It’s funny how life can come full circle, lift the veil and still offer a few surprises

A few years ago, we landed a tour supporting Tim ‘The Ripper’ Owens, dream come true you would think? Well… confession time- up to that point my only experience of ‘the ripper’ was ONE live show a couple years before that! I know, I know, pretty reprehensible considering his impact on the music I love (trust- this I now know haha). But what a show it was…

I can define the magnitude of that show in just a few words,

Heaven and Hell…Lamb of God…Iced Earth…Wembley- and yes it was as good as it sounds! That’s the first time I saw Tim perform, Wembley fucking arena- no small change, so I was pretty stoked to at least be supporting an artist of that magnitude, but what we got on that tour was a whole lot different than what I was expecting.

This was a real blood guts and sawdust tour, sure there were a few venues befitting his stature but hell of a lot that were the world we knew- small sweat boxes, right up in your grill crowds- just the way we like it, real underground metal rock houses. I’ve made a crust lugging gear in the industry before and I tell you there are some proper divas (sorry artistes) out there that can’t understand let alone share the ground your standing on with them, so considering Tim’s name is part of the rock history fabric- Judas Priest (The film Rockstar with Mark Wahlberg was based on him) Iced Earth, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc etc, you might be forgiven for thinking we were lining up to get one hell of an asshole to work with for a few weeks.

And you’d be dead wrong.

This was a guy who would skelp it in the van, always have a friendly word for you, humble with the crowd, eat out with us and pay the bill, big up the band during his set… the list goes on. By the end of that tour he’d have us up on stage and belting out the priest classic Livin after midnight, over a couple of beers to that night’s crowd- fucking awesome.

Earlier in the day of one of those nights he’d nonchalantly told us he’d got a friend coming to the show who might pop down, ok cool nothing unusual about that, anybody we needed on the guestlist? Usual stuff. So I’m at the merch table just before the show kicks off and this old white haired rocker dude comes over and buys a load of our stuff- t shirts, cd’s, that sort of thing. A few friendly words and on he goes, standard. I turn to my buddy Tom and I’m like ‘that guy reminds me of someone, I’m sure it’s…nah can’t be’. Come the end of the night and we vamos backstage after ripping through the finale with the ripper and a few beers, when after Tim comes over and says ‘theres somebody I want you to meet’ so over we go and it’s the guy from the merch table earlier that evening- ‘KK this is Past The Fall’

Fuck.

Its KK Downing. From Judas Priest. And I didn’t clock him. I definitely need glasses! So turns out we just performed Living after midnight to KK downing with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens- I’ll take that! And what a cool guy to boot, we chatted some for a bit took some pics with us, just a proper down to earth guy.

So time came and went and we chalked up the tour to another step trodden on our journey, and thought little more about it, until somebody tagged me in a post on facebook with the message ‘look what at he’s wearing!’ what? Hmm, ok whats this video all about then… Holy fuck would you adam and eve it!, it’s KK downing doing an instructional video in his pad for guitar world wearing a band t shirt- our band t shirt! So there you have it, KK downing wears our gear!

Really though for me, the moral of all this isn’t about the name dropping, it was a lesson that showed me behind the curtain of the rock show and revealed our metal heroes weren’t super gods, they were something else, something better- real people. Real people that made there path with a genuine love for metal and not the pomp and promise of fame, and however high they rose it’s about the bands AND the fans. Period. And for that I say, thankyou.

And THANKYOU! for downloading our track and taking time out of your day to take a chance on us, as a token of our appreciation we want to offer you a video of one of those said performances with the ripper, for free.

Download ‘Living after midnight’ here.

If you dig what we do and want to check out more, download our debut album that was forged out of those experiences and let us know what you think!

Download ‘From Insanity’s Ruin’ here.

Talk soon,
Will