Bursting out of the melodic end of the NWOBHM like a comet in the night, Heavy Pettin’ were poised for rock n’ roll superstardom. They scored a multi-album deal with Polydor, their debut outing was produced by Brian May, and they’d even cross the Atlantic to tour with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Ratt, and Mötley Crüe. And for whatever reason or another, it all came crashing down in 1989, when the band posthumously released their final album, Big Bang. Their final album, until now that is. Frontman Steve “Hamie” Hayman has returned, reenergized with a new lineup of Heavy Pettin’ and the band’s first album in over 35 years, Rock Generation. We sat down with Hamie to discuss the resurrection of Heavy Pettin’, the youthful innocence of the NWOBHM, and hitting the road with the Ozzman.
Greetings Hamie and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Hamie: Hey Joe, I’m good! It’s good to finally talk to you. How are you?
I’m great, thank you! It’s good to finally talk to you too. Before we dive into this interview, I just want to say that back when I was a young headbanger on a budget, I’d take my allowance and go to the record store, buying albums based off logos and covers. Amongst those junior high finds were Lettin’ Loose and Rock Ain’t Dead.
H: *laughs* Wow, that is awesome!
So to have gotten those albums literally a lifetime ago and to be having this conversation with you today is a real mindblower. Even more mind-blowing is that we have a new Heavy Pettin’ album in the wings.
H: Yes we do!
Before we talk about that, I’d like to backtrack a bit. It was 8 years ago now that Heavy Pettin’ reunited after a nearly 30 year absence. What events led to the band’s reunion and what were you up to in your time away from the music scene?
H: I was still singing. I was still singing even after we split up, because after we split up, I ended up doing…actually, they were two of my good friends at different times, but one of my good friends in Los Angeles was a guy called Earl Slick. Slick was a great guitar player. He still is a great guitar player. Him and I started writing songs together in Los Angeles, and then put a band together called Dirty White Boy with Keni Richards, the drummer of Autograph, and then Pete Comita. He took Tom’s (Petersson) place as the bass player for Cheap Trick. We started recording and signed to MCA. We were getting ready to put an album out and I got real sick, so they ended up getting another singer in, the guy from Giuffria (David Glen Eisley). Anyway, I kept on singing through that. That whole process took a while.
After that, I ended up still singing, carrying on and signing to Virgin Records. I put a band together and decided to call it Chyld. I started writing songs with a guy who became a great friend of mine and still is, a guy called Damon Johnson, who had his own band, Brother Cane. He was Alice Cooper’s guitar player forever and a day. He played with everybody. He’s Lynyrd Skynyrd’s guitar player at the moment. Damon and I, we wrote a bunch of songs, recorded the album, and the record label, for whatever reason, never released it, never did anything with it. After a couple years, it just came to an end. Damon carried on with the deal, which became Brother Cane, so he did his thing. I just kind of gave up for a little while, after all that stuff. Then, I got back into singing again.
As we move forward, it got to the early 2000s. Forever, everybody always wanted to put the band back together. Not the band, but everybody outside of the band. The Japanese were very prominent in that, so we started talking to the Japanese in 2007. They offered an album, a tour, and a bunch of money to start the whole thing going. We all started talking together again for the first time in a long time, as a band. One by one, the reason we split up in the first place, all those things started coming to a head again, so we bailed. Everybody bailed until there was only two of us left, (guitarist) Gordan (Bonnar) and myself. The Japanese were like, “No, we want the whole band.”, so we decided to call it a day. We all went on hiatus again and never spoke to each other.
Then, all of a sudden, in 2016, I was sitting on the beach where we live. My daughter was with me and she was like, “You know, everybody’s always getting their bands back together. You really need to put the band back together.” I was like, “That’s easier said than done. Nobody really talks to anyone anymore.” She said, “No, you really need to do it.” So I said, “OK, I’ll think about it.” I thought about it, made the initial phone calls. (Drummer) Gary (Moat) and Gordon were receptive to it. They contacted everybody else and everybody decided to buy in on the project.
