 the metal voice today actually the second time on the show Brian you've actually been on the metal voice Neil Turbin interviewed you at the whiskey a go-go a few years back remember that yeah I do remember that yeah the classic whiskey a go-go gig yeah yes yes but here today back on the metal voice today this is what we're talking about my friend look at the graphics oh yeah look at the graphics oh shit look at that baby look at the nation and look at his thickness here my friend look at that look at that and you know I'm gonna do on this show today I'm gonna rip this the shrink wrap right off so there's no graphics I had a little pre-care ready so I didn't look like a fool in case it didn't work right where's Brian it looks good let's go there we go nice one they beautiful look at that look at that that is a beautiful thing and that's let's open I haven't even opened it up yet no I haven't I haven't seen the bottle now you've seen it wow it smells like vinyl did when we first bought them yeah look at this this is what when they sent this to me I go wow I didn't even want to open it up but I know what just because I didn't and look at that look what we got here three discs vinyl three LPs and we'll talk about that right now all right so you're gonna re-release Lightning to the Nations the remaster from the 2021 on September 30th on silver lining music the offering will feature not only the original album from the one-quarter inch master tapes which Lars helped write their retrieve correct but also an alternative mixes of the classics the classic cuts Lightning to the Nations the Prince sucking my love am I evil and sweet and innocence that were never publicly released that's right before we get into that how long how long of a friendship have you had with Lars I mean where did it begin it began before I'm my evil correct yes I think he wrote to the fan club and probably 1980-81 and then he appeared at a gig in London we played the Woolwich Odeon that's when we all first met him I think it already sent for the album Lightning to the Nations he got it mail order because that came out about March something like that May possibly 1980 so I think he sent for a copy and I think he came over the following summer 81 and we met him at Woolwich Odeon so we we sort of we knew he was sort of coming I'm sure we'd had a message saying I'm coming over to see you guys you know and we just thought it was brilliant that we've got this fan in America you know this is this is before Metallica right or nearly stages right yes it was just a big fan of the band he was 17 and he must have got some money off his dad to come over from Li to to London and he came straight from the airport to the gig and we spoke to him after the gig but we liked him because he was enthusiastic anyway he loved Diamond Ed so we thought he was great and of course he never once mentioned playing the drums or being in a band or anything like that he just seemed like it you know Uber fan and he stopped with me then he stayed with Sean the singer and we got to know him over the years and so that friendship has been going on over well 40 years since 81 really what were your first impressions of him like a hungry hungry eager like oh what would you what would you what words would you use okay full of enthusiasm definitely but as I say he never mentioned being in a band or anything we just thought he was you know sort of driven fan you know who had to collect he wanted to collect all the new wave of British heavy metal songs you know he was buying singles and albums he seemed to have plenty of cash on him and he would just buy anything and I'm sure he bought about 40 records while he stayed with me and Sean because we'd be looking at him we would be you know we'd be reading the details and listening to them on my record player and we'd be going yeah that's good or this now I don't like that but yeah it's super enthusiastic you know we had more energy than than any of us last you know it'd be it he'd want to stop up all night listening to records and stuff this this story reminds me of when Anvil took in Sasha the director writer and they serve at an early stage before he was a young kid right is 15 years old and then it sort of reaped that the kindness sort of reaped later on in life yeah yeah it reaped the rewards right I think so I think that the bit of kindness and hospitality we showed Lars paid you know dividends we didn't know we didn't know we just did it because we thought well he's 17 he's a long way from home somebody should help him out take care of them and so we took him to gigs with us he came to three diamond decades and he was just sat in the car next to us like there used to be three of us on the backseat and now there's four of us on the backseat all squashed in but we just liked him we thought he was it was good for and we used to take the mickey out of his accent you know but he was probably used to that because it was that Danish American it was just different and we'd really not met that many Americans and so the fact that he was a big diamond fan was just great for us we thought he was he was amazing this is this is a massive lesson in karma it's a huge lesson because you never know what kindness will lead to in the future today's kindness wherever you treat I agree it's kind of treat people how you would like to be treated yeah the golden roll yeah all right so now how did now that we understood where Lars comes from how did Lars help you recover those quarter quarter inch master tapes because it's in the bio here so what was the connection there it is it is so they were sent to a label in Germany called wolf records and then he never sent them back and then some years went by and I don't if I asked about him you know the management and stuff they but they said now we never had the tapes back and he also said we never had any royalties we never had any statements to see how many it had sold so I don't know what was going