Also there were such people as Aleister Crowley who were an influence along with authors such as HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and Michael Moorcock." Recorded one foggy day in December 1975 (the same month Steve Harris formed Iron Maiden), WITCHFYNDE took their five-song demo to the big city and shopped it around for a deal. The dark side was always an important facet of the band. Gra and I listened to a lot of jazz rock such as Weather Report and Stanley Clarke and there were many more." There also existed from the beginning a relish for macabre themes: "Montalo and I were into the occult and were influenced by the Black Sabbath-style imagery and Gra was a great artist and could always come up with some dark imagery on our posters. "Black Sabbath, Budgie, Rush, Wishbone Ash, Frank Zappa. "Musical influences were diverse," says Andro. Then later I was listening to early Zappa, Cream, Black Sabbath and Grand Funk Railroad, they were the major influences on me becoming a musician." After dabbling with "folky-type songs" in the Holmes Street Jug Band circa 1973, Andro, singer Steve Bridges and drummer Gra Scoresby joined guitarist Montalo in WITCHFYNDE, a vehicle for darker, heavier, more progressive material. Then The Kinks released You Really Got Me, the raw sound blew me away. "I can remember seeing Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino on the Six Five Special show on the BBC, I was about 6! Obviously the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were a big influence. "Hmm this will age me!" laughs Andro Coulton, bassist in WITCHFYNDE from 1975 to 1980. This range and breadth isn't surprising the four men in WITCHFYNDE were children in the 1950s and 60s, and got into music just as it was exploding in so many exciting new directions.
Behind the odd forgivable bum note, missed beat or overstretched solo you sense the exploratory zeal of four music-obsessed friends casting their net wide: from the sprightly power-pop groove of Madam Noname to the creepy proto-doom of Halfway, with Pastiche somehow English gothic country rock and Slow Down having the feel of an epic melancholy folk ballad. On this recording you can hear these young musicians enjoying playing their first songs together, sharing varied influences and building mystical atmospheres out of extended jams with quirky interplay and a relaxed delivery. Even though they raised many tavern roofs in the mid-late 70s, this isn't your standard thick-eared pub metal. Recording a 40-minute demo of original material in 1975, WITCHFYNDE were the unwitting spearhead of the movement that was still a long way off being dubbed the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and from the plaintive, spacey opening of Grimoire, this earliest of artefacts is rather more nuanced and versatile than the hallowed acronym NWOBHM traditionally suggests. In the lull between the Purple/Zeppelin/Sabbath revolution and the angry charge of punk rock and NWOBHM, in the East Midlands county town of Derby, four lads came together to create a tentatively progressive and intriguing new sound, and get heads banging in boozers all over the Peak District. The discovery of WITCHFYNDE's Lost Tapes illuminates a fascinating missing link in the history of British heavy metal.
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