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Stolen tapes. Smashed milk bottles. Flying cutlery. Police cars. They all played a part in the story of how Judas Priest’s British Steel became one of the most significant UK metal albums of all time. In 2020, Metal Hammer spoke to Priest singer Rob Halford, guitarist Glenn Tipton and ex-guitarist KK Downing, plus producer Tom Allom, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of an album whose impact can still be felt today.

By the time Judas Priest recorded British Steel in early 1980, they had already released five studio albums and one live record, and were steadily building momentum. Previous studio LP Killing Machine, released in 1978, had peaked at No.32 in the UK and became the band’s highest-charting record in the US where (under the title Hell Bent For Leather) it reached No.128. The following year, live album Unleashed In The East ramped things up commercially, as it hit No.10 in Britain and No.70 in the States. Judas Priest were poised for a major breakthrough.

The band (vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, bassist Ian Hill and new drummer Dave Holland, who had replaced Les Binks) convened with producer Tom Allom at Startling Studios. It was based at Tittenhurst Park, a 72-acre estate in Ascot, Berkshire, and had once been owned by former Beatle John Lennon but now belonged to his ex-bandmate Ringo Starr. Given how important this album would prove to be, it’s astonishing that Priest hadn’t finished writing the songs when they went in.

Glenn Tipton: “I can’t remember why we chose to do it this way. We had never done that in the past, and never worked like that again. We had about 60% of the songs written and ready to go. I know The Rage was written in the studio, and so was Living After Midnight.”

K.K. Downing: “We were always confident that we would get the stuff written in time, and sometimes being spontaneous like this can work to your advantage.”

Tom Allom: “I recall that they had a lot of ideas and riffs, but not many songs actually ready. The band had been constantly touring, so never had the time to get the material written. There was also no time for any pre-production. I had only just finished producing Def Leppard’s first album, On Through The Night, at the same studio, so pretty much went straight back in there with Priest.”

K.K. Downing: “[Ringo] wasn’t there at the time. But he took all the valuables out, and also set down rules for us to follow. There was to be no riding of motorbikes on the grounds – so we did that. There was also to be no fishing in the lake – so we did that as well! What do you expect from a Brummie heavy metal band? He also had two papier-mâché dinosaurs hidden in the grounds – they were massive. And when you came back pissed from the pub up the road, they could really scare you!”

Work started on February 1, 1980, and was completed by the end of that month. This was the first studio album Priest did with Tom Allom, although he had been at the helm for Unleashed In The East. He then collaborated with the band on their next five studio albums and one live release across the 80s (and subsequently returned to co-produce 2018’s Firepower). The band recorded in various rooms throughout the house, not just in the studio, experimenting to get the best sound for each instrument.

K.K. Downing: “Tom was great. He was an excellent musician as well – a much better piano player than any of us. He also came up with a lot of ideas. He was a great addition to the team.”

Tom Allom: “Everyone wanted a really live sound for the album. So, it made sense to use rooms all over the house to get the right ambience for each instrument. I know we got Dave a massive drum sound in the hallway. I would probably have gone down the same route with Leppard, but because they were so young and inexperienced it was important to have everything in a more controlled environment. But Priest were older and used to going into studios, so we could spread ourselves out more. Besides, the band already knew the layout at Tittenhurst Park, because that’s where we’d mixed Unleashed In The East.”

K.K. Downing: “You know the famous room at Tittenhurst Park where John Lennon did the video for Woman? We took out the TV and pool table that were in there and used it to rehearse. I did my guitar parts in the library. We used any place available to get the best possible sounds.”

The band put a lot of imagination into creating particular sounds on the album, using cutlery, milk bottles and a billiard cue. They even used a kettle to mimic an effect, all in the unholy name of metal. In the 1980s, bands had to get creative, because the advantages offered by modern technology were still in the realms of science fantasy… and none of them knew Doctor Who well enough to blag a trip in the TARDIS.

Tom Allom: “There were no such thing as samples in those days. So bands had to be a lot more inventive. I often feel sorry for young musicians now, because they’ve got everything at their fingertips. That’s the sort of thing that can stunt creativity.”

Glenn Tipton: “What we did for Metal Gods was load up a drawer with cutlery. Then we shook it, and took out spoons and knives until we got it just right. It was trial and error, but worth it in the end. Breaking The Law features the sound of milk bottles. We just got a load of them, smashed them on the ground and recorded these. It had the desired impact. But the sound of the sirens on that track is real. We went outside and recorded a passing police car – or at least that’s my recollection of events!”

K.K. Downing: “We’d come up with crazy ideas in those days. And who wouldn’t want to join in with smashing bottles at the back of the house? It was fun. We even tried stuff like putting light bulbs in the microwave, to hear if the noises they made when heated up could be used somewhere. Anything was possible; nothing was off limits.”

Tom Allom: “We wanted to get the sound of a laser beam cutting through at one point [for Rapid Fire]. So, we got a billiard cue and waved it through the air, with microphones above and below. And then I recall we slowed the tape down, to get the sound you hear on the track. And you know the cowbell on Breaking The Law? We used a kettle to get that sound. It was so badly beaten up that I doubt it was ever boiled again!”

Prior to the release, a story appeared in the media claiming that the master tapes for the album had been stolen by a gang in New York (where it was being mastered) and held to ransom for £50,000. This was all nonsense and had been dreamt up by Tony Brainsby, Priest’s publicist at the time, who was infamous for concocting wild tales to get his clients attention. It didn’t go down at all well with Priest, but it certainly worked, as the band received coverage in the sort of national papers who would usually ignore them.

