Heavy Metal Britannia


Heavy Metal Britannia

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This programme contains some strong language

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Heavy metal is all about literally the awesome power of electricity through guitar.

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What's that?

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That's what you're playing, metal.

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Is it?

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Weighty.

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Something that's thick, dense, intense.

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Something with gravitas.

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Heavy is slowing it down, making it deeper, darker, moodier.

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Glowering.

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Machine-like, buzzing. Snarling power.

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I understand what it means. Well, I think I understand what it means.

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Huge great power chords, wiping you off your feet.

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Dark connotations with violence.

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Metal lives in a world of its own creation.

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It's its own World of Warcraft.

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(IN A DEEP VOICE) Heavy.

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A little bit too much voice, and that maybe is the definition, it's too much.

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It's more that industrial sound, more...

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I don't know, heavy, I suppose. Heavy metal.

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Once upon a time, there was no heavy metal music. Anywhere.

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There was just the factory landscape of the Midlands and the industrialised North,

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where the sounds and smells of metal manufacture hung heavily in the air.

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I've always felt it's really cool that metal is synonymous with the Midlands.

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I've heard people say it's in the water, things like that.

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And it's this steel industry thing that used to be,

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with drop forges and all that.

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I can remember as a kid at RC Thomas School in Bloxwich,

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we'd be doing English, and we'd be next to a metal foundry,

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and the steam hammers would be banging up and down.

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The whole desk would be shaking.

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You could always hear the steam hammers.

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There was always a steel mill

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within audible distance.

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Walking home, you'd get all the,

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they can't do it now, but in those

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days the air was full of all these bits of metal grit,

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you could taste it and you could breathe it in.

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It's so simple, really. If you were born in Mecca, for example,

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it's most unlikely you are going to grow up to be a Catholic.

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Everything you do is shaped by your environment.

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I think by the time you get to eight years old, when your mind starts becoming very fertile, and your

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imagination is shaped by the house you live in, the street you live in.

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If you had to get up at seven in the morning and walk into British Steel on a frosty morning,

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the other thing that it does, it gives you determination to get out of there.

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Maybe it was a kind of escape.

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You can't nip down to the beach with your acoustic guitar, can you?

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You are stuck in your bedroom

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with a fuzzy guitar.

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It comes out of the North, in swathes.

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You look at those pictures of people with

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a cigarette in the corner of their mouth, a dark look in their eye.

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It's inner city music, isn't it?

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Some of us say from the Midlands, we actually breathed in the metal before

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it came to be a real thing and a real experience.

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And I'm sure that's true, that the connection, because of

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what metal represents to a lot of people, it's this very tough, hard, working class

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honest people from the Midlands, particularly,

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a part of the psychology, if you will,

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the roots of the metal experience.

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This now vanished industrial world incubated what would eventually become heavy metal music.

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But when were the signs of its coming first heard among the pounding jack hammers?

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Let's board a bus in the 1960s.

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No-one actually can come up with a definitive answer as to when metal really began.

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The earliest record they might well be able to identify with is the 1964

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single from the Kinks called You Really Got Me.

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# Girl, you really got me going

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# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing. #

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Dave Davies played, da na na na na.

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It's like, OK, you know, raucous guitar. It's here.

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# Yeah, you really got me now

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# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing. #

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I got a razor blade,

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and I slashed the cone of the speaker up.

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It came out really raunchy and buzzing.

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# You really got me. #

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That might well be the moment that metal was born.

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The bass behind all great rock music is cool riffs, really.

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When it starts, that's where it starts.

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You haven't got anything at all.

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A riff makes everything else happen, I think.

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It was a great era for people inventing themselves

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and their own music, because suddenly there were less rules.

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Songs about my area, my street, my culture, my mates, my football club,

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my beliefs. And this is teenage power.

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There were bands in Birmingham, bands in Manchester, bands in Newcastle.

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There was a tremendous richness, and there was a lot to feed off.

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Then you had a period where growing musicians outgrew pop bands.

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You've just got to look at the greatest pop group that turned

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so many musicians into rock musicians. The Yardbirds.

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Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck.

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I mean, this is just one band.

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One band, but part of a movement.

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The British blues boom, youthful, aggressive and irreverent.

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We found our own way of singing it and our own way of playing it.

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And because we were young when we learnt it, we took the aggressive side of it and pushed it, I think.

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I mean, when my first band did Hoochie Coochie Man,

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we played it loud and hard.

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Blues, you can only play 12 bars for so long, you know.

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Yeah, well, even now it's boring really, certainly English blues is.

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I suppose it was a post beatnik thing as well,

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that was more applicable to us, than people who were a little,

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half a generation before us, expressing yourself.

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-That's was what was coming, wasn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

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We were waiting for that first little box on the floor with a button on it, to go wargh!

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Jimi Hendrix arrived in Britain from Seattle, possibly on the way to Planet Metal.

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Jimi Hendrix is one of ours. It doesn't matter who tries to

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claim him as being Hendrix the guitar god, blah de blah de blah.

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He belongs to rock and metal.

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That's where he is, that's where he belongs, he is one of us, if you want.

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Everybody looked up to Hendrix, and Hendrix might have pioneered the distortion and feedback and wa-wa.

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And several things people probably took from Hendrix.

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But he was sort of more blues, and he didn't get into that hard rock,

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like repetitive riffs, that maybe Deep Purple and Sabbath started doing.

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It was at that point that I realised

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I'd like to do that, you know,

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as opposed to work for British Steel, which I did at the time.

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A band that I think perhaps

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had quite a bit to do with what became hard rock

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which became heavy metal, and I'd like to put forward Cream.

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By the time they split up in 1968, Cream had transformed American blues

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into British psychedelic rock with heavy riffs, pounding drums, screaming vocals and wailing guitar.

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Almost every essential component of a future metal performance.

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Cream came along.

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People like Fleetwood Mac and a whole bunch of offshoots from blues players that were progressing.

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And, that word is so important, because they progressed in many ways,

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and they had each got their own individual styles.

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# Look out, helter-skelter!

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# She's coming down fast

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# Yes, she is! #

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Some individual styles became dark and disturbing, as the hippie dream

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was shattered by drug deaths, Altamont, and the Manson murders.

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Things were getting heavy.

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The sinister theatricality of Arthur Brown

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inspired future metal performers, as did his extreme vocal range.

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He came to our school and did a show, and it was incredible.

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He'd got this Wagnerian tenor range

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with things bolted on at each end that Wagner never really thought of.

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The light show and everything else.

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Although we came from that time of the hippies,

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we were not actually like the blissed out ones.

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I had a lot of violent energy.

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# Take it to burn. #

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It was quite nightmarish in some aspects.

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I had to leave one concert on the floor of a taxi covered by a carpet because the Hell's Angels

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were going to get me for saying I was the god of hellfire.

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"You think you're tough? Hey."

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Beat writer William Burroughs had introduced the phrase "heavy metal"

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to the sub culture in his sci-fi Nova trilogy, published in the early '60s.

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# Get your motor runnin'

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-# Head out on the highway. #

-'Heavy metal gimmick.'

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-# Lookin' for adventure. #

-'Heavy metal gimmick.'

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# In whatever comes our way

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# Yeah, darling Gonna make it happen. #

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It was first heard as a lyric in 1968, courtesy of the American

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hard rock band Steppenwolf in their anthemic tribute to the motorbike.

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# I like smoke and lightnin'

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# Heavy metal thunder

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# Heavy metal thunder

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# Heavy metal thunder

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# Racin' with the wind... #

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Heaviness, of course, wasn't exclusively British.

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Heaviest of all was Blue Cheer, then perhaps the loudest, grungiest band in the world.

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# Sometimes I wonder what I'm just gonna do

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# No, there ain't no cure for the summertime blues. #

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Fuzzed out, really powerful guitars, they really didn't lay into a comfortable hippie area.

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# Well if you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday... #

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If you think about that era, 1967, psychedelia, flower power,

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everything like that, and the Blue Cheer guys came out with something really heavy, it hit you so hard.

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# Sometimes I wonder What I'm gonna do

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# No, there ain't no cure For the summertime blues. #

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There was heavy Stateside, yes.

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But it was quite, it was a light heavy, if I can put it that way.

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I mean, Vanilla Fudge, brilliant,

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astonishing musicianship and inventiveness.

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But it didn't hold the heaviness. It would float off.

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# Set me free, why don't you, babe?

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# Get out my life Why don't you, babe?

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# You really don't want me

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# You just keep me hanging on. #

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I think Vanilla Fudge were hugely influential on rock music.

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It was the first time we thought of hard rock perhaps as opposed to rock and roll.

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In Britain, the Edgar Broughton Band chose not to fudge it.

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This underground trio weren't heavy metal.

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But they were heavy.

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Up until then, you'd really either got to be a blues band or...

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-A pop band.

-Or a pop band or a beat band.

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With the psychedelic progressive era happening, you could sort of do your

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own thing, you didn't have to be exactly labelled quite the same.

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Hi, kid.

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Hello, sir.

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# What you wanna do, boy? #

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In some ways, we were almost like hell bent on not being progressive in some respects.

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# Do you want to go to war, boy? #

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Oh, yes, please, sir. Yes, please, sir.

