If you want blood (and flashbombs and dry ice and confetti) you’ve got it
—The New Wave of British Heavy Metal: first in an occasional series by Deaf Barton
This article headline, written by Geoff “Deaf” Barton and appearing in the May 19, 1979 issue of Sounds magazine in Britain, innocuously and unsuspectingly kicked off a musical revolution, or to put it more accurately, dug up a proliferating underground, slapped a badge on all its members, and thrust it into the, erm, overground.
Barton credits the invention of the rather less-than-elegant name “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” to his then-editor at Sounds, Al Lewis, who apparently had a predilection for bestowing grand, sweeping statements on the articles in the rag. Elegant or no, the name instantly caught on — it truly was a kind of membership badge for a whole generation of young heavy rock bands throughout the Isles who, until they saw those series of articles in 1979, had no idea they were part of something bigger than themselves.
But they were. There were hundreds of bands, and after that first little article in May (in which Barton reviewed a concert in Camden with Samson, Iron Maiden, and Angelwitch), the floodgates began to open. Article after article would appear, many by Barton, others by people like Malcolm Dome, covering this new “musical movement”. It was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: they called it a new wave, and a new wave it became.
If the effect of this one article seems too serendipitous to be true, it’s because it is. While the benefits of the new name for the movement probably came as a surprise to all involved, a certain dedicated individual had been working tirelessly behind the scenes for years to get just the kind of press coverage for his beloved genre as this article afforded. He had been courting Geoff Barton for ages, calling him weekly over the phone to pressure him to give heavy metal and his venue much-needed exposure in Sounds, throughout a period when heavy music was almost completely absent from the mainstream papers. It was he who had organized and emceed the triple-bill concert in Camden, the very concert whose review would mark the official beginning of the nwobhm in May 1979. His name was Neal Kay, and he treated the “cause of heavy metal” with the single-minded determination of a holy missionary in a land of cannibal heathens.
Kay had long since created a bastion for hard rock as DJ of the Heavy Metal Soundhouse, a few-nights-a-week disco at the Bandwagon pub in Kingsbury in northwest London. Frequented by dedicated “scruffy longhairs”, with their denims and their leathers and their propensity for headbanging, Kay had bands like Motörhead, Nugent, Rush, and Judas Priest on heavy rotation, played for people who weren’t interested in whether or not heavy metal was fashionable. But Kay was a tireless promoter, and he had already coerced Barton into an article about the Soundhouse way back in 1978, long before anything having to do with new young bands in a new, young movement. Kay organized the show in May 1979 with Angel Witch, Maiden, and Samson at the Music Machine in Camden for just this reason — to spread exposure beyond the limited suburban confines of Kingsbury and, hopefully, into the national consciousness.
Neal Kay was a funny sort of person. He was so serious, so dedicated to this heavy rock lark, that he often came across as pedantic, even ridiculous. In 1980, when Janet Street-Porter directed an installment of the music programme 20th Century Box about the nwobhm movement, Kay and his Heavy Metal Soundhouse would figure prominently. Appearing like a cross between an idiot and a cultish guru, Kay was nevertheless nothing if not sincere in his love for heavy rock. But the way the show portrayed him made it hard to take him seriously. Standing in front of his LP collection, he gave a hard line stance about how the term “heavy metal” was an outmoded American term, and he preferred the term heavy rock, or just rock. All well and good. But it might have been easier to take his words seriously if he hadn’t been wearing a t-shirt with the words “HEAVY METAL SOUNDHOUSE” boldly written across his chest…
Geoff Barton is adamant that, if there can be said to be anyone who kickstarted the nwobhm movement, it was Neal Kay. After all, it was Kay who had engineered the whole backstory which would culminate in that article in the May 19, 1979 issue of Sounds that would galvanize the movement. And his Heavy Metal Soundhouse would continue to be the unofficial capital of heavy metal in the UK throughout nwobhm’s brief little life. When Steve Harris was looking for an opportunity to gain exposure for his East End rock band Iron Maiden, he fished their demo tape to none other than Neal Kay, who grudgingly agreed to play a track or two. By the end of 1979, the tracks from that demo tape would be in the top fifty most-requested songs for the entire year, published in bold ink in Sounds for all to see. Harris freely admits that the support of Kay and his Soundhouse was one of the critical steps which would lead them to their ultimate success. And Kay would have a major role to play in assisting other nwobhm bands, such as Praying Mantis and Def Leppard, find public exposure and record deals.
By late 1979 and into 1980, regular articles on the nwobhm were appearing in all the major weeklies, and dozens upon dozens of formerly obscure rock bands were finding themselves thrust into the spotlight through their unwitting participation in this grassroots movement which was fast moving to replace the void left by the carcass of punk rock.
It was only natural that in the wake of this frenetic interest, the record labels would come calling, sniffing for the next big thing, or at least the big bucks from the next quick come-and-go fad. Bands like Iron Maiden, Tygers of Pan Tang, Girlschool, and others landed major record deals and debuted their first long-players deep into the Top 40 charts in 1980 (Girlschool hit 28 with their debut “Demolition”).
But let’s back up for a moment, and shift all those major label releases aside. Because, the essence of what made the nwobhm unique has nothing to do with EMI, or RCA, or whatever. It has a lot more to do with deciding not to wait for the labels to come calling, and do your thing on your own and just get it out there, and the hell with the mainstream. And, despite the protests of the bands themselves (who want nuffink to do wiv it), this is where punk rock and nwobhm really join forces.
If you glance at a list of any amount of nwobhm releases in 1979 and 1980, two major points will become obvious: firstly, that many of these releases were self-financed records produced on homegrown labels; and, secondly, that most of them are singles.
Consciously or unconsciously, the nwobhm bands of the time, realizing that nobody was going to come knocking and just do things for them, took their cue from the revolutionary industriousness of punk rock — typified by Johnny Rotten’s statement to “fuck off and form a band” — and scrounged together a few quid to record a track or three in one of the little studios peppered throughout the country and knock out some vinyl on their own little invented label. Armed with a thousand copies of their new 7- or 9-inch disc, they would cart them around and sell them after their shows, ship them off to reviewers at the papers, or wrangle them into the shops. Romantically, they took their destinies into their own hands, went all entrepreneurial, and produced.
Diamond Head, who for a while were simply assumed to be the next big thing, released their full-length LP “Untitled” (AKA “Lightnin’ To The Nations”, AKA the “White Album”) to major acclaim (and an ultimate place as one of the movement’s seminal releases). Okay, so they forgot to put their name on the sleeve, which was actually totally white — on later copies they simply pencilled in the tracklisting.
Def Leppard released their own EP “Getcha Rocks Off”, on their Bludgeon Riffola Label early in 1979, another seminal release, and long before they scored any kind of record deal.
Tons of other bands either produced and released their own singles and EPs on their own pence, or produced them at their own expense and released them through tiny little labels.
Very, very few of them would ever make it to the full album stage, either self-financed or on a major record label. To a large degree, the archaeology of the nwobhm rests largely in the world of the single. The nwobhm is one of those movements where many of the finest bands contributed just a lone, solitary — yet explosive and unforgettable — track to the catalogue.
This entrepreneurial, independent spirit is one of the most endearing foundation stones of the nwobhm. Here, for a change, it was more about the music than cashing in. These were not half-assed musicians who happened to look good, packaged together by managers and record execs and farmed to gullible kids to make a killing, their music heavily doctored and manipulated by armies of engineers into a kind of aural cotton candy. This was all about honing your craft in the pubs, getting cheered when things worked and booed when things didn’t, and then getting four hours in the studio to cut five tracks and ripping it loose essentially live, and then farming them out to a crowd of punters who knew the genre and knew what they liked (and what they hated).
Of course, before long a number of small labels had gotten wind of the heavy metal fad and started signing bands in the hope of cashing in. One of the most important of these was Newcastle’s Neat Records (who had their own recording facilities). Drawing on the immense local Northeast scene, Neat began releasing a spate of singles and then albums that would rival the output of any other company, putting their stamp on Fist, Raven, Warfare, and Venom, just for starters. In fact, the output from the Geordies was so prolific that the press soon began rather absurdly referring to a nenwobhm, a “North East New Wave Of British Heavy Metal”.
So, throughout the UK, at the turn of the Eighties, an entire world of heavy rock bands found exposure, and the tide of interest turning their way. Circumstances would be such that their brand of rock, and the independent, underground nature of the way they cultivated their music, would garner a name, and be dubbed a movement.
But did they really share a unified musical vision and style? Were they all united together by the same aesthetic, the same taste? Or were they lumped together by circumstance and geographical proximity, given a tag by the press which they had not invented, not been a part of, and which meant nothing to them? Were these hundreds of bands scattered throughout the UK all playing the same types of music?
Many people expect the term “nwobhm” to refer to a musical style, like “thrash music” or “lo-fi”. They pick up bands linked to the movement expecting everyone to sound like Iron Maiden or Diamond Head. Unfortunately, perhaps, the truth is that there is no musical genre called “nwobhm”. Instead, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal is really a cultural term. They were united by time and by a similarity of instrument, but not necessarily by taste or sound, not with the specificity that some would like.
Loosely, of course, they sounded similar. They were mostly drawing inspiration from the same groups of sources, the same classic bands of the previous generations. And they were largely playing with the same setups of instruments (of course, so were the punks, so that really doesn’t count for much). But as anyone with even the remotest understanding of rock music can attest, you can play with an electric guitar or two and call yourself a hard rock band and sound like anything. Two “rock” bands can follow each other on the same stage and play the same rigs and sound nothing alike. The first can be aggressive and speedy and rough, the second sedate, sentimental, and smooth. Both are still rock, or even heavy rock, but in terms of taste they’re worlds apart.
The bands affiliated with the nwobhm ran the gamut of rock music, from the kind of heavy metal that would make Metallica fans proud to the kind of hard rock music which has “love” and “baby” as every third word. For every Blitzkrieg you have a Black Rose.
In part, I think we’re spoiled in 2006 by what the term “heavy metal” came to represent after the nwobhm. Bands like Metallica and Megadeth, and eventually all the death and black metal and all that crap were taking the aggressiveness factor and notching it up level after level, to the point where now we have things like brutal technical speed death, which is so fast and so aggressive that it makes the heavy metal bands of 1980 — even the famously speedy ones — look like the tortoise in the tortoise and the hare race. Positively plodding. Although nwobhm bands were widely-regarded as infusing the old heavy metal standard with the exuberance and pace of punk rock, to our much more jaded ears many of them are naively tame by modern standards. “Heavy metal” in 1979 was a much looser and simpler term than it came to be later, ironically enough, thanks in large part to the influence of the nwobhm itself.
But there’s something else about this musical style issue that must be noted. Whereas we might now think of many of these nwobhm bands as incompatible musically, at the time the general fanbase seemed to accept them together much more readily, despite the gulf in taste. Where the truth of the nwobhm as a bona fide movement becomes most obvious is in the countless concerts and gigs throughout the nation in 1979 and 1980, gigs where mega-headbangers Iron Maiden easily shared the stage with crooning hard rockers Praying Mantis, where boogie rockers Vardis would be attended by the same scruffy longhairs who had just seen quasi-Satanic doomers Angelwitch or Witchfinder General. Or you can take a look at any of Neal Kay’s weekly heavy metal charts from late 1979 or 1980 which appeared in Sounds (tallying up the audience requests of the week at the Bandwagon) to see the breadth of what these kids considered “heavy metal”. Young upstarts like Iron Maiden, Trespass, and Praying Mantis coexisted alongside the real heavy stuff like AC/DC, proggy stuff like Styx and Rush, and southern boogie stuff like Molly Hatchet. The kids at the Bandwagon were looking for stuff to headbang to, and stuff to play air guitar to — I suppose that in the end, that’s what makes heavy metal, stylistic niceties be damned.
So, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was a cultural blink in the eye of the British music scene, a moment when heavy rock music returned to the consciousness of the mainstream world. Heavy rock and heavy metal may never have gone away in the first place, as people like Paul Samson were quick to point out, but despite Samson’s protestations to the contrary, what made the nwobhm a genuine movement was that a new generation of journalists were united with a new generation of bands to bring a whole new generation of fans together, across the UK. It was the participation of the press, the creation of terms and the cross-communication of once-isolated groups of rock bands in isolated cities and towns, that transformed a disparate underground into a genuine national movement. Without that alchemical combination of band, journalist, and fan, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal never would have existed. It’s a lesson in strength in numbers.
Just as Bruce Dickinson of Maiden has often said — he didn’t know he was a part of anything until he read about it in the pages of Sounds, just like everyone else. Fan and musician alike.
For heavy metal fans, the nwobhm continues to appeal because of a slew of factors, all of which have been hinted at. For one, it’s a critical step in the evolution of heavy metal, a bridge between the dim, hazy creation of the genre in the early Seventies, and the global maturation of the style with Iron Maiden and Metallica in the mid-Eighties. Metallica, perhaps the most legendary of all heavy metal bands, was born in the mind of a Danish teenager taking in Diamond Head and Mythra concerts before he relocated with his family to the San Fernando Valley, where his love of the genre led him to form his own band. Metallica’s debt of gratitude to the nwobhm movement is popularly cited to this day because it’s such a perfect example of how a musical movement apparently confined to the British Isles sent shockwaves across the globe nearly strong enough to spawn whole musical industries. Long after heavy metal fell out of favour and back into obscurity in the UK, new young bands in Continental Europe and South America were picking up the mantle and writing music inspired by the nwobhm bands they had loved. Magazines in Germany and in Greece would hunt down their heroes, who had long since forgotten their brief flirt with music stardom, for interviews and retrospectives. Bands were invited to reform and play before thrilled audiences at Summer festivals, alongside younger bands who were playing music inspired by their original releases decades ago. Without the nwobhm, heavy metal probably would have ceased to exist before the Eighties ever got started.
But there’s another appeal to the nwobhm, a cultural appeal. There’s a kind of innocent naivete and simple love of music which permeates through the whole movement. For a brief spell, these bands were releasing their own material on handmade labels, playing to audiences night after night that were so familiar they were practically friends (and often were). And while the big money came knocking and sundered the nwobhm into those that failed and those that cashed in (effectively killing the movement altogether), there was for that briefest of moments a sense of self-fulfilling independence, in an industry that’s all about deceit and fabrication and corporate manipulation. The grassroots underdog nature of the nwobhm holds the same appeal that most grassroots movements do — a whole subculture uniting together whether by design or happenstance to devote themselves to something they genuinely love.
Is this entirely accurate? Probably not. There doubtless was greed and competition and backbiting and backstabbing and all the rest of it. But we’re not talking about individual specifics here. We’re talking about an overarching feel that the nwobhm communicated, in its all-too-brief heyday. For a time, in early 1980 and thereabouts, it just felt like the nwobhm would conquer the world.
There, I think, we find the nwobhm mystique — a grassroots movement that wasn’t, a musical revolution that wasn’t, a world that no-one realized they were a part of, or working for, or contributing to. Something that took everyone by surprise.
Until they read about it in Sounds.
To Be Concluded…
Tags: nwobhm, heavy metal, Iron Maiden.
Last December or thereabouts, on BBC2 — or thereabouts — an entire evening was devoted to the demise of the British situation comedy, and why. And then a bunch of other stuff celebrating this “dead” art form.