K.K. Downing: “If we’d have got wind of what Tony was planning, then we’d have told him not to do it. Judas Priest don’t need such cheap publicity. Our music is what makes us stand or fall. Not cheap shots like this.”

British Steel was released by Columbia in April 1980, and lived up to expectations on every level. Rolling Stone magazine said at the time: ‘It rocks with a classic heavy metal vengeance, fuelled by the machine-gun rhythms and crackling guitar attack of punk offspring like the Ramones and The Damned. The result is a collection of killer cuts.’ The album stormed to No.4 in the British chart – still their highest position – and smashed through to No.34 in the US. Despite British Steel’s success, the origin of the name was shrouded in mystery.

K.K. Downing: “My recollection is that we saw the cover artwork [done by Rosław Szaybo] before we had the title. It may have been Ian Hill who suggested the name and it could have also been the fact that Glenn used to work for the British Steel Corporation. But the idea of calling it British Steel definitely made sense.”

Tom Allom: “Who would have believed there would be so many definitive Priest songs on this one album? The whole recording process was very business-like, and looking back now it all went like a dream. We were under a little pressure, because the label wanted it out in April, so we had to have it wrapped up by the end of February. But there were no crises or fall-outs. We just got on with things.”

Glenn Tipton: “At the time, we knew it was good, just not how special it would turn out. You just don’t realise when you’re in the middle of the process what you have is a classic. Only later on, when everyone tells you… that’s when it really hits home.”

There were three hit singles from the album in the UK. Both Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight reached No.12, while United peaked at 26. The videos for the first two were directed by Julien Temple, who says of the band: “There is a definite comedic element to Judas Priest, as I’m sure they know. We had a lot of fun doing these shoots”.

By the time British Steel was released, Priest had just completed 21 dates in Britain supported by Iron Maiden – one of the all-time great metal tours. They subsequently went to the US, playing a successful mix of headline and support dates. Priest were also second on the bill at the inaugural Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington in August 1980 (headlined by Rainbow), with the final show of the world tour happening on August 23 at the Golden Summernight festival in Nuremberg, Germany.

There were a whole raft of classic albums put out that year, including releases from Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Ozzy, Motörhead and AC/DC. And British Steel is among the finest. So, how do the band rate it?

Rob Halford: “It’s right up with our best. I think with every great album, there’s a timeless feel. You listen to the first Sabbath album, Led Zeppelin II or any of the wonderful Pink Floyd records and they don’t just belong to an era. If I had a time machine right now, I could take British Steel back or forwards, play it to people and they would feel it belonged to them. That’s the reason so many big names in metal say they were influenced by it. I think this is where we found our direction. Up until that point, although we’d done well, there was a feeling in the band that we really didn’t have a proper focus.”

K.K. Downing: “For me, it’s the most important album we ever did. Everything came together so well. We were all in a great frame of mind, and the results were as good as everyone hoped. It elevated the band to the next level and finally put us on the path to where we wanted to be. We not only found our sound, but also our image with the leather and studs. I also believe that with British Steel we opened up a new era for heavy metal in general. Bands like Iron Maiden and Saxon, who supported us at various stages on the 1980 tour, went on to be very successful in their own right and benefited from what we did on this album. It was an exciting time, and British Steel really was the start of it all.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 334, March 2020

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term “thrash metal” while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.

You may not know her name, but you’ll have heard Diane Warren’s songs – she’s written hits for everyone from Aerosmith and Bon Jovi to The Cult and Cheap Trick. In 2011, Classic Rock’ Presents AOR magazine sat down with her to uncover the secrets of her stellar success.

Chatting with Diane Warren, it’s very easy to forget she’s a multi-millionaire with a reputed annual income of around $20 million, a significant chunk of which she donates to animal charities.

She’s won dozens of awards but is still starry-eyed when talking about winning the 2011 Golden Globe for You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me, the powerful ballad Cher sings in the film Burlesque, confiding that she’d really like to be nominated for an Oscar.

Everyone knows a Diane Warren song, whether it’s I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing (recorded by Aerosmith), If I Could Turn Back Time (Cher), Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion), Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (Starship), Time, Love And Tenderness (Michael Bolton) or How Do I Live (a hit for both LeAnn Rimes and Trisha Yearwood).

Her songs are mini-masterworks of pop songwriting craft that any would-be writer would do well to dissect and analyse. Choruses full of hooks, verses jammed with catchy melodies, all seamlessly held together by lyrics that are universal enough for most listeners to identify with, without feeling that they’ve heard it all before.

Diane Warren writes across such a breadth of styles with such ease and confidence that her songs have been recorded by artists from Kiss to The Cult. These songs transcend genre and translate into many different music forms, often sung by hugely different performers. Her Don’t Turn Around, co-written with Albert Hammond and a UK No.1 for reggae band Aswad in 1988, has also been recorded by eight other artists, among them Ace Of Base, Tina Turner and Neil Diamond.

Because You Loved Me, written about the support and encouragement Diane received from her late father David Warren, and featured in the 1996 Robert Redford/Michelle Pfeiffer screen romance Up Close And Personal, has been recorded by 11 different artists to date, winning Warren a Grammy and nominations for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe award.

Warren has been writing hits for over 25 years, and even though her songs have been performed by the cream of rock royalty and pop’s most prestigious stars – including Bon Jovi, Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, The Jacksons, Heart, Ratt, Al Green, Whitney Houston, Pet Shop Boys, Chicago, Gloria Estafan, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, The Pussycat Dolls and Mariah Carey, among countless others – she still sounds like a fan when talking about calling Jay-Z to persuade him to put a new song she’s written on the forthcoming Beyoncé album.

