{"id":1753,"date":"1987-08-01T00:00:17","date_gmt":"1987-08-01T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2013-05-28T16:24:04","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T16:24:04","slug":"feature-sabbat-mf25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-sabbat-mf25\/","title":{"rendered":"SABBAT – War Games (MF25, 1987) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SABBAT – War Games<\/strong><\/span><\/span>
\nGarry Sharpe-Young<\/span>
\nMetal Forces, Issue 25 (1987)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sabbat (l-r): Andy Sneap, Simon Negus, Martin Walkyier (bottom) and
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Anyone wandering around Nottingham on a crowded Saturday afternoon could be forgiven for thinking Americana reigns supreme in Robin Hood land. Sure, there\u2019s a healthy plethora of rock fans roaming the streets (usually on their way to \/ on their way back from Way Ahead Records, Notts equivalent of London\u2019s Shades) but the disturbing frequency of Dokken, Ratt, Poison etc t-shirts is worrying. Why this crass obsession with LA?<\/p>\n

Anyway, one band who you\u2019ll never spot with regulation M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce<\/a> hairdo is Sabbat. Maybe the thrashers shun the sunlight, but they sure as hell make their presence felt in the smaller hours. Sabbat\u2019s last home gig in the town hall square drew for a 1,000 plus of the blighters.<\/p>\n

A good a point as any to open an interview with I think. So tell us about that last bash Andy (as in Sabbat guitarist by the way. Mr. Sneap is joined by Martin Walkyier on vocals, Frazer Craske on bass and Simon Negus on drums).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was our biggest gig so far and it scared the shit out of us!\u201d the guitarist readily admits. \u201cThe PA guy we use, Kev Jackson, also works for the council in organising this annual outdoor music festival. They have a few juvenile jazz acts and a few oompah bands, then round it off with a rock band. Now usually a band called Dawntrader do it, but the council wanted a change and asked Kev if he knew of another act that could pull a crowd, so we got the job! We pulled the second biggest crowd too after The Searchers who had a monopoly on the grannies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Sabbat have been operational for little over a year now, but it\u2019s only lately that great mountain ranges of luck has been shoveled in their direction. It seems as though some vicious bastard downstairs has been jealously hoarding all this good fortune that by rights should have been evenly distributed to various bands over the last four years, and suddenly laid it all at the feet of Sabbat.<\/p>\n

