Wheels of Steel: The Explosive Early Years of the NWOBHM

by Martin Popoff

Ah yes, the heroic, glory-rich daze of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal!

The year was 1979, and a brash new breed of heavy metal-maker was busy shoveling dirt over the death of punk, while simultaneous mourning the waning energies—or outright demises—of hard rock’s earlier heroes, namely Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep.

In Wheels of Steel: The Explosive Early Years of the NWOBHM, Martin Popoff charts the long ramp-up to this detonation of headbanging mania through the late ‘70s, arriving at the penultimate first years of this flash phenomenon, namely 1979 and 1980.

Utilizing his celebrated oral history method—rich with detailed chronological entries to frame the story—Popoff blasts through all of the reasons the NWOBHM had to happen, and then drops down on all the singles, albums, live events and conceptual trends studding those remarkable two years, an era that essentially marks a coming-out party for heavy metal.

Come join Martin, along with dozens of his old school headbanging buddies, as they together tell the tale of this ersatz genre’s birth and mischievous, defiant adolescence—heavy metal would forever be transformed, and Wheels of Steel celebrates plainly and yet powerfully, all the reasons why.

Genres: Music

240 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2015

About the author

At approximately 7900 (with over 7000 appearing in his books), Martin has unofficially written more record reviews than anybody in the history of music writing across all genres. Additionally, Martin has penned approximately 85 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock and record collecting. He was Editor-In-Chief of the now retired Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, Canada’s foremost metal publication for 14 years, and has also contributed to Revolver, Guitar World, Goldmine, Record Collector, bravewords.com, lollipop.com and hardradio.com, with many record label band bios and liner notes to his credit as well. Additionally, Martin has been a regular contractor to Banger Films, having worked for two years as researcher on the award-winning documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, on the writing and research team for the 11-episode Metal Evolution and on the ten-episode Rock Icons, both for VH1 Classic. Additionally, Martin is the writer of the original metal genre chart used in Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and throughout the Metal Evolution episodes. Martin currently resides in Toronto and can be reached through martinp@inforamp.net or www.martinpopoff.com.

Reviews

[Benjamin Kahn]

This book just covers the first two years of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. I'm sure it's not the first book on this music movement, but it's the only one I know of, the only one I've read. Popoff does his usual great job of combining context, chronology and quotes in order to establish a feel for the period, for its history, and for its development. I find it interesting that there has been so much written on the punk movement of this period, but so little written about the corresponding metal movement. Unfortunately, metal has always been given short shrift by most rock critics. Popoff does an excellent job redressing this here.

It's interesting to see what gave rise to the NWOBHM, and how it was affected by the punk movement. Some bands see punk as important to its success - the whole DIY movement, bands putting out independent releases, the rise of the independent label - while many lament the lack of musicianship found in much of punk music. Motorhead's Lemmy has no problem with the punks, especially singing the praises of The Damned, and Iron Maiden's Steve Harris hates punk to this day. A really fascinating look at the rise of a genre that was to become so dominant through the '80s. I've already started the sequel!

[Mike]

I've read this book three times now, so I obviously enjoy it. I like the timeline format, detailing the beginning of the NWOBHM and the bands involved.