I
n the early days of 1982, a letter
postmarked ‘California’ arrived at the
three-bedroom semi in Stourbridge in the
West Midlands where Brian Tatler lived
with his parents. Tatler, aged 21, was the
guitarist in Diamond Head, rising stars of the New
Wave Of British Heavy Metal, who had cockily
proclaimed themselves “the natural successors
to Zeppelin”. The letter was from Tatler’s pen pal,
an 18-year-old called Lars Ulrich, an aspiring
drummer and NWOBHM obsessive, who with
his family had recently moved from Denmark to
Newport Beach, California.
A friendship between the two had developed
after Ulrich visited the UK in the summer of ’81,
where he watched Diamond Head play at the
Woolwich Odeon in London, and wangled his
way backstage to meet the band. Ulrich ended
up sleeping on Tatler’s bedroom floor for a week,
and together they went to see another of Ulrich’s
favourite bands, Motörhead, at the Heavy Metal
Holocaust festival at Port Vale football ground in
Stoke-onTrent.
Later, in a letter, scrawled in biro and with
excitable over-use of punctuation, Ulrich thanked
Tatler for looking after him. “I would have been
kinda lost without you guys,” he wrote. He asked if
Diamond Head were any closer to
signing a major record deal. He also
had news to share about the band he
had formed, with a dude named James
Hetfield. “Our band is called Metallica,”
he wrote. “We are getting pretty tight
and writing some good songs. Let’s see
what happens...”
What happened within two short
years was, for Lars Ulrich, a dream
come true; for Tatler, it was something
of a nightmare. Metallica, pioneers of
thrash metal, America’s answer to the
NWOBHM, became one of the biggest
cult bands in the world. Diamond
Head, meanwhile, for all their
brilliance, blew their chance to make it
big like their British peers Iron Maiden
and Def Leppard.But in all the years since then the bond between
Tatler and Ulrich, Diamond Head and Metallica,
has endured. And as Tatler says now, Diamond
Head – whose new album The Coffin Train is
released this month – might never have made it
this far without the support of Metallica. “I don’t
know what I’d have done without them,” he says
with a laugh.
Throughout all the ups and downs in Diamond
Head’s long history, spanning 43 years on and off,
Tatler has been the only constant. There were times
in his life, while the band was inactive, when he was
on the dole, made ends meet playing in tribute acts.
It’s the money he’s made from Metallica recording
four early Diamond Head songs – It’s Electric,
Helpless, The Prince and Am I Evil? – that has allowed
Tatler to keep the band going for the love of it. And
therein lies the beauty of the Diamond Head story.
As Tatler recalls of the summer of ’81, when as
a^ spotty kid Ulrich talked his way into Diamond
Head’s dressing room at the Woolwich Odeon:
“We were amazed that he had come all the way
from America to see us. And we all took the
piss out of his funny accent, half Danish, half
American. But we liked him. We accepted him as
a really keen fan.” That kindness would eventually
be repaid many times over.B
rian Tatler was 16 in 1976 when he
formed Diamond Head with three other
Stourbridge lads: drummer Duncan Scott,
bassist Colin Kimberley, and a singer, Sean Harris,
who could wail and pout like a young Robert
Plant. “It was my first band,” Tatler says. “Same
for all of us.”
The band’s name copied the title of the 1975
debut solo album by Roxy Music guitarist Phil
Manzanera, while the primary influences were
Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
It was in Tatler’s bedroom, where Ulrich would
later doss down, that Diamond Head’s most
famous song was written – a song that would
remain a staple of Metallica’s live set for decades.
With Tatler grinding out a riff inspired by
Sabbath’s Symptom Of The Universe, and Scott –
minus drum kit – bashing away on a biscuit tin,
the feel of it was so heavy that Harris turned to
the^ dark side in his lyrics. “Sean said it needed
something demonic,” Tatler recalls, “and out it
came: ‘My mother was a witch, she was burned alive...’
For the time, it was pretty extreme.” A heavy metal
classic was born: Am I Evil?.
By 1979 the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal
was in full swing, and, as Tatler says: “It was perfect
timing for us. I went to see Maiden and all these
other great young bands, and I thought:
we fit right into this.”
Diamond Head’s debut album
Lightning To The Nations (aka the White
Album, for its pure-as-snow sleeve) was
self-financed, and released in 1980 on
their own label, Happy Face. Only 2,000
copies were pressed but, as Tatler says:
“The album got a great reaction.” Sounds
writer Geoff Barton declared: “There
are more good riffs in your average
single Diamond Head song than there
are in the first four Black Sabbath
albums.” Lightning To The Nations was
a defining album in the NWOBHM’s
peak year, equal to Maiden’s self-titled
debut and Saxon’s Wheels Of Steel.
For Lars Ulrich it was also a road
map. As he said in 1998: “DiamondInspired by heavyweight rockers such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Diamond Head
seemed to be poised for major NWOBHM stardom. Yet for all their brilliance – and being
befriended by early uber-fan Lars Ulrich – they remained cult favourites.Words: Paul ElliottThe^ ‘classic’^ early^ Diamond^
Head, circa^1980 :^ (l-r)^ Brian^
Tatler,^ Colin^ Kimberley,^ Sean^
Harris, Duncan^ Scott.54 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM