Feature Song: Motorhead by Motörhead (12 August, 1977/Escape Studios/London, UK)

"I have excellent news for the world. There is no such thing as new wave. It does not exist. It’s a figment of a lame c*nt’s imagination. There was never any such thing as new wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock ‘n’ roll but you didn’t dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn’t give you coke anymore. There’s new music, there’s new underground sound, there’s noise, there’s punk, there’s power pop, there’s ska, there’s rockabilly. But new wave doesn’t mean shit."

• Kickboy Face

Claude's mostly right. What we commonly think of as New Wave absolutely didn't happen. But there definitely was a New Wave. It's the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Heavy Metal was invented in Birmingham, England after metal worker Tony Iommy lost the tips of the fingers on his left hand in an industrial accident. His employer felt bad that Tony would never play guitar again, and tried to prove the opposite by introducing him to the music of Django Reinhardt. In the late 20's, a fire broke out in Reinhardt's living space. He and his wife escaped with burns over half their bodies, most prominently in Django's fretting hand. With guitar playing being his primary source of income, he gritted his teeth through the pain and learned to play guitar with only two fingers. Tony Iommi was indeed moved by this story, and began re-training himself to play guitar with his bad hand. The result was a style that relied on power chords and was often tuned down much lower than the average guitar. Combined with the wail of John "Ozzy" Osbourne and the gloomy lyrics of Geezer Butler, they forged (no pun intended) the sound and style that we would come to associate with Heavy Metal. Other groups would come along to help shape the sound including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Budgie. However, by the mid 70s, the leaders of the Heavy Metal scene had practically all disbanded.

Among the bands that were struggling through this dark period was a heavily psychedelic band called Hawkwind. In 1972, they fired their rhythm section and brought in a straightforward rock drummer called Simon King and an unknown guitarist called Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister. Lemmy, called so because he often asked to borrow money, believed he was auditioning to be a guitarist, but soon found out he was being asked to play bass. Not only did he not know how to play one, he didn't own one. Not to worry, however, as the previous Hawkwind bassist, Dave Anderson, left his Rickenbacker 4001 in the van. And so it came to pass that Lemmy learned to play his instrument practically onstage. To make up for his lack of talent on the instrument, he began to play very loud and started crafting a captivating stage presence. Eventually he got to a point where they'd let him sing a few songs. However, this was around the time Lemmy discovered amphetamines. While members of Hawkwind experimented with drugs, none of them stuck with speed, opting instead for their beloved LSD. Except for Lemmy, that is, who would be awake and talking for days at a time. This annoyed his bandmates, who nicknamed him Motorhead before kicking him out in 1975. Upon his return to London, he formed the band Bastard with Larry Wallis and Lucas Fox. Friends warned that with a name like Bastard, they'd never get on the radio or even Top of The Pops. So he changed the name of the band to the title of the final song he'd written for Hawkwind. Then he promptly fired Larry and Lucas. Along with guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke and drummer "Philthy" Phil Taylor, Lemmy would go on to take Heavy Metal to a place it hadn't been before. The trio blended the volume and timbre of Heavy Metal with the speed and attitude of this new developing genre called Punk. Previous acts had made pretensions to speed and loudness, but Motörhead were the first to really embrace both. In fact, the earliest Motörhead fans were not the biker types we associate with the band nowadays, but the young Punks who were also into the Sex Pistols and The Damned (whom Lemmy would join over various stints without a proper bassist).

Between 1975 and 1978, a great number of similar acts sprung up around England. There was Iron Maiden in London, Def Leppard in Sheffield, Tygers of Pan Tang from Newcastle, and Marseille (Hi, Neil) from Liverpool. In those days, large venues were reserved for music that actually charted (i.e. pop, dance, and any rock bands that had already hit it big), so these bands all had to play in the same small dingy clubs where the Punk bands played. As such, they developed a very similar Do-It-Yourself ethos, giving out demo tapes and self-pressed singles to audiences. When the British music press became fascinated with Punk, they completely glossed over the bands that were sharing those venues. As such, word-of-mouth and fanzines became very important. Eventually the indie labels that had been at the center of Punk began issuing compilation albums of singles by this new clutch of slightly-metal, slightly-punk bands. Fans were so excited to hear their favourite new bands on record that they began sending singles to music magazines in their hundreds. Eventually, in 1979, Sounds magazine had to publish an article about these underground acts. Except, there wasn't a name for the genre yet. So it came to pass that editor Alan Lewis, inspired by the decline of Punk and the rise of New Wave, coined the phrase "The New Wave of British Heavy Metal."

As a result of the article in Sounds, major labels came knocking on the doors of several NWOBHM acts. The delightfully crappy band Saxon were the first to sign with a major label, joining Carrere records in July of 1979, followed by Def Leppard signing with Phonogram in August, and Iron Maiden signing with EMI in December. Being on a major label meant there was more money for promotion, meaning there was more opportunities to perform on bigger stages, and, most importantly, on television (the broadcasting medium, not the band.)

As is custom, the mention of TV signals the end of the entry.

The lesson: Not only can Punk Rock cross over with Pop, it can also cross the other way, into Heavy Metal. Keep that one in the back of your mind.