MetalTalk - Issue 2, November 2021

METALTALK WE PU BL IS H RO CK ‘ N ’ RO L L • Vo lum e 1 • Num be r 2 • Nove m be r 2 0 2 1 • £ 1 . 9 9

BLOODSTOCK 2021

Judas Priest kick off their 50th anniversary tour

+ Doro Pesch:

“I don’t know if I was lucky, but I could tour with my favourite bands in the world”

INTERVIEW: Ben Savage Tracii Guns• Stiff Little Fingers • Chris Dale • Toby Jepson • Inglorious Yngwie Malmsteen • Iron Maiden • Cats In Space • Vetrar Draugurinn Foo Fighters• James Kennedy • Steve Hackett • Bokassa • Tremonti

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

METALTALk Number 2 • NOVEMBER 2021 • Price: £1.99

METALTALK www.metaltalk.net

CONTENTS

editor: steve ritchie steveritchie@metaltalk.net management team: pete wilmott p.wilmot@btconnect.com ian sutherland iansutherland@metaltalk.net

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Steve Göldby stevegoldby@metaltalk.net Design: steve ritchie Advertising / marketing: editor@metaltalk.net GIGS: gigs@metaltalk.net Website: www.metaltalk.net this issue: Robert Adams Dave Bonney Brian Boyle Mick Burgess Johnny Churchill Kahmel Farahani Jools Green Sara Harding John Inglis Sid Kissinger Brandon Metallicast Paul Monkhouse Sally Newhouse Miriam Ritchie Steve Ritchie Mark Rotherham Ian Sutherland Robert Sutton Mark Tedder Shannon Wilk MetalTalk ISSN 2754-0480 71 Somers Road Welham Green AL9 7PT

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4 Ben Savage, Whitechapel 8 Tracii Guns 10 Stiff Little Fingers 12 Doro Pesch 15 Chris Dale 15 Inglorious 24 Toby Jepson 28 Bokassa 30 Yngwie Malmsteen 36 Album Reviews 42 Vetrar Draugurinn 46 Steve Hackett 48 Foo Fighters 50 Cats In Sapce 53 11 Questions 54 Bloodstock 62 Memories from the pit

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 PHOTO: JOHN INGLIS

8 - Tracii Guns

We’re back in business. Having signposted better times ahead in our first edition thanks to the vaccine rollout, I’m excited to be able to say that we have been safely enjoying live music again.

Read on for live reviews of our friends in Inglorious, Steve Hackett, Cats In Space, and the Foo Fighters from across the pond, tearing up Connecticut.

There’s been high drama too from our cover star, Richie Faulkner, who hit the headlines at MetalTalk twice this year.

Once as the star of our massive weekend coverage of Bloodstock, where Judas Priest kicked off their 50th-anniversary tour.

Then again, this month, with the terrifying news of Richie’s aortic rupture while playing the Painkiller solo (and not missing a note!) at the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky.

Now stable and recuperating at home, we wish Richie, now actually partly “made of Metal,” a speedy recovery and send our best wishes to him and his family.

In this edition, I am also excited to introduce a broad range of unique features and interviews, from classic artists Toby Jepson, Doro, and Tracii Guns, to up and coming stars Bokassa, James Kennedy and Whitechapel.

Furthermore, MetalTalk’s bassist in residence, Chris Dale, remembers

his extraordinary trip to Sarajevo in 1994 with Skunkworks which led to the award-winning documentary film Scream For Me Sarajevo.

of the most highly anticipated and well-received albums of the year, we also explore Tremonti, Sodom, Joanne Shaw Taylor, George Lynch and many more.

We didn’t forget the reviews, though!

With so much new music released this I hope you enjoy this edition of Metalyear, how could we? Starting with the Talk. Until next time. big one, Iron Maiden’s Senjutsu, one Steve Ritchie 3

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

BEN SAVAGE

WHITECHAPEL Whitechapel will release their highly anticipated new album Kin on 29 October 2021.

Ben Savage, lead guitarist and founding Whitechapel member, discusses Kin and their previous album, The Valley, which saw the band begin their transformation from their oncedeathcore sound to a more melodic Metal sound One thing which stands out about Whitechapel is that they have had the same lineup, apart from drums, since Zach Householder joined in 2007.

“I guess we’re all fans of each other,” Ben told MetalTalk. “Well, we are all friends, a brotherhood.”

The youngest in the band, Ben loved to see concerts when he was young. “I had seen Alex and Zach perform. They were in a very popular local band. There are deep roots with us, and we just let us be ourselves.”

With three guitarists, Whitechapel uses this sound to its maximum. “We all complement each other. It fills in the cracks with our songs.” Live, it does sound extra powerful. “With recordings, we have left and right panned and centre guitar parts. We can pull off re-

cordings live and keep the power and energy.”

The three guitarists, Ben Savage, Alex Wade and Zach Householder, are joined

by Phil Bozeman on vocals, Gabe Crisp on bass, and Alex Rüdinger, now the band’s permanent drummer.

The previous album, The Valley, was very well received and showed significant development of the band’s style.

Hickory Creek was a great song to play live. “That was a big one,” says Ben. “I always look forward to playing that one. It is definitely a good vibe.”

An acoustic Hickory Creek version was released earlier in the year, which had all clean vocals and marked a significant change from the band’s deathcore background of the early days. Ben is happy with how that was received.

“Our fans, they respect the stories and the intent set in The Valley,” he says.

“So having an acoustic Hickory Creek just felt like a nice little easter egg or a little cherry on top from The Valley.”

The Valley was a concept centred 4

around Phil Bozeman’s childhood. With that album, the Whitechapel sound went in what some have called unorthodox direction but is, in reality, a natural way bands develop as they grow over time.

“The Valley was a vital record for us,” Ben says. “Probably the most important of our career because it bears the seed of what became Kin. We knew we wanted part two of The Valley story.

“From that perspective, we could make the structure to the music fit that heavy subject matter. We could get more dramatic with the songs, having a very beautiful sounding part, and build to this cathartic climax.

“We could explore more, and we wouldn’t have been able to do that if we hadn’t released The Valley. With the power of that story and everything involved, it really helped.”

Kin finds the band still nicely brutal in places. The Ones That Made Us is a real eardrum blasting heavy beauty. History Is Silent has a nice acoustic mellow build-up, before Phil sings “sad to

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

BEN SAVAGE

“Kin is the continuation of the VALLEY story.

It is going to be exciting.”

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 say, I crave my grave” and then bang, a wonderfully brutal finish. There are many more layers to the songs, and it is pretty fantastic.

“It makes for a more interesting listen, having all those parts in it,” Ben says.

“It reels you in.”

The enforced shutdown of the music industry helped the band focus on the new album. “We’ve been on this kind of train ever since we started,” Ben says.

“We have released seven albums and toured behind every one of them. So, having an album that we could completely focus on helped a lot.”

Whitechapel followed the creative process of the last four albums, all of the band in the same room writing together. “We all social distanced,” Ben says.

“We were kind of in a bubble, and it worked in the bubble too.”

Ben’s wife Jillian created the artwork for the Kin album. It contains the valley point in there, making it very much the successor to The Valley.

“Kin has two personalities growing from what was The Valley,” Ben says.

“Whereas The Valley was like the story of a true event, Kin is happening inside.

Jillian did the beautiful artwork, she’s very scholarly, and she knows what she’s doing.”

It is a very impressive piece, and it is one of those things that you’re not going to get the same effect with the CD as you would with that great big bit of vinyl. It was made on 12 inch square canvas.

“So if you get the vinyl, it’s the same exact size as the actual work. It’s really impressive looking at it close up because each dot was hand-poked, so you can really see each one has a little personality in it.”

The artwork shows Jillian must have the patience of a saint. “Yes,” Ben agrees, laughing. “It took her a month for eight hours a day.”

Kin has some outstanding songs. Lost Boy is a fantastic example of the band’s development. Heavy to start, the track moves through the clean vocal section to a rip-roaring Ben Savage guitar solo outro, with Phil singing, ‘we’re in this together; you’re mine forever.’

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“I felt, in the beginning, I wanted to imitate what Phil is first singing, ‘underneath my shadow is a snake.’ That melody was a starting point for the solo, and then I just kind of went from there and improvised until the end.”

Anticure has an epic quieter opening and builds beautifully. It is an excellent example of how the different vocal styles fit together.

Ben shoves a fantastic Eddie Van Halen guitar squeal about two-thirds of the way through. “I love those things because it cuts right through the mix, and you can get wacky with it. It just sounds unhinged. “ On Orphan, Phil sings, ‘it’s just the way it is. How did I find myself to be so pitiful and vulnerable?’

“Orphan is a slower emotional song with another fantastic guitar solo section,” Ben says. “That solo, I could hear the melody in my head at the beginning, and I had worked out the first 15 seconds of it, and then, just improvised.”

Ben took some lessons with “one of my favourite guitarists,” Jake Cinninger

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 from Umphrey’s McGee. “He taught me a lot of cool guitar tricks to use, so I definitely applied it over the record.”

But improvisation is Ben speciality, and he works with Mark Lewis, who is producing his fifth straight Whitechapel album.

“He will tell me if it’s good or not. We go back and forth.”

The trio of songs that complete the album begins with the wonderfully picked acoustic guitar in Without You, which then moves into the thunderous opening riff of the next track, Without Us. “The acoustic guitar part is just a rendition of the chorus on Without Us,” Ben says. “There is different chording underneath it, different phrasing with the guitar, so it sounds like a different song, but it’s the same melody as the chorus of Without Us.” Without Us is a massive piece, quite goosebumpy. “Phil came up with that opening idea, the chugging,” Ben says.

There are pounding tom-toms, with the song then breaking into halftime.

“Phil was really adamant we could turn this into something cool, so we took it and wrote a song around it. It was, honestly, the hardest song to write for the record and the longest we worked on a song.”

The band cut some parts, trimmed up the original version, then added a bridge section which brought the song home “and made it more dramatic.”

“That song is the big battle,” Ben says.

“The story of Kin is linear. It starts from the beginning and tells it through to

the end. So Without You and Without Us, that is the battle of the two cells in hand, coming to a head.”

“I just started with a little acoustic guitar riff that my wife liked. I just took that and wrote the song around it.”

The track Kin closes the album. Two minutes, 40 seconds of heartfelt loss with the lyrics, some beautiful guitar and a drummed fantastic riff, and then the most melodic solo build for a further three minutes.

Whitechapel has a couple of US tours lined up for next year. They have played Bloodstock twice, and Download and signed with a top European booking agent, pre-COVID-19, following the success of The Valley.

This is a beautiful song and an awe-inspiring way to end the album.

This raises hopes that in time we will see the band this side of the pond.

“Kin means related to,” Ben says. “It is Phil and his evil self, as from The Valley.

He created two personalities, evil and his true reality.

Kin promises to top the success of The Valley. “We’re very excited for everyone to hear it,” Ben says. “Our fans loved the Valley. That was the best response we’ve had for any of our albums.

“So this is his true reality telling his evil self to go separate ways and dissolve.

“The music is reflective and builds into this big solo, which feels like it’s tearing apart, they’re tearing apart. They are separating, and there is a finality in the story.

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“Kin is the continuation of the story. It is going to be exciting. It’s like watching Kill Bill One, and then Kill Bill Two comes out, you know? You want to see it.”

• Steve Ritchie

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

IN MY OWN WORDS

My new album, Sunbomb:

When Frontiers asked me if I wanted to do my record, I said yeah, but I had no idea what I would do. I could have done something mellow, but as a guitar player, my thing is Metal.

Tracii Guns, co-founder of Glam Metal pioneers L.A. Guns

So my wife and I were doing Sunday drives up the coast listening to only Metal and discovering different things. No matter what I was listening to, it was all influenced by The Scorpions and Randy Rhoads.

You can’t get away from those influences. So I started demoing stuff, and I had three or four tunes, and I thought this is great, but who’s going to sing this stuff?

I’d recently met Michael Sweet and seen him play live at The Whisky, so I sent him a demo. He asked me, “What’s this?” and I said, that’s me.

Do you want to sing on that? He said yeah. I said, ok, what about eleven of these? (laughs). He said, “I’m in”.

It took me another year to finish all the music, and then it took him another year to write all the lyrics and record it. I never even heard a demo of what he was doing!

When songs started coming back, it was like Christmas! We did a successful collaboration, and I couldn’t be any happier with it.

The future of the music industry: I think that things will go back to some sort of normal, but I don’t think they will ever be the way they were before the pandemic. Right now in The States,

for example, you can play half-capacity shows or full capacity if you’re in the south where they don’t care about the pandemic. We won’t partake in that. We have a responsibility to our audience.

The creative comeback of L.A. Guns: The element of creativity and having a good time with it is what fuels authenticity. As long as we’re enjoying it, it is going to show. That’s the benefit of having a band of guys and a crew that are like family.

It’s interesting why the new live re8

cord, Cocked and Loaded Live, is coming out. We had a deadline to turn in

“We’re proud of how we sound, and I think Phil has taken care of his voice. We still care. We have to be L.A. Guns.”

PHOTO: JOHN INGLIS

TRACII GUN

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

NS

our new studio record on 1 November last year - it wasn’t possible.

The label needed to put something out, so I called my manager and asked, “didn’t we multi-track that live stream? I’ve got to listen to it.”

It was pretty damn good! It’s something I’m proud of, and I think L.A. Guns fans will love to have a live version of Cocked And Loaded.

We’re proud of how we sound, and I think Phil has taken care of his voice.

We still care. We have to be L.A. Guns.

I’m glad we have the live album because I had to re-learn a lot of that stuff. Like the solo in Magdalaine, it is so fast! It was such a pain in the ass to learn for one gig.

But now we have it on record, so it was worth putting the time into it.

That was a good album, man! Listening back to stuff like Showdown, like 30 years later, I was like, damn, these guys were good.

The new album Checkered Past comes out on 12 November. We put out the new single Let You Down about two years ago, and the fan response was immense.

It was surprising because most L.A. Guns fans want that riffy, powerful rock, but I just had a feeling about that song.

So going into Checkered Past, I made sure there was more of that ambient sound. Then the hard-hitting rockers are on a new level. The chemistry evolves. Stylistically, it is broader, and

IN MY OWN WORDS it is a different mood to The Devil You Know.

The formula is Phil Lewis - going from Cocked and Loaded to Hollywood Vampires. I knew that we could pull that off. As long as Phil is singing, that’s the continuity factor.

With Zeppelin, The Stones or Van Halen, those bands got away with musical murder because the vocals were the identifying factor.

On Eddie Van Halen: Eddie Van Halen and I became golf partners in the early ‘90s - we had an enjoyable relationship. I met him because he had heard this King Biscuit Flower Hour recording of L.A. Guns.

and an engineer. He ended up abandoning it and getting Andy Johns to do it, and they replicated that method for the guitar.

After that, you can hear Eddie had this more stereo sound on the Sammy era records. We had fun - he was a great guy.

On playing with Poison: C.C. had left Poison to do his project called Samantha 7, so the guys in Poison all called me back to back. The interesting thing was, we started rehearsing to write.

We go in, and Bob Ezrin is there. He is going to produce the next album.

My girlfriend at the time got home and hit the answering machine; “Hey Tracii, it’s Eddie Van Halen. Could you give me a call?”. She said that’s Eddie.

I said no, it’s not! (laughs). Eventually, I realized it was him and called back.

The thing is, we’re kind of musically incompatible - Bobby has a way of writing, and that’s cool because that’s Poison, but I couldn’t add any musical sophistication to it. Bob Ezrin was pulling me outside going, “I don’t know how we’re going to do this”.

He said, “Hey Tracii, what are you doing? Want to come up to my house?

I’m trying to mix this live record, and I got hold of the engineer that did your live recording.”

I ended up getting sick with the flu on the fourth or fifth day, and during that break, Bob decided he didn’t want to do the project and that it wasn’t for him.

I went up there, and Sammy Hagar was there too. Eddie handed me this cassette and said, “what’s going on with the guitar right there?”

After the new year, Bobby called me up to talk about payment. Like you want a percentage of the gross, or can I pay you ten million a week in cash?

I was like, Jesus, you guys make that much money? [laughs].

Back then, I had a stereo guitar sound where one side was dry, and the other had a chorus. What happened was that when we went to mix, the chorus track wasn’t recorded properly, and we had to reconstruct it.

We had gotten to that point, but all of a sudden, C.C. freaks the fuck out and says, “you can’t have Tracii in there.

It’s my band.” I get it.

Being in a mobile truck, I didn’t have all my guitars or pedals, so we just added a harmonizer to that second track to replicate what I had done initially.

The thing was, I had cleared my schedule of over a year of L.A. Guns shows.

Bobby called, and he understood they’re great guys, and we’re all long time friends.

It ended up sounding cool. So I told Eddie what we did. He was trying to mix Live Without A Net, just himself

• AS TOLD TO KAHMEL FARAHANI

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Stiff Little Fingers

Stiff Little Fingers are important. Formed in 1977 at the peak of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, SLF reflected the feelings of youth from ‘The North’, and cities throughout the rest of the UK. Speaking about the growing disenchantment , singer and guitarist Jake Burns told The Guardian in 2003: “Because that was the overriding reality of life in Belfast for a teenager in the mid-70s.

Not the fear of riots or bombs or whatever. It was the sheer tedium of having nowhere to go and nothing to do.”

One of their greatest songs, Alternative Ulster, is mostly about being bored.

Numerous other punk classics had that very sentiment at their core.

Burns was joined by guitarist Henry Cluney, Ali McMordie on bass and drummer Brian Faloon.

