Manowar’s "Hail To England"(1984) was the third album by the "Kings Of Metal". Loud, bombastic, epic in scope, it was the album that has become, without a doubt, a true milestone in the band's canon of recorded works. From the album, no less than four of the seven tracks went on to become true Manowar classics: "Kill With Power", "Army Of The Immortals", ... Full Description the title track "Hail To England" and "Bridge Of Death". All in all, "Hail To England" is Heavy Metal in its purest way; mighty, powerful and melodic. And captures Manowar at their most creative, and loudest best. Hail To England’s line-up featured Eric Adams on vocals, Ross The Boss on guitar and keyboard, Joey DeMaio on bass and Scott Columbus on drums. As part of the continuing new series on the making of some of rock and metal’s classic albums, Joe Matera sat down with former Manowar guitarist Ross The Boss to look back over the making of this Manowar classic.
UG: I want to start first by asking you, what the songwriting process was like for the album?
Ross The Boss: Basically, how Joey and I used to do it [songwriting] back then was, Joey and I would bring all our ideas together before sat down to write some songs. Then we’d sit down and he’d show me what he had and I’d show him what I had. Then we’d record different ideas and he’ll suggest things and I’d suggest things. And we’d bounce ideas back and forth. And once we came to something that was a song, he’d go off and write the lyrics to it. And after the lyrics were written, we went into the rehearsal room and hashed out the songs, from top to bottom. We would work on tempos, keys and song arrangements. Sometimes the songs just came instantly while at other times, we had to chip at it a bit, but it always came up roses.
Once you entered the studio, what was the recording process like for the album?
We recorded almost two albums worth of music during those sessions over a twelve day period. And the reason was, because we were always thinking ahead of ourselves back then. We recorded a lot stuff that would later become the Sign of The Hammer album.
Where and when was Hail To England recorded?
It was recorded in Toronto at Phase One Studios. We worked with producer Jack Richardson. I can’t remember exactly what the budget was but it may have been around $20,000. And unfortunately I also can’t remember the recording dates , but I believe it was during the winter of 1983/84.
"Sometimes the songs just came instantly while at other times, we had to chip at it a bit, but it always came up roses."
The thing about Jack and why we chose him was that we were really into this track he had recorded previously. It was called “Battlescar” and it was truly an amazing track, that featured Rush and Max Webster. We used to worship it as it had two bands with so much power. And we were looking for some headroom and for a big sound, and a producer who could really capture our sound. With the Manowar sound, nobody till that day had been able to capture it and put it onto tape yet. Jack was one of Canada’s most famous producers and had his own concepts of guitar sound. And he was able to deal with our volume in the studio. He had this revolutionary box [see sidebar] for my solos. It was this box with six switches on it which allowed me to record six tracks of lead guitar, and he would use this box to switch on and off each track. The great thing about it was that all my solos pretty much were in the same mode so he could switch tracks and come up with some amazing changes. It was amazing what he could do with this box. In the studio, we pretty much played at concert pitch volume. But we would find the sweet spot, where the Marshall was humming. We didn’t have it on ten because really, the Marshalls don’t work that way the best, they just flat line. But if you back everything off and let it purr, then that is when it sounds the best. And also Jack would place a mike on the speaker of the cab and find the sweet spot on that too. He used an array of mikes and we tested out everything that was in the studio too, from SM-57s to SM-58s to AKGs. But in the end, it was a SM-57 that did the trick because it was very effective especially for the close miking. And we also did some distant miking as well.
How did you approach your guitar solos?
I had my own concepts and own forms for solos but when you’re in the studio and ready to record and everything is amped up, and hearing things outside of the rehearsal room or demos, it really sparks something, and a lot of the solos for that album happened spontaneously in the studio. I would normally do two or three takes and I would have it down by then. But with Jack, I did about four or five takes so we had a lot to choose form. And he would pick the best one from those.
What gear did you use for the recording?
I brought in my Marshalls which were customized by the great John "Dawk" Stillwell, a master of tube technology. When we got our record advance, I bought seven of those amps, JCM-800s, along with twelve bottoms. John customized all of them by making them much sturdier, more road worthy, and boosting the power, the mids, the bass, the highs, everything, and yet, having all of this while still running cooler than a regular Marshall. I brought the whole lot in the studio but we didn’t mike all of them up. We just set up a few of them with a couple of heads. My main guitar was a 1963 White Gibson SG Custom that was fitted with Bartolini pickups as they were cleaner but higher output pickups. And I didn’t use any effect pedals on my sound. I plugged straight into the Marshalls. I also used my black 1967 Les Paul Custom which I used on ‘Bridge of Death’ and ‘Each Dawn I Die’ as it was very stable guitar and always in tune which was perfect for the special tuned songs. I also had a Stratocaster that was customized by “Dawk” as well and which really stayed in tune with the whammy bar too.
What tunings did you use?
Early on, I had developed this special tuning called a C# tuning, where I didn’t tune the whole guitar down except for the sixth string which was itself tuned to a C#. And I wrote ‘Each Dawn I Die’ and ‘Bridge Of Death’ with that. Previously I had written ‘Gloves of Metal’ with it which we recorded for 1983’s Into Glory Ride album.
"We were always thinking ahead of ourselves back then."
I came up with it from listening to Black Sabbath thinking that was how Tony did it. But hey, what the hell, I hit on something good too and which was mine.
Going back to the album’s guitar tracks, did you do much double tracking?
I did two tracks of rhythm and a lot of the leads were single tracked but occasionally there were some double tracking. But mainly there were usually two tracks of rhythm guitars and then solos that maybe were either just the first take or a mix of various tracks.
The album highly influenced the power metal genre…
Yes but all our records have been cited as influential. Our records usually had the standard format of a combination of Manowar rockers and the epic tracks. And those elements were what set us apart from all the other metal bands. We could make an eight to ten minute song without being ridiculously boring. The other interesting thing was that Joey played eight string bass, four string bass and bass pedals and I could play keyboards as well. Basically I thought that the version of the band that played on Hail to England was one of the best metals units of all time. Period
How did the concept for the album come about?
We were very much into Thor and Conan The Barbarian as soon as we started the band. We searched high and low for an artist and then, through Marvel comic, they put us onto a guy called Ken Landgraf. So we called him up and asked him to design us a cover telling him that the title was Hail To England. And man, when we first saw that album cover, we shit our pants. It was unbelievable. The guy looks so amazing on that cover, his face and the women at his feet and the beasts and sub-humans. It is just like the Marvel comics that I loved so much. You know Thor was such a big influence on my life when I was growing up.
SIDEBAR - John "Dawk" Stillwell explains Ross The Boss’ "box":
"I only made one of these boxes and it was especially for Manowar. I called the box, ''The Gizmo''. It was this large ''Hammond'' cast metal box, made in Canada and which was painted with black winkle paint. It had six transformers custom made for me by ''Jensen Transformer Co.” It had six double throw and four pole switches on top of this box and a 1/4'' input jack on one side. There was six three-pin male XLR on the other with a 1/4'' tip-ring sleeve jack - and no ends were connected to the box so the box could be ''earthed'' to the water pipe. It also had six small short bat handles switches for ''ground/earth'' lift. And here's how it worked. With the four pole switches, I had different ''caps and resistors'' restoring the EQ every time, you switched a channel on, the EQ circuit adjusted for the difference".
Interview by Joe Matera
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