Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal

by Michael Hann

In the late 1970s, aggressive, young bands are forming across Britain. Independent labels are springing up to release their music. But this isn't the story of punk. Forget punk. Punk was a flash in the pan compared to this. This is the story of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, a musical movement that changed the world. From this movement - given the unwieldy acronym NWOBHM - sprang streams that would flow through metal's subsequent development. Without NWOBHM there is no thrash metal, no death metal, no black metal. Without the rise of Iron Maiden, NWOBHM's standard bearers, leading the charge to South America and to South Asia, metal's global spread is slower. Without the NWOBHM bands - who included Def Leppard, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Diamond Head and many others - the international uniform of heavy metal - the 'battle jacket' of a denim jacket with sleeves ripped off, and covered with patches (usually sewn on by the wearer's mum), worn over a leather biker jacket - does not 'Denim and leather brought us all together,' as Saxon put it. No book has ever gathered together all the principals of British heavy rock's most fertile Jimmy Page, Rick Allen, Michael Schenker, Robert John 'Mutt' Lange, Ritchie Blackmore, Rick Savage, Phil Collen, David Coverdale, Cronos, Biff Byford, Joe Elliott, Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Phil Mogg, Robert Plant, Tony Wilson, Lars Ulrich, Pete Waterman to name a few. In Denim and Leather, these stars tell their own stories - their brilliant, funny tales of hubris and disaster, of ambition and success - and chart how, over a handful of years from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, a group of unlikely looking blokes from the provinces wearing spandex trousers changed heavy music forever. This is the definitive story about the greatest days of British heavy rock.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Biography

526 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 24, 2022

About the author

I'm the author Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (a book of the year in The Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Spin and Uncut), as well as The Gospel of the Hold Steady: How a Resurrection Really Feels.

I write regularly for The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Spectator, The Economist and The Quietus, as well as contributing to other titles including The Times, The Independent and the Daily Telegraph. I am a former editor of FourFourTwo magazine, and of the Guardian's Film&Music section.

Reviews

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love oral history books as they're an excellent insight into events at the time and the people who were part of them. This is a great read although it's incredibly frustrating that Geoff Barton refused to be interviewed, given how important he was at that time (and reading some of the comments that it was all a big joke to him (if true) was very disappointing and will cause many metallers/Kerrang! readers (including myself) to re-evaluate him.

There are some hilarious anecdotes in this book and even if you're not a fan of NWOBHM it's worth reading to see how things started and just how different it was back then. You can't help but feel for some of the bands who lost out because of crap managers or just the wrong decision at a certain point in time. I'm also really pleased that Michael Hann has included a chapter on sexism during this period and given so much space (not just in this chapter but throughout the book) to Girlschool.

Well worth a read. I loved it!

[Michael Legge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shame he dies in the end.

[Lucy Batson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice, beefy oral history of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the late 70's/early 80's. This is well-written/curated, and the vast majority of people important to and close to that scene are interviewed here. While this doesn't quite reach the heights of the Nothin' But A Good Time, this is highly recommended for NWOBHM fans.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m neither a massive fan nor very knowledgeable about NWOBHM, but I do love an oral history book about a niche subculture - there’s something fun about people delighting in and nerding out over their hobbies. This was a good one with a lot of great stories, many of the most astounding of which involve homemade pyros. My favourite chapters were the ones about Venom (again - the explosives! on a plane!) and the story of Diamond Head, who I’d never even heard of before reading this book.

Michael Hann has done a great job of compiling all the source material and he seems to have particular fun with the way he presents contradictory testimony. This is often done to comic effect, but also in a more sobering way in the chapter about sexism in the scene, where you read Girlschool and Rock Goddess’ personal struggles to be taken seriously, juxtaposed with the likes of Whitesnake and Saxon celebrating all the liberated and willing women who would perform sex acts on them in the dressing room.

MVPs of the book would seem to be Def Leppard - really sound guys by all accounts, who obviously gave a lot of their time to this project - and Lars Ulrich’s golden retriever energy.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had pre-ordered this e-book as soon as the promotional email hit my in-box. Surprisingly, after the book was released just two weeks ago, I had a tough time finding a hard copy to gift my heavy-metal battle buddy for Festivus (I’m on an eight-year boycott of evil Amazon, Barnes & Noble was out, and even the publisher [Bazillion Points Books (https://www.bazillionpoints.com/)] had a tough time filling orders. They sent me one though, and kudos to them for having such a solid hit on their hands.

