Hellmagazine: ‘Metalmorphosis’ review

Standing at birth of a New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Their music is a guarantee of quality and their fans masterfully constructed between icons like Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard. Therefore, it was an honor to ask a few questions which I answered willingly Chris Troy.
You have  founded the  band  with your brother in the 70 – ies at a time when punk rock was at its peak. How do you remember  at the beginning of the band?
Its a bit of a blur really , it was such a long time ago :)…… however I do very much recall those days of punk and in a way it needed some form of music to come along and brush it away. Perhaps its what made NWOBHM so big so quickly as people were already sick and tired of punk!.
Those times though were superb , its like the music scene was so fresh and unpretentious .
There were no stupid programmes on TV which made people feel they were inferior if they are not in a band . And now that way of thinking and the programmes particularly from America is encouraging this glut of music that they have the audacity to say its rock !!!!!  Ughhh.
Was it difficult to break through with hard rock music in that time?
No I believe it was far easier then  than now. Yes there is the argument that its so easy now to generate music and indeed many young bands can record proper albums in their parents garages for a mere fraction of the cost of going to the studio. But for every plus there are as many negatives if not more  and  in this case the same benefits means that anyone can do it and hence the market is saturated with bands. Don´t get me wrong there is some fantastic talent out there , but it will be so hard for them to shine through because of the shear number of mediocrity.
One of the important people at that time was Neal Kay, who gave Soundhouse Tapes which  very moved forward NWOBHM.
Yes! There is no doubt that he was a king in the NWOBHM movement.
There was the heavy metal soundhouse that he ran and he auditioned the tapes of possible up and coming bands .
One of many bands were Iron Maiden ! Without Neal Kay its an almost certainty that they would not be as big as they are today !.They do have a lot to thank him for.
Thanks to this record appeared Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Samson and many others which are great bands today. Was it composition of the above-mentioned recording thanks what you became famous?
I think the Metal for Muthas album did really help many of those bands . On that album we had the song entitled  -Captured City  and there is no doubt it pushed us forward into the limelight  and made the song quite iconic .
When I ask on your beginnings , I would  like to ask for Dennis Stratton. He was a member of Iron Maiden, but also he long played with Praying Mantis.
In the time I have know Dennis which included the time he was in Iron maiden , it was clear that he is the type of person  that wears his heart on his sleeve ! That is he can never  hold his feeling in to himself and has to tell people what he thinks , regardless of the outcome .
In the 80’s we knew there were politics of Iron Maiden that he didn´t always agree with consequently it was a matter of time before something would give .Its a shame for him because he could still have been with Maiden !.
What was the reason of  Dennis leaving?
I don´t think he ever really left , strange as it sounds !….. we sort of drifted apart we took a little time out from writing and giging due to family committments and just went our separate ways but there were never any bad words or arguements and to this day we are still the best of friends
This year, the band lived to its 30 years  anniversary. In February, you released the album Metalmorphosis. The album was met with positive reviews. Do you watch  his reviews?
30years since the release of our Debut Album  Time tells no lies!  Yes of course we look at the reviews, they are important to us . It is impossible to please everyone all the time because we all have different tastes . However the reviews that we have seen of the new EP have been fantastic, far better than we could have imagined !
Single  Children of the Earth 2011 you gave to download from the internet and everyone who download it will contribute to Japan which was hit by huge natural disaster.
Yes , when I watched the dreadful  pictures of the Tsunami and the destruction it caused I felt to very sorry for those poor people ! Japanese fans have been amazing to us over the history of the band and in truth I doubt very much that we would have survived as long as we have without their support. The Children of the earth donation is a very small token on our behalf which we hope will help a little.  Its available to download on Itunes or Cdbaby.
Do you prepare a special concert to the mark of this anniversary?
Yes there are a few important states coming up but we will soon arrange a specific anniversary show and we hope to utilise that to thank the many people that helped us along those 30 years
Thank you for your time that you spent with this interview. Do you want to leave a message to our readers?
You have been great to us over these years , Thanks so much  YOU ROCK !!!  Come join us on Facebook
added: 15.04.2011
Added: Michal Roháč