Stiff Little Fingers had developed from a covers band called Highway Star, named after the Deep Purple track, with the new name purloined from a song by the London-based punks The Vibrators.

Their big break came in 1978, courtesy

of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, whose repeated playing of the first single, Suspect Device, would lead to the first album, Inflammable Material, released through Rough Trade.

The album hit number 14 in the UK album charts, prompting a relocation to London. However, this led to drummer Faloon leaving the band.

Although their home gave some source material for songs, SLF remained famously non-aligned.

Burns told The Vice, “We were either adopted equally by both sides or just ignored equally by both sides.

“The band was made up of both Catholics and Protestants, and we were always very open about that.

“We never made a point of taking sides.

It’s a style of writing that I’ve adopted, where I will point out problems”.

The direct, fierce, unafraid songs from 10

albums like Nobody’s Heroes and Now Then, about conflict and social injustice, continued until the band split in 1983.

At the time, Burns stated that Now

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 Then would be the best album the band would ever make.

Stiff Little Fingers, Rockpalast 1980

It’s alleged that fisticuffs became the decision-making process in the band, forcing the split.

But SLF is still going. Burns often recalls bumping into Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott in London when both parties bands looked like they were going down the tubes.

Having adjourned to the pub, they decided that they just had to keep going, as being in bands and performing was all they knew.

Since reforming in 1987, enduring numerous personnel changes, including, for a time, Bruce Foxton of The Jam on bass, Stiff Little Fingers are still out and since 2006, original bassist Ali Mcthere, and they’re still angry.

Mordie back on bass.

The subject matter has widened to in- Despite making classic albums, which clude domestic violence and depres- will be around forever, SLF’s real home sion, Jake Burns having personal expe- is on stage, on tour. rience of the latter.

Live, they’re an immersive experience There’s not a lot of songs about fluffy and everyone in the venue, for a couple kittens. These are songs to sit up and of hours, is in the band. take notice of.

Their latest release: Live at Rockpalast The current line-up is Burns, drummer 1980 and 1989, is a triple-disc affair, Steve Grantley, guitarist Ian McCallum two audio CDs, with a DVD of the 1980

performance. This is the earliest official video release of a full concert.

Jake Burns remembers, “The place was packed, and the audience was with us from the first note.

“They were wonderful, singing and bouncing along. It really felt like a ‘home game’ to use a football analogy”.

The production on this album is outstanding, and the DVD, in particular, is really well put together. Rockpalast was a staple of German TV at the time.

A young fifteen-year-old went to one of these early gigs back in Belfast.

Arriving frightened, having travelled through the city, a risk back then, this young lad’s eyes were opened up to possibilities of someone like him making it. He did.

That young lad was The Almighty/Thin Lizzy/Black Star Riders frontman Ricky Warwick.

A few years later, his legendary work ethic would see him promoting a solo album by supporting Stiff Little Fingers on a tour in 2016.

He even wrote one of the songs on his album with Jake Burns. Crazy days.

Stiff Little Fingers are important. They always have been.

• MARK TEDDER

Stiff Little Fingers, 2021 11

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 PHOTO: STEVE RITCHIE

DAVIDSTONE DORO PESCH

TRIUMPH AND AGONY Doro Pesch, the Metal Queen, talks about her time in ‘80s New York writing the Triumph And Agony album with Joey Balin, the challenges of having Für Immer included on the record and how one of her songs was the first to include three languages.

It is impossible not to be swept along by the Metal Queen Doro. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and the passion with which she talks about her near fortyyear career is wonderfully abundant.

The albums Burning The Witches, Hellbound and True As Steel led Doro to become the first woman to front a Metal band at the Monsters of Rock festival in Castle Donington on 16 August 1986.

“It started for us in ‘86 when we played the legendary Monsters of Rock festival in Germany and Castle Donington England,” Doro told MetalTalk. “That was for us the most important day.

We did not know that at the time, but people started to give us a chance. We hopped on tour with Judas Priest, who were my favourite band. We went on tour with W.A.S.P in the UK. I’m a big W.A.S.P fan, and that was awesome.”

Triumph and Agony followed in Septem-

ber 1987 and would propel the band to even greater heights. “We could then tour with the legendary Ronnie James Dio,” Doro says. “I couldn’t ask for more.

I don’t know if I was lucky, but I could tour with my favourite bands in the world, Aerosmith, Motörhead, Saxon.”

gan advising her and later became her American manager. “Alex was from Switzerland. He could speak German and English,” Doro says. “I had had a hit, so Alex connected me with some people and suggested I check out the Metal scene, clubs and record stores.”

Doro was a big Kiss fan. “Gene Simmons produced one of our records, and it’s a dream come true every day. Still every day.”

Doro was introduced to Joey Balin, who would subsequently produce Triumph and Agony, and the pair explored New York. “I was in heaven,” Doro says. “Record stores opened 24 hours in New York, and I’m a big vinyl collector, so that was awesome. Joey was a musician, a little bit older than me, and a nice guy. We checked out the clubs.

Triumph and Agony was recorded in the US, but Doro was across the pond on a short promotion tour before that.

“We were meant to stay for three dates, but after two, I knew I wanted to stay,” Doro told us. “Everything fell into place.

I got hooked up with great people, but I wanted to have an American manager.”

With a German manager already on board covering Europe, Doro found Alex Grohl, a psychologist, who be12

“I don’t drink much, and in Europe, we had great Metal clubs as well, so one night when Joey asked what I wanted to do, I said we should go to the apartment and have a little jam session, which Joey thought was a good idea.”

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 Travelling to America in the ‘80s was not as easy and cheap as today, and Europe was quite different in many countries.

“I told Joey about my first promotion in Hungary for our first album Burning The Witches,” Doro says. “They took away all our records when we got to the border because they said it was pornography. The album cover had a naked girl on a candle, and the warlock was about to light her. We were almost in fear that we would go to jail.

It was a different vibe and was scary.”

Doro told Joey to enjoy being an American who is growing up in total freedom. “You can go wherever you want, say whatever you want,” Doro told him.

“Joey was interested in that, and then we wrote our first song, East Meets West,” Doro says. “When east meets west, there’s going to be a hell of a mess.”

The song was recorded onto a Walkman and played to manager Alex Grohl the following day, who was impressed.

“He said you guys should carry on. You have good chemistry,” Doro explains.

The second song was Three Minute Warning, “a fast, almost Speed Metal song, with a story a little about Alex, like a stranger in a strange land,” Doro says. Alex found it “pretty cool.”

Doro had been a curious teenager, and Joey introduced her to an Ouija board.

“I didn’t know what it was, but I knew in Germany that was totally forbidden in the ‘80s. Joey said maybe I could talk to dead people, or souls, or spirits, and I thought that was amazing.

“We played it so many times. It ended badly because we had to move out of the apartment as the house nearly burnt down. But I asked Joey if he could ask the spirit if he, or she, had a message for me. The message was ‘make time for love’.”

Thus, Doro had her first ballad. “We had three songs, so we recorded at the Power Station studio, which was the best studio at the time. It didn’t look fancy, but it had magic, a good atmosphere.”

Steve Rinkoff, “such a talented, young, great guy,” was the engineer who later became the engineer for Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf.

With the Triumph And Agony album underway, Doro was looking to expand. “I said to Joey, who is a great guitar player, that we need a Metal guitar player,” so Joey introduced Doro to Tommy Bolan.

“Tommy came into the studio, and he was so full of energy, it was insane,” Doro says. “It was so unbelievable.

Tommy played stuff, and he was immediately on the floor, on his back, sweating, bleeding, you know, playing.

Then we thought, wow, this record is getting better, and better, and better.”

Then came All We Are. “We invited all our friends,” Doro says, “and you could tell why they were singing. Everyone’s face was lighting up, and they had such a lot of fun singing. We thought this could be a single or even the first single.”

All We Are was released as the first single from the album, along with a video directed by Mark Rezyka shot in the Los Angeles river basin.

“Videos were so important back then,” Doro explains. “It was so expensive, probably twice as expensive as the old recording, but it came out great.”

“Everything was almost mixed, and we were really sad that everything was over, the same as ending a tour. You feel empty. You don’t know what to do with yourself.”

Doro asked if they could write one more song, “just for the hell of it.”

“Joey asked what kind of song would I like to write,” Doro says.

“I said I would like to write the most fucked up song, the most aggressive, meanest, fastest song.”

Für Immer was the result and became the second single from the album, “kind of a ballad in German, which was unheard of back then.”

With lyrics in English, German and Spanish, this was something unique in the world of Heavy Metal in ‘87.

“Now, everyone likes Rammstein,” Doro says, “and loves to hear some German lyrics.” As for the Spanish, “we toured in ‘86 with Judas Priest, which was my first time playing in Spain.

Spanish Metalheads are so Metal, so passionate, and I thought I 13

wanted to say thank you to them.

“There was one guy in the Power Station who spoke Spanish. He was tweaking our Marshall amps, and he wrote something down. Later, I found out that it was perfect. It says, there’s a promise in the sound, and the song is called Für Immer, forever, you’re deep inside my heart forever. So that was perfect.

“It was something different and special. I still love it. All over the world, people always try to say it well, in Brazil, Russia, all over.”

The album was released. “It became a big record,” Doro says. “We didn’t plan it, and we didn’t expect it, but it felt good. Making it was a lot of magic. Cozy Powell played on a couple of songs, and boy, he was so powerful. Great people and everything fell into place.”

To have released Triumph and Agony in ‘87, with three languages, was something unique and special. Its success makes it the complete album, with amazing hits and amazing stories at an amazing Metal time. “Für Immer is not really a Metal song,” Doro says, “but it is unique and special. You have to take risks, do whatever you feel. Always follow your heart, and you can’t go wrong.”

The album would become a timeless classic, with the song All We Are just there, timeless, forever and evergreen. Has Doro played a gig since, where the song is not on the setlist?

“Since ‘87, I don’t think I’ve played one gig without All We Are, ever,” Doro says. “Sometimes, it has been played three times. The Metalheads, the diehards, were sometimes trying to sing All We Are during the set, and it was quite a riot that you can’t wait until the last song. We played it, and then it was the last song in the set, and the fans were screaming for it again.

“I don’t think it gets boring. Everyone is still gung ho and singing their hearts out. It is still one of my favourite songs.”

The studio recording is a song where the friends were smiling and singing, and we suggested that happens too, live, with everyone together smiling.

“Totally,” Doro agrees. “You can sing it, belt it out, and for at least five min-

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 Spain, and other festivals like Norway Rock and Graasspop. The CD is a mixture between Sweden and Spain.”

This was the first time Doro had played the entire album live. “There were certain songs we had never played live before,” says Doro. “For example, Make Time For Love. Für Immer was the bigger ballad, and you can’t have two ballads when you play festivals.”

During the lockdown, Doro was working on the best-of compilation. “It had 56 songs, and I wanted to do special versions and live versions,” she says. “I was listening to the Triumph And Agony recordings, and I found Make Time For Love, which I thought was really nice. The plan was to do a new record, but we could not get together with lockdown, so I thought for the next anniversary, let’s do it.

“It was easier to do because all the guys could fix it in a home studio, for example, a wrong note or lick.”

utes you can forget everything around you, all your problems and everyday stuff, and just feel good, singing.

“It’s nice to watch every night. I look forward to playing it and see the reaction. Sometimes people like to outdo themselves and sing it even louder and stronger, and it’s great when people are really drunk and forget the lyrics and sing something similar. It’s great. It’s like Heavy Metal party time.”

Jeffrey Gillespie was brought in to do the artwork, “that was the icing on the cake,” Doro says. “That was the first time that the warlock really looked like the warlock.”

Doro talks about the Burning The Witches album, where a friend had designed the artwork, the warlock lighting this naked girl chained to a candle. “We sent in really nice artwork. The warlock lighting this naked girl chained to the Candle, I thought it was perfect for Burning The Witches.

“And then the record came out, and it was so unbelievable. It was so different. The warlock was a fat guy with

an asp on his head. He didn’t have the Metal hair. We always thought it was this evil witch, like sin. Then there was a fat guy in, and we were fuming, but the damage was done.”

Gillespie met Doro, then produced several sketches. “I couldn’t decide which one was best,” Doro says. “It was all great.”

Triumph And Agony Live has been produced in several formats, including one large version, featured in the Guinness Book Of World Records.

“There is a coloured marble vinyl for collectors and fans, and there are some box sets where we have some little figurines of the warlock hugging me that is just in the making.

It will come out on cassette as well, old school. There are buttons and all that stuff we loved in the eighties.”

The Blu-ray was recorded at Sweden Rock in 2017. “That was the first time we played Triumph and Agony in its entirety,” says Doro.

“We then did many tours in America,

The live album is packed to the brim with energy. “I think live is the best form of any song,” Doro says. “When fans embrace a song, you can feel it much more.

The heart, soul, power and energy of live music is what I live for. I always feel I can sing ten times louder and better.

“When I’ve hurt my voice, I don’t feel it on stage. I feel it after the gig, or before the next show, but live, I treat it like it could be the last show.

Triumph And Agony Live is released on Rare Diamond Productions, Doro’s own record label. “Many years ago, I got so many records back, as contracts were up and some labels did not exist anymore,” she says. “Albums like Calling The Wild, Fear No Evil, Fight, Classic Diamonds, and I thought about forming my own label so I could make picture discs and special editions. I can do all these things for collectors and diehards.”

Doro will tour the UK with Michael Schenker in October.

“I’m so excited. I played with Michael at the Monsters Of Rock in 1986 in Germany, so it’s about time we did something together again.

“I love him, and I love his guitar playing.”

• SID KISSINGER

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

CHRIS DALE

SARAJEVO REMEMBERED Sarajevo, 1994, saw Bruce Dickinson and his band Skunkworks play the most unlikely of concerts.

In 2012, bassist Chris Dale published his diaries of the journey through the Siege of Sarajevo at MetalTalk, a move that would eventually lead to the Scream For Me Sarajevo film.

Chris and MetalTalk’s Robert Adams reflect on this incredible story.

Robert was working with Roland Hyams at Workhard PR covering Bruce Dickinson press during the Sarajevo trip and has known Chris Dale for some time, all the way through this period. Roland was also Iron Maiden’s press officer.

Kerrang contacted Sanctuary, Bruce’s management, asking him if he wouldn’t mind doing a show in Sarajevo. “I think that’s the way it happened,” Chris says.

“Major Martin Morris and Trevor Gibson both worked with the UN in Sarajevo, and they thought it would be a good idea to put a concert on.”

They first got in touch with the Rolling Stones, which was a complete no go.

One of the guys working in Sarajevo had worked as Lemmy’s bodyguard.

He asked the Motörhead frontman,

who said yes, only to be vetoed by the band’s management.

“I believe Major Martin Morris called Kerrang magazine,” Chris confirms, “and spoke to Phil Alexander asking to recommend who would be crazy enough to go and play in a war zone. Of course, Phil Alexander said straightaway Bruce Dickinson is the guy to go and do something like that. He was right.”

Chris Dale had just completed his first tour with Bruce, along with Alex Dickson on guitar and Alessandro Elena on drums, promoting the Balls To Picasso album. When the UN Invitation came through, he was about five months into his career with Bruce. They had recently played the Marquee, the set recorded for the live album.

The initial messages were that safe passage would be guaranteed. It should be like any other European show, apart from the posh hotels and the big rider.

“We were effectively told the UN would take us in and out,’ Chris says. “I think 15

the idea originally was to helicopter us in and out of the city, and we would just do the show.”

Two weeks after the call, the team travelled to Sarajevo, Roland Hyams included. “We arrived at Split Airport in Croatia, which was the nearest place you could fly to,” Chris says, “and the UN met us there, and they said there’s been a few problems.”

There were two Royal Navy Sea King helicopters in Bosnia. One was out of action, having been shot at by Serbian anti-aircraft fire. The UN could not guarantee safe passage. “We didn’t fully know those details at the time, but that’s why they couldn’t take us through,” Chris confirms.

Bruce was talking to some local journalists who recommended the Serious Road Trip, a local charity that would enter the dangerous areas in Bosnia.

“We spoke to a guy called Graeme Bint, who said yes, they could take us to Sarajevo.”

With a way through, they gave their re-

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 The whole experience, “as I said in my MetalTalk articles, started off as a bit of a game, a bit fun. Every step of the way, it got slightly more dangerous.”

Sarajevo, 1994

The trip took them through various checkpoints, and Chris says there were moments where alarm bells started ringing. “It just kept escalating. When we were in Split in Croatia, we could hear gunfire in the background, and we asked one of the Serious Road Trip guys, is the fighting that close? He said no, don’t worry about it. These are like people at parties firing guns off, at weddings. Ignore it.”

turn flights back to the UN, who “kind of said it was on our heads, but they did respect it [out choice]. They said, well, okay, if that’s what you’re going to do, great. Can we take you out for dinner?

The group went to the UN Base in Split.

“We had nice British army rations, roast beef,” and then they gave a briefing.

“There was an RAF officer that showed us a map of Bosnia, and he gave us a quick chat about what was going on, the situation at that moment and the route we would probably take.

“I knew a little bit about the conflict before. I’d been following it on the news.

But [we saw] an actual map of where we were going, and it showed us that Sarajevo was under siege, cut off from the world.” The route was a small one that the Bosnians had managed to keep open, which crossed Mount Igman.

