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SATAN – Five Magicians
Anthony Morgan
August 2018


Satan (l-r): Sean Taylor, Steve Ramsey, Brian Ross, Graeme English and Russ Tippins


Newcastle, England-based metal group Satan returned in 2011, the ranks boasting the same personnel who cut June 1983 debut Court In The Act. Album number three Life Sentence arrived in April 2013, roughly 26 years following the release of 1987 jaunt Suspended Sentence. A follow-up arrived in quick fashion via October 2015 platter Atom By Atom, with September 2018 full-length Cruel Magic building upon that momentum.

“We actually started working on Cruel Magic pretty much as soon as we’d finished recording the last one,” reveals Brian Ross, vocalist of Satan. “Russ (Tippins, guitars) had gotten a few ideas, and there were a couple of ideas that we had been working on for inclusion on the last album. We hadn’t finished them off, though – there were a couple of things that we needed to do to them. We started working on those; Russ came up with ideas for some riffs, verse patterns, and so on. Once things start to move into the realms of more what you’d recognise as a song structure, then I start with lyrics, and we move things around a little to get the lyrics where I want them to be, and so on.

“The process has taken a few years to sort of get it to where we felt we were ready to go into the studio to record. It’s the way we write things, I guess, in Satan. The process in Blitzkrieg is totally different – we do it from a different angle – but this is the way we do it in Satan. It’s different, and it’s probably the way most people write. It kind of suits the way we like to work.”

The longevity with respect to the writing process is what separates the two acts. “For instance, Blitzkrieg have just had an album released, and we won’t even start thinking about writing new songs until probably sometime next year,” the frontman cites. “Then we’ll start working on songs. We’ll write them as we go, in-between gigs and things, like if we’ve got a weekend off or whatever. Then once we’re ready, we’ll go into the studio and start recording ideas just to see how it sounds really. When the record company wants us to go into the studio, we’ll be ready to go. We take a lot less time over it in Blitzkrieg than Satan does, but it’s just the way that it works I guess.

“Sometimes I’ll come up with a lyric, and then I’ll give it to Ken (Johnson, guitars) and I’ll say ‘There it is. This is the basic idea.’ He’ll write a piece of music to it, and sometimes I’ll do the same thing in Satan with Russ. I’ll give him some lyrics, and he’ll see what he can do with them. There are similarities, but I think it’s the longevity of the process that’s predominantly different.”

The issuance of full-length offerings in 2013, 2015 and 2018 arguably establishes a steady pace. “The gap in-between product with Satan and with Blitzkrieg is probably longer than we’d like, and I think the days of a band doing an album in a year are well and truly gone,” Brian notes. “At the same time though, I think anything more than five years is probably not a great idea, and so you’ve got to get a happy medium I guess. For me personally, if it was up to me, I think I would like to do an album every two years. So, you finish off writing and recording an album, and then tour the next, and then back to writing the following year. That’s how I’d like to do it, I think.

“I think maybe we’ll see things slightly differently now with both Blitzkrieg and Satan. We’ve got new record companies of course, and we need to see what their schedules are and how often they want a product. I think the idea is two years though, to be fair. A year would be too much pressure on the band, I think. Back in the day when that used to happen, a lot of bands would get pressurised into doing an album every year, and I think the result of that in a lot of cases was bands splitting up and doing other things. That is not a road that either band wants to go down. I think we need to take a little time over it, but at the same time, not too much time.”

It was revealed on April 9th that Satan had signed an album contract with Metal Blade Records, having previously plied their trade under the Listenable Records banner for a pair of outings. “We had a great time with Listenable Records; they’re a great bunch of people, and it’s a great record label,” the singer compliments. “We were looking at the offers though, because there were a few record companies that had gotten in touch with us and offered us new deals. With the first two or three labels that got in touch and the first offers that we had, Listenable said ‘Well, I can match that,’ and so it went on really. Metal Blade came in and made an offer that we couldn’t refuse. As it says in the old phrase, in terms of ladders I guess, they’re the next rung up the ladder.


