Hidden Gems of 90s British Rock: The Almighty’s 'Soul Destruction'

RIFOLOGY! I thought you were going to go all deep and go like, RIFOLOGY! Oh yeah! Very

good, very good. Good morning. Hello, we're RIFOLOGY. RIFOLOGY. I'm Neil. Chris. You're

Chris. Almighty. We're doing the Almighty Soul Destruction because we're on a bit of

a UK 90s rock thing. I've never heard this record before this week. I think quite a lot

of people, looking at our stats, we, I don't know at what point this happened, because it

used to be only our mates that listened to the show. No, it's all over the world, people

tuning in. It is. To hear our dulcet tones. Indeed. So, looking at our stats, more than

half of our listeners are US. Yeah. And then with some European and then the UK, a big chunk

of the rest. So, I think if you were out of the UK, I think this stuff would probably have

passed you by, like therapy. Yeah. We did last week. Yeah. We're doing this one, the Almighty

too. We're going to do some interviews from... Oh, we didn't do finger! Oh, can we come on to that in a minute? Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah. I've literally, I've been sat here

for an hour. Do you know... A good hour. Yeah. I've been fiddling with things and I've only just noticed that you've got a bandage on your finger. Oh, do you remember when I did it last time? Do you remember how did you bandage on your finger? Yes, you did it before, yeah. I've done that again.

So, I sliced the end of it off.

I was chopping... I can't remember. Ginger. I was chopping

ginger. And I've removed

the end of my finger. Anyway.

So, yes, I have my finger.

So, yeah. So, anyway, we're going to do

some British rock.

I think it... This is a

fascinating scene to me.

And do you know why I think it's super fascinating?

I think it's super fascinating because it's not a scene.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Britpop and Oasis and Pulp and

Blur and all that. And everyone knew about that.

Elastica. Everyone knew about that.

It was big and it had

a name. Yeah.

And, like... This was just stuff.

We just did the Pacific Northwest.

We did a bunch of albums from

Seattle. The Seattle scene, yeah. Grunge and

Alt Rock. And it was there. And then before that

we were in...

LA. LA for glam

and hair metal. Yeah.

Had a name. Yeah. Had a scene. Yeah.

Had a road

road. Didn't it?

It was a bit on the Sunset Strip, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And...

It had a venue.

It did. Well, yeah. It had a bunch of venues

and it had, like, just some key people in it.

This just didn't.

No.

This was, you know, we talked about it a bit before, but it was bands like Skunker Nancy

and Gun and Thunder and Gun and Thunder and Therapy and, yeah, there were just some of these

incredible bands that just never quite broke the US. I mean, I remember it had, like, Thunder

and Def Leppard.

Yeah.

Yeah, they just skied it.

Def Leppard broke the US and Thunder just didn't.

Yeah.

And, um...

But there are certain bands like that, like, when you said this, you know, and you said about

the Almighty and we listened to a few songs at the end last week before we went home.

Yeah, yeah.

And I was going, it's that same ballpark as Thunder and Def Leppard.

It is a bit, isn't it?

In a way.

And, but Def Leppard obviously skied it.

Yeah.

And as you say, Thunder didn't quite crack it.

But it's that, it's certainly the same ballpark in musicians.

Well, production, if anything, the production on it and the way it's produced is very, very...

It's a British sound, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but, which is strange because the way that he's singing is very American.

I was a bit shocked with this.

I didn't, this is something I've learned as I was doing the prep for this, for this show.

You did some good prep.

Oh, I didn't, I didn't do any prep.

What I did was I messaged you saying, I can't find anything.

You did, that is, that is the right thing.

Yeah, yeah, and then you sent me 20 things.

I did.

Of which, the last interview one that you sent.

It's good, isn't it?

It was awesome.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we've probably got about a good 20 minutes worth of interviews.

I do love Ricky Warwick though.

He's a good storyteller.

Yeah.

Anyway, I discovered something new.

These albums that we're going to cover, I adore them.

Yeah.

You know, if you had your, we always talked about this, having like a, I don't know, like a three

by three square of albums to be your top nine or whatever.

Most of them for me are here.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like the big, big American thrash records.

But a lot of my absolute total favorites are here from this, from this period.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Would you, are they that, are they that favorite that you commit to having a tattoo done?

I don't know.

Obviously not.

But, but here's the thing that I'm going to, I'm going to call, call out your attention

to.

Yeah.

So of the albums that I think we should cover over the next month or so.

Yeah.

There's this one, Soul Destruction.

Another one is Backstreet Symphony by Thunder.

Yeah.

Which I think is astonishing.

And then there's another one called Taking On The World by Gunn.

It's their debut.

Okay.

It's amazing.

Right.

Because you've not mentioned that one before.

No, that's my favorite Gunn album.

You know.

Because you said about Swagger.

Yeah.

Swagger and Gallas.

Gallas, yeah.

And then.

But this one was before that.

Taking On The World.

Yeah.

Taking On The World is, yeah, it's so good.

Anyway, they're all produced by Andy Taylor off of Duran Duran.

All of them?

Mm.

Backstreet Symphony, 1990.

Andy Taylor.

Soul Destruction, that's this one.

Andy Taylor.

From the Almighty.

Andy Taylor, 91.

And Gunn, Taking On The World.

Andy Taylor, 1989.

Did you like Duran Duran?

No.

Do you like Duran Duran?

Not really.

It's all right, yeah.

But it's not this, is it?

No, it wasn't my thing.

So how did this happen then?

I don't know.

Do you want to give me some other albums in here?

Yeah.

Rod Stewart, Out of Order.

Yeah.

Didn't know that.

No.

And he did Reef, Shoot Me Your Ace in 2022.

Was, oh, recently.

Anyway, according to my sheet, which might be wrong, it says 2022, Shoot Me Your Ace Reef.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at, really, is there was definitely a production style.

You know, we talked about when we did, like, Seattle and that grunge scene.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there were...

Oh, yeah, there was a centre point, wasn't there?

Yeah, there was certainly a style and a tone to it.

You could, you could, like, you know, the track would come on the radio and you can't, you might not recognise the band, but you kind of knew where it came from.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got that London Bridge Studios thing for sale.

I think there's something, I think there's something very similar here.

Yeah.

Because there is a sound, there is, like, a British sound to these.

And it's weird, because I didn't pick it up at the time.

No.

I wasn't aware.