Just before I flew to London for rehearsals…this was around Christmas because we’d decided to organize some shows for the end of the year, 2017. I flew in to start rehearsals, plus it was the first time we’d meet each other in such a long time and see how good everybody still was. By the time I got there, it was so weird *laughs*. By the time my flight landed, two of them had already quit! It was just me, Gordon, and (guitarist) Punky (Mendoza). I was like, “Well damn!” We put another couple of guys in and eventually, we did the shows. Then, Punky called it a day. It was just Gordon and myself. We added another guitar player and we decided we wanted to keep on playing and do this. People deserved to hear new Heavy Pettin’ stuff.
We just started touring everywhere, all over Europe, and then going to different countries, going to South America, coming to America and back. That led up to about two years ago, and then Gordon decided to call it a day, so I decided, “No, I’m gonna keep it going because I’ve got these songs and I’ve got an album I want out.” I brought another guitar player in and we redid all the songs, wrote all the new songs. Then, started shopping a deal, got the deal, got a new management company, and here we are now. We have a fantastic album ready to drop on October 24th. We’ve released the first video single, “Rock Generation”, and so far, everybody’s loving it. Everybody thinks it’s fantastic. All the press that I’ve done, everybody is loving it. I’m really excited, Joe. I’m excited to hear what you think!
I was just checking it out last night. It certainly has that big, anthemic vibe, which is what I want in a Heavy Pettin’ album, so we’re off too a good start!
H: Awesome!
And I’ve heard nothing but great reviews about the shows you’ve been playing. I have friends who saw you on the Monsters of Rock Cruise.
H: Yeah! I forgot about that! That was awesome! That was good to reconnect with a whole bunch of fans and a whole bunch of people came from Australia and Japan, which was pretty awesome. It was good to meet a whole bunch of bands that I hadn’t seen in a long time, like all the guys in Tesla, so that was pretty neat to get to hang out. The Extreme dudes were there, so it was cool. It was good to reconnect with a lot of people, then meet a lot of people from a lot of other bands that I’d never met before. It was a great time, great show. Larry (Morand) puts on a great cruise.
So after the cruise and the festivals, the time has now come for Heavy Pettin’s long awaited fourth full length, Rock Generation. When did work start coming togerher on this album and what did the band set out to achieve?
H: I think when Gordon decided to leave. Him and I had written a whole bunch of songs. When he decided to leave, we sat down and went…the bulk of the songwriting was gonna be between (guitarist) Dave (Aitken) and myself. We went, “You know what? Let’s just start from scratch and do a whole bunch. Let’s make a fresh outlook on everything.” That’s what we did, so we started writing songs and demoing the songs. We recorded the album in ’24, so we started the whole format of writing in ’23. “Let’s write 20 songs and let’s pick the best ones.” We were touring in between all that, so that’s why it took so long, because we started recording the album in ’24.
So yeah, we wrote a whole bunch of songs and picked the best 12. We sat with the new management company and the record label and we landed on the 10 that we wanted. That’s how it all started, halfway through ’23. Like I said, it took longer because we were touring constantly between all that, in different parts of the world, so it was hard to get enough time to do all the demos and that. We’d always wait ’til I came home. I’ve got a studio in my house and Dave’s got a studio in London. We would send all this stuff back and forth. Then, I would fly to London and we’d record everything.
Much has changed in the four decades since Heavy Pettin’ last released an album. For you, what are the biggest differences between making a Heavy Pettin album in the ’80s and today?
H: Oh God! Obviously, the record labels. Record labels are so, so, so different from back in the day. When I think back, for the first album, I think we spent six weeks in London, and then another six weeks in Munich, just doing the vocals, and then mixing the album. The second album, Rock Ain’t Dead, took us a year! It was something stupid like that, and we spent so much money. It took about 8 months. Big Bang took about a year. It was just outrageous, the amount of money that we were spending on album stuff, and the record label was willing to do it and pay all that money because they were gonna recoup it. Everything was good, so for me personally, the biggest thing recording-wise is how much help from the labels that you get compared to the old days. It’s a totally different ballgame now.
Even dealing with record labels, trying to get a record deal, is so different now. It’s just a different game, man. It’s crazy. We’re lucky enough that people thought our songs were strong enough and Heavy Pettin’ had a strong enough name that they wanted to be a part of it. I can see for a young band starting out and trying to get it together, unless somebody hears your songs and they’re absolutely phenomenal, or you have a Facebook, Twitter, every social that you can think of and you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people, that’s the only way the record labels are gonna take any interest. That’s one of the first things they look at now, the socials. “OK, how many people follow you?” I’m sitting there going, “Well, what about the songs? Don’t you like the songs?” *laughs* “Well, how many people are following you?” “No, no, let’s talk about the songs!”
The band’s first single was released on Neat. Were you guys considering doing an album on Neat? How soon did Polydor come into the picture?
H: That’s a real good question, Joe. Neat were in a place, I think it was Wallsend. It’s a place just outside of Newcastle, which is maybe 99 miles from Glasgow, where we all come from. To get a record deal, we would play up and down the UK in a big bus, and we just toured everywhere and played everywhere, and just constantly knocked on peoples doors and sent tapes and all that kind of stuff. When Neat approached us, we just jumped to the chance because they had Venom and a bunch of other bands, so we were going to meet them.
I guess one of the big mistakes against them was the fact that…”You’ve got all these songs. Let’s just release a single, see how it goes. Then, we’ll log it back together and talk about a record deal.” “OK, if you don’t want to do it now, that’s fine.” They left that door open and we wrote that song (“Roll the Dice”), released it on Neat, and it became one of the fastest British charting songs from an independent label. By that point, people were listening to it. It was on the radio and people were like, “What the heck is this?” Record labels started to talk to us and by that point, Neat were panicking because they were like, “Well shit!” *laughs* All these other labels were coming in now. We eventually picked Polydor. We just went in and said, “Sorry, we’ve already done this now. We haven’t signed anything.” So we moved. We went to Polydor, Warner Bros. in America. I feel bad for Neat, but that was their deal.
I also feel come ’82, every major label was dying for a slice of the NWOBHM pie.
H: Oh yeah! I think that was one of the things with Polydor. Everybody changes companies and all that kind of stuff. The guy that signed us, a guy called John Sadler, great guy, as soon as he signed us and we took off, he started moving higher up the company. He eventually booked and went to another company and did the exact same thing, started signing younger bands and doing that whole thing, just like you said. Def Leppard and Maiden and all those dudes, especially Leppard, because they were young.
They were young young, compared to Maiden. Even though Maiden were in their 20s, Leppard I think were 16 and 18! They made a lot of record labels stand and take notice who were looking for younger bands. I think that also carried on into America, when the labels were looking for the Crüe and Ratt and they all got signed and that whole thing. That’s what they told me, when I first got to hang out with all those dudes, because we were all starting at the same time.
You mentioned that Gordon had left the fold prior to this album coming together. Was there any reason in particular for his departure?
H: No, not really. He wanted to do things his way and wanted to…I don’t know, maybe go in a different direction. It was something we just didn’t agree on. It was just one of those things. It’s like, “Yeah, I wish you well. You go do your thing. I’ll do my thing.” No hard feelings. That was it. Nothing major.
A common theme of Heavy Pettin’s music going back to the beginning is lyrics that display an undying passion for rock and metal. This remains the case on the upcoming Rock Generation. Would you say this music has grown even more important to you later in life?
H: Yeah, I would. I think you can guess by the whole thing that the title of the album, Rock Generation…I still love it. I play it when I’m in the car all the time. I got Pandora playing. I’ve got Spotify, whatever. It’s all my favorite stuff. I still listen to Priest constantly. It’s in my soul. That’s never gonna change. I think one of the things that struck us with this album is when we were coming back out and playing again in different countries…obviously, there’s tons of rock fans that were in their 60s, 50s, 40s, and 30s. But there was a hell of a lot of people just like you, your age and younger, from 15 to 30!
Even though you’ve been involved in this music for such a long time, there’s a lot of people that were raised on it by their mom and dad, and all that kind of stuff. We met a whole bunch of them in different countries. Europe’s always been a big bastion of heavy metal, heavy rock, but especially South America. The one thing that struck me, we did a tour there and we went through it all, was the fact that they, and I don’t mean this in a bad way or anything, it’s just what struck me when I was meeting people: They looked and dressed the exact same way I did in 1980, with the real tight pants and the belts and all the stuff. That was me when I was their age! It was awesome to see.
