Andy Sayers (Traitors Gate, Zenith)

Traitors Gate was a heavy rock band from Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, and were active from 1981 to 1983. We had a chat with Andy Sayers, about this obscure band. After leave Traitors Gate, Andy went on to form the band Zenith with whom recorded the Ep Heavy Heart.

Q. - Hello Andy, tell us a bit about the origins of Traitors Gate, how and when did it all start? Who were the first members of the band?

Andy - The band was started by me along with Martyn Dykes and Ian (Boris) Mereweather in Weston-super-Mare.

Q. - Was Traitors Gate your very first band? Or did you have any other band previously?

Andy - Martyn and me played in a band beforehand, but only played one gig.

Q. - How did the band name came up?

Andy - We made a shortlist of possible names and agreed on Traitors Gate.

Q. - Who were your main influences at the beginning of the band?

Andy - Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Rush, UFO.

Q. - What about shows? Did you play regularly in the UK back then? Did you share stage with some other well known bands?

Andy - We played about 30/40 shows in total between February 1981 and January 1984.  Support to Shiva who were signed to Heavy Metal Records and Dumpys Rusty Nuts.

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

Andy - Yeah at the beginning we stuck to original songs, such as:

Twice for your Sins

Haunted by the past

Twist of Fate

Warning Sign

Assassin

Q. - When did you record your demo tapes? What do you recall from these recording season at the studio?

Andy - The first demo was completely live with absolutely no overdubs. Recorded straight to 2 tracks in a farm house in Somerset.

Next we recorded three tracks at a studio in Taunton (Assassin, Warning Sign and Haunted by the Past).

The rest came from two sessions at Horizon Studios in Weston-super-Mare

Q. - Did you sell these demos at shows, send it to fanzines? What feedback did you receive from it?

Andy - No. Maybe we should have!

Q. - Did you try to approach a record deal at that time with Traitors Gate?

Andy - Yes, but we should have tried harder

Q. - When did "Traitors Gate" split up exactly? What happened that lead to the split?

Andy - January 1984.  Shelly left to join another local band called Shanghai and Ian basically retired and no one else wanted to carry on ☹

Q. - When did you form Zenith, how did that happen?

Andy - About August 1984 after a chance meeting with an old friend and fellow guitarist Cliff Evans.

Q. - A 10 track demo tape were recorded in 1984, were this songs recorded for an LP? Did you try to approach a record deal at that time?

Andy - We recorded all the tracks on a Tascam Portastudio. The drums at our rehearsal place and the rest at my home. Unfortunately the tape broke at the start of the track Trust no one so we had to fade that one in. We sold the album on Cassette at gigs and mail order.

Q. - How was the EP "Heavy Heart" received by the fans? Did it have airplay on radio stations?

Andy - Pretty good really and we sold a fair few. I remember we had the pressing (500 copies) done by a company in London. The sleeves were printed locally.

We had airplay on BBC Radio 1's John Peel Show and Red Dragon in Cardiff.

Q. - After a great EP such as Heavy Heart, what lead to the end of Zenith?

Andy - It fell apart in a similar way to Traitors Gate

Q. - Did you stay in touch with each other’s all over the years?

Andy - Yes, not regularly, but we have and more so recently as there are albums being released by Onreleses in Athens.

Andy - I went on to form the band Outsider in 1998 with Andrew Jamieson and Keith Townshend who were both members of Zenith. Outsider released 3 albums between 1999 and 2009.

Q. - Have you ever thought about doing a compilation with all the recordings made by Traitors Gate and Zenith?

Andy - Well it looks as though that is about to happen (see above) and it will be good to meet up with the other guys in a few months to share out our copies of the CD's.

Keep in touch and I'll tell you more when we get nearer the time.

Q. - So what are you doing these days? Do you still play in any band? Tell us a bit about it.

Andy - Outsider had a few line-up changes over the years. We got a new bass player in 2009 who told us that he had a friend who looked a bit like Ozzy Osbourne. So, cutting a long story short, Outsider morphed into the Black Sabbath Tribute Snowblind, which eventually took over completely. That band split in 2014 when I moved to Manchester. Almost straight away I formed a new Sabbath Tribute called Sabbotage which is still going strong today!

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? What memories do you keep from those days?

Andy - It was a massive part of my life, to say the least and I have lots of fond memories. Some sad too with the breakups but a great time. Its great to see how the NWOBHM is still with us.

Phil John (Nightime Flyer)

Nightime Flyer still gained some notoriety with the single "Out with a Vengeance", back in 1980, the b-side of this single, "Heavy Metal Rules", was covered by Slough Feg in the single Hail Brittania Volume One - a NWOBHM Tribute. We had a chat with drummer Phil John, about his times in Nightime Flyer .

