SAXON, FASTWAY & GIRLSCHOOL BRISTOL O2 Academy

There have been a few cynical murmurings regarding this tour package since the announcement that Saxon and Girlschool would take to the road together in the wake of their planned tour with Motorhead not coming to fruition for reasons well known; voices from card-carrying fans of all things NWOBHM and beyond, dismissing it as a nostalgia trip and nothing more. However, we at the Fist, as well as our readership, like to buy the ticket and take the ride before passing judgment. The thought of seeing these stalwarts in the flesh one more time, especially with the return to the live arena of “Fast” Eddie Clarke of Motorhead infamy supporting with his resurrected group Fastway, is more than enough reason to brave the November rain and even an O2 venue. The near-sold out crowd waiting to pass through the turnstiles goes to show that in Bristol at least, it seems the metal crowd isn’t too pessimistic.

Opening proceedings is London’s loud and lairy daughters Girlschool who, though squeezed into an odd formation owing to playing in front of both Saxon and Fastway’s drum kits, ease the growing crowd into the feel of things. … Read More

It’s been a difficult time for heavy metal of late. We knew he was sick but Ian Fraser Kilmister, with that indomitable spirit, wouldn’t let us, his fans, down. Recording albums and playing live right up until the end, it’s as if we knew the day would come but neither he, nor us, would accept that crushing fate.

For weeks there seemed like an outpouring of collective grief. Even when the godlike Bowie and then the rock of which so much of heavy metal is built, Jimmy Bain, passed away it all got caught up in this exhausting wave of despair.

Doing a new issue of Iron Fist felt meaningless; we were named after a Motörhead song and now Motörhead was no more. While every other magazine poured over the details of Lemmy’s life, we wanted to mourn the band as well as the man and through our haze turned to the only person we could think of, Jase Of Spades from the blog 366 Days Of Motörhead to help us both with our office playlists and tribute. In this issue he reminds us of the many albums, live recordings and rare tracks that the ‘Head have left as their … Read More

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

Imagine if your job was to travel around Europe, drinking beer and playing heavy metal? They might mow Geddy Lee’s lawn and work in a pig-themed toy shop [true stories] when they’re at home but for two months CAULDRON quit life and hit the road – and remembered all the gory details for Iron Fist

BRITISH STEEL Myles [Deck, drums – the new boy!]: “A six week European tour?! Yes please! Having only done a handful of DIY tours in Eastern Canada – not to mention having never set foot on European soil before – I was very eager to hit the road as the new Cauldron drummer and prove my metal to the band and its fans. Spanning from the end of November to the first week of January, I gladly informed my family that they’d have to suffer the holidays without me and set off on a wet and wild, 35 date adventure of heavy metal bliss. When we landed, we met up with our driver and grindcore enthusiast, Luuk and friend Inti who worked the merchandise table for us all tour. Inti is the star of our ‘Nitebreaker’ video and goes by a number of aliases such as Merch … Read More

Welcome to the “difficult third issue” – difficult only because we put this magazine to bed with serious post-festive hangovers – not doing that again in a hurry!!!!

This issue of Iron Fist ended up being actually the most fun to make – and not just because we were still pissed. It had a real spirit of the blitz vibe to it, as our editor Louise and her trusted sidekick Kim knuckled down to some serious pizza eating and sub-editing all-nighters, while our designer Adam told us were we dickheads for keeping him up all night – but the dude is a legend – look at that SAXON cover! The guy’s a genius. I’ve been editing magazines for years and reading them for even longer and that’s seriously the best-looking magazine cover I’ve ever seen.

It was also a bit of a fluke that all the articles in this issue kinda follow the same theme – we didn’t plan it, promise! You got the men that brought us all together on the cover and without knowing Ms Kelly opened her article about the METALPUNK crossover scene with that very sentiment, citing Mr Byford for opening the gates for the myriad heavy metal … Read More