BUZZ ELLIOTT – Guitar and Vocals with HAMMERHEAD
Well Buzz, could you tell me about the earliest days? How did you get into music?
Starting to play, early influences and equipment.
I was born in Cumbria in 1961 & I started to learn the guitar at around
nine years of age, my first guitar was an old Vox, it was bought for my older
brother but he gave up trying after a few weeks, I picked it up and managed
to get two tunes out of it: theme tune to ‘the third man’ a 1960’s
TV programme and the James Bond theme tune, I didn’t have an amp for
it so I used to play it through a 1960’s valve reel to reel tape recorder,
the sound was a lot like the intro to Silver Machine by Hawkwind! My first
influences were bands such as Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, Deep
Purple and Rory Gallagher, these days I would probably include Bowies old
mate Mick Ronson as one of my heroes as well, when I play live I try to play
with the same amount of emotion that he did, he did a track called ‘I’d
give anything to see you’ which I think has one of the best guitar breaks
ever recorded.
Tell me now how and when HAMMERHEAD was formed? What was the first line-up? And did you play anywhere prior to HAMMERHEAD?
Hammerhead forming and asking me to join
In 1977, aged 16, I was playing in a band called 8 Hertz at the local theatre
with some friends from school, and the other HAMMERHEAD guitarist Brian Hodgson
was in the audience, the next day he invited me up to his house to jam on
a few ideas that he had been putting together with bass player Steve Archer,
a few of these songs were totally original, and some were revamped versions
of songs that Brian had been playing with his 2 previous bands: ‘Bitter
Harvest’ & ‘Judas’ – these bands had been playing
around West Cumbria during the early 1970’s. We had a couple of practices
but I didn’t join the line up until a few months later, Brian Hodgson
& Steve Archer had already started recording and gigging as a 3 piece
under the name of HAMMERHEAD with drummer Maurice Reay in 1978. Around 1979
I joined the line up shortly followed by Baz Ellwood, the drummer from Brians
old band ‘Judas’ – this line up remained constant for about
4 to five years up to about 1984 during which time we recorded the self financed
single Time will Tell which I wrote and Lonely Man which Brian and Steve had
written, these were recorded at Linden Sounds studio in 1981 and engineered
by Guy Forrester.
I was just listening to a song called "I'll Be Back", and what I heard was heavy Sabbath - like intro, then a drifting into some Rainbow melodism, and continuing with a bit Purple style. So who were your main influences in music back then and now ?
Back in the studio to record old and new – still self
financed!
The track ‘I’ll be back’ was never properly recorded in
a good studio and as I still think of it as one of our best songs, it is top
of the list to get recorded properly at last, once again we are having to
finance this ourselves, which is why I have released the CD of some archive
material to help fund the studio costs which are now around £200 a day,
we have at least 6 old songs that are probably worth salvaging and I am working
on some new ideas with the lads at the moment, my intention is to eventually
have 8 or 9 tracks to release as another album. All the bands that you mention
influenced me in the early days, but I have a very open mind when it comes
to music, and I’m willing to give anything a chance, I can play in many
different styles on the guitar, rock, blues, indie, 60’s – anything
really - but heavy 70’s style rock is probably what I’m most comfortable
and best doing, I also have a very large repertoire of acoustic material,
self penned and covers which I enjoy playing regularly, my favourite all time
band is The Beatles, which probably isn’t very hip for a rock guitarist,
but I can’t fault anything that they ever did, they just got the whole
package right first time!
Now how about your live performances? All the live material I've heard up until now is pretty great, with songs like the already mentioned "I'll Be Back", "Crying as I Fall" which has a great heavy riff, and the faster "Race with the Devil". So what did your set usually consist of?
Live Bootlegs, Set List and Borrowed songs.
There seems to be a lot of people who have live recordings of the band, but
to the best of my knowledge we never put anything out officially, so I think
these must originate from people taping our live shows either from the mixer
or using a walkman or something, any live recordings that I possess are not
really good enough to release to the public either because the mix wasn’t
right or we didn’t play well enough for one reason or another - (lack
of rehearsal or alcohol were major factors in those days). Our set list in
those days would be something like:- 1. Devils Soldier. 2. Ton of Bricks.