Q. - Hello Phil, tell us a little bit about your beginnings in the hard rock and heavy metal world, what were you're main influences, what lead you to be a heavy metal drummer?

Phil - As a teenager in the 1970’s I was into all the chart stuff at the time, Slade, The Sweet, T Rex etc and it was a mate of mine who started to introduce me to bands like ELP, Rush, ZZ Top and Black Sabbath. When I first heard Electric Funeral by Sabbath I was blown away and it all started from there basically.

That was before I had my first drum kit at 16 and after around 6 months of practice I formed a band with mates of mine playing stuff like Status Quo, Wishbone Ash and various other rock bands around at that time. My interest in HM grew a lot back then and I became a massive Sabbath fan and also got into bands like Judas Priest and Deep Purple and of course taking an interest in the drummers especially. Carl Palmer of ELP fame was and still is my favourite player and inspiration and I’ve met him on numerous occasions.

Q. - When did you join Nightime Flyer?

Phil - After a few bands I teamed up with three other guys and we formed Nightime Flyer which at the time were a five piece band and because we had a keyboard player we had more of a prog rock sound rather than straight rock, we were very early Genesis influenced back then.

After a little while our keyboard player left and we became more of a hard rock band. This was around 1978. Not long after our singer called it a day and we recruited another vocalist who had more of a hard rock voice. The band then consisted of myself, Roger Davies on guitar, Neil Rogers on bass and Leighton John on vocals. (Sadly since those days Leighton and Neil have passed away RIP). Roger was quite a handy guy and we decided to build our own PA and lighting system in order for us to put on shows with a bit of professionalism. A guy named Kerry Williams teamed up with us and various people to help with sound and lights. We nicknamed Kerry ‘Gandalf’ as he was a bit of a wizard and loved using pyrotechnics and dry ice as part of the show. The band did numerous gigs locally and some further afield and we were a very popular band playing mostly original songs but also some covers (of which I can’t remember but definitely some Sabbath).

Q. - When did the idea of recording the single "Out with a Vengeance" came up?

Phil - We decided to record a self-financed single which if I remember correctly we recorded at Spaceward Studios in Hereford in the UK (the studio is still up and running as far as I am a aware). We only pressed 1000 copies of the single as it was self- financed and at that time a friend of Leightons sort of became our ‘manager’ and got us bigger gigs. We sold the single at gigs plus programmes, t-shirts, patches and badges to try and make some extra cash.

This was all around 1979/1980 when it took off big time (I’m not 100% sure about the dates as it was a LONG time ago).

Q. - Did the single have airplay on Neal Kay's Bandwagon? Or did you play there too?

Phil - Sounds magazine at the time were running features where Dj’s nationwide asked bands to send in their demos and they would play them at their rock clubs and would them list them in a ‘chart’ in the paper. That’s when Neal Kaye took an interest in us and he played the single/acetate at The Bandwagon. We went there to visit the club and meet him and we had a blast. We did eventually play there but it was just after Neal had left to do other things in the business (I think he sort of managed Iron Maiden for a while). Nightime Flyer also used to hire our PA system for various bands that came to play the clubs in our area and we provided PA and lights for bands like Demon, Vardis, Praying Mantis and Dark Star to name a few.

Q. - It surprises you that the single "Out with a Vengeance", still have so much acceptation these days? Do you think this single have stood the test of time?

Phil - The single has been bootlegged on numerous occasions with coloured vinyl and I’ve seen it sold on Ebay for around £60 a shot. The original cover never had the ‘Flyer Man’ logo on the front (which I designed) so if you see one of those it’s a bootleg! Little did we know then that our small band and single would be mentioned on dozens of music sites and site shops worldwide. The band Slough Feg from San Fransisco covered the B Side ‘Heavy Metal Rules’ on the Miskatonic label as part of the 25th anniversary of the NWOBHM some years back and I’ve never heard it. Last year Lars Ulrich from Metallica mentioned the single and HMR on a podcast he did in the USA , he said he thought it was great! The single was recorded in a 16 track studio and had was very crude with practically no production, but that’s how it was back then. It has really surprised me how our little song some see as an anthem for the NWOBHM movement, we had an ‘acetate’ pressing made for Neal Kaye who ran the Bandwagon in London (the man really who started the whole NWOBHM movement) and through him met Iron Maiden and various other bands who hit the big time.

As far as the single standing the test of time well it seems to have but its production was practically nil and could have been a lot better. But if it’s good enough for Lars Ulrich it’s good enough for me.

Phil John later joined Pathfinder, around 1983, and after he leaves Pathfinder, joined Preyer with whom he recorded the LP Terminator, in 1986, later formed Talan, having recorded the single Spellbinder in 1990. Also known for having designed some logos for Talan and Samurai.