History of Heavy Metal Thread

[Certif1ed]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

I know Diamond Head`s history quite well and to be fair its quite laughable that so many misfortunes struck the band and denied them the success they really warrented.

Canterbury is an album that I really like as well.

Cool - I know very little about DH's history except what I remember from the time (which amounts to a few articles in Sounds and Kerrang!, seeing them open the Monsters of Rock festival in 1983 - beneath Twisted f***ing Sister, I ask you!!!) - and some of the "Unsung Heroes" stuff that has been written about them recently thanks to the exposure they got from Metallica.

There's definitely a doomy link with Diamond Head, but what I was trying to get at is that it became more prevalent as the band progressed - LTTN is a mixed bag (as Heavy Metal albums are wont to be), but there's a lot of energy there, and the intricate riffs suggest Led Zeppelin more than Black Sabbath on the whole.

"Am I Evil" is interesting, because it's so obviously "Mars" from Holst's "Planets" - which I posted earlier in this thread. It features tritones - but this is not a general feature of LTTN, and neither are the "thrash" riffs. It's like Diamond Head created this huge melting pot of ideas from which they had the potential to develop in a vast number of directions - as you rightly say, they were appallingly unlucky, and, I would suggest, mismanaged.


This looks like a good opportunity for a Track-by-Track analysis of Lightning to the Nations, most of which is fortuitously available on YouTube. It was recorded in 1979, so fits the temporary date ceiling I have imposed on this thread;

Let's start with "Shoot Out The Lights", because it was released as a single ahead of the album, with "Helpless" on the b-side.

Please excuse my horrendously pretentious writing style - I blame that on my college education, but it's my fault really, because when I went to college, frankly, I was crap at writing essays on music, and had loads of coaching to "improve" my style and I lapped it up in order to get good grades instead of trying to work on my own style...

So this is what you get



Here we have what sounds like an AC/DC style riff, topped with a melodic solo in the precision mould of Michael Schenker. The vocal picks this melody up while the riff continues.

Around 50 seconds, we have something interesting - a descending chromatic riff which resembles early 1960s surf music. This juxtaposition of chromatics and the blues is not particularly unusual, but somehow the sudden introduction of a chromatic riff brings a transient Sabbath-esque or maybe punky feel to it. It's transient because, of course, we return to the main riff for the chorus, and unusually, this continues for the verse - and this is more Led Zeppelin than Sabbath.

A nice little modulation brings the solo in - and here we have a lot of Angus Young's "Hot" Chuck Berry style, and a few bars in, there's the distinctive sound of "Fast" Eddie Clark's soloing style, until the descending chromatic riff is re-introduced, and Tatler throws in a curve ball with some deliberately dischordant licks that have that "NWoBHM" feel, which so clearly separates it from "Hard" Rock.

The solo comes to a dramatic end, as Tatler winds things up by introducing further "new" licks - this is not a solo made of pure bluff or blues improvisation, this has been constructed - composed, you could say - like Schenker's, and this is another key factor in Metal that distinguishes it from Rock.

There's then a delightful strip-down and some melodic soling using feedback, with a little guitar/vocal interplay which not only adds a more improvised feel and greater dramatic curve to the piece - and, one suspects, room to improvised in a live scenario - but reinforces the AC/DC link (I'm reminded of a similar section in "Live Wire").


"Helpless" is a completely different animal - if it wasn't for Harris' ultra-distinctive vocal tones and stylings (ignoring the completely different mix that appeared on the later release of LttN) we might think this was a different band!



Thrash Metal in 1979.

It's difficult to trace this back accurately - it seems to have come from all the roots. There's a bit of Zep, a bit of Sabbath - but very little AC/DC. I'm guessing there's a bit of Budgie there - and a LOT of Ocean Colour Scene's "The Riverboat Song" (although that, of course, was 12 years later). This latter riff is shifted up and down in a style that resembles Sabbath's almost jazz-like sequences and progressions before piling into a riff with a Motorhead style drum beat that has a very punky flavour - yet we can easily tell that this is not punk (or is that just me...?).

Just after 5 minutes, there is a superb break down and buildup forming a kind of coda to the piece - this kind of extended construction is another hallmark of the NWoBHM style.

Most of the interplay is between Harris' Vocals and Tatler's guitar, with everyone else struggling to keep up - but still there is that interesting exposed bass which brings in the "Riverboat Song" (with apologies to DH fans!) segment I identified above, and Kimberley does manage to get in some nice fills.

Ultimately, though, the bass simply follows the rhythm guitar, and the drums provide a solid beat - this is the function of both instruments in most NWoBHM bands, rather than to provide any kind of Prog Rock style interplay, as the Wikipedia definition of Heavy Metal would have us believe. I would suggest that this is still their function to the greater part.

Metal is predominantly the domain of the guitar first and vocals a close second, with bass and drums playing support - and this is useful when exploring back from 1965 to hear the music that most directly led to the evolution of metal.


...I'll have to continue the analysis of the album later. Yet again, I am upbraided by the clock

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Certif1ed

Cool - I know very little about DH's history except what I remember from the time (which amounts to a few articles in Sounds and Kerrang!, seeing them open the Monsters of Rock festival in 1983 - beneath Twisted f***ing Sister, I ask you!!!) - and some of the "Unsung Heroes" stuff that has been written about them recently thanks to the exposure they got from Metallica.

There's definitely a doomy link with Diamond Head, but what I was trying to get at is that it became more prevalent as the band progressed - LTTN is a mixed bag (as Heavy Metal albums are wont to be), but there's a lot of energy there, and the intricate riffs suggest Led Zeppelin more than Black Sabbath on the whole.

"Am I Evil" is interesting, because it's so obviously "Mars" from Holst's "Planets" - which I posted earlier in this thread. It features tritones - but this is not a general feature of LTTN, and neither are the "thrash" riffs. It's like Diamond Head created this huge melting pot of ideas from which they had the potential to develop in a vast number of directions - as you rightly say, they were appallingly unlucky, and, I would suggest, mismanaged.


This looks like a good opportunity for a Track-by-Track analysis of Lightning to the Nations, most of which is fortuitously available on YouTube. It was recorded in 1979, so fits the temporary date ceiling I have imposed on this thread;

Let's start with "Shoot Out The Lights", because it was released as a single ahead of the album, with "Helpless" on the b-side.

Please excuse my horrendously pretentious writing style - I blame that on my college education, but it's my fault really, because when I went to college, frankly, I was crap at writing essays on music, and had loads of coaching to "improve" my style and I lapped it up in order to get good grades instead of trying to work on my own style...

So this is what you get



Here we have what sounds like an AC/DC style riff, topped with a melodic solo in the precision mould of Michael Schenker. The vocal picks this melody up while the riff continues.

Around 50 seconds, we have something interesting - a descending chromatic riff which resembles early 1960s surf music. This juxtaposition of chromatics and the blues is not particularly unusual, but somehow the sudden introduction of a chromatic riff brings a transient Sabbath-esque or maybe punky feel to it. It's transient because, of course, we return to the main riff for the chorus, and unusually, this continues for the verse - and this is more Led Zeppelin than Sabbath.

A nice little modulation brings the solo in - and here we have a lot of Angus Young's "Hot" Chuck Berry style, and a few bars in, there's the distinctive sound of "Fast" Eddie Clark's soloing style, until the descending chromatic riff is re-introduced, and Tatler throws in a curve ball with some deliberately dischordant licks that have that "NWoBHM" feel, which so clearly separates it from "Hard" Rock.

The solo comes to a dramatic end, as Tatler winds things up by introducing further "new" licks - this is not a solo made of pure bluff or blues improvisation, this has been constructed - composed, you could say - like Schenker's, and this is another key factor in Metal that distinguishes it from Rock.

There's then a delightful strip-down and some melodic soling using feedback, with a little guitar/vocal interplay which not only adds a more improvised feel and greater dramatic curve to the piece - and, one suspects, room to improvised in a live scenario - but reinforces the AC/DC link (I'm reminded of a similar section in "Live Wire").