Now, I’m not a fan of written “oral histories” as they are, and it took me a few chapters to get into a mental rhythm with this book, but I eventually did and it was definitely worth it.

I tally my entrance into heavy metal being in 1985 at the age of 12. In Chicago we had channel 50 on the UHF dial, twisting the rabbit ears just so to get a half-way decent signal. During the summer, at noon (if memory serves me correctly), they’d play music videos. Nobody I knew had cable and MTV was years away from my viewership, but channel 50 played all the Gamera and Godzilla movies and had “Samurai Sundays” packed with bad kung-fu flicks, and all manner of schlocky shows, including mid-80s music videos, so it was our favorite when we only had seven channels to choose from back then. When Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to Take It” video played for the first time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Abe...), I was transfixed, then hooked.

The summer before was a hellscape of trauma for my sister and I (abandoned by my mother and trapped in the house with a rampaging, alcoholic, Vietnam-vet dad), and it fundamentally twisted my mindset in long-lasting ways. Parental love was horse manure, the concept of “god” was a cruel joke, and friendships could be ended in a car crash. My home was a battlefield and nowhere felt safe. Seeing that abused suburban kid transform into Dee Snider with his wild hair, pancaked makeup, and feathered Mad Max-Road Warrior football pads was almost precisely what I wanted (minus the makeup). At the local Kmart, I found that song on a compilation cassette tape called “Heavy Metal Thunder”. It was the gateway to what I—to this day—consider a powerful part of my identity. Alongside Twisted Sister was Judas Priest, WASP, the Scorpions, Quiet Riot, KISS, Dio, Accept, Krokus, and Great White.

Now, I had been subjected to piano lessons and ultimately played trumpet in high school concert, jazz, and marching bands, so I knew music to some degree. Like the Twisted Sister video illuminated, metal music was a direct assault on the status quo and gave furious middle fingers to the hypocrisies of society, politics, and organized religion. Neoconservativism was our enemy (and still is), and man did the bible-thumpers hate us. We fed, and still feed, off their flagrant stupidity, their delusional hypocrisy, and their moronic fantasyland mythologies. (Jesus of Nazareth was NOT a Caucasian.)

Hann’s Denim & Leather teleports us back in time to what’s known as the “new wave of British heavy metal” (NWOBHM), circa 1978-1983. Short-lived, but this was a crucial evolutionary micro-epoch that warrants such an enjoyable exploration. Music is an amorphous thing and sub-genres are tough to parse out accurately, and most bands are even tougher to wedge into a sub-genre unless one is hellbent on doing so (I think most metal bands don’t like to be siloed into something when any musician could have a thousand other influences going on inside his or her brain, worming such things into their music to a nearly imperceptible degree). I like what Bandcamp does, using many sub-genres and bizarre phrases as adjectives to describe what band X sounds like. Still, such compartmentalization must be done to tackle a book like this, and while I would never lump Whitesnake and Venom into any similar grouping, the NWOBHM has to. For those like me who favor the heavier side of things, having to read about Def Leppard and other FM radio and MTV pop stars was a slog, but chapters on Venom, phenomenal female bands like Rock Goddess, and others made this read truly worthwhile. The photos, like those awful music vids, are often priceless too.

I grew up in the shadow of Chicago and even such a big city did not play heavy music. Z95 was about as heavy as it got, and it pandered to the spandex and mascara crooners of the big-hair rock bands (Bon Jovi, Poison, Mötley Crüe, and that ilk). I vaguely recall some classic Judas Priest and Black Sabbath being played, but not even Iron Maiden was on the airwaves. The tiny college radio station in my hometown had an intrepid dude who, on a Saturday graveyard shift, would play the most off-the-wall metal music he could find. Doors blew off my brain. I also explored on my own, having to travel 45-minutes away to Hegewisch Music outside Merrillville to find the intoxicatingly weird stuff. It didn’t take me long to discover the thrash bands, then the speed metal, then the death metal. (Full disclosure, I truly believe grindcore/deathcore is the timeless paragon of metal music.) My first live venue was the Milwaukee Metal Fest of ’89, a life-altering experience in and of itself, and soon after I was at the Rosemont Horizon seeing Megadeth open for Judas Priest, walls of speakers blowing eardrums out. So, while I was not distinctly aware of NWOBHM as a brief movement, and my interest piqued after its demise, I did have some rudimentary awareness of its place in the evolutionary timeline, and now I have a solid understanding of how the opening guitar chords of Black Sabbath in 1970 turned into today’s global free-for-all. Hann gives us great detail to an important missing piece in the taxonomic order for all of us who weren’t in the UK visiting these venues at this point in time. If you love metal music and can appreciate the history of it, this book will certainly satisfy.