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But in terms of the metal, if you go to the first album, and songs like

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Psychopath on the second album,

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there was something sort of pre-industrial music about that.

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Very riffy, very, very hard, basic three-piece stuff.

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INDISTINCT LYRIC

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# Love in the rain

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# Love in the rain... #

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There weren't many bands that could go on after us.

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-No, really.

-Because?

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Well, because they didn't want to.

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By the time we'd finished and our audience had finished with us...

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Sometimes, people were a bit drained.

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It might not have had the sort of sheet metal of metal,

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but it definitely had the kind of balls of it, and the basic

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stance, I suppose, dealing again with quite dark things.

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Then Zeppelin popped up on the scene, and that was it.

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MUSIC: Dazed And Confused by Led Zeppelin

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They were the catalyst.

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Because it's really guitar-based, really riffy, really heavy at times.

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Without them having to resort to putting on leather jackets and things.

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There was always a classiness about Zeppelin, where they'd come up with

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these great riffs, and the four people would just nail that track.

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# Run around, sweet baby.... #

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It was just frenzied, tight. So tight.

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Page's sound wasn't that big.

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A scratchy sound, a lot of it, it wasn't really thick and huge.

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But it was all punched out, you know.

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And this drummer was featured.

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And this frenetic vocal line on top.

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# I've been dazed and confused so long it's not true. #

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So that there was really the motivation, I think,

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for the sound to develop.

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It all comes in the basic form

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from the exchange of American blues into blues rock, then into electric

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psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and then the early strains of metal.

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Those strains eventually came in 1969 from Earth,

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a struggling blues rock-type band

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comprising a bunch of blokes who lived around the corner to each other in Birmingham.

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They were about to change their name and their music, and in doing so, let the beast out of the box.

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You'd have never have thought this line-up would have got together.

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I didn't even know... Geezer was a guitar player.

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He'd never played bass in his life.

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Ozzy was working in the slaughterhouse.

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And thieving.

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He did a few months in prison.

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Everybody was middle class that made it in music, except for us.

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We were ultra working class.

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We were very rough and tough when we performed.

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And Ozzy and Tony in particular, they didn't stand any bullshit.

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And if they wanted people to get involved, they were very much encouraged to get involved.

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And there were one or two fights with the audience.

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Because we wanted everybody to be a part of this music.

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Do you believe in ghosts?

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The name came from the Boris Karloff movie, Black Sabbath.

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Starring the incomparable Boris Karloff.

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Terry had brought that to us.

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And we all thought it was great because it sounded scary, you know.

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Yeah, my brother went see it when he was about 16.

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I was too young to go and see it, so he was always telling me about this film, Black Sabbath.

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I always loved that name, Black Sabbath.

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And it stuck with me. I always said, if I was in a band, that's what I would call the band, Black Sabbath.

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Well, Geezer and myself used to go to the cinema a lot and go and see a lot of horror films.

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We used to like that in them days.

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Old Boris Karloff ones,

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Christopher Lee and all that.

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We used to like that, we used to go to the midnight viewing.

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'An adventure into black magic that goes beyond the boundaries of the supernatural.'

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Black Sabbath now began writing original material

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that reflected their fascination with, and fear of, the dark side.

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I am hungry.

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I played this riff, and, oh, I really like this.

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It gave you a sort of a vibe.

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Oh, I really like what we're doing here.

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So then it had to be lyrics that went with the image of that riff.

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One night, I woke up and there was this black shape just staring at me at the bottom of the bed.

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And I was frightened, it frightened the bloody life out of me.

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I leapt out of bed and went and hid in the bathroom until I felt OK, then I came back to bed.

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The next day I told Ozzy about it

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and I think that inspired him, when he came out with the lyrics,

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"What is this that stands before me, a big black shape,"

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and all that kind of thing.

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'This is Black Sabbath.'

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# What is this that stands before me? #

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When Oz sang, "What is this that stands before me?"

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I was completely there.

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# Figure in black which points at me. #

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'I was completely there.'

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And, if we'd have stopped and never written another song again,

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that would have been enough.

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# No, please, God, help me! #

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We were very innocent, very innocent.

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We weren't smart, we weren't contrived.

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It just came out in a completely natural way at about 9.00am in the morning

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at the Aston community centre, right in the centre of Aston, Birmingham.

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Everybody was, in the world, was all on about all the good things that were happening.

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It was all flower power, everything was all jolly.

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And on the other side of it, nobody was talking about the things that had happened,

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people getting blown up,

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and just the other side.

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We'd got the good and evil, and nobody was talking about the evil.

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So it just seemed an ideal thing to talk about, really.

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Peace and love was not necessarily our reality.

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You know, we came from Aston, which is a pretty rough and tough area in Birmingham.

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And there wasn't a whole lot of flowers being handed out in Aston.

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There were a few boots, and a kick in the head every once in a while.

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And a few razor cuts.

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It was a tough town.

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We didn't actually embrace the possibility of

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going to San Francisco with flowers in our hair for very long.

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It was a couple of months in '67, really.

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And then, by the time the British winter started to bite, which is normally somewhere in October,

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I personally binned my bells and beads,

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the kaftan wasn't keeping me too warm.

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We were just reflecting on what our reality really did feel like.

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It felt like... HEAVY ROCK CHORD

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it felt like that.

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It felt like, you know.

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We suddenly went from, are you going to watchchamacallit, sticking flowers in your hair,

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to this really, "I hate you, I've had enough of this, that and the other."

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That was just a great catalyst, because suddenly people were like, "That's exactly how I feel.

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"I ain't got flowers in my bloody hair, I've got weeds around my feet.

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"That's not my life, that's not what I'm going through.

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"I've got this life, this existence that is really pissing me off.

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"And now I've got some music that's talking about that."

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MUSIC: Gypsy by Uriah Heep

0:25:240:25:25

Down south, the heavy organ and guitar driven sound of Uriah Heep

0:25:300:25:34

may have been a late '60s mix of progressive rock, blues rock and folk,

0:25:340:25:38

but it was also, at its own admittance, very heavy.

0:25:380:25:42

The very heavy side of what we did was like Gypsy,

0:25:470:25:50

which you can probably say is nowadays,

0:25:500:25:53

with the journalistic pigeonholes there are, heavy metal.

0:25:530:25:55

But you can never call Uriah Heep totally heavy metal, because there

0:25:550:25:59

were other things that we do, like we do a beautiful acoustic

0:25:590:26:02

off that album, an acoustic number called Come Away Melinda, which is vocals and acoustic.

0:26:020:26:07

So, we always as a band wanted to do that,

0:26:070:26:10

we wanted to exploit all of that so we could never fall under one banner.

0:26:100:26:14

But, a part of us are heavy metal.

0:26:140:26:18

And we actually did, we used to rehearse in a place called Hanwell Community Centre in Acton.

0:26:180:26:25

And in one room was Uriah Heep, and in the next room was Deep Purple,

0:26:250:26:28

so that was a hell of a racket going on in there.

0:26:280:26:31

An infant British heavy metal took to the road to spread the gospel

0:26:330:26:37

in the alternative rock way, on A roads, B roads

0:26:370:26:41

and early stretches of precious motorway.

0:26:410:26:44

We were probably classed as a row, to be honest.

0:26:440:26:47

A loud row.

0:26:490:26:50

Everywhere you went, it was sort of soul clubs,

0:26:540:26:57

and I was absolutely sick of going to places and listening to soul music.

0:26:570:27:01

Because we all liked Hendrix and Cream and that kind of band,

0:27:010:27:06

when we start we started writing, we obviously went with that kind of thing.

0:27:060:27:11

I remember playing in pubs and we've struck the first chord up

0:27:140:27:17

and been so loud that the barman's been catching the glasses.

0:27:170:27:20

They jumped out of the bar and paid us and said, "But don't play any more."

0:27:200:27:24

You did all the clubs, all the circuit, all the universities.

0:27:270:27:30

Then you started building up a great following.

0:27:300:27:33

That was the essence of it, really, getting the following and the live work.

0:27:330:27:38

In the early days of metal, it was about getting in the van, driving up to Inverness, doing a show,

0:27:380:27:44

and then getting back in the van, coming down to Birmingham, then driving down to Dover, you know.

0:27:440:27:49

And you took the message of the music around the country to show it off.

0:27:490:27:55

In person, in performance, in concert.

0:27:570:28:00

Touring now is almost an industrial process.

0:28:000:28:04

It was on a much more naive and more charming scale back then.

0:28:050:28:09

And I never got to sample it as a kid because I never saw any rock bands.

0:28:090:28:13

It was a bit like the Marquis de Sade who had all his sexual experiences

0:28:140:28:20

locked in a jail cell writing his fantasies on bits of bog paper.

0:28:200:28:23

I was the same with music.

0:28:230:28:25

So I had all my musical fantasies...

0:28:250:28:28

..locked in its boarding school equivalent.

0:28:290:28:33

I could look at the gatefold album sleeves and only dream.

0:28:330:28:37

MUSIC: Hush by Deep Purple

0:28:390:28:41

Formed in 1967 by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and keyboard player Jon Lord,

0:28:420:28:48

Deep Purple had made three albums by 1969 and toured with Cream.

0:28:480:28:52

But they were on the road to heavy metal, in search of an original sound.

