There are multiple reasons why people to this day still love and worship the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement, but it mostly comes down to the fact that it spawned so many excellent bands, fantastic vocalists, and all-around classic albums that still stand the test of time. Many of the bands that were part of that wave have historical backgrounds that are just as magical as their music, however, there is one exceptionally magical band out of the bunch which used actual spell chants in the lyrics for their infamous self-titled track. Of course, the band I am talking about is none other than Cloven Hoof from Wolverhampton, West Midlands. These guys have been rocking the world for the last 45 years, and throughout those years they gave us some epic and extraordinary albums with such ambitious songwriting and well-thought storytelling. They recently released their tenth album "Heathen Cross", which was met with an incredibly positive reception from fans and critics alike, praising the atmosphere and timeless performance of the band that is just as amazing as it was 40 years ago. Not long after I had heard "Heathen Cross", I decided to reach out to the band's longtime bassist and only original member Lee Payne, the man who with all his devotion and passion kept this band on its feet over the last 4 decades, without ever straying off the course or betraying the roots. We had such a wonderful and extensive conversation regarding their newest album Heathen Cross, but we also touched down other subjects such as the interesting concepts that they incorporated in their albums, Harry Conklin replacing George Call on vocals, the everlasting legacy and magic of Cloven Hoof, and many more things along the way. I truly hope you will enjoy this conversation, because I had a really wonderful time talking to Lee about all these things while having a laugh at some fun and interesting stories he had to share. Please welcome Lee Payne of the almighty Cloven Hoof!

Vladimir

Hi Lee!

Hello my friend! How are you, you okay?

Oh, I am doing great. I am actually boiling in this 35-degrees temperature, even in the evenings it's like fucking hell. I am doing the best I can, but how are you doing?

Yeah, it's not that hot here. It is actually sunny though, which is good for England, but it's still a bit cold you know, so I think where you are the weather sounds a lot better than here.

Trust me, during the Spring days, we usually have more rain, and we basically make a joke out of that saying we have an English weather down here.

Yeah hahah, that's fantastic. George Call and Danny, our last singer and last drummer, when they came from America, they said "Is it ever sunny in England?", cause every time they come it's always sort of gray and rainy hahah. Typical English weather, so we got used to it, I guess.

Is it really any surprise that heavy metal was born in such a country?

It's gotta be, like it had to be made here, you know. Black Sabbath, they came from just up the road in Birmingham, and it's always cold, rainy and miserable.

Yeah, plus they lived in a very industrial environment, so that basically sums it all up perfectly, I completely understand it.

That's right! I don't think we could have come from anywhere else really, with sort of like how we sound. There's so many of the West Midland bands, which is the area we are all from, we've all got this sort of dark and gloomy kind of music, so it must be our environment really.

Yeah, I guess it's some kind of dark magic trapped from the old ages that shapes itself in this form of music that was born back in the late 60's.

Yeah, it's amazing how rich the West Midland heritage is to that. When we kicked it off, we had the same rehearsal place called Holly Jo's, it's a church hall, and Judas Priest rehearsed there, we rehearsed there, Slade and Robert Plant, so many famous bands from the area. Maybe it's something in the water, I don't know, but a lot of people say that heavy metal was kind of born in Birmingham because of Sabbath. I am not gonna say they are wrong, they are probably right, aren't they? That's sort of dark metallic kind of sound, it's very sort of inherent in the area, really. I don't think Cloven Hoof could come from anywhere else heheh.

Honestly, with the kind of magic that you guys have, it would be very hard for me to imagine a different scenario of Cloven Hoof originating from any other country. Maybe, on the Central European soil, you could.

Yeah, the European bands like Accept, Scorpions and that, they got that sort of heavy Teutonic kind of sound, that's the next best thing isn't it really, for that sort of music. A lot of European bands have got that as well. But the English bands, it's just slightly different from everybody somehow, this sort of sound originated here and so many West Midland bands got that dark heaviness really. Oh well, I really love it anyways, I am a glad we are kind of dark and heavy.

And with a background like that, it's no wonder that you came out with this new album. I recently had the pleasure of checking out "Heathen Cross", and I just got to the 'Sabbat Stones' track because I was just listening to the whole thing again right before the interview and still, what a fantastic and epic experience it turned out to be. It's such an entertaining album from start to finish.

Thank you so much, it means a lot to hear those kind words my friend. It kinda makes it all worth the while when you hear these sorts of comments, and we really appreciate it, I promise, we really do.

Yeah, and this album led me to the point where I could not believe that your songwriting and performance is still fresh and heavy as it was 40 years ago when you released your self-titled album. Can you tell me a bit about the making of the album and what you guys wanted to get the most out of it?

