Break Out magazine Interview with Punky Mendoza
February 2004

1. How do you feel about the re-releases from your first two records Lettin Loose and Rock Ain’t Dead so many years after the original records came out?

Punky Mendoza: It feels good to know that someone somewhere is interested in something that was part of my life. The re-releases bring with them some great memories for myself, and I’m sure this is the same for the other members of the band. Frank J. Felice, a friend of mine living in Arizona and the guy responsible for rekindling a Heavy Pettin spirit through his website, believed that the first album should be released on CD and it is partly thanks to Frank that I believe it has finally come to fruition, and part of the reason why I feel good about the re-releases themselves.

2. Have you been surprised by the interest in Heavy Pettin’s music after so many years?

Punky Mendoza: To be honest I am not entirely sure whether I was surprised about the interest in Pettin’s music. I suppose I knew from Frank that people were still listening to the band and the re-release of the Big Bang sort of confirmed this for me. I was certainly surprised when I saw Pettin’s first two albums were for sale through Amazon on the internet because I had no idea Majestic Rock had planned to release them. The guys at Majestic Rock have been very keen in the band’s music and have done everything to enhance the albums in every way. ‘Music before business’, that’s what the guys at Majestic Rock say, and that’s what I admire about the company. The packaging for both CDs is excellent. Who can complain about being part of something that has the name Dave Ling attached to it. Certainly not this old metal head!

3. There are bonus tracks on the re-releases. Why didn’t they make it on the albums first time around?

Punky Mendoza: Roll The Dice was originally released by Pettin on Neat Records as a single. It paved the way for us and in a sense deserves a place on the first album. I don’t know why it never made the album first time around. Shadows Of The Night was on the B-Side of the single Rock Me. This was a record company decision – a way of bringing attention to the single, a way of selling it to the fans.

4. Are there more songs in the archives, maybe some live tracks also?

Punky Mendoza: I have Pettin songs on demos that were never considered good enough by Polydor. Gordon and Gary are the ones to talk to about the Pettin archives. They must have at least two albums worth of songs that I believe would be worthwhile releasing. There are some live songs that sound good enough to release, but the best ‘live’ studio recording is one held by the BBC recorded for the Tommy Vance Rock Show before the band was signed to Polydor and Warner Brothers. Over the years I have been writing and discarding songs on an inconsistent basis. Whenever I feel like putting something together I put it on tape then forget about it. There has been little motivation to do anything about writing noise. Recently I’ve been working on some ideas influenced by words and phrases in Michael Herr’s book Dispatches. I’ve even toyed with the idea of putting together a temporary band just to try the sounds out.

5. Heavy Pettin music has elements from the British and American hard rock scene. Why did you never make it to the top? Was it a case of wrong place at the wrong time?

Punky Mendoza: There are variables in any industry that determine whether a product makes its way to the top or whether it falls down after a promising start. I don’t think Pettin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The band was just part of a short-lived wave of interest. We needed consistency and foresight from the record company to succeed as a business proposition ourselves (we began to see ourselves as a LTD Company). This was never the case with Polydor. We went through four different A&R guys in as many years. The problem with change in this way was that there were no transitional points that sign posted the record company’s intentions to match the intentions of the band. Therefore, you end up with having to start over again and find commitment and enthusiasm in a replacement that might not be in the least interested in what it is you are doing because he or she has plans themselves.

6. Was the name Heavy Pettin a problem for some parts of a US market?

Punky Mendoza: There was talk about changing the name from the record company’s perspective during the recording of Big Bang. I can’t remember the full details, but the sexual thing was the key factor. I couldn’t believe the A&R guy’s attitude. Gene Simmons from the rock band KISS had said to me that a band’s name is significant and important and that Heavy Pettin fulfilled these requirements. The guy at Polydor was more interested in pop music and couldn’t get his neurons around what we were trying to do and what we were about. There was some mention about the American market, but from our experience in America and doing radio interviews on the West coast, East coast and anywhere we happened to be in the middle of that huge mass of land, there was never a problem with the name or living up to the name.