Brian Ross

“I think that’s where Satan needs to be, and that’s no disrespect to Listenable Records at all. As I said, they’re a wonderful bunch of people. Without their help, the last couple of Satan albums wouldn’t have happened. We’re eternally grateful to them, but at the same time we need to sort of move on, and move up as well if possible – get the band a higher profile, bigger and better gigs, and so on. That is the reason why, and it’s the same reason for Blitzkrieg, really. We were offered a much better deal, and one that we couldn’t refuse.”

Satan caught the attention of Metal Blade as the result of recent happenings. “Metal Blade had heard the albums, and they’d seen our work ethic,” Brian reckons. “They’d seen we’d been out there; we’ve played in Japan, we’ve played in the States, we’ve played in South America, and across Europe and so on. They liked what we were doing, and it helps when they’re actually sort of fans of the band as well if you like. It was a good move I think for us to do that, and we’re hoping things are really gonna sort of move for us now.”

Metal Blade are an established, professional label, with a hefty amount of experience in breaking and promoting metal acts. “They’ve been great with every part of the process so far – they’ve been very supportive,” the lyricist enthuses. “We said ‘We need some photographs done,’ and so we got photographs done. We needed a video, so they sent a production company to us to do a video. Everything’s coming together really, really well, and I think the guys in the band are really happy with what’s going on. It’s moving in the direction that we need to be in.”

Each effort a musical concern releases will inevitably be critiqued against past releases, with Satan being no exception. “That’s a difficult one, really,” Brian considers. “It’s down to personal opinions, I guess. If you asked ten Satan fans what their opinions were and asked the same question, you’d get ten different answers. For me, from the band’s perspective, I think I have to say that we’re focused a lot more with this album. We’ve kind of moved up a gear, and we’re moving into areas we’ve not touched before. It’s still very much the Satan thing, although the title isn’t anything to do with the courtroom or anything like the previous albums have been. There’s only so far you can go with the courtroom thing before the album titles to become a bit predictive. You sort of think ‘Yeah, this one’s going to be called this…’ or ‘… It’s gonna be called that…’

“I think we’ve kind of moved from it. We still use the Judge of course, because he’s our figurehead if you like. He will feature in whatever we do, and so never say never. I’m not saying that there will never be another courtroom-type title, but we’ve kind of moved on from that a little bit, although the songs are predominantly about injustice and things that are done that shouldn’t be done and so on. It’s a more realistic view of the world in which we live, I guess, and that really isn’t that different from any other album that we’ve done in that respect. Musically though, we’re moving on. What pleases me very much is that if I play at home a track from say Court In The Act and then I play a track from the new album, the same sort of energy is still there. We’ve not lost that energy, I don’t think. I think we’ve not gone sort of commercial for the sake of it. We’ve not thought ‘Oh, that’s too complicated – take that away.’ We just do what we do, and that’s what Satan is about.”

Such comments lead individuals to wonder what ‘very much the Satan thing’ is, in a nutshell. “In a nutshell?,” the performer chuckles. “How would you describe Satan? I don’t know. All I can say… The best way I can describe Satan is to basically take you back in time a little. We did Court In The Act, and then we couldn’t agree on where we needed to go after that. The band wanted to change the name of the band. I didn’t; I wanted to remain as Satan. They felt that they wanted to move the band in one direction, and I wanted to move the band in a different direction. We decided that perhaps we should go our separate ways, and that’s exactly what happened. The interesting thing is that 28 years later, we got together in a rehearsal room and started playing. Honestly, it felt like we had only just rehearsed the week before, and that is Satan.

“When you put the five of us together, something happens. It’s kind of a… I’m reluctant to use the word ‘magic,’ but it’s kind of like that. You put the five of us in a room together, and it just happens. It just is, and there’s something special when the five of us are together. That really is all I can say about what sums up Satan. It makes no difference how long we’ve been apart; when we get together and start working together, it just gels immediately, and it works. If I could bottle it and sell it to other bands, I would be an extremely rich man, but I can’t even put my finger on it and say what it is that makes that happen. It is just something that we all don’t take for granted, though. All five of us are amazed by it, so in a nutshell, how do you sum that up? I don’t know.

“We get together, and it works. There are a few bands throughout history who probably feel the same way, like Led Zeppelin maybe, and the classic line-up of Deep Purple. It just works, and you can’t question it. To sum it up, I would just say it’s a happy accident.”