As they drove on, getting towards Sarajevo and into Bosnia itself, there was more gunfire, and some of it was a bit heavier than just handheld firearms. “I similar reason. You can’t [bomb a ve- thought, no one fires artillery rounds hicle] and claim later that you didn’t for fun at a wedding, do they? Even in know that was a UN vehicle, and simi- Scotland, you don’t do that. larly if something is painted with Mickey Mouse, you can’t claim that you “The driver was explaining to us about thought it was the enemy. the situation there and how it was severe. He wasn’t joking in the slightest.

“In a sense, it’s more dangerous going He was another Scot, Dave Rowling. like that, bearing in mind that some of Unfortunately, we only got in touch the armed forces over there were tar- with him just after making the film geting civilians.” because he would have been great to have in. Top character. He was quite seThe band had travelled from Birming- rious about it. ham International airport, “very early in the morning,” arriving in Split lunch- “The driver was telling us that if we got time in a chartered civilian plane. out the truck when we stop, don’t go to “Bruce will tell you the type of plane. the edge of the road because it might We can trust the plane registration be mined. He also said we’re going to numbers. They’re all accurate. Every- try not to stop because even just stopone on this flight had short crew cut ping at a junction. Bandits could come hair. The only people going into a war out because it wasn’t just armies. The whole country is in chaos as people are zone were soldiers and us.”

The Serious Road Trip was “a bit of a wacky organisation.” All volunteers, they took aid to dangerous parts of Bosnia. “They were doing it with a sense of humour,” Chris says. “They would dress up as clowns and do acts for kids, juggling and things, which, in a war zone, was something that these kids hadn’t seen. All their trucks were painted yellow with cartoon characters, Asterix and Road Runner, painted on them.

“The reason was partly to make them exciting for the kids when they went to visit these places. And also, it made it obvious that this wasn’t a military vehicle.”

“All the UN were painted white for a

Sarajevo, 1994 16

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 starving, and they are mostly armed.

“So, if they get a chance to hijack an aid vehicle, a lot of them will give it a go. It’s getting a bit scarier.” Chris talks about this is now the point of no return.

“Even if I completely decided, no, this is crazy, I’m getting out now, I’ve got to walk back down a road that’s potentially mined with bandits on it in the dark, not speaking the language for a few hundred miles.

Sarajevo, 1994

“So actually, it got to the crazy point where we were safer staying with the plan.”

Now with MetalTalk, Robert Adams had been working with Roland. “He would tell me bits and pieces,” Robert says.

“I asked him how the trip went when he came back, and he was quite quiet.

Which isn’t like him at all.”

Robert sensed this was not just another show. “I was told about the show and what it was for,” Robert says. “I met the rest of the band, Bruce included, and as I’ve said to [Chris] before, there was a definite difference in them all from two weeks previous, at the Marquee.”

On the Skunkworks site, Alessandro said that one show was the most important show he would ever play in his entire life. “I respected that,” Robert says. “If you are headlining a festival anywhere or playing in front of a quarter of a million people, it doesn’t matter. That one show in that club wasn’t just a show. That wasn’t just a Bruce Dickinson concert that night. That was an expression of freedom, an expression of joy, which as you [Chris] said, was completely missing due to the carnage that was going on at that time.”

“We all remember it differently,” Chris says, “and there’s also the element of hindsight. For me at the time, the concert itself was the most normal thing about that whole weekend, because I was familiar with being on stage and playing bass and having Bruce and Alex and Alex there.

“So that part was the only normal part of the weekend. Everything else about the weekend was absolutely insane.

I’ve heard Alex say that about the concert, but it was kind of weird for me. I didn’t realise at the time the effect we were having on the people. If anything, I thought that had been a kind of wast-

ed mission because it was only when I got there that I realised they didn’t have some of the basics in life—toilet paper. I could have taken them toilet paper, and bandages would really have helped.

“Any number of things that we took for granted we could have taken out there, but we just didn’t think, I didn’t realise.

So I felt afterwards that we just kind of went there, played our rock’ n’ roll game, saw all the suffering and then just left.”

Chris talks about initially feeling guilty.

“I felt guilty about not being able to help,” he says. “But it is only years later, with hindsight having made the movie, and seeing the reaction of the Bosnian kids there, it really did mean something big to them.”

Was it doggedness that made the band try and get to the show and a refusal to accept that they cannot get there, or was it Bruce just saying, I’m the gaffer here, this is what we’re going to do, let’s go and do it?

“Somewhere between,” Chris says.

“Bruce was definitely very dogged about it. He was very keen to go and do the show. Myself, if the UN had said, let’s not go there, I would have gone home. That’s the sensible thing, isn’t it?”

“But I think what then took us through was, and I think it’s the same for a lot of people in stressful situations and 17

soldiers in wars, that the reason you’re there is that your mates are there. And if Bruce is going to Sarajevo and if Alex and Alex are going, well, I’m going to go. On the other hand, if they go fuck this, I’m out of here, I will run just as fast as them. I’ve got longer legs than the wee Scotsman.”

You see it beautifully in the documentary where there was a scene with Bruce when they went back, where Bruce is above Sarajevo, and you can’t see it because it’s just covered with mist, because it is in a valley. “They also have massive pollution problems there,” Chris says. “Not being an EU member, they’re not tied by emissions controls.

So what you see there is smog, really.

Bruce says it looks like a beautiful cappuccino in the film.”

The trip arrived at the point of Mount Igman. “We had to cross about daybreak. That was the plan. We were going to drive through the night, take advantage of the dark, arrive at dawn. It was there that the serious road trip left us and went home, and Major Martin Morris picked us up in a couple of unarmoured vehicles. It didn’t look quite as beautiful as in the film.”

That was another of those points in the journey where the tension increased.

“The daylights lifted, and we can actually see what’s around us now, all the buildings shot up,” Chris says.

“There are still people living in the semi-demolished buildings, with open

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 fires. That was the first real-time… carnage, people having a proper shit time.

There were a load of Bosnian soldiers around this checkpoint as well. They were retreating from the night’s fighting, looking pretty exhausted and harrowed and all that and again, like the driver, you know, that they’re taking it pretty seriously. There’s not a lot of laughing going on at this stage.”

There was a famous photo of Bruce standing by a tank at the side of the road, which had been bombed. “That was on the way out,” Chris says, “but it was an incredibly stupid thing to be doing.

“We were driving with one or two British army land rovers, with a couple of British soldiers who I have got to know since; Martin Swan and John Allerton.

Bruce decided that he wanted a photo next to the shot up tank.

Sarajevo, 1994

“Now, this was in no man’s land, it was on open land between both lines, and Bruce and Roland got out to take this photo.

“There were a lot of points where things could have gone wrong at any time, but that was one where they were inviting it. Don’t stand out there.

That’s not clever, you know? Nice photo, though” Robert agrees it is a great photo, but at what cost? “It’s the T-55, the tank. Again, ask Bruce. He’ll have it,” laughs Chris.

“The rest of us sat in the landrover with these two British soldiers, and they were saying, ‘I hope he fucking gets back in quickly. I wish he’d stop pissing around. This is really not a great idea’.

Finally, they arrive in Sarajevo. Like most normal people, all they know of a war zone is what they see reported on the news, but they live and breathe this situation.

“And Bruce and Roland are posing for a photo and ‘no, actually I’ll take another one. Get better light on it.’ That could have gone wrong any second.

“Yes, you see it on the news, you see it in the movies, it’s nothing like actually being there,” says Chris. “You don’t get any emotion, obviously—the fear, especially as there are more and more

things that are being explained to us.

“It becomes more and more apparent how ridiculously dangerous this is. You couldn’t walk around the city streets.

The Bosnian Serb army was sieging the city from the hills, shooting civilians in the streets with sniper fire, and dropping mortar rounds into the city. Kind of randomly, but targeted, so it’s where it became apparent that you could die any second, there wouldn’t be a warning.

“You know that cliché about you don’t hear the shot that kills you? We were told in no uncertain terms, yes, that’s absolutely true, bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, you won’t hear it.” One minute you’re there, the next minute, you’re not.

“The whole thing about the snipers,” Chris says, “it’s a lot more cunning than what people realised. Sometimes there would be a sniper in a flat or an apartment looking down on the street, and of course, he is not using the window.

He has taken one brick out of the wall and has got one tiny hole to look out from.

“You can’t see him through that because he’s actually a few meters back from there with his rifle on a tripod. So it’s completely set. There’s no wiggle in your hands. I mean, the things they were doing were cunning and ruthless. I think they managed to kill about 10,000 Sarajevo citizens during the siege, over 1,000 of which were children.

Sarajevo, 1994 18

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 “I did say to one of the UN Guys afterwards, ‘they’re not going to kill Bruce Dickinson. It would be crazy bad press, wouldn’t it?’ And this UN guy said to me, ‘well, they kill children, and they kill journalists.’ If you want bad press, kill a journalist. That will do it. They literally didn’t care.”

The band stayed in the UN base, in some buildings near the centre of Sarajevo. “You would think that would be relatively safe, but right next to my bed was a bullet hole in the wall, and someone had drawn around the bullet hole with a Sharpie and put the date that it arrived, which was a few months before.

“They could shoot into the UN base if they wanted. It’s mental. So, even when you’re asleep, you’re not safe. We obviously had it a lot safer than a lot of civilians. Some of the civilians were living right on the front line. If your block of flats is on the front line, that’s it.

“You see some of the blocks of flats in Sarajevo today, and they’ve got shell holes in the side of them, and you think that that’s gone through someone’s living room in the evening. There is no way you can say you thought that was a military target later. “ By this time, the UN had imposed a nofly zone, so the Yugoslav National Army was no longer directly bombing Sarajevo with airstrikes. A small mercy.

With sleep only coming from brief dozes in the trucks, the loading for the gig progressed while Bruce was doing some press. Was it was a common knowledge that the show was going ahead in Sarajevo? “It was a funny one because, on the one hand, they didn’t want the Serbian army knowing, but on the other hand, they had to let people know there was a concert happening,” Chris says.

“Also, the whole city was potentially full of spies. One of the curious things about the Bosnian war, of course, is that both sides spoke the same language, and many of them knew each other, were old school friends or old army friends. Also, both sides used the same weapons and ammunition so they could trade arms and ammunition between the sides.

Sarajevo, 1994 “I would think the Serbians knew about this, and then it’s just a risk, of course, because they could target the venue.

The venue was quite near the front line. It was an easy target. It had a big dome on top. You can’t really miss it.”

“It’s interesting that you noticed that at the time about us,” Chris responds, “because obviously, we couldn’t see ourselves from the outside. And yes, there were some dark thoughts.”

But the show must go on. “We were The band did the gig, then went back to living time of our lives, travelling the the UN base and got some sleep. world, top hotels, absolute luxury. It was kind of like, out of the sauna and Arriving back in England, Robert no- into the snow type of thing, you know? ticed changes. An employee/employer Suddenly it was back to London, and relationship between Robert and the then I think the next dates we did were band had already turned into a lifetime Chile, Argentina and Brazil.” friendship. “It was like these guys had literally been to hell and back,” Robert Talking about the experience was difsays. ficult. “We didn’t talk about it much at the time. Our brains needed to process “I could see they were doing their best it. How do you explain it to anyone? to try and not show it. Because if they It would have ended up with a 3-hour thought about what they had seen conversation in tears, so with friends, it during those four days, they wouldn’t was like, oh, let’s just go out and have a leave the house ever again. It would be beer and have a laugh. too much. The pressure would be too much. They would be consumed with “So it didn’t really come out for years.” sorrow constantly.”

Sarajevo, 1994 19

INGLORIOUS

STORYOFTHEBAND

Everything anyone could ask for in a hard rock show Islington Assembly Hall. 22 September 2021.

A celebratory air hung over Islington before Inglorious’s London date, and it’s not because it was David Coverdale’s 70th birthday. Nor is it the fact that She Won’t Let You Go, the lead single from the sensational We Will Ride album, had this very afternoon passed a million streams on Spotify.

It’s this and much more. The sun is shining, live music is back – not quite to normal levels as there’s still momentum to be gained before we are back to full throttle – and expectations were high that one of the best live bands on the scene is going to give us a night to remember.

all-male rock band is covering songs originally brought to prominence by some of the best female artists. This appears to be the first of this scale. It’s done as a homage, not a competition and is a worthy addition to the collection.

The Inglorious catalogue has grown to the extent that putting a setlist together will make some hard choices.

A way through has been found as this is well-chosen and beautifully paced, highlighting the recent albums and containing a decent selection from the previous ones.

And man did Inglorious deliver.

Inglorious has released two full albums since their last tour in 2019, a pretty astonishing lockdown feat.

The quantity hasn’t affected the quality either, starting with We Will Ride, a monster of an album stuffed to the brim with tracks of astonishing brilliance.

We Will Ride was followed earlier this month by Heroine, a covers album with a difference. It is unique because an

The final track affirmed that Inglorious have had the talent and songs right from the start.

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The band were tight, together and encouraged each other’s performances.

They have matured into a solid unit where everyone shines and also retains their individuality.

Lead singer Nathan James apologised early on as he was affected by a cold.

This led to three tracks dropped from the set, but frankly, Nathan James, with a slightly reduced range, is still head and shoulders above many others, with no noticeable loss of power, quality or tone.

Unsurprisingly many of the highlights came from the We Will Ride tracks My Misery and He Will Provide especially. These songs sound immense on the record due to the multi-layered production, and the six-piece recreated them brilliantly. This is not a surprise, of course, as Inglorious started from the very beginning recording live and being authentic without the use of trickery.

With three albums and oodles of live shows under their belt, they have nothing to prove in this regard, so they have been able to experiment more in the studio, with complete confi-

PHOTOS: STEVE RITCHIE

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

INGLORIOUS, ISLINGTON dence that this would enhance the live shows and not be an insurmountable challenge.

All band members shined throughout without the need for overblown soloing. It’s all about what serves the songs best. There was an acoustic section where Phil Beaver stepped down from behind the drums to show remarkable musicality and sensitivity in the twelve-string.

If you are going to do covers convincingly, there can be no hint of using them as filler or compensating for any lack of original material. Happily, there was no question of that here, and with the selection from Heroine, the band showed that they connect to the songs and have the skills to get right under their skin and make them shine while adding a touch of something specifically Inglorious.

Nowhere was this better demonstrated than Uninvited, the centrepiece of the set. Originally an Alanis Morissette song from the soundtrack of City Of Angels, the band made it their own,

showcasing what is so remarkable and noteworthy about their live experience.

The vocals ran the full range from sensitive and gentle to thundering, all precision perfect. Add to this the breath-taking guitar interplay of Dan Stevens and Danny Dela Cruz. There was a moment when James strongly held a vocal note before the guitar took up the exact tone and pitch and merged seamlessly into melodic motifs.

Rob Lindop on the keys showed impeccable timing and produced beautiful flowing tones. The contribution of the hard and heavy engine room of drummer Phil Beaver and bassist Vinnie Colla cannot be overstated.

The song ended with an extended solo which was a real thing of beauty, Dela Cruz taking centre-stage, but backed up by an arrangement so haunting and hypnotic and with so much light and shade it took you to another place.

And this was just one of many highlights.

21

There was plenty of communication with the audience, too, a genuine twoway relationship between band and crowd. Nathan paid tribute to those who had not made it through the last eighteen months with gratitude and sincerity.

Tim Prottey-Jones, seen earlier in the evening as acoustic support, returned to the stage for Eye Of The Storm, a heavyweight track he co-wrote with Nathan James and Phil Beaver. To see the friends and collaborators duetting with clearly so much joy was a delight.

Overall a setlist packed with gigantic riffs and almighty grooves, power, melody and emotion. It was everything anyone could ask for in a hard rock show. The final track, Until I Die from the debut album, affirmed that Inglorious have had the talent and the songs right from the start and continue to get better and better.

We missed it, we needed it, and Inglorious showed us exactly how it should be done.

• LIZ MEDHURST

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Wayward Sons

Interview: Toby Jepson Time stops for no one, but the Toby Jepson fronted Wayward Sons have just released their third album, Even Up The Score, to huge acclaim, the response from critics and fans radiant.

The band, consisting of Jepson, guitarist Sam Wood, bass player Nic Wastell and drummer Phil Martini, have toured relentlessly since forming a seemingly scant four years ago and built up a loyal following and hugely impressive reputation for their energetic live shows and crowd-pleasing but intelligent hook-filled hard rock.

MetalTalk finds the energetic singer/ songwriter in vivacious form as we look back through his career and find Jepson, “known as the guy with the long curly blonde hair,” in the musical form of his life.

“I cut my hair off recently,” Jepson told MetalTalk. “There were two factions in the fans. One was like, ‘why did you cut your hair off? It’s terrible’. There’s another faction saying, ‘oh my God, you look so much younger’. I thought, ‘well, how old did I look before?’ “I started feeling a bit awkward about having hair like that, and so it was just

one of those sorts of funny decisions.

I was really glad to get rid of it, and I don’t feel any different whatsoever.”

Jepson was one of many who embraced the first lockdown, and he found running cathartic. “The one thing about getting older that you can’t avoid is the inevitable nature of wear and tear,” Toby says. “Running has been very therapeutic, mentally and physically. I’ve had a back issue, largely caused by working in the building trade when I was a young lad, but also caused by holding guitars all the time.

I’ve had various nerve problems and things like that but getting into running gave me a total sense of release.

I escaped from the worry and concern about the pandemic, and it gave me that sort of sense of isolation. Plus, it gave me physicality, and I started to experience my physical ailments improving. So that was a really massive benefit, and I’ve kept it up.”

Lockdown was a big reset. “I had to face the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to go and play. I had a load of shows I had to cancel, so that was 24

a real struggle because that was my bread and butter. Contrary to popular belief, most musicians, including me, don’t own yachts, Ferraris or have huge castles. We’re all normal people trying to make ends meet. It made a big dent.”

Jepson also had a couple of production projects fall by the wayside. One, a big film project, completely disappeared. “So, I just looked at my guitar one day,” he says, “and I have got the songs I’ve written through my life, and I have got this voice in my head, so what can I do with that?”

The answer was an illuminating trip down memory lane as Toby played online shows for three months “solidly, pretty much every Thursday, and that was an amazing experience,” he says.

“It made me look at my life, my music and my work in an entirely different way. I went back in time and listened to a lot of the Little Angels music, songs that I had forgotten about and relearnt them.”

It was a liberating experience. “I relooked at the words and was able to remember where I was when I wrote the

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 songs and things like that. So, there’s a whole gamut of things that helped me get through that period, and I think I am always at my best when I am very busy.”

This seems to have been a constant theme throughout the singer songwriter’s life. “That’s all I’ve ever done,” he says. “I’ve always had an album on the go, had some gigs, reading a book, writing, production on an album, and I like it like that. I like to have the plates spinning.”

Having the audiences turn up every Thursday massively helped. “There was the connection. Even though I couldn’t see anyone, people were sending me great messages, which was encouraging. The weird thing for me is that lockdown ended up being a positive time for me. I know people suffered, of course, lots of people suffered, but for me, I tried to make it into a positive.” Jepson wrote his first screenplay, is now working on two others and formed a small film company.

The first film will be “a small film to help us gain finance” with more films to follow.

History will show that music helped a lot of people through the lockdown.

“People were not being distracted by the mundanity of normal life, so what could they do?” he says. “Well, if you’re into music or you’re into the arts, into reading, that became the focus, and I think a lot of people realised how much music meant to them. I think there was a revelatory thing really because a lot of messages I was getting through my little lockdown shows were things like ‘I didn’t realise how much I missed this,’ or ‘I can’t wait for it to get back’, or ‘I didn’t realise how much music has been the soundtrack of my life’.”

The revisiting of Little Angels material, a band fused with Toby Jepson, brought back memories. “I’m very pleased with what we did with Little Angels,” Jepson says, “and it gets better the further away I get from it.

When you’re in it, you don’t notice it.

It’s very tough to understand. We were very young. We were young men who didn’t have a lot of life experience. We were thrust into this huge spotlight with a major label and all the things

associated with that. It becomes overwhelming.

“I exploded into it, all right, let’s have it, you know, but inside, I was terrified.

I didn’t deal with many situations very well, and I think if I had this head on my shoulders now, as a young person, I would have dealt with it entirely differently.

I said the wrong things. I did the wrong things. There was no one to guide you.

There is no rule book. People wanted another hit, write another song, write another album, get back on that stage.

We don’t care if you’ve got a sore throat.

“That’s my memory of it. Certainly, the ten years after the band split up were really, really difficult. I didn’t like it.

I felt it was all pretty negative, irrespective of the hits, irrespective of the fans. I’m talking about my personal experience of it, but I overcame that.

When we did the reformation in 2012, that was a real cathartic experience because we reconnected as people. “A lot of the stuff that I had been carrying around as baggage on my back, I relinquished. We met as friends again, and that was really, really awesome.”

Jepson says that fans, media and people interested in the band are not interested in those stories. “They’re interested in what we achieved and what it meant to the general music world,” he says. “I’m a DJ at Planet Rock, and they only ever play two Little Angels songs, Young Gods and Kickin’ Up Dust, but we wrote three albums, and our biggest hit was Womankind, and they never play that. There is a sense of people making up their own mind of what you are, so you have to accept it.”

Little Angels are always mentioned, whether in an interview or a shout from a crowd when the Wayward Sons are performing. “It happened at Stone Dead Festival, and it’s fine. The most interesting thing about the whole lockdown thing for me was that I started to understand that the further away you get from it, the more of a shine it gathers, the more rose-tinted it is.

“I think it’s wonderful. I was very lucky, and even though the Little Angels were 25

not the biggest band in the world, we did achieve a lot, and we were very successful, specifically in this country and Europe. It was a joy to be part of something that people daily send me messages and say, ‘oh my God, I love that song’, or ‘I proposed to my wife to Womankind’ or ‘I took my kids to see their first-ever concert when you got back together in 2012’.

“Ultimately, what it comes down to being in a band is not about sex, drugs and rock’ n’ roll. It’s actually about the relationships and how you use each other’s energy to create something artistic. When those things become fractured, it’s incredibly hurtful, and I think at the time, none of us knew why. It was just circumstances.”

Drummer Michael Lee passed away in 2008, and Jepson, Plunkett and the Dickinson brothers met at the crematorium to bury him. “We all went to the wake afterwards in a pub in Darlington, and we all looked at each other and asked why we have wasted this last 14 years? Why haven’t we been talking? We were looking at each other, asking do you remember why we argued? No? Okay. Another pint?”

It was particularly striking as Jepson had known Mark Plunkett since he was eight. “To have that 14-year period between was absolutely nuts. There was no reason for it. Why, because we were in a band?”

After the Little Angels split, Jepson did not want to make music, “I fell out of love with it because I was heartbroken.” He made his first solo record, Toby And The Whole Truth, then moved from Scarborough to Surrey to regroup and try and figure out what to do. “I’m proud of that record,” Jepson says. “I’m very, very pleased with what that record did in artistic terms, but in a lot of ways, it was probably the wrong thing to do. It was just too soon, and I was not in a great place, so it came out as a very angry sort of spitting and snarling record. It knocked me off my perch a bit, really.”

Toby started getting back on the music horse in 2002. He worked in the film business for a couple of years and was then offered a music publishing deal.

“I grasped it with both hands,” he says.

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Wayward Sons

“I had to do this because if I didn’t, I was going to regret it.” He then spent quite a bit of time as a solo artist, touring, making records at a low level, “because I didn’t have any money and I was just doing it on my terms.”

He decided not to pursue any major record label deals or work with the same people as before. “I wanted a totally fresh start. I wanted to be in control of it because I realised I had been so out of control with Little Angels where none of the decisions were mine or ours. It was other people’s, so that was a big, big learning curve.”

He then became involved in other bands. He says Fastway was a launchpad. Gun introduced him to new people and gave him a fresh perspective, while Dio’s Disciples was “hugely interesting, hugely immersive,” and caused itchy feet. The Disciples had many more shows booked and wanted Jepson to commit. “With my heart in my mouth, I said, I can’t do it because I have to find my way now.”

That opportunity happened when Frontiers came calling. “I’ve got such respect for them,” Jepson says, “because they said to me, ‘we won’t interfere. We’ll give you the money to make your records, go away and make them how you want them to be made’.

No one’s ever said that to me before, so I’ve got enormous respect for Sera-

fino and Mario and all the guys down there.”

Wayward Sons released ‘Even Up The Score’ on 8 October 2021. “I think it’s the best record I’ve ever been involved with,” Toby says. “It’s the best set of songs I’ve ever written. It took some doing. Making records is really tough. It’s really difficult. I’ve made a lot of them, and it doesn’t get any easier. But what I have learned over the years is you’ve got to let it happen, and the more you try and force it, the worse it gets, the less authentic it is and the less convincing it is.”

When Wayward Sons went to record the second album, The Truth Ain’t What It Used To Be, Toby took fifty-six songs along. “It was a very much an experiment. We took each of the song ideas, and we worked on them up to a point where it was either on the A list or it went on the B list. We ended up recording thirty-two songs, and the whole idea of that was to do two albums back-to-back.”

While lockdown meant that the band could not promote The Truth, Toby took the opportunity to revisit this unreleased material. “It was a revelation,” Toby says, with songs coming to light that he’d forgotten about. “We were feverishly emailing each other, and I was doing quick bounces and quick mixes to the guys. We’ve had all these songs. We can make the third al26

bum. Let’s get on with it.”

Faith In Fools is one track that was part of the unused set. The song was drafted after ten at night on that last day of recording ‘The Truth...’ “I can remember looking around the live room.

Sam’s eyes were hanging out of his head, and his fingers were bleeding. I remember Phil being absolutely into it, and he did this amazing drum track.

Sam was noodling about, and no one really knew what was going on, but Phil and I essentially worked out the arrangement. We put the track down, and we forgot about it, and it just got lost. I got the drive back and pressed play. I had forgotten all about this one.

It was killer. We had to finish this.”

That process was invigorating. “It became really exciting again,” Jepson states. “Because there was no massive focus and pressure on it, we could turn

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 it into something that was beyond itself. That would not have happened if we had been in the studio for that intense two or three week period that you would normally have. We had almost a whole year to deal with this stuff.”

Lockdown provided a chance to reinterpret some of those ideas. “It was a chance for me to write some words, really look at the melodies, talk to Sam about the guitar parts.” The chance to try things out and work together.

“Again, it was a positive result of the sadness of what’s happened to the world over the last 16 months.”

Little Angels

The result is the best Wayward Sons album so far. The reviews have been excellent, and there is a buzz about the band. Does critical acclaim matter to Toby? “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want people to love it,” Jepson says.

“You are hoping for great reviews, but I find it difficult to answer these questions. We had quite a weird, strange relationship with Little Angels and the press. A lot of the rock press didn’t like the band. They thought we were irrelevant at the beginning of the band’s career. Mainly, I think, because we were not part of anything.

would get a four-page feature in Kerrang, we would get half a page, yet we had something in the charts.

“We came out of North Yorkshire making this kind of pop-orientated rock music that, to the Kerrangs of this world, was an anathema. We were doing it as well as Bon Jovi, and we weren’t as heavy as Metallica, so there was this strange middle ground.

“So everything changed. All of their attitudes changed. All of a sudden, they wanted to put us on the front cover of the magazines. They wanted to interview us. I thought to myself, you know what, we’ve done that without them.

None of their involvement has had anything to do with that. The band’s success is because our fans have made us successful. I just thought, ‘fuck you’.

It was actually a very, very liberating feeling, to be honest.

“Bruce is an incredible guitar player, probably one of the greatest guitar players of his generation frankly, and we had Michael Lee in the band at one point, one of the greatest drummers of his generation. No one could deny that there’s musicality going on, but the press went out of their way a lot of the time to take the piss and not embrace us in the way that they embraced other bands that were contemporaries of ours, and it really irked us.

“You want people to like what you’re doing, and it’s really important to you when you’re young, so it used to frustrate the hell out of us. Even though we used to get good live reviews, there was a lot of mickey-taking and where one of our contemporaries

“We used to get frustrated about that.

But I can remember the moment that I relinquished that problem was when we sold out Hammersmith Odeon. We put it on sale, and I can remember my manager at the time saying, ‘everyone is laughing at us for chancing our arm with this because they think we’re never going to sell the tickets.’

We sold the whole tour out in about a week.

“I overcame that as I got older and I started to realise that there were some good people and a lot of people that I got to know, journalists, I’m still very, very good friends with. Some had the best of intentions. It was partially to do with the time because rock was really big, and everyone wanted to be in a rock band.

Of course, that’s changed now. Most of the people that I really appreciate, like yourself, are people that are music fans first. MetalTalk is more than willing to look at each project and band in 27

a very objective fashion.

“Whereas, something like Kerrang, back in the day, was all about the fashion. Journalists thought they were bigger stars than the bands. You had photographers like Ross Halfin and journalists like Malcolm Dome, who acted as if they were gods like they were making careers.

“I’m sorry to say they didn’t. They didn’t make careers. Bands make their own careers, so that was a relationship I found very difficult. These days, I feel less and less of a need to be validated because I think I’ve been in this game for so long that I don’t feel I’ve got much more to prove. I just want to make some good music, and I really hope some people like it, and if they don’t, then I can’t control that. It’s not up to me. All I can do is the best I possibly can.

“I am sat here in my studio right now, and I can honestly say to you, 100%, I cannot do any better than I’m doing right now. I have pulled my heart out to do this. If it doesn’t float somebody’s boat, then what can I do about that?”

Given the reaction to the new album, it seems like Jepson’s only worry will come by trying to top this career-best.

That’s certainly a challenge he’s going to rise to, though, the polymathic musician heading off to embrace the next task on an ever-growing, ever-changing list, his talent burning bright.

• PAUL MONKHOUSE

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

BOKASSA

MOLOTOV ROCKTAIL - NO THIRD ALBUM SYNDROME Bokassa has had a whirlwind trip. Releasing their debut album Divide And Conquer in 2017, the band were Lars Ulrich’s “favourite new band” and were invited onto Metallica’s Worldwired Tour.

and Russia. It was insanely cool.

The third Bokassa album, Molotov Rocktail, was released last month and is perfect evidence that third album syndrome is not an issue for this Norwegian trio.

Crimson Riders was released in 2019 during the tour, and Jørn says it was very well received. “We released it halfway through the tour, so we didn’t get a chance to concentrate that much on the album release since we were on this big tour that had all of our attention, but I think it went down well.”

During the Metallica tour, Bokassa released their second album Crimson Riders, and that period was a rewarding experience.

“It was a very surreal feeling and an unreal experience,” vocalist/guitarist Jørn Kaarstad told MetalTalk.

“Here we were, an unknown band from Norway, supporting the world’s biggest Heavy Metal band on some of the biggest stages in Europe, the UK

“Every day was a great experience.

New places and new cities that we’d never been to before. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The album certainly helped the band get noticed more, and they recently signed to Napalm Records, another fascinating step up for the band.

“Napalm had been following us for a while,” Jørn says, “and we felt the step was right to move over there at this time. It’s very cool to be on the same label as Monster Magnet.”

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The new album, Molotov Rocktail, is a monster of an album and is packed with eleven superb riff-based tracks.

It is quite apparent that the band have smashed third album syndrome out of the park. “Thank you so much,” Jørn says. “We are absolutely thrilled with it—our best work to this day. I think you can really hear the musical evolution in Bokassa on Molotov Rocktail.”

This album is more of a team effort. In the past, Jørn was the main songwriter for the band. “I still write the songs,” Jørn says, “but this time around Bård and Olav contributed riffs to some of the songs, which is great because it takes some of the pressure off me, especially when it’s such a great riff as the bridge riff for Hereticules that Bård had.”

The name Bokassa comes from an African dictator. There are serious lyrics in many of their songs, but there are some fun songs in between, which

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 makes the new album quite a good mood changer to listen to. We wondered if it was a natural organic process to decide the direction of each new song or if the decision was made before they began writing each new one?

“Sometimes the lyrics are there from the beginning,” Jørn says, “but mostly I have like random words and placeholders to find the rhythm and melody. So I have to write the lyrics afterwards, and it evolves from there.”

The band are described as playing heavy stoner rock riffs, which may be considered a trifle alienating, although that is probably just my perception of the genre description. I was immediately drawn into the album on opener Freelude – a great scene setter. Then, straight into the awesome So Long Idiots makes for a great start.

Are they a potential first two songs for a live set? Idiots would get me singing along, with a smile on my face, probably waving a beer?

“We are going to start the sets with Freelude,” Jørn says laughing, “and thought about going straight into So Long Idiots but felt it was weird to start the set with a song that said goodbye to people. Both will be played live, though.”

Even Pitchforks R Us seems to have a smile on it, but are there more serious undertones here. In the song middle, a chant of ‘punishment’ is “a kind of a reaction to the growing trend where people get offended by almost everything,” Jørn explains.

“And while there are people out there doing good with calling people out on their bullshit, there is also a growing amount that comes along for the ride cause they like the excitement of being included in a mob and don’t care about a cause.

“They just want to see blood. Kind of like the witch hunts back in the day.

So it’s a tongue in cheek look at that whole situation.”

Burn It All is another favourite track, a great example of how the guys blend melody, great riffing, and great song

structure, all built around a solid, exciting, heavy rhythm section. All with a chanted ‘the dream is dead’ message.

“The song is about someone who has believed something their whole life and lived and fought for that, for them to realize that it’s all a lie,” Jørn says.

The accompanying video looks like it was fun to shoot too. “I think that video is probably our best yet,” Jørn says.

“It was very fun to shoot. We spent two days with director Troll Toftenes and just filmed from morning till night time. The hardest part was filming with the sheep heads smeared with minced meat and fake blood to make it look horror-like. It smelled. That being said, cooked sheep head is a Norwegian delicacy and tastes fantastic.”

I could talk about plenty of other tracks on the album, but it’s a superbly strong finish. The first single, Careless, is great, and I love the fantastic Code Red, “Very cool to hear,” but does Jørn have any personal highlights?

“I have a lot of personal favourites on the record. Burn It All, Hereticules, Pitchforks, and Immortal Space Pirate 3 Too Old For This Sith, are maybe my top four at the moment. But it changes weekly!”

And, to finish on the epic Immortal Space Pirate 3: Too Old For This Sith is quite a stunning effort. It’s quite a statement for the whole album, a slower, emotional, powerful finish. “We’ve always done that on our records,” Jørn says, “as I think it’s important for an album to have a good closing song. And since this was the last of the Immortal trilogy, I felt it was important to have a grandiose finish. When I write the Immortal songs, I set out to write longer epic songs, as that’s kind of the concept for those songs.

“I try to always push ‘em to around seven minutes, which I normally don’t do at all. But it’s kind of a ‘no rules’ type of song process. I’ve always loved Metallica’s No Lead Clover, the way they do clean guitar choruses and heavy verses, so I tried to use the same switch on Immortal 3 as well. I think it worked out great.”

Molotov Rocktail was finished, pre29

COVID-19, but not recorded. “We recorded it right after our tour of Norway got cancelled,” Jørn says, “so it was nice to have something to do, even though we couldn’t play live.”

