Description

Double album on black vinyls with gatefold cover and a massive 12 page booklet. Limited 300 copies

In a way, Warrior were the archetypal NWOBHM band, in that they were a bunch of friends first who decided to form a band, make records and get rich and famous. “Well, it didn’t quite work out that way!” concedes the guitarist; “but yes, in the early stages definitely that’s what we wanted to do. We were good mates and we wanted to be in a band and make some money and try and become famous. That was the dream. There were bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden coming through at the time, obviously a little bit older than us, and we looked up to bands like that. And you had the classics like Judas Priest and Sabbath and Zeppelin and Purple, and we loved all that. We were big fans of the music and it was an absolute buzz to play heavy metal, so that’s what we wanted to do.” It was in about September 1979, Dave reckons, that he started hanging around what used to be known as The Barn. “Tony Watson’s dad was a farmer, and obviously they had a lot of outbuildings and one was a barn,” ideal for what Dave calls “bumming around, playing a few covers and things like that.” Like most new groups vocalist Eddy, guitarists Dave and Tony, bassist Baz and drummer Rob started off playing covers – “the likes of ‘Doctor Doctor’, ‘Another Piece Of Meat’, ‘Armed And Ready’, AC/DC songs like ‘Sin City’ and ‘Back In Black’, ‘Paranoid’, ‘Rosalie’, ‘Breaking The Law’, all that kind of thing” – before Dave suggested they start writing their own material. And with some gigs under their belts and a clutch of songs in their heads they booked time at Impulse Studios, home to David Wood’s Neat Records. Their first demo, recorded sometime in the first few months of 1981, contained ‘Warrior’, and ‘Flying High’, together with a couple of other songs which, according to Dave have “got lost in the mists of time somewhere; one was called ‘Force It’ and the other one was called ‘Cruisin’ And Boozin’’, I think. We used to play them in the set very early on but then they disappeared, and I cannot really remember how they really went now, to be quite honest with you.” Of the four cuts though, it was ‘Flying High’ that caught the attention of David Woods. “We never really thought anything of it. We did a demo and were quite pleased with ourselves, and a few weeks or a month or so later David Wood actually rang me at home. He said he was putting together this compilation, ‘Lead Weight’, and he wanted to use one of our tracks. I was actually taken aback! I must admit I remember I liked the track ‘Force It’ more at the time but he was insisting he wanted to use ‘Flying High’, so it was a matter of ‘oh well, if that’s what you want to put out, that’s great by us.’ That was very exciting, I was buzzing when I came off the phone and I think we were practicing later on that night and obviously when I told all the lads they were chuffed to bits.” After that they were offered more gigs and they were also picked up by a manager along the way. “Ken Booth took over managing us and obviously we were writing more stuff and playing more gigs – whatever we could get really – and then we went back to Impulse in March 1982 just to record some demos.” The difference this time around though was that the band elected to record the songs live in the studio, with no overdubs. “So we went in and ran through ‘Dead When It Comes To Love’, ‘Stab You In The Back’ and ‘Kansas City’ – the songs that ended up on the live single – plus a couple of others. I think we did an early version of ‘Suicide’ and ‘The Prisoner’ on that same demo.” Although the band had hoped that Neat would issue a single, nothing had been signed at this stage, and while the musicians were doing their thing in the studio Ken Booth was holding discussions with David Wood. The result was the 7” NEAT ‘Live’ 20, a three-track EP with ‘Dead When It Comes To Love’ on the A-side and ‘Stab You In The Back’ and ‘Kansas City’ on the flip, a single which crackles with life. “Oh yes, it certainly does,” agrees Dave. “And as it says on the record there’s absolutely no overdubs, it’s absolutely, completely live in the studio. There’s no tampering. Just a couple of takes, two or three takes, and we chose the best one and that’s what you’ve got.” ‘Kansas City’ would be selected to appear later in the year on Neat’s second compilation, the ‘60 Minutes Plus…’ cassette where it rubbed shoulders with the likes of Raven’s ‘Live At the Inferno’ and Hellanbach’s ‘All The Way’. Unfortunately, the early material Warrior