3. Crying as I fall. 4. Lonely Man. 5. Feel I’m Fallin’ 6. Will
to Survive. 7.I’ll be Back 8. Victim. 9.Time will Tell. 10. Lochinvar
- we would often do a version of Race with the Devil by ‘The Gun’
to round off the night and to be honest I don’t think it was ever rehearsed,
just one big jam. ‘Crying as I Fall’ appears on the latest CD
and although this is the best version in my own collection, I really would
like to re-record it, as the production is not up to scratch on it, despite
this I put it on anyway, simply because I think it’s a great tune, I
think the bones of this song may have originated from Brians ‘Bitter
Harvest’ days, but any of the ideas that were borrowed from Brians previous
band were always given the Hammerhead touch - (this usually means simplify
things and increase the volume until you start to sound like Sabbath!!!)
I suppose you had quite a following locally and maybe nationally. Could you tell me something about that and do you recall any of the bands alongside whom HAMMERHEAD used to play, or to see them perform?
Band Followers, the Hammerhead Wall of Sound and Alcohol.
We had a very good local following around the late 70’s and early 80’s
within Cumbria especially our home town of Workington. With a relatively small
population there were never that many bands around doing their own material,
but one great band that did do their own stuff and really were amazing live
were a band called ‘Nerves’ although they had more of a early
70’s prog-rock style compared to the wall of sound that we favoured.
A few known bands that we supported back then include, Ice Age, Budgie, The
Edgar Broughton Band, and Ken Hensley’s’ Shotgun who were absolutely
fantastic. Around this time we started playing in places such as Scotland,
Carlisle Newcastle, Blackpool & Blackburn we didn’t get much further
south than this but later on in the 80’s during a period when I had
quit with HAMMERHEAD the lads built up a good following down in the Warrington
area, being the youngest member of the band, by quite a few years, I wasn’t
responsible for organising the away gigs, so I don’t know how we came
to play in some of these places, I think Steve and Brian probably organised
this side of things, all I remember is that we had a great time and always
went down well with the rock crowd, and inevitably consumed vast amounts of
ale during the process – unfortunately sometimes before the gigs!
Any forgotten NWOBHM gems from your area or from around the UK that we should remember these days? What's your view of all this NWOBHM movement (I can't call it a genre, it had too much musical styles mixed in)? Was it such a great time for playing Rock and Metal music as we see it now?
Hidden Gems in Cumbria, NWOBHM cult bands and ebay
As far as I’m aware there are no other hidden gems from the NWOBHM era
from our area, although I have noticed that there is still a lot of interest
for another Cumbrian outfit - Bitches Sin, I think I saw them in the early
80’s at a local venue called The Slypt Disc but it’s a long time
ago to be honest I can’t remember very clearly much about it –
or indeed if it happened at all? (Damn weed!) Although the heavy music from
that period in time has now been tagged NWOBHM - we were just playing 70’s
style heavy rock as far as I was concerned and I certainly didn’t think
there would still be an interest in the future for the stuff that was produced
back then, by us or anyone else, I suppose for every band that makes it big,
there will be another ten or twenty who are as good, but never get well known,
so this can also explain why some people who crave more than what is happening
within the mainstream of their favourite music, will seek out the underground
bands in a quest for something special that no one else knows about. Call
me naive, but I have really only become aware of the continued interest in
the NWOBHM era since advertising the CD of our old stuff on ebay. When I first
advertised it I wasn’t sure what to expect, but within the first day
one sold in America and I thought – ‘hang about, what going on
here?’ When I emailed him and asked how he had heard of us, he told
me that he had some of our tracks on a bootleg compilation and also some live
recordings neither of which we were aware existed, over the next week and
a half we had sold in America, Japan, Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Israel and of course the UK - thanks to the miracle of ebay!
1981 was the release year of your single "Time Will Tell" on Linden Sounds (LS 009), which is now a sought after NWOBHM classic. Anything you can tell me about the recording sessions for the single? How did it sell then?
