Neil Wilkinson (Spartan Warrior)

Spartan Warrior is back with the new album "Hell to Pay", we had a chat with guitar player Neil Wilkinson, about the new album and the early days.

Q. – Hello Neil, tell us a bit about your early days, how did Spartan Warrior start? Who were your major influences at that time?

Neil - Well I’ve always been into music for as long as I can remember and always had instruments as a kid. Actually when I was four or five I wanted be a drummer but drum kits were expensive and made a lot of noise. Instead I was given a guitar as a xmas present and it sort of went on from there with me playing on and off until I formed my first band and became more serious about it . As a kid I was probably most influenced by bands that were well known but were definitely on the rock side and at that time were glam bands like Slade and The Sweet. Then as we got older Dave would bring home albums by Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, UFO and Thin Lizzy and I also got into them and things progressed from there. In terms of guitar playing I would say Michael Schenker was my biggest influence in fact hes still my favourite guitarist.

How was Spartan Warrior formed? I suppose it formed slowly. Me and Dave were I’m a band together called Easy Prey that we formed while we were at school with friends. Dave was asked to join a local band called Deceiver. Hed been in them a little while when they asked me to play as stand in because one of their guitarists had broken his arm. Then shortly after their other guitarist left so I was asked to join and I accepted. I’d been in Deceiver a while and my friend John Stormont joined too. At that point it became obvious that the band was moving in a different direction and that’s when we decided to change the band’s name, to reflect that it had become something else, and that’s when Spartan Warrior came into existence .It was when we started to record the Steel n Chains album that John left and Paul swaddle came in to complete the line up that did the first two albums.

Q. - How did the band name came up?

Neil - Ha ha, well when we decided to change the bands name we all came up with different suggestions and they all went in a hat.Spartan Warrior got picked out, but I’m not sure that any other suggestions actually got put in there if you know what I mean ha.

Q. - Did you start writing your own songs since the beginning or were you most concentrated on covers?

Neil - If you’re talking about from when I joined then yes, we pretty much started writing songs straight away with my first contributions being Steel n Chains and Easy Prey from what I remember. We still played some covers at gigs but those songs became less and less as we wrote new material to the point that by the time we were recording Steel n Chains we only did one cover and that was because we just really enjoyed playing it.

Q. - By the time that "Steel n' Chains" was released the NWOBHM days were fading away, did you play regularly in the UK back then or was it hard for a heavy metal band to be booked at that time?

Neil - Around that time we only ever played locally in bars and nightclubs and yes it was difficult for us, but I think that that was just how it was for a metal band at the time.

Q. - Why did you call the second album "Spartan Warrior" and not the first one?

Neil - I think it was all down to lack of communication. We had just finished recording Steel n Chains when we signed to Roadrunner who of course wanted an album from us immediately. So we went in the studio pretty much straight away to record songs that we hadn’t used on Steel n Chains. Just before we started recording the owner of Guardian got the ok from roadrunner to release Steel n Chains but by the time we delivered the second album to them I think it just wasn’t on their radar and they thought that the Roadrunner album was our first. Either way we had wanted the album to be called Assassin and we had ideas for the cover but I don’t think those ideas were communicated to the label by the person who was acting as a go between for us and the label. The next thing we know we asked to go through to the studio and we get presented with the album just titled Spartan Warrior with the skull cover. Not what we had wanted, but it is a great cover!

Q. - Did you get support in the media back then? Radio, magazines, fanzines?

Neil - Yes there were some reviews and radio plays but I can’t remember exactly what or how much. I seem to remember that support was quite limited though because around then there was a change of direction in rock music with a lot of the American glam bands coming to the fore and focus shifted towards that. The label were also keen to move in a different direction, in fact they asked us to change our style and play “devil music” for the third album that didn’t happen. I think you can see that if you look at the bands Roadrunner had at the time.