The girls all dressed like the Strip in Hollywood when we were playing in the ’80s! When I would come and play Los Angeles, or when I moved here and the Strip was just crazy, all these people looked the exact same! Everything comes around. It was awesome. In fact, we were playing in Bogota and I remember sitting going, “This is awesome, man. It’s like there’s a whole new generation of rock fans.” David, the guitar player, goes, “Yeah, a whole new rock generation!” I was like, “Man, that’s a title for a song!” It was so stupid, but it was so funny. That’s what we did.
After the tour, we flew back and traded ideas flying home. It’s such a long-ass flight to get there, because we had to stop off in Canada and do some stuff there. By the time we got to London, we basically had the song sitting on the plane. It was so weird. We get back and the album, we had to go back and finish a couple of tracks because we interrupted recording the album to go play South America. We get back and our producer, which is funny, his name is Kieran O’Shea. He’s Irish, but he lives in Berlin *laughs*. He is just wild! We get in the studio with Kieran and he goes, “We need to do this, this, this, and this.” We’re like, “No we don’t! We’ve got a new song. We’re gonna do this new song. It’s awesome.” He’s like, “No, we’re not! We don’t have enough time!” We’re like, “Hell, we do! Yeah, we’re doing this song!”
We let him hear it and he fell in love with it, and we recorded this whole song called “Rock Generation”. At the end, we were all just sitting going, “Yeah, this is cool! This is gonna work!” *laughs* That’s how the title of the album came and that’s how we feel about rock. That’s how important it is. It’s so important to see people like yourself, your age and younger, people coming up that just love listening to all the music that I loved growing up to, whether it’s Led Zeppelin, whether it’s Priest or Sabbath or Ozzy or whatever. Everything is just as strong and vibrant now as when it was back when I was starting. AC/DC, for God’s sake! It’s just awesome!
Was it the band’s first time going to South America?
H: No, we did it back in the day, in the ’80s when we were recording the second album, so this had been the first time since then, which was great. It’s amazing because people…that’s one thing I love about rock music. If people love you and love your songs, there’s a loyalty there. They give you the chance. They don’t just jump from band to band and go, “OK, they’re finished.”, and do whatever. There’s a certain amount of loyalty that people will remember your stuff. They remember how good you were.
They remember how much they liked it. They give you that chance to bring them back in again, whether it’s playing live or recording an album or releasing songs, and they decide, “Yeah, that’s good.” They’re always there. They don’t ever go away. The loyalty factor is just awesome in rock music. It doesn’t matter what age you are. Like I said, I still love Maiden. I love Priest. I still listen to all that stuff all the time. It drives my wife crazy. “It’s too early in the morning for that!” *laughs*
Never!
H: Never! Nope!
When Heavy Pettin’ formed in 1981, the band was considered part of the NWOBHM, albeit on the melodic side of the spectrum. In this regard, did the band ever feel separate from the rest of the scene? Furthermore, did it ever occur to you back then that the band was part of this larger movement that was changing metal in real time?
H: I don’t think it occurred to us at the time that we were…we did what we did. The music was hard, but me, with my voice, and the melodies that I would come up with, lyrics and stuff, it lent itself to being, and I hate the word “commercial”, because we never used that word at that time, but it just was more melodic than some of the other bands. It didn’t bother us at the time. I think that with the last album, Big Bang, that was when we were veering away from what we were true to and what we should’ve been doing. But yeah, it didn’t, especially when it came to playing America for the first time.
The first album had come out and all we’d ever done is play bars and stuff like that. All of a sudden, we get a record deal and we went from playing bars to opening up for Whitesnake. We toured with Whitesnake and it was just like, “Wow, this is crazy.” Then, we went on a tour with KISS. Then, we did the whole world with Ozzy. We did shows with Sabbath. It was just amazing to see what music was like. When that brought us to America, when we were playing with Ozzy, I became really good friends with Robbin Crosby, the guitar player for Ratt. When we were doing some shows with Ozzy and playing, some of his best friends were Nikki (Sixx) and Tommy (Lee) from the Crüe, which is pretty awesome when you think about it because nobody had cellphones in those days.
