about you with the stuff that you’ve been doing with Trapeze. He said, Would you be interested in joining my band, Rainbow? And I nearly fell off the chair! And I said, Yeah, I would. Things weren’t going very well with Trapeze, which is another story, (but we haven’t got time for that). We had a five minute chat, and he said, Have you got anything you can play to me? And I said, What now? And he said, Yeah. I said, Over the phone?, and he said, Yeah. I said, We’ve just finished the Trapeze album called Hold On. And I said, I’ll play one of the tracks off that album. On the Hold On album there’s a fantastic song. (I didn’t write it Mel Galley wrote it) it’s called “Don’t Break My Heart Again”. And the song comes in two sections, there’s like a slow, bluesy section, and then it goes into the proper rock version of the song. I said, I’ll play this song, I put the album on, and I put the phone to the speaker, and the song is six minutes long, and I thought, by the time it’s finished, he’s probably gone. At the end of the song, he was still there. And he said, Would you like to come to New York? And I said, Yeah. When?, he said Tomorrow? I went to New York. ..I’ll have to speed it up, because we’ll be here five hours, because I was actually in the band for two months, I never told anyone…Well, they never told anyone. Anyway, I went to Connecticut and rehearsed with the band… And the bottom line was, I got the job. I was told to go home, and Bruce Payne, who’s the manager, would call me, which he did. I was on the payroll. To me, that means I’m in the band. I went to Roger Glover’s house. We did a demo of “Since You’ve Been Gone”. I can’t remember the time frame, but I think it’s over a couple of months. And then we went to Geneva to start recording Down To Earth. Okay? We arrived there and spent a few days doing nothing. And to cut a long story short, one night, about 11 o’clock, somebody came to say, Ritchie wants to rehearse now. And so I thought, Well, what are we going to rehearse? I didn’t even know what we were going to rehearse anyway. Anyway, that was the way he worked. He spent three or four days in the bedroom coming up with ideas, and then he’d bring it to the rehearsal. I found it all very bizarre in that we went down into the rehearsal room, and they all just started playing and expecting me to start singing. And I thought What(?) I’d never worked like that before Martin. I would learn a song or sit down with an acoustic guitar and go through a song and say yeah, yeah, yeah, and learn it that way. Apparently, I didn’t know at the time, but I’ve learned that since they just expected me to make something up on the spot. And I can remember Don Airey looking at me and laughing and mouthing as though he was singing, and he was saying to me, just sing anything. He was trying to help me. Martin. And I thought, How bizarre!? So, I started coming out with something from The Exorcist (haha). I mean, no melody, and no idea how the song is supposed to go. Not even time to sit down and think, it was just start singing, just do something – which I did, and I felt absolutely stupid doing it. We did that for, I can’t remember how long(?) And it could have been an hour, it could have been two hours, I don’t know… Anyway, the next morning there was a terrible atmosphere. And Roger Glover came to me and said, Ritchie’s not happy. and I said, Well, I’m not happy either. I said, I don’t know what he wants…I can’t work like this. I haven’t got a clue what you want me to do. And at that point, Roger said, You’re fired!
That is ridiculous. Like, just a little bit of warning, a little bit ‘Okay, this is how we’re going to do this’. It would have solved everything, right? You’re just blindsided..stupid. (PG -Yeah) I can understand what they’re doing, they’re looking for a vocal melody or whatever, and you’re just supposed to scat over it or whatever…
What he didn’t realize was, I can write songs. The way that I put things together is I put a framework up and I get an idea. I totally get if Ritchie plays a riff, but you don’t need the whole band blowing the roof off for me to try and think of a melody. You sit in a bedroom. I can do all that all my life. I’ve written a few songs.
And what hour was this? What time was this?
Oh, 11-12, o’clock at night.
And you’re in Geneva. Is this like Mountain Studios or…?
No. It’s a chateau, with a drawbridge, moat, castle – the whole shooting match. We’ve got Jethro Tull’s mobile studio outside. We’re there to make an album. And not one of us knew what the fuck we were doing.
What a story! That’s ridiculous.
So, the day before I was fired, to pass the time away. I used to have a go on Don Airey’s Hammond organ. I can’t play, but I can put things together, and I’d work it out. I’d got an idea for a song, funnily enough… Anyway, when Roger said to me, You’re fired. I said, Why can’t Ritchie fire me? And do you know what he said? what he said was Before you go. can I give you a message(?) Ritchie said, “Do you know that riff you were playing on the Hammond organ? Could you show Don before you go?”