Music is completely subjective and each of us finds the stuff that thrums within our souls. I will never understand why so many favor “popular music”, but it must be the herd mentality and simple psychologies. The fact that Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” (from 1986) surged to the top of playlists after a silly CGI scene in a cool Netflix show this year proves that far too many are completely ignorant of metal music writ large. We have been, and will always be, the outsiders and the rejects, the nonconformists and the contrarians (https://aeon.co/essays/on-nonconformi...), the rebels and the doubters, the critics and the scapegoats. Metal is the most topical genre, often tackling existential issues. It is international and multicultural and has amazing female vocalists and musicians. I'm proud to be apart of this massive tribe.

I had a leather jacket with a Napalm Death back-patch in high school with my ripped up jeans, pit-stained shirts, and a giant chip on my shoulder. Today, I listen to metal music while performing my morning yoga routine and grounding myself to the dark roots of the Earth for the day ahead working in healthcare. Metal music has helped me survive the undulating chaos of life far more than anything else. I don’t need wild hair, an epidermis stained with tattoo ink, or piercings in my naughty bits. I just need the music that communes with me, speaks to me, and speaks for me.

I hope you do too.

All hail Science! Happy Festivus >;)

Metal for Life \m/

[Jared Yellin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Metal!!

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent oral history on the rise and fall of NWOBHM with interviews of the major players, including Def Leppard but not including any current Maiden members, whose management refused interview requests. Def Leppard therefore rises in my esteem while Maidens lowers. You still get D’Annio and Stratton plus Saxon, Diamond Head, and Tygers et Al. Aside from the obligatory “sexism in metal” chapter it’s hard to put down. Great read and unique in the sense it hasn’t been done before.

[Andrew Garvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

NWOBHM was a little before my time but I'm a big fan of the music and am well aware of the huge influence the metal scene for this short period, essentially 1979 to 1983, would have on subsequent bands and genres.

This oral history does a great job of setting so many of the bands of that time in context and, as the interviewees talk about the music, they reveal fascinating details of social history along with it. Despite their sniffiness about being associated with NWOBHM, Iron Maiden (through ex-members) and Def Leppard are well represented here, as are several of the other major names like Saxon, Diamond Head (whose story is probably the most compelling) Venom, Tygers of Pan Tang and Angel Witch.

Of course, there's bound to be omissions, like Wolverhampton's Cloven Hoof (although their first album wasn't released until '84). There's a difficult balance between setting the scene within the context of heavy metal at the time and Hann mostly does a good job of that but it feels like far too much time is spent on Rainbow and Whitesnake at the expense of more obviously relatable bands.

Specific chapters devoted to a particular band are some of the most memorable, as well as the one devoted to the first ever Monsters of Rock in 1980. The funniest of course, is the ridiculous story of Venom, who ended up being one of the most important and influential of all these bands in that they effectively created birthed the first version of what would become black metal and death metal, despite being unable to play their instruments and only really being interested in blowing things up onstage. That their story is told through the quarrelsome quotes of founding members who are, to be polite, not friends anymore, is even more fitting and amusing.

Memories of 40+ years ago are always going to unreliable (or in the case of Paul Di' Anno, almost entirely fanciful) and where two or more people disagree, Hann presents both sides of the story, only inserting his own voice as editorial notes to clear up factual errors, usually related to when events actually took place. He leaves the band members, roadies, managers, promoters, DJs, fans (Lars Ulrich's still-bouncy enthusiasm about everything NWOBHM leaps up and down off the page) and journalists to tell their often-absurd and never, ever dull stories.

