1. Hi Buzz, greetings form Metal-Temple.com magazine! It's great to have such a release – “Will To Survive” – seeing the light of day! At last, a Hammerhead ‘anthology', in a way! How do you feel?

Hi Metal Temple , and thanks for the great review!

All the lads in the band feel really pleased, and slightly bemused that so much activity has mushroomed out of nowhere, just because I put a bunch of our old recordings onto eBay last year!

1. Well, how did you come in contact with Sonic Age Records for this release? Or, did they come in touch with you (laughs)?

Once the original version of ‘Will to Survive' was available on eBay, many of our fans around the World (that we didn't know existed), started to buy copies of it from me, but one fan in particular who has a great interest in the whole NWOBHM thing, got back in touch with me to say that he thought that our music should really be going out to a wider audience, his name is Fred Dronsart from France and he sent a list of contacts to me of a few places that he thought might be interested in selling our CD in larger quantities, this list included Sonic Age Records who initially went on to order around 40 copies of the original version of our album.

Most of the other companies that I got in touch with would only deal with CDs and were not interested in CD-Rs, but that's when ‘Sonic Age'came to the rescue, it wasn't too long before Manos at Sonic Age Records got back in touch with me to make us an offer to sign us to their label and release ‘Will to Survive' officially.

Luckily, at around about the same time, another fan in Italy called Mario got in touch with me to let me know that he had some better sounding versions of our songs than the ones that I had access to myself, he sent a copy of his CD to me, and this was used to enhance the sound quality on some of the tracks for the official release.

1. Prior to Sonic Age Records, were you already looking forward to finding a label to release what became “Will to Survive”? Did you maybe, have in mind to release this collection as a private issue?

Originally we had no plans to release anything at all, everything that has happened so far has happened by chance, when we got back together it was meant to be for one night only and that should have been it!

The only reason the first 100 CDs were made was to sell at that one gig, but only 16 copies were actually sold on the night, so I ended up with a box of 84 CDs to get rid of.

Being familiar with using the auction site eBay, I decided to place an advert on my site. This eventually led to all the current activity, fans of Hammerheads old vinylized stuff had at last found a way to acquire some of our other material, contact the band, and find out more about us.

I did actually consider releasing ‘Will to Survive' officially myself, as I have enough contacts to get everything done without the help of an existing label, but I decided that it would be better to go along with the offer from ‘Sonic Age', as they specialized in this kind of thing, I thought that it would give it more credibility than a self financed effort, and so I spoke to the rest of the band, and everyone agreed that we should take up the offer from Sonic Age Records, we think they did a great job all round; the cover design, the information booklet, pictures of the band (old and new) - and a video clip from 1984 - It all looks very professional, and the band are all really pleased with the end result, it's just a shame it wasn't out 25 years ago when there wasn't quite so much grey hair about!!!

1. Many British Rock/Metal fans are familiar with Hammerhead only via the band's only – back then – official release, the "Time Will Tell/Lonely Man" 7” single from 1981. So what about the rest of the songs? Are they outtakes of that time (late 70s/early 80s)?

Our only single; Time will Tell/Lonely Man, was intended to be an EP, a third song was recorded for this purpose but it was never used on the advice of the studio technician, we wanted our record to sound as loud as possible when it was played, and he told us that by trying to cram too much time onto one side of the single it would affect the overall sound quality and volume, so it was left off, that song was ‘ Ton of Bricks ' which is now the opening track on ‘Will to Survive', the master tapes were never kept, so the version that you hear was salvaged from an old C90 cassette tape that I had kept all those years, there was a clearer sounding version on the CD that Mario sent to me, but the speed of the song had been tampered with, it sounded too fast, and I didn't have the technology at the time to rectify the problem, and so I had no option but to use the version from a dodgy old C90 tape, I don't think that it sounds too bad considering this.

‘Don't Look Down' and ‘Lochinvar' were recorded and produced by Guy Forrester at Linden Sounds studio in 1984, at that point in time I had just quit playing full time in the band, so for this session the other guitarist and founder member Brian Hodgson played both parts, former ‘Necromandus' drummer Frank Hall was now in the band full time, and Billy Branch who was the singer from ‘Necromandus' was asked to help out in the studio, in my opinion I think that if Billy could have been persuaded to join up as a full time member, then we really would have been a force to be reckoned with, but strangely some of our fans prefer me and Brian sharing the vocals, this is something that I really do not understand, as Billys voice sounds so powerful and professional to me, and far superior to what Brian and myself are capable of.