Time will Tell studio sessions and Billy Branch
One thing that always springs to mind about the weekend that we recorded the
single Time will Tell was that I missed The Alex Harvey Band playing in our
home town of Workington because of it, and he died a few weeks later so I
never got to see him with the band, but they did come back years later with
another singer and they were still awesome. Time will Tell, Lonely Man and
Ton of Bricks were all recorded in 1981 at Guy Forresters Linden Sounds studios
near Penrith in Cumbria, and as we had little or no studio experience, we
allowed Guy to do his own thing with our sound, we all played in one room
and Guy placed tables on their sides on either side of the drums to help stop
the sound from our amps spilling over into the drum mikes, we played through
the songs fairly quickly and Guy recorded everything at once, although only
the drums and bass were kept at this stage, the guitars were then recorded
individually to give them more clarity and definition and finally the vocals
were added and double tracked to enhance the sound, me and Brian are reasonable
singers but not in the same league as Billy Branch, a friend of ours who sang
on Lochinvar and Don’t look Down which were recorded by Guy a few years
later at the same studio, In the early 70’s Billy sang with a great
band called Necromandus who recorded an album which I think was produced by
Tony Iommi, they also went on the road with Black Sabbath on their 1971 tour,
sadly Billy died some time ago. When we first acquired our box of 1000 brand
new Time will Tell singles we sold some at gigs and used some to send of to
promote the band, either to get more gigs, or to try and get a proper recording
deal, all the local juke boxes were given one, I remember walking into a pub
called the Angel Inn in Kendal which is about 60 miles away and there was
a rock DJ playing our song and when I told him that I was in the band he announced
it to the denim and leather squad which seemed to have control of the place
and I was treated like some kind of celebrity for the rest of the night, which
was a bit strange, but cool!
In 2003 Brazillian bootleggers called "Phoenix Records" have re-released your single, as a limited edition of 250 copies on blue vinyl. This "label" released about a dozen other NWOBHM classics on low quality coloured vinyl (bands such as Arc, Sparta, Chainsaw, Hell and so on...). I'm not sure you are aware of that (many bands use to find out years later, rather unfortunately). So what are your thoughts about that???
Bootleggers – Goodies v Baddies
On the subject of bootlegs, when I was about 13 I started collecting live
bootlegs of bands such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin and some of these I
still prefer to the studio stuff, so I have no objection to this type of bootleg,
I suppose if our tracks Time will Tell and Lochinvar hadn’t appeared
on any of the NWOBHM bootleg volumes then I wouldn’t be able to sell
the current CD around the world, in some ways this shows the bootleggers to
be more clued up than the record companies as to certain niche markets, I
don’t object to these type of bootlegs either, I suppose that as the
Brazilian blue vinyl version of our old single is only a small run of 250
then it is not doing us much harm financially and helping to promote us to
a wider audience eventually. Obviously the type of bootlegging which I am
opposed to is direct copying of a bands album for mass production, especially
when, like HAMMERHEAD, we have no record contract and this is the only way
for us to try and get some money saved up for future studio time etc. –
but how do you stop it happening? – It’s almost impossible to
stop.
Your song "Lochinvar" appeared on the Sane Records compilation album "It's Unheard of!" alongside bands like Kraken, Sapphire, Trident and some more. Could you tell me how did you get to star in that compilation? Any other tunes from that LP that you favour?
It’s Unheard of - and Mrs Poe from Italy.
The album ‘It’s unheard of’ (1984) by sane records –
which I think was a one man operation in North Wales, was a great concept,
to give unknown bands the chance to be released on an album so that a wider
audience could hear their music – (again, why don’t larger record
companies do more pro-active stuff like this?). After seeing an advertisement,
a demo of Lochinvar was sent to ‘Baz’ at Sane Records for possible
inclusion in the project, luckily it was chosen to appear on the album, if
I remember correctly we had to pay a small amount of money and send the master
tape, things seemed to take forever and I suppose it can’t have been
easy trying to deal with so many different bands, but eventually it came out
and everyone was happy to finally have another song on vinyl, again helping
to make more people aware of us. I don’t want to be too negative about
this album, but many of the bands, although the songs were ok, suffered at
the hands of poor studio technicians and only ended up with an average sound,
once again Hammerhead had left Guy Forrester to mix the sound and considering
that the version on the current CD was originally recorded onto quarter inch
tape in the studio, put onto vinyl, then recorded onto a C90 cassette, before
finally being transferred onto CD, it still comes out sounding pretty well
produced, I don’t have any particular favourites on the album apart
from maybe ‘Mrs Poe’ by Research Department – more for the
novelty factor, it sounded like lo-fi Kraftwerk on acid, I think they were
from Italy, I only ever got one copy of this album and I am now selling it
on ebay signed by all the Hammerhead lads to help get us back into the studio.
