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With a new compilation album ‘TO HELLION AND BACK’ and new songs in the pipeline, it seems that the witching hour is upon us once more, with the unstoppable queen of hell ANN BOLEYN back from the depths. IAN RAVENDALE tried not to lose his head back in Issue 10.

With a music career that stretches back to playing gigs at 14 (“I looked much older!” she says) Hellion vocalist Ann Boleyn has seen it all. Including an attempted break in of her house by a band manager, later jailed in a murder-for- hire case. “James Howard Paul Jr was charged with trying to hire someone to kill his wife,” recounts Ann. “He’d been brought in as an accountant for Hellion. I was approached by the District Attorney and asked to testify. And of course I was going to tell the truth. At that time it became a very dangerous situation for me. Very scary. After I talked to the police he attempted to break into my house when I was by myself. He ended up serving prison time.” Hellion was formed by Boleyn, at that point primarily a keyboard player, guitarist Ray Schenck, bassist Peyton Tuthill and drummer Sean Kelley in late 1981/early 1982. Unable to find singer, Schenck, Tuthill and Boleyn shared vocals with the latter eventually stepping out from behind the keyboard to become lead vocalist by default, as she explains: “I’d done some back-up singing when I was at high school, but never was a lead singer. Particularly a lead singer that isn’t attached to a musical instrument!” When they started Hellion didn’t have any sort of master plan as to the direction the music was going to take, as Boleyn relates: “All of us had come out of bands who’d been trying for a number of years to write our own music and not play cover songs. You get to a point where you’ve got great songs and try to get a record deal and time after time after time things just seem to fall apart and all the work everyone had done would be wasted. All of us decided that we just wanted to get out and play. We were so sick of trying to write the ultimate song to get us the record deal. So it was like, ‘Let’s go out and play some covers. We’ll worry about writing our own songs later. We were playing AC/DC, Krokus, Rainbow, Sabbath and Priest.”

Hellion built up a following around Los Angeles and in 1983 put out a four original song EP on their own Bongus Loadus Records. UK rock label Music For Nations heard the EP and gave Hellion enough money to record two additional tracks so they could issue it in the UK as the ‘Hellion’ mini-LP. Recalls Boleyn: “It started to gel after we got the Music For Nations deal. We were at the point where we no longer had to fit our music into the cove tunes set. That’s when we came up with ‘Break The Spell’, ‘Up From The Depths’ and ‘Backstabber’, where we were really going on our own path.” Part of Hellion’s problem was that the niche-obsessed US record and radio industries couldn’t make up their minds where Hellion should be slotted into, as Boleyn acknowledges: “When we started out people didn’t know how to categorise Hellion, especially my singing! They weren’t used to having a female who sang with as much power and intensity. Some people were saying we were a punk band, which we obviously weren’t! We approached a number of labels, trying to get a deal like everybody else was in Los Angeles. There was such stereotyping with regard to females in music – especially singers – that the people who had the power to do anything just didn’t know what to do. “Having come up as a musician rather than a singer I wasn’t into wearing garter belts on stage to get attention. I figured if the music was good enough people would like it. It was offensive having people tell me that I had to dress in lingerie. Ed Leffler, the manager of Van Halen, had offered to put me on a retainer salary, which would have been very good considering how broke I was at that time! But it was on the condition that we fire Ray and that I get fake boobs, my teeth fixed and plastic surgery! I found it horribly insulting because that isn’t going to make the music better!”At this point, Hellion were creating more waves in the UK than they were back at home. Both Sounds and Kerrang! had latched onto the band and the Music For Nations mini-LP made #6 on the papers’ rock chart. Ronnie James Dio heard and liked Hellion and offered to produce a couple of tracks with the band – ‘Run For Your Life’ and ‘Get Ready’ – both of which appear on the new ‘To Hellion And Back’ compilation. Niji Management, run by Ronnie’s wife Wendy, took over Hellion’s management.

