STEVE GRIMMETT - That Voice
by Martin Popoff

Ah yes, That Voice - a hell-raising call to the circle, a soaring set of pipes relegating anything it sang over to the ranks of British rock aristocracy. Bloody 'ell... Mr. Grimmett shook and stirred freshly NWOBHM-tainted blood like no other, through his fronting of Grim Reaper for three albums to be sure, but also as the surprise clarion caller on a key Chateaux spread. Then there was Onslaught, more of a thrash bash at the big four, and Lionsheart, more of an AOR act.

Now this high level IT guy for the UK's water industry (!) is back with a solo record called Personal Crisis, although really, listen to the grooves and the synergy enclosed, and you'd have to call this is a bracing, electric band situation (their weapon - rock-solid meat-and-potatoes power metal like modern Saxon), even if the billing is to the guy's name (and not, perhaps, The Steve Grimmett Band, thank God).

Talking up the boys, Steve explains that, "Apart from Richie the bass player, I've grown up with the other two. And Ian... we go way, way back, to the early Grim Reaper days. So Ian has been around - he did the last Lionsheart album with me. So he and I work really well together. And Pete, we've worked on and off with Pete for some time, but this time it was like, 'Right, let's all get together, and write some songs.' And that went really well, to be fair. And we needed a bass player, and he says, 'Well, I used to play with this guy and I know he's not doing anything now,' so obviously this was Richie. And to be perfectly honest with you, it's the first band, the first lineup that I've had where everybody was pulling in the same direction. And usually there are problems with money, and that's not an issue either. So everything is cool. And they are a great bunch of guys to be with, and they're a great bunch to be on tour with, and I'm having fun again. And I haven't been able to say that in a long time."

If you notice a link to proud traditional British metal within the album, you'd be right on the money, given the platform of the project. "This all started off because we started off being asked to go to Europe and play Grim Reaper stuff. And I thought OK, that will be cool for a while. So that's what I did. And then it just became so painfully obvious that... around about that sort of time I was ready to quit the whole issue. And it just opened my eyes up, what a fan base that I had, that I didn't know about. So we got back and said, you know, let's put something together and that was basically why we did the album and the idea was we did it along the Grim Reaper lines, around that point obviously. But what we had got though was what we came up with - not in any direction at all. It's just... this is us, basically, because we all had a hand in writing it."

STEVE GRIMMETT - That Voice Page 2