‘Crying as I Fall' and ‘ Will to Survive' were originally recorded around 1996 at a different studio, long after the band had split, we got back together for one night in the studio just for fun, I didn't think the sound on these recordings was good enough to use, so in early 2005 I set about trying to salvage them by making several overdubs in my home studio, a few extra guitar parts, vocals and keyboards were added until I thought that they sounded acceptable, I had to be careful to keep the balance right so that the new parts blended in to the old, I'm fairly happy with the end result now, but I know that really speaking, we should have gone back to Guy forrester in the first place, we always listen to his advice, and in return, he always does an outstanding job.

Still short of tracks, and with no more studio versions to pick from, I decided to use one live song, plus one of my own solo efforts, my aim was to make up the duration of the CD to around 40 minutes, most of the albums that I used to buy in the 70's used to come in at around 30 – 45 minutes duration, so this seemed appropriate to me, I know that by modern standards this seems quite short, but why have a long album full of stuff that you can't even remember!

Choosing a live track wasn't that easy, I had a pile of old live tapes to go through, but there seemed to be something that spoiled every track that I wanted to use, either badly recorded, or poorly played (for one reason or another!), so I eventually settled on BJ Special , which originally appeared on our 1978 studio demo as ‘Second Best', the playing was ok and considering how it was recorded on an old tape deck, the balance between the drums,instruments and vocals isn't too bad.

The track ‘ Heavy Handed' is essentially just me larking around in my home studio with nothing better to do on a wet Wednesday, I just jammed it in one take, and I thought it fitted in with Hammerheads style and sound, and so I used it, this track along with 7 others started off life about a year earlier when I made an album of instrumental tracks entitled ‘ Monsters from the Id' - Remember, that at this time, the band hadn't actually got back together to rehearse for the gig that we had been asked to play at, so I was making all these decisions on my own without any input from Steve or Brian, but I didn't think that they would mind, and of course the way it all worked out in the end, they are now very pleased that I got the ball rolling.

‘Monsters from the id' was a mixture of blues, funk and rock instrumentals, and it has never been for sale to the public, I made it purely for fun, and I usually just give them away to anyone that I think may like it, some people have commented to me that it sounds like a cross between Jeff Beck and Mick Ronson, I love both of these guitarists, so that'll do for me!

For anyone that is curious, the title is a reference to a line in the old sci-fi film; ‘The Forbidden Planet', the ‘id' is a term used for the subconscious, and in the film, the crew of a space craft are being attacked by an unknown gigantic invisible force, that turns out to be a manifestation of their own minds!

Most of my playing on ‘Monsters from the Id' was done spontaneously in one take, and I could probably never do it the same again, I have no idea how it is sometimes possible to play something, only to find that you can not then replay back to yourself at a later date, this is my reasoning behind the title.

I think that the film was one of the first ever to be made in colour, and I still watch it whenever it's on, (yes, you are right! at times I can be a total LOSER!).

1. Out of curiosity, can you tell us what “Lochinvar” is?

“I can feel my heart in Lochinvar” is the chorus line from a song that Brian first played with one of his previous bands in the early to mid 70's, the band were called ‘Bitter Harvest', the singer at the time was a guy called Alan Nelson, other members of the band at various times included; Hank Stewart, Dave Jordan, ‘Klaus' Clark on guitar and Neil Scott on bass, it's so long ago that Brian can't be certain which member of the band actually came up with the idea of using the line, but we believe that the title of the song, and some of the lyrical rhymes within it, drew inspiration from a poem called; ‘Lochinvar', it was written by Sir Walter Scott (no relation!), and set in medieval times around the Scottish Borders, the theme of the poem centered on the romance and bravery of a young Knight called ‘Lochinvar'.

The Hammerhead version of the song is only loosely based on the Bitter Harvest version, and most of what you hear musically was written and arranged by Brian and Steve in the mid 70's.

On reflection, perhaps it would have been more appropriate to Hammerhead if we had actually sung Lock-in-bar!

1. The “Will to Survive” CD also offers a great booklet with tons of info, photos plus a rare bonus video! Is there something you think it should be added to this release, to make it even more ‘teasing'?