As the COVID-19 lockdowns progressed, Bokassa’s experience was “probably fairly similar to a lot of bands,” Jørn says. “I wrote a lot of songs since we didn’t have anything else going on. We also rehearsed a lot, just in case. But at a certain point, we had a break from rehearsing and everything because there just wasn’t anything happening for months. So it was a bit demoralizing. Glad that the world is starting to open up now.”

How much is Jørn looking forward to getting out on tour again? “Very much so,” he says. “It has been a long while now—two years since we last played in the UK. We can’t wait to be back there. All of us are obsessed with your meal deals, so we are ready to taste that again.”

Molotov Rocktail is a great album and something which really excites me to see the band live. What are their hopes for it? “I’m hoping that people who hear it will love it as much as we do,” Jørn says. “And that’s a lot. I think people who like this band are used to the fact that we have a lot of different genres mixed together, and therefore I’m not very worried about people not getting it.”

With an album this strong, another bigger tour can not be far on the horizon. Any message for the fans? “See you soon.”

•STEVE RITCHIE

INTERVIEW

Photo: Austin Hargrave

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN With a career that has spanned over 40 genre-defining years, Yngwie Malmsteen needs no introduction.

Often viewed as the guitarist’s guitarist, Yngwie has inspired two generations of players with his neo-classical flair and almost superhuman speed.

I was offered a gig in David Lee Roth’s band just after he left Van Halen. I was very, very honoured by that.

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With the release of his stunning new solo album Parabellum, Yngwie Malmsteen spoke to Metaltalk’s Kahmel Farahani about the new album and his creative process and how he stays inspired.

Malmsteen was at the forefront of breaking Metal barriers in Sweden, and here he also discusses Kiss, Eddie Van Helen, David Lee Roth, Phil Mogg, Graham Bonnet and how he brought the Stratocaster back into style.

, METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

grateful for all the blessings.

“A lot of times in the past, I would do records with riffy stuff that would be accessible, and that’s not hard to play. But to make music like Parabellum or Toccata from this new record is extremely difficult to play, so I guess I pushed myself even more.

“The way I see it, music has to be a natural thing, so when something comes to me that is challenging, I find it interesting to go there.”

G3 AND GENERATION AXE

Yngwie’s 22nd album is Parabellum. The title is Latin and translates as ‘Prepare For War’.

With one track on the album called (Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum, which translates as ‘if you want peace, then prepare for war’, Malmsteen told us that it “was a last-minute decision to make Parabellum the album title, but I think it fits very well.”

Like most musicians, the period of inactivity throughout the COVID-19 phase gave him the gift of being able to spend more time creating. With the luxury of spending more time on the record, Yngwie is very pleased with the result. “It was completely natural,” Yngwie says.

“The thing is, the last album was kind of bluesy, and that was on purpose, but I never meant to divert from my true self. This is maybe the purest record I’ve done since I can remember.

“Even on my early albums, I did compromise. I did consider airplay and what other people thought and so on. On Parabellum, I didn’t consider any of those things. It came naturally. It’s more like how I played when I was 17 – just making the best music I could make.

“It feels amazing that it had such a good reception! I’m so pleased.

I couldn’t be happier. The thing is, it all came naturally – I didn’t think ‘Oh I’m going to make a classical album reminiscent of this or that’, nothing like that.”

There are so many highlights in such a fantastic career. In 2003, Malmsteen joined Steve Vai and Joe Satriani in the G3 supergroup.

In April and May 2016, Malmsteen was one of five guitarists featured on the Generation Axe tour. “Steve Vai is like a brother to me,” Yngwie says, “and we’ve known each other since we were kids in our 20s, and Joe is an amazing guy and a great player. I love him.

“So doing G3 was a great experience, so was my own Generation Axe. We did a live album in China and filmed it too. The reason I still go on stage excited is that it still feels like a challenge. You go out not knowing exactly what to play.

Just playing something exactly as it was written, I can do that standing on my head, but it’s not exciting or dangerous.”

HEAR ‘N AID

Over a forty-year career in music, he has always been a poster boy for uncompromising excellence.

“Yeah, it’s weird to think of it like that,” he said, laughing. “It still feels so fresh to me. When I was on stage this weekend, it felt so fresh and exciting! Not like ‘oh doing this again’.

Hear ‘n Aid was the 1986 Metal charity project organized by Ronnie James Dio, Jimmy Bain, and Vivian Campbell, and the single Stars featured a mind-blowing solo from Yngwie. “The thing is, I was actually on tour in Europe when Ronnie called me and said he wanted me to play on it,” Yngwie remembers.

Same with the new album, it feels inspired, I feel inspired. Like my song says, I feel very blessed and

“So I said ‘fuck it’ and flew out to L.A. from Denmark. I got there totally jet-lagged, and it was a party.

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Even on my early albums, I did compromise. I did consider airplay and what other people thought and so on. On Parabellum, I didn’t consider any of those things. It came naturally.

Everyone was drinking and hanging out. I said, ‘OK, I’m ready to go now,’ and they said, ‘yeah, Brad Gillis is in there doing his part now’. Four and a half hours later, and I’m still waiting! Then George Lynch went in and spent a couple of hours too. I was thinking this is going to take a long time,” Yngwie said, laughing.

“I remember from the point I walked into the studio to record to when I walked out was 20 minutes. Ronnie had already sent me the chord progression, so I just went in and out. That’s how I like to run, though. I don’t really like to do them over and over. I’m not knocking Brad or George either since they’re both fucking great.”

KISS With such a talent, it is no surprise that there were calls and rumours of calls to join other bands over the years. “It’s true that Kiss called,” Yngwie said. “I mean, somebody from their camp called, and I don’t know who. It might even have been Gene since I know him now. I think it was their management who got my number, and I was only about 18 at the time.

“I got a call, and the guy says, ‘You’re hat, you’re really hat,’ and I go ‘Gesundheit’ (laughs). I said, ‘Ohhh, I’m hot.’ (laughs).

Photo: Mark Weiss

“So they said they wanted to bring me over to try out, but first they asked if I was 6 foot tall. I said I was 192 inches since I didn’t fucking know anything but metric (laughs). I’m 6 foot 3 inches, but they thought that meant I was four feet tall or something, so they didn’t call back! (laughs).”

DAVE LEE ROTH In late ’85, Dave Lee Roth assembled his supergroup with Vai, Sheehan and Bissonette, and Yngwie revealed that he was offered the guitar slot.

“It was crazy,” he said. “I was offered a gig in David Lee Roth’s band just after he left Van Halen.

I was very, very honoured by that.

“I did a tour that year in 1985, and he would come to my shows all the time! He’s very smart. He thinks he had to get a hot guitar player because Eddie is the king of everything. At the time, Billy Sheehan was in my opening act, and he asked Billy to join his band too – he obviously said yes. I should probably have said yes, too, thinking about it now since it would have been fun. But I was doing pretty well, and I was only 21.”

UFO AND ALCATRAZZ Earlier, Phil Mogg had asked Yngwie to join UFO. “I was 19 at the time,” Yngwie says, “and still with Steeler. So Phil came to one of our shows and afterwards said, ‘hey, come to my house tomorrow.’ So the next morning, I got a phone call from somebody in Graham Bonnet’s team who said, ‘we heard you’re hot as shit! Come down and try out.’ I said OK. So I went there, and they didn’t have any songs or even a good drummer. They said, ‘You’ve got the gig, you’ve got the gig!’ and I said I would call them back later – I was very cocky (laughs).

“So then I went to see Phil Mogg, and he was super nice, but he

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

didn’t have his shit together either. So I called Graham back from Phil’s house. They were not called Alcatrazz at the time. They were just starting out. I said OK, I would join their thing, but I will write the songs and told them to get a new drummer. So I was already making demands (laughs). That was actually really good, I thought.”

er Magazine. As soon as I did that, the band Europe also got their first breakthrough.

There were other projects too, which were in the back of peoples minds, but which never came to fruition.

“To go from being obscure to touring the world in six months, people noticed and went wow this kid really made it! Now it is very active, and there’s a lot going on, but when I lived in Sweden, there was nothing. I’m not taking all the credit, but I know it made a big difference there.”

THE FUTURE

THE FIRST SIGNATURE FENDER

“I feel it is so weird. I mean, I don’t think about it. If they want to do it, that’s cool. To me, that would feel like going backwards, and I don’t like going backwards.

“I play some of those nostalgic songs in the show today, so they’re always there. I don’t see it happening. I’m not saying never. It’s just something I’m not thinking about.

“I mean me and Ronnie always talked about shit, but you know,” Yngwie says. “Like Ozzy, there was some sort of…I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but he didn’t come out and ask me. Deep Purple too. Steve Morse is such a great guy and an amazing player, and he fits so well there. When you think of Deep Purple, you usually think of Blackmore and Jon Lord, and it’s kind of hard to change that, no matter how good you are.”

“Those two things that I made it in America and Europe coming out, that opened the floodgates, then it seemed like there were hundreds of bands from where I was at (laughs).

SCANDINAVIAN ROCK SCENE

And that rise helped him to set many standards, including being the first guitarist ever to get a signature Fender. “I was the very first one,” Yngwie says. “That was in 1986, which was unheard of then.

Fender never even gave a free guitar to an artist.

With Yngwie starting his career in Sweden, the rise of the Scandinavian rock scene is something he witnessed first-hand. “When I grew up in the ’70s in Sweden, to be a pro musician was like being a fucking leper or something,” he said.

“Hendrix and Blackmore all had to buy their own guitars. I was extremely honoured. Then Dan Smith, who ran the company at the time, and the Fender guys came to my show at Long Beach Arena and said, ‘We want to build a guitar with your name on it.’

“It was looked down upon very, very much, and it wasn’t accepted as a job. Then if you played something out of the ordinary as I did… I could play you a demo from 1978, and you just wouldn’t believe it!

“I was like, ‘Fucking A! (laughs).

When I first came on the scene in America, nobody had any brand deals, then suddenly just about every guitar company in the world came to me and said, ‘we’ll build anything you want!’.

“Tuned down Heavy Metal and arpeggios and shit I’d never heard anyone else do. People would just say, ‘oh my God, what is this?’ (laughs).

“Sweden didn’t have a scene or any labels or signed bands or anything like that. Just some local bands floating around. So I decided to send my tape to Guitar Play-

“But I said I would rather buy a Fender than get another guitar for free. Then when my first solo album came out with the Strat on fire on the cover, that was it. Same with amp companies, but for me, it has always been Marshall. I’m very loyal to my brands (laughs).

“Remember,

Eddie 34

Van

Halen

changed everything. Suddenly, everybody had to have a humbucker and a Floyd Rose! Kramers and Hamers with stripes. Then my album comes out with a Stratocaster with single coils. Like fucking what the fuck?!? (laughs). “I think I influenced people to start liking the Fender Strat again – I definitely believe that.”

With such a long, varied career, it might be tempting for Yngwie to take the lead from Michael Schenker Fest and bring back faces from the past to play live again, but Yngwie tells us that is not on his horizon.

With things beginning to open up across the world as countries learn to live with the COVID-19 pandemic, Yngwie is keen to tour the new album. “I’m hoping to tour,” he says, “and I already started playing last weekend! I played Florida and Texas, and in November, I have a huge American tour.

“It’s slow because all the promoters were kind of waiting for somebody else to do it, but now it is going to pick up. I really hope so.”

The last words are on the future of the guitar. “I think it all goes in waves,” Yngwie says, “and I don’t think the guitar is ever going to go away. It’s been said many times, but I think the guitar will always have a very big attraction for people.

“I think it’s great when people start playing and I really wish the best to everybody. Just keep on doing it.”

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Photo: Mark Weiss

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

ALBUMREVIEWS

IRON MAIDEN - Senjutsu

If England had managed to beat Italy in the final of Euro 2020 and finally ended decades of anti-climax, for many, it still wouldn’t eclipse the event that is the release of a new Iron Maiden album.

tremor of anticipation and have your left ventricle pumping blood like there’s no tomorrow.

But what sets Maiden apart is that they’ve never been darlings of the mainstream. Yes, they are marketed impeccably, but their music is created for them, and their religiously loyal global fanbase, and not one note, lyric or chorus is aimed at seducing commercial radio stations.

That statement might result in a fit of the giggles from Maiden illiterates or Three Lions fanatics. Still, with the exception of maybe AC/DC, Metallica and the consistently beige U2, there’s pretty much no one who can announce a new album and, in turn, cause a worldwide

And it’s not just about the virgin listen of new music, the unveiling of a new Eddie, the fresh album artwork, plus those unrivalled gatefold pieces of vinyl just make the euphoria greater.

With over 100 million in record sales to date, Senjutsu is their seventeenth studio album and, in turn, carries on their passionate dedication to create new music.

Once again, Kevin ‘Caveman’ Shirley is the man entrusted with production duties, with commander-in-chief Steve Harris casting his eagle eye as co-pilot.

Recorded in Paris in 2019, opener and title track Senjutsu doesn’t stick with tradition by blowing the doors off the hinges.

Instead, we have Nicko McBrain’s brilliantly measured tribal-like drumming, some heavy-boned riffs and a battle call of a chorus.

36

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 At times describing an Iron Maiden track as a ballad is like putting a target on your back, but with the Dickinson/ Smith penned Darkest Hour, there is no denying the infectious melodies and slow fist-pumping chorus.

A mammoth Samurai themed song that deserves to go down as one of their greatest epics.

Stratego sticks more to the rulebook with that signature gallop racing away with Bruce Dickinson’s beautifully ageing pipes, providing us with a rampaging balance of expertly sculpted melodic Metal.

Revisiting the Winston Churchill WWII theme, it does spark comparisons to The Final Frontier’s Coming Home and is sure to realise its brilliance when hopefully road tested.

When the album teaser The Writing On The Wall was let loose out of the safe, it received wide-eyed reactions as not many Maiden tunes flirt with country and southern Rock.

The odds on Steve Harris ever scoring a hat trick for his beloved West Ham United are at this stage stacked against him. But on the last 34 plus minutes, he rattles the back of the albums net with a trio of cinematic screamers.

There’s even a big vibe of Bad Company’s Feel Like Makin’ Love laying a solid foundation, possibly due to co-writer Adrian Smith’s love of the classic rock legends.

The Parchment and Hell On Earth are just classic Harris, visionary, enthralling and delightfully complex. Out of the three, it is the bloodthirsty Death Of The Celts where the legendary bassist shows the depth of his penmanship.

And it’s the aforementioned Mr Smith who owns this track and casts out what is arguably one of the finest guitar solos of his career.

Clocking in at just under ten minutes, Lost In A Lost World opens its doors with slick acoustic guitar, atmospheric keyboards and some layered haunting vocals, then bursts to life with that classic Maiden stomp fuelling the majestic, regal riffs.

The medieval, folk-infused intro tears up a bombardment of Celtic riffing where Smith, Gers and Murray sound as virtuosic as ever.

And Dickinson is the only man who could unroll the brilliantly scripted lyrics and have your mind light up with a barrage of battle imagery.

If you are looking for a track that could be classed as a throwback to the band’s ’80s era, Days Of Future Past would not be out of place on Piece Of Mind or Powerslave, no pretension, but bruising and frill-free.

If you are looking for more reassurance that the world is slowly returning to normality, well, Iron Maiden have just produced another masterpiece.

While some still baulk at the band’s prominent Prog leanings, those who embrace it will have a field day with the intricate tapestries on The Time Machine, which seamlessly intertwines with Maiden’s signature sound.

• Brian Boyle

TREMONTI MARCHING IN TIME Mark Tremonti immediately springs to mind when you think of attributes such as incredible talent, focus, drive, determination, resilience, and of somebody you would class as an absolute role model.

While it seems a while away that that wide-eyed, ambitious teenager dreamed of shredding his way in the pursuit of dreams of world domination, nowadays, the Tremonti brand has become an unequivocal household name.

Needless to say, that Tremonti has always championed the mixing of Thrash with melody and Marching In Time delivers on all fronts.

The Tremonti machine is relentless with regular yearly cycling between Alter Bridge and Tremonti releases, let alone occasional side projects during downtime. 2021 marks the year of the Tremonti band and the birth of their fifth studio album.

The album unfolds with the explosive A World Away, already released as a third single.

A fantastic opener indeed, with a steady and sleazy pace on the verses and quicker reprise on the choruses, engorging the listener in all of its sheer brutality from the very start.

This time the once familiar ambience and moodiness give way to a newfound rawness, evoking primordial tinges of rock and Metal classics yet maintaining a contemporary and polished sounding production.

Now And Forever follows as one of those instant songs that certainly call for the classic foot tap/head bob all the 37

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 way through. Memorable and catchy, the main riff and the breakdown on the outro are colossal.

If you are looking for the epitome of epic, then If Not For You is it.. One never tires of hearing Friedman’s high pitched flawless acrobatics on the choruses, while Thrown Further throws us back into the full groove, phat riffs and down tuning loaded with moodier and grunge-tastic tones. The breakdowns are aplenty throughout this album, and this one is particularly sexy.

The departure of drumming extraordinaire Garrett Whitlock has determined a true loss of invaluable assets to this outfit. One could not help but wonder how affected the overall sound would be once the new material was released.

However, his successor Ryan Bennett has managed to seamlessly transition by imprinting his very own style and forming a very solid unit with fellow rhythm lord Tanner Keegan, also added to the line-up as the new official bassist.