Satan’s line-up since their 2011 return has boasted the same line-up that recorded 1983 magnum opus Court In The Act, as referenced during the inaugural paragraph of this feature. Fellow veteran bands, meanwhile, seem to only include one or two members among their line-up from their respective heyday. “Like Blitzkrieg, you mean?,” Brian laughs. “Generally, it’s hard when you look at it. Bands like Blitzkrieg and Satan have been around forever, and it’s really, really hard to keep people focused for that amount of time. People lost interest over the years. They might want to try something new and then they move on, and that is the story of Blitzkrieg. With Satan, we kind of moved on apart, and then got back together again when we realised that maybe we shouldn’t have split up in the first place. Maybe we should’ve stuck together, but it’s great to be able to say… Although if you’re going to be purist, it’s not the original line-up.


Satan (l-r): Graeme English, Steve Ramsey, Brian Ross, Russ Tippins and Sean
Taylor

“It’s the line-up that most people say matters, though; it’s the original line-up from the Court In The Act album, and it’s still the same line-up so many years later. Not many bands can actually say that. Bands do have people that move on; they get fired, someone else comes in, and things hopefully don’t change too much. You try to keep the core of what’s going on, though. With Satan, we don’t need to do that. I think you’re probably absolutely right. That’s possibly what part of the magic is, that it is the original people who are still together after all this time. That probably is kind of enviable to a lot of other bands, I guess (laughs). I’m absolutely delighted with it, that we’re still together.”

What the magic entails for Satan in 2018 is open to debate, the quintet often being lumped together alongside the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal movement – something which is arguably too limiting. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know,” the vocalist muses. “Judas Priest get lumped in with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, as does Motörhead. Are these bands New Wave? I’m not sure, because Judas Priest were around, and the very phrase New Wave Of British Heavy Metal would suggest that there was something before that, and of course we all know that there was. We had bands like Judas Priest for instance, who were around way before that, as were Black Sabbath. You look at that, and you think ‘Are they really New Wave?’ Maybe they are, or maybe they aren’t. They were the guys that the guys in New Wave looked back on, and said ‘We wanna be like that.’ So, I guess maybe.

“Personally though, from the point of view of Satan and Blitzkrieg, I’ve never, ever considered either of the two bands to be New Wave bands. Both bands were sort of around… I personally prefer to call both bands classic British metal, really. New Wave is kind of a style; it’s a lifestyle, I guess, rather than the actual bands themselves. Under the umbrella of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, there are many different styles. Blitzkrieg is totally different to Satan; it’s totally different to Raven and it’s totally different to Venom, and yet we’re all together under the same banner if you like. I’m not gonna knock the New Wave, because it’s been good to me. I was proud to be part of it back in the day, but I think now, are we still New Wave? I don’t know. That’s for other people to answer, I think, really.”

The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal term arguably never helped bands on a long-term basis. “I know,” Brian concurs. “The problem is, I think once you put a title on something, it’s not exactly a kiss of death, but it’s limiting. If you say you’re outside of the movement, people go ‘Yeah, yeah. They’re just a new wave band.’ Does that kind of consign you for an eternity – in football terms – to being a Championship band and not in the Premiership? I think, maybe, in some cases, that is true and that is the case.

“A lot of bands, as I’m sure you are well aware, fell by the wayside along the way. There were an awful lot of bands back in the 80s. Some were good, some were awful, and at varying stages. A lot of them basically died out when the American invasion happened, and hair metal came in. The thing is, as long as people… If somebody wants to say that Satan are a New Wave band, I’m fine with that. I’m happy with that; if that means something to them, then that’s cool, but I don’t think that we ever were, to be honest. I think we were just your classic British metal.”

Although many fell by the wayside, Satan included, Satan eventually weathered the storm and returned, Cruel Magic increasing the discography’s tally. Cruel Magic ventures into areas, the singer submits. “From me, predominantly, because of the kind of lyrics that I’m writing,” he clarifies. “I couldn’t use the lyrics from Blitzkrieg in Satan, and vice versa. I write specifically for the projects, and it was kind of hard sometimes, when we were recording the two albums. I was in the recording studio in the afternoon with Blitzkrieg recording songs, and then I’d jump in the car and go across to the other side of Newcastle to a different recording studio, and record with Satan. At times it was kind of hard, because after a few days, you start to think ‘Which band am I with right now?’ It’s hard.

“Looking at writing, there is a definite difference between the two bands. Not only that, the kind of stuff that Satan writes is say totally different to what Raven does, and obviously Venom would be another example. With a name like Satan, you’d expect that we’d write lyrics like Venom do, but that would be way too obvious. I think that’s the reason we’re called Satan, but we don’t actually write satanic songs.”

As compared to predecessor Atom By Atom, to select one basis for comparison, Cruel Magic happens to be different “across the board,” Brian argues. “They’re different songs and different albums, although the overriding theme throughout every Satan album is injustice or evil. Not evil as in Satan the demi-god, but more evil as in, like Iron Maiden put it, the evil that men do. We wrote a song on the last album about suicide bombers, which is a bit of a touchy subject. It got me a death threat. On the same album, we wrote a song called ‘My Own God’, and then people started saying ‘Brian Ross believes he’s God now.’ I’m not claiming to be God (laughs).

“On the new album, we’re writing songs about varying themes. In another interview, I was asked whether ‘Death Knell For A King’ is a poke at the monarchy. Not at all. Actually, I’m pro-monarchy; I’m a royalist through and through. It’s more a poke at the governing bodies of any country, whether it’s a king, a prime minister – whatever it is. I think they’ve made an awful mess of the different countries. I won’t say too much about it, but these people really need to take a step back. They need to think ‘Am I doing this right? Am I doing this for the good of the country? Is this good for the people in this country?’

“That’s what that song’s about. It’s basically saying ‘You’re getting all this wrong, and we can remove you just as easy as we put you there,’ and that’s what ‘Death Knell For A King’ is about. It’s not about the death of a king; it’s about the death of a ruler, or the end of that ruler’s job, basically. You can’t take it as a literal thing. Everything we write has a hidden meaning behind it, really, and you have to sort of do a little bit of work to get into what it’s about, which is what makes the subject slightly different. The theme running through all of Satan’s songs is the same, though. That’s something that I’m really quite proud of, to be fair.”

A fellow track alongside the likes of ‘Death Knell For A King’, ‘Doomsday Clock’ marks the inaugural composition to be highlighted from Cruel Magic. “I’m a massive Doctor Who fan,” the wordsmith confesses. “I would like to think that if I had a T.A.R.D.I.S., then I could travel back in time and go to a point where everything went wrong, and try to do something to change it. The thing is, with time travel comes the responsibility of ‘Can you really do this? Can you change the course of history?’ Of course, we don’t know. None of us have time machines, but that is what the song is about. It’s about a guy who travels from way in the future back to a point where everything got screwed up; he tries to do one cataclysmic thing that changes everything, and basically stops the world in its tracks so we don’t make the same mistakes again. That’s what ‘Doomsday Clock’ is about. It even says in there ‘… Time after time / Lord, we’ve tried.’ It’s a little pun, if you like.”

And then bolstering the cuts is the title track, of course. “I would say particularly over the last ten or 15 years, there’ve been so many TV series and movies about this kind of thing – about practical magic, and all of this stuff about witches, and so on,” Brian observes. “A lot of people have got interested in magic and the supernatural, and so on, because of these TV programs. My wife is actually a pagan, and she practices witchcraft. I’m not a pagan myself. I’m actually Christian, but we kind of work on it. We believe in different things, but it works. I know a lot about the Pagan religion. As it says in the song, once you invoke it, one must pay. You can’t just use magic, and there is a price to pay if you do – if you use it for selfish ends. For instance, if you use magic to… I don’t know… influence the numbers coming out in the weekend lottery, or whatever, then there is a price to pay.

“If my wife was here, she would tell you. If you use magic for bad purposes, it comes back on you three-fold. Once you invoke it, someone must pay. It’s a warning, basically. I’m just saying to be very careful. It’s also saying to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. It’s all based around that idea, but today’s society… I’m not a Bible basher – far from it – but I think a lot of people in today’s society only think about magic, or God, or Satan, or whatever gods that you pray to, when they want something. It’s a very dangerous road to go down. It’s kind of cool is magic, but that’s it. It has a bad side, it has an awful side, and it can be very cruel, hence the title Cruel Magic.”

