by Mark Kadzielawa

The history of Raven dates back all the way to 1974. The band formed in Newcastle, England by brothers John and Mark Gallagher. After several drummers, in 1979 Rob "Wacko" Hunter joined the group, and that's when it started to get really serious for the band. Raven came into prominence alongside the NWOBHM movement. Their debut, "Rock Until You Drop"(released in 1981) made serious waves in the world of heavy metal, and automatically established Raven as a band with a definite sound and style. With each release Raven refined their style, and showed a distinctive progression. Raven released three very successful records: "Wiped Out," "All for One," and a live album "Live At The Inferno." Their image developed as well. In the 80s, Raven was known for their athletic apparel, and the incredibly energetic shows. Soon the major labels were calling, and Raven signed with Atlantic. The Atlantic years weren't the kindest for the band. Under the pressure from the label, their music toned down its intensity, and some of the production was too polished. Three albums later the Raven parted company with Atlantic Records, and drummer Rob Hunter left the band.
American drummer, Joe Hasselvander, joined Raven back in 1987, and that same line is intact to this day. Raven continued to rock hard throughout the rest of the 80s and the 90s. They consistently released records, and toured the world. In the 90s the band concentrated more on the European and Japanese territories, as U.S. market was dominated by grunge and the like. Raven never went away, they were just less visible. In 2001 a wall collapsed on Mark Gallagher, and crushed his legs. The guitar player nearly lost his leg, and it took him 5 years to rehabilitate. This was the most trying time for Raven, but the band prevailed.
In late 2009, Raven released "Walk Through Fire," and completed their first U.S. tour in more than two decades. "Walk Through Fire" presents Raven as a vital band. The album is loaded with the songs and energy fans came to know and love from Raven. The album easily ranks among Raven's best releases. Raven certainly more than made up for the down time, and it's great to see them in action again.
Brothers John and Mark Gallagher talk about Raven's road to recovery, the incredible new record, and the longevity of the band.

Raven was out of commission for a while, but as we all know there was a good reason for it. Mark Gallagher: I was drunk for five years (laughing.)
John Gallagher: No, he wasn’t drunk. He had a bad accident in 2001 where a wall fell on his legs, and messed him up badly. It took a long time for him to rehabilitate himself, get himself back together. So really, we were out of the loop for about three years. We did a few shows with Mark in a wheel chair. We didn’t know whether or not he’ll be able to walk again or not. Being the stubborn bastard he is he’s proven all the doctors wrong.
There must have been a lot of ground to recover after the break, how did you go about it?
John: One step at a time. Basically we did some gigs, we did some festivals in Europe which was nice because we haven’t played any festivals for a while. We did Keep It True, we did Bloodstock. And then we got in touch with this engineer. Kevin 131 was calling us, and he said he was into the band, and he wanted us to check out his studio. We did, and were really impressed with it. We all came down, and did a four song demo. So we were like, we found the guy to work with, and now we got to continue to write the rest of the album. So, we spent a lot of time writing this album together.
As an artist do you find down time like that limiting especially when you want to get these songs out of your system?
John: That depends. For us, this worked out really well. We’ve had a lot of time to write and to get the best songs out. And we were very smart about the recording. We recorded the songs very quickly, as we always do. We’re not Pink Floyd where we take a lot of time. For us it’s an energy live performance, that's what we do, that’s what we’re best at. So, we planned to capture that, and then we took the time afterwards to see if it needs anything else. We left it alone for two weeks, and listened to it then. So we added an effect here, we took some parts out elsewhere. We worked on it, left it alone, came back. And we felt we had everything we needed, so we've decided to mix it. So, we mixed the recording, and left it alone again. We came back to it, and made some additional changes. We took the time to get it the way we wanted it, and we never really had the time to do that before. It was always the case of record the album, mix it, get it out to people, and get on the road. This craziness. We've written a lot songs to begin with, but even when we were getting together to rehearse them, we were still coming out with new material. Mark said we should do a song "Walk Through Fire." We had a great riff that was on the cassette tape, then we had two more riffs, I added one more, he came up with one more, we wrote the words. It was a real group collaboration. The last songs we came up with was "Trainwreck," and we felt it was awesome, so we had to do that. It's a spontaneity thing, we plan stuff out, but one way or the other we always leave room for something that comes up out of the blue.
The energy of the new album is quite unbelievable, very reminiscent of the early Raven years.
Mark: We're a live band, and we love to play live. And one thing that was always difficult for us to record is that live Raven feel onto an album. Not because of us, but because of other factors like the people we worked with, or the studio environment. I was really happy with this record that it sounds like a live Raven.
John: And it's just a question of having the right performances with the right songs, and the right sounds. It's just a magical thing when the stars are aligning. It comes together well.



