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FOREWORD

Sometimes in life everything just comes together at the right time. Call it divine providence or serendipity, if you will. Chalk it up to the stars being perfectly aligned. Or maybe it’s nothing more than dumb luck. Whatever the causality may be, there are times when all the pieces suddenly fall into place and everything changes. There is a reordering of the universe at blinding speed. At those exhilarating, unpredictable moments, anything is possible. Excitement is in the air. Alchemy – the mystical transmutation of lead into gold – can happen in the blink of an eye. And so it was in the picturesque southern California town of Ventura along the Pacific Coast in spring 2011. A series of improbable events transpired that brought three seasoned, versatile musicians together as brothers over a shared love of a long-dormant musical style, culminating in the writing and recording of the four-song Night Demon EP about which this book was written.

Our story begins, innocuously enough, on a perfectly ordinary, nondescript evening in February 2011. On a lark, local vocalist Jarvis Leatherby (a veteran of three dozen bands spanning a dizzying array of musical styles) decided to jump in the van to accompany a Ventura-based stoner/punk/metal act called The Fucking Wrath to a gig supporting his friends Fireball Ministry at the Viper Room in Hollywood. During the one-hour drive, Leatherby struck up a conversation with an acquaintance and recent Ventura transplant named Brent Woodward, who had been recruited to play guitar in The Fucking Wrath. They immediately bonded over their appreciation for and deep knowledge of the then-hopelessly out-of-fashion New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. On the way home from the gig, Woodward abruptly announced that he wanted to start a NWOBHM-inspired band. Leatherby’s kneejerk reaction? “Let’s fucking do it.” Just like that, the die was cast. Plans were hatched to jam the following week, with Leatherby on bass and vocals and Woodward on guitar. That same night, mutual friend and local hotshot guitarist/producer/engineer Armand John Anthony turned down Leatherby’s invitation to complete the circle by playing drums in the project. Eventually, the duo settled on asking punk drummer / Black Sabbath tribute band roadie Pat Bailey to join the venture. Bailey, himself an aficionado of the NWOBHM sound, said yes. Unbeknownst to all, including the players themselves, Night Demon was born.

The ranks of the budding power trio having thus been filled, Leatherby called for a rehearsal / jam session, assigning everyone the task of learning an old Diamond Head chestnut that Metallica never covered. On March 5, 2011, the Leatherby / Woodward / Bailey combo (provisionally known by the name The Chalice, as in the unholy grail) jammed “Lightning to the Nations.” The hair stood up on everyone’s arms, and life was never the same again. Thus Night Demon roared to life in a rehearsal space / warehouse adjacent to Armand’s studio in Ventura, California. Coincidentally, that same day a band called New Liberty was recording at Armand’s studio, and their drummer Dusty Squires marveled at the sheer power and volume being generated by the fledgling act next door.

To be perfectly honest, at the time of their first jam the guys had no aspirations of becoming a real band. They were all active in and committed to other musical endeavors. Besides, southern California was a wasteland for traditional heavy metal at the time. So there was a certain lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek attitude about it all because they never felt what they were doing would be considered “cool” in their circle of friends, much less be commercially viable on any larger scale. Jarvis, Brent and Pat did it strictly for themselves, for love of this specific subgenre of music and nothing else. There was no intention of even playing gigs or creating a full-length album. The early Night Demon music was borne of purity, of passion, of brotherhood, unsullied by ambition or commerce. The total lack of pressure, whether external or internal, freed the band to explore, imagine and interpret the music they loved free of any constraints or boundaries whatsoever. This freedom and the concomitant musical chemistry enabled them to forge something new and fresh, yet still steeped in the ways of the olde. Familiar, yet different. It was alchemy. Lead to gold.

Over the span of the next few weeks in spring 2011, the band conducted a grand total of four rehearsals. Those jam sessions were astonishingly fruitful; indeed, each of those occasions yielded a finished song that ultimately came to be featured on the four-song Night Demon EP. First up was “Night Demon,” originally called “Night Demons,” built on a killer riff that Brent Woodward brought to the table. That song provided the backdrop for a signature Night Demon element, namely, the guitar/bass harmonies that have become an instantly recognizable building block of the band’s sound. At their second official rehearsal, on March 18, 2011, Jarvis brought the musical idea that became “The Chalice,” a song whose riffs he created in one sitting on his lunch break at work one day earlier that month. Rehearsal number 3 on April 8, 2011 provided the occasion for “Ancient Evil” to emerge, again from a set of lunchtime riffs that Jarvis had worked out. Two days later, the band reconvened for rehearsal number 4. Presto, “Ritual” was born. Effortlessly, almost without even thinking about it, the material that became the Night Demon EP had been completely written and arranged.

Again, the band did not aspire to record albums and play shows at this point. But the alchemy of these initial rehearsals was undeniable. They had struck gold, and they instinctively knew it. So the band soon agreed on the idea of recording these four original songs as an EP, like a lost 7” from the golden era of their beloved New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The idea was for them to put out the 7-inch, masquerading as an undiscovered NWOBHM band, and then fold the band and disappear. To be sure, there was no intent to deceive the record-buying public, but Night Demon figured no one would care about a current band from Southern California making this kind of music, so why not roll with the gimmick? At any rate, they approached their producer/engineer friend Armand John Anthony to record these songs with them. On April 22, 2011, after a grand total of five jam sessions (one each for “Lightning to the Nations” and the four originals), the band (then known as Ancient Evil) went into Satellite Studios under Armand’s watchful gaze to record the EP. The recordings were raw, stripped-down and defiantly old-school in terms of gear and production techniques. During the course of a single fun, no-pressure afternoon, Night Demon and Armand reduced all four original songs to tape, vocals and all. A mere seven weeks after the first time the three members had ever played together, the Night Demon EP was in the can.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Night Demon EP has become a cherished piece of heavy metal lore. Night Demon have circled the globe to perform these songs countless times. Attend a Night Demon gig anywhere in the world today and you’ll be certain to hear at least two (and, if you’re lucky, perhaps even all four) of the EP songs in the live set. They’re fan favorites and evergreens for a reason. What is that reason? I think it comes from the circumstances of these songs’ creation. They were written from a place of heartfelt love of the music, of profound inspiration, and of devil-may-care recklessness. These impulses collided and bang! “Night Demon,” “The Chalice,” “Ancient Evil” and “Ritual” were the byproducts of that glorious collision.

So now the time has come for you to pick up your guitar or your bass. As you work your way through these tablatures, I urge you to dig deep into them. Not just the notes themselves, but the magic behind and between those notes. Feel the passion and love of the music. Vibe on the experimentation, the willingness to take chances to add something fresh and new to what’s been done before. Throw out the rulebook and just let the music flow. Play what you love, but do it your own way. Just like Night Demon did on this EP. Here’s hoping that mastering these riffs and licks will inspire you and your bandmates to perform some alchemy of your own, to forge your own link in the timeless chain of heavy metal that unites us all as brothers and sisters.

And above all, never forget to drink from The Chalice, my friends.

Kit Ekman