Unbelievable! So crazy. That’s just so rock and roll, right!? It’s like you’ve got these employees, just give them a little bit of guidance…Just give them a little bit of encouragement of how this is going to go, right!? You may hear from me at 11 o’clock tonight, or whatever, anything, right!?
Yeah. I mean, I haven’t gone into the other all the details. I’m just telling you a part of it. I’m not telling tales, I’m telling the truth. And part of the reason why I’ve told the story now is because somebody asked me. Nobody has ever asked me, what happened. So, I don’t mention it. “Oh Peter’s embarrassed. We don’t want to upset Peter”… And I had to come home and tell my wife, I’d been fired, and it broke my heart. I honestly don’t believe I was treated very fairly. I can sing for fuck’s sake, I’m a singer. I didn’t go for the job with Rainbow, Rainbow came to me.
And you’re a writer, and you’re a writer!
Yeah, but I’d never worked like that. I know that the likes of Aerosmith, Steve does that kind of thing, they write in that fashion. Somebody will come up with a riff,
But their nightmare story is they have to do that because Steven will do the lyrics at the very last minute, and they’re just trying to get the lyrics out of him. So that’s really problem there. That’s one of the reasons they keep fighting and breaking up all the time, and albums never happen, is because they can’t get the lyrics out of Steven.
So, to me, it was, it was like me landing on another planet…with the best intention.
I don’t want to keep you forever…
Do you want me to sing you a song!? (LOL)
What was the environment making Head First? And what is your feeling of that album versus Abominog?
I love both albums. The biggest mistake we made or in the four five years that I was with the band is changing producer. I don’t get that to this day. I just don’t get why we didn’t use Ashley. It was madness.
You mean on Equator!?
Abominog and Head First were like brother and sister. Just stop and think for one second, the way Ashley recorded, and the way those two albums sounded. Now, picture the songs on Equator, but recorded in the same way, they would have been fantastic. I wrote Equator. I wrote practically every song on there. I get if you don’t like the songs, I have to take the blame. But I’m not taking any blame, because if you go on YouTube, there’s some live stuff, there’s some live versions of some of those songs from the album, and Martin they’re good. They’re plenty good. But it was the whole way the record was recorded. The sound of the album is foul. I can’t even listen to it. And that was one of the main reasons why I left the band. I was so upset and disgusted with the whole… I mean to be fair to Tony Platt, Tony to this day, hand on heart, swears that’s not his mix. He believes that they lost the final mix to the album, and somebody did a very quick mix of the album. Now, I don’t know. I’m embarrassed by the album, not by the songs. I do believe that most of the songs would have been absolutely bang in line with what we’ve already done on the first two albums, had we had the same producer. And as I say, it’s just such a disappointment that Equator, it just sounds bad.
The sessions were fine. You got along with Tony through the recording?
I got on great, absolutely great. But at the end of the day, firstly, it sounds like it’s in mono. I don’t get that. Why would you do an album in mono? And Tony said he wanted to sound the band to sound authentic, like they would live. That’s complete bollocks. Why would you not want to make an album in stereo!? And, why would you absolutely drench everything in reverb? We’re not Def Leppard, Def Leppard is Def Leppard, Uriah Heep. Is Uriah Heep, I don’t want to beat Tony Platt up. I really don’t, but I just don’t get why that the album sounded so bad. But as I say, as far as the songs are concerned, I have to take pretty much most of the blame, because I wrote them (haha). Okay, I’ve got pretty much all the songs written. John Sinclair and I went and hired a cottage, and just John and I put the songs together and moved keys around, and did all this, that and the other. And then we took pretty much the whole album to rehearsals. Everybody in the band was, well happy with the material. Nobody said, Well, we don’t like this, or we don’t want to record that, or why don’t we record one of my songs!? Or we’re recording too many Goalby songs. Everything was fine. It’s all on paper, it all worked, but by the time we came out of the studio, it didn’t sound anything like what we thought it was going to sound like. But it was too late, as I say. Apart from the fact that we were working too much, too many gigs, that was one of the reasons why I thought I can’t do this. There’s got to be something better, and to be totally truthful, when I left, I honestly thought that I would walk into another gig, and the phone never rang. And it took me about 12 months to realize the phone never rang because the story was put out that my voice had gone my voice never fucking went anywhere. I lost my voice in Australia. I got laryngitis. When you nothing comes out, just air. I got that, and the doctors made me have four days off. And in the four days off, I wasn’t allowed to speak. And in those four days I thought, I’m not going to do this anymore. So, when I left the band, firstly, they didn’t believe me. I can remember Lee, Lee said, Oh, come on, we’re going to Russia soon. I said, I’m not fucking going to Russia. I’m not going and they thought I was just going through a bit of, you know, at the time, we didn’t know what it was, but I did have mental health problems. I have to put my hand in the air, because after I left the band, I did have a bit of a breakdown. But I think that was partly, because my whole world had fallen apart. But I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing in the way that we were doing it… So anyway, I’m going backwards.