Bennett superbly shines in the bombastic and fastest track of the album Let That Be Us. The tribal beat on the bridge throws chills so deep down the spine to make you quiver for days while it all gets beautifully finished with a helluva killer solo, courtesy of the master himself.

ness and fatigue about the world we live in, “I am worn, and I am tired,” yet with an equally uplifting message of strength, integrity and resilience “don’t let this cold world change you.” An exemplary lesson indeed to any father speaking to their child.

This song is the heaviest of the album and by far the most impressive.

Stunningly arranged and indelible, it is not a case that it was chosen as a single.

The contemplative The Last One of Us finds a new atmospheric bubble as a litany to Mark’s unborn child, while In One Piece picks up the pace with more riffing galore.

Worth of particular mention is also Under The Sun.

The album Marching in Time is varied and multifaceted.

Perhaps to the detriment of the coherence that was readily apparent in Tremonti’s back catalogue, it is rather a compendium of 12 works of art, easily standing alone in their own right, yet offering a perfect balance of groove, tones, heaviness, memorable hooks and, above all, words.

Melancholic, emotive and incredibly intense in all of its staggering sobriety. Then the inevitable radio-friendly Not Afraid To Lose, whose profound lyrical content elevates the artist to new levels of depth.

It is such diversity that perfectly delivers the various moods and colours of a brutally honest, stark and introspective outlook on the state of the world of today.

The album unwinds with a welcome curveball, where Bleak explores the uncharted territory of the dissonance of Spanish modal undertones.

If Tremonti’s fourth studio album, A Dying Machine, marked the apex of maturity in terms of a sophisticated and refined sonic search, Marching In Time truly delivers on the accomplishment of the artist as a true songwriter.

The addition of a nylon string guitar further enhances the dynamics and, once again, the climax of a meaty breakdown on the outro.

Here, Tremonti’s vocal ability reaches new heights, and the focus truly shifts onto the melody and the depth of the lyrics, especially given lines of the likes of “I am not ashamed of the scars that define me.”

The controversial Would You Kill certainly lends itself to a contentious topic of conversation, while you couldn’t conceive any other ending if not a progtastic 7+ minute-long odyssey.

A Dying Machine was dubbed the band’s career-defining achievement, and anything that followed would need to be nothing short of extraordinary.

Feeling the weight of his newfound fatherhood in times of extreme apprehension, it does not seem coincidental that the artist would want to exit with a song that delivers a powerful message to posterity.

Marching In Time is indeed the answer to the question of how to follow a masterpiece.

Marching In Time is a compendium of heavy and prog, loaded with anguish, darkness and a sense of hopeless-

• Dany Jones 38

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

ALBUMREVIEWS Hladomrak Archaic Sacrifice

George Lynch SeamlesS

Swedish Black Metal outfit Hladomrak return with their third full-length album, Archaic Sacrifice. Originally a one-man project, ‘Hladomrak’ can be translated from the Slavic languages as “cold darkness” and is inspired by founder Evgenerator’s Latvian heritage.

Despite being one of the most influential and revered guitarists of the last 50 years, this is George Lynch’s first fully instrumental solo album. Originally written as part of a band project, George Lynch quickly realised that there was just too much going on with the guitars to allow a vocalist the space to sing. Thus, Seamless was born.

Since their inception, the idea behind the music has been to create “Black Metal that’s succumbed by nature’s cold, raw, unrelenting essence, presented in a professional and well-produced manner, drawing inspiration from everything within nature that is not touched or contaminated by mankind’s presence.”

Those expecting a big ’80s soundscape full of Dokken like riffs and choruses might be disappointed; the guitars and songwriting on Seamless generally sound closer to latterday Lynch Mob or KXM records.

However, that’s no bad thing.

The band describes Archaic Sacrifice as an epic journey across Black Metal with their own unique flare.

On the contrary, George Lynch has crafted an authentic and genuinely impressive collection of tracks here with Seamless.

First off, I can’t emphasise enough what a superb listen this album is. It’s utterly engaging, gelling with me on just the second playthrough.

“Seamless is my attempt at creating a guitar-driven instrumental record,” Lynch says, “that delivers something outside the realm of what most people would expect from an instrumental guitar record coming from a semi-redeemed ’80s hair shredder.”

• KAHMEL FARAHANI

The eight tracks, spanning thirty-seven minutes, makes a perfect vessel for those mentioned lyrical inspirations.

The compositions are dynamically constructed, manifesting as a very Swedish sound in origin and dark, brutal, powerful and precise.

Maze Of Terror Offer To The Fucking Beasts

A lot of attention has been paid to the details put into both the guitar work and the complex, engaging drum work. I love the vocal delivery. It’s harsh and scathing with excellent intonation and protraction.

If you like your Thrash Metal raw and unrelenting, then look no further than the latest offering from Peru’s Maze Of Terror as they return with their second studio full length, Offer To The Fucking Beasts.

Needless to say, I’ve no favourite tracks.

Each is of the same high standard, the same engaging quality. From the opener, the dark and driving Fozforos Insigniap, which has just enough melodic undercurrent to engage without detracting from the brutality, delivered with a plodding but dynamic mid-pace, all the way to the closer Niel’n, a three-minute meld of blackened riffing, of squealing leadwork and sinister spoken lyrics, a fitting close to a superb album.

With a high but acerbic vocal delivery, it is an album that if you like one track, you’ll like the lot as each track is delivered to the same consistent standard.

An unrelenting Thrash-fest, delivered at breakneck speed with vitriolic intent and fittingly brutal lyrics that lean a little towards a Lovecraft theme at times.

I highly recommend Archaic Sacrifice, especially if you like a powerful, more modern, and precise Black Metal delivery.

All in all, a Thrash-tastic listen.

• Jools Green

• JOOLS GREEN 39

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

ALBUMREVIEWS Cistvaen Under the Silent Meadow Skies

Joanne Shaw Taylor The Blues Album

“In the black, glacial winter of 2017, whilst the hoar frost turned the empty moors, a spectral alabaster, a lamentation, shattered the crystal silence from a cabin in the woods where five solitary figures had gathered for the first time to forge what would be the beginnings of a band called Cistvaen.”

Throughout her twelve-year recording career, the infectious blues tones of Joanne Shaw Taylor have never disappointed. When her debut album White Sugar was unleashed in 2009, a fairly male-dominated blues scene was knocked out of its comfort zone and given something serious to think about.

This marked the beginnings of this atmospheric Black Metal quintet from Devon.

The Blues Album is a collection of covers and tips its hat to some influential heavyweights like Peter Green, Albert King, Little Richard and Aretha Franklin, and lesser spotted tracks from The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Ry Cooder’s Little Village. This latest ensemble is a more traditional affair.

Since then, anyone involved in the Black Metal scene, particularly the Devon area, could not fail to be familiar with them as they have spent the years since, lockdown aside, getting their sound out there.

There’s not much more that can be written about Taylor’s impeccable guitar work, except that it’s as engrossing and jaw-dropping as ever.

They have finally found the time, at long last, to release their first EP, Under The Silent Meadow Skies, which follows a couple of digital singles released over the previous twelve months.

But what producers Joe Bonamassa and Smith have brought to the forefront is the endless tide of passion and sincerity in her vocals. I suspect this won’t be the last time Taylor will reboot herself and put her stamp on another batch of covers, for this has been an education in the blues.

• BRIAN BOYLE

Under The Silent Meadow Skies is a magnificently powerful and emotion-stirring listen end to end, which you can’t fail to be moved by.

• JOOLS GREEN

Necromantia To The Depths We Descend

Dickless Tracy Grave New World

After Baron Blood’s passing in November 2019, Necromantia announced that they were disbanding.

Slovenia’s Deathgrind legends, Dickless Tracy, named themselves after a wordplay in the film The Hard Way.

There would be one final EP dedicated to Baron Blood scheduled for 2020. It was delayed to 2021 and expanded into a full length, titled, To The Depths We Descend.

To The Depths We Descend is an impressive listen end to end, powerfully atmospheric and brutally dynamic.

The title, Grave New World, is also an intriguing play on words and features nine new songs, one re-recorded number, and one never released single, looking at the subjects of “death in different forms, mainly the causes of death: consumerism, war, religion, and human influence on the environment.”

This is an album that Necromantia will certainly be remembered for.

Across the release, the composition, musicianship and deep growling vocal delivery are excellent.

It’s varied, superbly unpredictable, fully engaging and a fitting epitaph for Baron Blood.

• JOOLS GREEN

This is a superbly brutal yet engaging listen, end to end.

• JOOLS GREEN 40

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

ALBUMREVIEWS The Stranglers Dark Matters

Dië Spanglë Livë/Dië

The Stranglers finally got around to releasing the follow up to 2012’s Giants with Dark Matters, and it was definitely worth the wait.

Punk four-piece Dië Spanglë are Cornwall’s finest export and one of the few things we in Devon allow over the Tamar Bridge, although we charge them for the privilege.

All aspects of The Stranglers’ sound are covered throughout its eleven tracks. The Lines and Down showcase the band at their vulnerable best, and No Man’s Land has an angular and jagged rhythm to the verses before breaking into yet another classic Stranglers chorus.

Livë/Dië is a six-track live release, four older fan favourite tracks and two new gems, with a twist, as this release, like many, was born out of lockdown.

As a live recording, I can’t fault Livë/Dië. The sound quality is excellent, and like all Dië Spanglë releases, it’s a great singalong offering full of catchy lyrics, catchy riffs and great bass lines, with the drum work popping through in a discreet but upbeat manner.

This is the first Stranglers album without drummer Jet Black, who officially retired in 2015, although he is thanked in the album’s sleeve notes.

The sadly departed Dave Greenfield, however, features on eight out of the album’s eleven tracks.

It captures all the fun, energy and excitement of their live performances, and you can’t ask more than that. It’s highly recommended listening.

If this is The Stranglers last studio hurrah – and it looks likely it will be – then they couldn’t have gone out with a better album. This is classic Stranglers, and it’s simply majestic.

For every CD sold, Dië Spanglë will make a further donation to Brook Farm Animal Sanctuary.

• ROBERT ADAMS

• JOOLS GREEN

CATS IN SPACE DIAMONDS: THE BEST OF

Sodom Bombenhagel

With Diamonds, the purveyors of pomp rock have re-recorded a collection of tracks to showcase the talents of new vocalist Damien Edwards, blasting away any shadow of a doubt if he could handle the Cats’ back catalogue well in a live setting.

German Thrash legends Sodom, who will be celebrating their fortieth anniversary next year, have released a three-track EP, Bombenhagel.

The first track is a complete reinvention of their classic Bombenhagel, from their 1987 album Persecution Mania and as classic a track as that is, this new version brings a whole lot more to the table.

The album is an exhilarating ride, a riot of sound and groove, a platform that perfectly displays the bands pedigree. The tracks represented are a good mix, from the upbeat to the ballads to the epic. A best-of is always going to be a subjective topic, but this selection is not bad at all, especially as the Cats’ albums are known for not containing filler tracks. Diamonds enhances the catalogue for the existing fans and is the perfect diving in spot for the new.

The two new tracks are Coup De Grace, an utter Thrashfest and Pestiferous Posse, a very engaging and catchy track.

Bombenhagel is an excellent EP that Thrash fans will love.

• Liz Medhurst

• JOOLS GREEN 41

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Vetrar Draugurinn

Dutch doomsters Vetrar Draugurinn are closer in spirit to their Icelandic name than their warmer homeland, creating music full of heavy, threatening overtones but littered with atmospheric melodies.

Formed by ex Stream Of Passion man Eric Hazebroek and featuring current Autumn singer Marjan Welman on lead vocals, they have just released their independently funded sophomore album The Night Sky. It’s a beautifully crafted follow up to their debut Hinterlands, an album full of heavy, memorable riffs, slow atmospheric build-ups and silky smooth melodic vocals, which take it into another league altogether; traditional Doom Metal this is not.

Songs like The Lonely and The Observer captivate but never quite let you know exactly where they’re going to go. When the band edge into epic territory on the brooding tribute to love which is Our Lady Of Perpetual Emptiness, or the towering soundscape of Reynisfjara, it feels like they’ve come home.

MetalTalk’s Ian Sutherland caught up with Eric and Marjan to find out more about Vetrar Draugurinn and The Night Sky. MetalTalk: Thanks for talking to us. For anyone new to the band, can you say how you got together?

Eric: The actual start of the band was back in 2014. I played the guitar in Stream of Passion and had just put my band, The Saturnine, to rest. I came up with the idea to start a new project, more of a solo thing, with music that I couldn’t offer to SoP.

Dutch atmospheric doomsters Vetrar Draugurinn release their tribute to the night sky 42

I listen to many different artists and styles, and many people know that my love for the more sombre and dark music is the most prominent. So I started writing songs and looking around for whom of my friends in the music business I could ask for their skills to add to this idea.

I made a selection based on skills and style, but also personality. I wanted to gather a group of people that were open to the vision and could relate to the main subject of the music. Easy going was also a criteria.

When early in 2016, Stream of Passion decided to call it a day, I called the group of people that formed Vetrar Draugurinn on the way home from the SoP meeting to ask them if they were up for transforming the project into a full-blown band.

And so it happened that this unlikely group of Dutch musicians moved forward under an Icelandic name.

Marjan: Well, what Eric said, of course!

It started as a side project for Eric, and he rang me up asking me if I would be interested in singing some songs for

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 My influences range from bands like Paradise Lost, Katatonia, Ghost Brigade, The Third And The Mortal, through Alice In Chains, Leprous, God Is An Astronaut, Crowbar to even artists like Fields Of The Nephilim, Eivor, Olafur Arnalds, and Alain Johannes. I’m open to any music that causes a stir in my equilibrium.

him. I’m always up for more singing.

When the time came for Eric to turn it into an actual band, I was more than happy to accept!

Where did the band name come from?

Do you get fed up explaining what it means, or do you think it works as an attention-getter?

Eric: [Laughs] Yes, the old subject of the Icelandic name for a Dutch band.

Back in the beginning, I was looking for a name that would stand out, and most of all was not taken. For some reason, I ended up with The Winter Ghost as a moniker that portrayed the idea behind the music the best.

music? Are there specific influences?

Eric: I fully understand the need for a clear genre name to describe music, yet I think it would be tough to pinpoint the exact genre we are in even if I wanted to. Yes, it’s doomy and melancholic, but not full-on Doom Metal.

Keywords that come to mind are melodic, diverse, dynamic, melancholic, heavy at times, fragile at other times.

We are not in it to colour within lines.

We are in it to create sincere and heartfelt music.

I started to look into the translation of that into several different languages to see what would enhance the mysterious and haunting feel even more. Icelandic stood out.

I always was a little in love with Iceland. It’s a place that stands out, totally alien to the rest of the world. It seemed suitable.

Icelandic is a hard language to grasp, and after a few versions, with the help of a friend who lives there, we ended up with Vetrar Draugurinn.

Marjan: Eric already explained, but I’d like to add that this matter always makes me laugh. Don’t get me wrong, I love the name, but the puzzled looks I get are very amusing.

When people ask what the name of my band is, I always have the urge to ask: Do you have a pen on you?

How would you describe the band’s 43

Marjan: Tough one. I find this one difficult to answer because we all bring our unique flavour to the band. I personally don’t do genres. Well, just two. Like and dislike. Or no likey when I’m feeling extra eloquent! All of us have different influences, and I think that shows when you listen carefully.

What is the songwriting process in the band?

Eric: I am the main songwriter. When I come up with a viable idea, a workable concept, I have the tendency to write several new songs in a rather short period. I have access to recording software at home, and together with some drum midi, I tend to create a complete song arrangement.

But the drums are to give everyone an idea of the feel I was thinking of.

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Jim is always entirely free to change the drum parts if he sees the need to.

That goes for everybody in the band.

I am always open to fresh interpretations of the music I have written. I record the guitars, add some drum midi, and maybe even some special FX and/ or keyboards.

When the structure is sound, I usually head over to Marjan’s place on the other side of the country, and we try to come up with some interesting vocal lines that complement the song’s concept.

I do write all the lyrics, but I try to explain the thought behind it to give Marjan an insight and the chance to translate it to her personal feelings before we start creating the vocal melodies.

Most of the time, it’s just me nodding in agreement when she comes up with these vocal lines and melodies/harmonies!

Marjan: Haha, thanks, Eric. I listen to Eric’s songs and the thoughts behind them and try to let lines come up without too much pressure. The latter is very hard to accomplish because I suf-

fer from perfectionism. I can shut down when I get too much into my head. I’ve come a long way since that first rehearsal, where I couldn’t sing anything because I was afraid of letting the others down. Eric nodded an awful lot before I came out of my shell.

Many bands with Doom Metal influences use harsh vocals or growls. Why have you chosen to use mostly Marjan’s gorgeous melodic style?

Eric: It might not have been such a conscious decision when I think about it now. But I do believe Marjan’s voice needs the centre stage. Plus, harsh vocals are not part of the message we try to bring across, I think.

You two are both smiley people who are great fun to be around. Where does all this darkness come from?

Eric: To be honest, there’s no real answer to that question for me. It’s always been there. I keep saying I have total control over it, which is mostly true, but it is always hiding in the background.

I experience some emotions quite intensely, which was even more concentrated when my father died in 2016.

44

The outside might not show it too much, but on the inside, it’s a whirlwind. Thankfully I can let go of some of it through writing songs and lyrics.

Marjan: For me personally, that darkness and anxiety come naturally. That fun, smiley side is just the other side of a double-edged sword to keep things in balance, maybe. Or a coping skill even, but let’s not go there.

You released your debut album Hinterlands in 2019. How do you feel about that album now, and how do you think follow up The Night Sky compares?