7. How do you see the comparisons between Heavy Pettin and Def Leppard?

Punky Mendoza: We never went out of our way to be like Def Leppard. However, it is easy to see why we were sometimes compared to the band. The line-up was similar for one thing, and we were both brought up with the same musical influences. In fact, in the beginning Peter Mensch (one half of Def Leppard’s management team) was interested in Pettin and managed us in a casual basis when we were negotiating a publishing deal with Warner Brothers. He also helped us through showcases for all the major record labels in London. However, when he took the idea to his business partner Cliff Burnstein, that it’d be in their interest to take on Heavy Pettin as another act, Cliff thought the comparison to Def Leppard would do us more harm than good and therefore declined to sign Pettin on this basis. That comparison lost us what would have been the highest quality and standard of rock group management at that time.

8. Are you sad that Heavy Pettin never made it to the top even though the band had the potential?

Punky Mendoza: This is a difficult question, but a good one and an extremely relevant one. What makes it difficult to answer is its power to make me think to how I lived things back in the 80s and how I live life now. And there are ways of looking at how things might have worked out had Pettin made it to the top. For example, who is to say that I’d be alive right now if Pettin made it to the top. Who is to say any of the band members would be alive now if we had made it to the top. We were young, dumb and full of cum enjoying life as it was day by day. To add success on top of that would have been perfect: to deal with failure was different. But failure was gradual. That was a consolation. I think we were able to prepare ourselves for the final outcome knowing we weren’t going anywhere and success was a more difficult climb than it had first presented itself: the descend into a normal way of life was not pleasant.

9. I remember when I bought your first record Lettin Loose (1983), which is - by the way - reissue-tip of the month in the new Break Out-issue, because Pettin had the right combination between heavy metal and melodic-rock. How would you explain your style with the first two records?

Punky Mendoza: I think you interpret the style accurately. Pettin was influenced by metal bands with a melodic side and it was Gordon and Gary’s intention to maintain this style of music in their song writing. Hamie and myself were influenced by American bands, and I always used complimentary chords to those Gordon played which gave us a sound that was marketable in the melodic rock genre. But, yes you are right, the balance between heavy and melodic rock was just right.

10. Why was there a longer break from Rock Ain’t Dead to Pettin’s last release Big Bang?

Punky Mendoza: There were a number of reasons for why there was a longer break from the second album to the last, and most of the reasons were business related. We parted company with our manager and had to find a replacement. We ended up with Brian Lane who managed YES and ASIA. It took us time to find a producer. We began the recording of Big Bang with Geoff Downes (keyboard player with ASIA). The partnership wasn’t going too well and we tried other producers and engineers before meeting Tony Taverner and Adrian Lee. The time it took to record the album was longer than expected due to the way Tony and Adrian liked to produce. All of these things were factors in why the release of Big Bang took longer than it should have taken, Furthermore, Polydor wanted to go in one direction and we wanted to go in another. This also took some time to get around. Eventually Pettin ceased to exist after a number of negotiations with other record companies and Big Bang was picked up by FM Revolver.

11. How do you see this record from 1989?

Punky Mendoza: Some of the things we wanted to do didn’t turn out. Adrian and Tony were in close contact with Polydor who obviously wanted to direct the band into something it was not comfortable with. Technology got in the way of the guitar and machinery played its part on the sound. The songs were a mix of what we were influenced by in the past with a hint of what we were listening to in the present.

12. The Big Bang release is really poor, did Heavy Pettin have an influence in the release?

Punky Mendoza: No. The packaging was pathetic. I have the original artwork for the way the album cover would have looked. It was equally as bad. Everything about the album went wrong. It was the quicksand we fell into and never got back out of.

13. What was the main reason for the split?

Punky Mendoza: To this day I’m not entirely sure. According to the sleeve notes in the re-release of Rock Ain’t Dead, Brian and myself ‘instigated the split’. That seems fair enough to say on a surface level. But on a deeper level there was more to the split than we will ever understand. Perhaps immaturity played a role. Perhaps the ever-changing faces of record company personnel played a role. Perhaps the attitude of some members in the band played a role, or perhaps a combination of all of these things and more played a part in the split. To be honest I really don’t know.

14. What have you done after the band split and when did you quit the music business?

Punky Mendoza: I continued playing in bands after Pettin and had Warner Brothers pump in some money here and there. I did most of the band things with old mates mostly for the sheer enjoyment of playing. One of the bands, the Criminal Minds could have got better and moved into a different level, but we were too much driven by other demons to be focused enough to take control of ourselves. I wrote some toons and did session work and engineered and produced demos for bands. The Almighty was one of the bands I recorded for Polydor. I quit the music business when I decided to connect neurons and understand reading. I studied psychology for three years and took an honours degree in English and a post-graduate in teaching.

15. How did you feel about touring with rock giants like KISS and OZZY, and working with Brian May?

Punky Mendoza: Touring with and meeting Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley was the ultimate in my KISS collection. I grew up listening to KISS in the 70s and always dreamed of sharing the same stage as the band. Both Gene and Paul showed a lot of interest and at one point would have produced and co-managed Heavy Pettin. That would have been something to write home about had it come together. OZZY was as outrageous as you could imagine. I could write a book about OZZY from the nights the band and OZZY got together. Brian May was a gentleman. I still have to this day a copy of Starfleet signed by Brian that reads: To Punky, It is partly thanks to you that I committed this to vinyl. There’s a story behind that signature. The MOTLEY CRUE tour was out of this world – the longest party I’ve been to in my life.

16. Have you ever thought about a Heavy Pettin reunion?

Punky Mendoza: I lost contact with the guys a long time ago. It’d be like trying to dig up a corpse from the grave and having it re-establishing something long forgotten and neglected. As soon as it got around to remembering what it had neglected interest would have long disappeared and the only prospect would be to return to the grave rattling like an old tin can on the road to nowhere.

17. Some words about Heavy Pettin albums. What do you think about Lettin Loose, Rock Ain’t Dead, and Big Bang?

Punky Mendoza: Lettin Loose: In And Out Of Love was my favourite song to play live and I think it sounds great on the album. Broken Heart has a great intro. Love On The Run excellent riff strong chorus. Love Times Love catchy. Victims Of The Night great backing vocals. Rock Me a stomping good song. Shout It Out another great song to play live. Devil In Her Eyes… unsure. Hell Is Beautiful manic mind blowing fast and furious rock! Roll The Dice absolutely rock. Shadows Of The Night a rocker. Rock Ain’t Dead: Great rock album. A gem. Rock Ain’t Dead Pettin’s anthem. Soul Survivor could have been a hit (Level 42 another Polydor band ripped it off). China Boy interesting. Lost In Love hairs stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear this one. Northwinds A Heavy Pettin classic. Angel pop rock. Heart Attack great chorus. Dream Time movie song. Walking With Angels exceptional lyric. Throw A Party good rocker. Crazy fantastic live toon. City Girl should have been called Silly Girl. Big Bang: Born To Burn is a great opener for any album, but the keyboards were too dominant. Romeo is toothache music. Lonely People is the best track on the album but should have had a different lyric. This Is America should have been heavier (incidentally listen close and you’ll hear James Brown scream at 3 min 14 secs). Looking For Love should have been heavier. Madonna On The Radio was owned by our manager and should never have been on the album. Don’t Call It Love was an attempt to capture what we were about on the first two albums. Heaven Sent was incorrectly named by the record company as Heaven Scent. Two Hearts was Two Hearts.