So, did you tour Equator a fair bit?
We did some dates in America. We did a few dates in England, and live the material went down great. That wasn’t the problem.
Where did that title come from? Or where did Head First come from?
I think Head First came from Bob. Equator,i t may have come from John(?) I can’t remember, to tell you the truth.
I like it. It’s a cool title..
Some people don’t like it.
The album cover’s all right, too.
Again, we got a lot of snip, because the album sleeve was shit. I don’t think it was shit. It depends what you’re looking for.
Head First is a little more high-fidelity than Abominog, and you went to the Manor for that, right!? Any good stories about working at the manor versus the Roundhouse?
Well, the Manor was a far, far better environment. The problem with the Roundhouse was because Gerry Bron was the manager, and because Gerry Bron was the record company, and because Gerry Bron owned the studio, every time Ashley did a mix of a song. Gerry would say, No, mix it again, because every hour that we spent in the studio, guess who was getting the money? Gerry Bron! So, what started off that might have cost 60,000 pounds, because he got Ashley to remix the album about four or five times (lol), it cost’ about 150000 pounds! So, we were well pleased to get out of the Roundhouse. Again, to be fair that was down to Ashley. Ashley refused to work at the Roundhouse because he knew what the problem that we’ve got, Gerry Bron would have a so far in debt that would never make any royalties. But the Manor was a far, far better situation. I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
That’s right. If he’s getting paid for everything, no matter what advance he gives you, he’s going to recoup. It’s like he’s just paying himself, right?
Yeah! And then after Abominog was a big success and sold. I mean, you might know better than I. I haven’t even got a clue how many albums we sold. We were never told. I know it was a lot. And you know what Martin!? never got a penny.
Wow! If I was to guess, just estimate, off the top of my head, I bet this went over 250,000 in the States. I bet you could add another three to 400,000 in Europe, you know, mainland Europe and UK.
That’s the exact number – 700,000; that’s the exact number that I’ve got on my gold disc on my wall. But I guess that. I didn’t get the gold to pay for it. I paid for it myself.
I think that number sounds sensible.
Yeah. It could have been more. It could have been more.
Yeah…Japan, maybe 50…
And we never received a penny. He put Bronze into liquidation. Because…not just us, he had Motorhead, Manfred Mann, he had quite a few acts on there, and he used the record company money to start his Airline, and that went through the floor. And so, nobody got paid. So, from Abominog and Head First, none of us got any money.
Who did you tour with for these records?
In Europe it was always the same team. We’d go and do festivals nearly every weekend, nearly every weekend we’d be in one European country or another. There’d be Ian Gillan was solo at that point. Gillan would be on the bill Motorhead. Gary Moore, anybody that was successful at the time. And then in America, Judas Priest, I mean, the Mickey and the boys are still touring with Judas Priest to this day. Joe and the boys, Def Leppard, that was great. That was a fantastic time for us when we toured with Def Leppard. Just wonderful, wonderful people. When we were doing the stadiums in America with Def Leppard, and when we’d have our soundcheck in the afternoon, they would be playing football in the auditorium, and Joe used to walk up to the stage and say, Play The Wizard, Pete! They were big fans of Heep, the early Heep stuff like “Gypsy” and “Easy Livin’”, and all that. We got on great. We used to do the radio interviews in the afternoon, and Joe and I, or Phil and I would travel in a taxi together; we were just like family. It was just fantastic. We did the Texas Jam… Funny enough, we did, I did, I think it was 81 or 82, with Trapeze, and a year later I did it with Uriah Heep. And so there were all sorts of bands on there. One story that I like telling in Europe, we were always headlining. And the one festival that we did, it was from all day Saturday and Saturday evening, and all-day Sunday. And we’d played somewhere on the Saturday night, we drove through the night to the town where the festival was, and we got into the hotel about seven in the morning. At about 10 o’clock in the morning, I was woken up by this guitar-riff. And you remember “Radar, Love”, by Golden Earring(!?) You know the guitar at the beginning? I was fast asleep in the hotel, and it felt like the walls were shaking. The festival had started. They were first on it was about half past 10 in the morning, and I was lying in the hotel bed thinking, fucking hell! And you know what I thought, Martin, I’ve made it! I’m listening to Golden Earring live, and I’m not on until half past 10 tonight. And I just felt so proud.
