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CREDITS |
TIMELINE |
TOUR |
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Band Members • Album • Singles • Artwork • Promo Videos • Publications • Lyrics/Leads |
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RAM IT DOWN
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"Pick it up... Put it
on... 'Ram It Down.' - Advertisement, 1988
"Ram It Down has a great theme throughout
it: heavy metal, a thousand cars and a million guitars. Guitars are
cranking. When you span a band's career, there are little peaks here and there,
things that just click. That's what Ram
It Down has done - it's clicked. It's
got all the positive trademarks..."
"Ram It Down has light and shade, drama, excitement, and
even a little sex in 'Love You To Death'..." |
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Management: Bill and Jackie Curbishley, Trinifold Limited |
Recorded and mixed Winter 1987/1988 at PUK Studios, Denmark
Certification: RIAA Gold July 18,
1988 |
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Artwork by Mark Wilkinson
Freelance illustrator Mark Wilkinson was called upon to provide the next album design, which featured a more complex, award-winning and decisively heavy metal airbrush design. Mark also updated the band's logo, giving it a molten metal look that fit well with the sleeve graphics. A couple of other Judas Priest "Heavy Metal" logos were worn by Rob during the tour:
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Filmed in a club in Amsterdam, Holland. Another version made for Atlantic Records uses the same footage, but adds scenes from the 'Johnny Be Good' movie to promote the film and soundtrack.
This video is currently available on the ELECTRIC EYE DVD 2003 Sony Music
Entertainment/Columbia Music Video (UK Cat. # 2021939,
US Cat. # CVD 51411)
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OCTOBER 1987: JOHNNY B. GOODE
In 1987, Judas Priest were taking a well-deserved break while their label released a live album and video, but in October, as a favor to manager Bill Curbishley, the band entered Denmark's PUK Studios to record a cover of Chuck Berry's '50s rock standard "Johnny B. Goode" for a film soundtrack...
Though not originally slated for the next studio release, the song went on to become the only single from Ram It Down! And Jon Astley (who would go on to produced the Re-Masters and master the Demolition album in 2001) also appears on the Johnny Be Good soundtrack with his tune "Been There, Done That".
The single and an accompanying promo video for "Johnny B. Goode" were released
in the States. Though a highly energetic and catchy remake of a guitar-oriented
song (and Priest knew a thing or two about guitar-oriented songs!), the band was criticized
because they were British and "Johnny B. Goode" was an American classic as well
as another departure from the traditional metal the fans were craving from the
gods of metal. It had also been four years since Priest had
toured their own British homeland again and it seemed they were selling out to the
greener pastures of America. With Turbo and
Priest...Live! losing fan support,
this was not a good move from the fans' perspective, but Priest had a missed
opportunity once before when it came to film soundtracks, so this time they were
determined to not make that mistake again...
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DECEMBER 1987: Sessions begin
With the "Johnny B. Goode" soundtrack recording finished and plans in place for a heavy metal return to form, Judas Priest and producer Tom Allom gathered in Denmark's PUK Studios ("Ice Station Zebra" as it came to be known!) during the severe Scandinavian winter of 1987 and put their ideas together on tape, including songs they had recorded during the TURBO sessions:
But things got confusing once the recordings were submitted to CBS Records executives, who began sorting through the tracks. Several holdovers from the previous TURBO session ("Monsters of Rock", "Love You to Death", "Hard As Iron", "Red, White & Blue" and "Ram It Down") were reworked and presented along with new material. The label would make the final decision on what was going to be released, and both Halford and Tipton mentioned during interviews that they have no idea what was going to make the final cut. Glenn questioned the inclusion of "Love You To Death", while assuming "Red, White & Blue" was a shoe-in, yet the exact opposite took place; Rob told Metal Hammer about an epic titled "My Design" that's "like a ride into the depths of hell", yet it never appeared; and two new songs were held back - the atmospheric power ballad "Fire Burns Below" and the octane-charged "Thunder Road", which bore a similar arrangement to parts of "Johnny B. Goode", due to the fact that the riff was written for the new song before the film opportunity became known. But only one line from "Thunder Road" survived in the bridge to "I'm A Rocker", as the label opted for the Chuck Berry cover instead, due to its potential to become a single.
