Rocker Of Ages

It couldn t have been more straightforward. Meet Ricky Warwick in The Ha Penny Inn, have a quick chat about him reforming The Almighty, and then bugger off home to see Martin tell Gail that he s been shagging yer one Rebecca.

Three hours after Corrie s ended, we re still skulling pints of Bulmer s and discussing who was more ridiculous Twisted Sister or Saxon.
There are three things which blokes getting pissed together invariably end up talking about, Warwick proffers. Women, football and the dodgy heavy metal bands they were into as a kid. Actually, dodgy s a bit unfair. Saxon get laughed at now cause of the spandex trousers and the wigs, but Wheels Of Steel and 747 (Strangers In The Night) were classic fucking songs. To use that horrible Americanism, they rocked!
The Aesthetes among you will be pleased to hear that this appreciation of the Barnsley big teasers doesn t impact on the new Almighty album, a self-titled affair which is equal parts Iggy, Metallica and The Ruts.
We ve never considered ourselves to be a metal band, although if that s the label people want to attach to us, fair enough, we ve been called far worse! he laughs. We ve always had the crossover thing whereby we d finish opening for The Ramones, and then go off to South America with Megadeth. It s that buzz, more than anything else, which I ve missed since The Almighty broke up.
Signed to Polydor after just a handful of gigs, The Almighty took everyone including themselves by surprise when 1993 s Powertrippin album charted at number 5 in the UK.
We were so knackered from four years of non-stop touring that we didn t enjoy it nearly as much as we should ve. You spend your whole life dreaming about having a hit record, and then when it happens all you want to do is go home and fucking sleep for a week.
We cared enough about chart placings, though, to be royally pissed off when the follow-up, Crank, only went in at 15. That s what did for us in the end thinking that the glass was half-empty, rather than half-full.
On the plus side, they did get to tour with Lemmy.
The couple of weeks that I had hanging out with Lemmy were fucking amazing. Those stories about him having five grams of speed, a bottle of Jack and a crate of Tennant s Super in his dressing room? They re all true.
As downright scary as it is to contemplate, Warwick has encountered an even bigger bunch of party animals than the Motorblokes.
Fucking hell man, The Wildhearts. I was on their tour bus one night when they ended up sniffing lines of Athlete s Foot.
A revolting tale which will be fully recounted in next issue s Gross Rock special.
With Warwick s last project, (sic), mainly falling on deaf ears, cynics may feel that The Almighty s reasons for getting back together are more fiscal than artistic.
If all I wanted to do was make money, I d retrain as a computer programmer. When The Almighty was a going concern, sure, I was bringing in about thirty-five grand a year, but most of that went on paying back the people I d borrowed from when I was broke. Biff Byford might be sitting on a couple of million, but I m not.
The Almighty s self-titled new album is out now on Sanctuary.