Support shows with Dio, WASP and Whitesnake followed and this should have been the start of bigger and better things for Ann Boleyn and Hellion. Not the case, as she explains: “There was a lot of political things going on at the time. I was told that record companies weren’t interested in a metal band whose singer sang as heavy as me. Other people, including Ronnie, said they couldn’t believe it. I was happy to carry on and continue but in early 1985 I was called into the management office and told that my services were no longe required for the band. “At the time Hellion was friends with a lot of the bands from ‘84-85 that got major record deals. Some of those bands had a fraction of the following that Hellion did! As time passed, the guys in the band were getting very frustrated. Ronnie was doing wonderful things for us but when he went out of town he wasn’t there to make sure things went through. It was going month after month without any record deal.” Boleyn’s former bandmates drafted in vocalist Richard Parrico and re-christened themselves Burn when the tenacious Boleyn won back the Hellion name. She immediately put Hellion Mk2 together, making sure that she was in control this time round: “Initially Hellion was a band where we were all equal, with equal voting rights, which is how I ended up out of the band! Beginning with the Mk2 line-up with Alex Campbell, Chet Thompson and Greg Pecka I required the other members to sign an agreement acknowledging that they didn’t own the band name and don’t own the logo. From that point forward I said ‘I’m quality control and have a veto!’ They get songwriting royalties but when it comes to the ownership of the name and business rights they have no option on that.” A split with Niji Management followed shortly after. In 1986 Hellion’s new album ‘Screams In The Night’ was released by Music For Nations in the UK and Roadrunner Records in Europe.

The outfit were still being ignored b the major US labels at least in part because of their uncompromising ultra-heavy musical direction and Boleyn’s interest in the occult, which was a recurring theme in Hellion’s lyrics. The lack of a deal caused the disintegration of Hellion Mk2 and most of the bands original line-up returned following the demise of Burn.In the mid-’80s bands like Heart and Starship had brought in outside mainstream songwriters like Diane Warren, Albert Hammond and Bernie Taupin to come up with the hit singles needed to give their careers a kick in the pants. Hellion never contemplated doing the same, for reasons that Boleyn is happy to reveal: “You’ve got to remember who my mentor is! Working with Ronnie he’d say; as a singer if you’re going to be worth anything you need to be writing your own lyrics and your own melodies. It was never a consideration to bring in outside songwriters!”

To get the ‘Screams In The Night’ album a US release Boleyn decided to form New Renaissance Records, as she remembers: “The first Hellion mini LP sold very well on import and the record’s distributors wanted me to bring them more similar music. I didn’t have any money – I could barely pay my rent and half the time my electricity was off. I had this established relationship with these independent record distributors so why not press our own record and put it out? I was surrounded and supported by a number of people allowing Hellion to do things like get a video filmed tha was good enough to be on MTV. “I was literally running a record company from my living room! After that I was approached by a number of other bands that wanted help. They were in the same position. They had demos that they wanted distribution for. I tried to help them as best I could. A number of people that had bands on New Renaissance worked at the label. It was very much a co-op, people would come in from some of the better-known bands and then call radio stations and magazines to help the lesser-known bands. I’d be on the phone trying to get a magazine to do an article on Prong or Sepultura. Then those guys would come in and help with Hellion.”