Marco
Break Out magazine February 2004

Heavy Pettin Interview

From Kerrang! May 1983 Issue # 42

IT'S UNBELIEVABLY
Gratifying to pick up on a band early in their career and
follow their progress all the way to success. Don't
misunderstand, this is the first opportunity I've been
presented with to praise Heavy Pettin'; it is Geoff
Barton who deserves the flowers and chocolates
for featuring the Glasgow five-piece way back in the
murky depths of time (yes, as long ago as Kerrang! issue # 5!),
but you can pat my back too for at least recognising
potential on the band's first ever three track demo...

When a package dropped through the letter box about
18 months ago bearing the name Heavy Pettin' , I sensed
that here would be a group worth keeping an eye on.
"Love Times Love" , Speed Kills" and "Hell Is Beautiful"
all glistened like diamonds in a demo. tape dust - heavenly
hunks of hard rock fury coupled with a sensational melodic
savvy, remarkable for a band so obviously tender in years.
More would be heard of this little lot.

Which brings us to the present day... here I stand before
the distinctly impressive residence of Mr. Ronnie Fowler,
manager of HEAVY PETTIN' (they've been deemed worthy
of capital letter status thanks to their present position).

Water has past under the proverbial bridge as speedily
as good 'ol Pete Makowski knocks back the pints of lager,
and I'm now confronted by a band signed to a major label
(Polydor), preparing to go into the studio to record it's
debut album and the subject of the kind of record business
buzz usually reserved for tailor's dummies playing
synthesized garbage or a giant fly on heat !

By (crazy) George, five long haired street urchins from
Glasgow causing such vibrations on the notoriously
mis-informed business talent-ometer, not to mention
the money scales! There must be something special
about this band, and indeed an ITB representative (ITB
is one of the UK's biggest agencies, which has identically
booked Journey (gaspo) and Kiss (shock) for these shores in
September) is currently running around like a headless
chicken attempting to gain the guys' scrawl on a certain
piece of paper. Of course they're lapping it up.

Heavy Pettin signing photo with ITB

When the fivesome bound downstairs to be introduced,
you immediately sense a confidence within the ranks.
Firstly, Heavy Pettin' look like a rock band should. There
are no vaguely Ian Sabbathesque paunches of receding
hairlines. No, the combined age of Heavy Pettin' is a
disgustingly paltry 101 years (that means three are 21 and
two are 19 incase you haven't been able to borrow enough
fingers yet!) and the guys look healthy enough to put your
fast flagging scribe to shame. God, I was half expecting to
be invited on a three mile jog!

In all seriousness, 'though, cash in the pocket from Polydor
plus their natural youthfulness does give Heavy Pettin' visual
advantages. Clothing is worn smart, but casual - basically the
kind of things you'd wear if you could afford'em - and colour
is the name of the game.

Gordon Bonnar (guitar), Punky Mendoza (guitar), Steve Hayman
(vocals), Brian Waugh (bass) and Gary Moat (drums) have a lot
in their favour, 'though the question of age could well work
against them. Do you Kerrangophiles remember a certain damn
fine rock band named Def Leppard? Nope? Proves my point.
Heavy Rock fans became indigant at the people their own age
performing rather than worshipping the elder statesman of
the rock world. Could it happen again? Gary:

"The British press has a lot to answer for in the making or
breaking of bands. What the likes of you write is all that
people have to go on at the moment because we're not out
playing while we record, so we feel very vulnerable. People
believe what they read so the best time for us is to win over
the press is now, when we're just starting out.

"Because we're not hitting the streets just yet we want people
to start building a picture of us - the right picture - so we
watch what we say and how we say it. If people say anything
bad about us then we'll prove them wrong when we play live."

That opportunity will come in September or October when the
HP debut album is set to emerge, but here is one band deserving
of an introductory piece for the edification of the Kerrang!
readership.