Given the entertainer identifies as a Christian while his wife identifies as a pagan, you’d be forgiven for believing that certain subjects are taboo within their household. “(Laughs) She doesn’t believe in God, for a start, so she’ll say ‘Your god, blah blah blah,’” he tells. “I am a Christian, but I class myself as a true Christian. I don’t agree with what the churches tell you, and so on – I’ve got a totally different slant on it. I wouldn’t bore you or anybody else with it. It’s my particular thing, but let’s put it this way: I believe personally that true Christianity – what Christ actually said himself – is much nearer than Paganism than you’d actually first believe, so there is a lot of grey area between Christianity and Paganism than you’d believe, quite honestly. That’s how it works.

“I don’t diss Mandy’s religion at all. She’s a lovely person; she wouldn’t hurt anybody, although she’s a witch. People have said to her ‘Do you use black magic or white magic?’ Magic’s magic, but how you use it makes the difference. Anyway, I’ve bored you enough with that. It’s just to say that we manage to sort of muddle along with it, and for the most part, we actually agree. Let’s be honest: Christianity did steal a lot from the pagans, anyway. Christmas isn’t actually in December, at all. Christ was born in October. What we celebrate is Yuletide, and not the birth of Christ.”

Recording sessions took place at First Avenue Studio in Satan’s hometown of Newcastle, with engineers Dave Curle and Dario Mollo handling mixing. “It’s been a work in progress,” Brian states. “Sean (Taylor, drums) went in, and Russ had basically recorded all of the verse patterns and all of the structures of the songs at his home studio. Without any lyrics on or anything like that, but just the music. Sean had learnt them all; he went into rehearsal rooms, played them through the PA system, and played along with them. When Sean went into the recording studio, Russ went in with him, just did a guide guitar, and we got the drums down. We just built it up as you do, putting bits and pieces on. When it was time to do lyrics, I had all of the music. I worked on bits and pieces of lyric throughout the last couple of years, really.

“We went into the studio with ideas of how I was gonna do them, and basically what I’d be doing. Russ would be shouting at the same time through it all ‘Why don’t you try this?,’ or Steve would say ‘Try that’ or whatever, which we do. We all look at each other’s work, and say ‘Can you try this?,’ ‘How about a lead guitar solo with a bit of tremolo on there?,’ or whatever. They’d say ‘Can you do one of your screams here?’ ‘Well, yeah. I can.’ We worked through. By the time we finished, we’d have something recorded, but then I’d go away, listen to what I’d done, go back into the studio, and pretty much redo everything. That’s kind of why the bonus tracks for this album have alternative versions available. They’re gonna be in the box set, I think.

“It’s one of those situations where I went in, recorded the vocals, went away, listened to them, and said ‘I want to do this,’ or ‘I want to take the vocal a bit higher there,’ or ’… a bit lower there.’ Then when I’ve gone back into the studio, I’ve done what you’ll hear on the actual finished product. This time, what we’ve done is we’ve given you kind of an insight into that kind of work process it goes through. There’s several; I think there’s four or five tracks where when I first when in and did them. Things are slightly different, and so it makes just a little bit of an interesting view, I think, and a bit of an interesting process to see how things have changed slightly or whatever. That’s the kind of process that we work to though, and it does take quite a while, but we like to work like that.


Brian Ross

“It works the same for everybody else. Steve (Ramsey) will put a lead guitar solo down, and Russ will do the same. They’ll take them home, listen to them for a bit, and they’ll come back and say ‘Man, I don’t like that. I wanna do this.’ It gives you the opportunity to sort of review what you’ve done, go back, and record a little bit more. I think that’s pretty much it, really. That’s how we work.”

How the vocalist works in opting how to lend vocal parts to Satan’s compositions is up to him. “The guys come up with decisions, but then it’s kind of up to me how I’m gonna go,” he confirms. “I listen to what they say, and I incorporate as much of their ideas into what I wanna do as possible. Sometimes they’ll say ‘Why don’t you do this?,’ and then I’ll give them a very good reason why I’m not gonna do it (laughs). Sometimes Russ might say ‘Why don’t you do this?,’ and I’ll think ‘I never thought of that.’ So, we give it a shot. It’s great. We all work together in that respect, and nobody says ‘No, bugger off. I’m not doing that,’ or ‘What do you know? I’m not doing what you tell me to do.’ There’s none of that.