Several further Hellion albums, including ‘Postcards From The Asylum’ and ‘The Black Book’ followed along with gigs in the UK, the first ‘Monsters Of Rock’ festival in the former USSR and an Ann Boleyn solo tour of Japan. Hellion were then put on hold as Ann went to university. She graduated from law school with a degree in Germanic languages from UCLA in 2003 and a law degree in 2007. This decision to re-start her life went deeper than wanting an alternative to the music business as Boleyn reveals: “I’ve had problems with stalkers from the 1980s onwards. There were three in particular. There was one who was much more of a threat. He was a Middle Eastern gentleman from Egypt who hired private investigators to follow me to the point where I was having to live in a high security apartment building. He was very concerning and I realised I had to alter my lifestyle.” Boleyn knew she had to evaluate her options very carefully. Did she consider relocating? “I didn’t, because I figured that with the type of investigators that this very wealthy guy had hired they would find me anyway. S I went to law school and surrounded myself all the time with people that knew about the problem and were supportive. I ran marathons and a lot of the people I ran with were police officers. I had a person that I car pooled wit who was married to a police officer also. S from the time I left my house I felt pretty safe. It was made clear to me by some people that worked for the police department that if I was going to hang out in Hollywood and did what I usually did with regard to rehearsals and shows they didn’t think my outcome would be very good. “I haven’t heard anything from the guy in a very long time. I’ve always had a pretty good sense of when people are following me. [Hellion drummer] Simon Wright is my boyfriend and I think when people realise I’m not just this lonely person that’s out there, that’s made a difference. There’s been not one peep from anybody for years.”Following on from her studies, in addition to playing with Hellion, Boleyn practices law. “I’m a civil rights attorney. I run my own practice and take on my own cases. I work out of my home, which has an office attache to it. I represent individuals – workers usually – against major corporations where they’ve been done wrong. I’ve represented a number of female clients, a couple of whom were sexually assaulted by their bosses then reported it to Human Resources and got fired! I lov representing individuals in those kinds of cases. I don’t generally represent corporations. I can set my own hours and sometimes I’ll work 20 hours a day on a case.”

It all sounds very Erin Brockovic, as Boleyn agrees: “It is! To be honest I hate most attorneys. Can’t stand them! I had to do something for a few years because my life was in danger. I figured the option where I could work on my own without having to have an 8 to 5 job was law. But if I’m going to do it, I’m not going to represent some horrible insurance company trying to cheat somebody. I take my own cases and decide which ones I want and which ones I don’t. I can go on tour for a couple of months and another attorney will take my cases.” Being Ann Boleyn from Hellion is a plus with many of the clients she represents: “A lot of the people I know don’t trust attorneys. And rightfully so! They can talk to me about situations that they may not be comfortable talking to a typical attorney. I’ve got a number of cases from people who are peripherally involved in the music or entertainment businesses. They can come to me and tell me anything and I’m not going to be surprised!”

Hellion had recorded some demos in the 1980s with legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott who had worked with David Bowie, The Beatles and Elton John. The new line-up of the band with Ann, Simon Wright, guitarist Maxxxwell Carlisle and keyboard player Scott Warren are planning to release ‘Karma’s A Bitch’, a mini LP produced by Ken Scott later in the year with the taster track ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ appearing on the new ‘To Hellion And Back’ compilation. Says Boleyn: “Ken Scott is a wonderful, wonderful man! And an incredibly talented engineer and producer. I can’t emphasise that enough. We had worked with him early on after the demos we’d done with Ronnie. We went in with three days rehearsal and musicians who had never played together and somehow it came together! It was pretty surprising to me! Ken’s experience really showed!”

Ann Boleyn has always stuck to her principles and followed her own course. But she’s under no illusions about how the music business works: “It’s always been very male dominated. And with heavy metal videos in the 1980s you almost couldn’t not have a female model in a swimsuit crawling over a car! “Even now there’s still a lot of undue focus of image over substance. I’ve learned that on Facebook. If I put a picture of the guys in the band up we’ll get a certain number of ‘Likes’. Put a picture of me in my leather pants and we’ll get four or five times the amount I’ve always been appreciative of the fans but ultimately it’s about the music.”Hellion tour Europe and the UK later this year and are expected to play several major festivals‘

www.Hellion.us

With ‘Prelude’ WYTCH HAZEL released one of the most excited NWOBHM-inspired debuts of 2016. IRON FIST’s LOUISE BROWN gets to got with its creation and the band’s white metal leanings in Issue 18