Well, you don't know, do you?

I was just like, oh, this is great.

You just like the bands.

Yeah, you like the music.

Yeah, I like this.

And the thing for me as well with The Almighty, specifically with this album, because they did an album before it called Blood, Fire and Love, and they did a live album called Blood, Fire and Live.

Right, okay.

And it had a cover of You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet on it.

And that's how I got into it.

So, it was the, like, the, it was a girl at school, we were, you know, in your GCSE year.

Oh, no, it might have been the year before.

Anyway, she had it as a t-shirt.

She had Blood, Fire and Live as a t-shirt.

Yeah, right.

But she was like the, I don't know, like the kind of queen rocker.

Do you know what I mean?

Everybody kind of looked at her, and we were a bit nerdy, so we were a bit scared to go anywhere near.

But I remember her having this t-shirt, Blood, Fire and, Blood, Fire and Live.

And I was like, what's that?

And she says, oh, it's The Almighty, dickhead.

Something like that, nerd.

Go and beat yourself up with a pencil or something.

Anyway, she, no, she didn't.

She was lovely.

Her name was Heather.

And she said, yes, they're good.

And then the next day, she brought a tape in.

Oh.

Because that's what you did by then.

So, she gave me the tape of Blood, Fire and Live.

And it had, and I listened to it, and it was great.

And it had this cover of You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

And it was their live energy.

Yeah.

Which was just like, oh, they were just, for me, they were just absolutely incredible.

They had this, like, punky, you know, the Guns and Roses.

Yes, yeah.

That they've got that kind of attitude where it's like, we're the best band in the world

and we don't really care what you think.

Or it doesn't matter.

It's not like we don't care.

It's just like this.

This is how it is.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just the factual truth.

We are amazing.

Yeah.

We don't really care.

Yeah.

And they had that.

They had this kind of swagger and this attitude to them.

And I just fell in love with them.

And then, as I went off to college, they released this record.

They released Soul Destruction.

So, this was 91.

And I remember I worked over the summer holiday.

Yeah.

Just before I went to college.

And so, I'd got money.

I'd got, like, I'd got 100 quid.

You didn't get paid back then, did you?

I worked in summer fields.

Yes.

No one can remember that.

Yeah.

Which is another story.

On my first day, I dropped a two kilogram glass jar of Marmite on the floor.

This is going to be a great side quest.

It's still there now.

This is going to be a great side quest story.

And then I dropped it.

And they were special edition.

They didn't.

I mean, two.

You might be able to get these in the US.

But here in the UK, they're like the size of an apple.

They're not massive Marmite jars.

And this thing was huge.

It was like the size of a football.

Anyway, I dropped it.

And then I tried to, like, scoop it up.

And it was not.

It was literally broken glass and Marmite on the floor.

I didn't know what to do.

And then my friend, he wasn't very bright, said,

what you should do is go and boil the kettle.

Yeah.

Because that will melt it.

And then you can mop it up.

And I was like, oh, genius.

You are genius.

So then I went into the stuff canteen.

Two liters of boiling water.

Tipped it on the Marmite, which it did melt.

And so now I've got, what I had before was like this, this, like, mound of Marmite and broken glass.

Now I've got a lake about four meters wide.

But to make it even better, because it's boiling water, I've now filled the shop with a stench of hot Marmite.

In summer fields.

And then the store manager popped over.

Don't believe we've met, young man.

I know.

I was trying to brush this.

So you've been called my mate Marmite forevermore.

My mate Marmite.

But anyway, I was trying to get to the story of the, because I had money.

And I was prepping to go to college.

And so I went to the record shop, as you do.

And they had this.

And I bought the album and got it back.

And when I got back, it had loads of stickers in it.

So on my, because you know when your first day at college, you're all keen, aren't you?

Yeah.

So mine had little stickers.

I had like a little loss sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like a lovely little sticker of the album cover.

Oh, wicked.

It was lovely.

So my first year, probably first 18 months at college, almighty stickers all over my stuff.

Emptiness inside my soul.

Feelings scattered all around.

I need somewhere to lose myself.

Everywhere has been found.

And sad eyes staring out the window.

Tequila tears come raining down.

And pain comes to leave you go.

So many miles between us and so many endless roads.

We're all searching for deliverance.

When there ain't no way to run.

Lay your spirit down easy.

Guess what the ride is gonna be.

Guess what the ride is gonna be.

A little loss sometimes.

A little loss sometimes.

A little loss sometimes.

A little loss sometimes.

A little loss sometimes.

A little loss sometimes.

Oh yeah

When there's nothing to believe in

Sometimes these words are not enough

Promises so hard to keep in

It's hard to feel what you can't touch

Yesterday is yesteryear

Spirit's bleeding into dust

Give me time to understand

It's pretty thin that we count love

We're all searching for deliverance

When there ain't no way to run

Lay your spirit down easy

Just remember I always got more to be

A little love sometimes

A little love sometimes

A little love sometimes

A little love sometimes

A little love sometimes

A little love sometimes

What is this feeling rising over me

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I might look alright

But I'm scared as hell

The more I know

The less I understand

Put me together

Before I fall apart

I'm scared of being in the dark

I'm scared of being in the dark

I'm scared of being in the dark

I'm scared of being in the dark

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I'm scared of being in the dark

Do you remember last week?

I don't think we recorded this bit

Yeah

But I said when I sang

when I first started singing

like original music

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I sang just like this guy

Yeah

If you listen to any...

I was in a band called Why the Dead Girl

Why the Dead Girl?

Why the Dead Girl, yeah

From the age of about 16

Yeah

To about 18, I think

Right

Maybe 19

And

Yeah

I sang like that

And very, very early

Star From Ivy stuff

is like that

Yeah

Like when I was sort of

19, 20, 21, whatever

And

the

The songs that I used to write

were probably quite similar to that

Yeah

But I never heard this band

Isn't that weird?

So it's weird

I never would have heard The Almighty

but I would have written songs

that were like that

See I

So

Blood, Fire and Love

And The Almighty

They

Came from a punk background

Yeah

And I was always

Yeah, I mean

This is all I knew of them basically

Yeah, yeah, yeah

So you know, I literally got that

The EP Blood, Fire and Live

And then bought this just written

And I have to be honest

Like a half of me buying this particular album

was the cover

Yeah

Because it's just phenomenal

It's a beautiful looking thing isn't it?

