Do you know bands such as Hounds, Styx, Hydra, Nazareth and TKO? If so, you are probably an old school metal-head who has knowledge, but if not, there is lots of information around and stories to be learned about your favourite genre of music and its history and today we know how precious that knowledge is. Those bands I mentioned before are just a short list of many who are now forgotten. Maybe some of you even have some records, cassettes or CD’s by these bands in your cupboards, covered in dust and you completely forgot.

There are several ways to find out and study about rock and metal music history and stories; You can search on the internet, ask friends or search magazines, which is a long process. Or, you can simply seek the information in Martin Popoff ‘s  ‘Ye Olde Metal’ book series, where he reviewed many albums and interviewed those artists from the ancient era of those genres of music.

During the second part of our chat I, Mohsen Fayyazi and Martin Popoff spent time discussing Martin’s ‘Ye Olde Metal’ book series. To me, the title of this book series is kind of unfamiliar, so we started to discuss the name, “Basically to give the clue that we are talking about really old forgotten stuff that not a lot of people know about it, or care about it,” Martin said, then he continued “I think that is one of the main reasons I wanted to write it. No one’s ever put the bands Rex or Hounds in book form before, so I thought it would be cool.”

We carried on talking and we arrived at his interview with Status Quo’s Francis Rossi. Martin told me he was a huge fan of the band, “Those guys always put a smile on my face.” He then mentioned that he had three or more chats with them on the phone, he also described Francis as a really good, energetic and funny guy, who talks fast. Martin told me that anytime he had a chance to talk with him, he tried to ask another question about their old material, especially about the “Quo” album.

I must say that I found Martin a cool, honest and chatty man and I believe that’s why all of the artists he contacted were happy to co-operate with him, which makes his books a treasure chest of knowledge. So if you are hungry to know more about rock and metal music, you should start reading Martin Popoff’s books. In the meantime, if you would like to listen to our chat, you can simply do it by clicking on the ‘Play’ button on the audio player below.