Eric: Hinterlands was clearly a debut album, with songs gathered over a longer period of time and when the band’s style wasn’t completely set in stone.

It does mean that it is a good view of all the different aspects that are Vetrar Draugurinn, though.

The Night Sky is way more coherent.

Written in a shorter time and with songs stylistically closer to each other.

The Night Sky is heavier and darker. We evolved.

Thomas (guitars) has written the instrumental track The Fear of Letting Go,

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021 which fit in perfectly with the general flow and feel of the album.

It’s still clear that Hinterlands and The Night Sky are made by the same band, but The Night Sky is our proof of the fact that we write music for ourselves without any preplanned marketing ideas of genre restrictions.

The music’s main goal is to express and to console. We are not in it to please everyone but to be that understanding listening ear to the sorrow we all encounter in our lives. We’re breaking free from expectations. The Night Sky is the first step, I guess.

Marjan: Exactly what Eric said. I think you can hear we evolved. We’ve grown into our style more. We have clear favourites on Hinterlands, and I think if you listen to The Night Sky, you will hear which those are.

Is there any theme to the lyrics on The Night Sky? Eric: I harshly stated on Facebook, without any form of context, that it’s about death and loneliness. I think that statement actually still stands strong.

There are songs about death, dying and loss, as well as being alone and disconnected.

It sounds rather serious and heavy, but I’m always trying to create the light at the end of the tunnel in it as well, or the beauty of the things that were.

There’s enough room for interpretation to make it your own as a listener, to translate it to someone’s own situation.

Marjan: The beautiful thing about music is that every listener has their own interpretation of a song. Associations vary from person to person, even when some lyrics are more clear than others.

That’s the best part. I know what I think the song is about, but I love to hear other people’s opinions or guesses.

There are some fabulous song titles on the album as well as fabulous songs.

What are Our Lady Of Perpetual Emptiness and As I Drift On An Ocean Towards A Different Shore about?

Eric: Well, Our Lady Of Perpetual Emp-

tiness is about coping with the absence of someone you hold dear. The title transforms that emotion into an almost religious experience—a plea to a fictitious Saint, one that controls all the melancholy.

Our Lady Of Perpetual Emptiness both causes emotional hurt as well as comfort. I also mentioned her in the title track.

The song itself is rather atmospheric and balladesque. Marjan is the main focus of this song. The musical blanket is there to paint the scene a bit. It is reverbed and hazy.

As I Drift On An Ocean Towards A Distant Shore is about the actual point of leaving this mortal coil.

There are many descriptions of what people experience and see. One of them is that the place between life and death is a vast, dark ocean.

The lyrics talk about leaving one shore, life, and travelling to another, the afterlife. It sort of describes the realisation that the most important part of the life side is the love you had for people, a thing a lot of people don’t grasp until the very end.

You don’t know what you’ve got till they’re gone.

There are some male vocals on Lansdown Hill. Who is guesting on that track?

Eric: The guest vocals on Lansdown Hill are done by our dear friend and singer/ guitar player from the Australian Dark Metal band The Eternal, Mark Kelson.

I’ve known Mark for years as we kept in contact through social media after meeting many years ago in Tilburg.

Two years ago, we had the pleasure of sharing the stage for two shows when The Eternal made the journey over to promote their album.

Mark is a cool guy, a great musician, and has this very deep, dark voice if he wants to, which was quite suitable for our song.

I guess Lansdown Hill is a sort of tribute to the goth rock things I used to listen to. The arrangements are a bit less 45

JIri schellinger

complicated. Mark’s contribution to it finished it off perfectly.

Do you have any favourite songs on the album to play or sing and why?

Eric: It changes, but the one song that keeps coming back to me is definitely Reynisfjara. The huge atmosphere and the chorus worked out really well.

The longest song on the album, but that’s what it needed. It’s a journey.

Marjan: Exactly the same for me!

Do you have plans to play live soon, on tour, or maybe doing another live stream event?

Eric: We’re always looking for opportunities to play live. We have a handful of gigs planned or in the works, but not enough for our liking! Doing a tour is very hard at the moment for full independent bands like we are.

We will definitely try to get the most out of it.

What does the immediate future look like for Vetrar Draugurinn?

Eric: Good question! I’ve been so busy getting this album out into the world that the thought of what comes after hasn’t really crossed my mind yet.

I did have four days locked up in a cabin in the woods with a guitar and recording equipment last week, so maybe I’ll plot a new EP or start writing for album number three!

The current state of the world, in all its pandemic splendour, makes thinking ahead rather difficult. But I keep my thoughts on my love for music and try to steer away from trouble.

• IAN SUTHERLAND

The Night Sky is out now and can be purchased from the band via their website.

vetrardraugurinn.com

STORYOFTHEBAND

SECONDS OUT & MORE

CAMBRIDGE CORN EXHCANGE 15 September 2021 It’s a sobering thought that Steve Hackett left Genesis, the band for whom he was an integral part and a huge part of their rise to success, a head-scratching forty-four years ago.

With this current tour, he pays tribute to the last official release the band issued with him as part of the line-up, playing the seminal live album Seconds Out in its entirety.

It’s not clear if Hackett has a portrait tucked up in his attic, but he looks the same as he ever has and certainly, his performance was one full of youthful passion and vigour, the years falling away and transporting the sell-out crowd back to those heady days.

Before settling into the main part of the evening, though, the guitarist and band treated the audience to a cherry-picked stroll through his solo back catalogue, from the seminal Spectral Mornings through to selections of the newly released Surrender Of Silence.

Thrust straight into the drama from the first chords, the classic Clocks – The Angel of Mons hit hard, its chiming notes and dark power struck the audience bringing a mix of emotions as

the joy of seeing the performance and the serious subject juxtaposed beautifully, creating a sublime tension.

Pounding new track Held In The Shadows reiterates that Hackett has never been content to let the grass grow under his feet, always striving forward.

Its perfectly layered composition sees some great harmonies between the main man, singer Nad Sylvan and singer/guitarist Amanda Lehmann making her first appearance on the tour tonight. The musicianship is dazzling with the interplay between the six stringer, keys player Roger King and

In trying times, one of the finest musicians we have, Steve Hackett, certainly catches the zeitgeist 46

Rob Townsend’s sax like a firework to the synapses.

Every Day brings even more harmonies, and The Devil’s Cathedral has all the makings of a future classic stamped all over it. The new track’s dramatic and cinematic quality seemingly compresses a whole film soundtrack into a scant few minutes.

After the tumult, this first section closes with the pastoral beauty of Shadows Of The Hierophant, Lehmann’s vocals and Townsend’s flute painting something otherworldly and utterly captivating before the song comes to a huge crescendo. A short interval later and it was time for curtains up on the epic second act.

Essentially a greatest hits set, Seconds Out caught Genesis arguably at their peak, Phil Collins move from drummer to fully-fledged frontman with remarkable aplomb, his own style replacing his very theatrical former bandmate Peter Gabriel cemented on the original live opus.

Throughout this transition, Hackett continued to stamp his identity on their work, his playing soaring to new

PHOTOGRAPHY: STEVE RITCHIE

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

STEVEHACKETT heights as he sought to ever widen his musical palette as he balanced both his work with Genesis and his fledgling solo career. While the tour was to be the last one he did with the band, leaving during the album’s mixing, there is nothing of the tensions that may have existed back then in tonight’s performance, seeing the guitarist, band, and audience wreathed in smiles throughout.

A joyous Squonk and a still enchanting The Carpet Crawlers rightly treated like old friends, the musicians digging well and truly into the groove, hitting the highs and perfectly grazing the tonal lows. Robbery, Assault and Battery romps, Craig Blundell’s drums and the bass of Jonas Reingold skittering and driving with quicksilver ease.

As always, Afterglow is utterly sublime, Hackett’s fretwork showing such soul and the whole aches with a rare beauty that truly lifted and transported.

Following that, the pomp and grandeur of Firth Of Fifth was greeted with such stamping of feet and clapping along that the building shook and dust fell from the high rafters. This, along with a brilliant rendition of I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe), was the epitome of English whimsy and

its ancient spell, the connection with the audience complete.

It’s a testament to Hackett and the band that their playing is able to convey this fantastical world with such sublime transposition.

highlighted, if ever it was needed, just what a brilliantly unique storyteller Gabriel is and how inventive the band were in that era.

The latter, replete with box sax and flute solos, was stretched to glorious length, seemingly neither the band nor the audience wanting to let go of the moment as they rode the wave.

Despite the running time of some of their pre-And Then There Were Three material, Genesis never went in for the sort of extended instrumental passages that some accused fellow Prog Giants Yes of “noodlingly meandering” such was the episodic construction, and the set tonight highlighted this.

Eons away from the navel-gazing approach taken by some of their peers, The Lambs Lies Down is positively jaunty and The Musical Box achingly magical, drawing you in as it weaves

Special mention must go at this point to Sylvan, his vocals capturing the spirit of the original without merely aping them.

While everyone had their own personal favourites, the reception reserved for Supper’s Ready was something else entirely. It’s virtually impossible to fully convey the transfixing effect this most celebrated, but equally maligned by some at the time, track has, as the utter joy of being wrapped in warm embrace touched all present.

There was no other choice but to let it wash over and into you.

The standing ovation that greeted its close was the only reaction left, the journey both emotionally exhausting and triumphantly joyous.

While a virtually impossible act to follow, set-closer, The Cinema Show was rightly epic. Its multi-sectioned and panoramic score-like movements brought things to a suitably climactic crescendo. With an encore of the punchy and driving Dance On A Volcano, the lyrical guitar riff climbing ever upwards and the stratospheric Los Endos spiralling into the clouds and beyond, it was a perfect end to a perfect evening, another standing ovation assured for the onstage creators of these delights.

In such trying times, one of the finest musicians we have, Steve Hackett, certainly catches the zeitgeist, the spirit of happy nostalgia and moving forward onto new things the perfect summation of where our hearts and heads should be.

This evening brought all that and more.

• PAUL MONKHOUSE

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SHANNON WILK

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

FOO FIGHTERS

Foo Fighters hit the road this summer for their 26th-anniversary tour, postponed from the previous summer’s 25th anniversary.

Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater.

17 September 2021 One of the additional dates added to the rescheduled tour was 17 September at Bridgeport, CT’s Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater.

This is the Foo Fighters 26th-anniversary tour, and the set really took fans on an experience through the years of the band, including several tunes from the band’s latest studio release, Medicine At Midnight, all the way back to their first album.

As the band played My Hero, you

could feel the emotion in the air as the crowd sang every word back at the band. It seems Foo Fighters are just as passionate about the music as the fans are passionate about the music and the band.

Later in the set, these six guys played two incredible covers - You Should Be Dancing by Bee Gees and Somebody To Love by Queen.

The energy exchange between the band and the crowd is one of many reasons fans were reminded why they love live music.

The band has had a busy year thus far, with a new studio album released in February and a disco cover album released in July for Record Store Day.

Dave Grohl himself dubbed their performance a “raw, real rock ‘n’ roll show”, and I couldn’t describe it more accurately than that.

Thousands of fans poured into the venue for this sold-out show at one of the smallest venues Foo Fighters have played in a long time.

• Shannon Wilk

It was around 9:15 PM. The crowd erupted into deafening cheers and screams as Foo Fighters took the stage.

The show started slowly with Times Like These but picked up quickly with a couple of the band’s classics - The Pretender and Learn To Fly.

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

FOO FIGHTERS

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Cat scratch fever breaks out in London

CATS IN SPAC The UK’s favourite intergalactic felines crash land into the capital for the final date of their Dive Into Atlantis tour. Fellow London based rockers Vambo were in tow, making this a special double whammy homecoming night for both bands.

Rolled over from previous dates due to the pandemic, a healthy crowd gathered despite various reports of attendances around the country for all bands consistently down by approximately 25% due to COVID-19 related no shows.

The London fans made the bands proud, proving that if you put a quality bill together, the people will come.

With arena tours as special guests to Deep Purple, Thunder and Status Quo under their belt and the seemingly dwindling pandemic showing light at the end of the tunnel, this is most definitely Cats in Space’ moment and their first chance to tour their latest opus.

From Narnia to Atlantis, from space ship to submarine, the cats are back with a new captain at the bridge control. With Mark Pascall now departed, Damien Edwards has been beamed up to add the next mix to this wonderfully unique band.

WORDS: DAVE BONNEY / PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBERT SUTTON

From Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds and Supersonic ‘70s, Edwards brings an absolutely astounding set of pipes to the table. With the greatest respect to Pascall, who did a fine job replacing Paul Manzi, some things are just meant to be.

Looking resplendent in a glittery sequined flamed jacket, Edwards brought the glitz and glam to a damp 50

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

The Garage, London. 2 October 2021

CE, LONDON An embarrassment of riches could well describe tonight’s setlist, which covers all four studio albums comprehensively with melody and harmonies galore, which Twilight, Mr Heartache and the gloriously catchy Only In Vegas offer in spadefuls.

guitar fretwork from Dean Howard.

I think most people know by now what Cats In Space are about, and if you don’t, where have you been? Outer space?

Mad Hatters Tea Party is a personal favourite of mine, and judging from looking around, many others too. With its genius social media satire lyrics, I dare you not to sing along.

It’s well documented where the band’s influences lie and strengthened by their collaboration with Mick Wilson of 10cc fame on songwriting, three and four-part harmonies, melodies, beautiful arrangements, all delivered with a nod to the likes of Queen, ELO, Sweet. You get the picture.

drab North London corner on a monsoon of a Saturday evening.

And so it continues with Scars, Silver And Gold, Listen To The Radio and an exquisitely stripped back piano-led September Rain. Marionettes ups the tempo between the piano intro and outro, merging into album title track Atlantis, culminating with glorious

Set intro Dive makes way for opener Too Many Gods, which is as always the perfect entrance with Edwards singing “hello” to the cat army and getting to the point with “too many people praying, to the invisible man” ....indeed there are Damien!

The latest album Atlantis is well represented tonight, with no more than six songs, starting with the double salvo of Spaceship Superstar-is it just me or would this song make a great mashup with The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again-and Revolution, which is more like a revelation, to be honest.

51

The deliciously contradicting Thunder In The Night with its bass intro and disco beat had the crowd dancing, with its line “I can’t stand this disco music”, all that was missing was a mirror ball.

I Fell Out Of Love With Rock ‘n’ Roll was next up, harking back to when grunge took over the charts with Edwards singing, “why did melody become so bad at all”...I don’t think it ever really did.

Greatest Story Never Told closes the set tonight, and what a song to conclude with. From the debut album that started this all off, this song is big, and I mean huge.

Seven minutes that encapsulate everything the band have to give, from

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

sublime duel vocals from Damien Edwards and Jeff Brown to driving drums and bass from Steevi Bacon and Brown again, swirling atmospheric keys from Andy Stewart and twin guitars and solos from Dean Howard and Greg Hart.

The band exited the stage leaving absolutely nothing out there, and the fans loved them for it, immediately shouting for more, and it wasn’t long before the Cats were back for a welldeserved encore with the damning Hologram Man ending a sizzling set with Edwards triumphantly blowing kisses to the crowd.

I really missed Johnny Rocket (I wanted to be a spaceman) tonight, but with a seventeen song set, one can’t complain with the strength of song choice the band has now.

I think I’ve run out of superlatives to describe tonight’s show, save to say the Cats served up a veritable feast of grandiose pomp and circumstance classic rock, AOR, glam.

Call it what you will, it was eagerly lapped up by one and all, and I, for one, can’t wait to do it all over again in December. Neither should you.

• DAVE BONNEY

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

11questions JAMES KENNEDY AND THE UNDERDOGS

Which artist/band has influenced you the most?

Frank Zappa.

Best gig you’ve ever been to?

The Prodigy. Every time.

Which three adjectives best describe you?

Sensational, inspirational & humble What was your most embarrassing moment?

Falling face-first into the drumkit at a biker festival and pissing blood out of my forehead for the rest of our set without knowing it.

What is your most treasured possession?

My black Fender Strat.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

Population thinning.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Be honest with yourself. Are you a douche? Are you the common denominator in all of your problems? Be honest.

Then get the hell out of your own way and watch things get better real quick.

What has been your closest brush with the law?

Time in a cell over possession of Cannabis.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?

To the ‘70s and form a band.

What is the closest you’ve come to death?

Brushing shoulders with William Hague on a street in Cheltenham.

Tell us a joke...

Boris Johnson is Prime Minister.

Photo: Tom Damsell 53

Bloodstock 2021

“Will it happen?” has thankfully been replaced by “let’s do this.”

There’s even sunshine instead of the biblical squalls we have been used to, and the forecast is looking good too.

Never mind the skies though, all the action is down here on the ground, and the air is ringing with the sweet and brutal sound of Metal.

Onslaught as headliners were red hot, mainly due to bringing enough pyro to burn your face off, so much so that the pit was cleared as it was way too dangerous to take photos.

The veterans showed no sign of slowing down, maintaining their influential status.

Security reported dragging an astounding 270 revellers over the barrier—no such thing as peaking too soon here.

Thursday Fury meant business early doors with a beefed-up classic sound guarantee to blow the space dust out of just-woken eyes. They were a last-minute replacement for Mother Vulture.

There have been many changes, unsurprisingly, but the ability of the bands and event organizers to put on a seamless show is legendary.

Ashen Crown gave us our fix of agPHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

It’s here, it’s true, it’s real. We are standing in the hallowed ground of Bloodstock, with freshly glittered nails, our entrance has been secured, and the heart in mouth feeling of the past few weeks caused by the pandemic uncertainty can finally start to abate.

