Page 17 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019
P. 17
Girlschool.
Judas Priest:
defending the faithful
Tony Wilson: People say it was quite influential. Biff Byford: It really took us by surprise, how Thunderstick: I got the front cover of Sounds, with
We did get large mailbags of post every week, and popular we became very quickly. that edition where the phrase The New Wave Of
that was an indicator that people were listening. British Heavy Metal was coined.
I think it was one of the ways for people to hear Neal Kay: Probably the most significant gig I did
music and engage with the new rock movement, at The Music Machine was when I put Samson, Biff Byford: We kept getting little reviews in
and they did. Iron Maiden and Angel Witch on in May 1979. Sounds and Melody Maker. They kept doing little
reviews about us. But it really started to happen
Joe Elliott: He may not be regarded as an Thunderstick: When we played The Music when Geoff Barton came to see us and a did a huge
innovator in the same way as, say, John Peel, but for Machine for the very first time, I couldn’t believe two-page piece on us in Sounds.
all rock fans in Britain at the time [Tommy Vance’s] the amount of people that came through the door.
show was massively important. He’s never been Some of the fans had been laying in wait, waiting Bruce Dickinson (Samson): NWOBHM was
replaced, and he never can be. for punk to run its course. Once they had done, a fiction, really, an invention of Geoff Barton and
they came up and pledged allegiance to the New Sounds. It was a cunning ruse to boost circulation.
Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Having said that, it did represent a lot of bands
that were utterly ignored by the mainstream
Across the country, things were beginning Geoff Barton (writing in Sounds): “The media. Because of that it became real and people
to heat up. Aside from the release of Def band, dressed in cheesecloth shirts and loon got behind it.
Leppard’s debut EP, 1979 saw the glorious pants, tossed their long hair, pouted, posed
one-two of Motörhead’s Overkill and Bomber, and punched their firsts into the air after each Brian Tatler: After the Sounds piece, you
as well as the debut album from Saxon. agonising guitar solo.” suddenly thought: “Okay, there’s other bands
around the country doing what we’re doing,
Fast Eddie Clarke: We didn’t know we were Alan Lewis (editor, Sounds): I coined they’re the same age.” We end up travelling to
making these great albums at the time, but we NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) Leeds or Newcastle or London. Suddenly our
loved ’em to bits. Overkill was absolutely fantastic. as a front-page headline. But it was sort of an horizons were opened.
We got a new lease of life, and it continued into in-joke. We were always hailing something or
Bomber. We were just fucking cooking like fuck. other as ‘The New Wave Of…’
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 15