0:28:520:28:56

# Hush, hush, I thought I heard her calling my name... #

0:28:570:29:02

People who put the money up that enabled Ritchie Blackmore

0:29:020:29:05

and myself to start Deep Purple, I think they wanted a pop band.

0:29:050:29:11

And then they got this kind of two-faced thing that they got with Purple at first,

0:29:110:29:17

because the band didn't know what it was. We had a hit single with a cover of Hush.

0:29:170:29:22

And yet we were doing these weird psychedelic prog rock

0:29:220:29:26

introductions to other people's songs.

0:29:260:29:29

With the arrival of bassist Roger Glover and vocalist Ian Gillan,

0:29:310:29:36

the Hairy Scream, the band released a fourth album in 1970.

0:29:360:29:40

Deep Purple In Rock became a heavy milestone.

0:29:400:29:45

Hendrix was an obvious influence on Ritchie.

0:29:450:29:48

Vanilla Fudge were an obvious influence on the band as a whole.

0:29:480:29:52

But what made us go where we went with Deep Purple In Rock, which was our calling card,

0:29:520:29:59

our statement, this was us saying,

0:29:590:30:01

"This is where we have arrived at and this is what we want to be."

0:30:010:30:04

That came from inside. That came from within the band.

0:30:040:30:08

That's where we were headed,

0:30:080:30:10

from the moment that Ritchie and I sat down at 14 Gunter Grove in December 1967

0:30:100:30:16

and discussed what we were doing, that's where we were headed, was Deep Purple In Rock.

0:30:160:30:20

Blackmore had this vision about where he wanted his guitar to go,

0:30:310:30:35

so I just went, "Well, if his guitar is going to go there then my organ has to go there.

0:30:350:30:39

"The Hammond has to toughen up."

0:30:390:30:41

# Oh, I wanna hear you sing... #

0:30:420:30:45

We had Gillan, who had discovered this ability, as he now says, it was an aberration, he just

0:30:480:30:54

discovered it one day, he could scream on a top A in full voice.

0:30:540:30:58

SCREAMING

0:31:000:31:02

SCREAMING

0:31:040:31:05

There's no word for it in music.

0:31:200:31:21

There's a word for other kinds of singing, you're a tenor,

0:31:210:31:24

you're a baritone, you're a bass,

0:31:240:31:25

you're a contralto, you're a soprano.

0:31:250:31:27

But what I do is called screaming.

0:31:290:31:32

By the end of the '60s, there was plenty to scream about.

0:31:370:31:41

The Vietnam war was proof that the world was not a safe or happy place.

0:31:410:31:45

When Black Sabbath first toured the States in 1971, they

0:31:470:31:51

played to a nation with its own very real experiences of the dark side.

0:31:510:31:55

When we came over here, the Vietnam war was like,

0:31:580:32:02

it was in chaos over here.

0:32:020:32:04

You'd play a gig and there would literally be a line of

0:32:040:32:07

police with tear gas and truncheons, like, as soon as anybody came towards the stage they'd be pummelling them.

0:32:070:32:13

It was really violent over here.

0:32:130:32:15

The first gig we did in Washington,

0:32:190:32:22

they'd overturned a police car and set it on fire, and this was while we

0:32:220:32:26

were loading the gear up, there's like a riot going on all around us.

0:32:260:32:30

I think kids were so angry over here and this was the perfect music for the release of their anger.

0:32:340:32:40

There were hundreds and hundreds of vets coming in to the shows, and they were in wheelchairs,

0:32:460:32:53

and they would have like a flag on their wheelchair.

0:32:530:32:56

So they got Children Of The Grave, they got Iron Man, you know,

0:33:020:33:05

they didn't need to translate it or anything else.

0:33:050:33:09

They felt it. They heard it. They enjoyed it.

0:33:090:33:12

When we played War Pigs, God bless them, nearly to a man they all stood

0:33:120:33:18

up and they were being held up in their wheelchairs,

0:33:180:33:22

and when you see that you don't forget that.

0:33:220:33:26

And um...

0:33:260:33:28

I didn't know I was going to cry this morning.

0:33:320:33:35

While American rock flirted with the darkness,

0:33:390:33:41

British proto-metal bands faced the harsh realities

0:33:410:33:45

of a '60s dream turned '70s nightmare head on.

0:33:450:33:50

There's something endemic in the British psyche,

0:33:500:33:57

if you like, or the British way of looking at music or being a musician that seems to

0:33:570:34:02

be a quite a gritty, no-nonsense way of looking... Lennon, you know.

0:34:020:34:10

It's the charge of the light brigade, isn't it? It's that British thing.

0:34:250:34:30

It's that thing that every 20-year-old feels - you know everything and you're immortal.

0:34:300:34:36

When I was 21, I DID know everything and I was immortal.

0:34:360:34:41

I keep coming back to this word "dark".

0:34:410:34:45

Dark Satanic mills, you know, it's there in Blake's poetry.

0:34:490:34:53

I think it's part of the British character.

0:34:560:35:00

There's a cynicism, there's a darkness about us.

0:35:000:35:03

You can go to any village or town in, you know, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland,

0:35:030:35:10

and pluck out a history book of that area and it's seeped in it.

0:35:100:35:15

You know, so...

0:35:150:35:17

for me, being a lyricist,

0:35:170:35:18

writing that type of song, it's a fantastic place to be, actually!

0:35:180:35:23

Already the feeling of a lot of people was,

0:35:270:35:32

"Hang on a minute, we're making our own kind of new sound here."

0:35:320:35:36

Metal, heavy metal music, comes from the UK.

0:35:360:35:39

The first strains of British heavy metal,

0:35:490:35:51

under the leadership of Black Sabbath, were drenched in doom and gloom.

0:35:510:35:55

The fairies and wizards of progressive rock became demons and devils

0:35:550:35:59

in a contemporary world characterised by paranoia and dysfunction, loneliness and fear.

0:35:590:36:06

Sabbath were a conundrum because nobody sounded like Ozzy.

0:36:100:36:17

He was a great interpreter of...something,

0:36:170:36:22

some kind of strange, scary soul that came through the music,

0:36:220:36:28

and it was just the right kind of voice to complement the riffs.

0:36:280:36:33

And the riffs just seemed

0:36:330:36:35

to have their origin in the dark night of the soul of every adolescent.

0:36:350:36:40

That element of darkness,

0:36:430:36:45

that kind of sombre, melancholy, you know,

0:36:450:36:50

not exactly doom and gloom,

0:36:500:36:51

but talking about things that in popular music you never went there.

0:36:510:36:55

You know, the Beatles, "She loves you, yeah, yeah".

0:36:550:36:58

And metal bands were singing about the angst

0:36:580:37:02

and the pain and the difficult things in life.

0:37:020:37:07

That was quite an important statement.

0:37:070:37:10

Despite being ridiculed by the rock press,

0:37:150:37:18

the early rumblings of British heavy metal began to surface around the country.

0:37:180:37:22

They were heard in the Welsh Valleys courtesy of Budgie,

0:37:220:37:25

a band that adhered more to the blues-based power of Led Zeppelin and Free

0:37:250:37:29

than the paranoia of Black Sabbath.

0:37:290:37:32

British heavy metal was still in a molten state

0:37:320:37:35

as it edged its way through communities that were also on the brink of change.

0:37:350:37:39

A lot of places around the Valleys,

0:37:430:37:46

the South Wales Valleys,

0:37:460:37:49

every village would have ten clubs in it.

0:37:490:37:51

You had the Labour Club, the Conservative Club,

0:37:510:37:54

the Liberal Club, the non-political club,

0:37:540:37:56

the Miners' Welfare, the rugby club.

0:37:560:37:58

And they'd all have a shindig on a Saturday night.

0:37:580:38:01

# I ain't messin'

0:38:010:38:03

# Call your name

0:38:030:38:05

# Don't you ever

0:38:050:38:07

# Turn your back on a friend

0:38:070:38:10

# Slowly come, girl, to my bed

0:38:100:38:14

# Underrated

0:38:140:38:17

# Underfed... #

0:38:170:38:20

You're chopping licks. There are gaps.

0:38:200:38:23

Bam, gap. Ba-dum-dum, gap.

0:38:230:38:26

In-between that gap, there's this drum.

0:38:260:38:28

Bam ba-um-pum da, you know.

0:38:280:38:30

It fills the gap.

0:38:300:38:32

Pound it out with a big fat chord, and I'd just get a big kick.

0:38:420:38:47

We all did. That's what we liked doing.

0:38:470:38:49

# Slowly come, girl, to my bed

0:38:490:38:54

# Underrated

0:38:540:38:57

# Underfed... #

0:38:570:38:58

Never bought a Black Sabbath album or Uriah Heep or Deep Purple, never did. Not my type of music.

0:38:580:39:05

I wasn't interested.

0:39:050:39:07

Black Sabbath, who were signed at the same time as us,

0:39:090:39:12

they were doing their demos,

0:39:120:39:14

we had to wait till they finished theirs so we could do ours.

0:39:140:39:18

What did they come out with? Paranoid.

0:39:180:39:20

Think of Communication Breakdown.

0:39:200:39:23

It's the same thing. They did it slightly differently,

0:39:230:39:26

put their chop chording in a different place.

0:39:260:39:29

But they'd wised up.