Yeah, I am so glad that you picked it up as well, you hit it right on the nail there, a definite conscious effort to sort of go back to our roots and capture our first album with the dark sound, it's like a return to our roots. I thought, why do I love all the early albums still as much as I do? I could put Paranoid on, and albums like that, and right away it's just timeless, I just love it. And I realized, a lot of it is because the band were all together making this music, and they weren't just playing the songs. It had a performance, it had a human element in there, it was coming out the grooves, you can tell that bands are giving off live energy in the studio, and I thought "Why is everything got to be so sort of processed and Pro Tooled? Why can't we go back to doing our albums as we used to do?". That was the criteria for this album, so the guitars and the drums and the bass and everything were all done live together. The guitars and the solos and everything were done like at the same time, so we captured that live energy and towards this we had a word with our brilliant producer Patrick Engel, and I said "Well, how do you want us to tackle this then?". Because we wanna go back to the old days, it's kind of a middle finger upward to all the people that are making the samey sounding albums, that have just got tons of Pro Tools, it's very kind of samey and cold, and we wanted to go and capture the magic and the human element, like back in the old days. So, he said "Well, I'll give you a set of EQs that I would really love you to work to", he started the EQs for the drums, for the bass, for the guitars, and he went "Just play like you do onstage together and just capture that". Right away with these EQs you're gonna have a good sound anyway, and he said "I can really work with that", so we did. We followed his instructions religiously; we got Chris Dando in the studio and he absolutely kept it rigidly. So, we're gonna put the tracks down with live energy, but it was going to be recorded really well with the modern sort of production sound as well. It's got the modern production sound, but it's got the power of sounding like the bands in the room, just like the old days, and it's captured our live excitement and I thought he did a fantastic job. You stick that album on loud and it sounds like we're playing right in front of you, which is exactly what we wanted. So, in a lot of ways, Heathen Cross matched my expectations with the amazing vocals of Harry, it surpassed it in lot of cases. Harry was in another country when he did those vocals, but because the band played altogether, it had that super tightness, super human element and the excitement of the band playing live, and when he did the vocals and sent the sound files to the studio, I was absolutely blown away by every vocal he did, and Harry didn't need any coaching. He just nailed it because he's one of those singers who sings like an actor really, he lives the lyrics and he really knows how to sell a song, that's a difference between a good and a great singer. A great singer will actually live the tracks, and I was just so looking forward to hearing all the different songs come through on the emails, I was absolutely blown away. Harry absolutely nailed the songs and I think he's really raised the bar, and that's why I think Heathen Cross is probably our most perfect album, because the drums are not too cluttered. I got fed up with drums sort of cluttering all the space up, we left a lot of space to let the instruments breathe and the more you leave out, the more heavy it sounds, so we're all very proud how the album turned out.

The part where you said about the production, how it sounds like the band is playing in front of you, would you believe me that every day at work when I listen to Heathen Cross, even when I turn it up on my headphones on like 10% it already is too loud?

Hahaha, that's great. That's made my day that it's too loud, I love it.

Yeah, it's supposed to because it's heavy metal, and the funny thing is, you said that it's not about having a processed album. Maybe people wouldn't mind if you recorded the album at Andy Sneap's studio, but I think it's completely unnecessary, you would sound like all the other bands that had albums produced at his studio. You get the best out of you from the performance, from playing all these songs live in the studio, not from somebody telling you to play these songs and then magically fix everything to bring it all up. You do all you can, and then you tweak things here and there, it's not like "okay, let's process everything and have it sound as digital as possible", even the drums would sound too clicky.

Yeah, everybody is sounding like that, and also when you do your part, you're going on your own. You haven't got the band with you, there is just you, and it's very sterile and very cold, but when you get the band together, you feed off each other's energy, you know when you have done a good take. It's brought that human element back and I think more albums should be made like the old days. Metal sounds even better live, doesn't it? There is a magic to it. So why not capture that in the studio? That was the plan and it worked out great, I am never gonna make another album any other way, because I really love how we sort of went about this one. We were right, you know. You really can capture the live essence of the band, and you don't want to sound processed as everybody else, as you said.

Yeah, but the funny thing is, every album that you have ever done is good in its own way, it's not like you can expect anyone else to do the same. When you said about "Heathen Cross" being the absolute perfect album, I personally have a bit of a hard time because I still don't think that anything can outmatch "A Sultan's Ransom", that is still my favorite Cloven Hoof album.

Yeah, that was a really eclectic one, wasn't it? What we did was we explored our full band width. We've got sort of an Arabian sounding track, we've got a speed metal track, we've got an epic track, and they've all got big choruses and stuff. And that particular album just suited our singer Russ down to the ground, he never nailed anything like that again, it was just perfect for him, because we've been together for a while and I knew exactly what his capabilities were, and I more or less wrote that album to get the most out of his voice. Some albums you do is just magic, but it still didn't have the production like Heathen Cross, but then again, we weren't gonna be able to get that production in those days, we didn't have all the Pro Tools and the stuff you could have for it to lay down the sound absolutely clear. I think if A Sultan's Ransom had the production of Heathen Cross, it would be untouchable, wouldn't it? But why I thought that Heathen Cross is our best is because it's got everything, we actually have the fantastic production on this and on that one as well. I mean the songs on A Sultan's Ransom, they are great songs, my favorite ever Hoof track is on there, I really love "Mistress of the Forest", I always had a soft spot for it because it was originally like three separate songs, and I end up joining three of them together, and it made this one big long epic piece. When we used to play it live, Russ would sort of get very emotional, he'd cry during that song sometimes on a good night, so it's got a certain magic to it. It's got a lot of crowd favorites like "Astral Rider" and "Highlander", and we've got "Forgotten Heroes", a lot of good songs on there.

Yeah, 'Forgotten Heroes' that's my favorite one from the album.

Oh great, thank you, hahah. We're always gonna have to play A Sultan's Ransom songs live, and also the Dominator ones, like "Nova Battlestar" and "Reach for The Sky", I think they'd lynch us if we didn't play those, wouldn't they hahah.

The part where you said how Russ got very emotional while doing those songs, I think that's the proof that you are making magic at that moment, because every album in my opinion, is magic. I can definitely say that for Dominator and even your previous album Time Assassin, which is connected to it, because you brought back the antagonist Dominator and have this cyborg ninja go back in time to kill him.

That's absolutely, it, yeah, that's exactly it.

Can you believe me, even if you look back at Dominator when it was made in 1987, this was before you would get this one big explosion in the 90's with stuff like Power Rangers and Stargate, those big booms that happened during the 90's. I can tell you this, if you took the plot of Dominator, and Time Assassin, and made either a movie or a television series out of it, that would be like one of my favorite Saturday morning blockbusters. Plus, every time I listen to the Time Assassin track, I always get the chills when he says "Kill confirmed, mission complete. Repeat, the Dominator has been terminated", I am like "HOLY SHIT!".

Ah, thank you so much. I mean, that was a big thing because when you do the shows and stuff, we've never ever hidden away in dressing rooms, we'd always go out and meet with fans, we have pictures taken with them and sign autographs and everything, because they show their love to you, so the least you could do is spend some time with them. And it's brilliant because they always tell you exactly what they love about the band, and so many of the fans were saying "Why can't you bring back the Dominator concept? We'd love you to do it". So, I did it for them, it was quite fun resurrecting the character and have bring him back. And then obviously, it charts the rise and fall of Dominator. The only way I could kill off the Dominator really is to go back and like assassinate him before he was actually born, but the twist was, I thought it was really good to explore the ninja assassin character, because in killing the Dominator, his timeline would cease to be, that means he would have not even existed, so the heroic deed of going back and saving everyone, no one would even know. If you had to have the same mission, how many people would actually do that? Because everything you ever knew would have never even existed, but the thing is I kind of figured that because he was a warrior, he followed the soldier's code and followed the mission through to the end, I felt quite moved as well about the "mission accomplished" in the end. I've got sort of goosebumps of that really, because I was thinking how brave would that be and how many people would have the balls to actually complete that, knowing he won't exist and that everything he ever knew would not exist as well. I just think it was a really interesting kind of concept really, and thing to explore with the Dominator thing, the idea behind it. Do you remember those scientists that grafted that ear on the back of the little mouse?

Yeah, I remember the story, you mentioned it before.

It was kind of chilling really. Just because you can do something, should you?

It's a really good question.

Yeah, exactly, it's a moral dilemma. And the fact is, the Dominator concept kind of grew out of that, because I was thinking like where is all these genetic engineering gonna end. And I was thinking like "Yeah, they wanted to create a perfect lifeform", and you know, nature has a way of biting you in the ass, but instead of a perfect lifeform they had the perfect dictator.

They made a perfect killing machine.

There we go. And so, it's quite interesting really in exploring that, and then you see the end of it with Time Assassin. I think it could actually make a really good film, actually you are quite right. It would make a really good film. Someone should do it hahaha. 

If you think about it, this is more ambitious storytelling and screenwriting than the latest Doctor Who episodes on BBC. Imagine how ahead of its time it was. Bands at the time did use science fictions subjects as lyrical themes, but you guys didn't just use science fiction, you guys really questioned this concept of nature biting you in the ass, because it is what it is. It is what The Terminator is, like "Can we produce an AI that can know everything, process everything, and come up with a solution to everything?". But the only solution to fix the human problem is to erase all of humanity.

Yeah, you can imagine it, can't you? You can imagine it happening like Terminator, the end of the world. Really, giving so much power to an AI, if it thinks for itself in the end, someone is gonna give it the wrong information and then it starts thinking about "Well, is mankind really worth saving?", and replace it with like machines. You could definitely imagine that happening, can't you?

Yeah, it's a very far-fetched concept, but I can definitely think of it nowadays, especially since AI has been fed with all the algorithms and the information. Honestly, we can talk about this concept of people losing their jobs to artificial intelligence all night long, and of course the potential dangers of it, but I think it was self-explanatory like way before. I mean look at this, the first Terminator and even the first Cloven Hoof album were released in the same year of 1984.

Yeah, that is smack on, it's amazing! That's the cool thing with science fiction though, you can explore these kinds of topics, and because you set it in the future, you don't upset so many people hahahah. But the fact is, you can base it on events that could be eventually true, only time will tell if you are gonna be right or not. Some people sort of call Cloven Hoof a "thinking man's metal band", and I love that. I wanna get people thinking, but I also love taking people on a journey when they put our album on, it's like an escape from how crap the world is, and you can just sort of retreat into our music, sort of explore some of these fantastic storylines and things, and it's kind of like an experience just to take you to another world, I really love that. When people really get what you are all about, it's really rewarding, when I talk to people such as yourself, really sort of knowledgeable in that, and it just sort of makes it all kind of worthwhile.

Yeah, because the storytelling that you incorporate for Cloven Hoof, it isn't like surface based storytelling, if that's the way I can put it. For example, I can just take the concept of Heathen Cross, because it's one of the biggest highlights for me. The cover art looks like a vision from a dream, it's very nightmarish and visually stunning to look at as well. I know the story about the concept behind the Heathen Cross and the Sabbat stones, that it was inspired about the sisters that danced on the sixth day, and that they turned to stone because God was angry at them.