“After I’d played him the song on my guitar he had her call me,” she smiles. “This is after just hearing it over the phone. I did a demo that wasn’t amazingly arranged or produced, and put a little keyboard cello part on it. The song is very hard to sing, but it sold it. She got the emotion through what I’d done. The album was finished but Beyoncé went back into the studio and was recording it a couple of days later.”

Diane Warren is endlessly enthusiastic about her songs. She demos them in exactly the same way she did when she started 27 years ago, on an old cassette recorder using only the most basic instrumentation, including a 1980s Yamaha DX7 keyboard. The cassettes are then passed over to one of several in-house engineers employed by her Realsongs company, to be turned into polished, produced demos that sound like finished records.

Warren supervises the final product and frequently works in the studio with artists when they’re recording her songs.

She arrives at her office at 8.30 am, six days a week, and often stays there for 12 hours. Fiercely tenacious, she usually writes in the mornings and spends the afternoons pitching her songs to artists, record producers and film companies.

Even though she has a team of 12 people – administrators, promoters, studio engineers and producers – working for her, and has a reputation for being a tough negotiator, it’s all about the songs for Warren. Financially, she need never work again; creatively, as she admits, she’d go crazy if she didn’t write songs.

For her, every song recorded by a major artist is like the first, not the 1,500th.

What Warren doesn’t know about songwriting probably isn’t worth knowing. If she was to appear on Mastermind, her specialist subject would undoubtedly be Pop Songwriters Of The 20th Century. It’s an interest that began for her very early on, as she explains.

“Growing up, I was influenced by songwriters, the whole 50s and 60s Brill Building thing. I was influenced by Carole King, but not Carole King the singer/songwriter – more Carole King’s work with Gerry Goffin, and the work of people like Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. All those amazing writers from that amazing time.”

Despite her almost fanatical interest in pop music, and unlike many songwriters who originally started out as performers and subsequently became full-time writers, Diane never caught the performing bug.

“I didn’t want to be an artist and get up on a stage,” she explains. “I had really bad stage fright. I wanted to be the person behind the scenes writing the songs for everybody.”

Even so, with scores of hits worldwide, including over 100 in the US charts alone, it would be very easy to imagine that she’s been offered more than her fair share of record deals.

“I haven’t actually had lots of offers,” Diane replies. “That’s not what I’m putting out there. I might do a record someday, just for the hell of doing a record. Everyone should do one! When I meet with artists, I’ll often sing and play stuff to them. Even though I’m not a great singer, there’s passion and emotion in it, because I wrote the song.

“I always wanted to do Blame It On The Rain with strings,” Diane continues, referring to her 1989 US No.1 hit for pop duo Milli Vanilli (who, infamously, were later revealed to have not been singing on their own records). “I’d make a record by taking a couple of songs like that, that people know I wrote, and put them with some new ones.”

Recording such an album would be following in the footsteps of one of Diane’s great heroes, Burt Bacharach, who, in addition to writing for some of pop’s great vocalists like Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield, has also put out a series of his own solo records.

“Sure,” Diane nods. “And Burt’s not a ‘real’ singer. There’s just something cool about hearing those songs by the person they were born from.”

Many performers write their own songs, of course, but Warren doesn’t see this as a barrier to them recording one of hers. A particular case in point is her classic ballad from the 2000 Michael Bay blockbuster Armageddon.

“Aerosmith write great songs, but they were cool enough and open enough to do I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing, which gave them a whole new career surge. Once Steven Tyler sang it, it became an Aerosmith song.

“I’d written songs with Steven and Joe Perry a long time ago – around 1988 – and nothing happened. I think they used one of those songs, Devil’s Got A New Disguise, on their last album [the 2006 compilation of the same name]. After I’d written I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing, Kathy Nelson, who at the time was the head of music at Disney, said that since Steven’s daughter Liv was in the movie, why don’t we try and get Aerosmith to do it? As they write their own songs I never thought they’d agree.

“In the movie Bruce Willis, who plays the father of Liv’s character, dies. Steven saw that and found it very emotional,” continues Diane, adding: “It touched him, and he loved the song so much he agreed to do it. Steven is such a great guy. His heart is so on his sleeve.

“I remember sitting on the piano next to him while he was learning the song. Hearing that voice was one of those moments I’ll never forget. The song wasn’t alive until he sang it.”

It’s taken 13 years, but this winning team has recently been reunited, as Warren explains: “I was just in the studio with Steven last month and we did some things as good or better than that. It’s harder for an artist to convince the listener with someone else’s song. To me that makes you a greater artist because you’ve convinced me.

“It becomes their song and their record,” continues Diane. “I’m not going to nitpick and tell Steven Tyler how to sing. He’s such a great artist and a great singer, and when we were in the studio he was doing things his own way. He was making it fit him. By virtue of him singing it, he made my song better.”

And will the song be released by Aerosmith or as a Steven Tyler solo track? The diplomatic Warren refuses to be drawn on the subject: “You know, I’m not sure. It’ll be one or the other. It’s a really great song. Really exciting.”

After the success with Armageddon, Aerosmith had been planning to record another of Warren’s songs for inclusion in 2000’s Nicolas Cage-fronted remake of the classic chase movie Gone In 60 Seconds. Record company politics got in the way and The Cult recorded the song instead. “The Cult did a great version of my Painted On My Heart,” says Diane. “I have a demo of Steven doing it as well, which was different.”

Diane often comes up with a songtitle first, and then writes words and music simultaneously. She takes a lot of care with the lyrics and it can be a slow process, sometimes taking up to a week to get a finished song she’s happy with.

Unlike many songwriters, she doesn’t use soundalike singers as she doesn’t want to limit who the song can be pitched to. Often Warren will come up with a song and subsequently decide who she’d like to offer it to based on how it’s turned out.

“I wrote a song a couple of years back that I thought would be right for Lenny Kravitz,” she explains. “He did it and totally made it a Lenny Kravitz song. No one would know I wrote it.”

And while Lenny Kravitz and Diane Warren might sound like an unlikely fit, any doubts about how he might treat her song were quickly dispelled, as Warren remembers: “I was sure when I first heard him sing it. If you question it, it isn’t working. I didn’t question it at all. It sounded great.”

Warren’s father was always very supportive of her songwriting, buying her her first guitar when she was 10. By the time she was 14, she was writing three songs a day and David Warren was ferrying her to meetings with Los Angeles-based music publishers. Breaking into what seemed like a closed shop was a long and frustrating endeavour, though one that, 40 years on, she can now be philosophical about.

“Everything worth doing is a closed shop,” Diane observes. “I just kept knocking on publishers’ doors. I was very persistent and very insistent.”

Her perseverance eventually paid off and, in 1983, Diane Warren accepted a staff writing job with Jack White, a producer who at the time was enjoying success with the singer Laura Branigan. Cologne-borne White’s real name was Horst Nussbaum, and he’d graduated from producing in Germany to making US and UK hits with Branigan, including Gloria and Self Control.

Jack White asked Warren to write English lyrics for a song by the French singer Martine Clemencau. The result, Solitaire, became a US Top 10 hit for Laura Branigan later in 1983, and Warren was on her way. Hot Night, another track for Branigan, was the first of Diane’s songs to be used in a film, in this case for the soundtrack of super-successful 1984 blockbuster Ghostbusters. Warren’s Rhythm Of The Night was then picked up by Motown’s Berry Gordy for his film The Last Dragon and recorded by the family band DeBarge.

A dispute between Warren and White caused Diane to leave in 1985. She’s subsequently said that the deal with White wasn’t a good one and that the success with the DeBarge song – No.3 on the US Top 100 chart and No.1 on the Adult Contemporary chart – meant she was now a hot property. Publishers were making her the sorts of offers that White was reluctant to match. But Warren’s lawyer suggested that she should leave White and start her own company, rather than sign with another publisher.

Realsongs was set up in 1985, after Diane and White personally settled their dispute. Today, Warren is very gracious about her former boss: “I kept my publishing and never looked back. The deal with Jack White was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Warren moved into her own small studio in a nine-storey building on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. RCA Records’ offices were in the same building, and she became friends with someone from A&R who thought that Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, which Diane had composed with British songwriter Albert Hammond, might work for Starship. The band – formerly known as Jefferson Starship – had re-invented themselves away from the agit-prop collective that grew out of Jefferson Airplane (one of the classic 1960s San Francisco bands), and had started having hits with tracks like We Built This City and Sara.

The process turned out to be a lot easier than Warren was expecting. “The song went off to the band and they did it,” she explains. “Usually it doesn’t happen like that.”

Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now became a massive hit, reaching No.1 in both the UK and the US in spring 1987. The song had been used for the soundtrack of ’87 romantic comedy Mannequin and graphically demonstrated how successful the ever-growing symbiotic relationship between the movie industry and the record businesses could be. The record promoted the film and the film promoted the record, setting a very lucrative gameplan for Warren’s career that continues to this day.

“I’ve always done songs for movies, starting with Ghostbusters and then The Last Dragon,” she says. “I did all the original songs for Coyote Ugly, and also Pearl Harbour. Up to date, Jennifer Hudson is starring in a movie about the life of Winnie Mandela, and I’ve written a song for that.”

Warren says she has no interest in writing film scores, but obviously relishes the exposure that comes from having a song featured worldwide as part of a blockbuster movie. The process can vary from project to project, but unlike with records, where she usually approaches artists with a song she’s already written, for movies she tends to write something specifically.

“The best thing to do is just see the movie,” she relates. “If that isn’t possible I’ll read the script or meet with the director. With Winnie, I’d heard about the movie and read the script. I work a lot with Jennifer Hudson anyway, so it was a perfect combination.”

The four songs that Diane wrote for Coyote Ugly included Can’t Fight The Moonlight, which became an international hit for LeAnn Rimes. The movie, about an aspiring songwriter, drew on Warren’s own career for inspiration.

“The director interviewed me a lot,” she reveals, laughing. “That’s why the main character has stage fright. She’s a lot prettier and younger, but some of the other things in there were loosely based on me.”

Does she wish, maybe, that she hadn’t been so candid? ”No. Twenty zillion albums later, I’m glad I told him everything.”

The chart success of Can’t Fight The Moonlight undoubtedly helped Coyote Ugly become a worldwide box office hit. But, as Warren tells us, the song almost didn’t appear in the film at all.

“It was crazy. I’d done another song for the end of the movie, and I kind of knew it didn’t work. I’d seen the footage and didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to have my song taken out. Then the producers realised it as well. The movie was due to be released in a month. I wrote Can’t Fight The Moonlight super-fast, and LeAnn came in and recorded it with Trevor Horn. They re-shot the scene a week before the movie came out. Literally last minute, but it worked.”

Diane Warren’s success and acknowledged mastery of the pop song has secured for her the opportunity to have her material recorded by some of the greats, including Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Meat Loaf and Eric Clapton, who recorded her song Blue Eyes Blue for Runaway Bride, the 1999 rom-com that reunited Pretty Woman couple Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

“I wrote the song and we got Eric Clapton after,” explains Diane. “It was Kathy Nelson again who was doing that movie. I’d written the song, and she said she’d get Eric to do it. I went: ‘Really? You’ll get Eric Clapton to do my song?’ He loved the song, and I loved his version.

“I remember how nice Eric was. People like Paul Stanley and Eric Clapton, who’ve been doing this forever and are huge at what they do, are usually the nicest people. They’re the ones with humility.”

Because they’ve got nothing to prove, perhaps?

“Yes. Or they’re just cool people. I think success really exaggerates who you are. If you’re an asshole, you’ll be more of an asshole. If you keep your feet on the ground you’ll be okay.”

Warren vehemently refuses to play the game where a major artist agrees to do your song on the understanding that they can have a co-writing credit (and the resultant royalties), even though they’ve not contributed anything. This stance has cost her a professional relationship with at least one well-known singer who had previously recorded quite a few of her songs.

And even though most of Warren’s songwriting heroes wrote as part of teams, and she herself has done various very successful co-writes in the past – particularly with Michael Bolton and Albert Hammond – she prefers to work alone these days.

“To be honest, I just want to write songs by myself. Although… I’d loved to have met John Lennon. It would have been cool to write with him. Or just to talk to him and listen to his stories. I’d have been happy with that.

“I’ve met Paul McCartney a couple of times. Once was when we were both up for Academy Awards, and we both lost. We were hanging out backstage, and I said: ‘Wow, if the 14-year-old me knew I was a loser alongside Paul McCartney…!’ Which he thought was funny.”

Did the world’s two most successful songwriters try writing a song together when they met? “I’d have been up for that. We didn’t, but it would have been cool. And also a bit intimidating.”

Warren admits to getting a little jittery after agreeing to work with another, less ‘rock’n’roll’ but equally famous UK music export. “Two years ago I did a song called It’s My Time with Andrew Lloyd Webber for the Eurovision Song Contest. I was kind of scared, you know? Once we’d met, I said something funny that broke the ice, because I was nervous. It’s Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber! And I’ve got to be able to tell him something can be better.

“I said when we sat down together that we had to be totally honest with each other. He had to tell me if something could be better or vice versa, because we can’t have our names on a song that’s not really good. He played me something he thought was the chorus and I said: ‘What if we go here from that? Can that be the verse?’ And we did a really good job and were honest with each other.

“Once you realise… he might have been nervous writing with me! Who knows? It’s nerve-wracking, working with somebody new. We’re all insecure at our core.”

Workaholic Diane tells me that she’s getting “fidgety” to get back to her songwriting. But before she goes, any advice for budding songwriters?

“It’s the same as when I was coming up. You have to work hard. You have to knock on doors. Maybe it’s better these days to be in a band or be an artist yourself. Say something in a way that hasn’t been said before.

“Be great,” Diane concludes. “Be different.”

Originally published in Classic Rock Presents AOR magazine issue 4, September 2011

Ian Ravendale began working for BBC’s Radio Newcastle’s Bedrock show in the 1970s and soon after started writing for local and national music magazines. He’s written for Sounds, Classic Rock, AOR, Record Collector, The Word, American Songwriter, Classic Pop, Vive Le Rock, Iron Fist, The Beat, Vintage Rock and Fireworks, and worked with Tyne Tees Television and Border TV.

Since forming in 1981, IQ have established themselves as a veritable British prog institution. They’ve kept working consistently, their annual Christmas shows have become semi-legendary, and they retain a firm and ever-enthusiastic fanbase.

They could not, however, be accused of being overly prolific, averaging one album every five years. Dominion follows 2019’s substantial double Resistance, offering a more accessible and digestible prospect with a shorter running time, although it’s definitely a case of quality over quantity.

Epic opener The Unknown Door is presented as a four-part suite. Ushered in by a measured, stately synth fanfare, a clarion call in the near distance, and Neville Chamberlain’s announcement of the declaration of war from 1939 low in the mix, the first four minutes of first part Faint Equations is a graceful, reflective prologue that subtly nudges up the dynamic by way of carefully constructed keyboard layers, sparse vocal and gentle guitar.

The pace picks up considerably when Many And More Still crashes in and everything becomes more urgent, more insistent. It embraces a repeated Morse code-like figure, there’s brief guitar and organ soloing, and a good couple of minutes where neo-prog meets power metal. It slips into strident odd time signature motifs before collapsing under its own weight in a bout of organised chaos.

The third section, An Orbital Plane, provides a palate cleanser of acoustic guitar – utilised by six-stringer Mike Holmes far more than is usual for an IQ album – and then builds with layers of spooky keyboards and a lightly funky rhythm section into a big, bold crescendo. The final section, Dream Stronger, returns to themes from the very beginning of the track, now retooled to produce a soaring, triumphant denouement.

Of note almost immediately in The Unknown Door and throughout the album is the quality of Peter Nicholls’ voice. As the singer himself has admitted, his vocals could be somewhat jarring and overwrought in the early years. But his control, and his approach to constructing melodies, have developed over the years – and it’s very noticeable on Dominion.

He sounds very much more at ease with his singing and delivery. This is a smoother, more fulsome and more assured Nicholls than many may expect. While his lyrics provide a certain latitude for the listener to find meanings of their own, he seems to be channelling some decidedly personal, even intimate experiences and reflections at points here.

The delicate and bittersweet One Of Us, for example, features just acoustic guitar and voice with the merest wash of keyboards, in a song that has the feel of a Paul McCartney ballad. It seems to speak of a treasured yet failed relationship.

The initially elegant and yearning final track, Never Land, also captures elements of loss, the value of memories and the weight of grief; and it surely isn’t coincidental that Nicholls’ mother passed away just a few months before recording began. Rather than surrender to despondency, it builds into an exultant declaration.

