Iron Fist Magazine

ISSUE 16 – HOLD YOUR FIST UP HIGH

The torture never stops over here at Iron Fist and Issue #16 is finally ready to be unleashed like the unruly wild child it is. With the ballcrushing tormentor himself, Blackie Lawless on the cover we are on our knees (okay, enough W.A.S.P puns now) with pride to have the veteran rock journalist, Martin Popoff on our team. He talked to Mr Lawless about new album ‘Golgotha’, his faith and how a career breeding horses was not to be.

Elsewhere, Louise Brown met the ultimate polymath and heavy metal hero Bruce Dickinson to talk about being utterly unstoppable and Guy Strachan talked to Big Boss from Root about the making of black metal blueprint ‘Zjevení’, while Toby Wright tracked down two founding members of Belgian heavy metal maniacs, Acid.

Black Trip told Kevin Stewart-Panko that they should be played on the radio (we agree), My Dying Bride confirmed they’re still as miserable as ever (we wouldn’t have it any other way) and we caught up with Dead Lord, Satan’s Satyrs, Black Breath, Christian Mistress and many more bands old and new in this issue – from Flight and Honeymoon Disease right through to Saxon and Denner/Shermann.

It’s sad that Iron Fist … Read More

GRAVEYARD INTERVIEW: “A LOT OF PEOPLE GOT INTO MUSIC THROUGH THEIR DAD’S RECORD COLLECTIONS”

Forming in 2006, six years after the dissolution of the Swedish hard rock band, Norrsken (who also featured Magnus Pelander of Witchcraft), Graveyard have been on the forefront of the classic rock revival. Four albums in – with the most recent entitled ‘Innocence & Decadence’, perhaps a titular nod to the era of music they heartily worship – the band made up of Joakim Nilsson (guitar/vocals), Jonathan Ramm (guitar), Truls Mörck (bass) and Axel Sjöberg (drums) may have been part of the force behind the current resurgence in rock roots but, as Joakim tells us over a pint, there’s no chance of them slowing down. “We have a lot to do still,” he insists, getting riled at the idea that the band may have lost some of that innocence bands have when they form. “When we started out, we were naive and didn’t know what we were doing, and that can be a really good thing. That’s why there are so many great first records but at the same time, you can get that feeling back.”

That’s what the band have done on their latest album but there is one stand-out track, ‘The Apple & The Tree’, that deviates from their … Read More

HORISONT INTERVIEW: “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE ’70S”

Initially a part of the Crusher Records (Spiders, Dead Man, Troubled Horse) roster, Horisont were originally perceived as another of those retro-rockers from Sweden, seemingly happy to surf on the nostalgia wave and have an excuse to wear bell-bottomed jeans. Except that there’s always been something a tad weirder and out-there with them and not just due to their occasional Swedish lyrics. Still, many will be surprised by their fourth full-length ‘Odyssey’, a 65-minute tour-de-force that sees them coming out of their shell and heading for the stars with space rock and classic prog influences abound and a solid dose of vintage synthesizers. Blasphemy? No, a simple and very human longing for evolution says their frontman Axel Söderberg.

Two years ago when you promoted your third full-length ‘Time Warriors’, you made no secret that it was style-wise very close to its predecessor and your Rise Above debut, ‘Second Assault’. Yet ‘Odyssey’ doesn’t follows the same pattern does it? “Indeed as the previous two full-lengths were kind of made in a rush. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great as they are but after ‘Time Warriors’ we knew right away that we would need more time for the next one so we could do the … Read More

INTO BATTLE: DEMON EYE

“Everything’s good, everything’s fine” so sang Ian Gillan in 1971. And everything’s still good if North Carolinian, dark riffing, blue collar, horror novel rockers Demon Eye are anything to go by. Taking their name from that Deep Purple song, Paul Walz (bass), Bill Eagen (drums), Larry Burlison (guitars) and Erik Sugg (guitars, vocals) play laid-back, bluesy hard rock with more than a nod to their forebears, putting them alongside Orchid and Danava in today’s contemporary scene.

“I was playing with a high energy, MC5 inspired band called the Dragstrip Syndicate. After that I played with some similar styled bands, always tending to borrow from ‘60s Detroit rock or heavy psych groups like Blue Cheer,” explains Erik of how Demon Eye came to be. “When I first met Larry and Bill they were playing with Richard Bacchus from the old New York City rock band, D-generation. Demon Eye was born after the four of us got together to play in a ‘70s rock cover band called Corvette Summer. After about a year of playing tunes by groups like Budgie, UFO and Humble Pie we started writing our own music.

“There are many things that attract me to this music,” he continues of why … Read More

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