Yeah, fantastic, that's exactly what I did! I had that riff, it could have been on the first album as well, but I couldn't do it justice, so in the end I had this sort of nightmare, I was dreaming about Cornwall, and then, I thought of a girlfriend I had, she told me about this fantastic legend attached to this church which is in a place called St. Column, and it's like this small little village in Cornwall. There was a village green there and you can sort of see where the standing stones were, but there's a weird story attached to this. Basically, there was the standing stones, but the wicker didn't like the legend that was attached to it, that kind of superstitious sort of mentality, and they moved the stones out of concentrated ground. She said "If you have a look over this wall, you can see these seven stones", and I went "oh yeah, what a shame, cause it would have looked far better on the village green", and she went "Yeah, but the wicker banned that, because it was seven sisters and they were dancing on the Sabbath day, on the Sunday, and the legend is that they were turned to stone by God", and I went "Wow, that's fantastic, what a great legend". So, I actually used that in the Sabbat Stones song, and the sort of concept I had was that there is some sort of witchfinder character.

That's one of the things I wanted to ask you, who is this mysterious and dark witchfinder figure in the background?

Yeah, well, the name on the tombstone down there was Thomas Crambone, and I went "What a cool name". So, I had this song Curse of The Gypsy, and it mentions the witchfinder in there, and I was thinking "Wouldn't it be cool if I had this witchfinder kind of character?", to maybe track down these witches doing this sort of ceremony on this hillside, and maybe broke their spell and they turned into stone, and he was kind of cursed to come back as this spectral kind of figure, it would make a brilliant sort of film. It is like The Wicker Man sort of ghostly figure who is forever in search of witches and the supernatural, so I was thinking that's a good concept. So, I told it to our artist Alex, and I did some sketches, it's not a million miles away from the album sleeve, but it's just that Alex did it fantastically, he added loads of other details as well. He's brilliant because he wants to hear what I see really, in terms of storylines and visuals, so I sent him these sketches and stuff. He absolutely nailed it, it looks fantastic. And that's amazing, because it does have a dream-like quality, it's funny because the whole thing kind of started because I had this dream and I could hear the chorus of Sabbat Stones, and it fitted on the riff that I had years and years ago, and that was a catalyst for me working on the Sabbat Stones track, but I am very tempted to get sort of a comic book idea together, and a lot of the songs on this album can kind of fit together in terms of storyline and the way like The Summoning is about the witches sabbath, and all these things can fit together to tell this story about this spectral kind of witchfinder character that's on the front of the sleeve. If I can, I'll get him on to work on it.

Yeah, you should definitely go for it, because if a band such as Cradle of Filth can come up with their own comic from the song Huntress Moon, which is like this 4-story comic book that was made some years ago, if they can do it, so can you. And you can basically ask Alex to sketch the whole thing, and I think that it would actually be great if you made a special edition box set with the comic book inside, that would be cool.

Oh my god, what a great idea! That is so brilliant! I'll see what we can do with that Vladimir my friend. That's a brilliant idea, yeah, I love it. And the thing is, when I write songs, I actually see in terms of like movies. I see them playing in my head like little movies, self-contained with a beginning, middle and end. It'd be nice to kind of get that sort of vision down and see what we can come up with. That's definitely something I wanna work on. Thank you very much mate, that's a great idea.

Oh, you're welcome.

Yeah, I'll get Alex on the go hahah.

What I found exceptionally great about Heathen Cross, is that if someone is a newcomer to Cloven Hoof, and if that person hadn't yet checked out your classic stuff like the self-titled album, Dominator and A Sultan's Ransom, this album is just as ideal as those other albums for anyone to get into the band and nicely attract them to hear more. What do you think about this?

Yeah, I mean the cool thing is, you also hit the nail on the head when you said that every album is kind of different, it's got its own sort of atmosphere and I see the first album with that dark heaviness, and the eclectic mix with A Sultan's Ransom, and then the sci-fi concepts of multi-time changes with Dominator, they've all got their own atmosphere, haven't they? I don't like the sort of safe albums, that it's basically the same song being played about fifty times. I'd like it to be layered and the songs to tell the stories, it probably goes down to the fact that I write a melody line first, and I write the music to fit the melody line like the old classical composers used to do. On the first album, tracks like The Gates of Gehenna and Return of the Passover, it broke all the rules because it wasn't just simple "verse, chorus, verse, chorus" kind of thing, they were a series of musical movements fitted together, almost like a prog band would. But, we're all about heavy metal, we're too aggressive to be a prog band. So, maybe that's what makes us a little bit different from most bands, because we got sort of a prog rock band storyline, sort of epic feel, but we're still really aggressive as well, so I think that's probably what makes us different really.

Plus, to add to that, what I really think makes you guys special, I think with an album such as this, it was done in such a way that people who are not familiar with Cloven Hoof, they can be easily fooled to think that this album comes from a newly formed band, whereas in fact we are talking about a 45-year-old band that was a part of the NWOBHM movement.

Right point hahah.

If anything, I think it just showcases that what you guys express is just as optimistic and creative as in the early days, if not even more so, and it's not a strict matter of appealing to a certain kind of audience. Was the band approaching this album in such a way that both the old and the new fans can like it the same way?