There are themes that appear in various guises throughout the album, however. From the observation that ‘Beside the life that’s lived in, others pass by’ in No Dominion, the questioning of alternatives in the towering and majestic Far From Here and the grasping to deal with loss in Never Land, Nicholls appears to be emphasising the importance of taking control of our lives wherever and however we can.

In the exploration of possibilities previously overlooked or dismissed, and ultimately taking dominion over ourselves and the imprint we leave behind us, there is real positivity. Some of the darkness and bleakness that IQ are sometimes known for still lurks – but Dominion offers alternatives of both light and hope.

Simply listening to the changing keyboard arrangements and textures is a journey in itself

With Holmes producing this time around, the album has a terrific richness and depth. It also has an excellently-curated range of sounds, especially from Neil Durrant’s keyboards, which run the gamut from skittering sequenced figures to slabs of organ loveliness; from transportive synth strings to dramatic rumbling growls and much more besides; often in cleverly contrasting layers. Simply listening to the changing keyboard arrangements and textures throughout the album is a journey in itself.

It isn’t the most experimental album in the IQ canon, and it never strays too far from the templates the band have established over the years. However, it is a potent and affecting addition to their catalogue, which demonstrates great maturity – a group of musicians who have a precise understanding of their strengths and quirks. Absolutely worth the wait.

Dominion is on sale now via Giant Electric Pea.

Lamb Of God were already leading lights of the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal movement by the time they released their fourth album, 2006’s Sacrament. But as Metal Hammer caught up with frontman Randy Blythe on that year’s Unholy Alliance tour, they were turning away from the political towards something more personal.

It’s 9pm on TuesdayDecember 6, 2005, and Hammer is sandwiched between 1,800 drunken men (and a few women) at the cavernous Astoria venue in London. The roars around us are reaching their climax, and chants of “Lamb Of God!” fill every spare inch left in the space. As the lights dim and the intro music begins, we’re expecting fireworks.

But something seems wrong as the notoriously hard working, hard touring, hard playing band kick off their set with the riffing bombast of Laid To Rest. Vocalist Randy Blythe – known for being one of the most outspoken and politically incensed metal frontmen on the planet – is practically reeling. He slurs his words between songs and his dripping fringe seems to veil hazy eyes beneath. Fans share inquisitive looks: this isn’t what we came to see. This band look faint and tired, and within seconds, a lobbed beer can narrowly misses the singer.

“Yeah… I remember that show,” sighs the frontman. “It wasn’t that bad.”

As shitty moments go, that London show wasn’t anything to write home about for Randy Blythe. To him, it appears that one fumbled evening on stage is nothing compared to the frustrations and pain he and his band have accumulated over the past two years. For some time that resentment had nowhere to go, but now, all of the anger and exhaustion have come to a head for new album Sacrament. Unlike the political tirades of previous releases, Lamb Of God have instead turned inwards to exorcise the demons that have plagued their minds and lives for the past 24 months. From the sound of things, it seems that years of travelling and days of screaming have drilled this band into the ground. The London show, it appears, was just one step on a trail of hardships.

It’s 11 days since Lamb Of God last had a rest. It’s July 2006, some nine months after that Astoria gig, and the band are six and a half weeks into the US leg of the Unholy Alliance tour with Slayer and In Flames, and Randy (plus Mark Morton on guitar, John Campbell on bass and brothers Will and Chris Adler on guitar and drums respectively) has only just begun his new gigging schedule to promote their upcoming release. After one more US date, the band are due to start their own set of shows, then go to Japan… then to Australia… and then arrive in the UK in November for Unholy Alliance part two.

“Sure, we’re known for being a pretty hard touring band,” says the frontman with an air of genuine modesty. “We’ve been treated like a machine.”

It is this frustration at their own fatigue and their label’s mismanagement of their schedule – along with relationship problems, alcoholism, depression and more – that has prompted the lyrical and musical rage of ‘Sacrament’. Past releases were savagely brutal in their open attack on the US government, but the band now have more than enough anger at their own daily frustrations to fuel the 11 tracks and more. The lyrics spit the kind of rage that far outweighs your typical soapbox rant.

“No matter how many times you say ‘Fuck Bush, you suck’, he’s still there,” shrugs the singer. “We’ve been saying that right back to the days when we first started, and it’s time to take some time for us now.”

The life of a band on the road might seem as far removed from a nightmare as anyone can imagine, given what rock’n’roll has to offer. But for a group who have been doing this as long as Lamb Of God (their original collective, Burn The Priest, formed way back in 1990), the same routine near on every day, can start to take its toll.

From the very beginning, Lamb Of God’s members have been touring addicts. Racking up worldwide dates with Mastodon, Killswitch Engage and Children Of Bodom, as well as shows on Ozzfest and headlining 2005’s Sounds Of The Underground, they are regarded as one of the most hardworking metal bands on the planet. But as the soul-searching lyrics on ‘Sacrament’ suggest, all work and no play makes Randy – and Lamb Of God – angry and exhausted.

“It’s been fucking ridiculous,” sighs the frontman. “We’ve just done 11 dates with no break, and the other night we played in Arizona and it was 121 degrees. No one should have to play in that heat. It was terrible. It’s so bad for your throat.”

Playing sets of up to an hour in length each night, Randy’s voice has been put through a meatgrinder. The singer even claims that whilst recording the new album, producer Machine pushed him so hard that he was throwing up. As one of the most important and recognisable elements of Lamb Of God’s brutal style, Blythe doesn’t feel his health is being taken seriously.

“The record label don’t understand. I’m not like a guitar, you can’t change my strings, you can’t do anything,” he growls. “It’s just shout, shout, shout. My voice is wrecked.”

The singer is in fact so worried about physical deterioration that the infamously hard-boozing partier has recently given up drinking.

