Interview excerpt with Shane by Laurent Ramadier...
Was WARHAMMER the very first band you’ve been involved with back in ’85? If not, what can you tell us about your previous acts and how did you end up being a drummer at first?
"Well WARHAMMER actually formed in ’84 and pretty much was the first band that I was properly involved with. Me and my friends had garage bands that never got past having two members in so I don’t think they really count. I ended up playing the drums as when I was young I always used to grab my grandmothers buckets and beat the shit out of them so I guess I always had a thing for rhythm. Also the rest of the guys all wanted to play guitar so it made it easier for them by taking up the drums, at the time I couldn’t really grasp the guitar it was something that came later as I watched people play and drums made the most logical choice."
WARHAMMER was a Thrash Metal act whose main influences were certainly SLAYER, EXODUS and the likes. Can you tell us more about this band who featured in its ranks your future partner in UNSEEN TERROR, Mitch Dickinson for example…
"Well the line up was me on drums, Mitch Dickinson on guitar, Wayne Aston on guitar and Mike Craddock on bass/vocals. I guess the influences were SLAYER, VENOM, POSDSESSED, BATHORY and the likes. We were the only people into Metal where we lived so it made sense to us to form a band as that’s what we lived for – we used to get together at night and talk about doing shows in far away places, all that kind of stuff, as I said we lived in a real small place so it was very unusual at the time to be doing what we were doing. I think at the time we were the only real Thrash band [In the U.K. --S] apart from maybe ONSLAUGHT, there wasn’t too many bands at the time trying to play what we did."
WARHAMMER's biggest accomplishment back then was the ’85 demo "Abattoir Of Death", a six track affair which was heavily traded around and got favorable reviews in a few fanzines. What do you remember from that very first effort? Was it a studio effort by the way?
"We recorded that demo at a studio not far away a couple of days after my 18th birthday. We did the whole thing for £50, which to us was a lot of money at the time as none of us really worked. We didn’t have much experience but I remember coming home that night and calling Bill Steer and playing it down the phone for him to listen to (as he had come to see us play live before). I remember being really excited saying that it sounded like POSSESSED on "Seven Churches" (which at the time to me it did) and I guess that’s all that mattered to me at that time, we did it in one day, I was a little out of time but it was a great experience looking back."
Who was the main songwriter at that time in that band? Did you already have a big hand in that department or at least in the arrangements or was it mainly Mitch and Wayne?
"The riffs were Wayne and Mitch and I guess I got more into the arrangements as at the time I didn’t play guitar that well, I think maybe the occasional riff but I wasn’t very confident. More arrangements and lyrics and of course Mike wrote lyrics and I think the occasional riff though at that time the lyrics were all fantasy based and very metal, which is no bad thing in my book!"
As far as I know, the band did play only one show in its original area, in Telford, U.K. on December 27th 1985. How did that local gig did go? Was it your first live experience? There was some covers included if I’m correct (SLAYER I believe) right?
"We actually played two shows with the band, we did a show in a a place called Oswestry which is in Wales and that show was on the 19th of December 1985...I think there are still some photos of Bill and Ken from CARCASS down the front headbanging somewhere which Mitch has. We played ‘Black Magic’ by SLAYER, ‘Bombs Of Death’ by HIRAX, these were the first shows I had ever done, they went pretty good. I think we pissed most of the crowd off as they were into more middle of the road stuff and were not used to seeing a band like us, a couple of guys from the band CANCER were there as well as they were from the same area and good friends of ours, this was way before they formed their band though."
From what I remember, by early/mid ’86 WARHAMMER started to come up with heavier/faster material as it could be heard on rehearsals that you were spreading around, but ironically it seems the band broke up shortly after because of that newer approach, so what happened exactly which caused WARHAMMER’s split?
"I think that me and Mitch were definitively into speeding the band up in style and approach as we were starting to get into DEATH and POSSESSED more, also I think we had just heard the 'Rigor Mortis' rehearsal demo that DEATH had done with Matt (Olivo) and Scott (Carlson) from REPULSION and that was the way we wanted to go. Wayne and Mike on the other hand were more content I think with METALLICA and EXODUS. I just think me and Mitch were possibly ahead in our thinking...we just wanted to get faster, this pretty much led to the split which at the time really upset me, all part of growing up."
Would you agree that musically WARHAMMER were without any doubt probably the first real Thrash/Death band ever in the U.K. something started by VENOM years earlier but taken to a stronger/heavier place by WARHAMMER?
"I guess ONSLAUGHT would argue their claim (no they can’t as their stuff was simply speed up Heavy Metal which is totally different songwritingwise – Laurent) but I think we were definitively the first. I remember a band from Scotland called RAIIS who were in the CELTIC FROST mode a little but I think we were there first, especially when you take into account where we came from, you would have expected us to have come from a big city or something. A lot had to with the tape trading as the bands we were into nobody had really heard and probably gave us a bump up the evolutionary chain in terms of what we were playing."
Mitch stayed close to you but what happened to the other guys after that split? Did they ever resurface in some other acts (besides Wayne who was involved with you again later on in AZAG-THOTH and with his own band MORBID JUDGEMENT)?
"Well at this time I started to visit Birmingham a lot just after we split, I saw Wayne and of course we got involved again with another band. I think Mike was with us for awhile, then as I went to Birmingham more often we kind of lost touch as we worked in different areas. I do see Wayne more often now though it’s a shame we lost touch for a long time."
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