To celebrate Record Store Day, we asked the great and good what their first music purchases were. Be warned – some of their choices may surprise you…
SIMON NEIL, BIFFY CLYRO
“The first vinyl which I ever bought was Sting and Eric Clapton’s seven-inch, It’s Probably Me from the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack. At that point, I had only ever purchased cassette tapes. In true 90s style, I bought this record in Woolworths with my pocket money, and couldn’t wait to get home to place it on my parent’s record player. I remember being intrigued by the delicacy with which I had to handle the vinyl and loving the ritual of placing that needle gently onto the grooves. The reason why I loved that song, was that the rhythm track was built around a Zippo lighter sparking up. It wasn’t the coolest first-ever vinyl purchase, but it was swiftly followed by Pantera’s I’m Broken! I think I ended up somewhere in the middle ground between those first two vinyl purchases…”
ANDY CAIRNS, THERAPY?
“The first record I ever bought was Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) by the Buzzcocks. My nascent interest in punk was piqued no end after hearing this on the radio one morning before school. I was 12 years old and this mix of buzz saw guitars and unrequited yearning set me on my musical way.”
Therapy?’s new single Tides is out now.
MIKE D, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
“When I was young, my cousin from Florida was into skateboarding and punk rock. I thought both of those things were the coolest. He played me the first Suicidal Tendencies record and SOD’s Speak English Or Die, and I immediately ran to Newbury Comics to purchase both albums. I remember seeing the record covers for the first time and thinking, ‘Wow, even the artwork is rad’. Needless to say, I spent many days and nights listening to the records and marvelling at the big format artwork on those records. I still listen to these albums regularly, and get a ‘happy twinge’ whenever I look at the art. It was the start of all things for me. Very meaningful memories.”
Killswitch Engage will release Define Love as a limited edition single for Record Store Day.
JUSTIN HAWKINS, THE DARKNESS
“It was Joe Dolce’s Shaddap You Face. I was six years old, and I used my first bit of pocket money to buy it. I think in the same month I also bought This Ole House by Shakin’ Stevens. You never forget those things. They were both seven-inch vinyl singles, and I’d go sit by the record player to listen to them. My family was always in to listening to music, so that was the beginning of a deluge of purchases. And Dan and I would swap records as well. I remember we both went to a record store in Halesworth, and I bought The Final Countdown by Europe and Dan bought Fore! by Huey Lewis & The News. So I had the Europe one and Dan had the Huey Lewis one, and then after a few months we swapped. They’re still really important albums to both of us. We should’ve bought two of each really.”
GAVIN EDGELEY, LONELY THE BRAVE
“The first record I ever bought was Bug by Dinosaur Jr. I’d first heard Freak Scene on an old skate video I’d borrowed off a friend. I can vaguely remember begging my mum to buy me the album for my birthday and ever since that day, I’ve been completely obsessed with anything to do with J. Mascis and Dinosaur Jr. Bug (and all of their other albums for that matter) is absolutely jam packed with beautifully mournful guitar solos and lyrics which I loved. They Always Come is my favourite song off of this album. In a nutshell, it’s basically 50% riffing and 50% heartbroken, feedback-driven sadness. I actually bought this record again a few weeks ago and it still sounds as incredible to me now as it did back then. Slackers unite. We ain’t going anywhere.”
NEIL FALLON, CLUTCH
“My first vinyl purchase was Van Halen’s 1984. I had to hide it from my parents because of the angel smoking on the cover – so I stashed it under my mattress. Shortly thereafter someone jumped on my bed. I blamed my sister at the time, but it was probably me. Regardless, it was shattered to bits within a week of buying it. Sometime later, I bought it on cassette. Not as good sounding, but much easier to hide.”
WAYNE HUSSEY, THE MISSION
“For Christmas in 1971, my mum and dad bought me a Dansette record player. Blue, it was. They also told my uncles and aunts what Santa was bringing me. So, for Christmas that year, along with the usual diaries and pens and Fry’s Turkish Delight, I also received some record tokens. As soon as the shops were open on Boxing Day, I persuaded my Dad to drive me to the nearest record store where I exchanged my record tokens for three hit singles of the day. Jeepster by T.Rex – I still have it and it’s still a very cool record. Coz I Luv You by Slade which was also cool but not quite as cool as T.Rex. And Ernie by Benny Hill which was never cool and was long ago thrown out with the ripped Christmas decorations and broken baubles. Two out of three ain’t bad.”
RYAN GRISHAM, MOCK ORANGE
“The first vinyl I’ve ever bought was a seven-inch – Joan of Arc’s first release [Method And Sentiment]. It changed everything I thought about music. There was also a band called Lync. All these seven-inch records sounded terrible, but the content was the best, newest thing I’d ever heard – and it got me away from that ‘gotta have big shiny shit’ attitude.”
LOU KOLLER, SICK OF IT ALL
“The first record I got with my own money was Judas Priest British Steel. Before that I had other records. My mother had gone out and bought Kiss Alive for me and my brother, Pete. Around that time – when I finally saved up enough money – I went to the record store, and I was looking through all the records when I saw British Steel. I thought, ‘This looks great!’ And then I turned it over and I saw the guys on the back, and I was like, ‘These guys look fucking wild!’ So I bought the record. Then I went home and I put it on, and I was blown away. That record is such a great record. And not just the hits like Living After Midnight, but Grinder and stuff like that. Oh, man! Our two other brothers were into bands like Deep Purple and Rainbow too, but me and Pete always leaned more towards the heavier, dirtier stuff like Sabbath and Motörhead. But Judas Priest were the first real heavy metal band I got into.”