"Helpless" is a completely different animal - if it wasn't for Harris' ultra-distinctive vocal tones and stylings (ignoring the completely different mix that appeared on the later release of LttN) we might think this was a different band!



Thrash Metal in 1979.

It's difficult to trace this back accurately - it seems to have come from all the roots. There's a bit of Zep, a bit of Sabbath - but very little AC/DC. I'm guessing there's a bit of Budgie there - and a LOT of Ocean Colour Scene's "The Riverboat Song" (although that, of course, was 12 years later). This latter riff is shifted up and down in a style that resembles Sabbath's almost jazz-like sequences and progressions before piling into a riff with a Motorhead style drum beat that has a very punky flavour - yet we can easily tell that this is not punk (or is that just me...?).

Just after 5 minutes, there is a superb break down and buildup forming a kind of coda to the piece - this kind of extended construction is another hallmark of the NWoBHM style.

Most of the interplay is between Harris' Vocals and Tatler's guitar, with everyone else struggling to keep up - but still there is that interesting exposed bass which brings in the "Riverboat Song" (with apologies to DH fans!) segment I identified above, and Kimberley does manage to get in some nice fills.

Ultimately, though, the bass simply follows the rhythm guitar, and the drums provide a solid beat - this is the function of both instruments in most NWoBHM bands, rather than to provide any kind of Prog Rock style interplay, as the Wikipedia definition of Heavy Metal would have us believe. I would suggest that this is still their function to the greater part.

Metal is predominantly the domain of the guitar first and vocals a close second, with bass and drums playing support - and this is useful when exploring back from 1965 to hear the music that most directly led to the evolution of metal.


...I'll have to continue the analysis of the album later. Yet again, I am upbraided by the clock

DH misfortune was largely down to mismanagement and I actually read somewhere, that instead of getting a proper manager early on, the group in an effort to save on money actually employed Steve Harris`s mother to do the job, I think she may have been a shop worker or even a school cook..... you couldn`t make it up if you tried!

Also the group had a reluctance to travel to London to do gigs early on, also they tried to save money on not producing decent covers for their records, by the time they got their act together most of their rival acts had been already signed up.

Personally I love DH and could listen to their stuff at anytime, in fact I listened to their first three albums this weekend after not hearing them in quite some time. I actually like Canterbury the best, followed by Borrowed Time and then Lightning to the Nations.

[Certif1ed]

Many histories I've read relate metal back to surf and garage music - and I mentioned in an earlier post that I could hear a connection.

Here are some choice items, mostly from before 1964, to provide a bit of a back track. Obviously we're not going to find any actual metal in here - the goal is more to hear how the sound and style came about, with particular interest in the evolution of the two main strands - Black Sabbath and everyone else who played early/proto metal.

I'm also concentrating on the more guitar oriented or fuzzed up stuff, for obvious reasons!


1. Sandy Nelson - "Let There Be Drums" (1961)



Sandy's first release, "Teen Beat" was two years earlier, and in a similar style - but way too "up" sounding to include here! Ritchie Polodor, the guitarist, later went on to produce Steppenwolf, among others.

Sandy was inspired by the amazing Gene Krupa, who in turn was inspired by the legendary Buddy Rich.

Gene Krupa in 1940:



Buddy Rich in 1939:




...so I didn't mean to go back to jazz just yet - but hey, that Buddy Rich track kicks serious ass!




The point of those three youtubes is not only to enjoy some great music from before the time of surf music, but to show clearly where these more obscure pieces came from (apart from the equally obvious Shadows connection);

Eddie and the Showmen (1963) - there's some seriously good guitar work on here;




Of course, we can't completely ignore Eddie Cochran, and here's a kind of surf-ish style number by Heinz, called "Just Like Eddie" from 1963.