0:39:290:39:30

MUSIC: Paranoid by Black Sabbath

0:39:300:39:32

# Finished with my woman cos she couldn't help me with my mind

0:39:400:39:45

# People think I'm insane

0:39:450:39:48

# Because I am frowning all the time... #

0:39:480:39:50

Throughout the early '70s, as hard rock became heavy rock,

0:39:500:39:54

the essential component that would drive heavy metal began to assert itself -

0:39:540:40:00

the primary power source that was the guitar riff.

0:40:000:40:03

# All day long I think of things But nothing seems to satisfy

0:40:030:40:09

# Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify... #

0:40:090:40:14

HE PLAYS "PARANOID" RIFF

0:40:140:40:17

Tony Iommi's riffs were always heavy.

0:40:240:40:27

They were big and they were never up the fretboard,

0:40:270:40:31

they were always down there.

0:40:310:40:34

The essential thing for a metal song

0:40:340:40:38

is the guitar riff has to be killer.

0:40:380:40:42

Symptom Of The Universe.

0:40:420:40:44

HE PLAYS RIFF

0:40:440:40:46

HE LAUGHS

0:40:480:40:50

What came first, the riff or the chicken? I don't know.

0:40:500:40:53

Or the singer or the egg? I don't know.

0:40:530:40:55

But it's interesting that with blues...

0:40:550:41:01

there were always some kind of riffs that were very simple,

0:41:010:41:05

and this is how it started.

0:41:050:41:06

PLAYS RIFF

0:41:060:41:08

That one.

0:41:150:41:16

Brook Benton had a hit record

0:41:160:41:18

with a song called Kiddio, which had a riff which went...

0:41:180:41:24

HE HUMS RIFF # Told you, baby, how I feel... #

0:41:240:41:28

And it's that "duh-doodle-de-dum".

0:41:280:41:30

And you hear that on a lot of riffs, and then suddenly,

0:41:300:41:35

some years later, you hear the, "duh-doodle-de-dum, tsh"

0:41:350:41:39

You hear, "ba-ding-guh-ding-ding chukka-tsh, chukka-tsh".

0:41:390:41:44

Same notes, just a different slant on the whole thing, and it's blues-based.

0:41:440:41:48

Smoke On The Water is one, isn't it?

0:41:480:41:50

PLAYS POWER CHORDS

0:41:500:41:52

The riff of Black Night was actually nicked from a little bass riff

0:41:570:42:04

under Ricky Nelson's version of Summertime.

0:42:040:42:08

That just... You know, that just went like that...

0:42:080:42:13

PLAYS "BLACK NIGHT" ON PIANO

0:42:130:42:14

MUSIC: Black Night by Deep Purple

0:42:180:42:21

We just put that turnaround in it.

0:42:230:42:25

So riffs had always been part of it,

0:42:320:42:34

but then they got louder and then they became a part of the song.

0:42:340:42:38

# Black night, black night

0:42:380:42:41

# I don't need black night

0:42:410:42:45

# I can't see dark light

0:42:450:42:48

# Maybe I'll find on the way down the line

0:42:480:42:51

# That I'm free

0:42:510:42:54

# Free to be me

0:42:540:42:57

# Black night is a long way from home... #

0:42:580:43:05

And I think each band tries to "out-heavy" the next.

0:43:060:43:11

-You need a heavy-o-meter!

-Maybe, yeah!

0:43:110:43:15

Heavy-osity.

0:43:150:43:17

By the mid-70s, proto-metal had developed a pact with its growing audience

0:43:200:43:24

to provide ear-splitting, bone-crunching walls of sound.

0:43:240:43:29

The music was becoming louder as well as prouder.

0:43:290:43:33

We were playing something that was responsive, you would have to respond to it.

0:43:360:43:42

We very much wanted to say,

0:43:420:43:45

"Hey, we're playing here. Listen to us."

0:43:450:43:48

MUSIC: Hand Of Doom by Black Sabbath

0:43:480:43:51

# From life you escape

0:43:510:43:53

# Reality will wait ... #

0:43:550:43:59

So that's one of the core reasons why we got louder,

0:43:590:44:05

got much, much louder.

0:44:050:44:07

We got very loud.

0:44:070:44:08

We used volume to enhance certain parts.

0:44:120:44:16

You'd play a quiet part

0:44:160:44:17

and then the volume coming in to a loud bit would be more power.

0:44:170:44:21

We tried to use it in not just because it's loud,

0:44:210:44:27

we tried to use it as a part of the song.

0:44:270:44:29

Those people that don't understand metal, firstly it's, "It's too loud, it does my head in."

0:44:450:44:50

For us, that's the joy of it, that's the luxury of it.

0:44:500:44:53

Give us more volume, turn everything past ten.

0:44:530:44:56

You've got to crank it up.

0:44:560:44:57

You need steam coming out of it.

0:44:570:44:59

You need your foot to the floor, pedal to the metal.

0:44:590:45:02

You need it at maximum revs.

0:45:020:45:04

You'll never get off the ground otherwise.

0:45:040:45:06

When Blackmore was grinding it out on the other side of the stage,

0:45:200:45:24

there was tremendous excitement, you know, I wanted to hear that Hammond growling away madly.

0:45:240:45:30

I rapidly became quite pleased that we were on the stage and not in the audience.

0:45:380:45:43

Lucky for us,

0:45:430:45:46

we've got these ears here to protect us

0:45:460:45:48

because we've got the flaps here and the music is behind us.

0:45:480:45:51

But these, they're right in the front of it, you know!

0:45:510:45:54

# Well nobody gonna take my wife I'm gonna keep her everywhere

0:45:560:46:00

# Nobody gonna take my wife I'm gonna keep her to the end. #

0:46:000:46:05

You'd see suddenly wall-to-wall Marshall stacks that had you

0:46:050:46:10

cowering in the corner before they even turned on the standby switch.

0:46:100:46:14

In fact, often the cry came up from the crowds, "Turn it up!"

0:46:170:46:22

MUSIC: Mars, The Bringer Of War from The Planets by Holst

0:46:220:46:24

The dark heavy metal sound and its powerful dynamic range owed

0:46:240:46:28

a debt to the shock and awe of symphonic music.

0:46:280:46:32

I definitely think classical music plays its part in heavy metal.

0:46:330:46:38

Why are orchestras so big? Why do they have such huge

0:46:390:46:42

brass sections and string sections in symphony orchestras?

0:46:420:46:46

You could quite easily play the same music with a couple of each.

0:46:460:46:49

The reason they have 80 or 90 or a hundred if they can, with these huge, massive percussion sections and

0:46:570:47:03

eight double basses,

0:47:030:47:05

it's amazing.

0:47:050:47:07

It's natural to want to create power.

0:47:070:47:09

# Breaking the law! Breaking the law! #

0:47:110:47:13

Some bands, inspired by the heaviness of Sabbath, Deep Purple and Uriah Heap,

0:47:130:47:18

pushed the music further away from its blues roots and into a faster form of metal-sounding rock.

0:47:180:47:24

Birmingham based Judas Priest began forging a new kind of high tensile British Steel,

0:47:270:47:33

less gloomy but pumped up with the volume of not one but two guitars.

0:47:330:47:38

While one of the guitarists plays lead break

0:47:470:47:50

the other can play rhythm.

0:47:500:47:51

Or you've got the great big stereo chord sound, which is again very metal.

0:47:540:48:00

# I got no place, no name I'm just a killing machine. #

0:48:020:48:06

A lot of our music is about, "get out there and do it with your life,"

0:48:060:48:11

it's actually a very positive outlook, lyrically, on everything, you know and "survive".

0:48:110:48:17

# Got expensive tastes But I hasten to add

0:48:170:48:21

# That I'm the best that there is.

0:48:210:48:23

# They pay me the money And I'll do the job

0:48:230:48:26

# I got a contract on you. #

0:48:260:48:28

There's a need for something new.

0:48:280:48:30

There's a need for a new sound.

0:48:300:48:33

There's a need to see a new band, to hear a new way of playing guitar, a new way of singing.

0:48:330:48:38

Rob Halford's six-octave vocal range confirmed that the scream was now

0:48:400:48:45

a front-line weapon in the metal armoury.

0:48:450:48:48

Men in heat would sound like girls in pain.

0:48:480:48:52

The high and hairy legacy of Robert Plant and Ian Gillan was here to stay.

0:48:520:48:57

The Americans absolutely loved Robert Plant.

0:48:590:49:03

He was the big, you know,

0:49:030:49:05

blonde hair and everything else,

0:49:050:49:08

and that slightly ambivalent sexuality.

0:49:080:49:11

# Way down inside! #

0:49:110:49:13

The Americans thought, "Great, you've just got to be tall and skinny and sing real high."

0:49:130:49:18

That was the definition of a heavy metal singer.

0:49:180:49:20

How does Ozzy do it?

0:49:200:49:22

How does Lemmy do it?

0:49:220:49:24

How do I do it? How does Bruce do it?

0:49:240:49:26

Bruce is a bit younger than me.

0:49:260:49:28

But I mean, it's mad, isn't it, when you think about it?

0:49:280:49:31

I get up in the morning and have a cup of tea and some cornflakes,

0:49:310:49:34

and that night I'm going to be on stage screaming my tits off.

0:49:340:49:37

# Honey didn't I give you nearly everything I ever had to give... #

0:49:390:49:42

The style of that singing, the root of that singing, you listen to some

0:49:420:49:46

of the early blues singers and people like Janis Joplin...

0:49:460:49:49

# When you hold me in your arms, and I say it once again... #

0:49:490:49:54

When she's going absolutely crazy...

0:49:540:49:56

# Oh, oh, oh gonna take it. #

0:49:560:49:59

You know, what it's like she's mad, she's possessed, but that was

0:49:590:50:04

unusual for a girl to put on that kind of very, almost masculine, display.

0:50:040:50:10

# Arghhh-oh-oh

0:50:100:50:12

# Well, you know you got it, if it makes you feel good. #

0:50:130:50:18

And that's what part of metal is about for a lot of singers, it's the intensity of the performance.

0:50:180:50:25

# I'm in love So in love

0:50:250:50:28

# And I can't stop talking # 'Bout my love forever. #

0:50:280:50:36

It's like, when I've done a show and I go back to hotel room and I'm

0:50:360:50:39

lying in bed, I'm like, "Was that me? Did I just do that?"

0:50:390:50:42

# My fever... #

0:50:420:50:44

You've got to be able to balance it out. I'm not on stage 24 hours a day.

0:50:440:50:49

I need to be able to go down to Morrisons and do my shopping.

0:50:520:50:55

# Yes, I'm talking 'bout... #

0:50:550:50:56

The beast was developing a uniquely tribal, highly physical relationship

0:50:580:51:02

with its dedicated audience - a union that was blessed most spectacularly in concert, live.

0:51:020:51:09

You feel uplifted, you feel excited,

0:51:130:51:15

you feel like aggression is pouring out of you.

0:51:150:51:18

You feel like you absolutely want to go, "Yeah!"

0:51:180:51:20

And you know you're witnessing something very special, and everybody else around you feels the same way.

0:51:250:51:32

If you don't do something

0:51:320:51:35

that involves the audience, then

0:51:350:51:38

you know, it's not good.

0:51:380:51:40

You have to use that

0:51:400:51:42

power in a great way to make people feel good and have a good time.

0:51:420:51:48

A good time was being had by all.

0:51:530:51:56

Well, not all, exactly.

0:51:560:51:58

Audiences tended to be dominated by boys and men, absorbed in displays of private

0:51:580:52:03

dancing, tribal head-banging, and air-guitar playing to a music that didn't seem to appeal much to women.

0:52:030:52:11

You're in some hall somewhere, some smelly club, with a bunch of

0:52:110:52:15

hairy biker types and a lot of dandruff flying around.

0:52:150:52:19

I don't know, it's just not so cute, you know.

0:52:190:52:23

There weren't that many women involved.

0:52:230:52:27

Metal is, it's fair to say, primarily, it's primarily male.

0:52:290:52:36

-It is.

-Again, in the early days, it made sense, because it was a very brutal, intense type of experience.

0:52:380:52:45

Somehow, metal became a male domain and male province,

0:52:450:52:48

because of the lifestyle, the denim and leather,

0:52:480:52:50

the patches and so forth, the collectability -

0:52:500:52:52

it all spoke to the male psyche, rather than the female one.

0:52:520:52:56

Because it's primarily male, people assume it's therefore sexist,

0:52:560:53:00

and actually it's not, it's very inclusive.

0:53:000:53:02

When you do get included in it,

0:53:020:53:05

um...it's great.

0:53:050:53:07

It's just that girlies do Hannah Montana more, which is a shame.

0:53:070:53:14

Because I wish they would do a bit more metal.

0:53:140:53:16

Audiences also dressed exactly like their favourite bands.

0:53:180:53:22

Long hair, denim and leather, patches and insignia, seemed to be

0:53:220:53:26

the obligatory proto-metal dress code of those offstage and on.

0:53:260:53:30

You know, the bell-bottoms, the long hair, the whole thing, it was the total package, wasn't it?

0:53:320:53:40

Down on your knees, giving it some.

0:53:400:53:41

Happy days!

0:53:410:53:43

The Americans really had scarves and things wrapped around.

0:53:440:53:48

They did, Aerosmith and Van Halen, it was all a bit, you know, a bit west coasty, Beach Boy thing.

0:53:480:53:55

But we were more studs and metal, and swords, and medieval.

0:53:550:54:00

I think it's the history thing.

0:54:000:54:02

Among the British bands, it was Judas Priest who would take the heavy metal look further, firstly

0:54:050:54:11

with brightly-coloured spandex, and then on to what became the classic,

0:54:110:54:14

faintly homoerotic, metal uniform of tight black leather and studs - the biker look, including the bike.

0:54:140:54:23

The big thing was, it became international.

0:54:260:54:30

It went out of the borders of the UK and Europe, and started

0:54:300:54:33

to go all over the place, particularly in the States.

0:54:330:54:36

Come on, let's have a party!

0:54:390:54:42

British heavy metal proved to be a hugely successful export, particularly in the States.

0:54:440:54:49

Its toughness, directness, monster sound, and sheer sense of scale,

0:54:490:54:53

seemed to strike a power chord with blue-collar America, from Pittsburgh to Detroit, New York to LA.

0:54:530:55:00

While bands like Sabbath and Uriah Heap were still unsung prophets in

0:55:040:55:08

their own land, the vast touring network of the States rewarded them with adulation, money and success.

0:55:080:55:15

We had the Learjets, and we had the whole

0:55:150:55:18

floor of the hotel, bodyguards outside...

0:55:180:55:21

It was all silly stuff, but it was just fantastic.

0:55:210:55:23

They just took it on board and they couldn't get enough of it. Yeah.

0:55:230:55:27

That's when we really did

0:55:270:55:30

come into a load of "different"

0:55:300:55:33

people, let's put it that way.

0:55:330:55:35

They came out of the woodwork, some real strange people, witches and all sorts of things.

0:55:350:55:41

We attracted so many strange people.

0:55:410:55:44

We used to have wizards turning up at the dressing room, and outside

0:55:440:55:49

and we would bring them in and have a laugh with them, you know.

0:55:490:55:52

It got really, really silly, you know, wizards turning up everywhere!

0:55:520:55:57

# You've got to be our baby

0:55:570:56:01

# You've got to be our baby, to go to heaven. #

0:56:010:56:07

If some Americans worshipped at the altar of British heaviness, others adopted the role of

0:56:070:56:12

Witchfinder Generals, self-appointed saviours fighting

0:56:120:56:16

to protect the vulnerable souls of America's impressionable youth.

0:56:160:56:20

# ..to go to heaven. #

0:56:200:56:24

You'd switch the local news on and you'd hear,

0:56:250:56:28

"Black Sabbath are in town, and they're all Satanists.

0:56:280:56:32

"If you're going to the concert, don't look them in the eyes

0:56:320:56:35

"or forever you'll be possessed."

0:56:350:56:37

-Hail Satan.

-Hail Satan.

0:56:370:56:40

A lot of the people that believed in Jesus Christ were really, really

0:56:410:56:46

convinced that we were a Satanic band, an evil band, and deserved to die.

0:56:460:56:52

And I believe they actually tried that a couple of times.

0:56:520:56:55

We were due to play in America at this town,

0:56:550:56:59

and the church banned us from playing.

0:56:590:57:02

For some reason the church got burnt down, and guess who got the blame?

0:57:020:57:07

So they really did think that we were a band that had a manager called Lucifer.

0:57:110:57:18

Actually, we did have a manager called Lucifer, but that's a different story.

0:57:180:57:22

Satan went mainstream in 1973 with the American movie, The Exorcist.

0:57:260:57:32

But America's fundamentalist fear of unwittingly importing British

0:57:320:57:36

paganism through music wasn't totally unfounded.

0:57:360:57:40

Strange goings-on were often the order of the day in Camp Heavy.

0:57:400:57:46

We used to do all sorts. We used to drag people off in the night

0:57:460:57:49

and go and sit in the middle of the Rollright Stones or some site, and get into all of that stuff.

0:57:490:57:55

That, that was in... I mean so many things were in our music.

0:57:550:57:59

There was a lot of stuff going on. There was with you, you were into a bit of dark,

0:57:590:58:04

-dark stuff.

-Me? Was I?

0:58:040:58:05

Briefly, a brief flirtation with the old darker side.

0:58:080:58:11

But, I suppose it was something everybody was getting into.

0:58:110:58:15

It was taboo to talk about things like Aleister Crowley..

0:58:150:58:19

Spiritual things and occult things...

0:58:190:58:21

No, no, we're not all devil worshippers.

0:58:210:58:26

I think most bands will deny that they're,

0:58:260:58:30

that they're in league with Satan.

0:58:300:58:33

I got this flat on my own, and I painted it all black and had all

0:58:380:58:43

these crosses upside down everywhere, and pictures of Satan and everything.

0:58:430:58:48

The aim is always at Christ, you know, Christianity.

0:58:480:58:51

That's where it's always at.

0:58:510:58:53

Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and all the rest of them,

0:58:530:58:57

the names are all fiddling around and want to sound menacing.

0:58:570:59:01

The lords of the watch towers of the South...

0:59:010:59:05

I'm a Christian, so I don't mess with anything like that.

0:59:050:59:09

Cos I read in the Bible it's a bad thing to mess around with anything.

0:59:090:59:15

In my particular case,

0:59:180:59:20

I stopped doing certain things

0:59:200:59:22

very early on in our career, because things got

0:59:220:59:29

out of control, that's the best way I can put it.

0:59:290:59:33

I'll leave that as something that was private to me.

0:59:340:59:37

Because there is macabre inside us, inside everyone.

0:59:400:59:45

Lust is such a large source of energy that can drain us,

0:59:490:59:55

in good ways and bad ways.

0:59:550:59:57

There was a lot of weird things happened within Sabbath

0:59:571:00:01

that we couldn't explain.

1:00:011:00:03

It might have been the drugs, but...

1:00:061:00:10

I don't think so.

1:00:101:00:12

As the night wears on, the witches, by tradition, become more frenzied in their enjoyment of this religion.

1:00:121:00:18

In their eagerness to prove their magical powers, they show their ability to ignore pain.

1:00:181:00:26

This is just beyond... these people...

1:00:261:00:30

those kids that are doing it, they don't believe they are doing anything particularly wrong,

1:00:301:00:35

they don't believe there's a devil, they don't believe there's a God,

1:00:351:00:38

they just think it's a lark.

1:00:381:00:40

There's a few Satan references in some of our songs and lyrics.

1:00:411:00:47

I don't know why, it just seems

1:00:471:00:52

right to be singing about that kind of subject matter over this kind of music.

1:00:521:00:57

"Love grows Where My Rosemary Goes..."

1:00:571:01:01

It just doesn't fit.

1:01:011:01:02

It's heavy so if it's what you call "heavy metal",

1:01:021:01:07

then you've got to put a pretty heavy lyric to it.

1:01:071:01:10

I suppose, writing about the darker forces and the darker sides or whatever fits the music.

1:01:101:01:17

You would hardly write about a love song to that kind of heaviness.

1:01:171:01:22

Somehow, "Satan is the...",

1:01:221:01:25

is more appropriate, somehow,

1:01:251:01:28

over this titanic riffage.

1:01:281:01:31

# Oh Lord, oh Lord now help me

1:01:381:01:40

# This entrance falling down

1:01:401:01:42

# The madness of our father's law

1:01:441:01:49

# The pain of retribution

1:01:491:01:52

# The house brought down to ground

1:01:521:01:55

# Sins of my ancestors

1:01:551:01:57

# The judgment day's at hand. #

1:01:571:01:59

They want to look demonic, though, they want to look like demons now.

1:01:591:02:03

Shaved head, covered in

1:02:031:02:05

tattoos, you know,

1:02:051:02:07

little beardy, goatee beardy things.

1:02:071:02:10

Some people say, "you set yourselves up,

1:02:101:02:13

"if you're a Marilyn Manson you set yourselves up for trouble.

1:02:131:02:16

"If you're Ozzy, biting the head of a bat, you set yourselves up." You don't.

1:02:161:02:19

We're entertainers. That might sound a very flimsy way to describe us.

1:02:271:02:32

We're entertaining you, we're giving you a great night out.

1:02:321:02:35

You know. Come and see the band with your mates, have

1:02:351:02:38

a great night out, and that's basically what it's about, surely.

1:02:381:02:43

It did used to cross my mind that the devil could

1:02:471:02:50

be included in some way, or could have his hands on it in some way.

1:02:501:02:55

But, in the lust for glory of it all, you take no notice anyway and you just keep going. Say nothing.

1:02:551:03:04

1975.

1:03:141:03:16

In a desolate location near London's North Circular,

1:03:161:03:19

DJ Neal Kay established the first real home for hard rock, heavy rock,

1:03:191:03:25

and heavy metal enthusiasts - The Soundhouse, bivouacked at the local pub called the Bandwagon.

1:03:251:03:30

There was nowhere like this anywhere in this country at the time.

1:03:331:03:37

Because it was a street-driven thing, there was no national link.

1:03:401:03:45

There was no, you know.

1:03:451:03:47

They were at everywhere, but they needed somewhere

1:03:471:03:50

to believe in, somewhere to go, a place to call their own.

1:03:501:03:54

It took five years, really, of very, very hard work

1:03:541:03:58

and a lot of persistence to change the whole situation around.

1:03:581:04:02

These days, as you're well aware, we run five nights a week, hard rock,

1:04:021:04:06

and soul's gone straight out the door, that way, sideways.

1:04:061:04:09

Neal Kay and the Soundhouse punters took the initiative and began building a scene of their own,

1:04:131:04:18

one that would unite the heavy metal fraternity.

1:04:181:04:22

We had regulars fly over from Northern Ireland.

1:04:241:04:26

We had people come in from Jersey.

1:04:261:04:28

And then, in the latter years of the Wagon, we started getting them from Europe.

1:04:281:04:32

And when they arrived, they found was this huge great sound system,

1:04:321:04:35

that absolutely crushed anything that stood in its path.

1:04:351:04:38

So people that came to the club could hear rock as if it were a concert.

1:04:381:04:43

It seemed as if the gods of rock and roll, natch, were parting the Red Sea to let us through.

1:04:461:04:53

The Soundhouse quickly became the Mecca for head-banging and air guitar,

1:04:581:05:02

and then the birthplace of a new form of spectator sport, courtesy of club regular, Rob Loonhouse.

1:05:021:05:09

Rob walked in the door one day somewhere about 1976, I guess.

1:05:091:05:15

And under his arm he had this

1:05:151:05:17

hardboard flying V.

1:05:171:05:19

Has it got frets on it?

1:05:191:05:20

No, I don't bother with frets, you know.

1:05:201:05:23

I think it's taking the piss a bit, really,

1:05:231:05:26

when you put frets on it.

1:05:261:05:27

You're making it look too much like a real guitar.

1:05:271:05:30

Everyone said, "Rob, what are you going to do with that, there's no strings on it?"

1:05:301:05:35

"Well, I don't need strings".

1:05:351:05:37

Later that night, Loonhouse birthed a new sub-species of the beast.

1:05:391:05:44

Suddenly, Rob appears in front of everyone, and he starts playing it

1:05:461:05:49

along with the solo, and he's absolutely perfect.

1:05:491:05:53

When you go to a classical concert,

1:06:011:06:04

you get the music on music paper to follow it through.

1:06:041:06:08

You're not a lunatic for doing this, you're

1:06:081:06:11

passionately wrapped up and involved in the intensity of the performance.

1:06:111:06:16

You wish to follow the moves the musicians are making.

1:06:161:06:18

The people coming to the Soundhouse were the same kind of people with the same ethics.

1:06:221:06:27

They wanted to be inside the music, they wanted to be as close to it as they possibly could get.

1:06:271:06:32

The lifeblood of the metal scene coagulated and scabbed

1:06:351:06:39

into something that could now be identified.

1:06:391:06:42

But the musicians who made the music were often uneasy with their new "heavy metal" tag.

1:06:421:06:47

I've never liked the phrase.

1:06:501:06:52

I've never applied it to Deep Purple.

1:06:521:06:54

Ah, you see, the big debate of who's metal,

1:06:541:06:56

who's rock, who's hard rock, and who's heavy metal.

1:06:561:06:59

I liked "hard rock", because

1:06:591:07:01

it said exactly what,

1:07:011:07:04

what it was. It was rock-and-roll, but it was played with aggression.

1:07:041:07:07

And then some people started calling it "heavy rock",

1:07:071:07:10

and I'm not sure where the words "heavy" came from.

1:07:101:07:12

Possibly after Black Sabbath.

1:07:121:07:13

This came up many years ago with me,

1:07:131:07:15

because I always classed ourselves as heavy rock.

1:07:151:07:18

It kind of changed over when, um,

1:07:181:07:21

Motorhead and people come out like that. It was full on. You know.

1:07:211:07:27

Then they were actually "heavy metal". You know.

1:07:271:07:30

# I...

1:07:301:07:32

# I just took a ride

1:07:321:07:34

# In a silver machine

1:07:361:07:38

# And I'm still feeling mean. #

1:07:391:07:42

In 1975, the man known simply as Lemmy stepped off

1:07:421:07:47

Hawkwind's Silver Machine to form the band that was Motorhead.

1:07:471:07:52

Out went space rock, in came the punter driven, user-friendly garage approach.

1:07:521:07:57

Out went acid, in came speed.

1:07:571:07:59

But, was it heavy metal thunder, or just rock-and-roll?

1:07:591:08:03

He wasn't saying. He still doesn't.

1:08:031:08:06

Don't analyse it, I told you, man, before we started.

1:08:091:08:12

I'm not analysing it, I'm just asking!

1:08:121:08:14

You're trying to understand.

1:08:161:08:17

Why?

1:08:171:08:19

Just enjoy it at face value, that's what I do.

1:08:201:08:22

It's fairly simple, and it's very loud, and it's very fast.

1:08:241:08:27

And it's great driving music if you like driving into the side of bridges.

1:08:271:08:31

It's great music for hurling yourself off trees by.