The title "Walk Through Fire" couldn't be more right considering everything that had happened in the last few years. I suppose the title was very intentional, right?
Mark: It was intentional. I don't know where did I get that from, but it just came to me. There was a time where the doctors were gonna take one of my legs away. And when you're dealing with something as serious as that, it makes you think hard. If you listen to the album, 80% of the songs are about overcoming adversity, and that's something everybody has to deal with in their lives. It's a common theme for everybody, and I think people can get something from it. Over the last few months, we've had fans come up to us and say that certain songs got them through a lot of hard times in their lives. And we appreciate it. To have that type of effect on people is good, but that was personal thing for me. And it really sums up a lot of things for the band. We've had to deal with a lot of things, not just me being sick, but there were other things like management, and so on.
Did the break affect the way you write music in any way?
John: No, not at all. We all come up with our little ideas at home, and we record on tape, or digital work station, play them to each other. Sometimes Mark will say he's got a riff that goes well with the riff I wrote. We may have parts that we mix, and then we'll get together as a band and jam stuff out which also spontaneously creates stuff as well, or we'll start with one riff and see where it goes. So really, it's whatever works.
The fans must be excited to have Raven back.
John: We're getting great feedback. We knew the music was good. When we made the album we wanted to please ourselves, and we did. We always want to make the best Raven album for us. It's made for the fans, but you have to please yourself first. We were really happy with it, and we thought this was one of the best if not the best record we've ever done. We just feel really good because we've achieved what we set out to do.



Finally the band is touring United States. Why did we have to wait so long?
Mark: To be honest with you for a long time I wasn't able to do it. We wanted to do it right, so it's real Raven, and not the crappy version. People pay money to see Raven, and not to see the watered down version. We kept that in mind because we care about our fans. Finally, it came to the point where we had a new record out, and it all came together for us. The time had to be right. That's kind of why in some respect we've lost about 8 years. I wasn't ill for all those years, but it took a long time for me to come back. I spent two years in a wheel chair. For a while it was very open-ended, and there was no time set in what was gonna happen. We've really had nothing but great reviews which was really great for us. Even last night, when we played, and afterwards I was singing CDs. A guy comes up to me and tells me this is his favorite Raven album. For me that's very good because we live in the shadow of "All For One," and everyone praises that album constantly. I'm in this band, and to me that's not my favorite album. It's kind of like a variety album. I like things like "Architect of Fear," I like "Wiped Out," the first album. We even like some of the experimental stuff we did only because it's little bit different. But we wanted to put out something that's gonna kick the shit out of "One For All," we wanted something that's gonna kill. I think we've accomplished it, we're happy with the album. It's a great time for Raven, it really is.
Joe Hasselvander's been a "new guy" for the last 22 years, how would you describe the dynamics with Joe as opposed to the line up with Rob Hunter?
Mark: Joe will always be a new guy (laughter.) The original line up started real good. I remember when Rob came first to play with us in the rehearsal. And that's really when we started writing material. We really felt like a band. I remember towards the end, Rob kind of like disengaged with what was going on. He was more interested in drinking and whatever. He really like commercial music, like pop music. He didn't really like real heavy music. He was off doing that, and decided to really drift away and call it quits. We had met Joe through different circumstances, and he became a good friend. The management was telling us who we should get, and we tried some of the people they suggested, and it was terrible. So, we finally got together with Joe to jam, and it was just perfect. It was the most perfect fit. Joe is a much better drummer than Rob ever was, plus he plays guitar, he writes, and is more involved in the whole process. Even though Joe grew up in the United States, we do have the same likes, and common roots. We really hit it off as friends which is really important when you spend a lot of time with people. Joe is like a triple threat. He has his own band going, and other stuff going on. So, it brings that extra dynamic to what we're doing. I think before people were excited because we had this wacko guy with a helmet and all, but we were dealing with all these problems because of that. Rob wouldn't go and meet any of the fans. He wouldn't do anything. He was like was just isolating himself, and getting kind of weird. Back in the day, it was weird, but it was good that we were able to get Joe because this is the real Raven.



