Formed in 1976, billed as the next Led Zeppelin with a record breaking debut album, toured with AC/DC. So what ever happened to Diamond Head?
Two working class teenagers from Stourbridge created the band in 1976. Brian Tatler & Duncan Scott formed the band with a biscuit tin drum kit and borrowed guitar in Brian’s bedroom. From this came the legendary “Am I Evil”, a song regarded by many as one of the best ever written.
The band influenced many household names such as Megadeth and Anthrax, however it is most notably Metallica who has taken from their influence. Metallica openly acknowledge them as an important early influence and have covered Diamond Head songs at gigs such as “Sucking My Love”, “The Prince” and “Am I Evil” which eventually featured as a cover on Metallica’s “Kill Em’ All” album.
Surely by now they’re lining up stadium tour after stadium tour before headlining the main stage at Donington in the summer while doing the same across Europe. A quick glance and you’d find Metallica or Megadeth getting ready to take their headline slot but to find Diamond Head you have to look as far as Bloodstock’s second stage as the band prepare to release their newest album with a new and refreshed line up.
The constant line-up changes are one of the reasons the band didn’t continue on their stunning start. Without a consistent core to the band creative differences began to seep in. This also means that even getting the material in the first place can be a pain. The new album is self-titled and is the band’s first in for ten years.
Brian Tatler is the only remaining founding member of Diamond Head and we managed to catch up with him to talk about the band. One of the burning issues was what the motivation he and the band were to get back to working on a new album:
“Our last singer Nick and his family emigrated to Brisbane in 2008 so it became almost impossible to write and record with him. In March 2014 we had a band meeting and decided to start looking for a singer that lived here in the UK. We found Rasmus and once he had joined and I realised how good he was I thought we should try and write some songs together.
Ras is Danish but lives in London so it’s just a train ride up to the Midlands. Since 2007 I kept writing new material for an album project but it didn’t happen and I am glad we did not try do another album over the internet.
I gave Ras two CDs with 45 pieces of music on in December 2014 and then in Jan 2015 we got together in a local rehearsal room to start working on the songs. Ras have given Diamond Head a kick up the arse, he is a brilliant singer with great ideas. I found a studio in Walsall through our last co-producer and occasional live sound engineer Dave (Shirt) Nicholls and once we agreed on a price I booked it for July 2015.”
Could Diamond Head ever uncover another “Am I Evil”? The new album presents the platform for it and Tatler believes he has his ticket with “All The Reasons You Live”:
“I love that song, the vocal melody is brilliant. We have done it twice live now and it sounded great. I didn’t appreciate just how good Rasmus is until I heard the guide vocals on the album. He is a fantastic singer. I also like ‘Bones’ and ‘Set My Soul On Fire’, I am proud of all the songs on this new record”
This is the kind of motivation that had been lacking for some time and ultimately led the downfall of the band. This newfound stability will hopefully allow the band to return to writing tracks to inspire the next generation of Megadeths and Metallicas. This already seems to be in the works which may not be too far from now:
“We have already discussed writing another album with Ras. We have three songs left over from the new Diamond Head album that were shelved just before we started recording and I have some new stuff that I have already given to Ras so at some point we will get together and see if we can conjure up some more magic! I am sure we can write some more good stuff.
So just who could be next in the list of legendary bands inspired by Diamond Head’s powerful riffs and unique live shows? Tatler has an idea who could be leading the line for rock and metal in the years to come:
“I like Gojira and Ghost BC and Avenged Sevenfold who have already made a name for themselves in then industry. What about Bring Me The Horizon, Monster Truck, Colour Of Noise or Collibus who we could see emerge in the coming years?”
It wasn’t long until we reached the elephant in the room or the elephant in the back catalogue. Am I Evil, a song many people look up in awe to. Clutching their guitars and desperately trying to learn every note. So naturally we have to know just how a song so great came to be:
“Every band needs a signature song to be identified with, and ‘Am I Evil?’ is ours. I wanted to write a song that was heavier than Black Sabbath’s ‘Symptom of the Universe’ that has a humongous riff and I tried to out-heavy it. It also has the same flattened fifth chord (the Devil’s note).
When I came up with the riff both Sean and Colin said that it was good and should be worked on. We deliberately arranged it so that the same riff relentlessly repeats for two-and-a-half minutes but with key changes and the beat moving around underneath it.
The song evolved over a period of about a year as we kept adding to it, including the fast section which has a similar (but speeded up) rhythm to Sabbath’s ‘Children Of The Grave’ and the ending where we go back to the original verse riff.
I don’t know why I thought of borrowing Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars, Bringer Of War’ theme as an intro, but I always liked it as a kid and just thought it would make a great start because it’s dramatic and it draws you in. Ours is a different rhythm though, similar to the middle eight of Deep Purple’s ‘Child In Time’. I must also give a nod to the intro to Rainbows 1979 song ‘Eyes of the World’.