TOM MARSH, HECK
“My first vinyl purchase was a Breaking The Back seven-inch by Million Dead. I believe I got It from an awesome, now dead, record store in Nottingham called Select-A-Disc. It’s this blood red translucent colour which looks fucking awesome. That kickstarted my love for vinyl and collecting it. It felt like the real deal. I treated it with great care! I then subsequently hunted down the other Million Dead seven-inches… then other bands’ seven-inches. Then I bought an LP and just resigned myself to never having money again.”
TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN, NIGHTWISH
“The first album I ever bought was Asylum by Kiss. I studied the classical clarinet and the piano in a music school from the age of six, so it was all classical music to me – I had to know my Beethoven and Bach. But my big brother who’s ten years older than me was always into rock ‘n’ roll. For him it was all Iron Maiden, Kiss and Slade – all that kind of stuff. I kind of wanted to impress him so that’s why I bought Asylumand I remember I didn’t like it at all. Of course these days when I listen to the album it sounds much better and I understand it, but for a kid of nine years old who’d heard nothing but classical music for the last three years, it was quite the shock!”
SAM DUCKWORTH
“The first vinyl I ever bought was Rival Schools’ Used For Glue seven-inch. I was obsessed with the album and the idea of being able to hear a b-side was exciting. It was the only way to hear a new track from the album sessions and I still play both sides to this day.”
ALEX VEALE, TAX THE HEAT
“My first vinyl purchase was Quadrophenia by The Who. I bought it from Nashers, an old vinyl record shop in Bath, which sadly closed down before the big vinyl boom of recent times. My plan was to buy my favourite albums on vinyl that I already had on CD, planning to stop once I hit 100, as I have literally thousands of CDs. I now have way more than 500 vinyl albums.”
GINGER WILDHEART
“I tell people that my first record was Drive In Saturday by David Bowie. I think I tell them about that one in the way that I tell people my first girlfriend was the one that let me get to first or second base. The one that implanted a lifelong memory that remains as fresh as the day it imprinted itself. Truth is, I’d previously bought Ride A White Swan by T Rex __ and hated it. It felt weak and lifeless. Like the first girl I kissed. The experience was more of a curiosity and definitely one that I didn’t want to repeat. My second purchase was Welcome Home by Peters & Lee. Now this was more like it. A great kisser and a great relief from that unpleasant first experience. So much so, in fact, that I didn’t want anything more. I was perfectly happy with the innocence. That was until experience number three, David Bowie! Now, David Bowie’s sound knew how to kiss alright, but this time it thrust it’s hand into your trousers. It let you feel around the mysterious pleasures within. It had experience and knowledge beyond anything I knew, and it wanted to share. Every play got deeper and more passionate. I still go back to that experience a lot. It taught me something that stayed with me forever. It made me a man. Yes, my first record was Drive In Saturday by David Bowie, because that one changed everything!”
Ginger will release The Ones That Got Away as a limited single on Record Store Day.
RILEY BRECKENRIDGE, THRICE
“In 1982, I asked my mom to buy me a 45 of Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant. I can’t explain how or why that happened, but it did, and I’m not ashamed. I think it still holds up today, but I’m not sure how it becomes a seven-year-old suburban kid’s favourite song.”
CORMAC BATTLE, KERBDOG
“My first vinyl purchase was Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. I vividly remember walking down the hill in Downham, South London to the local record shop. The feeling was beyond thrilling to bring it home and put it on my dad’s crappy hi-fi. I just lay there all day putting the needle back to the start. Magical. Curiously, it never had any influence on the music I’d write in the future. Maybe if it had, I’d be a rich rock star now. But would I be happy? Too fucking right I would…”
MAX CAVALERA, SOULFLY
“My first cassette was Live Killers by Queen. I think I was around 11 years old at the time. It was 1981 and Queen came to Brazil to play in Sao Paulo. A cousin of ours took me and Igor (Cavalera, Max’s brother) to the show, and we loved it – we were blown away! The next day I went to the store to find anything I could by Queen, and I found a cassette tape of Live Killers. Igor bought Kiss Alive too. They were the two cassettes that we had to begin with, and we listened to both of them non-stop. A couple of years later that same cousin introduced us to the Ramones, Ozzy Osbourne and Accept as well. In fact, one time he was trying to get me to go straight and be a good kid, so he blackmailed me and said that if I cut my hair he would buy me whatever record that I wanted. I wanted to get Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, so ended up cutting my hair for a copy of it, but the hair grew back, and I got Ride The Lightning so it was worth it. In Brazil we have a saying, ‘If hair was that important then it wouldn’t grow on your ass!’
BARNEY GREENWAY, NAPALM DEATH
“It was Paranoid by Black Sabbath and very fittingly it was in the Newtown Shopping Centre opposite The Barton’s Arms – which was Black Sabbath’s stomping ground as young boozers. I have to admit that I didn’t buy it when it came out as that would make me an extremely old bastard – but it was three or four years later. My dad already had the albums, he got me going on the heavy music road. He was very into the particular generation that was Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and others that came before – Be-Bop Deluxe! Then I picked up the baton and ran with it from there.”
MATT HEAFY, TRIVIUM
“Back around the Shogun era, I was given the opportunity for a press task to browse a record shop in California. Growing up in the era where CDs first became popular, vinyl was something I had only heard of in legend. Although incredibly late to the game, during the writing process of the fourth Trivium album is where I got heavily into Queen; with that, I decided to locate one of my all-time favourites – A Day At The Races. Finding this record used at the shop allowed me to own something that had obviously been well-tended to, and well-loved by its previous owners. To this day, this album is still one of the greatest sounding pieces of music I have ever heard.”
Record Store Day takes place worldwide on April 16, 2016. Find out more information on the official website.