recorded for Neat Records is now locked away in Universal’s vaults, the label having acquired the whole Neat catalogue when Sanctuary Records went bust a few years back. However, Warrior’s original line-up is represented here through ‘Live In A Dive’, a ten-track cassette the band made available back in the day and which has been lovingly restored for this release. And although looking back now the details are sketchy, the excitement and energy on the night is there for all to hear. Warrior’s second release, the ‘For Europe Only’ mini-album, was recorded at Gosforth high school. “We hired the music room for a full Sunday, and recorded everything we had at the time including the likes of ‘Stab You In The Back’ and ‘Dead When It Comes To Love’ which had been on the original EP just to do it with the new line-up. In all, nine songs were put to tape. Given they’d recorded so much on the day, you have to wonder why they didn’t go for a full album. “Well, it was Ken who was pretty much putting it all together,” is how Dave remembers it now, “and he was just on about doing an EP with hopefully an album to follow later on. I guess we all had a chat about it, and it was a long time ago now, but maybe he just picked what he thought were the best five songs. But the extra tracks – ‘Dead When It Comes To Love’ and ‘Stab You In The Back’ again, and ‘Rock And Roll Rock Star’ and ‘Addiction’ – I’d actually forgotten all about them. It was Ed who said one day that he’d found an old cassette tape with them on and said he wasn’t sure where they were from but thought they might be from the ‘For Europe Only’ sessions. I had a listen to them and, yes, that’s where they were from, but I’d actually forgotten all about them.” As for the record’s curious title, “I think it was because it was only getting released in Europe,” thinks Dave, “hence the helmet which, if you’ve noticed, the face is like a map of Europe. I’ve always liked that design; I think it’s very clever. Anyway, that’s how that EP came about. It was a full Sunday’s work and it must have been about February or March 1983 because it was a dark and gloomy day and it got dark early on a night time. I remember Ed bemoaning the fact that he was stuck in a room separately doing the vocals, and Ken kept saying to him ‘we’re going to play this one now’ and ‘sing this one’; and I do remember we were running out of time when we were putting the vocals on. The vocals were overdubbed, as were the guitar solos, but otherwise it was very much a live type of thing again.” But another release only led to another line-up change. “Once again there was only me and Tony left. I think people got a little bit fed up with the way Ken was going on about doing things. Sean was rehearsing with us when we were doing the ‘Breakout’ EP but he left to join Satain before we recorded it. So we got a guest drummer in, Malcolm Dick, who used to play in the punk band The Toy Dolls who had a novelty hit with a punk version of ‘Nellie The Elephant’; he played the drums on the EP and he did a really good job.” So Warrior MkIII recorded the ‘Breakout’ EP at Impulse Studios once more, and the band were very pleased with the way it turned out, “largely because the material was getting a little bit more sophisticated. Once again we were back at Impulse, and it must have been sometime early in 1984, maybe March or April time. We booked the place for a full Saturday, just went in and got cracking, and once again the backing tracks were pretty much live with some guitar solo overdubs and Martin overdubbing his vocals, pretty much the usual format for us.” In fact, the track ‘Take A Chance’ is noted on the EP’s sleeve as being a live cut. “Ah, I’d forgotten about that; yes it is, because I remember going back in to do the solo for ‘Breakout’ and the solo for ‘Dragon Slayer’ but not ‘Take A Chance’. That was live. But yes, we were pretty pleased with the EP. So this Resurrected title features the Breakout single, the Live In A Dive recording as well as the complete For Europe Only session, not just the previously released 5-track but also the previously unreleased tracks from that session. Alll this makes it a must have for NWOBHM Connoisseurs

Track list:
1. Prisoner
2. Suicide
3. Kansas City
4. Warrior
5. Flying High
6. Addiction
7. Dead When It Comes To Love
8. Rock’n Roll Rock Star
9. Stab You In The Back
10. Breakout
11. Dragon Slayer
12. Take Your Chance
13. Stab You In The Back
14. Kansas City
15. Suicide
16. Prisoner
17. Addiction
18. Dead When It Comes To Love
19. Rock’n Roll Rock Star
20. The Troops
21. Flying High
22. Warrior