It’s midday on the third day of a festival. Most of the attendees are still stewing in their tents, regretting that last case of Koppaberg, but a few fans have dragged themselves out of bed and are heading to church. Church? At a music festival?It could only be the work of the UK’s own heavy metal minstrels, Wytch Hazel.“I messaged Jacob [Hector, Muskerock’s promoter] to say we’ve got this album coming out and would you fancy putting us on? He said ‘I’m not sure, I might have a slot’ and then the guy from our label sent him the album and he was like ‘Oh, I really love it, I want you to do two gigs. I want you to fill the shoes of Ashbury and do the gig in the church.”If you know Wytch Hazel you’ll know two things. They love Ashbury – just listen to their debut full-length ‘Prelude’ for proof – and that Colin Hendra, Wytch Hazel founder and lyricist is a committed Christian who isn’t afraid to fl in the face of confrontation and put his faith at the centre of his compositions. This was a dream offer.“I messaged the guy at the church, he said he wanted it to be part of their liturgy, and because a lot of the songs on the album are biblically-based, I said to feel free to use those readings. Our firs song was ‘Surrender’, which was like surrendering to God, so he was incorporating that.”This is not the usual subject matter for Iron Fist, but it’s refreshing. Wytch Hazel are a breath of fresh air for the UK heavy metal community.

They formed in 2011 and quickly caught the attention of the then-burgeoning underground scene with their accurately NWOBHM-looking single ‘Surrender’. Go-to traditional metal stable High Roller picked them up for a split with Detroit’s Borrowed Time a year later and quickly followed it with a collection of their demos and singles to date. Touring and line-up changes followed, as is the rite for most young bands, and in April this year they released their firs full-length on Bad Omen Records. Dressed like medieval peasants and playing a distinctly lilting, progressive, harmonious strain of classic heavy metal Wytch Hazel stand out for the best of reasons. Their lyrics are just one small part of their appeal. And Colin believes he stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Behemoth and Watain both in rebellion and belief.“When I started the band it was really an undertone,” he says of the religious aspect to the songs he writes. “At first people didnt realise that there was a Christian in the band, because if you listen to songs like ‘Surrender’ you don’t immediately think that. So when the EP came out people were like, ‘Oh, there’s this white metal band’, and I was thinking ‘Oh no, here we go’, but mum brought me up on soft rock, but listening to Iron Maiden, there was distinctly an era there. It sounded old, very different, quite heavy but still listenable. People had shown me Slipknot but it was over the top, and this guy leant me Iron Maiden and it was heavy, melodic, so much to listen to. It got me and it was probably around that time that I started to play guitar. Not long after I started a band, we got a small following and then because you like Iron Maiden you end up finding other bands who also d, and we discovered Eliminator from Lancaster. A guy from Eliminator showed me the more obscure side of the things. By that point I was already listening to Judas Priest and Saxon,but he said ‘What about Witchfinder General Dark Star, Virtue?’ and we went in deep. We covered the whole spectrum from early Priest right up to W.A.S.P.”Colin went on to play drums for Eliminator, who have fast become another of Iron Fist’s favourite young British heavy metal bands. It just goes to show what a family is growing here in the UK, especially of those in their 20s, who like Colin turned their back on the ‘90s nu-metal dirge to find comfort in the organic early heavy metal sound. Wytch Hazel and their peers are keeping old school heavy metal alive and in the process unearthing bands that would otherwise be left in the dark ages, like Ashbury and Virtue.

“When I was in university I was always trying to get into the most obscure thing I could find” he agrees, recalling their Virtue-ous take on their first singles artwork. “But I don’t do that as much now. Some people are just so militant, they just know so much stuff and I’m just not like that at all. I know more about the ‘70s bands now, I went backwards a little bit.”We can tell, their new album is stuffed with hard rock flair and bluesy heat and it’s opened them up to a whole new audience. The band will be touring as soon as they can and in the meantime are invited back to the family hearth, when they play Live Evil Festival in London again.“That community is great really,” Colin gushes of the invite to return to The Dome in October. “The moment we met the Live Evil and the Amulet guys we knew we’d get along. I heard someone say recently that heavy metal is a synonym for freedom and that’s a really god way of putting it. When we ended up mates with Ascalon from Preston, or we ended up mates with Seven Sisters, you found that everyone has the same laid-back views and you just have so much in common, not just the music but the guys are all really sound. So, it’s nice when they say they liked your new album because if they say they like your music you’re doing something right.”

wytchhazel.bandcamp.com

Forced to undergo intestinal surgery after a life threatening medical emergency last year, it’s no small miracle that YOB’s MIKE SCHEIDT has not only survived, but persisted to bring us one the band’s best albums to date in the shape of ‘Our Raw Heart’. KEZ WHELAN caught up with the frontman in ISSUE 22 to reflect on the experience and the band’s past, present and future…

It’s been a tough year for Yob guitarist/vocalist Mike Scheidt, to say the least. After enjoying widespread acclaim and some of their biggest and most successful tours yet in the wake of 2014’s ‘Clearing The Path To Ascend’, a record already considered classic in certain quarters, disaster struck in November 2016 when Mike was diagnosed with acute diverticulitis, a permanent and potentially fatal intestinal disease, and was rushed into emergency surgery in January 2017 following a major flare up.
“The future of the band was uncertain,” Mike recalls. “If I had ended up with a permanent colostomy, touring would have been done. I hadn’t sung in five months, and in the healing from my abdominal surgeries, we didn’t know how my voice would fair. Plus I had to survive both surgeries, and a MRSA infection I acquired in the hospital which had attached to a shingles outbreak due to my immune system being compromised. Life was more groundless than it had ever been.”After nine gruelling days in hospital, Mike was discharged and, thankfully, made a fairly miraculous recovery, but coming this close to the brink of death is an experience that has shifted his perspective in many ways.

“Some are small shifts and some are huge ones. One big shift is time is not a given. I know for certain this form will pass as all forms do, and I want to make the most of the time I have left – cliché and obvious maybe, but all the same very real to me. While working on the album, we felt lucky to be recording new music, with an increased sense of joy in doing it. We’ve always had that feeling to some degree, but this time had more current, and a different flavour to it. Words aren’t adequate.”
A testament to both music’s great healing power and Mike’s sheer determination, Yob wasted no time in resuming work on their seventh album, ‘Our Raw Heart’, even before the frontman was fully back on his feet.

“We had small pieces of new music written, and one full song before I became ill. Everything I had musically came into clear focus post my first surgery, and the rest of the album unfolded in short order. While working on it, each day I had a mindset that wherever I was in the process, there were no guarantees I was going to survive long enough to finish the album, record etc. So each writing session had to be an arrival in itself, playing guitar seated, often by myself, feeling both lucky and grateful in each moment for the fact of just playing, no certain future. That situation has never not been the truth, really, but at the time the truth of that reality was acute.”

This willingness to live in the moment has had a powerful impact on ‘Our Raw Heart’, manifesting itself not only in pensive, starkly beautiful moments like ‘Beauty In Falling Leaves’ and the title track, but also some of the band’s most triumphant, direct and visceral material to date, like ‘Original Face’ and the burly, impossibly heavy chug of ‘The Screen’. Taken as a whole, the result is a powerful, life-affirming opus that’s arguably even more diverse, well-realised and emotionally affecting than its lauded predecessor.
“The album more or less shaped itself,” Mike says with trademark humility. “I would say my hope towards the new album is that it emits a sense of exploration and freedom that has its roots in some new perspective, and miracles, really. The support and love that was shared with me when I fell ill is nothing short of astonishing. I hope this album’s music emotes the gratitude I feel for the gift I received, it couldn’t have happened otherwise. Aaron [Rieseberg, bass], Travis [Foster, drums] and I had a great time working on these songs together, and we pushed each other to try new things.”

Mike has returned his role as frontman with renewed vigour and passion for his craft, explaining how he’s been hunkering down on his music theory and trying to expand his vocal range.