on but in 1990 or 1989 Lars and Jeff Barton were putting together a compilation album called the new way of British ever nothing revisited or 1979 revisited something like so it's gonna be a double vinyl album and he called me to say have I got the master tapes for the for like they wanted to use I think it's electric and helpless and I said no but I explained what happened in that they've been sent to this guy in Germany and he said okay let me put somebody on to it because by now Metallica are quite a big band aren't they late 80s you know just is for all and and he sent somebody from phonogram records in Germany to this guy's house at wherever he lived wolf records and got the tapes back so they must have just handed them over to this guy must he was to turned up and said I've been sent from phonogram records to pick up the diamond dead tapes for light into the nations and this guy must have said well I don't own them do I they're not mine so here you go and gave them back to this guy then they would have been returned to London Lars would have mastered the album and then when that happened after that happened rather they were sent to me and I've had them safe here in my house ever since let's show this again let's show the beauty of this this is incredible you know what I was just so impressed you know by for all the fans out there when when people ask you know why again lightning to the nations but look at this beauty you know why not right so okay I'll ask you this question I'll rephrase it because how many times a day do you get asked about am I evil I wouldn't say per day but if I'm on tour I might but not when I'm just at home you know doing normal things you know nobody every interview every interview do you get asked about a year every year interview most people want to know a snippet about Metallica and the snippet about am I evil and you know the first album well this but this is what we're talking about isn't it like me to the nations and the big song on that album is am I evil so it's fine I'm happy about it would only be like you talking to Tony I owe me and asking him about Poweringwood yeah alright man I get you I get you it's the big song it's an incredible song thank you what about okay on this album we have also the sort of the the the new versions or the sort of the unheard versions yes and I think I'm just trying to see which ones they are I think the Prince sucking my love and sweet and innocent and am I evil so what are the differences for the people out there the big fans or the non-fans or want to be fans what are the differences in those mixes from the originals okay so I found the tapes when I went to pick up her all all the master tapes because this guy picked Wincleman who had stored them all in his cellar had a flood and he said tapes are alright but you should come and pick them up because they could get damaged we could have another flood so I picked them all up and amongst these two inch master tapes multi-tripe tapes was the quarter-inch tapes with Diamond Ed written on them and I thought I didn't know what was on them because I don't have a machine to play twelve inch spools of Ampex you know quarter-inch tape so I got somebody to copy them to digital and listen to them and I thought alright they're from that album the mono mixes but they're slightly different as well these things missing and is a different vocal on sweet and innocent there's a different guitar licks at the end of sucking my love so I tried to think how on earth why did people do these where they been who's had them you know I don't know what they were for I cannot remember it's 42 years ago so they must have just been run off at the time maybe to have a quick listen at home or for the manager or something like that but anyway they found a way back to me and I thought the fans would like to hear them because you know the part of this album unfortunately there's no like extra songs or anything something that's not been released you know like a whole new song not it'd be great but there's nothing like that but I thought people would like to hear these and you know I spoke to the label and they they agreed with me they said yeah let's let's put it together let's master it as good as we possibly can and put it out yeah yeah I mean this album like when I talked to metalheads or even hard rock fans or new wave of British heavy metal fans how you had did you have any idea that the riffage and the songs the album would be so revered today it's so influential today not at all because we struggled to even get a record deal with it when we released it which is really frustrating so back you know scroll back to 1980 and and our manager was trying to get a record deal with it and nobody was interested so that was really disappointing and we thought well what have we got to do to make to get a record deal we've written these songs we like them and still nobody's that interesting you know I remember getting one review in sounds and it got three and a half stars out of five so it was it felt a bit deflating really to make that record and then only get a bit of a yeah the fans seem to like it but we couldn't get a deal and well you know over time it's become influential hasn't it Metallica etc and it's gained that kind of status but at the time it was just the best album we could make at the time we made it quickly in a week recorded a mixed in a week and but I always think we were competing with you know the greatest rock bands of all time in the 80s so we you know the Zeppelin Sabbath set Judas Priest Deep Purple UFR ACDC all these incredible 70s bands and we were just you know learning from them and that was our legacy and we just wanted to make something great and and hopefully compete with those you know giants who we all looked up to so we had a very high benchmark and we wrote a lot of songs for that album yeah I think something like a hundred songs from what I remember reading like in the past which which is how you do it right if you want to write great music you got to keep practicing your craft yeah we spent four years before that album came out writing I mean we it wasn't a plan you know he didn't keep keep saying like keep writing and eventually we'll do an album it was kind of just each time we wrote to some we learned a little bit we got better and better and better and we record them on to cassette and then if we didn't like and we wouldn't do them again and we just move on and try and improve improve improve when you hear bands like Megadeth you know and you listen to the music and Dave Mustaine was I guess a friend of yours as well right over the years mm-hmm do you say wow man I could hear my sort of influences in there you know I mean Dave's been honest about it right he said that you're one of the bands I don't tell me about that like no it is again it's very flattering it's got to come from somewhere hasn't it so that we influenced some big band big US bands it is very flattering and I can hear you know bits of Diamondhead here and there especially on the first Metallica album and some of the early Megadeth and stuff but you know as I would have got ideas from my favorite bands in the 70s they were doing the same one they were they were looking to the new wave of the Chevy metal bands it like like Diamondhead by a maiden moterhead etc and you know just pushing forward trying to get faster leaner more powerful when's the first time you met Dave Mustaine it was a term Cambridge corn exchange we've gone to see Megadeth and we met him backstage and it was great after he was a nice guy switched on you know intelligent and he offered to produce Diamondhead he said you know I'd love to produce an album and he said how he was he was really good at getting this you know sound what year was this year was this around I would say it was 91 wow okay that much but he sort of followed the band I did he get turned on by Lars to I believe so I think Lars was the guy who had the big record collection and I would imagine he played records to you know James and Dave is saying etc yeah and so we you know this is what we need to do we need to do something like that because you didn't need to find a common ground that you know when you form in a band you need to agree on what sort of style are you going to do what what bands do you like what bands don't you like and you are you going to do any projects sorry are you going to do any projects with Dave Mustaine in the future work on some music together I know that no nothing all right all right what about opening for Iron Maiden during the this year I guess right it's very nice it's not really my in my place to just no no no when you're when you're actually this album came out did you not open for Iron Maiden oh sorry sorry pretty much like right now yeah we great too right yes please yes we did one show in London at the lyceum in 19 February 1980 that was quite a big show it's about 2,000 people there so that was good we only have 20 minutes but we did our best April wine which is an emin Montreal April wine is pretty much from Montreal what are your recollections of opening up for them yeah we did the hot we did a British tour maybe eight ten dates it was okay they they didn't talk to us very much I've done it just that's the way they were but if you pass them in the corridor you know and you say hello and I could hi so I don't get out of single conversation with any of them but we enjoyed the tour you know it was our first British tour that's it somebody so it was good for us so you also have a tour starting in October right it's a UK tour a European tour and that's gonna go all the way to the end of November you want to tell everybody about this album before I let you go just it's been you know it's been remastered it's it sounds as good as it possibly can I know it's been released before but it the packaging's brilliant you know if you want to get a new version I'll be talking about the making of the album and I've tried to remember what I could about writing this the songs I mean Sean and I co-wrote all the songs and I try to remember what I could about writing them some some of the songs that are vague to me like I can't remember writing the lightning to the nations or the prince very much but we must have done so they're there but just the memory over time you know slips away doesn't it specific details from 42 years ago are quite hard to recall liner liner notes on I guess the last question is liner notes on am I evil and the sort of like the making of that song behind the scenes what was that like was it easy to do some years to to create it took about a year from A to B that song because we can add into it well you know started with my riff just the main riff and we just built and built and built and in the same the song ended up seven minutes 40 seconds long so it was a real epic you know a beast of a song and I can remember more about that song because I've talked about it more in interviews so it's a bit more of an oral sort of memory but a couple of the songs as I say I can't can't recall putting time into them you know or how Ninja Sean and I would bounce off each other we were very good team of writers it to the point where I didn't even appreciate how good Sean was as a writer until after the event yeah usually it's like that in life right it goes by so quickly and you're so busy that you kind of forget or you don't pay attention as much as you like and and also I presume everybody's like that but it's not the case what's the case for me so we're the same company all right I'll leave you with this diamond head lighting to the nations thank you must pick up pick it up you know it'll be available I'll say it again September 30th silver lining music that's a baby one that's a little CD that's a little tiny one baby you've got the full Monty there the pool I've just got the CD Brian it was a pleasure have yourself a wonderful day