He had to physically find a phone and call up Nikki and say, because we were all playing with Ozzy, “Dude, when you see Heavy Pettin’, you need to talk to Hamie, the singer. This guy’s awesome. You’ll love this band. Just go see them.” Obviously, he said, “Yeah, yeah, I will.” The first night, our dressing room door gets kicked in and there’s Tommy and Nikki. They’re shouting, “Who’s Hamie?! Who’s Hamie?!” I’m at the back going, “Me!” They come up and they’re just grabbing me. It was just wild. We became friends from that moment on, and still are to this day.
When you met those guys and you met Ratt and you saw everything and how big everybody was getting and the way the whole music scene was, especially in America, you could tell that it really was taking over the world. It wasn’t just the old guard. It wasn’t just AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin. There were so many other bands coming, like Dokken, everybody who’d come out in the early ’80s. By the time we got to America in ’83, there was such a craving for new, young rock bands and the music.
Obviously, you had Def Leppard, Scorpions. Maiden had come out, so they just kicked the door in and opened that, but more, I would say, everything was still geared to the old guard, like KISS and all those guys. As much as I love KISS and grew up with KISS, there were so many younger bands coming up that just broadened the whole thing for rock music. So yeah, I definitely felt we were part of a movement, kicking down doors and taking over the world. It was a good thing to be a part of, I must admit.
The band’s debut album, Lettin’ Loose, was produced by none other than Brian May. How did that end up happening and what was that experience like?
H: Well, the experience was awesome. The experience was fantastic. It all started when we signed to…what we did first, we did things backwards. In between the Neat single and record labels coming to get us, we signed a publishing deal first with Warner Bros. When everybody came calling, Warner Bros. helped take the lead in all that with all the different record labels and this kind of stuff. Just like that guy that signed us to Polydor, John, there was this new, up and coming young guy. His name was Robin Godfrey-Cass. Robin was the lowest guy on the totem pole. When he came to see us, and nobody would come and see us in Glasgow. It was too violent a place. Everybody was scared to come, so very few people came.
Robin flew up to Glasgow from London to meet us and took us out for dinner. It sounds stupid now, but none of us had been to a nice restaurant before when he came and met with us. It was just so exciting. He was staying in one of the biggest, expensive hotels in Glasgow at the time, so we were hanging out in there. It was just awesome. He was the lowest guy on the totem pole, but what he had done was he’d just done a deal with Def Leppard, just before Pyromania came out. When that totally took off, and then he signed us, and then our first album took off, he just became the blue eyed boy. Robin just became a rock god, as far as the publishing company went. Robin stayed there up ’til about maybe 10 years ago or so. We’ve always kept in contact. He ended up running the company, so he started from nothing and just moved up.
Robin was the guy that said, “Look, I know this is crazy, but I just had a meeting with Brian May. He wants to produce a band.” It never sunk in, I think, because we were just sitting there going, “That’s great!” We were all fans of Queen. We were all going, “Oh, that’s awesome. Why are we talking about this?” He never finished the sentence by saying, “And he wants to do you.” He just left it at that. We were like, “Well, OK, great. Good for Brian! We’re glad he wants to produce a band.” We just continued on our merry way. We went to rehearsal and it was one of these big rooms where, when we started playing, you had all the lights behind you and everything else was pitch black, but there was a big door at the end of the room, so every time somebody opened the door, you could see the light coming in and people walking in.
We were doing our thing. I’m singing away. The door opens and a few guys come walking in. We don’t think anything of it, so we finish doing our set. As soon as we finish, our tour manager at the time, Dutch, comes over and he switches all the lights on. We were all talking to each other going, “Oh man, that sounds great. What do you think Robin?” As we turn around, there’s these three guys sitting with Robin. We were just standing on the stage and I’m looking going, “Is that Brian May?” Then it dawns on me and I’m going, “Is that Roger Taylor? Shit, that’s John Deacon!” Three of ’em from Queen were sitting there! We were like, “Wow!”