Sonic Age Records have been very good to us though, and so if there was anything that they wanted us to do to help sales, we would try to oblige.

1. We were extremely happy to see Hammerhead is back in action again. Was it the “Will to Survive” release that pushed you to reform? What's the lineup at this time?

Where we are at the moment is down to a chain of events that were not planned, and I can't predict how long we will remain active for this time around.

After we got back together to play at one gig for a friend, I managed to raise enough money to put us back into the studio to finally have some decent recordings made of six of our old songs, this is really what kept us going for a while, everything came back to us quite quickly and easily, and it felt good, so we began to explore the possibilities of continuing for a while, and maybe gigging away from home again, another key factor here was the introduction of a new drummer called Tony Steel.

Tony and I have played together for so many years now that there is a kind of telepathy between us, and when we are playing live we both seem to know what is happening next instinctively, right from day one it was blatantly obvious that his power and style of playing would be ideal for Hammerhead.

John Bonham is the drummer that he admires the most, and you can hear the influence in his playing, our previous drummer ‘Tol' is also a superb player with lots of energy in his playing, but unfortunately he was unable to play at the one-off gig due to another commitment, after the length of time we had been apart we were surprised that he didn't jump at this rare opportunity, we didn't want to let our friend down with his party, so to salvage the gig we had to ask Tony if he would play with us, he had a lot to learn in a short space of time, but when the gig eventually came around, he played the songs as if he'd helped write them, the band really gelled with him, and so by a quirk of fate, he is now our 8th drummer!

The current Hammerhead line up is:-

Steve Archer – Bass

Brian Hodgson - Guitar and Vocals

Buzz Elliott - Guitar Vocals and keyboards

Tony Steel - Drums.

David Taylor our part-time keyboard guru - and more recently; Ozzy Osbourne lookalike! may also play some gigs with us whenever he is available.

1. You are in the works for a new CD release, am I right? Are we're talkin' ‘ bout brand new songs? Can you give us some details about your ‘recording' plans?

With the money that I raised by selling the original version of ‘Will to Survive' I booked us back into the studio, for three days, (two days to record and one day to mix), this was in October/November 2005 at Linden Sounds which thankfully, is still run by Guy Forrester.

Most of the songs that we recorded were as old as the songs on ‘Will to Survive', but I re-arranged a few of them, and weaved a few new lyrics and musical passages into them just to spice things up a bit really, so they ended up being a combination of old plus new ideas merged together, but played and recorded deliberately in our old style, I certainly didn't want our existing fans to be disappointed.

The end result of these latest studio sessions is our new CD ‘ HEADONIZM ' which despite containing only six songs, lasts around 40 minutes.

The above track running order is slightly different from the original version, but we had to alter it to make it flow better in the vinyl format, everyone in the band and also Steffen at High Roller Records all felt that it sounded much better this way, therefore the vinyl version and all future CDs will now be made this way, there were only 75 copies made with the original running order, and of these, the first 20 were signed and numbered.

Currently we are all working on ideas for some new material, I have one song almost ready which has been formed by merging a riff that Steve had with an idea that I was already playing around with, but it's early days, and if we can't retain the quality that people would expect from us, then I'd rather not bother at all, we'll just have to see how things develop from here.

At the moment we have no more money to pay for the studio time, I really envy bands who have record company backing to pay for unlimited studio time, imagine having the time to experiment and try things out, that would be a luxury, I can assure you that when we go into the studio we can't afford to waste even one second, and almost everything is done in one take, on a wing and a prayer, to some degree maybe that's what adds a certain amount of energy into the songs, I'm not sure why, but of all the bands that I have played, or jammed with, there is definitely something that happens when Hammerhead are together that never happens with any other line up that I have tried, and I'm sure that this is evident when you listen to our new studio recordings.

1. Do you feel you owe something to the Rock/Metal community with your reformation? You think Hammerhead were a bit unlucky back in the early 80s, even if they had received a great level of fame in British ground?

I don't feel that we owe anybody anything, and if we did, then they are not getting it, because we still have nothing! (joking!).

When it came to trying to get signed, or attempting to get on a tour, or anything that may have helped us get more national exposure in the early 80's, then it's probably fair to say that we didn't have much luck, if Brians Father; Alan hadn't offered to put the money up so that we could make Time will Tell and Lonely Man into a single, then I probably wouldn't be talking to you right now, and Hammerhead would have disappeared into the ether many moons ago.