I've often felt like a rebel of the French Revolution gingerly
placing his head on the chopping block while le Baron Bonutto
casually sits in his chair knitting away, waiting for my head to
roll after I've made another predicting boo-boo! But this time
it's different! If this raucous, rockist ensemble doesn't make
it on a worldwide scale within four years then I could well be
forced to run the 1988 London Marathon naked! What makes me
so certain of this particular band's worth? Rough demos for
their new album, that's what! The nine new numbers I heard
reveal a song writing sense second to none backed by an amazing
technical excellence. Gordon and Punky are two fretboard
devils who are positively lethal when unleashed and their ear
for melodic playing means that there's no real need for keyboard
work - usually so essential for classy hard rock - not even a
teeny weeny one!

Gordon Bonnar And Punky Mendoza

Now it's not true that every one of the numbers is an essential-
listening, five star, wang-dang dizbuster, but there are certainly
at least six songs featured which I swearon my SMF card will
turn into absolute MONSTERS when tarted up and placed on vinyl!

Ya' want titles dontcha? Ok then, there's "Rock Me", my favourite
Pettin' piece, a gonzoid cross between Survivor and da Leps and
a guaranteed winner both live and on US radio, and "Shadows Of
The Night", a brainless lyrical extolment of being cheated (again)
but musically devasting with melodic riffs crammed in everywhere
but everywhere!!

Then there's "In And Out Of Love" the most commerical number
laid down by the band to date but certainly one of their strongest
tunes, and also "Broken Heart" , it's Y&Tish acoustic intro building
into some high-powered, mid-paced Metal of the finest sort! If I
were to tell you that this, along with China Rogue's offerings, is
the finest British Metal this year you'd believe me wouldn't
you?! That should pique your interest!

"Hopefullly our music does the talking for us," says Steve, "but
we don't think we're a Heavy Metal band in the Black Sabbath
sense. I would describe us as a melodic hard rock band."

"Yeah, but HM encompasses all kinds of styles," counters Punky.
"If Bonnie Tyler makes the HM charts, then we're definitely Heavy
Metal. There are people who feel that if you're not Heavy Metal,
they're not interested, so I'd say we're Heavy Metal as much as
anyone but people can call us what they like provided they like
the music."

Punky Mendoza

And, as far as the latter's concerned, the band are as enthusiastic
as this particular hack...

"Oh, yeah, we're pleased with it" says bassist Brian. " We love
what we're doing but it's good to hear the opinions of outsiders!
We all push each other 'cos we're growing together, so it's a good
system. All we've done so far is a few daft demos and a few daft gigs
so you should see what we'll be like after two world tours and
three albums!"

There's not a touch of arrogance in the voice thank heavens; the
statement is simply a recognition of the band's ability coupled
with the knowledge that Heavy Pettin' are gonna make it - and
make it big! It all stems from that little word commitment.
Gordon:

"All we've ever wanted to be involved with is Heavy Pettin'! We
never had money because we never took on day jobs and that
made it hard to live with parents who we're always breathing
down our necks! We missed the lassies and having motors like
the rest of the guys in Glasgow but, when it boils down to it,
I think of all the idiots who I used to go to school with, and who
are now married with mortgages, are the ones who are really
missing out.

"Some people resent us for getting out and at least getting a
deal. Whenever we go down the local for a drink they make us
feel like we're standing there posing!! The point is we couldn't go
back on this now because we've never done anything else in
our lives!"

"At least they don't call us a bunch of poofs now that we've done
something, do they?" asserts Brian, with a satisfied look on his
face! The word is already spreading around too.
Gary:

"The first Kerrang! piece brought us a constant stream of letters
and it was through one of those fans that we got our Radio One
session. He sent a tape along and they liked it. Apparently we're
big in Japan and Holland through the single ("Roll The Dice/"Love
Times Love") we released on Neat Records and I've just heard
our first demo's big in Washington!"

Laughs all around, but I've got a tingling deep down in my bones that
this bands is on the verge of something extraordinarily big. When the
album arrives, when Polydor get behind Heavy Pettin' like they've
done with no other hard rock band and the group gets some
touring under its belt, then we're all going to see one of the next
decade's premier hard rock acts. Yeah, go on! Quote me on that!!

HOWARD JOHNSON Kerrang!