We come down and he introduces us. Then, Robin goes, “Remember I told you Brian wants to produce a band? Well he’s heard all your demos and loves the songs, loves you guys, and wants to produce your album.” We just went, “Wow!” It totally blew our minds. That’s how all that happened. Then, we went to the Town House studios and Asia had just recorded their big album there. We went in at that studio with Brian and started to work on Lettin’ Loose. It was phenomenal. You know what was really good and really teaching was the fact that he brought his guitar with him everyday. Every single day, he would bring the guitar and he would put it in the studio, and just leave it sitting there. Every day, we would sit there and go, “Is he gonna play that today? Is he gonna play something?”
He never did until one of the last days, and then he went in and he jammed with us all. We played a song and we actually recorded it. I think Universal have that track somewhere. They have the tapes to it all, but he played on it and it was just awesome. The whole thing with Brian was fantastic, all those guys, because everyday somebody would come in the studio that was a huge star. Somebody that we grew up listening to would come into the studio and see him, talk to him, and sit and meet us. David Bowie came in one day. Robert Plant came in one day. It was just amazing for us as kids. We were like, “Wow, this is just insane.
No pressure there!
H: Oh yeah, and he would play those people songs when we were sitting there, but we were never allowed in the studio. It was like, “I’m gonna playback some songs. You guys go.” Just like little kids! “You guys go leave!” *laughs* It was cool. It was really cool. We had the best time with Brian, and Mack was awesome. He brought in Mack, the engineer. We went to Mack’s studio in Berlin. That’s where we ended up doing more vocals and mixing the album, which was pretty neat. The whole experience was absolutely fantastic.
Brian was actually supposed to do the second album. Everything was geared towards that until the very last second when, all of a sudden, they had to go back into the studio with Freddie and record the tracks for Highlander, and then what eventually became that album (1986’s A Kind of Magic) that took off after all that. The whole Queen thing just ramped up, so we never got the chance to go back in. We’d bump into each other on many occasions after that, but we never got the chance to go back in again, which was a shame, but nothing but great things, man! Brian is a gentleman, a fantastic guy, a fantastic musician. Nothing but good things to say about him. I loved him as a kid. I love Queen, so it was an honor just being in the studio with him and listening to everything he said. It was really cool.
I could imagine. I even remember picking that album up as a kid, looking at the back cover and thinking, “Wow, Brian May?!” I mean, who doesn’t love Queen?
H: Yeah, who doesn’t?! I remember going in 1974, as a really, really young kid, me and my best buddy got tickets and we sneaked away, jumped a bus, went into the center of Glasgow, and went to see Mott the Hoople with Queen as the support band. It was the most mind-blowing thing I’d ever seen in my life. Don’t get me wrong; Mott the Hoople were absolutely fantastic, but that night, Queen, if I’m not mistaken…I think I even asked Brian this and he remembered. He remembered that whole tour, but he loved playing in Glasgow, and he remembered that Queen did 5 encores that night. When Mott the Hoople came out, it wasn’t that they were panicking. They just did their thing and they were awesome. It was a fantastic night, but that was the first time I’d ever seen Queen. Totally mind-blowing, dude! I was like, “Goddamn!” So awesome.
According to Setlist.FM, the first American show Heavy Pettin’ played was on February 14, 1984, here in Chicago at an unknown venue. Was it actually the band’s first show here? If so, do you recall the venue?
H: I don’t think it was the first. No, it wasn’t the first American show because…I remember one of the last. We did the Shout at the Devil tour with Mötley Crüe. I remember the last show for us was in Chicago because we had to leave and we went to Asia after that. I played Chicago a few times because we also played Chicago with Ratt. We did a coheadline tour with Ratt when we first came to America. We did a whole bunch of shows with them. That’s how Robbin and I became such good friends. That’s the first time we’d ever met. So I would say that’s wrong, but it’s right to the point of view that we played in Chicago, but I don’t know why that’s there because we played Chicago a few times. I don’t think that was the first one.
I’m trying to remember. I could be totally wrong, but I think the first time we played in America was in Texas. I think we played in Texas with Accept and Saxon, or maybe that was later. We ended up jumping around. As soon as one thing would finish, we wanted to stay in the country and keep on playing, so we jumped on the next thing that was available to us. We did a whole bunch of shows like that, but I definitely remember the final show with us for Mötley Crüe was in Chicago. We had a party!
I could imagine! Would that have been Aragon Ballroom?
