Barry Graham Purkis

Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to former SAMSON/IRON MAIDEN drummer Barry Graham Purkis aka THUNDERSTICK about the early years in NWOBHM band SAMSON with Bruce Dickinson on vocals (IRON MAIDEN). Thunderstick also spoke about a new book and new album called ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’

Watch the interview here:

When asked how Bruce Dickinson first joined Samson (Prior to Iron Maiden)
“Samson had been playing as a three piece and we had been approached by then CBS record company and they were looking at signing a hard rock band and they had their eyes on us. They had told our management we would stand a better chance at getting a big record deal if we had a singer up front.”

“We just finished touring o support the debut album ‘Survivors’ and we went down to this pub and there was a pub band playing and sure enough it was Bruce singing. Paul Samson and I looked at each other and said this guy is really good singer. Part of Bruce’s stage show was that he would start picking holes (making fun of) in the audience and having jokes at the audiences all done in a lighthearted way. At this particular gig the only place Bruce could use as a dressing room was the men’s toilet. Bruce was doing a costume changes in the toilet, so we went into the toilet after Bruce and he thought because he was picking holes at me (making fun of ), he thought we went there to beat him up. We got talking, and we said would you mind joining our band and he said I cant I want to finish my history degree. So what he did was when we had those three piece gigs he would come out and join us just for the encore and that was it. As soon as he joined the band for real we started recording. He had a lot of material, we had a lot of material, we joined forces and that is what became of Samson’s second album ‘Head On’.”

When asked what Bruce had the same business smarts back then with Samson as he has today in Iron Maiden
“Bruce had a zest for life. He was hyper all the time and he thought rather than have an agency to book our gigs, he could get on the phone and book all the gigs himself. Bruce just sat there in the offices of our management, got on the phone and booked a tour.”

When asked how he helped Bruce Dickinson find his voice in Samson
“His voice was very juvenile in the early days. Bruce had never recorded an album before. I took a lot of the production credit, I sat there with our sound engineer during HEAD ON. we did all his vocal tracks and he was finding his own voice.”

“Bruce loved Ian Gillan, first time he met Ian Gillan we were recording our album in studio doing some overdubs and Ian Gillan came in and came into the control room. Bruce then ran out to the toilet. Gillan said to us you better go get your singer cause the last time I saw or heard him he was in the toilet farting up. That was due to the nerves of meeting his all time hero Ian Gillan.”

When asked how Samson and Iron Maiden toured together
“It was because of me that Iron Maiden came out on the Heavy Metal Crusade tour package. Our management were the ones responsible for putting this package together, they said let’s put a tour together and who can support us. I said a band I used to be in Iron Maiden they are doing the circuit again with new members lets have them on the tour. I was the one who suggested it, it was Angel Witch, Iron Maiden and Samson.”

When asked about the success of Samson and the NWOBHM
“It was big at one point I was the focal point for the NWOBHM because there was a magazine called SOUNDS and they put me (Thunderstick) on the front cover. Inside there was a huge two page spread on one night of the Heavy Metal Crusade with all three bands and they called it the NEW WAVE OF BRITISH HEAVY METAL that was the first time they used that phrase and I was the focal point for that. We had a lot of success but did not have the right management we lost ground.”

When asked if he had any demos, rehearsal tapes from the days of Samson with Bruce Dickinson that have not been released
“Yes, loads and loads. We used to record everything with Samson, rehearsals, pre-production, arrangements yeah I got loads of stuff. I even got Bruce Dickinson in the toilet, we stuck a mic up in the toilet we thought it would be a good idea.”

On why Thunderstick quit Samson
“Paul Samson was starting to get fed up of me (Thudnerstick) getting all the press all the time because the press loved the image. Paul said he wanted to be treated seriously as a band. Paul wanted to wear street clothes and I left because I wanted to take the theatrics a bit further.”

On Thundersticks new album and book
I was keeping a day to day diary of my experiences in Iron Maiden and Samson days, so I am able to pull on that information and I intend to do a book this year. Then I have new album so I am looking forward to that, Thunderstick the band will be all new members fronted by a female vocalist.”

In Part 1 with The Metal Voice
Thunderstick spoke about the holy grail 1977 Iron Maiden PRE-Soundhouse rehearsal tapes which featured many of the songs on the first Iron Maiden album as well as two songs off Iron maiden’s Killer albums

Watch it Here

themetalvoice-thunderstick

Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Barry Graham Purkis, also known as THUNDERSTICK Ex drummer for IRON MAIDEN in 1977 and Samson during Bruce Dickinson‘s tenure with the band.

