DIAMOND HEAD tickets
Diamond Head are an English heavy metal band formed in 1976 in Stourbridge, England. The band is recognised as one of the leading members of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and is acknowledged by later bands like Metallica and Megadeth as an important early influence.
History:
Formed by school friends in 1976 Brian Tatler and Duncan Scott with Tatler playing on a Cheap Fuzz guitar and Scott on biscuit tins. The name "Diamond Head" came from a Phil Manzanera album, that Tatler had a poster of in his room. Sean Harris later joined the band after they learned about his vocal abilities while on a school trip, singing Gene Vincent's 1956 hit "Be-Bop-A-Lula", and auditioned him in Tatler's bedroom. Bassist Colin Kimberley, a friend of Tatler's from primary school joined the band some months later (and was in fact Diamond Head's fourth bassist). The band started to play local gigs in the Black Country area, with their first gig at High Park School in Stourbridge on 10 February 1977 but things did not go too smoothly at that gig, with feedback problems marring the start of the concert.
In their early days the band played few cover songs and concentrated on their own material. Exceptions were Black Sabbath's "Paranoid ", "Its All For The Love of Rock and Roll" by the Tuff Darts and "Motorhead" by Hawkwind, whose bass player Lemmy, later formed the band Motorhead. In one interview Brian Tatler stated that they wrote some 100 songs before their first studio recorded release, and only one song (It's Electric) from their 1978 set was recorded for their debut.
The band recorded and released self-financed demo tapes in 1979. Recorded within six hours on a four-track, their unique sound and quality of writing gained enough attention for the band to tour as support to AC/DC and Iron Maiden. Although several record companies expressed interests in signing the band, no contracts were forthcoming. The band was at the time mainly managed by Sean Harris' mother (Linda Harris),who reportedly turned down an offer from the influent Leiber/Krebs Management,. Thus while other 'New Wave of British Heavy Metal' bands were signed to major labels and headlining their own tours Diamond Head remained independent. The management decided that they would release their material through their own label; 'Happy Face Records'.
The first release was the 1979 single "Shoot Out The Lights" (B-side Helpless), second single "Sweet and Innocent" (B-side "Streets of Gold") was released by Media Records in 1980.
In the same year the band also recorded their debut album on Happy Face. Most commonly known as Lightning to the Nations, (although it was officially untitled), the collection was recorded in seven days at The Old Smythy Studio in Worcester, a venue which the band described later as 'dead'. The album was packaged in a plain sleeve with no title or track listings, simply bearing a signature of one of the band members. The reason for this was that the band's co-manager, Reg Fellows owned a cardboard factory and could produce blank sleeves at a suitably low cost. Only 1000 copies were originally pressed and made available at concerts or via mail-order for £3.50. The only mail-order advertisement appeared in Sounds and ran for four weeks. The band did not pay for the advertisement and ended up being sued. The idea for recording this album came from Fellows and Linda Harris as an attempt to record tracks to entice attention from a record company, which would take care of the recording costs.
This album has become one of the most sought after items among record collectors. Another 1000 copies were pressed along with the track listings at a later date. Unfortunately, the original stereo master tapes were lost after they were sent to the German record company, Woolfe Records, and never returned. However, Woolfe Records released a version of the album, and later re-released via Sanctuary Records in 2001.
The success of the album led to a record deal with MCA Records in 1981, and rush released the Four Cuts EP, which contained early era songs such as Call Me and Dead Reckoning. Their new status afforded them a slot on the Reading festival bill in 1982, albeit as late and unadvertised replacements for Manowar. Their stunning set was recorded by the BBC and later released in 1992 through Raw Fruit Records as the Friday Rock Show Sessions.
The first MCA album, Borrowed Time featured a lavish Rodney Matthews-illustrated gatefold sleeve based on the album's Elric theme and was the most expensive sleeve commissioned by MCA at the time. The investment paid off as it was enthusiastically received and climbed to #24 in the UK album charts, enabling the band to perform a full scale UK tour at large venues such as London's Hammersmith Odeon.
To support the album Diamond Head's third single "In the Heat of the Night", backed with live versions of Play it Loud and Sweet and Innocent recorded at the Zig-Zag club, and an interview with DJ Tommy Vance (although the latter was not available on the 12").
Diamond Head tried a more experimental sounding follow-up to Borrowed Time, tentatively titled Making Music which later became Canterbury in 1983. The success of this album was stalled as the first 20,000 copies suffered vinyl pressing problems, causing the LP to jump.
Many fans disliked the progressive direction, expecting a reprise of Borrowed Time. The album did not feature Duncan Scott and Colin Kimberly, who were removed after pressure from MCA. Tatler explained that Kimberly found the band too much hard work and Scott did not seem to be pulling his weight in the band. Mervyn Goldsworthy, formerly of Samson, and Robbie France, later a founding member of Skunk Anansie, came in on bass and drums respectively. Also introduced to the band was keyboard player Josh Phillips-Gorse (ex Procol Harum). Live footage of this line up's live show at the University of Leicester on 12 February 1984 was officially released on VHS via the Diamond Head fan club.
