Next....
1983 was a pivotal year not only for Raven, but for metal in general. The underground scene was exploding with a flood of releases on various indie labels in the US and abroad, and produced numerous classic albums that are still revered to this very day. One of the albums that stands atop this crowded field (IMO of course) is Raven's high water mark, 1983's ALL FOR ONE.



By 1983 Raven were well on their way to becoming kings of the underground metal scene. Their first two albums had been well received on both sides of the ocean and the band's explosive live shows were already the stuff of legend. Rob "Wacko" Hunter, living up to his nickname, had taken to wearing a hockey helmet and protective gear on stage, so he could head-butt his cymbals and otherwise abuse his drum kit, and nearly every show ended with the entire band smashing their instruments all over the stage, Who-style.

The band, however, were dissatisfied with Neat Records by this time. They had been disappointed by the cheap production quality of the ROCK UNTIL YOU DROP and WIPED OUT LPs and they didn't want to see it happen again on Album #3. Legend has it that the Gallagher brothers threw their then-considerable weight around one day in the Neat Records offices and threatened to leave the label unless they put the band in a "real studio" with a "real producer" the next time around. Neat, not wanting to lose one of their meal ticket bands, gave in to Raven's demands and sent them to London's Pineapple Studio to record ALL FOR ONE, produced by the tag-team of Michael Wagener (he's now legendary in the metal biz of course, but at the time Michael was still a young producer on the rise with only a handful of previous credits, including Accept, Dokken, Motley Crue, and the Plasmatics) and Udo Dirkschneider (of Accept fame). The end result of those sessions was ALL FOR ONE, Raven's finest hour and quite possibly one of the best metal records ever recorded (it's Top Ten of All Time for me at least, for whatever that's worth).

From the opening note of "Take Control," ALL FOR ONE slams you against the wall and never lets up. This album is a Mission Statement, plain and simple. You know how some albums just sound LOUD no matter what volume they're played at? ALL FOR ONE is one of those albums. ALL FOR ONE's ten anthems maintain the catchiness of their previous material, but the improved production gives each track an added CRUNCH that gives the entire album a set of ten-ton balls of steel. "Mind Over Metal," "Hung, Drawn & Quartered," "Seek and Destroy," and "Break the Chain" (to name just a few) are all amazingly catchy, greasy, obnoxious and still totally killer. 25+ years after its release, ALL FOR ONE still rattles windows and induces frenzied bouts of headbanging whenever it hits my stereo. The album received near-universal praise from the underground press upon its release.



Neat released the ALL FOR ONE track "Break the Chain" as a 12-inch single, with two exclusive tracks (both featuring Udo Dirkschneider on guest vocals) on the B-side: a thrashed up cover of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" (the two screechiest voices in metal dueling on the same song!) and "Inquisitor." The single was also released as a 7-inch picture disc.

ALL FOR ONE was Raven's first album to get an official U.S. release, as Neat licensed it to the fledgling MegaForce Records for distribution in the States. MegaForce head Jon Zazula brought Raven over to America and put the band on tour in the U.S. for the first time, with his newest signing in the opening slot - a young band of Californian nobodies called Metallica, who were about to release their MegaForce debut, KILL'EM ALL. The pairing was quickly dubbed the "KILL'EM ALL FOR ONE" tour.

"Johnny Z. wanted to bring us over to America. He said, 'I've got this young band, they're the biggest thing in California right now.' I thought 'What? Bigger than Y&T?' ... he puts on this tape of a band going 'RRRRRRRRRR!' and I thought 'What the hell is this? Of course, it was Metallica.'" -- John Gallagher, in Ian Christe's Sound of the Beast: the Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal



Raven and Metallica's "KILL'EM ALL FOR ONE" tour criss-crossed the States in a Winnebago motor home, which John has described as "totally Lewis & Clark" and "Guerrilla Warfare." There were seventeen bodies (band members and crew) packed into a tiny vehicle built for a family of four. Despite the tight space constraints, members of both bands became fast friends and bonded while on the road. Some of the shows were packed, some were nearly empty, but at the end of the road the tour was considered a success ... it was quite an accomplishment at the time for two relatively unknown bands to pull off a tour of such magnitude without any radio airplay or attention from the mainstream music press.




The KILL'EM ALL FOR ONE tour had made enough of a racket across the U.S. that major labels began sniffing around both bands (for better or for worse) by the end of it, and the tour proved that like the punk bands before them, underground metal bands could Do It Themselves without any major backing.

Unfortunately, Raven's ascension to rock stardom pretty much peaked with the ALL FOR ONE album. The next few years would find them wandering through the major label wilderness and smashing headlong into brick walls everywhere they went. The ALL FOR ONE album still sounds killer today, though, and as far as I'm concerned it should be in every metalhead's collection. If you don't have any Raven discs, start with this one. You'll thank me.





As with ROCK UNTIL YOU DROP and WIPED OUT, ALL FOR ONE has been reissued on CD a couple of times over the years and the CDs usually include "Born to Be Wild," "Inquisitor," and "The Ballad of Marshall Stack" (an additional B-side from the 7-inch version of the "Break The Chain" single) as bonus tracks.