So it's hand painted as well

Yeah, coot

Yeah

It's absolutely incredible

Anyway

The

The more I learned about them

Like the more

Unexpected

That style is

Do you know what I mean?

Like I guess

Like knowing your

Music background

It kind of makes sense a little bit

Yeah

That you would do that kind of stuff

Yeah

But Ricky Warwick's like punky

Yeah, yeah, yeah

You know what I mean?

He's got They Love Motorhead

Yeah

And there's a couple of songs on the album

where you can hear that

Yeah

There's like the driving bass

Yeah

Like Lemmy would do

Yeah

There's a little bit of that

on a couple of them

It's such a great

But then you've got those like

They're kind of like ballads

Like big rock ballads aren't they?

They are

And they did

They did a few of them

On this record particularly

Like the big stuff

They did like Bandage Knees

Little Lost Sometimes

And Devil's Toy to a degree as well

Yeah, yeah

That was a big single

I think Bandage Knees

I quite like that one actually

But Bandage Knees is my favourite one

But then

I've just discovered that

I didn't hear the whole album

Yeah

Because there's some songs

that you can't hear

Yeah, and there's a weird thing here

This was

I might have got this a little bit wrong

But these albums were on Polydor

Yeah

Now there's a relationship between

Polydor and Universal

Right

And

I don't think Polydor would be a subsidiary of Universal

I think

But do you remember there was that fire?

Yeah

There was a massive fire at Universal

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

And loads of the master

The original masters got burned

Got lost

Yeah, yeah, yeah

This was one of the things

Yeah, I think so

Although

So I thought

It's like Wallace and Gromit

Yeah, I thought

That happened to Wallace and Gromit

It did

I thought

How did we go from the homage to Wallace and Gromit

So I thought

I thought

I always thought this was one of the ones that got lost

Because they didn't reissue

They didn't remaster any of them

These got reissued

So Blood, Fire and Love

And this one got reissued a few years back

Right

I thought it was the original

I didn't think it was a remaster

I thought it was just a repress

Yeah, oh right

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

But again, prepping for this

They're all marked as remasters

Right, okay

Right

Which is weird

Yeah

Because I was convinced that they were removed

And I can't hear any difference between

Between

Between

Between them

The audio we're using for this show is off the original CD

Yeah

So this is from my 1991

Yeah

CD

But

Original CDR

Original

It's proper original

But then

I've still got a wallet of CDRs

Yeah, I've got it

I've got it

Yeah

I've got your wallet of CDRs

You've got my wallet of CDRs

I've got your wallet of CDRs

Have you?

I think so

Big one

Yeah

Shall I bring it in?

Yeah

I'll bring it in

I think I've still got it

If not, it's going to skip

But I think I've still got it

So on the

Certainly on Apple Music

I've not looked on Spotify

But Free and Easy and Devil's Toy and Missy

They're not there

Yeah, that's it

But then

It looks

I'm just going to have a quick look on here

Because I've got it

I've got it queued up

So Spine Farm Records

It's weird

So the

If you look at the bottom

On Apple it says

This compilation is 2014 Spine Farm Records

Right

It's not from Polydor

And it's not from

And

Which suggests that perhaps

Because I know that

Ricky Warwick

Sort of

Perhaps

You know he's got his own thing going on

Like his own label or something

I think they were trying to re-buy the rights

Yeah, that sort of thing

And my gut feeling is that they've not

They've been able to get the rights

They've managed to do this

They've managed to do this

Okay

But not those two tracks

And

There's a bit I think

I don't know whether we're going to use it in interviews

But there's a bit where Ricky talks about how complicated things were back then

Because it was a mess

Like it was

Like

There was so many different people and companies involved in making them

Yeah, yeah, yeah

And we were just having a great time

So we weren't really paying that much attention

And it was only when we wanted to make sure they were on streaming

So once streaming started to really kick off

We wanted to get all the albums on streaming

And we couldn't get Blood, Fire & Love

Yeah

Or Blood, Fire & Live

Or Soul Destruction

Power Tripping

The one that came after

Was okay

And then they did Crank

And just add Life and stuff

But they

Yeah, those early ones

They've not been on streaming for that long

And I remember it coming on

And seeing those two tracks missing

Yeah, yeah, yeah

It's bizarre

Absolutely bizarre

But the radio edit versions are there

If you search for them

You can find the radio edit versions

Almost the singles kind of things

Yeah

There's definitely something like

Wacky

Yeah, yeah

Some rights thing going on

Ownership and stuff going on there

Well, they hit the stratosphere super quick

I mean, we've got a really long interview we're going to play

We have to play all the interview

Because it's so good

So I have to be honest

I didn't know

Like Ricky Warwick for me

Was this huge figure on MTV

Yeah, yeah

His wife Vanessa Warwick

Yeah, Headbangers Ball

Headbangers Ball

Yeah

So she was constantly

I always used to love to see them interviewing

Like she interviewed him and stuff

And I always think that was a bit weird

But yeah, he was just this kind of

Larger than life character

I had no idea where he came from

I had no idea

That background

You know, that background from

From Belfast

And the Troubles

You know, we talked about that last week

Yeah, yeah

With the Troubles, yeah

With the Troubles, yeah

And then moving to that tiny town in Scotland

And stuff

And the punk background and stuff

I had no idea

I had no idea

This interview stuff

And his storytelling

Yeah, it's just amazing

Yeah, it's so good

How he gets the job role as being the guitarist in the New Model Army as well

Yeah

Do you know what I mean?

But it all came from out of nowhere

Yeah

So of course they're riding the wave

Yeah

And they wouldn't be

And they had their people to deal with all that

So they were doing the music

Yeah, of course

And then the other guys were doing the business stuff

And that's probably, you know

Yeah, of course

Everything probably got all tied in knots through that

Yeah, yeah, yeah

It all just feels and sounds just so improbable

Yeah

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah

It just sounds so unlikely to have happened

Do you know what I mean?

He's like a kid from Belfast

Yeah

In Scotland

Get a band together

Yeah

Ends up on tour with New Model Army

Yeah

Ends in New Model Army

Yeah

Quits that

Yeah

Starts another

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah

And it's like what?

How did that happen?

But there's in Black Star Riders now

Which is essentially Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy with him on it, yeah

With him singing

Unbelievable

Shall we listen to his long interview?