Well, I can only speak for myself on this one, I try to write as a fan as well, because there's so many bands out there going like "Oh I am into jazz rock this week or whatever it is", and they try to bring that into their music, but I know exactly what Cloven Hoof fans love, I know what our band width is and I know what we can't go past, because we'll lose our fans. So, I try to write for them, and I have never lost our essence and I've stayed true to what we're all about, I know what the rules are and I know what the fans will like. So, I think to some degree, I really wanted to sort of dig deep and find an album that the old fans and the new fans can love as well, it's not easy but I think we've done it with Heathen Cross. It's got a magic to it, there's just an indefinable magic to the album that kind of drags you in, and like you said, if you are new to the band, it should be sort of fresh and exciting, and probably help them to explore other works as well, but we've got our own kind of essence that is throughout all our work, despite it sounding kind of fresh and different, because I don't like to make safe albums. We try to break into new ground, but not shy away from our roots and where we are from, and Heathen Cross definitely is attempting to do that. I can definitely say, like hands up, I fully intended it to turn out that way, you hope it will meet all kind of criteria. That's why I am so pleased with it, it kind of ticks all the boxes, doesn't it? I mean, on a lot of levels really, the albums kind of succeeds, I feel.

Yeah, you are definitely right about that. Plus, we are talking about you, someone who comes from four essential albums such as Made in Japan by Deep Purple, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Black Sabbath, Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy, and 2112 by Rush.

Yeah, that's it hahaha!

Someone who grew up with those albums, you would expect a person like that to have a great band, at least at some point in their life. Is it really a weird thing that someone who is still in that zone or territory, that that person is still maintaining the band, even if it's got a new lineup, but it's still great and it still maintains that essence?

Yeah! Oh, it does a lot good, to make music still over 40 years and people still love those songs that they wanna hear them, it's the proof that the music is good, but look at the musical background that I had to influence me, you couldn't possibly listen to that sort of music, be influenced by bands like that, and not come up with good stuff, they are just true masters. I still love the music they make, just as much today, as I did then, and once again, they've got like a timeless sort of majesty too in those bands. I suppose if you wrap them all up together, that's the sort of the description of Cloven Hoof really. Without those bands existing, we wouldn't have sounded like what we do, so I am just thankful that I discovered their fantastic music. They influenced me so much; I am in such debt to their fantastic playing really. 

If those albums didn't influence you, it would be like imagining if Tony Iommi stayed in Jethro Tull, that would be a very wild universe to live in, but of course that would probably be in a parallel universe.

You can't believe it can you? What if he did hahah.

You will have to forgive me, but I really hate the fact that we're talking over Zoom, I would have honestly preferred if I sat with you drinking a pint of beer and discuss all these things with you live, because I really prefer live interactions much more than this.

Yeah, I do too, but who knows maybe we'll probably meet up at some stage anyway, and the beer will be on me, heheh.

Oh, trust me, if you ever decide to come to anywhere in Eastern Europe, whether it's in Croatia, Serbia where I am from, or even Hungary as well, I would personally buy you beer because you give us such great music and because you still have us as fans invested in the band, I will buy you 5 rounds of beer, all on me.

Hahaha, then I'll have it after the gig.

I just remembered we were talking about Harry Conklin joining as the new vocalist of Cloven Hoof, replacing George Call who had left the band 2 years prior. Of course, Harry comes from a very strong and respected band such as Jag Panzer, which was also part of that heavy/power metal movement from the 80's like you guys, and I must say that I am very pleased with his delivery on the album, even his vocal range and style fits incredibly well with the rest of the band. I know that his wife is a very big fan of you guys and that you emailed each other, but can you tell me a bit about the story of him working with the band on the Heathen Cross?

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I mean, originally, I first met Harry when we were in Germany doing the Keep It True Festival, and incidentally it was the same one as I first met George as well, but we were like at the hotel and this guy needed a lift down to the festival, and I wasn't aware of Harry at the time, and I went "Hey, you wanna go to the festival? We'll we're going down there because we had our RV there", and I said "We'll give you a lift down, come with us". So, he did and we were talking on the way, and I thought "Hey this is a cool guy, like we got on really well", and the next thing I knew there was a superstar kind of band lined up for the end, they have like various members of Girlschool and Thunderstick, and Harry just blew everybody away, he was amazing. He completely ruled the stage and this amazing voice came, so I was thinking "Wow what a singer, I'll have to remember who this guy is". What we had in England was dreadful Brexit, and it was just the stupidest thing ever, I'm really annoyed with. 

Oh my God, yeah. Thank you so much Boris Johnson for ruining England, it was like a real nail in the coffin.

Yeah, thank you very much hahah. Stupid! But the point is, it made everything so much expensive, we couldn't get like cheap airflights, everything went up in price, so then we couldn't have George anymore because it just cost too much to fly somebody all the way from America. The costs were just ridiculous, so we had to say to George that we really can't afford to have anybody based in America, you know we need somebody from Europe because financially we just couldn't do it anymore. Somebody told me that Harry was based in Greece, and I found out that he was married to very lovely Christie, and she's a huge Cloven Hoof fan, so I went and texted her like right away, I went "Hey, do you think Harry would sing for us?", and she went "Yeah, he'll do it!", and I went "Now I gotta ask him!", hahah. So, he texted back and went "Yeah, I'd love to try", and I said "Why don't we meet up in Germany? We got a show in Germany, come along and see if you can get on with everybody and see if it's for you first". So, he did and we got on like a house on fire, I mean Harry is such a lovely guy. Who wouldn't get along with Harry anyway? And that was it, he saw us and he was so blown away, he wanted to be a part of it, so the rest is history really. We sent him the tracks over to Greece and he recorded the vocals there and he sent them back, and we did some shows together in Greece and Germany, and we love every bit of it. I really miss him not being here to be quite honest, because not only is he a fabulous sort of singer, but he's such a lovely cool guy and from now on I am only gonna have Harry really, because he fits like a glove. He knows exactly the kind of delivery we want and he's so professional. That's the difference, because Harry really lives it and he really wants to do the best job he possibly can, with all those years of experience, you can tell, so it's an absolute joy to have Harry in the band right now. 