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S/A/W
"Pop music should be clear, simple and accessible. I'm not interested in
anything else, though that doesn't mean that we won't work with other types
of groups. Judas Priest have just been on the phone, and we're planning to
produce them next year. We're writing three or four songs for their album...It
doesn't matter who it is, as long as we have a strong degree of control over
the sound. Whitesnake have recently been doing well with a clean heavy metal
sound - Judas Priest want the same." Some free time came available late in '87 after the album had been recorded and was awaiting the mixing stages, so Bill Curbishley asked the band for another favor: Bill was close friends with hit producer Pete Waterman, who was one-third of a powerhouse production team well known for their UK pop hits with Bananarama, Rick Astley, Kylie, and the like. Together, Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman were known as S/A/W, and Waterman also had his own label: PWL Records (Pete Waterman Ltd.), for which he had hired on Managing Director David Howells, who was previously the head of Gull Records when Priest recorded their ROCKA ROLLA and SAD WINGS OF DESTINY albums. Howells also retained the rights to license his former recordings through Gull Entertainments, which now shared the same building as S/A/W and PWL Records.
So, it appears that Bill Curbishley wanted to see what a hit-maker team like S/A/W could do with Priest, and it was an opportunity for the band to have some fun and to stretch musically. Though talk of making Judas Priest a pop success was mentioned, the songs were not intended for anything more than possible future film soundtrack material...
At the start of 1988, Judas Priest and the S/A/W production team spent four days in a studio in Paris, France and recorded three tracks, two of which were written by S/A/W ("Runaround" and "I Will Return") and another, which was a cover tune:
When word got out that Priest were recording with a big "pop-hit" production team, it was assumed this was for their next album, and the metal press went to town on Priest for even considering such an experiment. Fans were outraged at the thought - indeed, it seemed that being associated with the SAW team almost did bury the band! Waterman also claims that Glenn and K.K. didn't really want to play guitars on the project and the story goes that the band members all fell over laughing when they heard the final mixes - it was just too mainstream. According to a Sony Music executive in Sweden in early 1988, Sony Music actually asked that the S/A/W songs be removed from the session.
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MAY
1988: RAM IT DOWN Released
Final album mastering and pressing took place in April and after a couple
of miscalculated release dates, on May 17 CBS Records released RAM IT DOWN
to the stores. The album contained some of the band's most brilliant dual
guitar gymnastics and Rob's vocals soared to even greater heights. The media
declared it Priest's heaviest album to date and many fans had renewed hopes,
but not as many found it delivered the goods... For all the push to go in a
harder metal direction, audio-wise the album had managed to retain too much of the
TURBO "sheen". Though the synth guitars were mostly abandoned, electronic drums
were not, even to the point of including the use of a drum machine:
"I can't remember how much of Dave Holland's
performance on RAM IT DOWN was done on a drum machine, but I do remember that we
weren't happy with the snare sound and back in those days you couldn't just add
a sample. It wasn't that easy." Even without the synths, the guitars had an over-processed and
compressed tone. Though the guys stuck with their trusty Marshall
amplifiers, they do confess there was more to the picture:
"We're still using the
Marshalls in the sound, but we've added a few secret things on this album. It's
a combination of sounds, some direct, some ambient. It's getting the right
balance and combination of sound.
"We did a whole bunch of experimenting, getting amps
done up left, right and center. We tried different guitars. The whole effects
thing is becoming a lot more complicated these days. We experimented with
digital effects. We've never been ones to say, 'Okay, we're Judas Priest; let's
plug into Marshalls and go.' We've always been ones to receive technology any
where, at any price, any time, and to try different things out."
"We experimented a lot in those days with synths and
stuff, though we weren't trying to cheat anybody. We experimented a lot in an
effort to push the boundaries." Processed tone aside, the album did boast some brilliant moments, such as the
epic "Blood Red Skies", the pounding "Hard As Iron" and the heroic dual-guitar
infused title track. The songs were once again heavier and faster, but the
drums and sterile production sabotaged the potential for the album to meet
it's full-throttle goal. While the album charted respectably, it soon lost
ground, as fans began following the new trend of thrash...
