BRITMETAL: "Take The 'P' Out Of Tempest..."

BRITMETAL: "Take The 'P' Out Of Tempest..."

Sylvie Simmons

Congratulations! Independent researchers, numerologists and sacrificial-knife honers have determined that people who turn to Britmetal first are of a superior inquiring intelligence! Where did the Swedish Army look for the missing Joey Tempest? Britmetal! Where did Anthrax look for their lost sense of hearing? Where did David Coverdale find his lost sense of smell? Certainly wasn’t Sydneymetal! And this month’s Britmetal for superior inquiring minds tells you how you can “get” your hair like Joey Tempest’s! How you can “thrust” like David Coverdale! And how to find a new P when the old P p’s off. ..

Europe have been giving a wide berth to their old homeland, Sweden. Seems that young Joey T went AWOL from the national service army and it’ll be bread, water and haircut time if they find him. And if you want that special Joey Tempest look, wash those locks “every day,” let them dry “naturally,” and “fluff it up” with a “hairdrier” at the “last minute.” Official! Europe have celebrated being the biggest band of Swedish Army deserters in the world by making a video—recorded and shot at the famous Hammersmith Odeon in London! Though Britmetal doubts if it’ll be as interesting as the Beastie Boys’ latest, which has just been banned as “excessively” naughty by the BBC. Hang on, here’s Ad Rock with an ambition: to “pass a law stating that Dolly Parton has to show her tits on national TV twice a day.” Did you know that the BBs are David Bowie’s son Joey’s favorite band? Or that dad has grown his hair and dyed it blond to match his new guitar player, Peter Frampton? Or that the BBs hate Bon Jovi even more than Wendy O. Williams does? So much, in fact, that they’re challenging them to a Battle of the Bands. “A bunch of wimps,” muttered the Beastie Boys. "I know absolutely nothing about the Beastie Boys,” said Jon Bon Jovi, adding mysteriously, “Knickers are better than bottles, you can bet your ass on that.” The superior inquiring minds of Britmetal readers of course know he’s referring to things that get tossed onstage.

Joey Tempest—yes him again; surprised the Swedish Army can’t find him, he pops up here every five minutes!— tossed a letter in the general direction of David Coverdale accusing him of being a major “influence” on Europe. A get-well card would probably have gone down better, as Coverdale’s been suffering from a dreaded sinus problem he was born with. The doc ordered him not to sing for six months, the rest of Whitesnake were, according to David, “unsupportive,” so when he got better he fired the lot! It’s “highly unlikely” he’ll work with them again, he says. As for consigning them to the dole queue with not a penny to their names: “They’ve all benefitted. They’ve all had their finest hour working with this band.” Neil Murray is off looking for a few even medium-fine hours in Mel Galley's second Phenomena project, and John Sykes has been doing ‘stuff’ with Cozy Powell, who’s given up his job with ELP to make way for the return of the first P ever to have existed: Carl Palmer. The group plans some Euro dates—which should be interesting, as Britmetal hears reports that none of them can stand each other!

But here’s David Coverdale again and it looks like he’s talking about sex! “There’s a lot of groaning,” he says of the vid for “Still Of The Night” starring his current squeeze Tawny Kitaen, “because I’ve got a seriously deep chest; and the thrusting is just an extension of my physicality.”

Not much we can say there, so onto the next item: Ozzy, due to appear at a huge London benefit for AIDS, didn’t show; Meat Loaf stepped in at the last minute to save the day. Meat’s still flushed from having met his hero Eric Clapton the other day. “I was so nervous I couldn’t see straight,” he gushed.

Scott ‘Not’ Ian of Anthrax can’t hear straight. “I live with a buzzing in my ears,” he told Sounds. “I hear birds tweeting, it’s like a busted radiator or something, a never-ending whistle. I suppose 20 years from now I’ll be as deaf as Pete Townshend."

What? Speak up a bit? Okay, I’ve got ' it—another accident in the Metallica camp. James Hetfield’s having a steel pin put in his broken arm, the result of falling off that darned skateboard again. So Megadeth can’t expect any help from him in their planned attack (Satanic Biblechuckling) on Stryper when they head this way soon. "Stryper sucks," says Dave Mustaine. And while he’s in the mood for Megadefinitions, here’s some more to cut out and keep: "Speed keeps you up all night, thrash is kinda mindless headbanging with no actual direction, black metal is Satanic, doom metal is depressing, death metal is obsessed with nihilistic attitudes. Heavy metal is Jon Bon Anchovie, Ratt, Motley Crue and all the pussy rockers like that who’ve taken over the image of HM so people like us who are real HM have to come up with all these stupid nicknames!"

Slayer, who are all of the above and reportedly heading in the direction of Bon Anchovie wimp-metal on their next album, started their British tour on Good Friday (appropriately!), as their Reign In Blood album was finally released over here on a different label—their own record company wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole, upset at the song about Josef Mengele, "Angel Of Death.” Said Tom Araya: "People think we’re pro-Nazi, but that song has nothing to do with whether you’re for or against it. It’s just a song that

tells what happened. What’s the big deal?”

Here’s Joey Tempest again! Oh, OK, give us your quote and go then! "I try to do interesting things with the microphone stand.” Call that a quote?\ Here's a quote! And it’s from Janet Jackson! "It may sound strange, but somebody I would like to work with is David Lee Roth.” Doesn’t sound at all funny to Britmetal, Janet!

Girlschool have decided that they don’t want to work with Gil WestonJones. They’ve kicked her out—for drinking too much! Commented Kim: "It’s alright carrying mates off the stage, but it’s not good when you carry them on and they can’t stand up to play.” Odds on to replace Gil is Tracey Lamb, whose old band, Rock Goddess, has been doing some new recruiting of its own: it’s a fourpiece now, with Julia Longman, ex PDQ, on bass, and 16-year-old-keyboard player Becky Axten.

Roger Waters is still suing his old collegues to stop them releasing an album under the name Pink Floyd. He’s just finished a solo concept thingie about some fictional California radio station that he’s threatening to make into a movie.

Heavy Pettin’s wimpy rock ballad, “Romeo,” is in the finals to represent Britain in the awful Eurovision Song Contest, much to their embarrassment—they only entered for a laugh. And glorious Zodiac Mindwarp is the outright winner of Melody Maker's Fruitcake Of The Year award. What more can we say?