Steve Ramsey (Satan, Skyclad) Interview

45 years ago, a teenaged Steve Ramsey drew up the logo for a band in one of his schoolbooks. That band was Satan. Little did he know that 45 years later, he’d not only still be talking about them today, but touring the world and creating new music with his old mates. Hot off the heels of their last masterpiece, 2022’s Earth Infernal, the band has struck again with their seventh full length, Songs in Crimson. We sat down with Ramsey to discuss crafting songs versus epics, the differences between Satan and his “other” band, Skyclad, and lending your rehearsal space to Venom (What could possibly go wrong?).

Greetings Steve and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?

Steve Ramsey: Fantastic *laughs*! Thank you very much!

We’re a little over a week away from the release of a brand new Satan album, Songs in Crimson. How soon after Earth Infernal did ideas start coming together for this one?

SR: We never stop writing, so the songs are just coming up all the time. This album was particularly fast in how it came together. “Frantic Zero”, one of the tracks on here, was already a few riffs in on the last album, so that was hanging around. Obviously, it didn’t get used. That was the first one we went to sort out for the new album.

Is it a regular occurrence for Satan where perhaps you could have an idea for a song, but it’s not completely there, so you wait for the next album?

SR: It was due to lockdown and all the hassles that we had with COVID. We had more time in the house to think about things. With the lockdown, we really spent a lot of time hemming and hawing, going into detail on everything, which we normally don’t have time to do. “Captives” is actually about the lockdown for musicians. That should’ve been on the last album as well, but we didn’t like something about it. There was something about it when we put it together that we didn’t like. That’s from the last album as well, so there’s a couple of tracks…that “Captives” riff was definitely around on the last album.

Are there any recurring lyrical or musical themes that fans should look out for when listening to Songs in Crimson?

SR: Sometimes we do something a bit different. On the last album, we did some unison guitar solos. I think there’s a couple of bits on this album, little melodies that are like that. Not solos, but melodies. It was just an idea that we had on the last album. What would it be like if everything drops down and then two guitars play exactly the same thing? We did that on “Burning Portrait”. There’s a couple of tunes on the album that are doing that, but this album’s much more punchy and straightforward. It’s the reason why we’ve called it Songs in Crimson, because they’re very much songs. It’s a collection of songs. There’s no big epic on it. We’ve realized after recording it and putting down the times of the songs that there’s nothing over five minutes, which is very rare for Satan. There’s always a couple that are nearing six or six or six and a half. These were all just written like bang, bang, bang, like individual songs.

Was that what the band set out to achieve with this album or did it just occur naturally?

SR: It just happened. I think when you come up with a riff like “Captives”, it lends itself to be one of those songs. The more you add, the more you’re taking away, if you get the idea. For me, what makes this album very different is, there’s a lot of it going on, like on “Whore of Babylon” and “Martyrdom”, they’re really just straightforward rock riffs. It’s not the kind of thing that we would do where we go, “Right, that’s got such a good feel. We’re just gonna play that all the way through.” *laughs* We’re usually going off on a tangent with millions and millions of riffs!

Some people write less riffs on the whole album than we put in one song sometimes! We’ve sort of calmed that down on a couple on this album that I noticed. At first, I was a bit dubious about it, but when we got the vocals on, we realized what we were doing is we were giving Brian (Ross) a bit more space to express himself. Also, Graeme (English) on the bass, he always does a fantastic job, but on this album, it’s a bass player’s heaven. Wow! He’s playing harmony a lot of the time to us. He’s not following the roots. It’s fantastic.

This will be the fifth Satan album since the band got back together in 2011. What do you attribute the band’s longeivity to and how does this era of the band compare to the initial ’80s run?

SR: On the first album (Court in the Act), I was 17 when we made that album. We thought, “We’re doing something special here.” In the two countries that we were gigging in, Holland and the UK, England, the big magazines were Kerrang! and Aardschok. They both slated the album. One of them said it was poor musicianship *laughs*, which I found quite crazy. Being 17, being that young, we took it to heart and thought we were doing something wrong. We weren’t fitting in with everybody. It was the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and we weren’t fitting into the scene we were supposed to be in. That made us want to change thing. We had that sort of pressure on us back then. When we got back together, there was no pressure on us at all. We knew exactly what we were gonna do. We were gonna do that again *laughs*! We should’ve stuck to our guns the first time. Coming back was easy.

Ultimately, that’s what fans loved about Satan, and still do to this day: The fact that you didn’t sound like any other band. It’s immediately recognizable, yet unique.

SR: Yeah, well unfortunately, the two guys that reviewed the album didn’t think like that *laughs*. Those two guys had a large effect on all us young kids.

Well, the joke’s on them, because you’re still around today and they’re not.

SR: Exactly!

Alongside fellow guitarist Russ Tippins, you have been in Satan from day one. How would you describe your chemistry with Russ and what can you tell us about those early days?

SR: We learned to play together. The way we put the band together was really silly. We went to the same high school. For about four years in school, I didn’t know him. I saw him at the playground and in the corridors, but didn’t speak to him. Then, we started getting groups of friends that were involved with each other. We started going to shows, getting into heavy metal and going to see all the shows like Motörhead, Scorpions, and bands like that. Every show I went to, Russ was at. We eventually started talking. Obviously, the music brought us together.

He tells me he’s got a guitar. So I go around to him with my best friend to his house and he plays me a few Motörhead riffs and we’re all really excited. I say, “Why don’t we form a band?” He says, “Oh, I’m too shy to play in a band.” *laughs* This was Russ! This is what he was like. I say, “No, no! Why bother to learn if you’re not gonna perform?” *laughs* “Let’s form a band!” On one of my schoolbooks, I had already drawn the logo for Satan. I already had it on a schoolbook. I said, “Look, I’ve got this. Why don’t we form a band called Satan?”

That’s what we did! We got together and he taught me how to play, really. As he learned, he showed me what he was learning. We didn’t have a teacher. We did it by ear, by listening. We had a guitarist from a punk band called Punilux. They’re a quite popular British punk band. That guitarist lived down the corner from Russ and he showed us a couple of things like the pentatonic scale and stuff. He actually showed us the scale that, I can’t remember the name of now, we used in “The Executioner” *laughs*. It was an exotic scale that he showed and we were straight into that. It was great. “Oh, it’s different! Do that, it’s different.”

The people that joined the band from there were friends. We went to see Blitzkrieg and decided Brian was the singer we wanted, and somehow managed to sort that out. Sean (Taylor), the first time we met Sean he was drumming for Raven. He was the original drummer in Raven before they signed a deal. We loved them and Sean was the crazy drummer for them. It was perfect.

And the rest is history.

SR: Yeah!

When you sit down to write guitar parts, do you do so with the intention for them to be either strictly for Satan or Skyclad, or are there ever times when those musical ideas intersect and can work for either outfit?

SR: Yeah, there’s been the odd one. There’s been the odd one I can remember Russ saying once to me, “Oh man, why did you use that? We could’ve used that!” *laughs* I tend to sort of know where they’re gonna go. I know what’s needed. In Skyclad, I’m the leader of the band and the music. In Satan, Russ is the leader of the band and the music. He comes up with the ideas, takes the ideas that we have, and messes about with them first. He’s always the go-to. Then, he puts it together and he gives it to me. He says he just has to look at my face and he knows whether it’s good or not. I can’t lie! You can see the disappointment or the happiness *laughs*!

That’s a great system to work off of!

SR: Yeah, it seems to work *laughs*!

Furthermore, is there anything new happening on the Skyclad front?

SR: No, not really. We’re still together and we’re gigging. During lockdown, I wrote a whole album worth of music, but Kevin (Ridley) hasn’t written any lyrics. He’s got a writer’s block. It came to him on the last album because he did a song called “Words Fail Me”. It’s kind of ironic now that words are actually failing him. We’re gonna address it. We can’t stay like this, so we’re gonna address it when we get back from the tour with Satan.

Speaking of, Satan is about to hit the road in their native UK in support of Songs in Crimson. One of the openers for these said shows will be Venom’s Abaddon. Did Venom and Satan ever cross paths in those early days of the NWOBHM?

SR: Oh yes! *laughs* We never played together, but I remember them turning up. We had a place down at the Key Safe on the River Tyne in Newcastle. It was a place called the Key Safe where the river runs by. There was an old building and they used to rent the rooms out to bands to rehearse in. You basically rented the room and it belonged to you. We cleverly used to leave all our equipment in there and then rent that to bands, so we made the money back. Unfortunately, we rented it to Venom *laughs*.

We didn’t know the band. This was before they made any recordings or anything. There was a pub below and I remember letting them into the room. Down in the pub below, all we heard was “In League with Satan”, over and over and over again at the most excruciating volume that you ever heard *laughs*. We were like, “Wow! They’re a bit insane!” When they left, they gave me the keys. We go back into the room and everything was turned up full! All the amplifiers, all the settings on the bass treble, everything just up full *laughs*. I was like, “Wow, they’re pretty mad.” Then, obviously, a year later or so, they’re a big band.

Could us American fans expect a return visit from Satan in the near future?

SR: Yeah, the plan is March next year. That’s already afoot being planned. We’re looking forward to that.

Aside from these upcoming dates, what are Satan’s plans for the rest of 2024 and, pun fully intended, looking forward to “Twenty Twenty Five”.

SR: Oh! The rest of this year looks like we’re just gonna chill out *laughs*. I think we got a show of so, but now, when we release an album, we go out on tour. We tour the release and there’s a hiatus where all of the festivals start booking us for next year. There’s a load of festivals for next year. There’s plans. We definitely want to go back to Japan. There’s been some offers for South America, but we’ll see if that comes to fruition. We’ve played there a few times now and unless the conditions and terms are enhanced, we’ve gotta think about *laughs*. Before COVID, we had planned to go to Australia. That was all knocked out of the water. That was supposed to be in September/October of 2020. That was cancelled. We’d love to get that regenerated and do that.

The new Satan album, Songs in Crimson, is out now on Metal Blade Records. For more information on Satan, visit www.satanmusic.com. For more information on Skyclad, visit www.skyclad.band.