It’s just always stuck in my mind. But as I say, I loved being in the band, but I hated all the rest of the stuff that went with it. To tell you the truth, I hated traveling.
Was that laryngitis, you say Australia, were you in the middle of a tour?
Yeah. We’d done Australia the year before, and we’d done really, really well. We did loads of television shows out there, and we did something like 30 live shows, yeah. And then a year later, our manager said, We’re sending you to Australia. And I said, I don’t want to go, because I saw the dates. I saw the dates. There were 42, shows in 36 days. 42 shows in 36 days. (Wow). I complained and complained and complained, and I actually said to the manager, Harry Maloney. If you send me to Australia, I’m going to quit. I’d already had enough, because this is Equator, remember all the shit going on with Equator. Anyway, they sent me to Australia. We were about to two-thirds of the way through the tour and Lee Kerslake took me fishing, sea fishing one afternoon, and whether it was the sea-air, I don’t know what it was, but I came from fishing into the gig, to the soundcheck, and I started singing, Martin, and nothing came out. I’d got no control over it whatsoever. And I thought, I’m in trouble.
How do they not know that you can’t put a lead singer through that?
Well, it’s the old story, you know, maximum three on – one off. Maximum! My world record is 16 back to back. I stood in the Hamburg Hilton with Gary Moore, and he came up behind me and kneed me in the back of my leg on it, you know, like when you’re kids, we call it dead-legging. And Gary Moore dead-legged me and I turned around, ready to kill somebody. And he said, Hello, Pete. And it was Gary Moore, and he said, How are you? And I started talking. He said, Fucking Hell, man. How’s your voice? I said, I’m struggling, Gary. I said, In fact, tonight… he said, Are you’re playing tonight!? They were all there for a TV show. There was loads of bands. And he said, Are you not doing this TV show!? I said, No, we’re actually playing live tonight. And he said, Are you going to be okay? And I said, I’m going to have to be. I said, This will be 16. He says, 16 shows back-to-back? And I said, Yeah. He said, I tell you something, Peter. He says, You ought to fucking sack your manager!? And I said, Well, funnily enough, Gary, meet Harry! (Harry was stood next to me) That’s a true story. It was a circus. Martin. It was partly our own doing, because we were really popular, and we could play anywhere in the world. You could go to any country in the world and say, you Uriah Heep. Oh, right! People know. They’re aware of the band. And that was the problem, you know!? And as I say, 16 shows back-to-back. We once did 23 countries in 30 days! That’s a lot. And people say, Why did you leave, Peter? And then I’ve got to live with the fact that because I’d left, the story was made-up that my voice was fucked. If my voice was so fucked, how come I’ve done three albums since!?
Singer Peter Goalby is mainly known for years during the 80s fronting Uriah Heep, with whom he recorded 3 albums, and prior to that a few years with Trapeze, where he recorded one studio and one live album. But in-between there, very briefly, Peter was chosen to sing for another, bigger band, at the time. His time with Rainbow didn’t last long, and he’s often (if at all) merely mentioned as a footnote as someone who auditioned for the band. Goalby’s story of that time, and his first ever detailed recollection of that period is a very fascinating read. Peter recalled it all to myself and Peter Kerr (Rock Daydream Nation). The 3rd part of this article contains questions (from Peter Kerr & myself), answered by PG.
Please note, Peter has wanted to tell this story for a long time. I know he has a very good memory of his career, and fine details. This is his account being told for the first time. It was a long time ago, and it came at very busy period in his career, while he was still with Trapeze. He would soon record a project later in 1980 under the name ‘Destiny’, followed by Trapeze tours and a live album. By late ’81 he was ready to step into the role of lead singer for Uriah Heep. Ironically, the 1982 album Abominog, a fantastic album, was comparable in direction (that American Hard-rock/AOR) to what Rainbow was also recording during the early 80s with Joe Lynn Turner. So, frankly, I don’t see how Peter wouldn’t have been a good fit for that band, but oh well….On to Peter’s story….