So why Sabbat? \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know,\u201d Andy pleads. \u201cIt was just me sitting down and planning everything out. Five demos went to record companies to no response at all, and a load went to various fanzines here and abroad. I remember giving yourself a tape at that Chariot gig and after you\u2019d written about us it all started to happen. Next Forearm Smash<\/em>, who\u2019d had the tape some time, picked up on us and then Kerrang!<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Is it correct that Music For Nations regarded your songs as too long? \u201cWell, what we got back off them was the standard photocopied rejection note. Y\u2019know: \u2018Dear Sir, we are not interested in your demo\u2019. It\u2019s funny, I know several bands who have received exactly the same letter, I know Deuce got one. Music For Nations are signing a lot of American thrash bands purely, I think, because their view is anything American will sell. Why don\u2019t they put some effort into a good British band? Anyway, Noise Records did reply to the tape and asked for another demo. The end result of that of course is that we\u2019ve signed and sealed everything with them and we\u2019ll start recording our debut album on September 11th. In fact, Noise spent an extra 25% on getting our contract written up in English.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you give any details on the album? \u201cThe title is History Of A Time To Come<\/em>. It sounds like one of those silly concept albums but it\u2019s not. It\u2019ll be recorded at the Horus Sound Studio in Hannover and will be produced by Roy Rowland, in Berlin. All the tracks from the Fragments Of A Faith Forgotten<\/em> demo will be on it and also \u2018The Thirteenth Disciple\u2019, from the Friday Rock Show session, plus other tracks such as \u2018A Church Bizarre\u2019, \u2018I For An Eye\u2019, \u2018Behind The Crooked Cross\u2019 and the instrumental \u2018A Dead Man\u2019s Robe\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as the album, you\u2019re also recording a flexi-disc for the dungeons and dragons magazine White Dwarf<\/em>. A strange move? \u201cYeah, it is a bit weird I suppose! What happened was that John Blanche, the art editor of White Dwarf<\/em>, had been looking for a band to do a flexi-disc for a long time. He just happened to hear our session and then got in touch. We\u2019re recording it with Pete Tattershall and the song is based on one of their games called Warhammer<\/em>. Martin wrote the lyrics and now it\u2019s called \u2018Blood For The Blood God\u2019. The mag just gave Martin a big pile of books and he wrote the song from that. It\u2019s not your usual horror type metal and the lyrics fit in very well with our imagery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nottingham area also laid claim to Hell, a band who unfortunately I never got to see. If Harry Harrison from Rebel is to be believed, a fairly spectacular band. Would you say that Sabbat are carrying on the Hell tradition? \u201cWe are heavily influenced by Hell and don\u2019t mind admitting it,\u201d Andy says with obvious admiration. \u201cThe singer even taught me how to play guitar! We\u2019re not a deliberate copycat of Hell in any way though. They were a great band and it\u2019s a mystery to me why they never got anywhere. To be compared to them we don\u2019t mind in the least, we would take it more as an honour than anything. We\u2019ve just done a charity show at Trent Poly dedicated to Hell\u2019s guitarist Dave Halliday, who committed suicide in January. All the money went to his favourite charity, Cancer Research.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those that haven\u2019t yet seen you, could you describe a Sabbat show? \u201cWe try to be a visual experience as well as a musical one, which is why we have the exploding shield and other silly things. Martin has recently started to act out bits too. Sabbat aren\u2019t a ripped t-shirt sort of band; we like to put on a show.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Is there any crossover from the rock audience at your gigs, or is it all thrashers? \u201cStandard rock fans I guess. There are more thrash fans in the area now which is good, but we don\u2019t get any spiky haired glam fans at our gigs! I suppose a Sabbat fan is just your average nutter!\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you find it sad that rock as a whole is breaking into factions like glam fans, thrash fans, hardcore etc? \u201cNo definitely not! We don\u2019t want glams at our gigs thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s backtrack to that infamous demo, Fragments Of A Faith Forgotten<\/em>. Did it really cost \u00a310? \u201cYes, honestly! We did it with Glynn Hather on a four-track just to see what we sounded like and we thought afterwards \u2018Hey, this is quite good, let\u2019s use it!\u2019. We just got lucky I suppose; Hell spent \u00a3100 on their demo which was awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The packaging for the tape is more elaborate than your run of the mill UK demo. \u201cAt the time we thought it was what everyone did! Since then, everyone has been saying how good it was which surprised us. I don\u2019t understand why other bands don\u2019t do it. Surely it\u2019s common sense?\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you feel Nottingham\u2019s rock scene is faring these days? To me the city always seems to have more rock fans per square inch than any other place I\u2019ve been. \u201cTrue, there are a lot of people here into rock, but the band scene is shit. I saw a band called Heavy Duty who were okay; the music wasn\u2019t brilliant but they could have done a lot more\u2026 your classic ripped t-shirt band. If band\u2019s like that put some thought into what they were doing, they\u2019d get a lot further. There\u2019s also Deuce and other US-influenced bands like Sleazepatrol, but there\u2019s not much to them really; nothing an American band can\u2019t do 100 times better.<\/p>\n

\u201cNationwide, thrash isn\u2019t given much encouragement and there aren\u2019t many bands doing anything. The best know I suppose are ourselves and Onslaught. There\u2019s also Atomkraft, Deathwish and Sacrilege, but most of these bands are ex-punks turned metal. It\u2019s all dead end stuff, because the punks don\u2019t like them anymore and metal fans don\u2019t like them because they used to be punks!\u201d<\/p>\n