1:08:341:08:38

# We're moving like a parallelogram

1:08:401:08:42

# Don't move I'll shut the door and kill the lights

1:08:421:08:44

# If I can't be wrong, I must be right, I should be tired,

1:08:441:08:48

# And all I am is wired

1:08:481:08:50

# Ain't felt this good for an hour

1:08:501:08:53

# Motorhead, remember me now, Motorhead all night

1:08:531:08:58

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, Motorhead! #

1:09:001:09:04

It gets a lot of emotion out of you that would otherwise be channelled into bad things, maybe.

1:09:041:09:10

I do it cos I like it.

1:09:201:09:21

I don't know why, I just like it.

1:09:231:09:25

I like it. Is that so wrong?

1:09:261:09:29

People who work in a factory, right, or some awful fucking mind-numbing job like that...

1:09:401:09:45

Because I've worked in a factory, I know what it's like, it's fucking awful.

1:09:451:09:49

Most people have to do that kind of job, that they hate, every day of their lives.

1:09:491:09:54

Can you imagine what that must be like?

1:09:541:09:56

You have to submerge your intellect completely and just...

1:09:561:10:01

You know, all that.

1:10:011:10:04

At the weekend, they want to hear something that tears their heart out

1:10:041:10:07

and gives it them back better, you know?

1:10:071:10:09

This one's for the people that are into modern fashion.

1:10:091:10:11

By 1976, it didn't matter what you called it.

1:10:131:10:16

Punk was trampling everything under foot on its DIY three-chord advance.

1:10:161:10:21

Everything, that is, except metal, which seemed to have a built-in resistance.

1:10:211:10:27

Its champions didn't even get their hair cut.

1:10:271:10:31

I don't think punk musicians or fans really thought much about

1:10:311:10:34

metal, because it didn't have that definition.

1:10:341:10:37

If you said to a punk fan in 1977, "Do you like Budgie?", they would probably go, "Who?"

1:10:371:10:43

If you said, "Do you like Caravan?", "Rubbish, hate them, nonsense, dire."

1:10:431:10:46

I don't know if it damaged the line at all.

1:10:491:10:51

I think it just kind of gave it a bit more of a kick, you know, and made it

1:10:511:10:58

a bit faster and a bit more powerful.

1:10:581:11:01

Maybe brought it back down to the street a bit,

1:11:011:11:03

so that the kids could get back up on stage, you know?

1:11:031:11:07

You can think, if these guys can put this energy out without being able

1:11:071:11:13

to play very well,

1:11:131:11:14

we can put a lot more energy out because we can play better.

1:11:141:11:18

I used to think, I'm going to have to practise for 15 years to be as good as Ritchie Blackmore, at least.

1:11:201:11:28

When punk rock came along, I thought,

1:11:281:11:31

I can play like that, so maybe I should simplify my ideas a little bit.

1:11:311:11:36

Ahhhhh, we're gonna start now.

1:11:381:11:40

This aggression that the punk music had,

1:11:421:11:45

we quite liked, you know?

1:11:451:11:48

We liked it.

1:11:481:11:50

I think it really affected us. I don't think we copied it in any way but I think it went into our psyche.

1:11:571:12:02

Motorhead and The Damned toured together, quite a lot, so there was

1:12:111:12:15

that crossover at some point between punk and metal, an energy exchange, and both happily co-existed.

1:12:151:12:23

We sounded like punks so they liked us already, and then they saw we had long hair and it was too late.

1:12:261:12:31

They had already committed themselves.

1:12:311:12:33

I always wanted to be obnoxious because all the bands I liked were obnoxious, you know?

1:12:381:12:42

MC5.

1:12:421:12:44

We came out at the same time as the punks and I thought they were splendid.

1:12:441:12:47

And The Damned were great fun, you know?

1:12:471:12:51

Not all hard and heavy rockers survived the punk moment.

1:12:561:13:00

Deep Purple, by now an international success story, gracefully retired on the battlefield.

1:13:001:13:05

I think Deep Purple was becoming irrelevant,

1:13:071:13:11

not just musically...

1:13:111:13:13

..but to the people in the band.

1:13:141:13:17

Rock made its big mistake by becoming fat

1:13:171:13:21

and loathsome and bloated and pompous.

1:13:211:13:23

So, less contact with the streets.

1:13:241:13:27

# Sweet child in time

1:13:271:13:29

# You'll see the line. #

1:13:301:13:32

What had been our baby, our, er,

1:13:341:13:38

shining creation, had become tarnished and a little,

1:13:381:13:43

it had become overblown.

1:13:431:13:45

It was playing its own cliches, rather than inventing new cliches.

1:13:451:13:49

Black Sabbath were spending more time in America,

1:13:541:13:57

cut off from their dark British roots, suffering from

1:13:571:14:00

a creative stasis of their own, aided by old-fashioned drug and booze abuse.

1:14:001:14:05

I was the one going to the record company, giving all the lines, you know?

1:14:051:14:10

I'd go there and they'd say, "How's the album coming?"

1:14:101:14:13

"Oh, great." "How's the songwriting?"

1:14:131:14:14

"Yeah. It's really coming on."

1:14:141:14:17

"When are we going to be able to hear some stuff?"

1:14:171:14:19

"Soon." We hadn't got anything.

1:14:191:14:21

We were totally knackered, some gigs,

1:14:211:14:23

so you take a bit of the old coke to get you through the gig.

1:14:231:14:27

And eventually, you start relying on it.

1:14:291:14:31

We started getting heavily into drugs...

1:14:311:14:34

..and doing silly things on...

1:14:371:14:39

..out of our brains.

1:14:411:14:43

First of all, it was very creative, we found.

1:14:431:14:47

We could stay up and we were coming up with ideas and we would talk a lot more.

1:14:471:14:51

Certainly with coke, we'd be up all night, talking away.

1:14:511:14:54

It was fantastic, we had some great discussions.

1:14:541:14:57

We'd never remember them the next day, but we had some great discussions.

1:14:571:15:01

It did help a lot, to open each other up and to talk.

1:15:011:15:05

When we did Vol 4, and we'd done so much... We'd done more coke...

1:15:051:15:10

The cocaine bill was more than the recording bill.

1:15:101:15:13

And the recording bill was 80,000.

1:15:131:15:16

But later on, it got, with that and the drink,

1:15:211:15:26

it sort of took an ugly turn, really.

1:15:261:15:30

And the first casualty, of course, was Ozzy, you know, and Bill.

1:15:301:15:34

I came off tour, not because I didn't like Tony or I didn't like Geezer or something like that.

1:15:361:15:41

It's because I placed more priority on drinking than I did the band.

1:15:411:15:47

And that might be a shameful thing to say, but it's the truth. That's the truth.

1:15:471:15:51

And we were coming up with ideas and we'd walk in the lounge

1:15:511:15:55

and Ozzy would be asleep on the couch,

1:15:551:15:57

and you just couldn't...

1:15:571:15:59

We couldn't communicate any more.

1:15:591:16:02

Ozzy Osbourne was sacked from Black Sabbath by band-mate Bill Ward in 1979.

1:16:041:16:10

Ward left the band himself soon afterwards.

1:16:101:16:14

You know, anything to do with the original band, I can't...

1:16:171:16:21

It's like being...

1:16:231:16:26

It's like being outside of the phenomenon.

1:16:261:16:30

You know, I'm very much set in that Sabbath

1:16:301:16:35

is Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.

1:16:351:16:38

So... I just couldn't do it, and I missed Ozzy so much.

1:16:381:16:42

Black Sabbath has no time.

1:16:451:16:47

It doesn't abide by any time.

1:16:471:16:50

And Ozzy knows how to sing to no time.

1:16:501:16:56

It's a tremendous skill.

1:16:561:16:58

It's really, really difficult,

1:16:581:17:00

and he's so far left or far right that he has those capabilities.

1:17:001:17:06

And singers that sing in time can't sing Black Sabbath...

1:17:061:17:10

..because Black Sabbath is not in time.

1:17:111:17:14

If the old guard now displayed signs of metal fatigue, or terminal rust,

1:17:181:17:23

a new generation of post-punk metal bands was ready to take up the crusade.

1:17:231:17:28

The press called them the "new wave of British heavy metal",

1:17:281:17:32

mercifully shortened to NWOBHM.

1:17:321:17:34

Bands like Diamond Head, Iron Maiden and Saxon had grown up in a different kind of world,

1:17:411:17:46

one of strikes, three-day working weeks and winters of discontent.

1:17:461:17:51

They emerged just as the country elected its own metal mistress, the Iron Lady herself.

1:17:541:18:00

They had to invent the Friday Rock Show thing, to play it,

1:18:021:18:06

because it couldn't be on mainstream radio.

1:18:061:18:08

I think in some respects

1:18:081:18:10

it backfired on them because it made us bigger, you know?

1:18:101:18:13

It did really make us, you know, rebels, really.

1:18:131:18:17

And it was all in this mishmash of no jobs, strikes.

1:18:171:18:23

I think it gave us a bit of will,

1:18:241:18:28

to get out of all that and succeed at something we loved doing.

1:18:281:18:33

Saxon were, if you like...

1:18:331:18:37

They were our granddaddies.

1:18:371:18:39

They'd been doing working men's clubs in Barnsley for years, and all round the North.

1:18:391:18:44

They came on, the well-oiled machine, and we were like,

1:18:441:18:48

"Wow, they have people who tune their guitars!"

1:18:481:18:50

First of two heavy metal bands on Top Of The Pops.