That number is a bit on the light side - but the guitarist has a quite distinctive and precise style that is interesting - he went on to record this in 1965, with a very heavy metal title;



Yup. The guitarist really is Ritchie Blackmore


Here's another track from 1963 featuring Ritchie Blackmore providing an even closer link to Rock and Roll - to Gene Vincent, no less;




...and to link this post in with all the others, here's a track by the V.I.P.s in a kind of dark, doomy surf style;

[Unknown Soldier]

I`ve actually gotten around at last to listen to something by Spooky Tooth, their second album "Spooky Two" Well, it was a certainly an interesting listen (I`ve now listened to it twice) First off, it was interesting to see that the band had both a keyboard and organ player and the keyboard/vocal set-up kind of reminded me of Doug Ingle of Iron Butterfly. As for the music, I could hear Traffic, Moody Blues, Joe ****er and even soul with all the obvious blues influences that went with these bands at the time, most importantly I could hear the influences on Sabbath and most notably on Deep Purple, in fact I could hear Gillan singing them at times. Evil Woman, was certainly the stand-out track on the album as is very memorable (had actually heard it before and didn`t realize it was them)

On a final note, I didn`t realize that Greg Ridley was actually in the band before he joined Humble Pie, I a big fan of early Humble Pie so am familiar with his work there.

[Certif1ed]

I kept the ace up my sleeve for the surf music connection above - the missing link, if you will, and it's Dick Dale, who deserves a post all to himself, as the first Mad Axeman.

His lead seems to come from The Shadows (please correct me if there is an earlier precedent for this melodic guitar fronted style), and also from Gene Krupa (posted above).

According to various biographies, he wanted to capture Krupa's wild style on the guitar as well as with the band, and to get his sound, he cranked his Fender amps up so much that they regularly blew - and Leo Fender's company upped the wattage of the amps to 100, put in 15" speakers, and developed the Dale transformer in order to help him get his sound - and be able to finish a gig!

Dale also played Fender guitars - the Strat, naturally - and he was left handed... that reminds me of someone, now who...? (no prizes!)

This list of Mad Axemen attributes is obviously not quite enough - but what Dale also did was to use a pretty unique tremolo (fast alternate picking) style - the same one that would be used nearly two decades later by Judas Priest and Diamond Head - and form the basis of the Thrash Metal "revolution".

Not only that, but he often used scales other than the minor pentatonic. I haven't listened particularly hard, but some of it sounds like Phrygian mode (very common in Metal), and certainly most of it is in some minor mode or another - and isn't just a rip-off of "Peer Gynt", like the Ritchie Blackmore/Lancasters track I posted above.

Some of his music could sound pretty dark too - I think that this is the beginning of the Heavy Metal sound and approach - you may recognise it from Pulp Fiction. Note right at the beginning that Dale uses the exact same technique used at the beginning of the solo for "Exciter", and swaggers about exactly like Matt Bellamy of Muse - they've even got similar haircuts;




...and listen to the guitar stabs after the drum intro to this earlier tune from 1962 - very Slayer;




...and this shredding;



Here's Dick in the 1980s with the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan;




Here's Dick more recently, with a more up to date sound;




...and here's Judas Priest performing "Exciter" so you can play spot the difference between the start of "Misirlou" and the start of the guitar solo - come to think about it, the main riff of Exciter begins to sound a bit familiar too;




...and Slayer, performing "South of Heaven", because it's awesome, and those phrygian licks and "Stab" chords are quite strangely reminiscent of the Dale youtubes I posted above.



Rock and roll...

[Certif1ed]

I'm interested now in how the "Surf" sound, which to me shows clear metal roots, became the hard rock sound - and the link would seem to be psychedelic rock. No real surprises here - but the transition seems to be quite sudden, so there's something missing.

The jazz links are many - the wild style of drummer Gene Krupa standing out, and, of course, guitarists needed a way to compete with the noisy drummers, so the solid bodied electric guitar rose in popularity - and most early players were either jazzmen or bluesmen.

Rock and roll embraced the instrument with huge enthusiasm, and it is in this arena that louder, more powerful amps became necessary, and fuzz boxes became popular as the desire to produce ever more energetic and aggressive music became stronger.

In the late 1960s, the high gain, fuzz guitar sound was almost ubiquitous, and none promoted it better than Hendrix.

When Hendrix first came to England, his manager, Chas Chandler took him to the Scotch St James club in London - a prestigious venue at which top recording artists such as the Beatles would play. On stage that night was a band called the V.I.P.s - I mentioned them earlier - and Chas asked the band if his protege could jam with them. The rest is history.

Hendrix smashed jazz and blues head on into Rock and Roll, and found himself at the epicenter of the UK psychedelic Rock scene, playing at all the venues, including London's Marquee club in Wardour street - a real melting pot of the fledgling Progressive bands of the future, such as Jethro Tull, The Nice (later ELP), The Syn (later Yes), the Yardbirds (from whom Jimmy Page would exit and form Led Zeppelin), members of King Crimson, David Bowie and too many to list. The music heard here has been referred to as Progressive music by many period articles I've read. It would be nice to have links but...

This scene existed alongside the more "underground" clubs, such as the Roundhouse, the Rainbow and the UFO clubs, where darker, jazzier bands such as The Soft Machine and The Pink Floyd would play - and musicians, famously including Paul McCartney, would go and watch each other and be inspired, creating a cauldron of creativity.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the West Coast had its own hotbed of creativity, in which The Doors, The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane appear to be central - the latter because of their club "The Matrix" as well as their music.

The Doors music and creative attitudes are particularly relevant to the history of metal - no-one else I know of had such a dark edge and tackled such edgy subject matter in their lyrics - I hate the phrase "pushed the boundaries" normally, but that is exactly what they did. Because they also achieved widespread popularity, their influence was felt far and wide.

Everyone seemed to be creative at this amazing point in music's history - not least the Beatles. And intermingling was at the heart of this creativity, from their trek to India and subsequent use of Sitars and raga at the birth of psychedelia, to their meetings with The Byrds and Bob Dylan, experiments with tape manipulation and electronic keyboards following Paul McCartney's one and only appearance at the Million Volt Sound and Light Rave, alongside such electronic pioneers as Delia Derbyshire, and studio "magic" thanks to recent technical developments, George Martin's genius, and Pink Floyd recording in the studio next door, they had no shortage of ultimate sources of inspiration, and there's no ignoring their impact.

My observations lead me to believe that there were 2 catalysts to all of this;

1. Bob Dylan "going electric" at Newport Jazz festival, 1965. This was the musical equivalent of the Big Bang - Dylan showed in the simple act of plugging in that Rock music could be serious and address issues other than relationships and love. It seems a little ironic, in retrospect, that 1967 is famous for its "Summer of Love".

2. The psychedelic drug LSD, from which the music got its name.

Although the Summer of Love would have you believe that this is a substance that makes you happy and loving, in fact, it has a horrifically dark side that people rarely talk about. Taking LSD is like playing Russian Roulette with your mind, despite what its strongest advocate, Timothy Leary had to say about it.

Place that alongside the social equivalent - the Vietnam War, and you have a polarisation like never before, which was reflected in the darker music (also known as "Heavy" music) produced at the time.

The most famous reference I know is Grace Slick's on the Woodstock album, where she announces to the crowd "OK people, you've heard the heavy bands, now it's time for morning maniac music!"


Exploration of this period to follow - with more Youtubes



I think there are only two more threads to investigate - Film Music and theatricals/Glam (now we've got psyche and prog in the mix) - unless anyone can think of any other missing strands?

[Certif1ed]

Glam Rock

As threatened, here's a quick run-through of Glam, showing definite links and avoiding stupid vaguaries.

Tying Glam into Surf/Garage rock, The Who and psychedelia, here are The Spiders, with "Don't Blow Your Mind";



Note the fuzzed-out guitar - not bad for 1966, despite being a hash-up of "Louie Louie" and "Can't Explain" by the Who, which in turn is a hash-up of "All Day and All of the Night" by The Kinks.