It's great

Yeah, brace yourselves

Because it is a long one

But you have to listen to all of it

Because it's a great story

It's just great

It's so good

So I moved to Straven

When I was

Just before I turned 15

And

Like you said

It was a very small

It's

Straven's quite getting

It's quite a big place right now

It's getting bigger

There's a lot of new houses being built

Back then it was very small

Yeah

So I went to a school

That maybe only had four or five hundred pupils at it

I went to Straven Academy

And I went there

When I was sort of

I did sort of half a third year

And half a fourth year

I left just before my 16th birthday

But there's the new Irish kid

And when we get around

There's this guy with a funny accent

And he's just

He's come over from Belfast

Blah, blah, blah, blah

So everybody's poking you

And wanting you to talk

And you know

But

Word gets out that he's got a guitar

And that's always

That's always a great leveler

And a great common denominator

So suddenly

You're in the playground

And the guy comes up to you

With a drum kit and goes

You got a guitar?

You could

I've got a drummer

I'm a drummer

The bass player

The bass player

And gravity

Those two guys

Were Stumpy and Floyd

Yeah

Who would go on to

Formula Mighty with

You know

Six years down the line

You know

First day

And by that weekend

We're in somebody's front room

Jamming on

On covers

So it progresses from that

And we

You know

Various school bands

You know

150 name changes later

And then I have this little

Punk band going

With Floyd

Who's the bass player

Stumpy and I had fallen out

Which we do

Stumpy

Oh man

Me and Stumpy are like that

Even to this day

He's my bro

I roomed with him

All through the almighty

The carnage

Me and him

But we're like brothers

Like we

With fist

You know

Punch ups

And next day arms

He's my boy

You know

We're that close

But it's a

It's a very volatile

Amazing relationship

I have with him

And

I'd fallen out with him

And we got this other drummer

From Coatbridge

Playing with us

And we had this punk band

Called Rough Charm

Which is a terrible name

But you know

And

We were starting to make

A wee bit of a vibe

You know

We're in Glasgow

We were starting to play

Some good gigs

Three piece band

And

I would do the thing

Where I would get

The overnight bus

From Glasgow

You know

This is when I'm 16

17

18 years old

Armed with the cassettes

The demo tapes

I'd have called up

The record companies

In London

And

I guess

Speak to the interns

You know

You're never going to get

To the head A&R

But I would get the overnight bus

Down from London

Get off at King's Cross

Seven in the morning

Go round all the record companies

To the demo tapes

Yeah

Get the young kid

To listen to the song

You're shite

You'll never get anywhere

Go back to the farm

You know

That's how brutal it was

And I did this

About four or five times

I just kept going

And I just wouldn't give up

I wouldn't take no for an answer

You know

I'd do that trip down to London

And eventually

I went to see a company

Called Abstract Records

Who New Model Army

Were signed to

And I was a massive

New Model Army fan

Massive New Model

And Rough Charm

Definitely had a little bit

Of that

I hate to use this word

But kind of goth punk

You know

Edge to us

And

The girl

Whose name

I forget

And it's

God forgive me

Absolute record

She says

You have something

I really like what you guys are doing

You know

You're young

You have an attitude

She says

It's not quite there yet

She says

I think you need to get

Some shows

She said

You'd be great to open

For New Model Army

I said

I love New Model Army

Who

Who can I get to

You know

How am I going to get

And touch them

She says

Look here's the

Here's their management

Contact address

Send them a demo tape

See what happens

So I go back home

And

To Straven

And I write a handwritten note

Blah blah blah

Put the demo tape

Mail it off to

New Model Army's management

In London

Think nothing of it

Be lucky if I hear back

Yeah

And about

A week later

The phone goes

And this guy goes

Hello

This is Nigel Morton

Manager New Model Army

Can I speak to Ricky please

And I went

This is Ricky

He says

I've just received

Your demo tape

And I went

Fuck off

I went

Fuck off Rob

Stop winding me up

And put the phone down

Right

Thinking it's one of my mates

From Straven

Right

Yeah

So

I go back

I'm on the farm

So I go back out

And go to work in the farm

About 20 minutes later

My mum

Comes out and she goes

There's a big guy

Phoning you about three times

He says he's the man

He says he's the man

There's New Model Army

He says you put the phone down on me

He says he really is

And I was like

Oh shit

You know

So I come

This is true story

So I come

So my mum calls me in

Take the phone call

And he says look

He said I really like what I'm hearing

These demo tapes

Can I come and see your band play

And I said well we've got a gig

In the venue in Edinburgh

On Friday night

He says I'll fly up and I'll see you

Wow

So we did the gig in the venue in Edinburgh

And Nigel flew up and saw us

And we played great

And he went look

I'm definitely interested in

In doing something with you

And he said I'll tell you what I'm going to do

We'll put some money behind you

We'll get you in a fairly decent studio

And we'll get a good demo done

And we'll take it from there

So he put us in the studio in Newcastle

With a guy called Mond Cowie

Mond used to play guitar for the Angelic Upstarts

And Mond also produced Vengeance

The first new Model Army EP

That was blowing up everywhere

Blowing up everywhere

So obviously thrilled

Yeah

So we go down to Newcastle upon town

Spend three days in Link Studios

Which is owned by Brian Johnson from ACDC

Just loving it

Can't believe this is happening

Demo turns out great

Nigel says look

He says New Model Army are doing

A run of about six shows

He said let's put you on with him

Let's see if we can get you noticed

And you know

Maybe get the band a record deal

So we turned up at the first show

And it was Norwich University

It was Norwich University

And I'll never forget it

And I'm just like

I just can't believe

I mean New Model Army are the band

I'm just fanatical about at this point

You know they're my favourite band

And I've been to see them a bunch

And Justin Leeson comes in

And he's super friendly

And he says I believe you know some of our songs

I said yes

He said look

He said we could really do with an extra guitar

On a couple of tracks

He said do you fancy once you've done your set

Getting up and playing on blah blah blah

And blah blah blah with us

Of course I'm like

This happens

We do the six dates of the tour

It's amazing

I get up every night

Playing two or three songs with them

Go back home

Think nothing more of it

About a week later

Justin calls me up

He goes have you got a passport?

And I went no

Don't have a passport

Never been

No I think I'd been to Spain

Maybe three years

You know as a kid

No

He says get yourself a passport

He said we've got a German tour

Starting

Will you come and play guitar?

