- 2 days ago
This is the story of Rob Mathew, known as Rob Redhead, a young musician from the northeast of England who joined a heavy metal band in 1985 and spent the next four years checking off all the boxes of rockstar life. Atomkraft was one of the first new bands to emerge post-NWOBHM, and they were at the forefront of the evolving British heavy rock and metal scene. Signed to the same label as the up-and-coming, world-dominating legends Venom, both bands shared the same management company. However, the cozy world of British heavy metal exploded in the mid-1980s with the arrival of American thrash metal bands. Atomkraft had to quickly up their game and adapt to survive, as a faster, more aggressive style than ever before took the metal music world by storm, led by bands like Metallica and Slayer. At just 16 years old, Rob was not only thrown into the deep end of learning, recording albums, and playing to thousands but also had to rapidly adapt his songwriting abilities to this new thrash genre, as did the other band members, to survive and hopefully thrive.
#neatrecords #atomkraft #venom #music #heavymetal
#neatrecords #atomkraft #venom #music #heavymetal
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MusicTranscript
00:00so where are we 1988 87 has been full-on um yeah pretty much done everything that yeah
00:10ticked every box that yeah like um basically the next level up from
00:15um 85 although the shows were a little bit the shows were a little bit smaller like because
00:23like an 85 it was a it you know it was venom uh there were big big big game venues like you know
00:32um so the the crowds weren't as big like ever got as big and that's that was venom at the peak like 85
00:38um but in terms of just loads of stuff happening it all sort of happened in in that year like you
00:46know um 87 yeah more varied 88 kicks in right now um i'm at jed's house the drummer he's the uh the
01:02younger brother of the manager eric who was the manager of also a venom and um you know just
01:11sitting cups of coffee trying not to get bitten off his dog and you know watching music videos
01:18and um uh you know jade says i mean we do need another guitarist don't we robley i said well
01:31yeah so you know you know but you know uh we sort of do like because all the american bands
01:37i've all got uh two guitars and it's a full alive sound you know so i wasn't in in a disagreement but
01:43i i i you know he says what i think he showed us a picture of like some some live you know he says
01:51well we'll get this lad in he's been sending uh audition tapes and hit records and that i said
01:56well you know i wasn't it was made territory you know the guitar wasn't sure so i wasn't really budging
02:03like you know so uh so uh so what they decided to do which was uh
02:10jade says well why don't we get i think tony dolan is going to go on a rhythm guitar and we're going
02:18to get darren back in on bass and i thought i thought all right that'll work you know so um
02:26that that that was that and that was basically the basically the reason to go back to five to go
02:36to become a five piece was for that reason because you know i mean say i were a four piece but there
02:42was two guitars you know exodus all the thrash stuff was always two guitars so um you know it was
02:49you know when then when you had um like how the dying bag doll um you know the four piece was just
02:56the one guitar came up sort of after the thrash you know you you didn't really need the four piece
03:02like you know you just had to just fucking go out there and do it and have a good bitty you know
03:07have good music equipment so you get a good get you know guitar sound and bass sound everything when
03:13you can do on stage you know you know i certainly never had any equipment borders and um that was a
03:20problem really but anyway i was all in agreement with two guitars so that was that was the lineup and 88
03:27um from what i can remember i was again it was its own thing it was its own thing you know the
03:36highlight of 88 was as a five piece with toward europe again with some american bands and um was
03:44shit hot like you know um it was really would be sort of now like with darren and the band and
03:51i mean tony dolan was you know handling playing rhythm guitar pretty well like and um you know
03:59you know sort of totally donald sort of reinvented himself again as a scottian from anthrax uh you
04:10know well i did say that i did you know obviously i was aware of anthrax and i thought well i actually
04:16quite liked a couple of their songs and i thought well that's a way that we could start writing like
04:21we'll go in that direction a bit more um you know but you know that sort of running around
04:29the stage was adopted by tony dolan and it was a natural thing for um darren cooper the paces to
04:38do anyway so the the dynamic was was was great on stage i just i just stood to one side and just
04:46look cool as fuck as ever you know and just uh pulled me we had sort of occult signs which i didn't
04:51know what the fuck they meant and uh and just you know just doing my thing and uh but we were we
04:58were definitely shit hot it we did the time had arrived for that band like adam craft is a is a is
05:06a is that five piece and well you know rather than feeling we were up against it when we played live
05:15up against this wall of noise from these other bands and also thrash bands from countries that
05:22were starting to get it as well like you know european bands and stuff and british bands like
05:28the british band onslaught they got it they got that sound straight away you know we were at and
05:33craft were more we were always a unique sounding band like now we had to evolve and even when we did
05:40evolve it was still at and craft like we didn't sound like a band uh an american band uh you know