H: Yeah, that was it! The Aragon Ballroom, yes, that’s right! I’m trying to think where the place was with Ratt. I don’t know where that was in Chicago.
If the stories I’ve heard are correct, I think Ratt’s first time here was at a venue called the Oak Theatre.
H: It was a big old place. It wasn’t a small club or anything like that. It was a big decent sized place. I’m sure it held maybe 2 or 3,000 people. Nobody had really heard…it was right at the very beginning of Ratt and us playing and coming out and going and doing stuff. Ratt hadn’t been…they weren’t this huge band yet, but it was definitely Chicago. I remember that, but I just can’t remember where. You’re correct, Joe, on the Aragon with Mötley Crüe. That was a hell of a tour.
Considering the recent passing of Ozzy Osbourne, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about the band’s run of dates opening for the Bark at the Moon tour. What are your favorite memories from your time on the road with Ozzy?
H: I did a piece when Ozzy passed. I wrote about him and put it out. I think the one thing that always strikes me is Ozzy was one of the funniest guys I’d ever met in my lifetime. Seriously, he really was one of the funniest dudes. *laughs* He was crazy, that’s for sure. We’d toured with him on and off in different places all over the world. It was crazy. Even though we all knew each other, there were times that you’d meet him in the corridors of your hotel *laughs* and he would be like, “Who are you?!” I’m like, “What?” “Who are you?!” He’d be swearing at me. “I’m Hamie. I’m on the tour. I’m in the band that’s opening for you.” He’s like, “What?! Fuck off!”, and just keep on walking past you. Then, the next morning, he’d go up to you and say, “Hey Hamie!”
It was weird. It was all stuff like that. It was crazy, but he really was one of the funniest guys I ever met. He was awesome and the band was awesome, because they were all great musicians. We didn’t just get to tour with Ozzy. We’d all become friends through our management company. When they were recording Bark at the Moon, we were starting off doing other stuff. So when they were recording Bark at the Moon, we stopped off because Ozzy wanted to meet us. We actually went to Ridge Farm, where they recorded the album, and we hung out with the guys all day.
Jake E. Lee had just come in as guitar player, so Jake E. was playing. Don Airey was playing keyboards. One of the nicest guys, craziest dudes, Bob Daisley playing bass. Obviously, one of my favorite drummers in life was there, Tommy Aldridge. It was awesome hanging out with them, just being involved in that whole thing, and then later on, getting to tour with them and all that kind of stuff, getting to hang out. These guys had been doing it forever and a day. It was just amazing they’d been with these people that you respected.
They’d played for all sorts of different bands, like Bob and Don Airey, they played in Rainbow and all the other stuff I’d been listening to in the ’70s. It was just crazy to see them all there, but they were all great at their craft, and Ozzy was the ringleader. It was his circus. Everybody was doing everything. It was an awesome thing to watch. The shows we did with him were fantastic and him and Sharon were nothing but extremely, extremely nice to us. I’ll never forget that. They helped Heavy Pettin’ do what we needed to do at that time and get to where we wanted to get to career-wise, letting us get on that tour and taking us under their wing. It was awesome.
In closing, what does the rest of 2025 and looking forward to 2026 have in store for Heavy Pettin’?
H: Well, the album drops on October 24th. Rock Generation drops October 24th. Our European tour starts on October 24th. We’re going out with Uriah Heep, so we’re they’re special guests. We kick off in Switzerland. That takes us all the way through December. Then, we’ll come home, take a break. Then, we go back out with Uriah Heep again in January. We’re out with them for a while. Then, we’ll be going back to South America. We’ll be coming to America, which is awesome.
That’s what we’ve been gearing up to, because I live in America, so it’ll be great to come here and play in the country again now. That will be good. I’m looking forward to that. The end of ’25 and all of ’26 is gonna be really, really busy. We’re really excited about it and can’t wait for everybody to hear the album. We’re hoping everybody digs it. If they feel like it, they can pre-order now, but the album does get released worldwide on October 24th, and we will be out promoting the album from then, October, all the way through ’26. Happy days, buddy! *laughs*
The new Heavy Pettin’ album, Rock Generation, releases Friday, October 24th on Silver Lining Music. For more information on Heavy Pettin’, click here.