“It’s been 15 days,” he smiles. “I just wasn’t happy with it any more, what it was doing to me.”

What happened? Was there a day when you woke up and your hangover was just so bad that you thought, ‘fuck this’?

“Yep, that’s pretty much it,” he says. “You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. I dunno how long I’ll keep it up for. A good long while at least.”

For Randy Blythe, time on the road is getting harder to endure on every level he can think of. Sure, he and his band mates still enjoy those brief moments under the lights, but the hours before and after is where the strain is starting to show. It is in those moments that Blythe’s thoughts turn to the ones he’s left behind.

“The lowest point of it all is the being away from home,” sighs the singer. “Being away from home and away from my wife. There are times where I am away from her for a few months at a time.”

How do you keep the relationship going?

“We have cell phones and Blackberries,” explains Randy. “I have got myself a video camera that attaches to my Macintosh and she has one too so that we can see each other. We try and do that whenever we have a good enough internet connection.”

A marriage glued together with minutes of conversation grabbed when and where you can must be tough. Especially if there are kids involved.

“Well, I don’t have kids at home yet,” sighs the frontman. “I guess we’ll probably wait until I’ve finished touring.”

To Blythe, putting a family on hold for the sake of heavy metal is a massive sacrifice. And it angers him and the rest of his band that while they are busting their guts on stage each night, making the arduous treks across the world and keeping their long-term life plans on hold, their own label acts like Lamb Of God don’t even exist.

“We have people at our label in the UK, and they aren’t doing anything for us,” reveals the singer.

What do you mean? Hell, Lamb Of God are already big in the UK.

“It’s total bullshit,” says Randy. “The last time that we were in the UK there was no press. I had to set up an interview with you guys at Metal Hammer directly, and it’s like, ‘you know what, fuck this’. They just don’t know what to do with us,” he shrugs. “They have no idea what we do.”

From first to last breath, Sacrament reeks of the sweat and toil of a group that’s clearly incensed by its circumstances. It’s 46 minutes of prime Lamb Of God anger, all gritted teeth and cathartic, head-pounding rage – a sonic wall-punch. Though past releases were heavy to the most extreme and vulgar degrees, the confessionals injected into their latest release take Lamb Of God’s intensity into uncharted territories.

“It deals with depression, girlfriends, substance abuse – all that stuff,” says the singer. “We exorcised some demons on this record and we’ve written some pretty dark stuff.”

First single from the album – and the track that has been previewed on numerous websites since June – is the Pantera-heavy, Southern metal explosion known as ‘Redneck’. The accompanying video has Lamb Of God rock up and trash a kid’s birthday party; it portrays the band as wild party-boys. The inspiration behind the song, however, is slightly more sinister.

“According to Mark [who wrote the lyrics to that song], it’s about people in the music business who get a little too big for their britches,” he smiles. “They have a bit of a rock star complex.”

Who has riled you the most?

“Ha ha,” he smirks. “The song could be about anyone, but as a good journalist, you want me to dish dirt, right?”

Yep.

“Well, people are welcome to try and guess who it’s about,” he says, sounding playful. “I’ll just say to them, ‘it’s about your mom.’”

It seems that even after all the struggles, Lamb Of God are still ready to battle through. Their stresses may only ease a little from the catharsis of roaring about their ills on stage before an army of adoring fans, but they’re still as fired up as ever. If they’ve survived this far with all these setbacks then there’s no stopping them anytime soon.

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 158, September 2006

The first British folk singer to crack the UK pop charts, Donovan made the Top 5 with his first single, Catch The Wind, early in 1965. By the end of that year the ‘British Bob Dylan’ had scored two more hit singles, two hit albums and a hit EP. As flower-power blossomed, so did Donovan as songs like Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Barabajagal soaked up rock and jazz embellishments.

He stepped off the merry-go-round in the early 70s before it turned into a treadmill, and recorded and toured intermittently. After the Happy Mondays sponsored his revival in the early 90s with a track on their Pills ’N’ Thrills & Bellyaches album, Donovan recorded Sutras with producer Rick Rubin in 1994. In 2008, he sat down with Classic Rock to look back over his cosmic journey and some of the larger-than-life characters he met along the way.

Brian Jones

One day in 1964 Brian Jones walked into a basement studio in Denmark Street. He had heard about this new kid on the block. He came in and saw what I was doing.

He had a word with Elkan Allen at [TV pop show] Ready Steady Go. I went on for three weeks – completely live, no pre-recording. And that set me up. Afterwards I met a girl, Linda Lawrence, who would become my muse and wife. She’d had a child with Brian. I didn’t even know this when I met her. There was a very interesting karmic triangle going on. And next year we’ll be celebrating that triangle – the 40th anniversary of Brian’s death.

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Bob Dylan

It wasn’t like you see in the Don’t Look Back film. We had met before, briefly. Folk met rock when Dylan, Joan Baez and myself were together that May in 1965. I’d already had a hit with Catch The Wind, and Bob and Joan, who were both album artists, released singles – Joan had There But For Fortune and Dylan’s was The Times They Are A Changing. It was clear that Bob was going to go electric and I was going to go electric folk jazz. It was also clear what we were going to do with it, too, because a few days later Bob introduced me to The Beatles.

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The Beatles

Martin Lewis, the legendary Beatleographer, told me: “You don’t know this, Don, but you had more social, musical and spiritual contact with these four guys than anyone of your generation.” At the time, of course, we were young and crazy and we didn’t know how long it was going to last.

George and I were closest because of our spiritual paths and the books we were both reading. John was fascinating to be around; he didn’t suffer fools gladly. Paul was full of light and energy and jokes and we would constantly be jiving each other. We tried to write songs together but it was impossible, because every idea I had sparked him off and every idea he had sparked me off.