05:47and um a lot of those bands did like you know which i'm not knocking it like but it wasn't what
05:54what we were so but but by the time we were firepacing in 1988 when we did play these shows
06:00um there was no feeling from any of us in the band like you know oh we've got a bit of a mountain to
06:07climb to to to to you know to be as loud and as powerful and as you know full on as this band that
06:16have just been on or the band that's coming on afterward you know what we knew we were good
06:21we knew the reaction was changed from the crowd the crowd just saw us kind of is just
06:28just a thrash metal band you know it will all the rest of them
06:34um but with our own sort of obviously our own quirks there was a lot there's a bit more there's
06:40always that more of that sort of visually there'd be more of a fun look to her especially with
06:46swifty the singer you know he was a great front man great eye contact and with a crowd and getting
06:52the crowd involved proper front man not many of them about and um you know you've got to have a
06:59front man you know and that's exactly what we had uh so everything was there that's the shame
07:06that is the shame about i'm craft that and also you know if if i'd been basically to tell you the
07:13truth i'd been getting paid if i'd got some money i might have stuck out with it a bit longer but i
07:18didn't make any money so i was i was i was aware that this band was was good but um you know i was
07:28seriously thinking now like um what am i going to do next like because this this this is even though
07:35the band sounds great we've just done a great tour um well anyway i mean the height the the high
07:42point of that year 88 was we played it um behind the iron curtain which was still up then you know
07:48so in in enemy territory you know soviet union we played at uh poznan a city in poland and we played
07:57this this this sort of stadium gig with these other bands and um there's footage of that i think
08:06there's there is footage of that uh knocking about somewhere and it would be nice to see that
08:10um emerge somehow somewhere uh i think that's i don't know why that isn't doesn't it isn't in
08:20existence you know because it's it's part of the history of the band like and uh the history of
08:25heavy metal like i know like sort of there's another there's there's another couple of bands
08:31was it nasty savage i think their footage is up online on youtube uh it really needs to go on up
08:37like um so that was a highlight that was a big deal that like i think the only people that the only
08:45band that i played behind the iron curtain in the soviet union up that point had been iron
08:50which was like two years earlier uh that obviously that was such an amazing experience you know
08:57uh too too many too many sort of memories and everything to explain just in this short video
09:03like i says in the future it would be nice to with with the help of vi to create sort of a really
09:10even a movie you know of of the whole all sort of basically apcraft experience like it might have
09:17to be four movies like might have to be each year um because you know me mind still if i just
09:23i mean i'm just rambling here but if i just sort of sit and sort of work it all out and try and
09:30remember all the things i think there's a there's there's quite a there's quite a quite a lot there that
09:35i could um suggest to your island could be created into some like i say movies which would be
09:40fascinating um you could even get the real characters us you know the faces i mean it's just
09:48going to be remarkable but 88 was it was also a great year as that five piece high high points
09:54but the thing that didn't happen that year was album we didn't get neat records were struggling
10:01because all the smaller labels were struggling like and we're trying to get a deal the band
10:07atmancraft was trying to get a deal with i think it was music for nations at the time
10:11but because all the small record labels were struggling around the world you had like
10:16you know literally thousands of metal bands all running to these large labels that had the backing
10:25you know and i think it was just there's probably that and uh probably other things as well that that was
10:32sort of making it a negative thing for atom craft uh to get signed to any one of these you know labels
10:44whatever was going on all i know is that you know would never sounded better like and the songs
10:50i would demoed an album called atomized and um you know i was really starting to kick in
10:58you know really starting to focus and in how i wanted to see the band go which was along i would
11:04have at that point i would i was sort of focused on sending the the band towards a sort of thrash metal
11:11iron maiden you know that that's where i wanted the band to go i thought there was there was room there
11:17like there was a big it was a big empty space to fill and i thought that would be great like a thrash
11:22a thrashy iron maiden um kind of like i think halloween the german band was sort of doing that
11:30a little bit but i wasn't thinking about that i was just i was just thinking a british thrash
11:37iron maiden and then it could have went from there um it could have went anywhere you know i could
11:43have could have went but you know the band jed and even swifty i mean these guys were just strictly
11:52metal like strictly rock there's there's no way there's no way on earth they were going to change
11:57you know back in the day you know if you'd done like an acoustic intro to a song it was it was a bit
12:02gay like you know um you know and so you would always have the sort of same sort of chorus chorus effect
12:10on the guitar intro and then you'd have the guitars the song coming in it was always
12:17very cliched like and i started to get a bit sick of it all to tell you the truth that the confines of
12:22the what was acceptable in the songwriting you know that the formula you've got to stick to i mean i
12:29suppose thrash kept us going for a sort of longer than i would have in the world of metal in that way
12:35because it was a new technique it was new we had playing but you know i would i would have always
12:41have wanted to be in a band where it was constantly evolving and constantly changing that's not a
12:47common thing but it's certainly not uncommon it's certainly all the vans the bands that i was ever
12:53influenced by the beatles led zeppelin even rush um you know all the 60s bands evolved like you know
13:01you know they went through changes 1960s bands you know bowie went through all the different changes
13:09and just i just you know just to be stuck playing the same sort of music and not evolving
13:16and then plus the name of attencraft years later years later 20 years later i found discovered ramstein
13:25this was around about the time that it would have been to that when i was starting when i was just
13:31about starting argon cast and i thought i'd better do some research on into metal and that what's what's
13:36what's about you know so you know obviously ramstein had been gone for a little while like you know
13:42and i looked at the ramstein i think i bought the dvd and it's and i just thought this this would have
13:49been art and craft this like this is this is what this is where i would have pushed up art and craft
13:54in me songwriting like because the word would have started craft would have suited perfect um
14:02just it would have just became art and craft would have just became like the british ramstein even ahead
14:08of ramstein probably even before ramstein or if not it would have certainly just i would have saw ramstein and
14:16i would have thought all right let's just let's scan that way a little bit but you know i was never
14:25paid man i was never paid so you know if you're not if you're not making any money you know you do all
14:32these big big gigs and and you know all the big shows and you take every box like is like in your
14:40teens you're a little rock star and you take all the little boxes big boxes actually and you do all the
14:46things but then it becomes where's the money like you know surely i need to be i need where's the
14:54equipment why do why don't i even get some money for music coming nothing so 88 was great atomized the
15:04album was what we're gonna do if we get signed i was looking and
15:12i was a feeling in the air that that that you know rock and metal this was slightly before grunge i
15:22didn't have a grunge coming along that was like a year a year and a half later i didn't know anybody
15:30knew what grunge was i just knew that was a feeling in the air and uh i think i just felt like i'd outgrown
15:36the metal and uh i've always been myself i've always been really an indie musician well i was indie
15:46before the name indie was invented like so it's always been for me it's always been
15:52pop like you know pop music guitar pop you know just the 1960s all the 1960s stuff was pop guitar pop
16:00you know beatles who you know even doors it's all just great songs you know and
16:08like i've said before i mean i was on the tour bus with atomcraft listening to the smiths you know i
16:13started getting into the smiths like and because i thought the smiths were like the 60s i thought
16:18well it's like these are like this is like the 1960s so by the end of atomcraft i was i wasn't really
16:23listening to heavy metal like i was you know it was it was the smiths it was the cure the cult um
16:30killing joke you know and then it's then it was i was started to then the beatles started to come
16:39back in with us again and and really digging into the 1960s stuff so by the time i was 19 i was full
16:45on back to the 60s like you know and because obviously there was so much i didn't know there's
16:52some you know i said well i might i knew i might i knew the singles a lot of a lot of the singles
16:56from say the kings but i didn't know the albums so i was buying the albums and um you know it was
17:05you know like really actually became quite uh yeah inspired inspired by ray davies like you know and uh
17:12all the 60s stuff which is why i went on to form with me mate bry the the band the shapes
17:18and well that's pretty much it really i left the band uh and then tony dolan had joined
17:27venom as the singer so you know in 1990 and just they threw the towel in jed and swifty came up and
17:37to us one day when i was um i i met swifty by accident i was on my mod scooter
17:45and uh i went into this uh upholstery shop called upholstery shop because i was wanting like um
17:52a union jack seat cover for me vespa and the guy's in there and swifty's working in there oh wow
17:58wow man they got got that room and and then he came they came to see us hit me student digs flat
18:07um swifty and jed drummer jed and they were wanting they were wanting that craft to do something with
18:14that craft again and uh i was i was you know i'm i'm banging to me acoustic stuff me folk stuff i've
18:22got me driftwood band gunning and um you know i've got the shorty and i'm on my mod scooter the last
18:29thing i was wanting to do at this age which always would have been at about 24 last thing i was wanting
18:35the days going back to that like going back to the heavy metal legs so um you know just shook hands
18:42and didn't you know wasn't interested like you know um they did approaches like you know a few
18:50years later again when i was out street performing with me poetry and um i did go along and see them
18:57and i did talk to them about um because i i did feel this was like 2004 i did feel like i was wanting to
19:05to get something get back to doing a bit of rock you know get it i thought there was i thought the