Heavy Pettin Interview

From Kerrang! November 1983 Issue # 54

"It's the BIG world now. We're not competing with bands who are
trying to get a deal anymore - we're competing with the bands
that are successful and the whole thing's a lot harder. We need
to work at it very hard" - Gordon Bonnar, Heavy Pettin'.

That quote from the curly blonde-haired guitarist seem to sum
up the way everyone in Heavy Pettin' was feeling about their
newly acquired status. Morale was high but feet were firmly
planted, as the young Glaswegian five-piece arrived in London
for their first ever capital gig.

Heavy Pettin' appear to have given the key to HM nirvana recently.
Just what all the Armed & Ready hopefuls are praying for...
a good deal with a big label (Polydor), marvellous promotional
and advertising backing plus two major support slots
(with Kiss and Ozzy Osbourne), Already they've played the Reading
Festival to encouraging response and reviews and they've seen
another dream fulfilled with the release of their debut album,
"Lettin' Loose". An impressive listing. On the face of it they look
to have it made.

Yet, as Gordon so wisely realised, all is not as it may appear.
There isn't a soft-cushioned, golden-paved road on the other
side of the wall they've crossed... more like a shark invested
pond. Reality is always less glamourous.

Heavy Pettin signing photo wiht Polydor Records - Warner Bros. Records

Polydor are going to help them a lot, no mistake, but in the
end it will all be down to the band themselves. The album shows
they have the talent, to have got this far shows they have the
ambition, now they must match it with total dedication and
unrelenting hard work. Stir all those qualities together and
you'll have a band capable of rising into 'the BIG world'.

Still, hard work or not, it must still seem like something of a
fairy-tale trip. When did it first dawn on them that things were
beginning to happen? Irrepressibly cheerful lead singer 'Hamie'
is quick to answer:

"It was when we got a Telex from Tony Wilson saying: 'come
down on such-and-such a date for a Radio One session'. We
were all totally freaking! We couldnae believe it!"

Gordon remembers it well too, adding: "Before that we'd done
our Neat single which was due to come out at the same
time as the session. It was a double-barrelled thing. It got
certain people in the music business in London really
interested in us, and everything just exploded from there..."

The Neat single didn't necessarily help a lot, the A-side "Roll
The Dice" be in more keeping with that label's policy of hard-
core Metal than the far better, although more weakly
performed, flip "Love Times Love". They now wonder if the
most decent thing about the whole escapade wasn't that they
"all got laid in Newcastle"! Come on lads, keep it clean! At
least it gave them something to promote as they gigged.
Gordon carried on their story:

"We'd put all our money together and bought this big coach.
We took some seats out, loaded our gear in and went out in it
to do a few gigs - firstly around Scotland, then in England too.
We'd do about seven to ten pub shows and maybe pick up
a few more along the way, then go back to Glasgow three
weeks later..."

Hamie: " It was like 'Hi mom! We're home!'..."

Gordon: "...We were just total vagrants!"

How long were you doing that?

Hamie: "Too long! The dole were getting a bit interested in
us by then! Cos we were usually away on the Tuesday when
we had to sign on. We'd go back to the DHSS office about a
week late, shrug and say: 'Oh - I forgot'. But this was happening
all the time and it was getting really, really bad!"

Gordon: "Sometimes we'd be doing a gig in Scarborough or
somewhere and we'd pull into the office there and sign on.
We'd tell them we'd gone looking for work and they'd say:
'What? In Scarborough?!?' "

Little bassist Brian Waugh remembers how they turned to
making a slightly more honest living, though!

"When we got that 'Friday Rock Show' session, we sent out
letters to everybody, telling them to listen to it and Warner
Bros. (now their publishers) picked up on it."

Gordon: "There was a guy there called Robin who really got
behind the band, helped us and just pushed everybody in
the business to create a buzz."

Hamie: "He rang around all the record companies and started
to get people to come down and see us in a 'show-case'
thing at Nomis Studios, CBS would come at two, EMI at three
and so on. Eventually, everybody was there at one time."