"...Thrash and heavy metal are
worlds apart. I'm not a big fan of thrash metal, but in no way am I criticizing
it. To me, thrash metal was invented for groups to start on. When you first pick
up a guitar, you go out there and you can play thrash metal. That's a great
thing. But it seems to me that thrash metal bands suddenly develop the need to
become more sophisticated, and at that point, they stop being thrash metal and
become, I suppose, a little more mature in their playing. There are a lot of
heavy metal bands around today, but unfortunately, to me, a lot of them tend to
sound the same, a replica of a California band or a replica of Scorpions. It's
very important that a band has its own character." With RAM IT DOWN, it seemed the band spent too much time telling everyone how "metal" they were, while missing the curve. It was signature Priest at their best and experimental Priest at their lowest. It was DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH meets TURBO, and the whole seemed something less than the parts. The lyrics, which were once poetic commentary on the metal community, had become quite juvenile. Even anthemic lyrics praising the genre in the song "Heavy Metal" now seemed cartoonish and songs like "I'm A Rocker" and "Love Zone" were rather gratuitous. Ian Hill's bass was buried in the mix and Dave Holland had to rely on a drum machine at times to keep up with the faster pace of the music. To the fans, Priest were just plain getting too old and losing touch with the evolving scene instead of writing its next chapters. |
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Ram It Down
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Heavy Metal
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Love Zone
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Come And Get It
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Hard As Iron
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Blood Red Skies
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I'm A Rocker
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1. Ram It Down
Raise the sights, the city lights are calling
When the power chords come crashing down
Do you like it heavy?
5. Hard As
Iron
As the sun goes down, I move around
I'll stand my ground
You'll never take me alive
The greatest times, I've ever known
I'm a rocker
Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
You get me up, then we both get down
It started many years ago, out of the Black
Country
All songs published by EMI Songs Ltd. except "Johnny B. Goode" published by
Jewel Music Publishing Co. Ltd. |
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TOUR DATES 1988: Mercenaries Of Metal Tour
Rob Halford - v, Glenn Tipton - g, K.K.
Downing - g, Ian Hill - b, Dave Holland - d The atmospheric drones of the familiar "Blood Red Skies" intro sound throughout the auditorium. Anticipation fills the air. Then, where the acoustic guitars should come in, the familiar chord sequence is indeed pumped through the P.A., only it is the similar-sounding electric blast of "The Hellion". Soon the band (minus Rob) emerges onto the stage to blast into "Electric Eye". The Metal God himself is lowered from the lighting rafters in a steel cage: "Up here in space, I'm looking down on you"...
Apparently, a few different stage show ideas were tried out, or at least
planned, but very little data and photo/video footage exists from the tour...
"...The central idea was that a vat of
'molten metal' would pour into a cylindrical drum, which was to be covered by a
black curtain (of sorts). This would occur during 'The Hellion'. As 'Electric
Eye' began, and the opening line was to be sung, the curtain would reveal Rob
Halford, lending to the idea that the molten metal made him... I can't say I
recall this elaborate thing actually happening though. I seem to remember that
the cage he appeared in was covered, and magically, he appeared in it in an
instant to sing the opening line..."
"I saw the
Ram It Down tour when they came
through Texas, and I don't recall any vats of molten metal. It had the
suggestion of a steel factory, maybe. And it did have dangling chains and gears.
They opened with 'Electric Eye' and Rob was suspended in a cage high in the air
near the lighting rig. Then the cage slowly moved across the stage from the
K.K.'s side over to Glenn's side. I also remember Rob shooting the sparks out of
a machine gun looking thing near the end." The Hollywood, Florida bootleg video footage reveals a metal railing
around the stage, a wall of speakers in front of a metal pointy front-protruding
drum riser, ramped stairs on each side, a large "JUDAS PRIEST" logo painted on
the stage floor and Rob coming down from the lighting rafters in a metal cage,
and a photo from Europe reveals a "laser" cannon that Rob aims at the
audience...
SETLIST (Orange titles are from the current album) From the May 7 Stockholm show:
The Hellion/ Electric Eye
From the August 7 New Haven show:
From the September 18 Hollywood Sportatorium show:
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© 2002-2003
Steel & Leather Productions, U.S.A.