19:10bit my best stuff hadn't been written you know and i've got home recording studios and all the gear
19:19and i'm thinking i don't want to be remembered you know as a songwriter for just what i've done with
19:26that and craft because it's good stuff but i know i can do a lot better now and i've got all the
19:32production gear so i had a meeting with them and it just i don't know it just i was seeing about
19:40we'll record an album and as eric manager was going but it's no point you know
19:46i don't know what they were up to i think they were just wanting to get like an atom craft
19:49uh together was it to have a go at tony dolan i don't know but um my my thing was to be creative
19:58you know i would i would have got back with them to be creative to to let's you know let's write
20:04some albums that and record some albums that are better than what we've done in the past
20:08to fucking show what we can do but uh no there was in my opinion uh well i think they're just
20:17it was just strictly for doing some shows you know and uh
20:24i just felt like yeah i just felt like i was being messed about a bit and i didn't like it you know
20:29so but i was still i still had a a a feeling of i still i wanted to get some heavy metal out my
20:38system you know and this is me and me sort of mid 30s and um i found me bad argon cast and i've done
20:48that for two years and uh those were shit hot songs like and uh that was a great little band and
20:58that was pretty much well the last of that later on i've done i've done me redhead with horns solo
21:06project um you know i don't need pilo boot boys which is completely full on and in terms of
21:18authenticity and realism real is the pilo boot boys is is fucking mental like properly probably
21:27i would probably say it's the best thing i've done the pilo boot boys like
21:31um you know bearing in mind that i'm a creative person like a script writer you know i am not
21:42a pilo boot boy i'm creating like a movie you know a soundtrack for a movie and uh i think that was
21:51i think that's the best thing i've ever done that like uh even though it's it's completely you know
21:57uh you know it's never gonna be on the radio put it that way and there was me driftwood driftwood was
22:07unbelievable you know the shapes were fantastic band iron cast were great and this mcgiffrin stuff was
22:14very good um and literally all my best stuff all my best work like has been better than appencraft you
22:25know it's been better than appencraft and that's not not an appencraft it's just like you know
22:31as as i grew in confidence as a as a musician and a songwriter and i started singing myself
22:37obviously they just i took over the whole the reins of melodies and lyrics and all this sort of stuff
22:43and you know i was still just a teenager when i don't happen craft but um you know the thing is
22:49that is that is that is what they are lost like that is what they are lost they lost this sort of
22:55in a way i'm not saying this in an egotistical way like but they lost the goose that would lay the
23:03golden egg because there was so much there's so much songwriting right so many great songs that i
23:12could have created for that band like appencraft if i'd only gotten paid you know but that was their
23:18loss and it's another it's another lesson just goes to show you know it takes two to tango right
23:25so you gotta have your great songwriters your great band you gotta be great management as well
23:29that's the only way it works the only way it works atom craft is complete proof to that
23:37you know that you can be a good a good band a great live band with some very good songs
23:47right but you've got to have the management like to get into that next level like
23:52you've just got to and i think that's about it that is about it after all said and done
24:05it's something that i experienced with all those human beings all those people at my craft from the
24:12very start to the very end you know the venom the management the band members the roadies
24:21you know the other people who were there on the on the peripherals i mean it's a great movie like
24:29and i wouldn't swap it for anything like because i got to experience stuff that teenagers didn't get
24:36experience you know i got to do all them things and um you know if i had i had money to pay for all
24:45them experiences i would have paid paid the money up front to have all their experiences at the end of
24:51the day you know because you didn't get out for now like and uh i feel proud and happy about my years
25:01with atom craft and it's not to blame anybody that after atom craft me bands on me projects
25:10um never got any of the same sort of um events or happenings and stuff happen like that
25:19like atom craft it's just that's just the way the world went you know and um i'm just fortunate that
25:28i just caught the tail end of that night of the of rock and roll basically i caught the tail end of rock and
25:35roll because like by 1990 and grunge came in and and then a few years later brit pop you know it was all
25:45dead like it was finished you know um by the end of the 90s
25:55the rock and roll hall of fame doors were shut man and i've often thought like
26:02like in a way it's sort of a good thing you know because it sort of puts
26:07music of the 20th century it puts it gives it a full stop and ending you know the internet and
26:14everything came in so it started with robert johnson and woody guthrie started in the americana and ended
26:23you know in the late 90s with sort of ridiculously over commercial sort of
26:32simon cowell pop you know but it did end and that sort of those decades of 70 70 80 years
26:43you know i got my foot in the door and i got my own little piece of rock and roll history and i'm
26:53very happy about that so thank you
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