[Russell]

Not a bad book , nice to have interviews with the likes of Saxon, Angelwitch etc but it all feels a bit incomplete. No mention of Budgie, More, all leading lights who were around at the time

Would have been great to have some sort of index of bands who were around at the time & a list of releases that would have reflected what a ground roots movement NWOBHM actually was. Every town seemed to have a Heavy Metal band (Iron Pig anyone?) not that you'd guess it from this book.

Mythra are described as sub standard but the 'Death & Destiny' ep is one of the classics of the genre.

Definitely worth a read if you're a fan of the music though...

[Tim Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The new wave of British heavy metal (commonly abbreviated as NWOBHM), pronounced “Nuh-wobbum” was a creation by a music newspaper at the time, Sounds. Following, punk in 1977, which had been pounced upon by its competitor, the New Musical Express (NME). The newspaper needed a movement, like punk, that it could hang its hat on and it found it. Not with the rock music of the past, Deep Purple, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, which punk had rebelled against. The 20-minute drum solo and 20-minute guitar solo had been killed off by the 3-minute punk song. But what grew out of the ashes was this new generation of rock musician, it was harder, faster and it was grew out of the British pubs and clubs. In other words, like punk you didn’t need to be a trained musician to play this rock, in fact this harder and faster sound was called “metal”.

“Denim and Leather – The rise and fall of the new wave of British Heavy metal”. Is an audio history of this time, taken from interviews from the people that were there, the journalists, the band members and the people that mattered. If you were there, as I was, it’s a nostalgic look back on music you grew up with, if you were not there, it is part of musical history, especially rock and metal musical history. After all it was from NWOBHM that Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard grew from.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oftentimes enagaging saga of the greatest heavy metal movement of the genre. And I can dispose of the 3,000 others that include NuMetal and cross-over excreta, etc. The stories are entertaining, and so many of them involve explosions and pyro. The best involving Venom are hilarious. The various outlooks on the bands, from early Maiden to Tygers of Pan Tang, Saxon, Raven, Witchfinder General are the kind of stuff I would have killed to read when I was a 99-pound, 14-year-old boy, gobbling up NWOBHM records. But mostly I only had Kerrang. The LPs and the magazines were only purchasable at vintage, underground shops. The influence of Def Leppard and the rise of pop-metal in the early 80s is interesting, because we hear from the members of the bands, themselves. Thankfully, little time is devoted to the pop-metal aftermath which transformed into the godless Sunset Strip scene. Obviously, the best thrash metal bands were influenced by the energetic sounds of early Maiden and Motorhead, but they became acts without the melody or humor that made the early scene so colorful. The Diamond Head section, alone, gives major value to the book

[Martin Locock · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is interesting to read an oral history of a period you have lived through- I remember the sudden explosion in 1979 of TV on the radio, rumblings of Whitesnake and Gillan in the charts, and then Iron Maiden emerging as the leading act of NWOBHM. I had assumed that it had earlier origins, but apparently not, if you were not in the various local scenes which are described here. I found the book uneven in its coverage - Venom had completely passed me and Def Leppard tangential to the UK scene. Although it is good to hear from those involved, the author might have done more to present a chronology as well his occasional fact-checking notes on the anecdotes. Fundamentally I found this a sad book, chronicling as it does early promise and talent meeting cynicism, bad luck, and frustration. I would have liked to hear more about the recording: that these young men (almost all men) were able to create the albums they did, in rushed sessions in chaotic studios, is some sort of miracle.

[Kris Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great oral history of a little known sub genre of rock. I learned about bands that were on my radar such as axon, Venom, Tygers of Pan Tang, etc. but not familiar with their music. Most did not find success here in the US and that's a shame. On the flip side you have Def Leppard and Iron Maiden who are still touring successfully over 40 years later.

Great anecdotes and road stories, my favorite from the very "un satanic" Venom who scared many a parent back in the day.

Highly recommended to rock fans that want to expand their palate.

[Von · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice interviews and arrangement of them. I agree the beginning of the end was Pyromania, but I'd already given up on Def Leppard after trying to appreciate High n Dry. Learned that Saxon did Yacht Rock, Run Like the Wind. Wow. I was 14 in 1980 and went to Judas Priest, Point of Entry tour. I just enjoyed spinning records during high school years, and NWBOM was a significant portion of my records and cassettes.

