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Here you will find a selection of photographs, memorabilia and articles covering the career of Diamond Head. Contributions are welcome if you have additional articles that you feel will benefit the page.
Backstage at the Download Festival 2006. Brian, Nick & Karl, and Brian and Lars Ulrich  Brian pictured with Dave Mustaine of Megadeth who are recording a new album in Berkshire. Brian was invited down to spend the day with them and had the chance to meet up with the band again and it was a great experience! Set List; It's Electric, Ligthning to the Nations, Out of Phase, In The Heat Of The Night, To The Devil His Due, Sucking My Love, Ishmael, One More Night, Makin' Music, Home, Run, Forever 16, Don't You Ever Leave Me. No, it wasn't a Diamond Head gig, per se. In fact this was the second time in recent months that the band's guitarist and singer had trodden the JB's boards in a low key acoustic stylee. Not so much trodden as sat on stools and strummed, but you get my drift. Nostalgia filled the air; could it really be 19 years since I first witnessed them laying waste to Catford's Saxon Tavern? and was that really long-absent bassist Colin Kimberley and drummer Duncan Scott chatting to Tatler in the foyer beforehand? Scary... At face value, Diamond Head unplugged is a pointless exercise. For all their imaginative arrangements, the band's songs were about sheer unbridled power. Peel away all that bombastic riffing and what would remain? although not everything worked as they intended, Tatler and Harris, augmented by guitarist/ occasional bassist Floyd Brennan, soon revealed hidden depth to their music. Save for the five tunes from 1983's 'Canterbury' album, 'Run' and 'Home' (from '93's 'Death and Progress' swansong) best suited the format, although the Zeppelin flavoured encore of 'Don't You Ever Leave Me' really set the spine tingling. Sadly, the bombastic 'It's Electric' and 'Sucking My Love' required significant lyrical and musical changes, but the clever twist administered to 'Lightning To The Nations' paid off. Although the thunderous 'Am I Evil?' proved impossible to translate, the brand new 'Forever 16' got JB's stomping along merrily. "Would you see us again if we played more gigs?" Harris enquired, grinning: "As long as you keep supporting us we'll keep playing, even if it's just here for the rest of our lives." So where do he and Tatler go next? Right now they claim that they're playing it by ear. Afterwards, the guitarist revealed plans for the possible release of an acoustic EP, which may in turn lead to a full blown reunion. But, he confided it could all fizzle out to nothing. We'll keep you posted. Dave Ling  After months that seem like aeons, the classier breed of new HM bands are beginning to show their colours, taking a step beyond local legend status. Diamond Head have already enjoyed press at the hands of the mighty Barton, but for all of you that winced and turned off at the bit about more riffs in a single number than on an entire Black Sabbath album - turn again. Sure, there's a lethal riffing power and a crashing cataclysmic roar (etc.) to Diamond Head, but it's tempered with thought and class, lifting them on to that precarious hard rock/ heavy metal borderline. Brian Tatler's the resident guitar hero, loud and proud and bristling with electric power laid over the pounding rhythm of Colin Kimberley (bass) and Duncan Scott (drums), Brian and Colin going comprehensively crazy in a flurry of flying hair and dynamic rock star poses. Basically I'd hate them for it if they weren't so astonishingly good at it. Sean Harris I've already raved about (see the Brute Force album review) and suffice it to say that it's all true - he delivers with a vengeance. The power's unremitting but he has variety too, a vocal bettering ram of seductive style. Jackie readers will wet their knickers but HM demons will rave just as much - albeit differently I hope. Occasionally Duncan Scott's volume and style puts him too firmly in John Kongos territory, and the ghost of Zeppelin past is never too for away, but you don't worry overly about derivation when you're getting blown away, and Diamond Head do that with a vengeance. It's not throwaway boogie and thrash, it's a real riffing power of frightening intensity, and if Diamond Head don't pin you to the back wall you've got your feet nailed to the floor.
Above: photos of Brian at the Wacken Festival, 2003 taken by R. van Poorten-Wiegel. 
Another early shot of the band. This was taken in a studio in Walsall some time in the late '70s. 
Backstage with Lars Ulrich, Milton Keynes festival July 5th 1993. SONIC STORMTROOPERS from Stourbridge, Diamond Head, since the turn of the decade, have come to the fore as one of THE most stunningly individual new metal maestros. Mind you, the term 'new' is rather misleading as the band has been together for some three years, paying their rock 'n' roll dues on the local Black Country club circuit before graduating in recent months to playing the more prestigious venues throughout England, gaining useful experience by supporting the likes of AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Girl and Angel Witch. 