Luck plays a major part in the success of many bands, think of all the bands who have made a career out of one great song, or some bands that are more of a joke, than a serious rock outfit, but they still get successful because like ‘The Darkness' for example, they are a commercially saleable product, I mean - they've cracked America for Gods sake, there is no justice, don't get me wrong, I do quite like them, and I'm sure it would be a great night out seeing them live, but in all seriousness, in our heyday the opening chord at one of our gigs would have blown them into the stratosphere!!!!!!!!

I think that we had enough good original songs, and our own sound and style, to have been more successful than we were, but we can't change the past, we have to try and find a way to get noticed today.

I sometimes think that we are destined to be nothing more than a cult band until we die, which probably isn't that far away for some of us! But maybe now that a few small things are beginning to happen, then perhaps our luck could change, who knows…..

……Time Will Tell, (I wish I hadn't said that!).

Seriously though, I do hope that while we are together this time around, that some of our European fans will finally get the chance to see us live somewhere, as it is something that they (and us), thought would never happen, we already have a few possible gigs in the pipeline, and we would like to play at a foreign festival at some point, but it is still very difficult trying to work things out around our everyday lives.

1. Live stuff: referring to the ‘near' past, Hammerhead played with NWOBHM legends Diamond Head in July 2005. What's your impression regarding this gig? What was the fans reaction?

This gig was at the Whitehaven Civic Hall, the venue has the capacity to hold around 600, but only about 260 people actually turned up on the night, a lot of old Hammerhead fans came out of the woodwork that night because we hadn't played locally for years.

We only had time for a short set because there were four bands playing, the guy on the mixer, Steve Clark, has worked with us on many occasions over the years and he did us proud that night, I have been told from some friends in the audience that it was the best we have ever sounded.

Diamond Head played a really great set, and their new singer and drummer fit in surprisingly well, even on their old stuff, ‘Am I Evil' always stands out to me as probably one of the best heavy songs to come out of the whole NWOBHM movement, and Diamond Heads main man Brian Tattler played it perfectly, as usual.

A great night was had by all.

1. I read in another interview that you were supposed to also participate in a German ‘small' festival in October 2005. However, this did not turn up to be a fact. What happened?

I can't remember the actual name of the festival, but it was near Hamburg in Germany and although I was in discussions with the organisers, we were never actually confirmed as part of the finished line up, I was just starting to put the wheels in motion to get everything organised, when the band had a meeting and it was decided that it was too risky using the money that we had saved up to go back into the studio, to pay for our flights etc., the organisers promised to reimburse our costs, but at the end of the day I had waited 20 years to somehow get those old songs of ours recorded, and nothing was going to put this studio session at risk.

We have talked about the possibility of playing at a foreign festival in the future, and personally, I would really love to play at these type of gigs, but it is very difficult trying to organise everything, and get everyone to be available at the same time, maybe we could try and do it this year to help make up for anyone who may have felt let down.

1. You will be teaming up with fellow British bands Demon, Cloven Hoof, Elixir and Overdrive for the British Steel Festival ( October 14th 2006 , www.britishsteelfestival.com ) at The Pitz in Milton Keyes, England . Tell me, who's organizing this event? Bet it'll be a great time! Are you familiar with the rest of the bands' music?

We were really thrilled at the chance to be part of this event, and we are hoping it's going to be one hell of a day all round! The main driving force behind the gig is Phil Denton from the band Elixir, I think it was an idea that he had been toying around with for some time, and we got involved after I was put in touch with Phil via our mutual friend Fred Dronsart in France .

I first contacted Phil through their website, I then sent him copies of both of our CDs to listen to, after which he invited us to be part of the Festival line up, it was originally going to be in London, but there were so many hold ups and complications with the proposed venues, that Phil eventually approached the promoter at The Pitz in Milton Keynes where I think they had played at years before, once a date was chosen, and the bands had all been confirmed, things began to move more swiftly, mainly thanks to Phils skill and enthusiasm at this type of thing, I believe that the venue was also instrumental in getting it off the ground fairly smoothly, and also Phil took up an offer of help from Bart Gabriel who runs the Dragonight Agency to help with promotion and the festival website, Bart, Phil and The Pitz promotion team all deserve credit for their speed and efficiency at putting the whole thing together in a matter of days.

I am not familiar with most of the other bands, and the only one that I have seen live before is Demon, who I thought were all very good players, and also very entertaining!

Due to the date change Blitzkrieg who were part of the original line up, unfortunately were not able to be involved due to a previous commitment.

1. So, do you have any other ‘gig' plans at the moment? Are you in any kind of negotiations for possible future live appearances?

As things stand we only have three firm bookings;

On Saturday 3 rd June 2006 we are playing at Monroes Bar in our hometown of Workington.

On Sunday 27 th August 2006 we are playing in the afternoon on the mainstage at ‘ Solfest', this is a brilliant 3 day open air festival in Cumbria, and it usually has a very ‘World Music' feel to it, I think that we will probably be the only really Heavy band of the weekend, but I noticed on the website that there is also a Rush tribute band playing on the Bar Stage.

There are only 5000 tickets available, and based on the last two years it will definitely sell out well before the date of the gig, any interested parties need to book their tickets well in advance to avoid disappointment.

Finally at The Pitz for the British Steel Festival Saturday 14 th October 2006 .

More information is available on the website; www.britishsteelfestival.com

We will consider any other offers to play that we get, we want to keep playing fairly regularly, but I am not actively looking for loads of booking due to our other commitments, if we were out of work, or didn't have children, we would probably play anywhere, anytime, but we have to be realistic about these things, we had the same complications first time around, and coupled with our location, it is probably one of the main reasons why we didn't play further afield at gigs that might have led on to better things for us.

1. Something very few people know is that Hammerhead also participated in the “It's Unheard Of” compilation, back in…when (laughs)? You had the track “Lochinvar”, correct? How come you were featured in there? This compilation is – I guess – rare Ebay stuff these days!

I think the ‘It's unheard of' album came out around 1984/5.

After seeing an advertisement for bands to send in a demo for possible inclusion on a rock compilation album comprised of unknown, and underground outfits, Brian Hodgson sent a copy of our song ‘Lochinvar', which was recorded in 84' to ‘Baz' in North Wales, (Sorry, I don't know his full name), Baz was the brains behind the whole project, I don't know whether his motives were to try and make some money, or for the love of the music, but either way, it was a great concept, and one that should be adopted by others, we have just given permission for one of our other songs to appear on a rock compilation that is currently being put together by someone in Poland, and I am all for this type of thing, at least this time we were asked for our permission, I am already aware of a few of our songs appearing on bootlegs without our permission, but there is not much you can do to stop this happening, looking on the positive side, if you are a little known cult band like us, then it does promote you further afield, so it's not entirely a bad thing.

Anyway, Lochinvar was chosen to go onto the record, and appeared as the last track on side one, one thing that disappointed me when I first listened to the rest of the album was how lame the production was on some of the other demos, I think that one of the main reasons why the Hammerhead track stood out above some of the other stuff on the album was due to the clarity of the production, this was down to Guy Forresters amazing mixing techniques, he has a natural ability when it comes to getting the best out of a recording session, and when we recently wanted to go back into a studio to record again, it came as no surprise to find that he was still in business as a sound engineer after all these years, as far as I am concerned he is one of the best around, and I always recommend him to anyone who asks me about where to go to make a demo.

I no longer posses a copy of ‘It's Unheard of' on vinyl as I sold the only one that I had on eBay for £50 to help fund the making of our latest album ‘Headonizm',

1. Buzz, do you feel classic British music has something to offer to the youth of today? Of course, fans over 30 years old are familiar with the specific style/sound but what about the younger ones, the fans that listen to Extreme Rock/Metal music or are fond of modern/digital productions (some can't even stand e.g. Iron Maiden's “Killers” sound!).

Yes, I believe that any style of music from any era that is well written and played with genuine heartfelt emotion, will stand the test of time and appeal to future generations, especially if what is happening currently isn't up to the same standard, most of my own favorite bands are from the 60's – Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Small Faces etc. - and I was only a kid when it was all produced, I regressed back into all the ‘Beat' stuff as I grew older, my own children love Hendrix, Sabbath, Floyd, Zappa, and Purple, all that classic 70's stuff, as well as much of the todays current styles of music, obviously they have probably been influenced by my own collection, and what they see on TV, but it shows that the music can still be very appealing to a younger generation.

Personally, I find many modern rock outfits lack the melody and creativity of the bands that I grew up listening to, but to be fair, as time moves on it becomes harder and harder to come up with something new because so much has been done in the past that it is becoming more of a challenge to be original, a talented rock guitarist in the late 60's and early 70's almost had a blank canvas to work on, anything was possible, all you needed was the imagination, maybe it's my age, but I honestly can't see some of todays rock music being played as regularly in 20 or 30 years time on the radio or television, as the classic bands that I grew up listening to.

One of my favorite venues that I still go to regularly, now has a larger number of younger rock fans attending than the people of my generation that used to frequent the place, and the young fans that I see all seem to love the older style bands as much, if not more than many of the contemporary bands that play there, I have also noticed that some young bands that play ‘covers', will often choose old classic material from the 70's and 80's ahead of anything that has been produced in the last 20 years, which suggests that they are very aware of the quality and appeal of the music from that generation.

1. Since Hammerhead were ‘born' in the mid-70s, I'd like to ask you about your influence(s) at the time. Black Sabbath? Deep Purple? Thin Lizzy? Some more Blues/Rock stuff, e.g. Free, Rory Gallagher?

I feel lucky to have been growing up in an era when rock music was so fresh and exiting, all the bands that you have mentioned here were (and still are) mainstays of my music collection, I think that Black Sabbath probably had the biggest influence on me initially, but soon after, I began listening to all the great innovative bands of the time; Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Rory Gallagher, Wishbone Ash, and also probably one of the most under-rated bands of that whole scene; Budgie! – Remember, I got into music at quite a young age, and all that stuff was only two or three years old when I was being introduced to it.

I think that if you listen most of Hammerheads own compositions, whilst having our own distinctive style and sound, there is definitely an element of all those bands styles within our music, when I listen back to everything that we have recorded, I would describe the Hammerhead sound as a combination of very loud heavy chords & riffs, often with a doomy edge, but still retaining lots of melody, if you were to cross Black Sabbath with Wishbone Ash, and then throw in Budgie for good measure, you would be fairly close to the Hammerhead sound.

Much of the music that I like to listen to myself, sounds like a patchwork quilt of ideas, all carefully sewn together to form one great song out of several parts, a good example of this would be ‘Suppers Ready' by Genesis, it is one of my favorite pieces of music, and I try to imagine the band all meeting up and suggesting ideas and parts, and deciding how best to put it all together, ‘It Bites' who are from the same county as Hammerhead, used a similar technique in the 1980's with the title track of their second album; ‘Once Around The world'.

When Hammerhead write a new song (which is quite rare I must admit), we use a similar principal, one person has the backbone of the song, and then everyone else contributes a few ideas, if it all works together, then the hybrid of parts can hopefully be crafted into another song, even before I first joined Hammerhead it was one of the things that I found most appealing about their music, and it is a style that I have adopted myself, it's like an analogue version of the ‘Cut-and-Paste' technique that is often used in a lot of modern music, musical genius Frank Zappa was doing his own crazy version of it in the 1960's before anyone else had a clue what the hell he was thinking about, he was so ahead of the game that it's frightening.

Recently I have been re-collecting some of the early Uriah Heep albums on CD, and I hadn't heard the ‘Sweet Freedom' album for many years, it was one of the first albums that I ever bought, and when I listened to it again, it sounded as good now as it did when I first heard it, in fact after all this time, it still totally blows me away, and it's not even their best album!

Hammerhead once supported Ken Hensley in our hometown of Workington, he was touring around the UK promoting his ‘Free Spirit' album with his Post-Heep outfit ‘Shotgun', and after the show, our bass player Steve went back to the hotel with Ken and his band for a drink with them, Steve let Ken and the boys have a listen to Hammerheads 78' demo containing the earliest studio versions of six of our songs, Ken said that he liked ‘BJ Special' the most, which was a surprising choice out of what else was on the demo, as it is more of a ballad, and doesn't really represent what I would consider to be our best features.

It is quite embarrassing really, as we now think that the overall quality of the production and playing on this demo is so poor compared with our usual standard, that every copy should have been torched, like all the Beatles stuff in America after John Lennons ‘Bigger than Jesus' comments, God only knows what Ken must have really thought!

I have been asked for copies of this demo by fans on many occasions, but we have no plans to make it available, I suggested to Steve and Brian recently that if the fans want to hear it, then we should make it available to them, but they made it quite clear to me that it should not be released, and I think that it would cause too much friction between us if I went against their wishes.

1. What are you listening to today? Do you have any kind of interest for today's music? Is there some band you think could be the Next Big Thing for Rock/Metal music?

I don't actually collect any modern ‘Rock/Metal' music at all, but I am still aware of what is happening through the various satellite music channels that are on in our house most days, I still buy CD's occasionally, but it tends to be other styles of music, and usually something from the past.

I go through phases where I am more into the 60's Beat stuff, at other times it's back to good old 70's rock, and then I'll check out something that is more up to date, such as ‘Queens of the Stoneage' - they are a great sounding band who have took an essentially old fashioned style of rock, and injected a modern feel into their music, of all the more recent bands that I have heard, these lads come out on top for me.

Another band that I absolutely love is The Wildhearts, their album ‘Earth vs The Wildhearts' from 1993 is definitely in my all time top ten, if ever you are feeling down, just put this on, and by the end of it you'll want to party all night! ‘Ginger' is one hell of a guitarist, and their song ‘Everlone' is sheer brilliance, if you separated all the different parts that make up this tune, you could make at least seven great songs, it seems such a ludicrous waste of riffs and ideas within one song, but that's why I love it!!!!

I have no idea who will be the ‘Next Big Thing' in Rock music, and because I tend to have a really open mind to all styles of music, the lesser known underground bands that really excite me are more likely to be from the ‘Indie' scene, where I think it is much easier to be experimental and innovative.

I wonder about the future of rock music, it already seems like almost everything that can be done has been done, so where is there to go? - What will it be like in another 20 – 30 years time? - maybe the Heavy Metal bands of the future won't actually make any sound at all, and simply infuse a 200 decibel wall of sound directly into your mind using telepathy!!!

…..WHO KNOWS?????

1. I believe Hammerhead stood in the more ‘Rock' side of the whole NWOBHM movement. Would you agree? Which other bands did you remember possessing a similar style? What about NWOBHM bands in general? Do you recall any act you believed would score grand sales/success but did not – eventually – do so?

We have always considered ourselves to be more 70's Heavy Rock than 80's Metal, and we have always just played the way that we wanted to, without being influenced by what was happening fashionably around us at the time, but we certainly don't mind if the Rock/Metal fans of the NWOBHM period in time consider us to be part of that whole scene, at least it connects us to the sort of music fans that will enjoy what we do.

I can still remember very clearly when the music press at the time first started to use the term ‘NWOBHM', and I actually thought to myself; what the hell is that all about!

I think that we are only considered to be part of the movement simply because our only single was released in 1981, and the style of that particular song fitted in with what seemed to be happening nationally, there had just been a sudden surge of bands coming to the foreground, such as Motorhead, Saxon, Def Leppard and Iron Maiden, that all seemed to come along just after the Punk and New Wave explosion, the press gave the impression that it was some kind of reaction to the new wave scene, but I suspect that in most cases, these other bands, like us, had been doing the same thing before, during, and after all the punk and new wave stuff, and it was in no way a deliberate reaction, I do actually like listening to some of the bands that came out of the New Wave scene myself, but lets face it, many of them couldn't play to save themselves, even if their lives depended on it!

Regarding other NWOBHM bands, I've been led to believe that some of our material falls into the same school of thought as bands such as ‘Geddes Axe' and ‘Crucifixion', but I haven't heard anything by them myself so I can't really comment on that, I remember liking a few of the songs by Y&T, ‘Meanstreak' in particular was a great single, with a really groovy riff and lots of power, but I was never really into listening to or collecting much else that was going on at the time, I could never settle on one genre of music to play, or listen to, I would get bored very quickly.

The first couple of times that I saw Diamond Head , I thought; ‘well if they don't make it then none of us have a chance!', but I don't think they got the success they deserved at the time, until eventually Metallica, who shot to fame pretty quickly, and seemed to strike a chord around the World (literally), highlighted them to a wider audience, by naming them as a prime source of inspiration, and even playing a few Diamond Head covers as part of their live set, if I'm not mistaken.