[Paul Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with punk the NWOBHM was one of the key influences on mt musical taste as loads of new kids with self released records stuck two fingers up to the tired old 7os rock dinosaurs. Hann uses interviews with most of the key players, including Def Leppard, to produce an entertaining oral history of forgotten movement that changed rock music for the better and led directly to Metallica.

[Marcus Dei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and detailed oral history of the NWOBHM period of music. It was written in the format of Please Kill Me with quotes from the people that were there, although it could use some input from the current Iron Maiden line-up. (Steve Harris anyone?). But it captures the bands and the time that influenced the current state of heavy metal music world-wide.

[Thevogon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brought back a lot of memories of the time. Perhaps some of the people who didn't participate will put that right in a subsequent edition when they read it and see what the author was about and the positive way some of their contemporaries have come over. It can't hurt sales, either. Quite the opposite.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulous oral history full of top sources (Def Leppard, Lars from Metallica, Pete Waterman) and plenty of social history: this was a genre with satellites in towns across England, with vibrant bands who worked best on stage.

[Miles Hamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hilarity of the juxtaposition between interviewees, providing facts and clarity, cannot be overstated. A fun romp through the grubby metal of the 70s and 80s that gets more entertaining as it goes on.

[William Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read and an interesting book

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading on the topic. I discovered bands I've never heard. I rediscovered bands I've forgotten about. I laughed so hard because some of the stories are as good as Spinal Tap.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic and informative overview of the NWOBHM.

[Ffinlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some interesting stories about the likes of Def Leppard and Iron Maiden

[M R Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read

Very detailed and a great read. Took me back to my metal teenage years and made me dig out my of vinyl.
Well worth buying!

[Neil Lach-szyrma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Patrick Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t like most of these bands besides Priest and Maiden, but it was fun reading about a bunch of clueless kids making a racket. We’ll written if a little too in depth at some points.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I consider myself lucky to have had an adolescence that coincided nicely with the popular period of NWOBHM and pals who were actively into it. As a result, following the minutiae of rock music and its larger than life personalities and going to gigs at a tender age has become a lifetime and lifestyle pastime. It still gives me an enormous amount of pleasure and some very long friendships which may not have otherwise survived the years of our diverse lives.

Of course, when you are living through it at a young age, you do not always see the bigger picture or its context in musical transition. It has taken a long time for a book to come along and attempt to do this - albeit that rather than a true consistent movement, it seems more like a flourishing of a young generation, all at the same time, nurtured on Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, and enthused by the fashion of glam and DIY energy of punk.

Although it relies completely upon a series of disparate quotations, it is so well structured that it reads like a balanced discussion and is very immediate in its delivery. It is laugh-out-loud hilarious (eg Venom's attempts to use DIY pyrotechnics on stage at every opportunity) and beautifully evolved stories on the fine line between huge success (US), modest success (UK) and failure (eg Diamond Head's persistence to use the mother and step-father of one of their members as managers).

Even at some length, it is not fully exhaustive (the NWOBHM was not just an English movement) and the chapter on Def Leppard's Pyromania is a little on the long side and not necessarily the reason for the end of NWOBHM (Did anyone take any interest in it on its release in the UK in 1983? I was not aware of its success in the US until much later and that made no odds to my musical interests.) The chapters, though, are mostly interesting in what they cover, be it the media outlets at the time (it got me listening to the available full-length Friday Rock Shows with Tommy Vance from the 1980's and they are marvellous), the first Monsters of Rock festival or Girlschool and sexism. It would have been interesting to have had a chapter on why a largely white male teenage audience took to this music in droves in preference to a huge amount of other interesting music at the time.

Also, although it may be unfashionable to say it, the UK reviewers on Sea of Tranquility recently made it clear that Status Quo was an important "gateway" band in the UK for rock music fans: they "pioneered" the DIY denim look, they were the only British hard rock act who regularly got mainstream media coverage at the time and put out singles, they were often in Kerrang! at the time and they headlined Donington in 1982. A few name-checks about them really does not do their considerable influence at the time any justice, even if they were not actually part of what became NWOBHM.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hele toffe stapel interviews. Must read als je geïnteresseerd bent in alles wat met NWOBHM te maken heeft.