Denim and Leather

In the late 1970s, aggressive, young bands are forming across Britain. Independent labels are springing up to release their music. But this isn't the story of punk. Forget punk. Punk was a flash in the pan compared to this. This is the story of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, a musical movement that changed the world. From this movement - given the unwieldy acronym NWOBHM - sprang streams that would flow through metal's subsequent development. Without NWOBHM there is no thrash metal, no death metal, no black metal. Without the rise of Iron Maiden, NWOBHM's standard bearers, leading the charge to South America and to South Asia, metal's global spread is slower. Without the NWOBHM bands - who included Def Leppard, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Diamond Head and many others - the international uniform of heavy metal - the 'battle jacket' of a denim jacket with sleeves ripped off, and covered with patches (usually sewn on by the wearer's mum), worn over a leather biker jacket - does not exist: 'Denim and leather brought us all together,' as Saxon put it. No book has ever gathered together all the principals of British heavy rock's most fertile period: Jimmy Page, Rick Allen, Michael Schenker, Robert John 'Mutt' Lange, Ritchie Blackmore, Rick Savage, Phil Collen, David Coverdale, Cronos, Biff Byford, Joe Elliott, Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Phil Mogg, Robert Plant, Tony Wilson, Lars Ulrich, Pete Waterman to name a few. In Denim and Leather , these stars tell their own stories - their brilliant, funny tales of hubris and disaster, of ambition and success - and chart how, over a handful of years from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, a group of unlikely looking blokes from the provinces wearing spandex trousers changed heavy music forever. This is the definitive story about the greatest days of British heavy rock.

Denim and Leather is 260 pages of biker metal hail after hail, with two four-page photo sections, loads of fresh interview content, all the facts and dates and even some of the hot disputes. As the back cover crows... Stand Up and Be Counted! Now that there's no more Motorhead, it's up to Iron Maiden and Saxon to uphold the fine tradition of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, something both bands have been doing for over 40 years now. Indeed, 2020 marked the 40th anniversary of Saxon's landmark Wheels of Steel album, a record we celebrate in this book with much reverence and many pints of ale clinked between headbangers clad in both denim and leather. Of course there's more than that but not everything! Indeed, Denim and Leather: Saxon's First Ten Years focuses on the band's golden era, Saxon's prodigious first decade of output. Saxon, Wheels of Steel, Strong Arm of the Law, Denim and Leather, Power & the Glory, Crusader, Innocence Is No Excuse, Rock the Nations and Destiny each are dedicated stand-alone chapters, inside of which Popoff deconstructs every song across both sides of the original vinyl, while not forgetting bonus tracks and B-sides, as well as the live material along the way, including the beloved The Eagle Has Landed album. It's a glory-bound Saxon-fest that is long overdue, and it is the hope of the author that at the end of this sometimes critical examination that the reader returns to these records with new reflections on the NWOBHM and some of the detrimental things that came after for many bands, the heroes of our story included.

Denim and Leather is 260 pages of biker metal hail after hail, with two four-page photo sections, loads of fresh interview content, all the facts and dates and even some of the hot disputes. As the back cover crows... Stand Up and Be Counted! Now that there's no more Motorhead, it's up to Iron Maiden and Saxon to uphold the fine tradition of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, something both bands have been doing for over 40 years now. Indeed, 2020 marked the 40th anniversary of Saxon's landmark Wheels of Steel album, a record we celebrate in this book with much reverence and many pints of ale clinked between headbangers clad in both denim and leather. Of course there's more than that but not everything! Indeed, Denim and Leather: Saxon's First Ten Years focuses on the band's golden era, Saxon's prodigious first decade of output. Saxon, Wheels of Steel, Strong Arm of the Law, Denim and Leather, Power & the Glory, Crusader, Innocence Is No Excuse, Rock the Nations and Destiny each are dedicated stand-alone chapters, inside of which Popoff deconstructs every song across both sides of the original vinyl, while not forgetting bonus tracks and B-sides, as well as the live material along the way, including the beloved The Eagle Has Landed album. It's a glory-bound Saxon-fest that is long overdue, and it is the hope of the author that at the end of this sometimes critical examination that the reader returns to these records with new reflections on the NWOBHM and some of the detrimental things that came after for many bands, the heroes of our story included.