But the real deal happened in India. George said later that you can hear me all over the White album. We only had the acoustic guitars, and that’s when we really got to know each other.

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Marc Bolan

Marc asked if he could open for me when I played the Royal Albert Hall. That was with T. Rex and they sat crossed-legged on the floor, much like me. But sleeping inside Marc Bolan was a little rock’n’roll guy. We met again on his rise to fame in a funky little flat near Marble Arch. He’d brought two little metal dinosaur toys back from Tokyo and said: “Do you want a battle?”’ We got these two tin T. Rex’s going at each other, and they made all the roaring sounds and out of their mouths came little puffs of talcum powder.

I made a recording with him in Munich about a year before he died, a rock version of Lalena, but it’s lost. I asked his son Roland if it had been found but there’s no sign of it.

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Mickie Most

Mickie Most was the Phil Spector of Britain. He was very experimental. We were introduced by Allen Klein as part of a deal. Allen said: “Here’s your producer.” Mickie said: “I’ll pick the singles and you do what you want on the albums.” And that opened a whole world for me.

The studio became a bohemian painter’s studio for me. And Mickie would say: “I’ll have that one” – Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man. I didn’t know whether they were popular songs or not; Mickie knew. And he had this instinctive sense: “Take that out, put that in.” And it worked. I wish he was still here. I’d like to make another record with him.

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John Paul Jones

Our initial meeting was a little strained. He’d come in to arrange Mellow Yellow and it had this great New Orleans thump to it. But when I listened to the playback something sounded wrong. I didn’t know what it was. So I’m frowning, and John is glaring at me because he thought he’d done something wrong. I said: “No, it’s just that there’s something… not mellow.” And Mickie Most is going: “Well for fuck’s sake find out what it is.” And then one of the horn players says: “I know what Don means. We gotta put the hats on.” And Mickie goes: “For Christ’s sake, what’s an ’at?” And the main horn player says: “The mutes, Mickie, the mutes.” So they did it again with the mutes and everyone went: “Wow.” Now it was mellow.

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Jeff Beck

When Mickie Most first heard Barabajagal he couldn’t make head nor tail of it. He was working on [Jeff Beck’s album] Beck-Ola at the time and suggested that he bring the band in to see what they could do. So one morning the band troop in, except for Jeff, and I played them the chords. Eventually Jeff ambles in, sits down and doesn’t say a word. Mickie Most says: “Okay Jeff, get your guitar out.” Jeff looks around and says: “Where is it?” The roadies had dropped off the other instruments but not Jeff’s guitar. It was locked up in a van in Manchester. Jeff says: “I suppose we could rent one.” So the call went out: Jeff Beck needs a great Fender Stratocaster. One showed up and we did the session.

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Nigel Kennedy

He played at the Proms, and Jeff Beck made an appearance and they were going to play a song dedicated to me that opens his new album but they ran out of time. Linda and I have been friends with Nigel and his wife, Agnieszka, for years. Whenever I go to his concerts we play an acoustic version of Hurdy Gurdy Man and he plays his wild violin.

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Jimi Hendrix

I saw him at [London club] the Bag O’Nails. Everyone was there: the Stones, The Beatles, The Who, the Kinks. Chas [Chandler, Hendrix’s manager] had invited everyone. He’d put this thing together. He told me: “I’ve got a jazz drummer and a bass player who’s a guitar player.” And it was quite incredible. Such a superb blend of musicians.

I didn’t see him much after that because we all went on the road and we all got famous and our paths only crossed occasionally. But when I wrote Hurdy Gurdy Man I thought of Jimi. I said to Mickie Most: “This is for Hendrix.” And he said: “No it isn’t, it’s for you.”So I said: “Let’s get Hendrix to play on it.” Mickie phoned Chas who said: “Jimi’s playing shows back-to-back.” So we got Jimmy Page. And aren’t we happy about that. Because what came out of that, thanks to Jimmy, Mickie Most and John Paul Jones, was something that was pagan Celtic rock’n’roll, not a copy of American rock’n’roll.

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Shaun Ryder

I was doing a gig in Manchester when my son Julian, Brian Jones’s boy, said: “There’s five guys in a van out the back and they say they’ve come to take you to the Hacienda.” I said: “I remember Manchester but I don’t remember a hacienda there. So not this time, boys.”

I got to know Shaun and his brother Paul later and when I listened to the Happy Mondays. Linda and I realised they were the Rolling Stones of the 80s. You could hear that they were going to be the ones to lead the way. And then Shaun and Paul fell in love with our two daughters. Which was rather frightening at first because we didn’t know how they would take to Manchester madness. But Linda wasn’t scared. Oriole and Shaun fell in love and fell out of love but they produced a beautiful girl called Coco.

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Rick Rubin

He called me up in 1994 and said: “Do you want to make a record?” And I wondered who he was. Then I found out that he was meditating, just like David Lynch and I. And when I went to his house I found that his bookshelves were full of books on spiritual paths and meditation. He is a major talent. He said very little but we made beautiful music and created the Sutras album. It was a pivotal time in my career because I realised that I wanted to continue to make records on this level. I had kind of dropped out a little but I came back with Rick. I’d rank Rick with Mickie Most, George Martin and Phil Spector. Because he listens to the song. He knows the song is everything. He also knows what he wants, but he also wants the artist to come forward and he knows that he mustn’t get in the way.

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David Lynch

David and I are both outsiders within our own art. He’s an outsider in the film world, and nobody can put their finger on what I actually do. That’s given us quite a bond, and we have teamed up to promote transcendental meditation.

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 128, January 2009

Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 50 years. Actually 61 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.