We need the extra guitar player

So I'd you know

Rush off

Get the overnight passport

Next thing I know

I'm on a plane to Hamburg

And the first thing we do is

We play a very famous venue

Called the Docks in Hamburg

Which is still there to this day

I've played it many times

The next show after that

Is a TV show

National TV show in Germany

Which I'm on TV

You know you've got to understand

You know like a week earlier

I'm fucking

Plowing a field on the farm

You know what I mean?

Or you know

So the third gig

Is in front of the Reichstad

Opening for David Bowie

In front of 85,000 people

On the glass spider tour

That was my third gig

Wow

And I'm just you know

I'm just fucking

I can't believe this is happening

Happening

So I end up doing

Justin goes look

We have a world tour

We have a year's worth of shows

All over the world

We need an extra guitar player

We need

And I played a little bit of keyboards as well

He said we need

We need somebody else

Can you do this?

So I had to do the thing

Which I didn't enjoy

I didn't enjoy

I had to go back and tell the guys

Look I've got this opportunity

You can hate me if you want

Yeah

But I'm going to have to take it

And yes they were

You know pissed off

But they would have done the same

You know anybody would have done the same

At that age

At that opportunity

Sort of I had the idea

You know you're always thinking

I had the idea

The name of the Almighty came to me

While I was on tour

With New Modern Army

I thought when I

You know

If I do get another band

It'll be called the Almighty

And then when New Modern Army came off the tour

They were going in to record their album

Thunder and Constellation

Which was a great album

And Justin

Excuse me the singer was just honest

He said look we love having you playing live

He said but the core of the band is the three of us

Sure

Exactly

And we're going to go in and make this record

You can have three or four months off

We'll get back out in the road

And even then

Even though I was playing my favourite band

I just went Justin

I went that's not enough for me

I said I want this

I want the right songs

And I want to sing

I totally respect your decision

Yeah

But I'm going to go and do my own thing

This has been unbelievable

Thank you for everything you've given me

The opportunities you've given me

But I'm going to go and start my own band

And that was the beginning of the Almighty

Sitting on inside my head

No mirrors to reflect

Is this here the season of joy?

Or the season to end yet?

Lord this must be judgment day

Take a close look at myself

While you're happy

With the hand that you've been dealt

The bells are told silently

Inflict the invisible band

Tell me which is more righteous

To this regal of cocaine

Friends won't answer your phone calls

Call your long distance family

Call your long distance family

Well I hope someone is listening

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

Yeah!

Look inside my black lines

Telling stories without care

You might not like what they say

But they only seem the truth

Played on me my tarot

Slip my neck in through the belt

You can't change the ways of the game

When the cards are already dealt

When the cards are already dealt

Oh Lord, yeah

The bells they call silently

Inflict the invisible pain

Tell me your wishes for ashes

Share this legal of cocaine

Friends won't answer your phone calls

Call your long distance family

Well I hope someone is listening

Yeah, I hope someone is listening

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

As I'm going to go and do it

I think that was my favourite one on this album

Bandaged Knees

Bandaged Knees

I like the atmosphere for some of these

Do you know what else I quite like

Is the snare drum sound

Yeah

I don't like it

Don't you

No

It's quite punky

It's quite

It's of its time

Yeah

At the time that would have been

The right snare drum to have

I don't feel

Oh not today

If you were doing an album today

Connected to that snare drum

Yeah you wouldn't do it

If you were doing it today

I quite like it

It's got

It's got

Like a

I don't know

Like a ricochet

Yeah

On it almost

I quite like that

Yeah

Shall we do some facts

Yes

I've got some facts

I'll do some facts

Yep

So

I can't see my own screen here

So

Released on 30th March 1991

So it's quite old

Yeah

Like me

It doesn't feel like a March album

What does it feel like?

It feels like an autumn album

Like an October album

Oh yeah

To me

For me this is an autumn album

Because I bought

I would have bought this in September

Yeah

And then I would have listened to it

I recorded it onto

My cassette

Minidisc

Yeah

God I love

Bring Minidisc back

Sony wants a good slap

If Sony

Yeah

Had have opened that format up

Done it properly

Yeah because you couldn't

You couldn't do like

Direct digital recording and stuff

Do you remember

You had to do it in real time

Yeah

It was all really crappy

If they had have let you do

Like digital to digital recording

This is going off on a tangent

Massively now

But

It would have been

It's only ones and zeros isn't it

It would have been incredible

Copy it over

Bosh

Imagine you could have turned up there

Got your Sony CD player

Yeah

Plugged your Minidisc in

Went Bosh

Yeah

On your Minidisc

And then you're on the bus

Listening to your music

Yeah

Yeah

Nah

Morons they were

Yeah

Sony

Sony

Anyway I loved it

I think the Minidisc is a brilliant format

They just ruined it

Yeah

Yeah anyway

So released 30th March 1991

My engagement with this

I bought the record on the vinyl

Recorded it to my cassette

Yeah

And then I've had it on my Walkman

Yeah

In my ears

In my

You know the crappy earphones

That used to have

Yeah yeah yeah yeah

On the sweaty bus

I remember

I remember on the way to Burton College

And it would be like October November

You know when it's cold outside

Yeah

And I was on there with all the old age pensioners

They would breathe

And their breath would be all over

Over the windows

And I'd get on

And I'd be like

This is miserable

Anyway

And I would listen to this

Total runtime

And they'd all eat beef

Sorry

They'd all eat beef don't they

Don't know

Yeah

They don't know what pensioners eat

Yeah it's beef

What do you want for tea?

Beef

Beef pensioners

Total runtime

58 minutes 34 seconds

Which sounds a lot

But it's 12 tracks

Yeah

Recorded by Polydor

Polydor funded this reasonably well

Yeah

Bunged them a load of quids

Which is bonkers

If you like

There were kids from Scotland

Yeah yeah yeah yeah

I mean

Yeah it was one of them wasn't it?

That was a proper gamble

They really took a risk

I think they saw the drive

Yeah

In them

We worked our socks off

We were rehearsing

Three or four nights a week

Yeah

We were hustling

We were always thinking

We were always you know

Scrimping and scraping

You know getting in a van

Going down to London

Losing money on gigs

You know

12, 11 gigs we did

Or whatever it was

You know what I mean?

Yeah

But what worked really well

With the Almighty

Was right place

Right time

Coming from Straven

Being the chookters

That we were

And not being part

Of that Glasgow scene

Yeah

Because there was a lot

Of good Glasgow bands

That could really play

Yeah

Really

I'm not going to mention names

But really

Could really play

And a lot

That were always knocking

On the door

Not quite there

Yeah

These three ruffians

From Straven

Came along with tattoos

Yeah

Could barely play

Four chords

But with more attitude

Than all those bands

Put together

Yeah

And more swagger

And we would come in

And we'd just play

And we'd blow the roof

Off the place

And people would go

What the fuck is that?

Who are they?

Recorded in Trident Studios

In London

By the mighty Andy Taylor

Off of

Duran Duran

Duran

That we've discovered

What songs did Duran Duran do?

I don't know

No idea

If Alexa

Is Alexa on?

Didn't they do Rio?

I don't know

Is that a different band?

Watch what I'm going to do

I'm going to totally do this

Look

Hi there

What songs did Duran Duran do?

Hey

Duran Duran have a ton

Of great songs

Some of their biggest hits

Include Hungry Like the Wolf

Oh yeah

Oh no she's stopped now

Girls on Film

That's Duran Duran

Girls on Film

Yeah

Ordinary World

That's a good song

Girls on Film

I don't know that bit

Rio

They did Rio

Girls on Film

I don't know that bit

Wild Boys

Wild Boys

Oh yeah

Yeah

Yeah

Yeah

Yeah

Anyway

Yes

It peaked at number 22

On the UK album charts

Yeah

I don't think it charted in the United States

No

President Trump

Which is weird isn't it?

I don't know

President Trump probably doesn't even know

The Almighty

That's because he is the Almighty

Well

That picture of him as the Pope

Unbelievable isn't it?

Man

Did you see that?

Oh you sent it to me

Didn't you?

Yeah

Wow

Yeah retweeted by the White House

Or reposted

I don't know what's going on

Retruthed

I don't know what's going on

I just don't know

I don't know what's real anymore

That's the thing

You can't tell can you?

No no no

You're like did he

I don't want to get into it

But I

No

Yeah

I don't

Yeah

Yeah

Moving on

Yeah

People weren't really sure what to make of the album

And the Almighty

They didn't particularly fit into

And this I think is very true of

That whole British rock scene at the time

Yeah

Yeah

Like what genre are Skunk and Nancy?

Yeah

Yeah yeah exactly

Yeah

You know what I mean

It's just a lot of shrugging

A lot of

Yeah yeah

And they got called political rock didn't they?

Political rock

Yeah political rock

I think they got really confused with the Almighty

Are they a punk band?

Yeah yeah

Are they a rock band?

Are they a punk rock band?

What kind of band are they?

Yeah

Which that was really really interesting

There was a quote from

Brit Rock

Brit Rock

He says that's what

I asked ChatGPT to create a scene name

And it said Brit Rock

Brit Rock

Yeah

But it's too close to Brit Pop

It is

Yeah

And it's a bit more alt-y

I don't know

Yeah

I'd call it alternative rock

Alternative UK rock

That's why I call it

It is hard rock isn't it?

Yeah yeah

There's some stuff in there that's alt-y

Yeah

But a lot of the stuff that I really want to cover

Like this

That Thunder

Yeah

Little Angels were a bit poppy

Yeah yeah

But they're still quite rocky

Gun

Yeah yeah

It's just this hard rock

It's just this massive slab of hard rock bands

In the 90s

In the UK

That no one outside of the UK

Has ever heard of

Yeah

And I need to fix that

I feel like I need to kind of

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah

Not that anyone's going to listen to them

So I have a funny feeling that you know

Compared to the big US albums

That we've been doing

I've got like four people

Are going to listen to these

So

Prove them all wrong

Yeah

Everybody

Anyway

Warwick said

Andy was known for pop stuff

But he had a rock attitude

And he wanted to make a bombastic

In your face rock record

He was the right man for the job

And he loved rock music

Yeah okay

I think like that people

Probably didn't

Didn't realise that very much

We've already

Done the interview bit

With where he came from

But ultimately

You know

From Ireland

And then over to Scotland

Yeah yeah yeah

And

That I think

Like his accent

And the punk style

Of that kind of punk attitude

The press really got confused

They were like going

Oh

They're like the cult

And ACDC

Right okay

Lots of comparisons

If you look at this stuff

Which is a little bit

Yeah

A bit bizarre

I think was a little bit bizarre anyway

In the band were

Ricky Warwick vocals

Stump Monroe

Everyone had a nickname

Yeah

Because you have to do

Yeah

Stump Monroe

Floyd London

And Tantrum

Who's Andy McCafferty

Tantrum

It's good isn't it

Yeah

I think it's really good

Ricky wrote most of the lyrics

I think

Tantrum wrote some

And Floyd wrote some as well

But the vast majority

Of the lyrics

Are Ricky's

The album title

Soul Destruction

Is the darker side

Of human nature

That's where it comes from

Ah okay

I always loved the

That

The soul

I just loved the song

Yeah

The song title

Yeah

But yeah

It's

It's pretty mega

Recorded

Between December

1990

And January

1991

So it was a winter album

Recorded

Yeah that's where

That's it then

That's what you can hear

I can hear the snowflakes

Yeah which I think

So engineered by Adrian Bushby

That name comes

Oh

What are you

What are you

Oh no you're looking at me

Like I've just said

I've

No that's interesting

Anyway yeah

So Adrian Bushby

Yeah which

He would later work with

Foo Fighters

And Moos

Yeah

I like Moos

Moos

Yeah

Recorded on the normal stuff

SSL 4000 discs

1176 compressors

All of the usual stuff

I think one of the reasons

I really love the tone of this album

Is it's not over compressed

Yeah yeah yeah

Do you know what I mean

There's lots of dynamics

And in fact nearly all of these albums

They're nowhere near as compressed

They're not as thick as the US

Yeah yeah yeah

Versions

And then the

Like the US hard rock

That would follow

After this stuff

Is like just a massive

It's a slab

It's not a wall of guitars

Yeah yeah yeah

It's just this like

It's like a tsunami

Just hits

Yeah yeah yeah

You know what I mean

The guitars are like

You can taste them

They're thick

Yeah yeah yeah

You know what I mean

They're incredible

Back here it's a little bit more

Like

It's got more in common

I think with those kind of

British prog bands

Yeah yeah yeah

Guitar tone

Not the tone

But the

How compressed it is

Yeah

You know what I mean

How new faces

Which I think is really interesting

Other albums that Andy Taylor produced

We talked about this a little bit before

But he did work with the power station

He did Thunder's Backstreet Symphony

Which is very much a part of this

Rod Stewart's Out of Order

Don't think I've ever listened to that

No I've not

Do you know

I've only

I only know Rod Stewart

I am sailing

I am sailing

I know

A Rod Stewart song

An actual Rod Stewart song

I'm going to play it for you

You ready

Do you recognise this

No

Did you not watch this

Star Trek Enterprise

No

Was this on the Enterprise

The theme tune

It was recorded by a dude

Called Russell Watson

Oh

The singer

The man

Yeah

Yeah

You're the man

Yeah

Russell Watson

I really liked it

I didn't know it was Rod Stewart

So he covered Rod Stewart

Yeah

But the bit that I think is really weird

It's

It's in Rod Stewart now

Oh that bit

That bit right

Sorry

The reason I wanted to

Oh I can't stop it

Stop

Keeping that in

That's actually something he would say to a lady

He'd be like

Once you ride

You can't stop

The reason

I've gone on a rabbit hole already for this one

So that was Russell Watson

Yeah

Faith of the Heart

It was on a TV series called

Star Trek Enterprise

Which I quite liked

Scott Bakula

Scott Bakula

Yeah

He was dead good

Yeah

Quantum leap

But two things about it that I think is weird

One I didn't know it was Rod Stewart

I thought that's quite cool

I should look that up

And I looked it up

Found it was Rod Stewart

And then thought oh

Yeah

Which was a bit weird isn't it

I feel like I probably would like Rod Stewart

Yeah

If I listen

I feel like I may need to go and listen

He did some good stuff

I may need to listen to his stuff

The other weird thing is

Handbags and Glad Rags

It's a good song

Faith

Yeah

Faith of the Heart

Was the name of the song

For the Enterprise

They renamed it

Where My Heart Will Take Me

Oh really

Can you do that

I mean like can I

And this is

Well so let's say I took one of your songs

Yeah

And then I covered it

Yeah

And then I was just like

I'll call it something else

Are you allowed to do that

Is that

I just feel like there should be like

Some copyright law

Yeah

He would have okayed it

Had he gone yeah whatever

Rod

Maybe Rod Stewart's a massive Star Trek fan

He's like

When he wasn't rodding

No I think

I think that

I think that

What he's

What he sat at home was

He's like

If you can sort me out

With some Spock ears

Spock ears

Do me the death grip

Teach me the death grip

And you can do what you want

Yeah

Tell me the Spock ears

And then you can

And then you can do

What you want with it

Yeah

I mean that was a tiny

Little meander off track

But we

We were doing facts

Of soul destruction

Shall I

I was just looking down

At my

My iPad

And I suddenly realised

I was doing something

We've gone right off there

Yeah

That's good going

It's not bad is it

Yeah yeah

If we were on a radio station

They'd be having words with us

Somebody would be banging on the glass

Wouldn't they

Shut up

Right

So yeah

So released

The 30th of March 1991

Reached number 22

On the UK album charts

Which is

Which is pretty good

Considering the Britpop

And all the things

That were going on

In that time

And there's some other albums

That were released in 91

I'm going to give you a list

In a minute

But they're just

Absolute incredible

The Almighty's biggest album

Was their next one

Power Tripping

Right okay

A bit grungy

Oh really

Yeah they went

That era wasn't it

Yeah

Was it 92, 93

Yeah 93

Produced by Chris Sheldon

Who did Crank as well

I was going to say that

Yeah that name brings up

That's

He's done some other stuff as well

He has

But Power Tripping

Is the one

I think Power Tripping

Is probably the one

Most people

Know

Of The Almighty

So yeah

Absolutely huge

So albums in 1991

I'm going to take a breath

And give you a list

Because there's some bangers

Nevermind

Nevermind

Metallica

The Black Album

Bad Motor Finger

Use Your Illusion 1 and 2

Yeah

Too much

For me

I couldn't consume

With Blind Melon Man on it

I

Yeah I

I just

Didn't

Engage

With either of those albums

Yeah

Because there's too much of them

Not even November Rain

No

That was too long

Even though Slash walked out of the church

I liked

Tell you what I like about November

I like the end of it

Yeah

Do you know what I mean

Not when it ends

But I like the last

The last like 3 minutes

Because it's like 5 hours long

Isn't it

The last 3 minutes

It's nearly as long as a meatloaf intro

Poor meat

I still love that interview

Where he makes that

Children's TV presenter

She says

Do I call you Mr. Loaf

And he says

No you can call me Meat

I just love him

Anyway other albums

That came out in 1991

10 by the Pearl Jam

Yeah yeah

Slave to the Grind

By Skid Row

Arise by Sepultura

Wow

My second favourite

Sepultura album

Yeah

Chaos AD

Beneath the Remains

Oh Beneath the Remains

Right yeah

We're going to struggle

When it comes to doing

At some point

We're going to be in that

Scene

Which one do we do

And we're going to have to

Choose a Sepultura album

And me and you are like

Separated by like

I think Beneath the Remains

Is the

I just think it's incredible

Yeah yeah

And you're kind of

A couple of albums later

Yeah I'm Roots

Yeah yeah

Blood Sugar Sex and Magic

By the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Yeah

And another one of my favourites

Clandestine by Entombed

That's my second favourite

Entombed album

Right

Left Hand Path is my favourite

Okay yeah yeah yeah

At some point

We'll have to do that as well

That scene again

Is absolutely excellent

Didn't win any awards

Soul Destruction by the

No

No

Slipped under the radar

Yeah

Kerrang readers

Placed the Almighty

Among the best new acts

In their 1989 poll

But they didn't really

Get much notice

Now

It didn't really

Occur to me at the time

But the reason

No one in the US

Had heard of these bands

Is because

Nevermind came out

Yeah

And Ten came out

Yeah

And Bad Motor Finger

Came out

And Metallica came out

And Use Your Illusion

One and Two came out

Yeah

So given

Do you see what I mean

Yeah

With those albums out

In the US

If you were in the US

Yeah that's all you listen to

You're not going to have seen

I mean we

I knew those albums were out

You know

We were obviously getting this too

So I think

Tons of people just won't

What an era for

Oh it's mad isn't it

Rock music

What an era

You know

I must have said that

So many times

On this podcast

But

Yeah

What a world that was back then

And to be a musician

In that world

It's crazy isn't it

Yeah yeah

I remember when

Clandestine came out

I took a day off college

I honestly

I took a day off college

And went and bought it

And just sat at home

And listened to the CD

Yeah yeah yeah

That's what

Sounds mad doesn't it

Yeah yeah yeah

But that's what I did

Genuinely

Absolutely definitely

That's what I did

There were three singles

Yeah

Free and easy

Little Lost Sometimes

And Devil's Toy

It's just occurred to me

When we were talking about

This song that wasn't

On Apple Music

It wasn't Devil's Toy

It was Little Lost Sometimes

Oh okay

So it was Free and Easy

And Little Lost Sometimes

Yeah

Little Lost Sometimes

Is seven minutes long

Yeah yeah

Which is quite long

Yeah it's quite long

Yeah

What else did I want to talk about

Oh touring

So

There were

A big live band

Yeah

But as we

Heard in the interviews

They were picked up

And signed

Really quickly

Really quickly

Yeah

And then they were

Kind of out on the road

They were touring

With Motorhead

And Megadeth

Yeah

Which like

You know

Big

Big stuff

They

With Alice Cooper

As well

And you know

I just

I don't know

So they

They were just

This machine

Of a live band

I think they just

Kind of got it

Right

They just kind of

Understood

Yeah

How live music works

They always had some

Covers that they were doing

So they did

Backman Turner Overdrives

You ain't seen nothing yet

And Sex Pistols

They did Bodies

I think that was the tour

After

Yeah

I might be on this tour

But they would do stuff like that

Where they would do these

It's a talking point isn't it

Yeah

I think they really knew

That they were kind of the underdogs

They were out

Touring with these bigger bands

So they'd like drop in something

That people heard of

And like I say

You ain't seen nothing yet

Was the one that really pulled me in

And I was like

Oh god that's really cool

What they've done with that

Is really really cool

And you hate covers as well

I'm not a big covers fan

Well yeah

That's true

I'm not a big covers fan

What else

Oh five things

In

This is from the blog

So Andy Taylor produced it

He was off of Duran Duran

It peaked at number 22

Artwork was by Coot

K-O-O-T

It's worth checking him out

And some of his artwork

Really really cool

Redid the album artwork

And you know

While you were faffing earlier

Yeah

I ordered

I don't faff

You were doing something earlier

While you were doing that

I ordered the remaster

Did you really

That's how often

That's how much I faff

And that's how long I faff for

It is yeah

But they're going to be delivered tomorrow

And I'm looking forward to that

Interesting bands

That cited them as

Influencers

So Machine Head

They've got a new album out

Which I quite like

That's quite heavy

Good record

Black Label Society

As well

Yeah

Everybody gave it

Like pretty good reviews

Like fours and five

Yeah yeah

Fours out of five

Fives out of five

That kind of thing

Tantrum

The guitarist left in 92

Who was replaced

By Pete Freeson

Who was Alice Cooper's

Touring guitar

Ah right

I thought I knew that

And then he was on there

For power tripping

So you can hear

There's a big difference

There's a big difference

Guitar wise

In guitar tone

When they

And I think that's kind of

Where it

Where it comes from

So that

That shift is

I think is Pete Freeson's

Yeah yeah yeah

Sound

Recently reunited in 2023

So the band

Split up

I say split up

I think

I think

Wiki

Wiki

Wiki

Wiki just left

I think

I think he was just like

I've done this

I'm

Going to do something else

So

People need to remember

That the almighty

Didn't split up

I left

I left the band

So it was on me

It wasn't a case of like

We're splitting up

I just went in and went

Guys you can carry on

If you want

You have my blessing

Get somebody else

Go for it

But I can't do this anymore

And I went back to Dublin

So I licked my wounds

But then I formed the band

Sick

The punk band Sick

That I called through

So I had a

I had a wonderful year

With them

The two guys

And we were a great band

And it was starting to happen

And you know

We had a huge deal

We'd actually

We had a huge deal

Lined up with MCA

After about a year

And that fell through

At the 11th hour

I mean we did

We had the actual contracts

And then the guy

Who was about to sign us

Got fired on the Monday

Yeah

We're not signing any bands

Yeah

Ripped it up

And suddenly I just went

Can't fucking believe this

This is happening again

This bullshit music industry

Industry

Not the music

The industry

Is fucking me

Over and over

And over

And that destroyed me

I just went

I can't go through this again

And

I lost the plot

For about a year and a half

I just went

I just really

Went to a bad

Bad

Bad

Bad place

Because I was about

To hit 30

I had no record deal

I had no management deal

I had no publishing deal

After 10 years

Of the highs

Of the almighty

And even

The one year was sick

And you know

Joe Elliott

Eventually grabbed me

By the scruff of the neck

And went

You need to fucking

Snap out of this

And get your shit together

Because this isn't doing

Anybody any good

Certainly not you

And you know

I was able to secure

A publishing deal

Which provided me

With some money

And he said

Right

We're going into my studio

We're making a record

You're going to reinvent yourself

He says

I've heard you play

The acoustic guitar

I've heard you sing

And not shout

He said

There's something there

And he said

We're going to get

We're going to get that

So

Fair play to Joe

And that's really

And so

The good thing about

Tattoo's Naba

Is sort of reinventing

The whole love

Falling in love

With music all over again

Was the canvas

Was blank

Yeah

I'd done the almighty

I'd done the heaviness

I'd done the guitars

Cranked up

And the big riffs

And all that

I'd done that

For 10, 11, 12 years

But suddenly

There was this

Whole new thing

Where

Okay I'm writing

On an acoustic guitar

I'm singing now

Suddenly all these

Roads opened up to me

You know

And I just was like

This is brilliant

So all these ideas

Started coming

Out of nowhere

And that was

Tattoos and Alibis

Toby Jepson

Was playing a show

At the garage

In Islington

And

He let me

Be special guest

Unannounced

Right

Unannounced

Special guest

And that was

March 2002

So we're almost

Looking at

19 years ago

And

So I went on

With the acoustic guitar

And people

Recognized me

I'm like

Oh it's really

What's he doing

You know

And I went on

And played

Seven or eight

Songs

Acoustic songs

And it was

An amazing experience

I was terrified

I mean I think

I was drenched

You know

I was so nervous