Brian: "But before then we were doing about eight sessions
a day for all three record companies. It was really strange."

Gordon: "A show-case is one of the hardest things tae do,
cos your putting a whole show into about three numbers,
and your playing to just three or four guys at the back of the
rehearsal studio."

Brian: "The worst thing is never knowing what they're
thinking! Cos when your finished they go out to talk to
somebody else - you're left in the dark!"

Hamie: "But after that it worked out alright cos they started
to send more and more people and in the end we could
sit back and pick the company we wanted."

So why did you plump for Polydor?

Hamie: "Well, really because their A&R guy was just as
enthusiastic as us. Plus, all the other labels had big rock
bands."

Polydor have too, of course, but it never looked likely that
Pettin' would get pushed to one side whilst the label
pampered a pet 'unit shifter', as they feared would
happen with some of the other majors...

Brian: "It was really just a feeling that everything was
right. Even though other companies were wanting us,
there were always a couple of doubts here and there
with them."

Hamie: "Polydor have proved their point too, in getting
the album out and everything, they've spent a lot of money.
So think in the end we made the right decision."

Heavy Pettin with Mack and Brian May of Queen

Was it Polydor then that put you in touch with your producers,
Brian May & Mack?

Hamie: "No, that was our publishers Warner Bros. again.
Whilst we were making a short list of who we wanted,
our man there went behind our back and sent a tape to
Brian in LA. He listened to it and thought it was great,
cos he usually just gets cassettes of bands sounding like
Queen! He thought we were so different that he started
to make inquiries about us.

"Then our man told us - and we weren't too sure about it.
At first we thought him producing would just be another
guitarist into an ego-trip thing. But once we'd met and got
to know him, we all changed our minds."

Brian May, it seems, had been keen to try his hand at
producing for some time but was a little wary of making
that first step. He'd been offered the chance to work with
Billy Squire but saw Pettin' as a more suitable opportunity.
Finally, he decided to do it, but asked Queen's (and Squire's)
'man-at-the-boards' , Mack, to come along and help him.
As Hamie pointed out, it was a big step for May to take as
it was for Heavy Pettin' themselves.

The outcome is quite refreshing, although much 'toppier'
than say Mack's famous 'Big Beat' style. But it is exactly as
the band wanted with drummer Gary Moat dismissing the
'BB' as "plodding! - Our music's not like that." Very proud
of their own identity these guys(!), as the conversation
revealed. Hamie:

"We were a bit wary. We didnae want to sound like Queen -
as we could have done with all our harmonies - and we
didnae want that Billy Squire sound. But we think it's turned
out really good, especially for a debut album."

It's the product of nearly two months studio time, firstly
laying down backings in London's Townhouse complex
then another stint out in Germany, doing overdubs and
mixing at Munich's Union Studios ("We had Musicland
booked" added Hamie, "but big David Cover-version got
in there and blew us right out!!") All the time and effort
would seem to have payed off. It's a record that
shows Britain can come up with new young bands to
fill the void left by the likes of Lizzy and UFO. An inspired
slice of classy, melodic but raunchy rock.

The acid test - whether the band can match this performance
on stage - has just begun. By the time you read this, Pettin'
should have completed a handful of short openers for
Kiss/Helix and will be looking ahead to a very long stint with
the Wild Wolfman Ozzy Osbourne. That's his entire British
tour, probably the European stint too, and a definite four
month run all across the States starting in the new year.

Now that's 'the BIG world'!!! If they can survive that, they'll
survive anything! Ozzy's already taken them out a couple
of times and decided he likes them. And, in keeping with
his Daily Star "good daddy" image, has taken them under
his wing (promising, with a gleeful look and an elbow in
the ribs, to "show them the ropes"). Let's hope it's a
baptism of fire that fuels their potential and doesn't
cremate it! Good luck to 'em!

NEIL JEFFRIES Kerrang!