My Audition / Initiation
The day before New Years Eve, sitting in my unfurnished flat (apartment) in Wolverhampton phone rings – “Hello is that Pete?” , I said yes, it is. “Pete this is Ritchie Blackmore “, Fuck off I said, who is this? I thought John Thomas from the band Budgie; he was a prankster.” Pete, its Ritchie really (LOL) “He said I “got your number from…” I can’t remember who he said but I thought, ‘Oh Its Ritchie alright’.
“Would you be interested in joining my band, Rainbow? I have heard a lot of great things about you and your work with Trapeze. Mel Galley is gonna hate me even more if I steal you That will be twice.”
We chatted for a few minutes and then he asked, ‘do I have anything I can play to him?’ I said I have a copy of the new Trapeze album Hold On, “I can play you a track down the Phone(?)” I played him “Don’t Break My Heart Again” (phone to the speaker). It’s 6 minutes long, I thought he will have hung up by the end. “Are you still there?”, I said. “Very much so. Would you like to come to New York? “, I said ‘yes when’. “Tomorrow”, he said.
I was told to arrive at Euston Train station. I would be met and taken to the Airport. I was given a ticket and some money and put on a plane
(In New York) I was detained at the Airport upon arriving and taken to a back room where I was questioned and my luggage searched. They thought I was trying to work in the U.S I said I was there for an audition. I was asked who the band was. I said Rainbow. One of the security guys said Ritchie Blackmore(?), “then re pack your case you can go”.
I was met by a member of the Rainbow crew and taken to the Holiday Inn, Connecticut. I was there on my own for 2 days waiting for someone to greet me. I spent New Years Eve on my own, well me and the barman in the hotel.
Next evening I was in the Bar and who should walk in – Cozy Powell (LOL). Then in walks Don Airey (LOL). WE all got on great from the off. I had met Cozy before.
I said, ‘where is Ritchie?’, I was told he lives next door to the hotel. So, I had been left on my own for 2 days with Ritchie living next door celebrating the New Year. I was starting to get the picture and the way they all spoke of Ritchie, he was the Boss for shit sure.
Ritchie walked in the bar with his then very large breasted girlfriend, and we spent the evening talking – me, Ritchie, Don, and Cozy. I can’t remember when Glover arrived.
We arranged to meet for rehearsals next morning.
Down To Earth (with a Bang) LOL
I arrived at the Geneva; the place was incredible with a Moat and a Drawbridge, WoW.
Don arrived soon after me, we got on so well it was all fantastic. There was a guy called Jack Green there he was the new bass player, as Roger Glover was producing Down To Earth he was not playing – only producing. There was a mobile Recording Studio outside belonging to Jethro Tull. All the band gear was set up in the Dining Hall which was the size of a banquet Hall.
Cozy arrived, he was such a compete gentleman, he was such a complete person he really was great.
We were all there for a couple of days before Ritchie arrived with the girlfriend. He spent a few days in his room only coming out to have meals. We had a Cook living in with us. From time-to-time Ritchie would come out and ask me and Jack to write some lyrics for an idea he would have. Then he would say forget that one. “Can you do some words for this?” That would be another Idea he would be playing. I was finding it frustrating as we did not seem to be doing much at all. I used to have a play on Don’s Hammond organ to pass the time. We were all just waiting for Ritchie. After a few days Ritchie had come up with some riffs. One night about 10.30 to 11pm I was going to bed and was told Richie wants to rehearse now. I foolishly said I was about to go to bed. Never mind. We went down into the Dining Hall They all started jamming led by Ritchie showing them the ideas he had. I was expected to just sing something over them. Something I had never done before. I was used to having a structured song to sing knowing the melody etc. I just looked at Don thinking ‘what the fuck does he want’. So, I started warbling some nonsense. So, we did this for some time. Don was looking at me and encouraging me to sing anything by pretending he was singing. I found this all a bit bizarre. Next morning there was a bad atmosphere from the off. I did not see Ritchie at all. Roger said “can we talk in your room”. I said of course.
Roger said Ritchie is not happy. I said neither am I. I don’t know what he wants I am not used to working like this. Roger said you are fired. I said couldn’t Ritchie face me and Fire me himself.