Doesn't matter how you look at it, the same names seem to keep cropping up at the roots of Metal.

The Spiders, whose stage show featured a large black spider web as backdrop, changed their name to The Nazz in 1968, then found out that Todd Rundgren had formed a group of the same name, and the band used the stage name of their lead singer - Alice Cooper.



The theatricals of Alice Cooper, musically, seem entrenched in The Doors;



Maybe Alice was inspired by Stanley Kubrik's film "A Clockwork Orange";




The UK was the real hothouse of glam, and the names are familiar - I've mentioned Queen and The Sweet - but the sound of both is rooted in Uriah Heep (The Sweet, of course, did not write most of their own stuff, but the heavy Chinnichap numbers are all stripped down Heep/Queen at essence. In turn, the Heep organ sound is driven by Deep Purple, Spooky Tooth and earlier organ bands, such as The Godz and Graham Bond's ORGANisation;



ok, not the best, but the earliest example - **Note the Lineup!!!***... how about this?




For some reason, Glam took off in Australia too, coming from a vaguely heavy background - check out The Spektors, somewhere between 1964-6;



Cranking it up with The Valentines in 1969;



Via Prog Rock with Fraternity (1971);




...and AC/DC, of course - before they employed the singer of the previous 3 youtubes




Sounding remarkably like The Sweet in places, a band from further north - Geordie in 1973;



Brian Johnson, of course.

Let's whizz back to the UK, though, and check out this fuzzed tune from 1966;



Recognise Noddy Holder?

This following cover of the Amboy Dukes number has an added link - The Amboy Dukes, of course, featured one Ted Nugent.




...But this is the real Slade sound, and there are indeed changes. Released in 1970!





1973 was a great year - and also the peak of Glam Rock. Whether these are linked to my first statement, I'll leave that to you to figure out.

I reckon it's time to move on to the 1970s proper now, and dig deep into 1970-73.

But I might be tempted to backtrack - anything can happen in this thread

[Certif1ed]

So I'm going to backtrack a little

I just can't resist the Prog/Metal links - this always annoys Prog Rock afficiandos, who think that the two are completely separate and never the twain shall meet and all that nonsense.

However, the fact seems to me that Metal is Prog's slightly younger brother, separated around 1969/70, both arising from the Psychedelic melting pot of 1967;

Remember The Heavy Metal Kids, who were actually the band Art?

Here's what they sounded like in 1967;




That's quite a heavy sound for the time.

And here are The Gods in 1967



The Gods released a superb album called "Genesis" in 1968 (just before Genesis the group formed). This provides a nice link between The Bluesbreakers (Mick Taylor), Jethro Tull (John Glas****), King Crimson and ELP (Greg Lake) and Uriah Heep (Ken Hensley, Lee Kerslake, Paul Newton).

Here's Deep Purple in 1968 starting off remarkably like Jimi Hendrix, but then going heavy Prog psyche, whilst still featuring that distinctive Deep Purple sound;




Talking of Hendrix, one of his roadies, one Ian Kilmister, roadied for The Nice for a while - and, of course, Greg Lake would team up with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer to form Prog stawarts, ELP. People remember The Nice for "America" and little else - but their other music, while very psychedelic, was also incredibly Proggy - and very heavy;




The other nice Prog link from this time is that Tony Iommi briefly played for Jethro Tull in 1968 before forming Black Sabbath;




Doesn't that remind you a bit of this?




Horrifically out of tune - but quite a blast in 1969, King Crimson;




A more unfamiliar blast - Arzachel in 1969, featuring 17-year old Steve Hillage - stick with it and check out the lyrics!




And rewinding for a bit of Arthur Brown in 1968 (early metal vocals - and a touch of glam and theatricals!);




Vanilla Fudge, who are always mentioned in connection with early metal - don't hear it myself though;




...and wrapping this post up with Iron Butterfly, who likewise keep getting mentioned in connection with this genre. The only connections I see are "Iron" in their name, the fact that their first album (from 1967/8) was called "Heavy" and Slayer's cover of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", none of which are very convincing. I don't think that this music is heavy metal - but many do;




So there you go.

