Graham Collett (ex-Lionsheart): "You have to make music people want to hear!"

When I think about bands that emerged in a wrong time the name Lionsheart comes to my mind among the first ones. Their debut album “Lionsheart” (1992) was such a great collection of top-class songs. It had everything to become a hit (and it did in certain countries) and should sell in millions of copies (which it unfortunately didn’t). The band always consisted of great musicians but there were two gentlemen — Steve Grimmett and Graham Collett — who remained permanent members of the band during the 90’s and recorded three studio albums. I guess that the band suffered from those line-up changes as much as they did from lacking of label support and Grunge invasion.

I contacted Graham to cover the story of Lionsheart and he turned to be such an incredible storyteller — witty, smart and fun. Have a good read, folks!

Wildfire: The fire still burns!

This interview was done originally for Stay Heavy magazine in 2014 when I was lucky to get singer Paul Mario Day and guitarists Martin Bushell and Jeff Summers to answer my questions. A few (un)necessary words. I firstly heard Wildfire back in 2002 when I got my hands on re-issues of their albums “Brute Force and Ignorance” and “Summer Lightning”. I was intrigued by a sticker “Featuring ex-Iron Maiden singer”. Everything related to Maiden gave me goose bumps those days. Needless to say I immediately fell in love with their music! What an amazing voice! What incredible harmonies and guitar leads! So much passion in every song! Oh, man! It’s a real shame that Wildfire remained obscure and never made it bigger while they were active. So here is the story of how the fire was lit and burned out.

Stevie Trudgett (ex-Clientelle): "The urge to perform is never far away"

When I see local bands of today playing in front of a bunch of bored guys I feel deeply sorry for them (basically for bands but sometimes for both). There were times when even locals like St. Albans’ Clientelle played regularly in crowded venues and by the standards of that time they were yet another small time band. Stevie Trudgett (or Stevie T) shares his memories about the long and winding road of the young band from Hertfordshire area.

The Deep "Watching You" (2018)

1) Prepare To Rock

2) Dead Man Walking

3) Watching You

4) Taking Over

5) Premonition (live)

6) The Rider (live)

7) All I Want (live)

8) Night-Stalker (live)

Self-released

The Deep: Premonition of success

I guess you all are aware of who Tony Coldham is otherwise you have got here by some strange ocassion. The singer is curently very busy recording a new EP with his band The Deep but he kindly took the time to answer my numerous and detailed questions about his eventful career with Minas Tirith, Deep Machine, Airrace and more. 

Mike Whitbread (ARC, Red Hunter): The Arc of Time

ARC from Stourport-on-Severn were one of those bands which lasted for a few years and released just a pair of singles but gained cult status among the fans of hard rock and early heavy metal. Their second single “War of the Ring” was based on J. R. R. Tolkien books and came out waaaay before this fantasy theme spread like a plague in power metal. I tried so hard to find anyone from this band but it seemed the guys were rare guests on Facebook so I almost gave up when David Towers came to rescue. He was a member of Red Hunter together with the Whitbread brothers in 2000’s and agreed to conduct the interview with Mike Whitbread and transcript it for the blog!  

Guy Titley (ex-Virgin Star): "We were just doing something we enjoyed"

Worcestershire’s Virgin Star isn’t the band that comes first to your mind when you think of NWOBHM. The band released a bunch of demos and one single before calling it a day. Oh, yes, they managed to make it in the “Armed & Ready” section of “Kerrang!”. But basically that’s it. The Simon brothers later went on to play in Ipanema Katz and are now in the great band 3Sixty but I decided to get in touch with the bass player Guy Titley (thanks to his brother Ralph) who was in Virgin Star in the early days and here is what he had to say.