“We work together, and Russ does a fair bit of vocals on the album as well. He waits to see what I’ve done, and then he’ll come up with harmony parts to what I’ve done, and it’s great. When you hear the final thing, it’s great to hear that because I love the sound of mine and Russ’ voice together. I think it sounds really good; they compliment each other. It’s just a nice working environment, I think, where we can all work together, and we’re still good friends after all these years (laughs).”

Cutting vocals are “always a challenge,” Brian feels. “When you start out with just a piece of music, you’ve got to find a pattern that you can write a lyric to, first of all. Predominantly, you’re writing poetry basically, so you’ve got to take a piece of poetry and fit it into a piece of music. Not only have you got to do that, you’ve then got to come up with some music. That is different to what the band is playing for your melody line. I find that a challenge every time, and I love it. I just love that challenge because the creative process is so demanding, but it’s so rewarding at the same time. Once you’ve finished, you say to the rest of the guys ‘What do you think?’ and they go ‘That sounds great,’ and then it’s the way it is.

“The temptation to scream your head off, where it’s like ‘Why don’t you put a scream there?’ or ‘Why don’t you put a scream here?’? Yeah, it would be great to fill the record up with screams all over the place, but what’s the point in that? Just because I can doesn’t mean I have to do it. I like to be more sparing with the screams now; I’m getting older, and the more screams I put in the record, the more screams I’m gonna have to do live. I’m trying to look after my voice; I’d like for it to last a lot longer, and screaming your head off all of the time isn’t necessarily a great way of doing that (laughs).”

Cover artwork duties fell to Eliran Kantor, once again. “He’s done all of the recent covers, and he does such an amazing job,” the singer praises. “What we do is we just give him all of the lyric sheets for every song on the album, and we’ll say ‘Okay, off you go. There it is; paint us a picture that fits in there.’ Sometimes he might come up with an idea that’s based off of one particular song, or he might take one idea from that song and mix it with another idea, and so on. What he finishes up with is a piece of artwork that just totally fits the album, really, because it’s a visual theme of the songs that you’re listening to. It’s your snapshot, if you like, if you can sum up the album.

“I think he’s done an absolutely incredible job on every album that’s he done with us so far – I can’t say that he’s done a bad job on any of them. For ‘Doomsday Clock’, he came up with a different idea – just using the Judge’s hand. It’s there. What he said when he did that with the hand was that the Judge was basically holding the future of the world in his hand, and I was thinking ‘Okay (laughs). Whatever.’ I think it’s a fantastic piece, and he’s such a great artist, too.”

Cruel Magic is one long-player you’d arguably give a second look towards on the basis of its cover artwork, if scouring through vinyl at a record store. “That’s really the idea,” Brian explains. “As I was growing up, as a kid back then, you may have only had a certain amount of pocket money. I’m talking a long, long time ago here, when an album was £2.50. It was a long time ago, but if you only had £3 or £4 in your pocket, you’re going to be very selective about what you buy. I would always go to my local record store, and I would flick through the records – as you do. You’d flick, flick, flick, and then something would catch your eye and you’d stop. You would pull that album out, and you’d look at it. That really is your attention hooked already, just by simply stopping at that album and looking at it. You’ve already almost subconsciously made the decision ‘This is the album that I’m going to buy,’ because it has attracted your attention. Throughout the years, I’m sure that there have been albums that have had great covers, but when you’ve listened to them, you’ve thought ‘Shit, what have I bought here? It’s rubbish.’

“I think that while that may be the case though, we would like to think that we’re still doing that. It appeals to the teenage me, and I would like to think that somewhere, somebody is in a record store flicking through all of the different vinyls or CDs that are available, and he stops at the Satan product and thinks ‘I’m gonna buy this, because I like the look of this cover. This looks really good.’ Then when he gets it home, I would love to think that he goes ‘I love this album. I’m glad I bought it.’

