Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris says this band have written “the best debut album I’ve heard in years”. We’re not arguing with him.
WORDS: HENRY YATES
The back-story of Voodoo Six reads like a heavy metal spin on Roy Of The Rovers: “15 years ago I was playing football for a Sunday team,” bassist Tony Newton remembers, “and one of the guys said his Saturday team was looking for players. So the next week, I turn up in Barkingside, Essex, walk into the changing room, and there’s Steve Harris [from Iron Maiden] sat there in his leather jacket. He’s been playing for them since he was 14. He’s just one of the gang; everyone takes the piss and he loves it.”
The two bassists formed a formidable strike partnership on the pitch and became close friends off it. But it was musical talent – not nepotism – that got Newton’s band of the time, Dirty Deeds, signed to Harris’s Beast label. Three albums followed, but by 2002, Dirty Deeds was over and Newton began looking for people for his next project.
“The idea for Voodoo Six was to have a 70s vibe with a modern edge,” he explains. “Riffs with grooves.”
The vision might be clear, but the line-up
is less so, with the five members united in musical ethos but quite different on paper. Newton, guitarist Matt Pearce and drummer Dave ‘Grav’ Cavill are all pushing 40. Second guitarist Chris Jones is a decade younger, while frontman Henry Rundell is just 23.
“I’d auditioned 52 singers,” Newton grins. “Finally, we found Henry. I knew a guy who manages bands, and he told me: ‘He’s really good. The only thing is that he’s shaved all his hair off.’ I said: ‘Well I don’t give a shit.’ I went to see him and he was fuckin’ brilliant. And he came round and it sounded bang-on. And he had hair when I met him, anyway.”
With the band complete, re-enter Steve Harris, offering Voodoo Six a support slot at Iron Maiden’s 2005 Clive Burr MS Trust Fund gig at Hammersmith Apollo. “I think we’d done only four gigs before that,” says Newton. “And Henry had only ever played clubs. He was shitting himself.”
But Voodoo Six rose to the challenge. Just as they did when a dispute with the original record company resulted in debut album First Hit For Free disappearing when it was first released in 2006.
“I stumbled across this city-based investor that funds British films,” says Newton, “and convinced them to invest in
a label. So we’ve repackaged the album and given it another shot.”
Of course, this is more than just a ‘shot’. It’s a good, old-fashioned rock’n’roll mission: get huge, or die trying. “I’m not doing this to be a little number on the bill,” Newton says. “I see the bands we support, and the reaction they get – and I want it too. That’s the dream.”
• First Hit For Free is out now through Pinnacle.
• You can check out Voodoo Six online here and here.
• This article originally appeared in Classic Rock issue 118.