Roger said I will take you to the airport now. So, I went and told the guys I was fired they were shocked. Ritchie did not even come to say goodbye. He did send me a message through Roger, he said You Know that riff you have been playing on the Hammond could you show Don how it goes before you leave? On the way to the Airport Roger said did I know any good bass players as Ritchie was not happy with Jack Green either
I was given no reason other than Ritchie was not happy.
It later transpired he was not happy with my vocal range he said my top note was an A which is not true as the world can hear on the Heep albums I did.
I did not apply for the job in Rainbow I was invited by Ritchie Blackmore after listening to me singing “Don’t Break My Heart Again” by TRAPEZE I made no claims about my vocal range.
I am very happy to finally tell the true version of my very very brief time in such a great band
Peter Goalby 09-09-2025
Did you talk for a while with Ritchie before having a sing?
It was all quite natural mainly down to Cozy being such a great and honest guy (what a lovely man)
What was he like?
Ritchie enjoyed being Ritchie and enjoying being number uno.
Were there any band members at this first meeting? Describe the rehearsal with the band? What songs did you play? Any of your originals or non-Rainbow songs were played?
A tiny rehearsal room. I was stood facing Cozy when he hit his bass drums My jeans blew back at the ankles LOL, He was making me laugh to make me feel at home. In fact, Don was the same very friendly as if they were relieved, they had got me there.
WE did “Long Live Rock and Roll”, I enjoyed that, not too many words LOL
I think Cozy said “we have this song demo with a girl singer”. He said Ritchie does not like it, but the record company want us to do it as a single. I said it’s a great song. I think. We ran through it. I can not remember what else we did. I kept thinking this is me singing with Rainbow LOL.
Did you get a good vibe as to how things were going?
I got great feedback from the guys they were talking like it was a done deal. Like I said I felt they were relieved they had a singer. Ritchie was very reserved I think that’s how he liked people to see him.
What was said at the end of the play through?
All very positive but what was weird is It was as though I was in, but no one said You are our new singer. I was given a plane ticket and told Bruce Payne (manager) would contact me, which he did when I got home. I was put on the payroll. I think it was £2000 per month. Little knowing it was to last only 2 months at that time. Bruce said we were to do a demo of “Since You Been Gone” at Roger Glover’s house, which we did. I remember Ritchie playing the wrong chords when we were recording LOL.
Then the recording date for the album was announced and I went off to Geneva to the chateau.
Did you think you would be offered the role?
Of course. I would have been great in that band
I am curious – Had you told anyone on your side (bandmates, management) that you were off to NY to possibly join Rainbow(?)
I did not have time; I was called and then the next morning I was on a plane. I only told my wife, I don’t think she believed me at first. And Then I told her I got the Job then a couple of months later I told her I was FIRED LOL
What were you up to when Ritchie called? Was there a Trapeze tour being planned or any other recordings?
I was in my apartment (flat) with no furniture I can’t remember what was happening with Trapeze. I had just got the first copy of “Hold On”, the Trapeze album. Thank you, Mel, for writing the song that got me in and out of Rainbow LOL.
Considering Ritchie was concerned about image (i.e. he hated Graham Bonnet’s short hair and choice of clothes). Did any appearance or image stuff come up?
No, he knows a star when he sees one LOL.
Was your audition or time with the band given any press treatment? Ie: photos taken, bios written, or mention in the press?
Only my local town paper; I was on the front cover if I remember correctly.
Did you really get to talk to Ritchie much at all? (Even in the bar) And was it all business?
I did talk to him, yes, I did get on with him socially. But then again, I get on well with everybody.
“And we had a singer called Pete Goalby, who did great things with Uriah Heep, but he didn’t quite get what Ritchie was going on about” – Don Airey (Rolling Stone)
“I was the one who helped talk Ritchie into doing it. His manager Bruce Payne NEEDED A HIT SINGLE. We did a demo at Roger’s house with Jethro Tulls’ Mobile.” – PG
PETER GOALBY & GRAHAM BONNET
There is one song that ironically both Peter Goalby and Graham Bonnet sang, and that is a cover of Paul Bliss’ “That’s The Way That It Is”, which I’ve put below. The song appeared on Bonnet’s 1981 album Line Up, as well as Uriah Heep’s 1982 album Abominog, and released as a single in both cases. Interestingly, Bonnet also covered Argent’s “Liar” (written by Russ Ballard) on that album, while Goalby had sang the song years earlier as a demo for his band Fable! Abominog would instead feature a different Russ Ballard track, “On The Rebound”.