“I’ve been taking voice lessons from Wolf Carr – who’s currently located in Seattle and offers Skype lessons as well as in person lessons – off and on since 2012, and I can’t recommend him highly enough. As I was building my voice back up, I found myself exploring new resonant places within my head and chest because I couldn’t bear down too much on my diaphragm out of fear of risking a hernia at the incision sites. As I became stronger, those new resonant places merged with my previous style and have become something new for me. As for studying music theory, for the most part I’ve been adding some new scales and chord progressions as well as studying bouzouki. I’ve been learning scales that fit GDAD tuning so I can morph in the moment and change keys and flavours as it strikes me. It’s been a blast.”
Whilst Mike was always something of a powerhouse vocalist, you can really hear the benefits of the extra work he’s put in, with his voice soaring to ever more expressive peaks on songs like ‘In Reverie’ and the aforementioned ‘Beauty In Falling Leaves’, a song that seems to have been born from a similar place to ‘Clearing The Path To Ascend’s much beloved final track, ‘Marrow’, with the original idea germinating from Mike’s acoustic solo work.
“I’d say ‘Beauty…’, ‘Our Raw Heart’, and even songs like ‘The Great Cessation’ are informed by acoustic work. I tend to avoid talking about what certain songs mean to me, in print,” he continues. “If I talk about them, my take in that moment may get frozen in time for the person reading the interview. Talking about what songs ‘mean’ for me is like dissecting a frog. We can get to its guts and understand it better (maybe), but the creature doesn’t survive. I want a listener to have their own original experience with a tune, therefore I don’t want to colour it with rhetoric. One on one talking with someone about a particular song is different, and in that case sometimes I get to hear how the music strikes them independent of my story around it. That I love.
“I know what they mean to me, and in a way my lyrics are looking into a mirror, revealing both my strengths and my blind spots,” he continues. “What they mean to me changes over time. They’re very personal, but I don’t need to ‘own’ their ‘meaning’. Another’s take on what they mean to them is best served without my commentary. I will say I have changed in some significant ways in the last year, and I have a different outlook on how I want to spend the rest of my time and attention in this form. It’s a largely joyous feeling. My depression is still there, sometimes louder than other times, but I see it from a different place than before.”

It’s interesting that Mike brings up ‘The Great Cessation’; originally released back in 2009 on Profound Lore, the album was reissued via Relapse on CD and vinyl last year, leading to Yob officially signing a deal with the label for ‘Our Raw Heart’. The impact this classic record has had since its arrival almost a decade ago has only escalated with time, and with the band recently casting their minds back to the past with this reissue, it’s tempting to wax lyrical about the album’s influence on their future too, though Mike isn’t so sure.
“It’s hard for me to be objective about previous albums,” he admits. “When I listen to them (which is not often), I’m reminded each album was the best we had in us at the time. We’ve kept those songs from ‘The Great Cessation’ in rotation, and they’ve grown with us as we have grown as a band. The music from ‘The Great Cessation’ still feels very good to play live. That album was our first album after having taken a three [or] four year break from being a band, it was our first album with Aaron Rieseberg, and it came when doors were opening for bands like ours. It was a very exciting time. We like change, and change our surroundings often, change labels, etc. We also roll with what’s happening and feels right. That is how this reissue and new art came to be.”

Mike seems very pleased with this particular change too, brimming with enthusiasm for his new label home.
“I’ve been listening to Relapse albums since, I don’t know, ’91? The Suffocation ‘Human Waste’ EP, Disrupt, Macabre, Morgion, Human Remains, Neurosis, High On Fire, Nile, Today Is The Day, Benümb, and many more have been of influence and enjoyment. I don’t know how many Relapse albums I own, but it’s not a modest number. Relapse has been great to us, and we’re excited for the future.”

And it’s a future that’s looking much brighter now than it did this time last year, with Relapse’s backing, one of their finest records to date and (most importantly) Mike’s improving health being huge causes for celebration in the Yob camp. The trio are looking forward to getting back on the road too, with Mike recalling the rush of emotion he felt when stepping out on stage after successfully overcoming his surgery.

“Words fail,” he beams. “It was a true joy, and also a bit scary as we didn’t know how my body would do. The first show we played, which was at Northwest Terror Fest, we played a solid set. I then hit the wall hard and had to sit in the van and lay down, honestly worried I’d just hurt myself and not sure how badly. Luckily I was ok and just needed rest, but I’ve found my body has some new limits. Over time I’ve gotten much stronger, but limits are still there. However, I get to work, so I’m very grateful. We’ll do a US tour and a European tour this year, along with some scattered dates here and there. Next year we’ll likely do the same, and also branch out to hit some places we have yet to play. The future is writing itself as we go, and we’re glad for it.”

We are too, Mike, we are too.

‘Our Raw Heart is out now on Relapse
www.YobIsLove.Bandcamp.com

Photos by Jimmy Hubbard