Like many others, my first taste in Diamond Head's music was through Metallica's covering (which I won't dwell on, because DH wrote these songs, and the original versions are far better than the un-motivated, dry-as-a-bone versions done by Metallica) of their songs, and I was probably about 12-13 when I sought out to look for ANYTHING on Diamond Head. I loved the songs, but at the time, I wasn't able to find any recordings by them. For my 13th birthday, in July of 1995, my father bought me a CD-case-shaped book on Metallica, and in those pages were a page or two full of Diamond Head pictures and a brief history on them. The charisma of the band just leaped out of the photos and sent a metallic chill up my spine, and I thought to myself, this is where I wanna be. This is my destiny. I wanna create masterpieces like these guys did! ...And they looked so full of attitude and confidence in those shots that my interest in them even doubled. Then in my freshman year in high school, my punker friend Steve McCloskey handed me a compilation tape entitled "The Best Of Metal Blade Vol. 3", which featured Diamond Head's "Am I Evil?" I rushed home after school, went straight to my room and threw it on, and sat there mesmerized at the attitude, aggression, youthfulness, raw energy, charisma, and that's when I realized my musical life changed forever. Soon enough, I found a copy of Lightning to the Nations on the same record label, and became possibly one of the biggest DH fans in the States, along with Mustaine, Hetfield, Slagel, and Ulrich. Nobody I've ever heard sounded quite like DH. As years went by, I sought and found several more pieces of sonic magic by them.
Enter: April 2002-N.J. Metal Meltdown4. I got the chance to meet them and I think we hit it off really well, not just as fan and band, but friends as well. I asked vocalist Sean Harris if he'd be interested in doing an interview with me, via a camcorder and he agreed to do that the night after their performance, at a fancy Italian diner near the Asbury Park Convention Center on April 6th, and later that night we finished up the interview in a hotel room. The reason this interview took several months to surface, is the fact that my computer was blown during a storm, not to mention the quality of the video recording was very un-audible, due to background noise in the restaurant, and bad camera positioning in the hotel room. But with hours spent-rewinding and playing the tape-in front of the T.V., with my ears to the speakers, I was able to decode what me and Sean were saying, and finally on another computer, to type this up. My apologies to the band for the bad timing and major delay.
Interview by Eric
E.C.-Obviously, you guys played the Metalfest last night. What are your plans for when you get back home?
S.H.-After we’ve slept and relaxed, and have gotten everything back together, to come back to America as soon as possible, to hook up with a new team, to try and lay down some foundations to bring some sort of event together.
E.C.- Are you planning on doing a headlining tour or opening for somebody?
S.H.-I wouldn’t really like to open, I mean, what’s the point? We want to play our whole show if we can, to 200, 500, however many people, to do sort of our own show, an hour and a half of a show...
E.C.- What motivates you each night when you’ve gotta play live?
S.H.-That’s a good question... Just the freedom to be up there doing it each night. It’s new each night, it’s fresh each night. I have that wonderful freedom to just be that crazy person you see on the stage. It’s just liberating to become that person, as you know I’m not that person offstage, but onstage I can just go a bit nuts. And the music- the band of course. The band’s the best thing at the moment about the whole thing, ’cause it just makes it easier. If you’ve got a band, as you know, that thing that you’ve said to me before about confidence, it’s just all there, it’s in you, it builds. You just get on with it, and do it, and you fly. But you need to have that band behind you because they are solid and you can be free.
E.C.- Is the crowd reaction much different from the States than it is in Europe?
S.H.-Not really, but I think there was a little more enthusiasm over here last night.
E.C.-Probably because you guys have never played here before.
S.H.-That’s right, yeah... It’s new, isn’t it? It’s new. I think they (I suppose he means the American fans- E.C.) get the sense that- in England, a lot of people have seen us before- and they’re curious and they’re interested. But in America, they’ve never seen us before, so to them, I hope it’s a breath of fresh air.
E.C.- Is there a favorite song you like to play live?
S.H.-No, it changes every night. Sometimes each song takes on a new life every time you play it, and sometimes one particular song will stand out on one night and the next night it will be a different song. But no, I like them all. I like to do new songs. I like to swap, ya know, take songs out and put new songs in, and swap them around.
E.C.- What kind of non-musical hobbies do you have?
S.H.-Non-musical hobbies? I don’t really have any non-musical hobbies.
E.C.- Everything is music huh?
S.H.-Everything’s music, yeah.
E.C.- Do you watch many movies?
S.H.-Yeah I do watch movies a little bit and I play with my kids. And I train (Puts up his fists as if sparring or jogging). I like training; yeah I’ve gotten into it, keeping fit. I like that, and running...
E.C.- It seems a lot of your lyrics are based on stories. Do you look to literature for inspiration?
S.H.-I used to, when I was younger, yes I did. Literature, poetry, Shakespeare...All that type of stuff out now- it’s really a life-experience and spiritual journey for me.
E.C.- What about Am I Evil?- Was that inspired by a movie or book?
S.H.-No that was actually- if inspired is the right word- that was inspired by uh, let’s see, what’s the right word? A serial killer.
E.C.- Oh okay, I thought that was about the Salem Witch Burnings, actually.
S.H.-A lot of people think that, but it’s not. That’s just because that first line says, “my mother was a witch”. So I can see how you could put it into historical context. But it’s not about that at all. It’s about a sort of modern-day serial killer. It’s the first song I think, about serial killers. We had to deal with some issues over that one.
E.C.- You guys sounded really tight last night. Would you ever re-record any of your older songs for a newer and better production?
S.H.-Well, no plans yet, other than doing it live, either as a live album or (opening production-type thing? I think Sean was referring to what they’ve done live with the intro to Am I Evil? - which is re-record the marching-type part, and play the tape before breaking into the lead part that guitarist Brian Tatler plays-E.C.)
That was the end of the first half of the interview conducted in the restaurant, but expect the second half, conducted in the hotel room, to be posted soon. In other words- to be continued...)
Erik Chrupalyk
DISCOGRAPHY
Lightning To The Nations - The White LP (1980)
Borrowed Time (1982)
Canterbury (1983)
Am I Evil (1987)
Behold The Beginning (1991)
The Friday Rock Show Sessions / Live At Reading (1992)
Singles (1992)
Death And Progress (1993)
Evil Live (1994)
To Heaven From Hell (1997)
The Best Of (1999)
Live - In The Heat Of The Night (2000)
First Cuts EP (2002)
LINKS