THUNDERSTICK spoke about the Holy Grail 1977 IRON MAIDEN PRE-Soundhouse rehearsal tapes which featured many of the songs on the first IRON MAIDEN album as well as two songs off IRON MAIDEN‘s Killer albums.

On how how he joined Iron Maiden

I answered an ad and auditioned much like many other drummers sitting in a corridor with non stop drummers all the way down…NEXT…NEXT and I got the gig. They also advertised for a keyboard player at the same time and that’s when this guy Tony Moore came on board and that was it. The line up was myself, Steve Harris a singer named Dennis Willcock, a guitarist named Terry Wapram and Tony Moore on Keyboards

On the inner workings of Iron Maiden in 1977

“I thought at the time when I first joined it was a joint effort of both Steve Harris and Dennis Wilcock. Dennis being the singer he was the man at the time was responsible for the logos and stuff like that . The Iron maiden type face that Iron maiden still uses to this day was formulated back in those days we are talking 1977. And Dennis he had such a large input into the band at the time. I really did think that the two of them were co-running as it were.

Steve Harris would make an effort to come up to my House in South East London and we would go through basic drum parts. I never done that before. I never actually sort of knocked it down to where you only have the bass and drums so you are building a rhythm section then we would rehearse with the whole band back in the East end.”

When asked about what classic songs were written in 1977 and if he ever got songwriting credits

“Burning ambition, Drifter, Sanctuary, Prowler, Another Life (Killers Album), Transylvania, Strange World, Charlotte the harlot, Wrathchild, Innocent Exile (Killers) and the song Iron Maiden. ”

“You can say I was actually contributing maybe I was the first drummer to come in that Steve would try to work alongside. And later on I was inputting regarding the songwriting but never got credit on anything ever.” You are always going to hear something you contributed too, you are always going to hear and think to yourself yeah that was due to me. ”

Asked if the 1977 Rehearsal tapes will ever be released

“Who knows, I have put these 30 second bursts on my facebook and the kind of interest it generated it quite phenomenal there are certain people are saying that they look on it as the heavy metal holy grail to have something such as that a 1977 recording of those songs. There is no way i can go out and release them cause I could imagine the full force of Iron Maiden legal team would come down on me because the songs there in contain Steve Harris compositions. However I own the tape. I own my performance on that tape. However I don’t own the copyright of the songs.”

When asked about what he thought of Steve Harris and the band back in 1977

“It was a work in progress, he was a guy in the band. The band was professional but they were not professional musicians at the time. They were professional in their outlook. They were focused.”

On the legal battle in regard to Iron maiden’s song Idea of march and Samon’s song Thunderburst

“We went and recorded the Samson album ‘Head On’ it was going to be the first album Bruce Dickinson was going to appear on and we had an intense writing session as soon as Bruce joined the band. And I brought Thunderbusrt onto the table, I had this rolling drum pattern though the toms and I explained that we had done this when I was a member of Iron Maiden. So we recorded it and Paul Samson (Samson guitarist) and Clive Burr were quite good mates cause Clive had been in Samson before I joined Samson so we kind of literally swapped places. Clive Burr went over to Paul Samson’s house and they were sitting there and Paul played the second side of the ‘Head On’ album and out came Thunderburst and Clive nearly fell off his chair and he said Jesus and he put on his finished recordings and out came Ides of March. What happened after that was that my management at the time didn’t really want to have any involvement in this. I was summoned to EMI building and in front of me was Steve Harris, Rob Smallwood and a couple of representatives from the legal team and EMI. And I was told in no uncertain terms that Steve Harris would take 50% songwriting on the Thunderbusrt track and I would receive absolutely nothing on the Ides of march track. If I wanted to contest that then we will see you in court.”

On the formation of Maiden77 group

Because of the interest of former members of Iron Maiden, I’m a member of Maiden77 which has emerged over the last year it’s a couple of fans of Maiden who put it together this Maiden77 site and they wanted to know history of all the members of Iron Maiden. But in doing that it has thrown up a lot of things that are contrary to each other. So a lot of people are interested in digging up the dirt. There were a lot of things in the documentary Early years part 1 that are not the truth. A lot of inaccuracies for example the Soundhouse tapes there was a guitarist that was never even mentioned the fact that he plays on the Soundhouse tapes Maiden77 consists of Tony Moore (keyboards), Terry Wapra m (guitars), Barry Purkis (a.k .a. Thunderstick; drums, percussion) and Dennis Willcock (vocals)

Watch Interview Here: