Warfare – Lemmy Sessions
How do you write a review for something you’re a part of? That really is a tough question.
For the last few years I’ve been involved in the recording and production of the new releases from iconic 80s U.K. Punk/Metal band Warfare with the latest release, “Lemmy Sessions”, dropping only a few weeks ago on May 30th. The album is a remaster of the original rough mix tapes of the recording sessions for the band’s second and most successful album, Metal Anarchy, which originally released back in 1985.
My involvement with Warfare began around 20 years ago when I was working for a live sound production company and I was approached to provide PA/stage equipment for a local event. Little did I know at the time that the rather loud and animated guy that was organising the event was none other than Paul “Evo” (pronounced EV-O rather than EVE-O) Evans! After effectively retiring from the music business in the early 90s Evo had gone on to buy a travelling funfair (yes, you heard that right!) and had spent the previous 15 years touring around his native North East driving a Funhouse and towing a Roundabout; the man really is a force of nature. After years away from the business he’d decided to dip his toe back in and had set up a promotion company to bring bands and artists to his original hometown of Shildon, the Cradle Of The Railways, and one of the towns along the route of the original Stockton & Darlington Railway, the world’s first ever public railway to use steam locomotives. It’s not just great music that comes out of the North East!
Starting small with tribute acts he developed these events over the coming years to eventually attract the likes of Wilko Johnson, The Vibrators, The Lurkers, Bruce Foxton, Ed Tudor-Pole and one of the strangest events I’ve ever been involved with; An Evening with “Mad” Frankie Fraser! Over this time Evo and I became firm friends and it was actually with my encouragement that he finally decided to return to the studio in 2015 when he recorded the EP, Damned Unto Death, with his long time friend Algy Ward of The Damned and Tank fame. This was followed by the Evo/Warfare album, released on High Roller in 2017, then a number of archive releases and re-issues and finally this release, The Lemmy Sessions, which originally released as a 3 CD boxset in 2023 on HNE Recordings and now this 2025 Limited Edition Vinyl released on Cadiz Music. The material for the release was discovered on some dusty old cassette tapes that were dug out of his loft back in 2020 during the pandemic and after I carried out extensive audio restoration work and a complete remaster of the material we have what we see here: the original, rough mixes that were done in the studio with Lemmy in the producer’s chair.
Evo met Lemmy back in the early 80s after he left the North East and moved to London to follow his dream. He knew no-one, had nowhere to live and no job to go to but he had an absolute determination to be successful as a musician. He’d met Algy Ward a year previously when Major Accident, the band he was with at the time, played a gig with the then “up and coming” Tank in Newcastle. They struck up something of a friendship that night and so with nothing more than dreams and rumours he left the North-East on a mission to find Algy. To us today this sounds a little crazy; he didn’t have an address or phone number, all he knew was he lived somewhere in Croydon! After numerous nights sleeping on the streets and trawling pubs and clubs asking questions he eventually discovered an address and turned up on Algy’s doorstep: the start of a friendship that lasted right up until Algy passed away in 2023. Through Algy he got to know many musicians in the scene at the time and this eventually led to drunken conversations with the Motörhead boys and the subsequent involvement of Lemmy as producer for Metal Anarchy. The rest as we say is history.
The first LP of this double album, pressed on high quality heavy-weight gold vinyl, contains these remastered and restored original mixes for Metal Anarchy, and if you listen carefully you can actually hear Lemmy’s voice on the tape in a couple of places. There was in fact much more of this “behind the scenes” chatter on the original cassette tapes and I had encouraged Evo to include this but he was keen to just focus on the music and therefore most of this was edited out: a shame in my opinion but ultimately not my decision as after all, it’s not my name on the album cover! The second album, pressed on standard black vinyl, is a limited edition bonus 12” EP containing a real selection of material: remastered versions of two previously released songs, a newly recorded cover of “Do The Robot” (originally recorded by The Saints) and the brand new and previously unreleased Warfare song, Dance For Tomorrow We Die. None of the material on this EP was included on the 2023 CD release and is all exclusive to this vinyl release. Guest musicians on the EP are diverse and include Cronos of Venom, Tom Angelripper of Sodom, noted music industry artist and designer Hugh Gilmour, Motörhead legend “Fast” Eddie Clarke, Jack Lyttle (Algy Ward’s step-son) and myself on various uncredited performances (basically on anything that needed adding or fixing!)
Production is as you would expect; raw, ballsy and right in your face. Although the original material was taken from an old cassette tape, after extensive restoration work and remastering it actually sounds very good; powerful, clean and clear with a good balance across the audio spectrum. The new material is raw, rough and unapologetically nasty. During the production process Evo would constantly complain that my production was in his words, “too polite,” and he wanted the songs to be ever more gritty and angry; I’d like to think that we achieved this.
This album is not only a great sounding slice of the later NWOBHM period but it also stands as a historic document to a time and a place that have long since passed us by. A time in the UK when rock and metal music was king and a time when the streets of London really did seem as if they were paved with gold and if you were persistent, confident and downright cheeky then maybe you too could be a rockstar!
Label: Cadiz Music
Released: May 30th 2025
Wayne McAloon | Now Spinning Magazine