Q. - Which other bands did you share the stage with during the eighties? Was it headline shows? Did you use pyro effects?

Neil - Back then we only did gigs on our own so I suppose it wasn’t headlining as such or supporting - just gigging. We would always try to put a show on by hiring lights and yes we did use pyros, mostly at the beginning of Stormer when everything kicks in as we used to open with that. I remember when we played Headbangers Open Air in 2011 we opened with it and I kind of missed the pyros even after 25 years ha ha. Id love to use them again, in fact we nearly did at Blast From The Past Festival in Belgium, but these days with health and safety you have to be careful I guess. Maybe one day ill sort it out, Id love that.

Q. - With a stable line up and two good albums, why did you split up in 85? What happened that lead to the break?

Neil - There were various reasons the biggest being Dave leaving. But previous to that there were some things that we weren’t happy with. First there was the issue with the second album title and cover. While it wasn’t a big thing in itself it was part of a few things that all added up. I know Paul wasn’t happy with the production and that led to some conflict between him and the producer and the producer would then try to involved the rest of us but mostly Dave, who would get phone calls at stupid o clock with problems. Mind none of us were happy with how the second album had turned out, not totally on sound but more the way it was recorded, with a massive amount of time being spent on bass and drums, less time on guitar and virtually no time on vocals with Dave having to sing all the songs in a day maybe just over a day. In fact he had to do so much in one go that at one point he lost his voice, listen to the vocal on Sentenced To Die. He sounds like hes got a sore throat and it was just before his voice went altogether. We all wanted to re do it but the producer insisted on keeping it. Also because so much time was spent recording bass and drums that we ran out of time and money. The result was we only had 9 songs recorded. We were keen to raise the extra and record a tenth song but again a decision was made and the result was we showed up at the studio to find that the producer had extended some of the songs by editing them. You can hear an example of this on Broken Promises with the guitar solo repeating and also Mercenary as well as some others. That was a big issue for us and we weren’t happy about it at all. Eventually Dave who had just got married and bought a house thought enough was enough. Shortly after Paul left after we had demoed some songs for a third album. As I said earlier the label wanted us to alter our style and play “devil music“, so we just said sorry that’s not what we do and asked to be released from our contract, which they very kindly agreed to. Me and the remaining members continued for quite some time but ultimately decided to call it a day. So splitting was an accumulation of things really.

Q. - Did you remain in touch with the other former members all over the years?

Neil - Yes I’ve stayed in touch, John Stormont is one of my oldest friends and we still meet up regularly and I saw Paul at a recent gig which was really nice, but it's been a while since I’ve seen Tom or Gordon.

Q. - What made you feel like reunite Spartan Warrior again?

Neil - Well to be honest there hasn’t been a time when I haven’t wanted to do Spartan Warrior, it’s kind of in my blood if you get what I mean? Over the years it’s become part of who I am rather than just a band I happen to be in. I made the decision to try and reform Spartan Warrior just after I’d done a brief spell in Waysted. Obviously while I was with Waysted I was writing songs with them and sometimes I would listen to ideas that I’d had before joining. I would often think I’d love to do these with Spartan, so it was on my mind then .Then when my time with Waysted came to an end I gave it some thought and decided to try and get the band back together. I remember being encouraged by seeing stuff about us on the internet so I knew there was still interest in us although I admit I was surprised to see that after all those years! That was the deciding factor for me as I’ve always wanted to do Spartan anyway but didn’t think there was any point if there wasn’t any interest. Thankfully that wasn’t the case!

Q. - "Behind Closed Eyes" was your return, did you try to keep the 80's spirit alive?

Neil - Absolutely. The whole point of Behind Closed Eyes was just to pick up from where we left off and also right some of the wrongs we felt about the second album. That’s why the first song we did for it was Never Take Me Alive. Me and Dave wrote that in the 80s and it was originally recorded for the Steel n Chains album. In fact we were in the middle of putting the vocal down for it for steel n Chains when the producer announced he didn’t think the song worked and was dropping it from the album! We were shocked. We thought it was shaping up to be the best song we had recorded at that point and were gutted when it didn’t make it onto the album. So yes the intention was most definitely to keep that 80s spirit alive and that also carried over into the Hell To Pay album. I suppose it’s all just doing what comes naturally to us.

Q. - -"Hell To Pay" is out now, what expectations do you have for it? Are you happy with its final result? Will you try to tour Europe?

Neil - My expectations for Hell To Pay? Well I’d like to sell millions of albums and tour the world promoting it ha ha. Realistically though, I don’t really have any expectation these days. You never know how an album will be received but fortunately it’s been mostly very positive. But I do it because I enjoy playing and writing songs so my only real expectation is id like people to enjoy it for what it is although millions of sales would be great too ha ha.

In terms of am I happy with it? That’s a difficult question for me to answer because I wrote songs on it, played on it and also produced it and when you’re involved in so many ways its sometimes difficult to take a step back and just listen to it for what it is. I had a lot to learn to produce Hell To Pay and I can say that I’m happy overall with how it turned out, but anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m always striving to do better, and because of that I’m never totally content with anything I do. That’s just the way I am and sometimes it can be a pain.

As far as touring Europe goes, yes I’d love to do that and we do have some gigs coming up with British steel Fest in France, Trueheim in Germany and Firestorm up in Scotland. I'd like to get to other countries and other parts of the world too but it can be difficult factoring in people lives and commitments, that’s just how it is. But who knows? More stuff might happen and that would be great.

Q. - What gives you more strength to keep Spartan Warrior alive after all these years?

Neil - Well doing interviews like this and getting positive feedback keeps me motivated. I’ve said before that most people like to be liked and I’m no exception to that and its appreciated. I also stay motivated by keep trying to move forward and learn something new which for me at the moment is mostly on the recording and production side, but that’s great and it keeps me on my toes! I just enjoy doing what we do really.

Q. - Having you been part of it, what do you think about all the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement, and the repercussion it had around the world? How did you live those days?

Neil - Well it’s an honour being included as part of that movement. To be honest back then I didn’t give it much thought but over the years I’ve come to realise just how much of an impact it did have. I suppose the more successful bands of the genre speak for themselves and their influence is fairly obvious, but those less successful in a commercial sense have probably had just as much influence on the bands that followed them. You’ve only got to look at some very successful metal bands who’ll happily tell you that they were influenced by bands from the NWOBHM. In more recent times there’s a whole load of young bands who are playing and writing in that style and who are also listening to bands like Spartan Warrior, which is one of the reasons for the continued resurgence of NWOBHM. Happy days eh!

Q. - Are you still a heavy metal fan these days?

Neil - Always was, always will be, what’s not to like about heavy metal!

Q. - In your opinion what are the main differences between the eighties and the reality of today?

Neil - I suppose that any differences are mostly down to advances in technology the internet and the fact people are more connected these days. Everyone has a computer or phone so it’s very easy to get your music out there, and of course people like me are able to produce their music themselves form their home studios. In fact I know that people have said that back in the 80s the nwobhm movement was very diy. I personally think it’s more diy now than it was then. Back then I’d pay to go into a studio with a producer, now I do it myself and there are loads just like me doing exactly the same. I would say that on the whole things are easier now and they move a lot faster. I remember sending demos off to record companies using mail and you’d have to wait for weeks or months before hearing anything. Now you just email it over. Also interviews like this are so much easier. It's also easier to get gigs because people are more connected and it’s easier to travel to those gigs. So yep technology has made a big difference.

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

Neil - Thank you for asking me to do this interview! Also thanks to everyone who's supported Spartan Warrior over the years, I appreciate it very much. Hopefully I’ll get to see some of you at a gig soon, If you see me come and say hi. Cheers Neil.

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