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Onslaught

Wednesday Anakim were the first band on the Sophie stage, the Dorset Death Metallers fizzing with energy and packing in the layers of sounds. Ward XVI impressed with their theatricality, the full show an amalgamation of gothic and horror tropes which didn’t feel contrived and set a mood of danger and intensity, making sure the adrenaline was pumping.

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gressive, dirty growls and melting riffs, pulling a packed crowd despite the early doors. A truly momentous set.

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

King Creature

The main site is pretty full. It doesn’t feel like a warm-up day at all. There’s so much going on, with great traders such as Old Sarum tattoos who are filling up their bookings rapidly.

They’re over in the place that’s usually filled by Motley Brew, who are much missed this year. The legendary Bob Moon is here, so all badge and patch needs are covered, especially with a Patch Amnesty here, too, trading patches to raise money for good causes.

Another familiar and welcome face here is Sir Krusher of Joule, who introduced King Witch. Their heady blend of proggy Metal was varied and full of dynamism, with the rich deep voice of Laura Donnelly commanding attention.

At the New Blood Stage, Slave Steel were powerful and dramatic, and Pemphigoid put on a great show, while at the Jägermeister stage, Ghosts Of Men really impressed with their hook-laden high energy. Earlier in the day, Milliner had tried to blast the roof off with their bone-crushing wall of sound.

The Punk Rock Factory replaced the billed Hacktivist. An unassuming-looking quartet, there was nothing standard about their set. As a concept, it’s not that sophisticated – DIY punk versions of fairly well-known songs, but the sheer force of personality and the somewhat eclectic mix was a complete winner.

A circle pit for a Corrs song, anyone?

What about a punk version of the Pokémon song? A packed tent with the overflow leading back past the fairground gave it the thumbs up, thousands of Metallers jumping up and down singing every word.

Lawnmower Deth finished proceedings on the Sophie stage. The Nottinghamshire natives with their mad as a box of frogs thrash satire also raised a smile on the grumpiest of souls, with a cast of characters from spacemen to snails and everything in between. From the gloriously bonkers to the seriously gloomy, Bloodstock has it all.

Friday King Creature launched onto the Sophie stage at 11 am on the dot with a roar. What a start from this hard rocking, hard working band. Their second album, Set The World On Fire, is ripe for touring, and Live Forever and Desolation sounded epic. They have a heavier sound now, but some dynamic ele55

ments make the whole thing rise and swoop.

Frontman Dave Kellaway commanded the stage, his strong clean vocals resonating from every corner and anchoring proceedings as part of the blistering rhythm section with Jack Sutton-Bassett. Matt Karl Vincent provided solos to blast away any hangover dregs, trad-

Skindred

Power got the packed tent moving with a fist-pumping and headbanging delight to ensure a growing collection of new fans. A rapturous reception was well deserved, and let’s hope they are back before too long, much higher on the bill.

The Ronnie James Dio stage is open for business, baptised by Foetal Juice first thing before Divine Chaos thrilled with a solid technical set. It had thrash, prog and hooks, classic elements to really get your teeth into.

and distortion, making a great crowd surfing soundtrack.

Over on the New Blood stage, we experienced the next generation with the young band Beyond Extinction, throwing out a wall of sound that belied their age and experience.

Meanwhile, on the Sophie stage, this afternoon’s highlight was the melodic hard rock of Primitai, covering a good balance between old school and fresh.

Acid Reign followed, treating us to a high energy set packed full of personality. They sailed through some tech gremlins with good humour, chatting away to the crowd as if hanging out in the kitchen.

Steam was let off with a huge circle pit for Humanoia, and there was a heartfelt tribute to original bassist Ian Gangwer who passed away a couple of months ago.

Higher Power kept up the momentum, providing a huge amount of feedback

There’s a superb triple whammy coming up on the Ronnie James Dio stage later with The Wildhearts, Skindred and Devin Townsend.

Venom Prison knocked us for six with a sonic assault that rattled right round the nervous system. A cup of tea and a fruity flapjack sorted us right out afterwards, though.

The Wildhearts played Bloodstock incredibly for the first time in 2019, PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

ing tasty licks with Mike Stennett.

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Devin Townsend 56

and they were one of the bands of the festival. There were two questions to be answered – could they repeat this feat, and would Devin Townsend, who was briefly a member back in the ’90s, make a guest appearance? Yes. And No.

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

The Wildhearts

Ginger and co were in fine form, delivering a frantic and full-on set where every song was a crowd-pleaser. Ginger was clearly happy to be here again and introduced drummer Rich, as he wasn’t here last time, saying that the set was better without him, “so give him a warm welcome but not too warm”.

There was a DIY approach to tech, too, as the sun was in his eyes, so he couldn’t see the guitar tuner dial. Instead, he trusted the crowd to shout out if it sounded in tune or not.

Ending with Let Em Go from the recent opus Renaissance Men this hit hard. Its biting commentary showed that the band continues to put out excellent music with socially relevant lyrics.

You know exactly what you are going to get with Skindred, and that is one hell of a good time. From the opening Star Wars theme and Darth Vader himself ushering the band on, it was a powerhouse of ragga infused Metal.

Benji was resplendent in a suit with flames and studs and completely held the crowd exactly where they needed to be. Refusing to settle for even the slightest degree under full participation, affectionately chastising with lines such as “fucking wankers the lot of you” if the desired volume level wasn’t reached.

Only when momentum had built to his satisfaction did the compliments come.

This set revived any mid-festival flagging, reinforced by Benji’s message of togetherness resonating like never before considering the times.

Kill The Power was followed as a tribute to the fallen and for us all to breathe for those we have lost. Then with a stripped-down Saying It Now, the lyrics searing through the soul with talk of regret and telling people you love them while they are still here. Emotional stuff.

Proceedings were dialled right back up afterwards, with plenty more bouncing

around and call and response. So, after all this roller coaster, were they going to call it a day and give the Newport helicopter a rest?

Of course not. From the opening strain of Warning, there were people with their tops off already. The exuberance of thousands vigorously whirling their shirts never gets old—what a triumph.

After a load of quarantine live streams, 57

Devin Townsend was clearly stoked to be up on stage, hardly believing it was real. Neither did the legions of fans, many of whom were on the verge of overwhelm.

The set started a few minutes before the billed time with the screens showing excerpts from the Ziltoid The Omniscient animation (Yes. It is as strange as it sounds) before blasting into what was described as “a Heavy Metal spec-

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Wargasm

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

tacular rife with Canadian awkwardness”. That sounds just the ticket!

In reality, there was no awkwardness, despite Devin apologising in advance for any mistakes, saying he would pass it off as improvisation. The humility was welcome but unnecessary as the whole thing was a riot of colour, sound and graphics, resulting in a heady, otherworldly experience.

The mystery band for this evening was Steve Platt (Collibus) on guitar, James Leach (Sikth) on bass and Darby Todd (The Darkness, Martin Barre) on drums, all superbly talented.

This was, unsurprisingly, a heavier set, mainly of newer tracks with a mid-set slowing down of pace. It’s futile to pick some highlights, really, but Kingdom, March Of The Poozers, and Spirits Will Collide stood out.

There were plenty of gimmicks throughout, a kitchen sink approach which actually didn’t seem too much in context.

There is plenty of audience participation here, too, with cheesy swaying or batting away the giant inflatables described as “farting ball sacks”.

The epic set ended with more pyro and a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday for Bloodstock’s 20th year.

Devin was a completely worthy headliner with a memorable set on a memorable day.

Saturday Häxan thrilled as headliners on the Jägermeister stage, the Welsh power trio bringing us highlights from their Release The Girls tour stuffed to the brim with hooks, harmonies and hellraising attitude.

Conjurer provided great entertainment on the Ronnie James Dio stage with lush melodic passages mixed with growls so loud the water bottles were bouncing across the stage.

The Sophie stage is also getting a great wake-up call as Netherhall showcased progressive sounds from their debut album.

Wargasm and Malevolence kept up the sonic booms to blast the rain clouds

on their way, both bands pulling in a healthy crowd. Wargasm had their set moved around and settled in this slot after Sylosis succumbed to the dreaded isolation. Vocalist Milkie Way seriously impressed with her power and charisma.

While She Sleeps are a completely misnamed act, there is no chance of getting a quick afternoon nap while the Yorkshire Metalcorers are around. The set was full of movement and ambition, 58

managing to get plenty of textures and hooks, enormously satisfying their passionate fans.

First of the evening bands is Paradise Lost, who are revisiting Draconian Times, their 1995 classic, which has been re-issued on vinyl for its quartercentury anniversary.

The band took to the stage entirely dressed in black, but there was a celebratory air as the moody but not glum

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

CRADLE OF FILTH

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

songs rang out loud and clear.

Perennials such as I See Your Face and Once Solemn instantly conjured the ’90s vibe when Sisters of Mercy and The Cult dominated the airwaves.

Paradise Lost have subsequently influenced countless bands in the Doom and Death genre and this reminder of where it all took off hit a sweet spot.

Over on the smaller stages, Hawxx were the shining stars of the New Blood, swooping on their prey with razor-sharp precision and holding the attention throughout with intelligent tracks, superlative harmonies and finely honed Metal instincts. Ones to watch for sure.

Grey Stag also tried tearing the tent a new one with forceful brutality laced with a generous helping of sludge.

It’s Black Metal’s day to shine here, as evidenced by the glimpse of Winterfylleth we caught over on the Sophie stage showcasing their well-crafted portfolio.

Memoriam followed a bit later on, as popular and welcome now as they were in their last appearance in 2018 – which is very much so.

Cradle Of Filth are long time festival favourites, and this set supported the new album Existence Is Futile, coming out in October. The theatricality was in full force, packing in the visuals with trademark unrelenting enthusiasm.

These guys know how to put on a show.

Kreator were tonight’s main stage headliners, carrying huge anticipation as one of the late 20th century Death Metal pioneers. As the sun set, even the clouds enhanced the atmosphere setting the scene with darkly dramatic formations.

And there was no disappointment at all from the riff masters. With no need for frills, the purity of the old school thrash spoke for itself, cutting through the night air with German efficiency, slicing through any indifference like a bullet.

In contrast, the band themselves were enveloped in smoke and shadow, for the most part, allowing the shockwaves from the impact of their relentless driving and pulsing catalogue to be absorbed without excess distraction.

And with the explosion of a giant confetti cannon, the Ronnie James Dio stage closed, clearing the way for Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons to headline the Sophie stage with their exuberant full-blooded rock ‘n’ roll.

Sunday All Hail To The Priest! 50 Heavy Metal Years! That’s later on, though. The bill for today is an embarrassment of riches. We are diving in headfirst, only 59

stopping to come up for air, and maybe a bit of Rob Halford’s Hails and Horn Halford Ale, launched this weekend over in Lemmy’s bar.

The first band opening The Ronnie James Dio Stage, promised Folk Metal and girls dancing with fire. We are a basic bunch, and we know what we like, so that was enough to get us scrambling for a place at the front.

However, it wasn’t a riotous party – Sei-

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Saxon

drblot started our day with a ritual, the hooded trio invoking the spirits with their traditional Viking music, and the woodland setting providing the perfect backdrop.

Leading us in ceremony with throat singing, shamanic drums and bowed lyres, the enchantment was complete with the appearance of the gorgeous fire wielding duo.

Suitably prepared, it was over to the New Blood stage for Sorceress of Sin, a hotly tipped new band from East Anglia with a wealth of experience and talent.

Vocalist Lisa Skinner’s powerful tones rippled through the tent, operatic and forceful. It’s one of the first chances they’ve had to present the tracks from debut album Mirrored Revenge, and the searing and complex tracks came alive in this setting.

They are finishing up their second album and continuing to work with Tom Maclean (Haken). Another band to keep your eye on.

It’s always a good day when Diamond Head are in the house. Unleashed after many long months, their careerspanning set hit all the right notes and more. Rasmus Bom Andersen was in

fine voice, and Brian Tatler was wielding the Flying V in great style.

their third album and producing a monstrous sound wall.

There’s still a lot of touring life left for 2019’s The Coffin Train, and sandwiching The Messenger between a stunning Heat of the Night and a foot-stomping rocking It’s Electric is testament to the continued quality of the material.

One of the originals and still among the very best.

It’s all looking very promising, with the new track Nightmare Man all sinister overtones and dark riffs. Tom Leighton’s clean vocals topped the multi-layered groove and thunderous rhythms immaculately.

A quick run over to the Sophie stage was rewarded by a satisfying glimpse of hard rockers Liberty Lies, and then Orange Goblin got right down to their 25th-anniversary celebrations.

Following the amicable departure of Martin Millard a couple of months ago, the new bass player, Blind River’s Harry Armstrong, is a perfect fit for their unique blend of crazy humour and in your face Metal.

Ben Ward’s huge presence commanded the arena, revving up the crowd to a fever pitch. They have such a unique blend of sweat, speed and stoner, in an irresistibly bouncy wrapper—quite the tonic.

Back over on the Sophie Stage, Wolf Jaw were a must-see. The Black Country power trio is on the eve of releasing 60

Gloryhammer are ready on the main stage to catch us up with happenings concerning Legends From Beyond The Galactic Terrorvortex.

These mystical minstrels are here to continue our hero Angus McFife’s story and his battles with evil wizard Zargothrax. There’s been a dimensional rift, and the Kingdom of Fife is under threat from, well, god knows what.

That’s all I could gather before the inflatable unicorns started running amok raining down on my head in the mosh pit. Oh, hang on – they’ve clearly made their way down the country after the zombie invasion of Dundee.

Anyway, it’s the most fantastic bit of bloody nonsense you will see today.

Underneath the silliness is Power Metal, performed by a quartet of seriously talented musicians whose storytelling ability is top-notch.

With a huge crowd-pleasing, “Gordon’s alive!” Brian Blessed proclaimed, “Cry God for Saxon, England and St George!” we were then treated to the Barnsley titans’ 40th-anniversary setlist.

PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Judas Priest

Biff and co gave us all the classics, from Motorcycle Man to Denim And Leather to Wheels Of Steel. Of course, there’s no Motörhead, but Lemmy, Eddie and Phil were included in the celebrations with They Played Rock ‘n’ Roll in the set.

With the band loving playing to “a real Metal crowd”, the feeling was reciprocated and by the end of 747 (Strangers In The Night) there was nothing but love all around.

So. It’s Judas Priest. What is there to say?

This most majestic of bands, the ultimate Metal experience, the crowning glory of the genre. After the strains of War Pigs died away, the trident was raised, glowing a menacing red. Already it’s the best sight of the day.

Rob Halford entered the stage looking like the love child of Papa Smurf and Liberace and burst into One Shot At Glory, a live debut. This is familiar and captivating all at once. Any speculation on how early recent album Firepower would appear was put to rest with the second song in, Lightning Strike.

It’s been so challenging to see Judas Priest in the UK over the last few years, with the tour with Ozzy having a couple of postponements even before lockdown, so the enormity of the occasion had not passed by unnoticed.

We’re starting to take it in by now – the Metalworks industrial backdrop, looking like Satan’s living room. Richie Faulkner’s rock god poses. The leather and studs. I can’t think of anywhere else we’d rather be, to be honest.

This setlist, though. No one would complain at the greatest hits of standards, but it’s packed with surprises.

A Touch Of Evil from Painkiller? Invader from Stained Class – when was the last time this was even played? Same for Rocka Rolla?

And as if our emotions weren’t already

on the ceiling, Rob gently led Glenn Tipton on stage for the final big three of Metal Gods, Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight. Great swathes of the audience had something in their eye, it seemed.

Midnight was also notable for the giant bull taking up half the stage. Devin Townsend may have brought an elephant, but this bull kicked it right up 61

the arse.

And that’s it, all over. A dream setlist, one of those privileged “I was there” moments.

Hopefully, Priest will last for many more years, but this is the way to do it if this really is the last time.

• LIZ MEDHURST

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

memoriesfromthepit The opportunity of my life was offered to me to shoot my first open-air Metal festival, Bloodstock, in 2017.

JOHN INGLIS

Editor-in-chied Steve Göldby said he saw potential in me and had every confidence that I’d do a great job. I thought to myself, holy shit, I cannot let him or MetalTalk down, but most of all myself.

With Amon Amarth, Megadeth, and the very theatrical Ghost (a personal favourite) as headliners, I’d be a fool to pass it up.

At the time, I had a borrowed camera and lens from my best friend Scott Clarke, and all the time, I was thinking, ‘oh god, how am I going to do this? Am I out of my depth?’

With passes all sorted, I headed to the media tent, not even knowing what the drill was but set my laptop up and my camera gear, and I was ready to roll.

The pit usher took us down the tunnel into the arena pit for the first band on the main stage. My stomach was churning on hearing the heavy rumble of the bass bins being tested.

Seeing the fans at the pit barrier with a seven-foot stage made me feel like I was going to perform. Safe to say, yes, I was shaking.

The feeling was just beyond anything I’d ever seen or done, seasoned photographers made me feel very welcome, and I soon settled into the flow of what had to be done. It was insane meeting stars like Jeff Waters (Annihilator), David Ellefson (Megadeth) and countless others. By far the best moment of my life, and I’ll treasure it forever.

My journey so far has been quite overwhelming, and I’m blessed to be given these opportunities to do what I love doing.

Never give up your hopes or dreams.

You never know where they can lead

you. You never know who’s watching.

John Inglis has been the chief MetalTalk photographer at every Bloodstock since.

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METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

JOHNINGLIS

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PHOTOS: JOHN INGLIS

METALTALK • OCTOBER 2021

Skindred, backstage at Bloodstock 2021

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