“That’s the point. If you put a crap cover on your album, people are not gonna look at it. They’re not even gonna give it a second glance, and the only way that that album is then gonna sell is if you go to your friend’s house, and your friend says ‘Have you listened to this?’ Then they play you some of it, and you think ‘That is good. I’m gonna go and buy that. It’s got a shit cover, but it’s a great album.’ This is why both Satan and Blitzkrieg take a lot of time over their covers; we want people to notice what we’ve done, and that is really it.”

It’s a shame that not all musical groups take as great a care in commissioning cover artwork. “I can think of a few, but I won’t tell you,” the lyricist replies. “I can think of a few where I’ve thought ‘What an awful album sleeve that is.’ I think that it’s a big thing, really. It’s a promise; it’s an initial promise. Just by having someone stop to look at it, that album cover is promising that what you’re gonna hear on the inside is just as good as what you’re looking at on the outside. I would like to think that that’s what Satan has got, and I would like to think that Blitzkrieg is the same. So yeah, I agree 100% with you. I wish that more bands would take a little bit of time over their covers, just to make sure that what they’ve got is something worth looking at. Then again, if everybody did it, then you’d have a record store full of great covers, and then you’d go ’What am I gonna do now (laughs)?’”

Further music videos to promote Cruel Magic will likely be made. “I’m guessing there probably will be, yeah,” Brian affirms. “I think that what the record company is looking at is how popular this one is. We have a lot of views on ‘Doomsday Clock’, so I’m guessing that they’re gonna be very pleased with it. I’m hoping that there may well be more videos to follow. It’s not an area that Blitzkrieg or Satan have been in before, really, and so it’s nice to be finally able to do a video. Hopefully people like what we do, really.”

2019 will mark 40 years since Satan’s formation. “Was it ’79 that Satan originally formed?,” the performer asks. “I think it was, actually. I’m pretty sure that it was. Yeah, next year, you’re right. That would be an anniversary. I’m sure that we’ll plan something for that, if that is the case, and I suspect that it is to be honest. So yeah, we’ll probably do something for that. We’ve already got the album coming out and so on, so it’s probably more likely to be maybe a gig in our hometown of Newcastle. I don’t know; I don’t know what we would plan. I would certainly hope that we wouldn’t let it pass without doing something. I like to do these things, and it’s nice when you can. So yeah, I’m sure that we’ll do something.”

April 2018 had marked the 35th anniversary of Court In The Act’s release. “Court In The Act was my first album, really,” Brian remembers. “It was the first album that I recorded. For me, it’s a special album. I guess a lot of people look with great fondness on that album, because it’s a great album. Funnily enough, we’re going out on tour shortly, and for one of the gigs that we play, we’re doing only the Court In The Act album – which is quite odd. They asked us ‘Would you come and just play Court In The Act?’ We said ‘Yeah, but it’s gonna be a fairly short gig (laughs).’ The idea I think is to play Court In The Act in its entirety, and then finish off the set with some stuff off of the new album probably.

“It’s held with a lot of affection, and that makes me very happy, really – to think that something that I did all that time ago, people still love now. When I look down off of the stage into the audience, I see people in the audience that can’t have even been born when Court In The Act was first released, and yet they’re still there, they’re loving every song, they know the lyrics to every song. I think that that is a fabulous place to be. Court In The Act is kind of special.”

The subjects of 35th and 40th anniversary milestones being reached inevitably leads to the topic of how much longer Satan will exist for. “I’m 64 this year, and I think ‘Well, how much longer can I keep doing this?,’” the vocalist admits. “The answer to that is I really don’t know. Nobody knows. Next week, I might get a phone call where one of the guys says ‘Let’s get together, because we need to talk,’ and then we sit in a room together and go ‘I think this is the end.’ Hopefully, it’s not gonna happen. I can’t see it happening, because we’re all so very happy with what we’re achieving right now. I think as long as people out there still appreciate what we do, they still come to see us, and they still get the albums and so on? As long as that continues and as long as we’re healthy enough to carry on, I can see us going on for quite a bit longer, to be honest.”

Cruel Magic will be released on September 7th, 2018 via Metal Blade Records.

Interview published in August 2018. All promotional photographs by Stefan Rosic.

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