On with your recordings. As I understand you had recorded several demos and one live show (or maybe even more). There is some confusion with collectors what was recorded when, which tracks go with which and so on. What I have for example is a CDR with a mixture of live and studio recordings (9 in total), which is supposed to be a 1984 demo. So it would be extremely helpful if you specify the track lists and years for your recording sessions and live recordings, and what was released as demo tapes and what stayed locked up.
Recording studio dates, Drummers and the earliest demo - 1978
As I said earlier, the majority of live demos that have been available from
any era have not originated from the band and therefore I can’t specify
any dates of origin etc. – But I can tell you about the versions on
the current CD - Ton of Bricks, Time will Tell and Lonely Man were recorded
in 1981 with Baz Elwood on the drums - BJ Special – originally entitled
‘Second Best’ - was recorded live at one of our hometown gigs
in 1982 or 83’ with Baz on drums - Don’t look Down and Lochinvar
were recorded in 1984 at the same studio as where the single was recorded
with Frank Hall on the drums - Crying as I Fall and Will to survive were recorded
much later at a different studio around 1996 with Tyrone Larmour on the drums
– the sound is not as good on these as our earlier songs and I wish
now we had paid the extra money and gone back to Guy Forrester who always
does a great job – incidentally, he also records and produces Bitches
Sin.
These 1996 recordings were not as well produced and were never meant to be
released, but only a few months ago I dug out the demos and listened to them
again to see if they could be salvaged and made good enough to put out –
I did some work on them in my home studio, there wasn’t much I could
do with Crying as I Fall so I just left it as it was, but I added some keyboard
parts and extra vocals to ‘Will to Survive’ and Brian added an
awesome guitar solo on to the end of the track – one of his best to
date - and eventually I think the end result was passable, in fact some people
have commented that it is their favourite track on the disc!
There was a really early studio demo done around 1978 just before I first
joined, it has some interesting versions on it and I am going to see if there
is anything I can do to improve the sound on them when I get the time, it
is also possible that some of our songs that have somehow become available
along the years may have originated from this demo, as a few were handed out
to the public at the time, the quality of sound on this demo is slightly limited
but it gives a good insight into the Hammerhead sound beginning to form, Brian
sounds like a cross between Tony Iommi and Paul Kossoff on here, there are
no guitar overdubs so when Brian takes a solo there is no rhythm guitar behind,
this is the tape I was given to learn the existing songs when I first joined
the band in 1979.
I also understand you are planning a future studio project with HAMMERHEAD. Could you tell me more about that? There is also a private made CDR with the old HAMMERHEAD material that you are distributing. I was wondering, will it ever be released officially, on some label? Well, what are HAMMERHEAD’S plans for the future? Maybe even some live shows?
Bronses party and the Birth of the Hammerhead album
I have always regretted not getting all of our best songs recorded by Guy
Forrester and it’s something that I have thought about on many occasions
over the years since the band split up, the story behind the future studio
project started only recently when an old friend and fan of the band called
‘Bronse’ was asked what he would like for his 40th birthday….
He said to them ‘all I really want is for Hammerhead to reform and play
at my party’ - this was the catalyst that triggered off the current
activity with the band – every one was asked individually, and no one
objected to the idea, so I made a few telephone calls and the next thing we
are rehearsing again for the gig, so I thought this was the ideal opportunity
to get some of the old songs recorded properly if everyone was up for it.
