THUNDERSTICK Interview

It’s been over 30 years since Thunderstick’s last album but the masked drummer is uncaged once more. While chained up at a safe distance away, Mick Burgess caught up with the mysterious skinsman to talk about his new album Something Wicked This Way Comes, his days in Samson and the ins and outs of drumming with Iron Maiden.

Your new album Something Wicked This Way Comes, is due out in a few days. Are you excited ahead of its release?

We had a few little issues which delayed the release a little but everything is clear now and it’ll be out within the next week or so. I can’t wait for it to come out.

It’s been over 30 years since your last Thunderstick album, Beauty and the Beasts. Why is the time right now to unleash a new album?

It’s been about 33 years since my last one. I did put an album out in 2011 called Echoes From The Analogue Asylum which was really just me remastering a load of stuff I’d put out in the ’80s. There were a couple of tracks that hadn’t been put out before but this time it is all new material. I did it because my one time partner and vocalist in the band Jodee Valentine died last year. It wasn’t so much the fact that she died that hurt me so much; it was that she’d got early onset Alzheimer’s disease and had been in a care home for 5 years, she was only 55 when she died. One of the guys who used to visit her took a copy of the Echoes album in to play to her but she couldn’t recognise her own voice and that really did shock me. She was my wife for 5 years and I thought there was so much material that we used to do back in the day that had never seen the light. I thought about it and decided to record that material and that was the inspiration behind it. 7 songs on the album are from that time and 3 new songs had been written for the album.

Why didn’t you record those songs at that time?

The band split up and my marriage ended, Jodee went back to The States and stopped singing but as she was classically trained on piano and she went back to giving piano lessons again. She stepped out of the limelight completely. It was a big shock for me when she became ill and I hope that something good comes out of it with this album.

30 years is a long time to be away from recording. What have you been up to in the intervening years?

I did a lot of session work and stuff with friends. I didn’t do it as Thunderstick though. I stepped back from that and just played as me. I also did some writing and other bits and pieces. I also had a daughter late in life and watched her growing up so I’ve lived a life but suddenly I’m back in the spotlight so it’s all really good.

Obviously the loss of Jodee Valentine was a big blow. How did you go about bringing someone in that could sing her songs?

I didn’t want a carbon copy of Jodee as it was still a bit raw. I didn’t want those comparisons to be made so I wanted a vocalist that was very different. Jodee came from musical theatre whereas Lucy V has more of a smoky Blues voice and from the moment I heard her and thought that was it. She was perfect for the project.

Was having Dave Kilford, who was with you in the 80s, an important part of putting the band back together?

Yes it was. He’d played with me in the ’80s but unfortunately never got to record these songs so when I asked him if he’d like to play on the album he was well up for it.

What about the rest of the band. Where did they come into the picture?

I got Martin Shellard through the guy whose studio I was recording at. He said he had a mate who’d done some work with Roger Daltery and was a great guitarist. I met up with him and really liked him as a guy. Dave and Martin have really complimentary styles when they play together. With Rex, I met him through a gig by Steve Harris’s British Lion. I’d posted something on Facebook about it the next day and he got in touch and said he was standing behind me. I noticed he was holding a bass on his Facebook page. Originally I was going to use John McCoy but it didn’t happen because he was busy doing some stuff and he also has this antiques business now. I thought it must be preordained to have someone in the band called Rex Thunderbolt. I usually play with pick players so this is the first time I’ve played with someone who plays differently and Rex is very sympathetic to my style of playing.

How did it feel when you first got together and played together?

Martin lives in Wales so he was tied up there and couldn’t make the rehearsals but playing with the other guys for the first time was incredible. I’d gone through a lot of stuff with Rex and Dave beforehand so ironed out a lot of stuff which meant we didn’t waste time at the rehearsals so we could go in and start attacking it straight away so it was really good.

Most of the songs were already written in the ’80s. When did you start work on the three new songs?

When we were in the studio. We had some ideas knocking around and one of them a ballad called I Close My Eyes just came to me straight away and I wrote that in homage to Jodee. I’d never written a ballad before so I think it’s rather special. It’s not representative of Thunderstick the band but people really seem to like it.

What were the other new songs?

Encumbrance is one and I love the off the wall solo on that one with a bit of Frank Zappa in there. The other one was Go Sleep With The Enemy which is the song that we’ve put out from the album that people can listen to. It’s not actually a single as such, it’s just something we put out so people can hear where we are.

Were those older songs you’d already written complete songs or did they need some work to knock them into shape?

A bot of both really. They were complete songs and recorded to demo but as soon as I got the new band together I thought we should bring those ideas up to date. I think we got the best of both worlds really with a song rooted in the ’80s style wise but brought right up to date. It’s still very much New Wave of British Heavy Metal but still very much in the now. We recorded 10 songs in total and those all made the album but while we were recording we were coming up with some new ideas for the next album.

It’s a great way to bridge the old and the new and a great springboard for the next record?

As a musician you always think that way. You’re always looking to the next record even when the current one isn’t out yet. Having the rapport with the musicians I’ve got we can actually start writing as a band next time instead of just using my material and I’m really looking forward to that.

What bands have influenced you in the years since your last release?

I’m like a sponge really and absorb all music. I have such an eclectic taste. I love Rammstein and Gong. I like to take as much on as I can.

Are you hoping to hit the road and play some shows once the album is out?

I really want to play live with this band. It’s all down to availability and to finance. For a band of my size, a five-piece band and I still have a theatrical theme to the show, I just need to see how to put it all together. I really want to do it and what would be brilliant would be a support tour with somebody but that would depend on how much the buy on was. Someone suggested Rainbow but could you imagine the buy on for that. We actually did the Down To Earth tour with Samson and that was great but now to get on a tour that size would cost a large amount of money. Maybe I should tap up Steve Harris next time I see him. I could say Steve, do you remember me? I used to be in your band. Ha!

What sort of setlist would you hope to do a mix of Thunderstick and some Samson stuff too?

There’d be a couple of Samson numbers for sure. Definitely Riding With The Angels, probably Earth Mother as a lot of people like that and probably Vice Versa as well as plenty of Thunderstick material.

Going right back to the early days. Who were the drummers that inspired you to start playing the drums?

I was collecting for a jumble sale for my Uncle and someone threw out a pair of military drum sticks and they didn’t make it to the jumble sale. I grabbed them and started beating up my parents furniture which didn’t go down too well. They thought they could save their furniture by taking away my drum sticks or advancing it further and buying me a drum kit and fortunately they bought me a drum kit. I was 9 years old and I hadn’t had a lesson, everything I played came straight from the heart. My influences are very eclectic and include Pierre Moerlen, the drummer from Gong. I liked Guy Evans from Van der Graaf Generator, Prairie Prince from The Tubes too and of course Keith Moon, John Bonham and Ian Paice. I love the diversity of listening to those different drummers and then you formulate your own style. I went off to Sicily at 18 and joined a band there and played all over the Mediterranean and that’s how I cut my teeth. Before that when I was about 15 or 16 I was in a band with some school mates called Enomina Patrice and we supported Stealers Wheel and UFO and that was the first time I was in a band with a structure where there was a beginning, middle and end.

Before you were in Samson you were the drummer for Iron Maiden for some time. How did you end up joining them?

There was an advert for a drummer and a keyboard player which Tony Moore ended up getting. I’d gone to an audition and there was a huge corridor full of drummers tapping away on things and I was shortlisted and eventually picked. I stayed with them for 7 or 8 months. It wasn’t that long really.

Had any of the songs that made the first couple of albums been written at that point?

Yes, definitely. I have a tape from 1977 on reel to reel which I’ve uploaded 30 second blasts from last year as Maiden says there’s no recordings that exist before the Soundhouse Tapes. I disproved that as I have a tape. People were going wild about it and wanted to hear more. Obviously I can’t do more with it as they’d be down on me like a ton of bricks. Charlotte The Harlot, Prowler, Drifter, Sanctuary and most of the songs that made up the first album, we were playing all of those at that time.

Why did you leave?

For no particular reason really. The band were in their formative years and they wanted to expand but it wasn’t right especially having a keyboard player, that didn’t work at all. As Steve was training to be a draughtsman he intimated he was going to go back to university and wasn’t sure what he wanted. We were due to do this gig and the singer, Dennis Wilcox didn’t turn up. The rest of us did and we were wondering if we were still going to do it but we didn’t have a vocalist and Steve wasn’t going to do it. That was really the end of it. I wasn’t sacked and I didn’t leave. It’s just after that gig that never happened I went off and jammed with other people and they never phoned me back and that was it until Samson went out on the Heavy Metal Crusade and when we were putting that together and we were looking for support bands. I mentioned this great band I used to be in and we went out with Angel Witch opening, Iron Maiden second on the bill and Samson headlining. We also had Neal Kay the DJ on the tour. By that time Maiden were great, were starting to make big inroads and building up a big following.

You were actually invited back some time later. What stopped you returning?

I’d also formulated the Thunderstick character by then and we were just about to go in and do the Head On album and I got a phone call just before Christmas from Steve Harris asking if I’d come back to Iron Maiden but not as Thunderstick but as me. I thought about it over Christmas and hummed and hahed about it but I’d just got the front cover of Sounds. I went and played with them after Boxing Day and Rod Smallwood was there too. He told me Maiden would be bigger than Led Zeppelin. I thought it was really good that the manager strongly believed in the band. Little did I know that he was right. They needed an answer right away. I went away and rehearsed with Samson, they didn’t call and I didn’t call and the next thing John McCoy called me to say Clive Burr was the new drummer in Maiden and ironically he was ex-Samson. There was a time I was touring with Samson with Maiden on my drum cases and Clive was touring with Maiden with Samson on his. It’s a small world.

When did you join Samson?

I joined Samson in 1979. Paul and I had bumped into each other a few years earlier. We used to use this place that was a farm in Chislehurst and it had two power points and you had to drive everything off those and you could almost see the electricity sparking from the walls. He rehearsed there in the middle of nowhere and the band I was with at the time rehearsed there so we’d pass each other every now and then and speak. When I applied to join Samson I had no idea it was Paul’s band so when I walked through the door I thought, oh, it’s you. That was a really good start and we both loved those early bands like The Groundhogs, Mountain and Grand Funk and of course Hendrix so we had a lot of common ground. It was great to have a bass player like Chris Aylmer too as he could anchor everything to the floor and enable Paul and I to play off each other. Bruce Dickinson said in an interview that after I had left the band the unpredictability had gone out of the band and didn’t have that same feel as when I was there. You’d never know where we were going to veer off because of our love of three-piece interplay. With bands like Maiden and KISS they are super slick and there’s no room for error. The only things that change are the guitar solos on the night.

When did the mask come into your show?

Very early on. I was into Alice Cooper and The Tubes. I loved all of that kind of thing. I saw The Tubes last year and it’s great to see Fee Waybill still coming out as Quay Lewd with his silver suit on. The mask thing for me came about because there was no social media back then it was just music magazines and papers. You’d always see the singer and guitarist but all you’d see of the drummer was a row of drums and cymbals and the top of somebody’s head. Obviously people like Keith Moon were an exception but other than a few drummers most people wouldn’t be able to name any so I thought I’d create a faceless drummer and gave it the name Thunderstick and the rest of it is history.

Did you feel almost trapped into always wearing it in the way that KISS were and did you ever plan a formal unmasking?

We’d talked about it depending on how things had gone, maybe at Madison Square Gardens or something. The funny thing is I started living the life as Thunderstick and wasn’t able to tell where I ended and Thunderstick began. Before we got into town I’d get masked up and had to put all this horrible greasepaint around my mouth and eyes to accentuate the whites of my eyes and teeth so I’d get into character even before we’d arrived and I checked into hotels like that too. Even the support bands we toured with had no idea who I was and quite often I’d stand next to them having a drink and they’d be talking to Bruce, Paul and Chris and I’d hear them ask where Thunderstick was. They’d just say I’d run off screaming somewhere. I’d stand there listening and thinking, if only you knew.

Did you have to take security measures to stop the press from photographing you?

At first I did and it was quite a while before I started using my real name and letting people know who I really was.

Did wearing the mask cause any trouble for you?

At the time I was doing it there was a guy called the Cambridge rapist who used to wear a mask. My manager tried to get me to go out with my mask on after a show in Cambridge which I thought was an awful idea so I didn’t do it. Sounds magazine also didn’t help by awarding me the best Dressed Cambridge Rapist Look-alike Award. As a result there were Women’s Lib protestors tearing down our posters and protesting outside of gigs. They said I was glorifying the abuse of women which just wasn’t true. When I put Thunderstick together a lot of that figured in my thinking so I decided to bring a female singer in as a perfect counterfoil to what I was experiencing. I thought it was the perfect dichotomy with the beast at the back on the drums and the beauty at the front singing.

Just to add to the menace you played in a cage for a while too. That must’ve gone down well with your fans?

Do you not agree that most drummers should play behind a cage?

Why did you leave just as things were getting going?

I wanted to do a more theatrical thing whereas Paul and Bruce didn’t want that. They said we’d done the theatrics, the smoke bombs and everything but wanted to be recognised for the band that we were and to be more like the bands that we liked. They wanted to go down a more Blues route. Bruce didn’t stay much longer as it happens. He did a couple of warm ups at the Reading Festival with Mel Gaynor on drums as my replacement and he of course went on to join Simple Minds and then Bruce left to be replaced by Nicky Moore.

As you left before Bruce, did you ever get the chance to play with his successor, Nicky Moore?

Yes I did. We got together for the reunion shows in 2000 where we did the Wacken Festival and a show at the Astoria with Angel Witch. The great thing about having Nicky in the band is that it was like two totally different bands. Bruce did the more Hard Rock stuff while Nicky was more Bluesy. I was able to play some of the Don’t Get Mad Get Even stuff and Nicky was able to sing stuff originally recorded with Bruce like Vice Versa. If we’d known it was going to be the last shows we would do together, we knew of Chris but had no idea Paul was ill too, then we may have done more. Even when I’d left and had Thunderstick going and Paul was doing his stuff we’d phone each other every week. We were still best of mates. It was terrible to lose Paul and Chris.

You did play with Paul on and off again over the years including a show where Ace Frehley joined you. How did that end up happening?

We did that at the Roxy. Me and Paul were out doing our own thing then and we got together and started playing and he said we should do a couple of gigs as we’d never played in The States. Through a mutual friend Ace came down to a rehearsal and we played together and he played with us at a show. I love Ace’s guitar playing, that New York slung from the hip style of playing. We did Roll Over Beethoven and Crossroad’s I think it was. He was a lovely guy.

Thunderburst and Ides of March by Maiden are essentially the same song that you wrote with Steve Harris. Were you a bit miffed when you didn’t get a credit on the Maiden version even though you credited Harris on your version?

At the time I was with them me and Steve used to do these bass and drum workouts. I started doing this drum pattern and Steve played some stuff to it. I thought it was great. We never ended up using it and I never thought anything of it. When we started doing Head On I brought it to the band as an instrumental. We recorded it and called it Thunderburst as it was my song. One day Clive Burr visited Paul and Paul played him Head On and he was loving it. They’d been demoing some stuff for Killers and when Paul put the second side of Head On and Thunderburst came on, Clive nearly fell out of his chair. He then handed us a Maiden cassette and played us Ides of March. I ended up getting summoned to EMI in Manchester Square. Steve, Rod a few representatives of EMI and some lawyers were there and I was told in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances was I going to get any song writing credit on the Iron Maiden album but Steve would take 50% of the royalties of the Thunderburst track and if I wanted to contest it they would see me in court. It’s a bit of a bugbear of mine in so much as Steve has admitted that I had song writing input otherwise he’d have said he’d want sole song writing credit for Thunderburst too. He wanted 50% of Thunderburst but I wouldn’t get anything from Ides of March and I just accepted it because I had no legal representation. I’m 62 years old now and I don’t want to get dragged through the courts so I’ll leave it. Hey ho, life goes on.

Are you still in touch with Steve Harris and Bruce these days?

They’re in a different world. They are multi-millionaires jet setting around the world. I don’t live in that world. I did see Steve in December and it was good to catch up for a brief chat but he was there for the fans so I couldn’t take up too much of his time as he had a line of people waiting to say Hi to. Last time I saw Bruce was at Clive Burr’s funeral. I do have his phone number and email but he is so busy with Maiden and all of his other stuff. Maybe I should just grab the phone and have a chat with him and that would be nice.

What about other projects. Do you have plans to do anything else over the coming months or is Thunderstick your main focus now?

I think it’s work as usual. The interest in all this has taken me by surprise and has made me feel really humble. I’ve done this through Pledgemusic and have been astounded by the support. People have loved what I’ve done and it’s been so gratifying so I’m looking at Thunderstick as a long term thing now rather than to just put something out in memory of Jodee. Maybe we’ll go out and do some gigs and festivals and stuff like that. Watch this space basically.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is out now.