Musically, Diamond Head successfully draw on the very best elements of transatlantic heavy rock, their instantly recognisable sound possessing not only a raw, unfettered UK-style ferocity but also boasing a complementary degree of poise and balance in the Stateside tradition. There can be no more startling testament to these impressive qualities than their meisterwork 'Am I Evil'. Weighing in at just over seven minutes in length, this number is initially built around a stirring 'Hell House' rhythm, before some excellent tremelo guitar work helps burst 'Evil' out of its self-imposed riff-cage and to a gory road as the song unfurls the terror-stricken tale of a witch's son with a grotesque turn of phrase. This entire headshaker is the conceptual brainchild of just four musicians with an average age of 19, namely Sean Harris (vocals), Brian Tatler (guitar), Colin Kimberly (bass) and Duncan Scott (drums). However, Diamond Head are more than a one-track band as they've amply shown with their debut single on Wolverhampton label Happy Face Record, 'Sweet & Innocent' / 'Streets of Gold', plus their all-consuming contribution to MCA's 'Brute Force' compilation, 'It's Electric'. Future plans for the band include the imminent release of an album entitled 'Lightning To The Nations', again on Happy Face. A report from the 20 year edition of the Stourbridge News by Scott Faulkner (October '99) It's hard to believe that during the 1980s, four Wollaston musicians duelled with legends Iron Maiden and Judas Priest for the title of Britain's best heavy metal band. Lead guitarist Brian Tatler, vocalist Sean Harris, bass guitarist Colin Kimberley and drummer Duncan Scott, were Diamond Head - a band who came so close to the big time and touching the millions Maiden's Steve Harris and co made from the golden age of metal music. Their first album, Lightning to the Nations (1980), and Borrowed Time (1982) received wide acclaim and DH toured across Europe with the likes of AC/DC and Black Sabbath. Hits like Am I Evil?, The Prince, Helpless and It's Electric, have since been covered by Metallica on their 1998 Garage Inc album and to this day, Lars Ulrich and co remain their biggest fans. But the strains of recording their third album, the big budget, Van-HAlen sounding Canterbury, and internal problems cuased the group to split in the mid 80s. Band members went their separate ways and Brian went on to form Radio Moscow, a five year project that flopped when they failed to secure a major record deal. Diamond Head reformed in 1990 and an album, Death and Progress, followed and a tour, including a special guest slot on Metallica's Milton Keynes gig in front of 60,000 people in June 1993. Shortly after, the band split again following arguments over musical direction and Brian now plays for folk rock Quill - a million miles away from his days as a rock magazine pin up and icon for teen air guitarists. Brian said "I was 17 when I formed the band and I've kept a copy of everything written in a scrapbook - even the first Stourbridge News review from 1979!. I can remember one of our first gigs at the Crispin in Stourbridge. We set up the equipment, went out the back and it was packed. We had to fight our way past all these big bikers who thought we were pushing in, all the time explaining that we had to get to the front because we were the band! I keep in touch with everyone and they all live around here. Sean writes songs, Colin's studying for a geology degree and Duncan's a cut glass engraver. When I first saw quill I thought, 'I don't know if this is for me' but I've now been with the band nearly three years and I don't miss the heavy metal thing." 'Some of the greatest Heavy Metal songs of all time" Lars Ulrich "The songwriting was always one of my favourite parts of being in a band - the actual creative spark, when you both look at each other and laugh, like, that's it!" Brian Tatler "I place Diamond Head at the forefront of the best of the best" Dave Mustaine "Diamond Head's sound was so special as to be almost ethereal". Malcolm Dome "Tatler is a guitarist of phenomenal power and creativity" Guitar World "When we made 'Kill Em All', it was just Diamond Head and Motorhead" Lars Ulrich "Diamond Head took Heavy Rock a step beyond Led Zeppelin with new dynamics and new sounds" Paul Elliot, Kerrang! "To call this mere talent would be an understatement. Diamond Head were simply staggering. Harris in particular is an unstoppable whirling dervish for the whole 100 minutes, his emotive delivery never anything other than spot on" Steve Beebee -Kaerrang! "I'm influenced by the likes of Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page and Brian Tatler". Dave Mustaine - Megadeth "Lightning to the Nations is one of THE classic pieces of vinyl as far as I'm concerned." Lars Ulrich "We're a combination of the two heads, Diamond Head and Motorhead. The epic feel is definitely from Diamond Head, while the simplicity came from Motorhead." James Hetfield - Metallica |
