Battleaxe

Formed around 79 (as Warrior), in Sunderland, England, Battleaxe made their debut in 82 with the single “Burn This Town” and made a stable career till 1987. Two albums, “Burn This Town”, from 83 and “Power From The Universe” from 84 and a live one “Live n Kickin” from 85 were their releases from back in the day that made them gained some fame in the Heavy Metal world. They have been reactive since 2005 with the ep “Nightmare Zone”, having maintained a stable career till present day, having recorded “Heavy Metal Sanctuary” in 2014 too. We had a chat with bass player Brian Smith, founding member of the band.

Q. - Hey Brian! Were you involved in some other bands before formed/join Battleaxe?

Brian Smith  - The original members of Battleaxe were in various local bands during the seventies in the UK. A band called Holocaust was formed in 1977 and later changed to Warrior, (these bands are no relation to the more well known ones with the same name!) this was the nucleus of Battleaxe which was formed in 1980. The only change was from singer Jeff Spence in Warrior to Dave King who was new singer.

Q. – Who do you cite as major influences at the time?

Brian Smith - Probably the major influences were Judas Priest, Motorhead and AC/DC although there were many other influences such as Black Sabbath Deep Purple etc. It was mainly British bands who we listened to at the time, the sound of fully cranked Marshall stacks. With Battleaxe we tried to blend a fast frantic riffy sound with a solid beat and give the fans something they could really bang their heads to.

Q. – Do you recall the songs you were playing at the beginning? Did you play any covers too?

Brian Smith - In Warrior we played some covers, even Ace of spades, but we were already writing our own songs and some of these made it onto the Burn this Town album such as Starmaker and Battleaxe. Dave rewrote the lyrics for these songs, but most of the Burn this Town album was written fresh. We still have a few rough demos containing songs which had never been released, but it is unlikely we will ever do anything with them.

Q. – You came up at the boom of the n.w.o.b.h.m., tell us a bit about those times and the impact it had for the bands?

Brian Smith - The NWOBHM badge is probably both a blessing and a curse. We always just regarded ourselves as a metal band but the press insisted on categorizing every band into some genre or other. This can prevent you reaching as wide an audience as you would have liked as many people will not listen to certain types of music if it is not within their comfort zone. Our new album for example has elements of Power, Symphonic,Epic, Speed and Thrash, but still sounds like us so we hope it will appeal to many people.

Q. – By 83, you were one of the first bands to sign a deal with Music For Nations, were you happy with that deal?

Brian Smith - Although we had been offered deals from smaller labels at the time we waited until we got the Roadrunner/Music for Nations deal as we thought this would give us better distribution throughout the world. We also appeared on several compilation albums at the time which also helped spread our name around. Smaller labels cannot get you into the record stores around the world as effectively. We did the same recently, as we were offered a few deals, and took the SPV/Steamhammer deal for the same reason.

Q. – At 84, with the edition of “Power From The Universe” came the tour with Saxon, tell us a bit about this tour, and how important it was for Battleaxe?

Brian Smith - It was very important at the time, this was one of Saxon's biggest ever tours so we got to play to a lot of people. We had our own tourbus so we could take a lot of our own gear as well as our own roadies. It covered all of the Uk since other territories were supported by other bands such as Motley Crue in the States.

Q. – Why “Mean Machine” didn’t see the light of the day back in 87? Does this lead to the end of the band?

Brian Smith - There was never a Mean Machine album, this is a general confusion that has been spread about for years. There was a track called Mean Machine which we recorded on our Radio 1 session in 1983, and since it has been issued on the remastered Burn this Town album. We never planned an album called this but we did record an unfinished album in 1990 at Fred Purser's Studio in Newcastle, but this was never released.

No vocals were ever recorded and it is mainly Drums, Bass and pilot guitar.

The musical climate in the mid-eighties was not suitable for classic metal bands like ourselves, American Hair metal and Thrash had mostly overtaken by then with the help of the press who systematically slagged off British bands and pushed American bands relentlessly.

Q. – After the split, did you stay in touch with each other over the years? Were you involved in some other musical projects?

Brian Smith - We didn't see each other for many years, We just got on with our lives outside of music, although Mick played in some club bands during this time and Dave did some singing also. As stated above the conditions were not very good for our style of music through the late eighties and the nineties.

Q. - What made you feel like reunite Battleaxe again? Some kind of unfinished business feeling?

Brian Smith - Sort of, but it was mainly the many request we had to reform and some festivals asking us to play. We were not sure at first but we were eventually persuaded to play Headbangers open Air festival in Germany in 2010, and this really went well. This led to us reforming the band and starting to record the Sanctuary album. After a lot of problems and band issues we got the SPV deal and it was released in 2014. The drummer left after many arguments and disagreements, but we still managed to complete other festivals such as Bloodstock that year.

Q. – Recently I’ve heard the demo song “Immortalized”, which is really notable, does this song show us the direction of the new album? How do you describe the new recordings?

Brian Smith - The song Immortalized is a demo from the new recordings we have made but it may not be featured on the new album. It is probably not representative of the new album although there are a lot of fast metal tracks on the new album. We have been writing songs for this album for the past couple of years on and off and it has developed into a concept album. Don't worry, this is probably our heaviest album ever but it contains a few surprises and more variety than we have had on previous Battleaxe albums. It has taken longer than we had hoped mainly because of health issues within the band but we are overcoming those problems now.

Q. – What are your projects for 2018, besides the new record? Do you intend to play in summer festivals or touring supporting the new album?

Brian Smith - We have not been able to do much live work in the past couple of years, partly because of health problems, and partly because we are busy with the new album.

There are a few gigs lined up, it depends on the availability of band members in general, sometimes we cannot get everyone available at once. A couple of gigs are already finalized, for example we are playing Amsterdam in September, and we are awaiting others to be finalized

Q. - At this moment, are you trying to find a label or do you already have one?

Brian Smith - We will probably be releasing this new album under the same label as the last one, although you can never be sure about these things.

Q. - Do you have plans to record a live album in the near future?

Brian Smith - No, we would like to do a live album at some time in the future, but we would have to be a road tight band to do this, and as this is a very part time activity for us, it would be unlikely in the near future. There are a couple of live bootlegs going around, but these are bad quality and not representative of the band.

Q. – In your opinion what are the main differences between the eighties and the reality of today? Do you keep an eye to the metal scene of today?

Brian Smith - The eighties had a much more commercial side to it and this has been bad for metal in the long run, the music is not really suited to commercialism, although many bands made a lot of money selling out in this direction. This killed a lot of metal bands in the 80s and drove metal underground. The metal scene has split into many sub genres and has become fragmented in this century and this has lessened the impact for many bands. Some of the fan bases are so insular that they do not regard other sub genres as true, so this has not helped. Metal fans need to unite as together it is a massive force of music. However there are many good bands around today and Europe seems to have a particularly good metal scene. And although there are not as many gigs around today as before, there are many more Festivals both indoors and outdoors.

Q. - How do you want to end up this interview? Anything more you want to say?

Brian Smith - We would like to thank yourselves, and all our fans around the world for their continued support and enthusiasm for the band and its music, and we hope you will all like our new forthcoming album when it is released.

Thank you for your time, and wish you all the best for the future!