You stated in your first biography that Sabbat have a lot more to offer than your Venom\u2019s and Mercyful Fate-type bands. Sabbat\u2019s lyrics convey an open sympathy with Paganism and the practice of black arts. So are you a \u2018real\u2019 black metal band? \u201cI think it\u2019s just the imagery we\u2019re using, but Martin and Frazer are very much into the occult. We try to explore these things with intelligence and a little more depth than Mercyful Fate used to, or Exodus for example. All these so called black metal bands seem obsessed with Satan\u2019s legions marching from hell. A lot of band\u2019s lyrics really dig at Martin. We write about interesting subjects; we haven\u2019t got any songs about bombing down the highway!\u201d<\/p>\n

Surely though, the whole sphere of activities associated with the occult contain certain practices that you just could not get away with putting into print in the context of a song? \u201cActually, Martin has got very near the edge with a song called \u2018Behind The Crooked Cross\u2019, which deals with Hitler and his dealings with the occult. There are certain sections dealing with Hitler\u2019s ideas on racial purity that Noise may well ask us to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

You would readily censor your own songs? \u201cNot really censor, subtle changes maybe, do it in a clever way. Personally, I regard Hitler as a bad thing altogether. You\u2019ll really have to talk to Martin about all this!\u201d<\/p>\n

Which I was going to, and lo and behold Martin phoned me the next day. So on with the conversation.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s delve a little deeper into the song \u2018Behind The Crooked Cross\u2019. Martin takes up the meaning of the song: \u201cI don\u2019t actually mention different races or anything against them, but the whole subject of Hitler is obviously very touchy; more so as we are on a German record company! What the song deals with is the question, was Hitler a madman or a magician?\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your view on that theory? \u201cI think he was obviously a madman. It\u2019s based on a book, Hitler And The Age Of Horus<\/em>. It\u2019s not a statement or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mmm, quite ironic that Sabbat record their first album at Horus studios no less! Whilst we are on the question of magicians (or not as the case may be), how would you view a figure such as Gilles de Rais? Mad or magician (for those not in the know, Gilles de Rais\u2019 pursuit of alchemy led him into the black arts and with it the sodomising and murder of countless children. Nice chap!)? \u201cDefinitely mad! From what I gather, he got lead astray a bit. My interests are in real magic, the force of will over natural powers and people like Crowley and Eliphas L\u00e9vi.\u201d<\/p>\n

But surely \u2018black\u2019 magic always leads to acts of bestiality of some description, and even murder? Are they separable? \u201cI think they are; it\u2019s not necessary to kill children or whatever to perform magic. Sabbat\u2019s interests are just in fascinating subjects in general really, and of course magic is the most incredible subject of all. We aren\u2019t Satanists at all; we just write about interesting things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, Martin and I discussed this a bit further and no doubt we\u2019ll discuss it in further depth at a later stage. If you feel a little cheated at the abrupt curtailment of our conversation, well \u2013 sorry, but there are things better left unsaid. Martin does have a genuine interest in what he writes about and I\u2019m not the type of journalist that needs to pretend he knows more than he actually does and humiliates someone in the process (King Dickson? Ha! Ha!).<\/p>\n

Anyone that knows me will tell you in no uncertain terms that I loathe thrash with a vengeance, so why the Sabbat feature? I believe Sabbat are the right age to develop into a very special metal band (Andy is only 18, and by the time he\u2019s 20 he\u2019ll be tripping over his hair!). Sabbat\u2019s lyrics are nothing short of superb, so now all Martin needs to do is learn how to sing! I mean, these guys can actually arrange songs!<\/p>\n

The album should be out toward the end of the year, so damn well buy it! A thrash band with brains. Whatever next? Dave Reynolds in the Betty Ford clinic?<\/p>\n

Interview taken from Metal Forces, Issue 25 (1987)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SABBAT – War Games Garry Sharpe-Young Metal Forces, Issue 25 (1987) Sabbat (l-r): Andy Sneap, Simon Negus, Martin Walkyier (bottom) and Frazer Craske Anyone wandering around Nottingham on a crowded Saturday afternoon could be forgiven for thinking Americana reigns supreme in Robin Hood land. Sure, there\u2019s a healthy plethora of rock fans roaming the streets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-sabbat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11723,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions\/11723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}