As Sean Harris said at the time: “We wanted to call
the album Makin’ Music. That way we could justify
all the different things on the record.” But during
the recording, both Colin Kimberley and Duncan
Scott left the band. “That,” Tatler says, “is a measure
of how difficult that album was to make. It split the
band in half, and it was never the same after that.”
Tatler and Harris finished Canterbury with bassist
Merv Goldsworthy, who went on to form AOR
band FM, and drummer Robbie France, later
a founding member of Skunk
Anansie. But after all that went into
that album, it was sunk by a
manufacturing fault on the first
20,000 vinyl copies. “You couldn’t
play the record,” Tatler sighs. “It just
jumped all the way through.” With
so many copies returned, Canterbury
reached only No.32 in the UK, in
September 1983.
A month earlier, Diamond Head
had played to an audience of 60,000 at the
Monsters Of Rock festival. In late ’83 they finally
toured in Europe, with the Ian Gillan-fronted Black
Sabbath. But by the end of that year, they had been
dropped by MCA, and after demos for a fourth
album received no interest, they split up in 1985.
In the late 80s, Tatler formed a new group, Radio
Moscow, but that fizzled out when they failed to
get a record deal.
Harris also had a chastening experience, with
Notorious, his much-hyped project with guitaristRobin George. The duo signed to
Geffen, but their debut album was
deleted three weeks after its release in- Soon after, Harris and Tatler
reunited to work on a new Diamond
Head album, which was eventually completed in
1993, with drummer Karl Wilcox and bassist Pete
Vuckovic, who later led the band 3 Colours Red.
Death And Progress was a fine album, the old
magic still there – the power in Tatler’s riffs and
Harris’s voice. There were also
guest appearances from Dave
Mustaine and Black Sabbath’s Tony
Iommi. And as the album was
released, the band’s most vocal and
influential supporter offered them
a perfect opportunity.
By 1993, Metallica had become
superstars. For their show at Milton
Keynes National Bowl on June 5,
Lars Ulrich chose Diamond Head
as the opening act. But in the days before the show,
Harris told Tatler that he was moving on. So when
Diamond Head took to the stage in front of 50,000
Metallica fans, Harris, in a symbolic gesture, wore
a Grim Reaper costume.
As Tatler recalls wearily: “In Sean’s mind it was
crystal-clear what the Grim Reaper meant: this is
the end of Diamond Head. I didn’t know he was
going to do it until we were going on. What could
I do? As soon as that gig was finished, we were
pretty much done.”
It was seven years later that Tatler
made one last attempt to resurrect the
band with Harris. The pair made
another album, only for Harris to insist
that they go with a new name, Host,
instead of Diamond Head. At that
point Tatler knew he couldn’t go any
further with Harris: “It was very
difficult working with Sean. And I got
tired of it, years and years of it. So
I decided I had to get a new singer.”
A replacement, another Midlands-
based vocalist, Nick Tart, was found in- He stayed with the band for 10
years, during which time they made
two good but overlooked albums: All
Will Be Revealed (2005) and What’s In
Your Head? (2007). When Tart left, on
amicable terms, Tatler brought in
Danish singer Rasmus Bom Andersen.
Andersen, in his mid-thirties, made his
first appearance on a Diamond Head
album on 2016’s simply titled Diamond
Head, its heavy thunder a throwback to
the NWOBHM days.
In contrast, this year’s The Coffin Train
is what Tatler calls “Diamond Head
with a modern twist”. Opening track
Belly Of The Beast is an old-school head-
banger. “Everything still starts with the
riff,” Tatler states. “That’s the essence of
Diamond Head.” But in the title track,
inspired by an apocalyptic vision
Andersen had in a dream, there is
a depth and beauty in his voice
that is reminiscent of Chris
Cornell. “It’s a new dimension,”
Tatler says. “With Ras, the band is
really moving forward.”
As for the past, Tatler remains
philosophical. He reconciled with
Colin Kimberley and Duncan
Scott many years ago. In October
2017 the three of them had a few
beers with Lars after a Metallica gig. And it was
at a previous Metallica event, their thirtieth
anniversary blowout in San Francisco in 2011,
that Tatler last spoke with Sean Harris.
“We went on separate planes and had separate
hotels,” Tatler recalls. “But we got up and played
a few of the old songs with Metallica. And after
all they’ve done for Diamond Head, we certainly
weren’t going to have a fight in front of them.”
Tatler is aware that Harris is currently working
on a new Notorious album – revealed by Robin
George via Facebook – but says, evenly: “Good
luck to him. All that negative stuff... it’s history.”
He prefers to remember the good times they had,
and the great music they made together – the
music that lit a fire in the teenage Lars Ulrich, and
so began a friendship that has had such a positive
effect on Tatler’s life.
“It hasn’t always been easy being in Diamond
Head,” he says. “That’s an understatement. But
I still love the creativity of it, the feeling you get
when you pick up a guitar and your fingers just fall
on a riff. After all this time, this band still means so
much to me. And having Lars as a fan... Well, that
turned out all right, didn’t it?”
The Coffin Train is out now via Silver Lining Music.“I don’t know
what I’d have
done without
Metallica.”
Brian Tatler
The current band: (clockwise from
bottom left): Dean Ashton, Andy
Abberley, Karl Wilcox, Brian Tatler,
Rasmus Andersen.56 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COMDIAMOND HEAD