I re-wrote the solo while we were in the studio, the bit where it changes key under the tapping section. I finally figured out all the changes with the recording engineers help and when it was finished I was extremely proud of it.
I still play the solo now as I did back then. ‘Am I Evil?’ has got fabulous dynamics, I have realised over the years how hard it is to write a song like that, It’s just something that came naturally at the time, probably spawned by a blend of confidence and naivety. To match my heavy riffing Sean came up with suitably dark lyrics which included the most extreme opening of any metal song up to then: “My mother was a witch/she was burned alive/thankless little bitch/for the tears I cried…”.
The band, as previously mentioned is headlining Bloodstock’s Sophie Lancaster stage. After a long break they’re back to destroy the stage. They have an hour long slot but what can fans expect from the band?:
“We’re really looking forward to playing Bloodstock again after 14 years! It’s a great festival and we are honoured to be asked back. We have a one hour spot so it will be a mixture of old and new songs, so far we have performed Bones, Shout At The Devil, See You Rise, All The Reasons You Live, Speed & Set My Soul On Fire from the new album live so we will probably do a couple of those.”
Aside from that you more than likely expect a band like this to be as wild off the stage as they are on it, however all is not as it seems:
“Hopefully it’s well organised. It’s important that we get some sleep and eat at the right times. If we are onstage at 9pm we need to eat no later than 6pm. Sometime in the US or Canada the journeys are so long we don’t have time to sound check, we may not get to a gig until 9 or 10 pm so we will set up and go on straight after the support band. We might have a little drinkie after the show but nothing before. Our bass player Eddie has Irish parents so he like a Guinness or two!
If you’re doing 10 nights on the trot you cannot afford to party every night, you need to conserve your energy for tomorrow night’s performance. I know you wanna hear about sex, drugs and rock and roll but it’s tough when you have no crew and are all travelling in a van with the gear in the back, plus of course I am the wrong side of 50!”
This isn’t saying that Tatler doesn’t have any stories to share from his experience touring. When asked about his dream line-up for a Diamond Head tour he recalls when the band opened for AC/DC:
“If we could choose our dream line up for a tour it would for sure include Metallica because they are friends and I know they would give Diamond Head all the help they could, plus of course they are brilliant live and pull huge crowds all over the world. Band two would be AC/DC because I love all their songs and it would be very cool.
I met all of AC/DC in January 1980 when Diamond Head opened for them at two UK shows, these turned out to be Bon Scott’s last two performances as he sadly died a few weeks later.”
However when asked it wasn’t either of those two shows which stood out in his mind, instead Tatler’s fondest touring memory takes places in Reading, 1982:
“Diamond Head were asked to play the Friday night of the Reading Festival on 27th August 1982, appearing in the special guest slot just before headliners Budgie. The scheduled band Manowar had been forced to pull out due to visa complications (some wag suggested they could not get their swords through security) and with top booking agent Neil Warnock at The Agency on our side plus a £7,000 buy-on from MCA we were in business.
The gig was booked at such short notice that it was too late for us to be included on the posters or in the programme so not many people knew Diamond Head were on. We rehearsed our 50 minute set solidly the entire week before, we knew there would be no sound check and wanted to be ultra-prepared.
We were picked up and taken to Reading in a coach that had no heating and was blowing cold air because it was off to Spain the following day for Julio Iglesias. We were all frozen and entered the festival site like pensioners wrapped up in coats and some old tartan blankets we found on the coach.
The set-up at Reading used two stages so while the crowd was watching Randy California and his big frizzy afro, our gear was being set up. We went on stage to check our amps were all working and sounding OK and as I stood playing a few chords a woman wearing headphones came running over from the other stage shouting, “Do you mind, we’re recording a live album!” I stopped for a minute and then thought, ‘Fuck off! I’m about to play the biggest gig of my life! Why should I care about a bit of spillage on your mics?’
I was told later by some Diamond Head fans who didn’t want to see Manowar were on their way back to the camp site when they heard the intro tape to ‘Am I Evil?’ blasting out from the PA. Some said that they ran all the way back to force their way to the front of the stage. It was amazing to see and hear so many people reacting to Diamond Head.
There were no monitors working on my side of the stage and the only way I could check I was still in time with Duncan was to glance round and follow his snare drum arm going up and down.
There were video cameras onstage so that the people backstage could see what was happening. I only wish someone had stuck in a tape and recorded it. This is probably my favourite ever gig and took the band up to another level.
The crowd was great, we had a major deal, it was a good performance, and everything seemed to be going so well. Reading 1982 was about as good as it got for us. It was the peak of four or five years of hard work.”
So whatever did happen to Diamond Head? That shouldn’t really be the question; the better question would be what next for Diamond Head? Bloodstock won’t be another Reading 1982 but it’s another step back to the top for Diamond Head.
Dillon Grant
The Law of Seven 