Shiva

1979 Bristol, SW England: The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) was about to hit the UK and I was about to set off on a round-the-world trip after several years involvement in various rock bands (Bison, Mantiss, Red Shift) and in need of a break. In the meantime John Hall had come to Bristol to join two mates in a new band they'd called "Shiva". The band comprised two guitarists, John and Chris D'Avoigne, a drummer Jack Carver and they were still looking for a bassist. Previous to this I'd had quite a lot of dealings with local agents in the music business and knew Ken Lintern from the Rainbow Agency. Ken almost ran me down one day in his eagerness to give me Shiva's phone number with a view to completing their line-up. I agreed to play an audition "just in case" and was so impressed with the material, and John's guitar 'shredding' in particular, that I cancelled the trip to join up...par 1980 The band spent the next few months rehearsing, writing and recording until we were ready to start gigging in October 1980. We had a loose agreement with the Rainbow Agency and Ken got us some of our first gigs although some we had to organise for ourselves. We'd always felt a need to get things down on tape and had recorded several demo tracks (Cut Me To The Quick, The Gallery, Thief, Questions) at Cave Studios run by Andy Allan. Money was tight so we did odd jobs for the studio to help pay for our sessions. We're probably still in the red! These first tapes were fairly well received and got placements in the demo charts, but it quickly became apparent to me that we wouldn't go far unless we got a more coherent sound. The twin guitars worked well for the likes of Wishbone Ash but the players were too different in our case. After a lot of soul searching we decided to ask the other guitarist Chris to leave and become a three piece. Some more demos were recorded (Stranger Lands, En Cachent, Angel Of Mons) which had a tighter feel to them and we knew we were on the right track. But there was still something not quite right in the "engine".......par Winter 1981 It was about this time that we were approached with a management deal by Ken who'd formed a new company called Elephant Management. He already had other bands on board, including the infamous Beki Bondage and the Vice Squad, and we jumped at the chance to have his expertise on our side. The first thing Ken did was to persuade us to audition the drummer from his dance band, Chris Logan. We were knocked out by Chris's playing and asked Jack to leave, a very difficult thing to do but the band had to come first. Chris fixed our engine troubles for sure, the bass and drums clicked right into place like we'd been playing together for years! This was the definitive Shiva line up and we were ready to go for gold. Many gigs followed and a ton of writing and rehearsing saw an album's worth of good material developed. Times were hard though, the miner's strike was on and our main audiences were in the north of England and Wales, the worst affected areas. This was also our lowest point financially; it was never good money-wise but that winter we were literally burning furniture to stay warm. We survived on very little money but made some good friends during that time, most notably the excellent people in Chesterfield and Pontefract (where Keith and Sue who formed the Shiva Fan Club lived). There was always someone that would put us up to save us paying for digs or even sleeping in the truck and we'll be forever grateful to them for that. We continued to record at Cave Studios with the help of "Cavemen" Andy and Bill who were always a huge help to us. They went on to record the Massive Attack albums amongst other things...par 1982 The gigging and writing eventually started to pay off when Ken secured us a recording contract with Heavy Metal Records. We went back to Cave and actually paid them properly to record the whole of the Firedance album with the advance that we were given. The first single that was released, Rock Lives On, wasn't really our 'thing' but an idea of Ken's to make us more commercial - we went along with it but never felt it was one of our better efforts! The second single, Angel Of Mons, was most definitely Shiva at its best though. That track, and the flip side, were also included on the album which we continued to record during the summer of 1982. En Cachent was re-recorded to try and match an earlier demo of the song that we'd recorded with Jack and proved to be my favourite track on Firedance. The solo still gives me the 'shivas'! The same track also featured on the sampler album Heavy Metal Heroes Volume II. The original single tracks Rock Lives On and Sympathy feature on another sampler NWOBHM Metal Rarities Volume 2. (Released 1996, British Steel). By the end of 1982 things were looking good; we were gigging all over the country, including the famous Granary Club in Bristol and the Marquee Club in London's West End (both of which I'd played a number of times in the past but never with a band with such promise). We recorded a good rocking session for BBC Radio 1's Friday Rock Show with Tommy Vance (rec. 5th December), the album was selling well and creeping into the charts. Work was coming in for our sideline business - hiring out our PA system and/or truck. We did jobs for a lot of other bands including such diverse acts as Hawkwind, George Melly and The Platters! We'd gigged with Wishbone Ash, Diamond Head, the Michael Schenker Group, Deke Leonard and even The Vice Squad. A tour with Iron Maiden was in the pipeline, and we had the beginnings of a second album of even better material. This was when the crunch came.... Chris decided he'd had enough and suddenly left the band. It was a bombshell and nearly destroyed Shiva right there but we decided to bash on and try to find a replacement before the momentum faded away. This was, of course, very difficult as Chris was no ordinary drummer...par Spring 1983 We auditioned lots of competent players, none of them really fit the bill, but we eventually settled for a guy called "Charlie" and recorded a couple of tracks with him (The Runner, Burning Bridges). We knew he wasn't quite right for the band though. Again fortune took a turn in the guise of our photographer Debbie Brady, who took most of the shots on this web site. Debbie put us in touch with Phil Williams who she knew was looking for work. Phil turned out to be an excellent player and we signed him up immediately while once again having to do the difficult deed of saying farewell to a band member: Charlie. More gigging ensued and we continued to hone the new sound with Phil and the new tracks. Five more tracks (Power Of Persuasion, Ring Of Fire, Not There, Window On The West, Eden) were recorded for a second album and we confidently took them to HMR to negotiate a continuation of the contract. In the end they didn't pick up the option for the album and we were left high and dry which proved to be the beginning of the end for Shiva. We struggled on for a little longer, extracted ourselves from our management deal and tried to go it alone but it didn't work out. After four years of being poor, working extremely hard and not having a lot to show for it we called it a day in the Autumn of 1983 and split...par