The only other consideration was how to pay for everything, so I decided to
make up a CD of the best of what was available in my own collection of HAMMERHEAD
stuff with the intension of selling them at the gig, as I mentioned earlier
some of the songs needed a bit of work in my own studio to bring them up to
a reasonable standard, and due to the lack of good quality studio material
available, I had to use one live track, and also one of my own solo instrumentals,
which was recorded in 2004 using a backing track, to make enough songs for
the album, eventually I had nine songs ready to go, so I went ahead with my
own money and initially got one hundred made. We would like to release this
officially if there is anyone out there who is genuinely interested in it,
but I don’t really understand how this side of things work so I would
need to take advice if an offer came along, we’ll just see what happens,
I’m quite happy selling it in small quantities to fans of the NWOBHM
movement for the time being.
Bootleggers, Ebay Metalheads and the great Sabbath rip-off.
Now, I’ve been doing ebay for about a year and a half, de-cluttering
the house selling guitars and amps etc. and it occurred to me that there may
be people out there who remembered Hammerhead playing live years ago, who
may now be using ebay to seek out obscure stuff, so I decided to put a couple
of copies of the CD on ebay out of curiosity, I was amazed to find that there
are people all around the world who are aware of us, this originally came
as quite a shock as I genuinely had no idea that our material had been doing
the rounds on bootlegs for years. When we eventually get back in the studio
I would like to record at least 5 of our old songs if possible and this will
definitely include ‘I’ll be back’ which if the lads are
agreeable will also be the title of the next ‘album’ if we end
up with enough songs to put out another disc, we will also record a version
of one of my songs that we used to play called ‘Victim’ - This
might get us accused of ripping off Black Sabbaths ‘Children of the
Sea’ riff but I can assure you it was written well before the Sabs tune,
and the melody and song structure is different anyway, so what the hell. During
the rehearsals for the gig we have been playing around with a few Ideas for
possible new material as well, fans of the band’s sound don’t
need to worry though, as anything that we ever come up with always sounds
like it could have been written 30 years ago, some people may think of this
as a bad thing for not moving on, but I know from talking to people on the
net, that fans are eager for us to retain the Hammerhead Wall of sound.
Ever thought about releasing a full LP? You certainly had some good material ..
Quality playing and Songwriting on a budget – Still no
record deal
I believe that the songs on the CD that we are currently selling, stand up
quality wise, against many albums that are released officially by top rock
bands who have record company backing and unlimited funds and time available
to them - with a few minor improvements – such as re-recording ‘Crying
as I fall’, and maybe trying to obtain the master tapes, (if they still
exist), from the studio, to get the maximum sound quality back – this
could be sold in large quantities to fans of good heavy rock music around
the world. I suppose if a record label was interested in signing the band
and releasing this CD in larger quantities, or funding some future recordings
– then we would like to talk to them, we have at least another good
albums worth of strong songs to play with at the moment, but it would have
to be a full band decision as to the outcome of any interest, and we would
not take kindly to being ripped off by anyone. If an opportunity arose we
would be very cautious before agreeing to anything, plus at the moment we
all have day jobs and family to consider, a mini UK tour, supporting a well
known heavy band, or a festival slot would be pretty cool, we once tried to
get on tour with Budgie after we had supported them in our hometown and Steve,
our bass player was asking one of their band members if this was possible,
he was told that bands usually have to pay for such a slot, at which point
Steve asked how much they had paid to go on tour with Black Sabbath earlier
that year, as you can imagine, we didn’t get the gig! In the early days
no one had heard anything about us when we played away from home, so the turn
out in a new town was sometimes only small, but the way things are working
out, it would be great to play a festival somewhere, or a large recognised
venue and find that people liked us, and maybe even knew our songs, I have
been led to believe that it may be possible for this to happen in places such
as Germany and Holland where our style of heavy rock is still very popular,
the main problem for us at the moment would be trying to fit this in around
our other commitments, but with careful planning it could be a possibility.
Back to the band's history. For how long did the band actually exist in the old days? Why did you split up back then?
Hammerhead History, Paul Kossoff and leaving the band.
