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Mastered from an archive audio cassette by Patrick W. Engel at TEMPLE OF DISHARMONY in March 2015 I knew from a very early age dreaming was a form of creating and through the school years it was “be like him, he’s good at maths, get an apprenticeship, a trade”, predictability FUCK THEM ALL I’LL BE WHAT I WANT. Although highly intellectual I suffered five horrible years in grammer school I was fucked if I was going to do another fifty getting up at 7am day in day out, so I left my other mates at the railway works and started out on my very own adventure putting two fingers up to the accepted ways, I escaped ran away, no fastens, no ties, bright lights, travelling funfairs, loud fuckin rock n roll, FREEDOM. Sitting on the steps of The Thames waiting to go into rehearsals with The Blood and make an absolute fuckin racket. On this album you have some of my dreams painted to a backdrop of hard rock music. I was the powerhouse drummer in Major Accident, The Blood, Angelic Upstarts rocking in London at the height of the second revolution, however, there was something on my mind and in 1984 I signed to Roadrunner Records and created my ultimate dream, my punk metal creation was born, WARFARE. Driving my music through many uphill struggles it was harder than it may seem fronting your own band many musicians including Cronos and Mantas from Venom, Algy Ward from The Damned and Tank, Lemmy and Wurzel from Motorhead all helped me with my dream, however, it wasn’t a dream it was reality. After many successful albums my rock n roll dreaming ran out of ideas and the war had ended, but in my life the war will never end. Here you have thirteen really rare demo’s and I make no apologies for the sound as some were recorded with the best of equipment and some straight to 2” and 4 track. Play them on full volume with no remorse and a Fuck You attitude, with complete abandon to conformity in a crap house of a world that we live in you know it makes perfect sense victims. EVO 2015 Leaders. Not followers. Evo is one of those leaders. A true innovator. A musical genius. And quite a controversial character. Some people have called him the “original metal punk”. Warfare was his vision. Along with Motörhead, Tank and Venom Evo took metal out of the castles and dungeons onto the streets. Street metal. “I had already been mates with Algy and Lemmy when I met Cronos during my time at Neat Records,” comments Evo on the relationship between Warfare, Tank, Motörhead and Venom. “I’d never heard of Venom... until then.” Evo and Cronos quickly became mates as well and the Venom founder joined Warfare for the song “Rose Petals Fall From Her Face” on Warfare’s legendary debut album »Pure Filth«. “The whole concept and creation was mine and I guided it through life until I got bored with it all,” explains Evo the evolution of Warfare. But before getting his own project off the ground the drummer had already made history in other outfits. He was the drummer in Major Accident, legendary oi! band from Darlington (and one of the first along with The Adicts to fully embrace the clockwork orange image). Evo would not want to miss his time with Major Accident: “It was very good fun and their stuff was really fast to play. I played Santa Monica Civic with Major Accident and I was totally knackered after an one-hour show in front of thousands of fans. But as usual, in a quest to be leader of my own and, I fucked off to London to join The Blood.” The Blood was yet another mid-80’s metal/punk crossover outfit which showed a lot of promise but was too far ahead of its time. “Yes, I agree,” says Evo. “They were supposed to become the next Pistols, brilliant management and record company push. I never auditioned for them. I already knew that I would get the gig with The Blood. But we fell apart. Egos got in the way. The album charted at no. 62. »False Gestures For A Devious Public« is a classic cult album. Just last month I had a drink with ‘The Cardinal’, we put our differences aside. They were playing in some fucking toilet to 60 people – good job that I left them.” In 1983/84 Evo also had a brief spell with the legendary Angelic Upstarts, one of the original oi! bands (from South Shields). “Mensi and I got on very well,” states Evo, “but when I played with them they had already moved to London.” “I always wanted my own band but needed an apprenticeship in the mayhem of rock ’n’ roll,” summarizes Evo. “Warfare were never part of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. I created my own dream. Something that was so loud that it would make your fucking ears bleed. I don’t think anyone shared my vision. Nobody could understand what I was trying to do. I was hated from the beginning and that is good to me as I hate most of the human race anyway. Often I just scream at the sea...” For High Roller Records Evo has now opened his vast archive of rare and unreleased Warfare recordings. The first release in the “vaultage series” is called »Noise, Noise, Noise (The Lost Demos)«, a compilation of 13 “lost” Warfare demos. “The source of those demos are first generation analogue cassettes,” explains Evo. »Noise, Noise, Noise (The Lost Demos)« features alternative versions of numerous early Warfare classics such as “Burn Down The Kings Road”, “New Age Of Total Warfare”, “Limit Crescendo” or the wild “Two Tribes” (originally by Frankie Goes To Hollywood) as well as a plethora of completely unreleased material. Matthias Mader |