1:18:501:18:53

It's Saxon.

1:18:531:18:55

You know, we did Top Of The Pops

1:18:571:18:59

and Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, they'd all be there with the red carpet.

1:18:591:19:03

We'd wander in from out of a taxi at the back.

1:19:031:19:07

We were treated more like the bad boys, it wasn't real music.

1:19:071:19:11

Because we wrote about things like motorbikes

1:19:131:19:16

and steam trains and jet planes

1:19:161:19:19

and fighter pilots being on drugs up in the sky,

1:19:191:19:23

I just think the music had to match.

1:19:231:19:25

# I leave the motor ticking over when she's back on the track... #

1:19:251:19:29

So, it had to be aggressive and fast for us.

1:19:291:19:31

# I got a 68-7 with pops on the side

1:19:331:19:37

# You know she's my new beauty And that's what I ride

1:19:401:19:44

# She's got whe-e-e-els, wheels of steel... #

1:19:491:19:52

You know, we're using the same format as the older bands.

1:19:521:19:58

Great guitar riff, melodic vocal, but we were just condensing it much faster, you know.

1:19:581:20:03

The difference between seeing Led Zeppelin at Knebworth,

1:20:031:20:07

200,000 people, you know...

1:20:071:20:10

You've got to think, when you're in your bedroom practising,

1:20:101:20:13

hoping to play a pub up the road,

1:20:131:20:15

how on earth are we ever going to get to Knebworth, you know?

1:20:151:20:19

What's that...? What have we got to write to achieve that?

1:20:191:20:23

# Am I evil?

1:20:241:20:27

# Yes, I am

1:20:271:20:29

# Am I evil?

1:20:301:20:32

# I am... #

1:20:321:20:35

It almost felt like we missed the boat, really.

1:20:351:20:38

And we kept scratching our heads thinking, "Why don't they sign Diamond Head?"

1:20:381:20:44

And we'd even get pieces written about us in Sounds, "Why has no-one signed this band?"

1:20:441:20:49

CROWD: Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!

1:21:071:21:11

Maiden!

1:21:111:21:13

Where Diamond Head failed, Iron Maiden succeeded.

1:21:131:21:17

With punk-like aggression, dressed in a full-metal jacket,

1:21:171:21:20

the power and the glory was theirs for the taking.

1:21:201:21:23

Vocalist Bruce Dickinson was already a devoted student of metallurgy,

1:21:281:21:31

a classicist, when he first saw Iron Maiden perform.

1:21:311:21:36

It was a force of nature.

1:21:361:21:39

I mean, I was just...

1:21:391:21:41

It was like, wow! This is not...

1:21:411:21:43

This is real. This is full-on. This is like being hit by a truck.

1:21:431:21:48

You know, every single song,

1:21:481:21:51

the musicianship was fantastic, guitar-playing was astounding.

1:21:511:21:56

MUSIC: Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden

1:21:561:21:58

# Won't you come into my room... #

1:22:011:22:03

And I've got to say, the only thing I looked at was the singer, and I thought, I should be there.

1:22:031:22:07

# Iron Maiden can't be fought

1:22:071:22:09

# Iron Maiden can't be sought

1:22:091:22:12

# Oh will, wherever Whenever you are... #

1:22:121:22:16

I thought, God!

1:22:161:22:18

It reminded me of an album, the first album I ever listened to from Deep Purple, Deep Purple In Rock,

1:22:181:22:25

which is a really heavy record, you know, really exciting, raw and fresh.

1:22:251:22:29

And I could hear so many little echoes of that kind of excitement.

1:22:291:22:36

It was like being plugged into the mains.

1:22:361:22:38

And I just thought, God, I could...

1:22:381:22:41

If I was singing with that band, wow!

1:22:411:22:43

Oh, well, never mind!

1:22:431:22:45

As if by black magic, Dickinson was asked to front Iron Maiden in 1981,

1:22:471:22:52

the year the band went stratospheric.

1:22:521:22:55

Finally, British heavy metal had a face, a name and a number.

1:22:551:23:00

It was branded 666.

1:23:001:23:03

The beast was back in business.

1:23:031:23:05

'Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast.'

1:23:051:23:10

The Number Of The Beast, the first album I was on,

1:23:121:23:15

was number one in God knows how many countries round the world.

1:23:151:23:19

-It broke us in America.

-'Its number is 666.'

1:23:191:23:23

We actually had quite a run of hit singles.

1:23:231:23:27

# Just what I saw

1:23:271:23:29

# In my own dreams

1:23:301:23:32

# Were they reflections of my warped mind staring back at me?

1:23:331:23:38

# Cos in my dreams

1:23:391:23:41

# It's always there

1:23:421:23:44

# The evil face that twists my mind

1:23:451:23:48

# And brings me to despair

1:23:481:23:51

# Ye-e-e-eah

1:23:521:23:58

# Ohhhh... #

1:23:581:24:02

It was really aggressive, in-your-face music

1:24:021:24:06

but it had great musicianship

1:24:061:24:08

and it had interesting words and stories and, you know...

1:24:081:24:11

So, it was a fantastical world that you could enter in.

1:24:141:24:17

Hey, thank you.

1:24:171:24:19

And the whole rest of the year went like that.

1:24:191:24:22

And we went round to America twice, we went to Japan, we went all round Europe.

1:24:221:24:26

It's a song called Run To The Hills.

1:24:261:24:30

'We toured our socks off.'

1:24:301:24:32

All those adolescent dreams, sat up in bed, you know,

1:24:321:24:35

drawing pictures on the back of my exercise books of big PAs

1:24:351:24:41

and drum kits on the backs of things,

1:24:411:24:43

saying, "Our back line should look like that.

1:24:431:24:45

"That would be really nasty-looking, yeah," you know,

1:24:451:24:49

had all happened.

1:24:491:24:51

My absolute wildest dreams had all happened in a year.

1:24:531:24:58

And, you know, I was a bit depressed, to be honest with you.

1:24:581:25:02

Because I thought, "What do I do now?"

1:25:021:25:06

Um... What do I do now?

1:25:061:25:09

I suppose the same again next year, but bigger.

1:25:091:25:12

Metal, under the supreme leadership of Iron Maiden, did just that.

1:25:131:25:18

It got bigger and bigger,

1:25:181:25:19

far beyond even the wildest dreams of its naive originators.

1:25:191:25:24

Even Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan

1:25:271:25:30

was belatedly inducted into the cult

1:25:301:25:33

when he joined Black Sabbath in 1983

1:25:331:25:36

for one album entitled Born Again.

1:25:361:25:39

I don't know how I got in Black Sabbath, because we ended up drunk under a table.

1:25:391:25:43

I went for a meeting with Tony and Geezer at The Bear in Woodstock.

1:25:431:25:48

And I don't remember any more, and I got a call from my manager, Phil Banfield, the next morning,

1:25:531:25:58

saying, "Ian, if you're going to make career decisions, then I think you should call me first."

1:25:581:26:03

"What are you talking about?"

1:26:031:26:05

"Apparently, last night you agreed to join Black Sabbath."

1:26:051:26:08

"Well, anything else in the diary?" "No, not at the moment," so...

1:26:081:26:12

I went on tour with them. The whole thing lasted a year, I think,

1:26:121:26:16

and it was the longest party I've ever been to. It was fantastic.

1:26:161:26:21

On its rampage from the '60s to the '80s,

1:26:241:26:27

the British heavy metal beast had consumed all manner of musics,

1:26:271:26:31

seeking a life and identity of its own.

1:26:311:26:34

Despite being targeted by the press on its unfashionable journey, it had emerged triumphant,

1:26:381:26:44

a glorious band of brothers with a huge fanbase that worshipped its codes, sounds and symbols.

1:26:441:26:51

It surrendered its Britishness, went global

1:26:541:26:57

and gave birth to 1,000 subspecies, constantly renewing itself.

1:26:571:27:02

Unrepentant, unforgiving, unstoppable.

1:27:021:27:08

Heavy.

1:27:081:27:09

A lot of people that don't understand metal.

1:27:121:27:14

They stick the boot in and say, "Oh, it's rubbish, it's crap,

1:27:141:27:16

"it's meaningless, it's Neanderthal, it's got no value."

1:27:161:27:19

I kind of like that. I really do.

1:27:191:27:23

We'll always be the underdog in rock and roll, to a certain extent.

1:27:231:27:26

The big thing about heavy metal is, you know what,

1:27:311:27:34

you lot over there who don't like us and don't want to like us, fine.

1:27:341:27:37

You go on slaughtering us, because we have tens,

1:27:371:27:40

hundreds of thousands, millions of fans

1:27:401:27:42

who want us, love our music, will always be there for us.

1:27:421:27:45

And weighing it up, do we want them, do we want you?

1:27:451:27:48

We know where we going to go, we're going to go that way.

1:27:481:27:51

It's not nostalgia like most music is.

1:27:571:28:01

It stays with them.

1:28:011:28:03

It just feels like it's something that hasn't sold out.

1:28:051:28:10

More of a religion, I suppose.

1:28:101:28:12

Like soccer, football.

1:28:121:28:15

It's like, you know, you grow up supporting your team and you never...

1:28:151:28:19

It becomes part of you, till you die.

1:28:191:28:22

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