Prog and Psyche wrapped up with loads of interesting links, and a fair few musical connections - but not really the real deal.


Or is there something I've missed?

[Certif1ed]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

As for the music, I could hear Traffic, Moody Blues, Joe ****er and even soul with all the obvious blues influences that went with these bands at the time...

Traffic's vocalist, Steve Winwood, started out with the Spencer Davis Group, who I posted earlier as a potential "root" band - specifically the song "Keep On Running" (the fuzzed-out sound).

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

On a final note, I didn`t realize that Greg Ridley was actually in the band before he joined Humble Pie, I a big fan of early Humble Pie so am familiar with his work there.

The Small Faces get cited sometimes as being a "root" band for metal - not convinced myself, but certainly Quiet Riot were very keen on covering them as well as covering Slade. QR are interesting not only because of Randy Rhoads, but because they were one of if not the first Glam Metal band - presumably influenced by Kiss and the New York Dolls, since they formed in 1973.

[Certif1ed]

Bands that keep getting mentioned as early heavy metal;


After the late mid 1960s bands I've already mentioned, like Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, Cream et al, there are a number of other early bands who regularly crop up in this sort of discussion.

Blue Oyster Cult formed in 1967 - but didn't release an album until 1973, so we'll skip over them for now.

Budgie also formed in 1967, and released their first album in 1971. Wikipedia describes them as "widely considered as one of the first heavy metal bands and a seminal influence to many acts of that scene with fast, heavy rock (an influence on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) and such acts as Metallica) being played as early as 1971, preceding other influential bands such as Judas Priest. The band has been noted as, "among the heaviest metal of its day"."

The only truth in the above description is that Budgie played as early as 1971 and preceded Priest.

In 1971, Budgie played heavy blues-based rock - in no way was the music like Heavy Metal - indeed, it's only the fact that Metallica covered some of their material that their early output has ever been considered part of the genre.

This changed in 1980, of course, when Budgie changed their style to fit in with the NWoBHM sound, and released the magnificent Power Supply. Sadly, this was too late to qualify them as "early Heavy Metal" - and the heaviest stuff on Power Supply is disctinctly Judas Priest inspired - listen;



Back in 1970, Budgie sounded much more like this;



Definitely Led Zeppelin inspired - it's a nice heavy sound, but not really metal a la Judas Priest or Iron Maiden.

It's also worth noting that this song (which Metallica made famous, of course) was not included on the original UK release, but only on the US release - so the chances of it influencing British metal are not only slight, but not evident in Priest's music - or UFO, The Sweet, Saxon, Def Leppard, Angelwitch... the list of bands Budgie did not influence probably runs to most of the NWoBHM I'd say.

The first track on the UK release is "Guts" - a Black Sabbath inspired number (or a number that inspired Black Sabbath!);



Squawk, released in 1972, shows many of the same Led Zeppelin roots - this time with an interesting continual double bass drum. Nice and heavy - but not really metal. Check out the pentatonic scale solo and complete lack of chromatics ("blues" notes aside);





Breadfan is also well known among Metallica fans, and kicks off their 1973 album "Never Turn Your Back on a Friend". I'm hearing some influence on Iron Maiden's early style here - with the caveat that Maiden's early sound is not typical of the NWoBHM sound and style.



1974 brought "In For The Kill", another round of the same sort of great headbanging stuff with some fantastic riffs - Budgie had found a groove and saw no reason to change a formula that worked perfectly - but no real metal;




...and there's no point going any further forward. UFO released "Phenomenon" in 1974, and Heavy Metal was born in Michael Schenker's precision guitar style and Gibson growl;




If there's any further doubt that Heavy Metal was born in 1974 and no earlier, here is some Heavy Metal from 1971;



(only Kidding...)

...and if there's any doubt that it arose from the loins of Glam Rock;



Must make myself familiar with William S. Burroughs' work.


Other bands from the late 1960s/early 1970s in further posts...