I also saw ‘Black Axe' from the same county as us a few times, and I thought that they had all the required ingredients of a typical NWOBHM band to make it, their singer Chris English was a superb front man with a great voice, and their songs were very much written in the early 80's NWOBHM style, very riff based, and something akin to UFO, but unfortunately, I don't think anything much really happened for them, their drummer Mike is a great character, and he helped Hammerhead out with a few gigs in the mid 80's, in return, we helped him out by teaching him that if you want to play well when your absolutely pissed, then you must practice absolutely pissed as well, this was always one of Hammerheads great philosophies, obviously, with the benefit of hind-sight, we now know that we were bad teachers, and we were very, very wrong!

1. My personal belief is that British Rock/Metal music has gone through tough times in the 90s/00s. Do you feel young people do not tend anymore to grab a guitar and play three noisy chords jammin' with their pals in dusty a garage? Many people also refer to the British Press as a ‘pain in the ass' for bands/artists that release something out of the ‘Media fashion'. I guess you're experienced enough now to have your own explanation!

You are right on most counts here, it seems wrong that the media can have the power to influence the success or failure of a band or artist, but that is how it seems to work in many cases in the UK, just remember that what you are reading is one persons viewpoint, and you do not have to follow the rest of the crowd like sheep, just because some idiot in an office in London says so, many journalists are often just trying to be controversial to provoke a reaction, which is understandable, it's how they make a living.

I know from some of the letters that we received in the early 80's, that these fans only wrote to us asking to buy our ‘Time will Tell' single in the first place, after reading a bad review by a journalist that they could rely on to slag off a band that played the kind of music that they loved, it's a crazy situation really, and I don't think that it is any different now than it was then, people shouldn't allow themselves to be influenced by what they read, they should form their own solid viewpoints.

Regarding youngsters picking up guitars and getting into Rock, I would agree that generally there may have been a lull for some time with kids forming garage bands etc. but in the area where I live there now seems to be quite a healthy scene developing, there are lots of new bands playing in all kinds of styles, so things certainly seem to be looking up at the moment.

Occasionally, I organise a ‘Hootenanny' night at the most popular live music venue in our town, these nights are essentially just one big jam session for anyone that turns up, and it is the ideal platform to give many of the areas younger artists and bands a chance to get up and have a blast through a half decent sound rig, you would be surprised at the quality of some of the acts that turn up, many playing their own material, which shows that they are thinking along the right lines.

Just among my own circle of friends, I have heard numerous demos over the years, of their own material, that in my opinion, turned out to be far superior to what was in the British charts at the time, and they either got nowhere, or didn't even bother trying to get anywhere with it, this makes me wonder how many great songs in all types of music, are lying around undiscovered on the underground, when so much absolute rubbish is being force fed to the general public on a daily basis, this seems to be a crime to me, I think that some of the major record companies could do with a serious re-think about how they approach things, It seems that their only interest is in ‘shifting units', but just imagine how many ‘units' they could shift if they were to discover the next Nirvana!!!

For some reason it seems that the smaller independent labels seem to be more focused when it comes to discovering new talent.

1. Buzz, one last question: what about Plateau? Was this a post-Hammerhead project?

I am always getting asked about the band ‘Plateau', and I think that this can only stem from a brief mention in the Hammerhead section of the NWOBHM encyclopedia.

In the mid 80's when Hammerhead began to gradually fragment, the drummer at the time was Frank Hall, and Frank joined up with some guys that lived in the next town 8 miles down the coast from us, at some point Brian Hodgson was also asked to go along to help out, and after a few weeks of rehearsals in one of the coolest penthouse apartments that you can imagine, the band embarked on one of the shortest careers in the history of rock!

I think that there were no more than a handful of gigs, and one studio session that yielded just two songs; ‘Five Miles Wide' and ‘Death Lesson'.

Plateau split up shortly afterwards, and the more interesting of these two songs ‘Death Lesson' was salvaged by Brian and re-arranged, it was given the usual Hammerhead treatment; (simplify and amplify!!!), and it was then incorporated into the increasingly rare live appearances that were made at the time, usually as the opening song.

We have now breathed some new life back into this old song, and the latest version can be heard on our new cd ‘Headonizm' .

Buzz, thanks a lot for this interview! I wish all the best for you and Hammerhead!

Regards,

Greg Chronis.

Editor – Metal Temple magazine

E-mail: grigoris@metal-temple.com

Website: www.metal-temple.com