You've been based in The United States for a number of years as well.
John: It's just happened. It wasn't like we've planned to come over to United States and stay. We wanted to stay in the United States and tour until we got a major label deal, and a major agency deal. And it took us until the December of 1984, but we did that. We went home for Christmas, and came back, and after a few years we're still here. And it's been like that ever since.
From listening to you, it appears Raven is still as much of a passion for you now as it was when you started. What do you think drives that passion?
Mark: The love of the music. We started out as fans, and we still are.
John: We still remember when we camped out in the snow in Newcastle to see Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio. I was really sad I never got a chance to meet him, but everyone got touched by his music, and his professionalism. He was just an all around real person. A great example to a lot of people. Most people you meet in a band are pretty cool, and some of them are assholes, but Dio was a great example.
Mark: When we started the band we wanted to make sure we were not a copy of somebody else. We worked on all that all the time, and we still do to this day. We still check ourselves because we don't want to end up sounding like somebody else. That's why the new album has that real Raven sound, it has all those fundamental parts we're known for. We're happy that we still carry that legacy of being fans.



A long time ago an unknown band named Metallica opened for Raven. Since then Metallica managed to become enormously successful. Is there a chance they can perhaps return the favor?
John: I'm not holding my breath, but it would be nice. We've had a great time with those guys. We took them around and showed them the ropes of touring. It was their first tour. It was a long time ago, and they went through a lot since then.
Mark: It's kind of weird. We were told this band was gonna open up for us, and we were like "Who?, "we've never heard of them." So we had to basically drag them out of bed, and take to the next gig. It's good that they had such a great success, but we have plenty of bands that we've played with that are no longer around. We're still here. So to see all of those different dynamics, and things that play out it was kind of weird for us. To some extent they were very different from us musically.
Raven has a great legacy as a band, but it probably wasn't something the band consciously set out to do.
John: You don't expect anything like that. You just focus on what you are doing, focus on making the best music you can, and kick as much ass as possible. And then you just move on to another project. It's really gratifying when you look at it, and we're very humbled by it.
Mark: Everywhere we go they put word "legend" in front of us. There is something about it I don't like because there so many bands that are legends, and all they do is play their old songs and have nothing new to offer. To some extent I'm more interested in what we're doing right now than what we've done in the past. Otherwise we're not fulfilled as a band. Playing the same old songs over and over again is nothing new to me. I'd rather branch out and be new than be vibrant.
John: We love the old song, but we're not a cruise ship act.
Mark: We're already excited about the next record. We're already one step ahead of everyone. It's great to be able to play some of these new songs live. We just started to play "Bulldozer," and it's going down great. New can be strange. It could be uncomfortable, it can be kind of strange, but once you have new it's like having a new car. You don't want to get rid of your old car, but when you get the new one you're excited. Also, we change things around as we play. So if you come to few gigs you're sure to catch a different set.
John: There is a lot more music in this band, that's for damn sure.

links:
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