The Band originally started to rehearse as a 3 piece around 1978, Brian Hodgson,
Steve Archer and Maurice reay on drums. Although I had jammed with Brian earlier,
I never joined officially until a year later, I think they had decided that
some of the songs needed extra parts added to enhance the sound, me and Brian
are actually related and we have similar styles, more so now than then, as
I have developed a better technique over the years through non stop gigging
with my rock covers band for the last 15 years, Brian has always had that
magic touch, I’ve always thought that his vibrato technique to be as
good as Paul Kossoff from Free, Brian has always been a great admirer of Kossoff
and it shows in his playing. In 1979/80 Baz Ellwood joined Hammerhead on Drums,
although Maurice was very good, Bazs’ heavier style and power suited
the band, Baz stayed with us until around 1984 when Frank Hall took over,
Frank had been the drummer in ‘Nerves’ who I mentioned earlier
and also Necromandus with Billy Branch and another amazing local guitarist
called Baz Dunnery who is the older brother of Francis Dunnery of ‘It
Bites’ fame. There were also a few gigs at this time where none of our
drummers were available to play and we ended up drafting in a guy called Mike
Thorburn from Carlisle who I had seen in a few bands, particularly a band
called ‘England’ featuring one of the area’s best blues
guitarists Olly Alcock, Mike was very good, but he just joined us temporarily
to help out. Around 1984 I started getting fed up of the whole thing - I can’t
really remember why I felt the way I did but I just got bored with the band
around this time and wanted to do other things, so I formed The Bullfrog Blues
Band playing mainly rock and blues covers from the 70’s, the Bullfrogs
still play occasionally, and we only stopped gigging every weekend 2 years
ago, we had over 150 songs in our repertoire and never wrote a set list, we’d
just play whatever the crowd wanted of a giant sized list.
What did you do between your split - up and the rebirth of the band ? Any musical projects any of the HAMMERHEAD members was involved with ?
Manic Depression, the Ice Age and Drifting apart.
Now I’ve always been one of those people whose state of mind and moods
go up and down like a roller coaster, I’m still like that now, but I
feel more in control as I’m aware of it these days, anyway I decided
I’d had enough of Hammerhead at the time, and called it a day, although
I did go back and play the odd gig now and again to help out, one night in
particular around 1985/6 we supported an all girl band called Ice Age, I agreed
to play the gig, and then Steve got delayed coming back from a holiday and
I ended up having to play bass unrehearsed – there is a video of that
somewhere I think. I don’t remember the band ever really splitting up
as such, we just stopped looking for gigs and gradually drifted apart from
each other - occasionally we’d get asked to play the odd gig, at this
time – late 80’s – early 90’s - Frank Hall was no
longer in town so whenever we had a gig we would ask another very good rock
drummer who we had seen called Tyrone Larmour to play with us whenever a gig
cropped up, but we weren’t playing regular or rehearsing enough to sound
as good as we used to in my opinion, despite Tyrone’s style fitting
in really well with the band. Then came our longest period of inactivity,
I was playing with my Blues covers band with Tyrone or Tol as we call him,
on the drums, Brian was going out doing solo stuff, Steve stopped playing
altogether. This inactivity lasted from then until now with the exception
of a handful of minor unrehearsed gigs and the mid 90’s studio session.
Thank you for this interview Buzz, if there's anything at all you'd like to add, go ahead !
The Gig
At the time of writing this there is exactly one week to go until we play
live again for the first proper gig in many years, the set that we have chosen
is exactly what is on the CD in that order, apart from ‘I’ll be
Back’ which we are going to open with, at the first rehearsal we sounded
better then ever, with yet another drummer – Tony Steele, Tyrone Larmour
was unable to do the forthcoming gig due to a family wedding, and Tony, who
is now the drummer with my covers band agreed to sit in, Tony is a big fan
of John Bonham and that is exactly how he plays, it really is like having
Bonzo in the band and he fits in perfectly. It will be interesting to see
how people will react these days to the Hammerhead wall of sound - we still
enjoy building it - but ultimately the crowd will decide whether or not to
demolish it!
Compiled by -
Buzz Elliott, Hammerhead - guitar and vocals
Saturday 21st May 2005
Questions by Boris Bessarabov