I could not find any songs that both Goalby and Bonnet’s successor in Rainbow – Joe Lynn Turner both sang, but both Heep (w/ Peter Goalby) and Rainbow (w/ JLT) both took a similar direction in the 80s, which is discussed with Martin Popoff in an episode of History In 5 Songs – https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/history5songs?selected=PAN4285683323
Goalby’s post-Heep solo recordings are also much more in the 80s AOR style that would’ve definitely suited either Foreigner or Rainbow in that decade (Ironically, Goalby’s name came up when Foreigner was looking for a singer when Lou Gramm left the first time, but not bigger discussions or offers came about). But check out tracks like “Take Another Look”, “Waiting For An Angel“, or “It’s Just My Heart Breaking” and “Show Some Emotion” (from his upcoming 3rd album), they would sit comfortably on an 80s Foreigner or Rainbow album, IMO. As for the one ‘new’ song that Goalby sang with Rainbow, “Since You Been Gone”, no recording from those rehearsals exists, but both Bonnet and it’s writer, Russ Ballard, both have new versions of it in 2025.
My friend Boris Shnitzer from Israel has been a lifelong Uriah Heep fan. What is most interesting about Boris’ huge Heep collection is his focus on collecting variants of his favorite Heep album – Salisbury (the band’s second album, from 1971). It’s Boris’ Salisbury collection that got me wondering how one gets in to such an extreme collection of one album. Heck, I know many Heep fans have multiples of various favorites, and I people who know think I’m ridiculous having about 20+ copies of Demons And Wizards, but clearly I am small-time! Boris discusses his Heep and specifically, his Salisbury collection below. And in his latest emails, Boris has since gained 2 more unique vinyl copies of Salisbury!
How and why did you start collecting Salisbury variants?
I had this idea to frame the Live 73 inserts to put on a wall. So, I bought a few copies of the album, and I basically figured out that there are different releases. Before that I had all Heep albums, but one copy was good enough for me😉 So I started to buy some other copies of Heep albums, and got infected by the collecting virus. For several years I bought all things Heep, vinyls, various compilations, CDs, cassettes, posters, whatever. At some point I saw I don’t have too many copies of Salisbury, and since it is my favorite album, I decided to concentrate on it. The idea was not to have as many as possible copies, but as many as possible different releases, noy only vinyl, but also CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks,7-in. I would ask sellers to provide info on the albums, so I can figure out if it’s something I don’t have already.
Why (presumably) is this your favorite Heep album? and is it the only one you collect to this extreme?
Salisbury is my favorite Heep album because it was the first Heep album I bought when I was 16, and it made me a Heep fan. Something on that album hooked me on the first listen. I even started to learn English more seriously because I wanted to understand the lyrics.
It is the only one I collect to this extreme, thou I do have 20-25 copies of some other Heep albums, practically at least several copies of each album.
How many copies do you have (LP, CD, cassette, 8-track, reel to reel?)?
148 different copies on LPs (various countries, various years, various labels, etc.). 25 copies on CD, 24 cassettes, 6 8-tracks, 18 7in singles.
As far as I know Salisbury was not released on reel to reel. I think only Live 73 and Sweet Freedom were released on RtR. I have the Live 73 one, but never came across the SF.
Can you pick a favorite copy of the album from your collection (either for $ value or for personal reason) ?
I don’t really look at it from a favorite point of view. I would say the favorite copy is the first one I bought, an Israeli pressing from 1973, which made me a Heep fan.
What is the rarest copy of Salisbury you have?
I don’t know. Not sure what might be considered as a rarest one. Maybe the Vertigo mono pressing from Colombia. Probably the rarest are the ones I don’t have😉
Is there many more variants (in all formats you’re still looking for)? and is there a ‘holy grail’ copy of Salisbury that you still would like to find?
I wish I knew for sure. I suspect there are some more, like Yugoslavian or Turkish, other Heep albums were released in those countries, but I never encountered a Salisbury. Maybe more from South America.
A holy grail? I don’t look at collecting so zealously😉 Maybe the 17inch metal master, I saw it once, but wasn’t able to buy it. I guess it’s a lost cause😉
* Thanks to Boris for his replies, photos, And the Heep LPs from Israel I received a few months back, great additions to my collection.
Outsider Rock 