Diamond Head opened the 1983 Monsters of Rock festival at Donington, and supported Black Sabbath on their 'Born Again' European tour. After getting dropped by MCA in January 1984 Diamond Head started work on their fourth studio album, entitled Flight East. Although never released, five tracks (Be Good, A New Messiah, Someone Waiting, Today and Back In The Powerage) emerged on bootleg and shows the band totally changing direction with the dropping of all the characteristic signature guitar solos and heavy dynamic riffs. The change in the band's musical direction was with the duo becoming bored of just playing Heavy Metal and felt that it was time to change. Another change the band made at the time was Brian switching from his Flying V to a Gibson Les Paul, saying that "I think the Les Paul's better, the V's more of a metal guitar. At one stage it was just me and Schenker with them, now the guy in Saxon's got one and all the European metal bands like Accept have them." Harris' lyrics had also taken a religious route, as with one of the new songs A New Messiah. (The bootleg also contains two early demos of Shoot Out The Lights and Streets of Gold and well as three tracks from the Dirty Box Band, an attempt by manager Fellows to exploit unused material).
After little interest from any record label to pick up the project, Tatler and Harris decided to retire the band and split up for the first time in 1985.
Metallica's increasing status and the often mentioned influence of Diamond Head on their sound kept the band's name relatively prominent and helped back-catalogue sales. Inevitably in 1991 Tatler and Harris reformed Diamond Head, with Karl Wilcox on drums and Eddie Moohan on bass, and performed a few low key gigs under the name Dead Reckoning.
The band also released a new 12" only single which contained Wild on the Streets and I Can't Help Myself, and was only available at concerts and specialised music stores. Sean Harris also worked on a song with Dave Mustaine for Megadeth called "Crown Of Worms" and both released as a B-side to Megadeth's 1994 single Train of Consequences and on the re-mastered version of Countdown to Extinction.
In 1993 the band released Death and Progress featuring guest contributions by Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath and Dave Mustaine. The band's reunion was short lived as they were on the verge of splitting up as soon as the record was released.
Diamond Head opened for Metallica and Megadeth at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes on 5 June 1993. Sean Harris came out dressed as the Grim Reaper which Brian Tatler remarked (in the British rock magazine Classic Rock) was Harris' way of saying that the NWOBHM was over. Their performance was subdued, reportedly due to Tatler suffering from shingles at the time and the lack of rehearsal time prior to the gig.
The previous autumn Diamond Head guested on stage with Metallica at Birmingham's NEC to jointly perform the Diamond Head classics Helpless and Am I Evil?. Footage of this show was released via the Metallica fan club on a video entitled Metallican.
In 1994 the band split again and did not reform until 2000.
In 2000 Harris and Tatler reformed with guitarist Floyd Brennan and performed a series of short acoustic gigs, including a support slot with Budgie, which ended in the release of the First Cuts Acoustic EP.
The band started touring again doing full electric shows with Moohan and Wilcox back in the band. This tour also saw Diamond Head play their first US show. The band went back into the studio to record a new album entitled Host, however the band ended in disagreement and turmoil as Harris wished the album to be put out under a new name as a fresh start.
After years of Tatler and the band tolerating Harris' creative desires Diamond Head and Sean Harris finally went their separate ways. Although Harris issued a press release on Blabbermouth.net that said that as far as he was concerned he had as much right over the Diamond Head name as anyone else, and that as far he was concerned he was still in the band.
The rest of the band, determined to continue, soon announced his replacement as Nick Tart. Tart had previously worked with artists such as Robin George and The Outcasts. He was singing with a band from the Black Country when Diamond Head drummer Karl Wilcox heard him sing. After introductions Tart agreed to join the band.
The band's next album, All Will Be Revealed (the title apparently referring to Sean Harris), was released in 2005 and was very different from their early material. To promote this album they toured with Megadeth. Brian Tatler commented that this was one of the best experiences of his life and regained his enjoyment playing live with the band again.
Diamond Head headlined a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the NWOBHM at the London Astoria, supported by Witchfynde, Bronz, Praying Mantis and Jaguar. This concert was later released as a live CD entitled It's Electric and also the band's first DVD, To the Devil His Due in 2006. The band's rhythm guitarist Adrian Mills left the band and was replaced with Andy 'Abbz' Abberley, previously in traditional heavy metal band Requiem with drummer Karl Wilcox.
The band released their sixth studio album, What's In Your Head, through Cargo records with Dave 'Shirt' Nicholls, who has produced albums with bands such as Slipknot and The Wildhearts. The Japanese version included extra track This is War.
On 15 October 2007 Metal Mind Productions released Borrowed Time and Canterbury on CD format, the first time that these albums have been released on CD outside of Japan. The CDs were released with bonus tracks, and limited to 2000 copies. However, Geffen Records have now placed the re-released albums under general release.
The band are currently working on a new album.
The band have been toured extensively over the last few years through the UK, Europe and Japan. In 2007 the band supported Thin Lizzy in the UK.
Source and authors: Wikipedia / list of authors
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