Yeah, especially because he comes from a respected band such as Jag Panzer, and I wasn't aware of him being such a great performer. He's not just a great singer, but also a great performer as well. I found a video when they were doing that memorial show for Steve Grimmett of Grim Reaper when he passed away, and Harry was guest appearing there as a vocalist alongside Olof Wikstrand of Enforcer, and also Steve Grimmett's son Russ. I saw Harry and I thought he could also be a great vocalist in Black Sabbath if they continued on after Tony Martin.

He's got a killer voice, doesn't he? I'll tell you what, Steve Grimmett was a lovely guy as well, oh my goodness. When we first kind of started off, doing the same kind of shows in England, I remember we had this very elaborate kind of castle stage set, and Steve helped carry it and he's such a nice guy, and he helped carry the gear in. I've talked to him a few times, he was giving like different advice, sometimes saying like "Yeah, I don't know if I would use that promoter if I were you", he didn't have to, but he goes out of his way to help people and he was such a hero carrying on with the leg thing. He was a fabulous guy and he's gonna be sadly missed, but his music will always be there, as long as there's metal, so left a big legacy in music, didn't he?

Yeah, and as much as I love Grim Reaper, I also have to bring up the UK thrash metal band Onslaught. As much as I love their first two albums, Power from Hell and The Force, Onslaught with Steve Grimmett, In Search of Sanity, is THE best Onslaught ever, because he delivered on such an epic scale. When I heard the album for the first time ever, I kept thinking "Can you imagine anyone else delivering this kind of performance along with these kinds of songs?".

Oh, he suited it fantastic, didn't he? Down to it all, he did a brilliant job. What a fucking great guy he really was.

That's one of the things the NWOBHM is great for, not just for having great bands, but for having great vocalists as well. If you look aside from vocalist such as Joe Elliott of Def Leppard or Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden as well, honestly think Steve was definitely one of the best vocalists in all of heavy metal, because God damn it he had to amputate his leg, but the fact he kept doing it afterwards, it's one of the things that still keep me inspired to make music, those kinds of people.

Exactly!

It's not like when Metallica makes a documentary about going through difficulties like losing their bass player, finding a replacement and then kept it going, I mean okay, but THAT guy (Steve) lost a fucking leg and he kept going, that's the most inspiring aspect in all of heavy metal.

Yeah, that's balls of steel, just the sheer courage and bravery in that. Anyone would respect that, and God bless him, he was a big credit to metal, wasn't he? He's gonna be sadly missed.

Yeah. By the way, I have to say that this year had it pretty big with all the major heavy metal bands releasing their new albums, bands like Saxon, Judas Priest, Bruce Dickinson, Accept and Riot just to name a few, but then Cloven Hoof also joins the party with Heathen Cross album. How do you feel about the fact that you got all these bands come together in this one massive year of 2024?

It can only be a great thing, can't it? Hahahah. It just shows you how great that music is, because it stands the test of time for all those bands to still be making music and everybody still loving it so much. That's the only test really, if it stands the test of time then it's brilliant music, it can only be good for metal. It proves that the fans are out there and that they love it just as much, because if all these bands didn't get the fans turning up and buying the albums and stuff, you wouldn't have this fantastic kind of renaissance of metal that's happening at the moment, and it can only be a great thing. All this fantastic music for us all to listen to and rock out to, it's marvelous really. It just shows you the enduring power of heavy metal, doesn't it?

Yeah, it truly does. What can I say, I am enjoying this year much more than the last one when it comes to albums in general, and of course you guys really surprised me because I wasn't following along, I lost track of everything. But once I saw that High Roller Records released Heathen Cross on YouTube I went "What? A new Cloven Hoof album? Can it be? Oh, I have to listen to this one", and after that I was like "Holy shit, this is good". I mean okay, I already heard the new Saxon album and I enjoyed for some time, but I think I listened to Heathen Cross more frequently than I would have imagined. It just shows you how much people need this and how much they value this, all of it, not just the greatness of Cloven Hoof, but the greatness of what all of these bands have to give altogether.

Exactly. That's the big thing. I am not the only one, a lot of the bands that you've talked to from my particular era, we kind of look at it like "Heavy Metal Against the World", and that's what makes us all sort of down to earth and supportive like brothers. It's because we are all up against all this dreadful pop music and this hyped-up crap that doesn't last 5 minutes, but look at our music, it lasts over 40 years and it's probably even more popular than it was then. It's continuing to grow and we've noticed a lot more sort of younger kids turn up at the gigs, so it bodes well in too. We're stuck into getting whole families turn up at the shows, we get the moms and dads and we get young kids as well, so that can only be good for heavy metal as it continues to grow. I am just so proud to be making this music for the best fans in the world, they're certainly the most loyal and dedicated, and no one can tell them what to think. The fans use their owns minds and they decide what's really good, they can spot a fake band a mile away. Being part of the community like that, I feel very honored and proud to be doing it now.

Yeah, I think it was Lemmy in the 90's when he came and said "See kids, you don't give up when you turn 40! Look, I am 49, I don't give fuck, alright". And even you, you are 64 years old for fuck's sake, you turned 64 last week.

Yeah, it's the beat of ‘64! Wow, how did that happen? Hahah.

I still think you are 40 hahah.

Yeah, I don't feel any different to when I was like 25 really. I think it's playing the music that you love it keeps you young anyway, I am still just as excited, probably even more so, because you think "I can't do this forever, but I am gonna give it a good try" hahah. Cause you do something you love and it keeps you young and sort of focused. I think it's really important to the thing you love in life, you are not here very long on the planet, so you might as well do something you love doing.

Yeah, indeed. I forgot how people say it, but I think it's "I am gonna rock till I croak", I am like "yeah that's it".

Apart from that, there is nothing else, is there? You know like, hahaha. So, you wanna do it much more. 

A friend said that the only time that musicians ever actually retire is when they die. They don't retire when they say "This is our final tour". Like okay, but wait at least 5 years and they'll be back.

Yeah, they'll be back, won't they? Why should you go through all this again? You know you'll come back. The thing is it's just in your blood, is it? It's something. As soon as I heard "Highway Star" on Deep Purple's Made in Japan, I never wanted to do anything else. It was like a bolt of lightning from the sky when I heard that, this is the most fantastic thing ever. I still feel like that, it's just magic and there is nothing that comes close to heavy metal as far as I am concerned.

Indeed. This is one of the things I am very grateful to my parents. When I was six years old, we had like four compilation CDs, and one of them had "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath, and when I heard that for the first time ever, I didn't know in which order the songs went, but I always waited for that song as a child. When I was older, when I knew about music, genres and bands, I always wanted to go back to listen it all again and live it all. Nowadays, Black Sabbath is still one of my favorite bands, because they made me become the person I am today, it's the band that brought me here and it's the band that brought you here. And you are older than me, you are old enough to be a father figure to me, but you are the one who has seen it all happen throughout the years.

I'll tell you what, I knew I had it bad. I was at school and Sabbath brought out Sabotage, and in my school dinner time I had to walk all the way home just to hear the "Symptom of The Universe", and every day I had to have a blast of that and walk home. Stick in for five minutes, five-minute blast of "Symptom of The Universe", and then I'd go in dinner back to school. I wouldn't eat any dinner, I just had to listen to "Symptom of The Universe", so yeah, I never recovered from that.

Yeah, it was the same for me. But that's one of the things I can relate to a lot, because when I was still starting with heavy metal, I had an MP3 player and I had a compilation of Black Sabbath songs on it, and indeed one of the songs I couldn't stop listening was "Symptom of The Universe".

It's just that riff, you've got that heavy metal riff there. I don't know what it is, it just moves you so much. That riff, it's so powerful, that's what it is, there's a magic there and it just stays with you your whole life. I've only got to hear that, back to 14 again whenever it was, and just the magic of hearing that riff. That's the thing, metal is for life, it's just a way of life and I've devoted my life to it, and the fans do as well. Nothing will ever replace how the music makes you feel and it's wonderful. So, I feel sorry for people that aren't into heavy metal, they don't know what they are missing and I can't understand anybody that wouldn't be moved by heavy metal music, it just gets right into your gut. It's like a religion really.

Yeah, a positive religion, if anything.

Yeah, I just wish everybody was into heavy metal. There wouldn't be wars or anything. The music unites us all and how many things does that? It doesn't matter what country you're from, we're all metal brothers and we all love the same thing. The world would be a better place, wouldn't it?

Yeah, I definitely agree on that, because it's one of those genres that has probably one of the most optimistic people. Sure, there are elitists and people that say that heavy metal isn't for everybody, I mean okay, it's true, but I believe that they cannot understand how this music heals your frustration. If you are having a hard day at work or a real mental breakdown, you just put it on and you don't think about anything else at that moment. It's just one of those healing factors of heavy metal music.

Yeah, the music makes you feel better. It's kind of weird, you get various band members, and the biggest sort of killer for a band is with the girlfriends going "it's the band or me" kind of thing. I just got to the stage where I used to just go like "Okay, leave the dogs and the guitars, have what you like and just bugger off", and I just throw myself into my music and I wouldn't stay depressed very long. Metal kind of heals everything for me and it will just take you somewhere else, and I just love something that's got that sort of power of your emotions, what music has. And also, it's a soundtrack for people's lives, isn't it? You know, maybe it's a happier time and the nostalgia element is brilliant because you can think "Where was I when I first heard that track?". I mean we've done it ourselves in this interview, haven't we? With the "Highway Star" and being on holiday, and it just brings back sort of exciting times for you, and the music kind of shares it with you. I love that fact as well, how it sort of makes a difference on people's lives. Music makes people's lives so much better, it kind of lifts the spirit, no matter how you feel. I feel so lucky to have discovered metal, it's a wonderful thing.

Yeah, I honestly can't say anything more to that, you have said it all. There is one last question I wanted to ask; this one actually comes from a friend of mine who is a very big fan of Cloven Hoof. He would like to know the true answer to a rumor that your former vocalist was supposed to join Iron Maiden, but he blew the audition because he went out for a sandwich.

Oh, I know the rumor, it's based on facts, that's Russ North. You know when we were tied up with legal problems, it stopped us for making music for like 8 years, just after A Sultan's Ransom. So, Russ sent in Sultan's Ransom album, and Iron Maiden gave him the audition. So, when they sent him like quite a few albums that he's gotta learn the tracks of it, he's went around and I am sort of coaching him through, readying him for this audition he's got. So, he turned up and the guy who met him was Dickie Bell, one of Maiden's sort of roadies or whatever he is, and he said "Don't be nervous, because we've had loads of famous people come for the Iron Maiden job, but they are really nervous". And Steve wanted him to understand what a big role it is and responsibility, and he said he wants people than can handle it, he says "So don't be nervous". So, Russ turns up for this audition, he did the first few numbers and Dave Murray looked like he was quite enjoying what Russ did, and they were just gonna do Number of the Beast, but they called it "Nommie". They went "Right, we're gonna do Nommie", and Russ went "Hold on a minute, I want me sandwiches". Hahaha, he made them stop the audition for him to have his sandwiches, and I went "Why on Earth did you do that for?" and he said "Well I just wanted to look like I wasn't nervous...". I went "Hahaha you've really blown that!", and he goes "Do you think so?" and I went "It doesn't matter what I think, have you? When you make ‘em stop halfway through the audition, what were you thinking of?". In the end, I wasn't at all surprised when Blaze got it, unlike Russ, he completely blew that one. But on the upside, Steve Harris did ring up Russ and say "Well Adrian Smith is looking for a singer for his project", so Adrian Smith sent his demo with no vocals on, so I wrote a melody line for Russ, and he kind of sent that off. But in the end, he wanted Russ to come down, but it was too far, he didn't want to commute from where he was in Manchester all the way to London, so he turned it down. He had done the Maiden one, but yeah that's funny. I could see how things would get kind of distorted, but that's what happened. Yeah, he did kind of blow it, I mean I have never heard anything so crazy, but he actually did that, I promise you hahahah.

The part where they told him "Don't be nervous", I think it actually made him even more nervous to the point where he said "Alright, please stop, I just need to take a sandwich, otherwise I'll faint".

Yeah, I mean why would he do that? It was a golden opportunity for him, I mean who else would have done that but Russ, that was hysterical. It's unbelievable, I just couldn't believe he did it. And he said "Do you think I've blown it?", and I went "I am sure you've blown it", hahaha.

That's essential band history for both Iron Maiden and Cloven Hoof, I think it's like a perfect connection between two great bands that came from that wave of British heavy metal.

Yeah, I've always liked them. When Iron Maiden were just like a four-piece, it was kind of a small sort of gig at Bingley Hall, it was in Birmingham. A mate of mine went "You will never believe this, there's this band that sounds just like you". I was like "Who's that?" and he went "A band called Iron Maiden, they are like really good, it's a really good four-piece and everything". So obviously I went out and bought their first album, right away I went "Oh it's that band" and listened to ‘em and I went "Yeah you can definitely tell we've got similar kind of influences there". I listened to up until Number of the Beast and I'm thinking "I am not gonna listen to these anymore, they're getting too good" hahah. I thought those first three albums are absolutely blinding, and then I was thinking "I won't listen to these anymore, because they are so good, it could make you depressed when they sound that good". But they are lovely guys as well, I remember we were invited to a music show, we're on the same stand as Motörhead, but they didn't turn up, and I was looking around at the different sort of stuff, and I was interested at getting an endorsement for this bass guitar, and Dave Murray was playing right opposite me, and I needed to give my details to this woman for the endorsement deal, and I shouted "Dave, have you got a pen?". He looks over, he put his guitar down, he went to his jacket, he had come over and brought me a pen, and I went "Oh thanks mate" and I had gotten the details down. When I finished with that, he had come and I have given him his pen back, but what a lovely chap. I mean how many people would do that for you? Just stop playing, come over and give you a pen. What a smashing guy, fair play to him, what a fantastic band, and long may they keep on delivering the goods.

Wow. Yeah, all of you guys, just keep on delivering the goods. Listen, I am honestly more excited to hear more Cloven Hoof, whereas with Iron Maiden you kind of know what to expect nowadays with all the latest albums, because it's kind of become like very templated based songwriting, but with you guys there is always a huge difference between each album, and there is a huge difference between your latest albums, and that's one of the things that keep me invested.

Oh great, thank you so much, I really appreciate that. I love to kind of mixed it all up, to keep sort of developing and not remake the same album all the time, hopefully all the albums have their own identity. It's wonderful when somebody like you completely gets it and it does the heart good. I have enjoyed every minute my friend and the time has just gone by so quickly.

Listen, Lee, thank you so much for the interview. It's been a pleasure talking to you man, and I really hope I'll get the opportunity to see Cloven Hoof live somewhere in Eastern Europe someday, and of course the promise of sharing the beer with you, I think it would be fantastic.

It's on me, I promise you hahah!

Hahah, yeah, thank you. The funny thing is, the one thing we have in common is that I am also a bass player, and we're both like four string maniacs that just want to rock the world all the way through.

That's it, we gotta stick together us bass players, haven't we? It's such an honor to talk to you my friend, we gotta do this again. There was a chance that we would be doing Croatia, but it kind of got in the way of a few other things, so we couldn't do it. It's definitely possible that we could meet up and I hope we do, and it will be a pleasure to meet you, my friend.

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