Heavier! Faster! Louder! NWOBHM 6-Part Podcast And Launch Event In Newcastle On 27th February

Members of Venom, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Atomkraft and Fist on panel for Q&A and Meet and Greet at launch event at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle on 27th February 2020.

Towards the end of the ’70s a new breed of band was starting to emerge combining the traditional riffing and guitar solos of Heavy Rock with the energy and spirit of Punk to create what became known as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM).

While Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Saxon led the charge, going on to fill arenas and stadiums world-wide, a whole host of bands followed in their wake including Diamond Head, Samson and Angel Witch.

Liverpool may have had the Merseybeat and Manchester, Madchester but Newcastle became the epicentre of the NWOBHM, built around Neat Records based in Wallsend under the guidance of David Wood and producer Steve Thompson and for a time, Newcastle was the place to be for all things Heavy Metal, with the likes of Venom, Raven, Tygers of Pan Tang, Fist, Atomkraft and Blitzkrieg putting the region on the world map influencing bands such as Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth along the way.

Alan Robson’s Saturday night show, The Hot and Heavy Express on Metro Radio, filled the airwaves bringing Metal old and new into our homes while Rockers from the region gathered in Trillians and the Broken Doll before heading for a night of headbanging fun at the Mayfair or to catch a band at the City Hall. Those were the days.

Now you can relive those heady days through Heavier ! Faster! Louder! – The Story Of Tyneside Heavy Metal, a six-part podcast narrated by The Flashing Blade himself, Alan Robson. The podcasts will explore the origins of Metal in Tyneside; Neat Records and the bands that it developed and a special episode on the rise of the sub-genre, Black Metal, forged in the fiery furnace of Hell by Venom.

The podcast will be available on Apple, Google and Spotify and is launched on 27th February with a very special Metal themed event at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle which will feature a panel of notable guests from Newcastle’s NWOBHM scene including Abaddon from Venom, Robb Weir from Tygers Of Pan Tang, Atomkraft’s Ged Wolf, Bernadette Mooney of War Machine and Harry ‘Hiroshima’ Hill from Fist who will take part in a Q&A hosted by writer, John Tucker and includes a meet and greet and signing session.

The event runs from 5:30pm to 7:30pm on Thursday 27th February before the start of the Brofest NWOBHM Festival with Witchfynde headlining the pre-show event at Trillians ahead of the two-day festival at Newcastle University Student Union on Friday 28th February that features headliners Heavy Pettin’ alongside Saracen and Sacred Alien. On Saturday 29th February Stormchild head the bill playing their first show since 1982 are joined by Overdrive and Skyrider amongst many others.