A BRILLIANT metal album! One of the all time best albums ever recorded. This album is high-energy, raw, heavy, fast, yet still retains some melody and a ton of hook.

Born to be Wild has the distinction of being one of the most brash, wild cover songs ever recorded. Udo and John Gallagher together were brilliant!

Did I mention this album was brilliant?

I can't add anything that FF hasn't already said!!!

All for One would be the last Raven disc I purchased. Reading over reviews and checking band history, it seems that after this album, their output was spotty at best. But the first 3 are classics. Maybe when time & money allow, I'll track down some of their other cd's, but for now, these will be the only Raven discs in my collection.

I bought this as a blind buy based an article I read either in Hit Parader or Circus magazine, and I loved it and I still do.

Classics like 'Break the Chain' 'Take Control' and the title track make this an essential release in any headbanger's collection and reminds me that I need to update this on CD.

Wow, those vids sound awesome. I'm gonna have to start picking up more Raven stuff soon. I'm definitely keeping an eye on this thread.

Listened to my vinyl copy yesterday, and it was excellent, every song a winner, and I have said this before but songs like 'Break the Chain' for example, convience me that Raven where an influence on a young Dave Mustaine.

great album

I had one of those shirts and hung it on the clothes line to dry in the beautiful So. California sunshine. Well, somebody came by and did some shopping.

Next up... LIVE AT THE INFERNO (1984)



The underground success of ALL FOR ONE kept Raven on the road for most of 1983-84. By the end of the touring cycle for that album, Raven had "seven or eight major labels absolutely fainting over us," according to John Gallagher. The band took a much needed break to sort through the many offers coming their way and to plot their next move. In order to buy some time they released this absolutely MONSTROUS 2-LP live album in 1984. As I'm so fond of mentioning around this forum, I am not much of a live album fan. However, LIVE AT THE INFERNO is an exception to that rule... the band's performance is amazingly tight and spot-on, the mix is great, if you crank the original vinyl LP up on a decent stereo it'll feel like Raven are right there smashing up your living room.

The track listing is a decent mix of the best stuff from their first three albums; in fact the live versions shown here of tracks from the poorly-produced WIPED OUT and ROCK UNTIL YOU DROP albums actually sound better than their studio counterparts, so LIVE AT THE INFERNO could also serve as a "best of" compilation for someone who's new to the band.

Unfortunately, the credits on LIVE AT THE INFERNO are depressingly skimpy. The inside of the original 2-LP gatefold makes sure to tell you "THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO OVERDUBS ON THIS ALBUM!" in large capital letters, but unfortunately it neglects to mention where it was recorded. Therefore I have no clue if this set was all taped at one show, or if it's bits of a whole bunch of different shows from the ALL FOR ONE tour. Wherever/whenever it was taped, the band was ON FIRE throughout!! If there truly are "no overdubs" and this is all live right from the floor, Raven's live act back then must've been impressive indeed. All the roadwork Raven had been doing for the preceding three years meant that John Gallagher had become an experienced ringmaster by this time, asking the rabid crowd to show them "INSANITYYYYYYY!" at every opportunity, and also telling the crowd that songs like "Let It Rip" have "the same effect as a curry - it's a blast up yer ass!" They also managed to get one of John G.'s longest, most insanely over-the-top glass shattering screeches EVER on tape during the midsection of "Hell Patrol." ("WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!")

My favorite part of the original double LP package was that rather than labeling the sides of each record "Side 1, Side 2," etc., Raven labeled the records in reverse order, starting with "Defcon 4," "Defcon 3," "Defcon 2," and finally "Defcon 1." As anyone who's ever seen the movie "WarGames" knows, "DefCon" stands for the "Defense Condition" of our government, with "4" being "everything's fine" and "1" meaning "total devastation, everything's destroyed." By the time you reach "Defcon 1" of LIVE AT THE INFERNO you're likely to be totally devastated as well. Quite simply, one of the finest live metal albums ever to be released.

They say a live album is usually the end of an era for a band. That was certainly the case with Live at the Inferno. This album is MONSTROUS! Absolutely awesome!

Unfortunately it was also the end of the raw Raven we all knew and loved. Signing with the suits at Sony/Atlantic proved to be the death of Raven's growing popularity. Clueless producers from Atlantic thought it would be better to make Raven sound like every other American pop metal band. But enough of that...

Live At the Inferno rules!

It wasn't till I dusted off my vinyl copy of LIVE @ THE INFERNO in preparation for its entry in this thread that I realized there was no mention of where it was recorded. I'm thinkin' of dropping that question on the "Loonie Board" on Raven's official site. Who knows, I may get an answer from John Gallagher himself!!

I never owned this CD, but I have added to my want list.

I have that on Live @ The Inferno on vinyl but it was left in the back of my old VW microbus and got some serious O.D from Mr. Sun. That puppy is warped something fierce, but I still keep it..."my precious"

Next up...

With LIVE AT THE INFERNO holding their place on record store racks, Raven had a chance to get off the road for a while, come up with some new songs, and review offers from several major labels. In September 1984, MegaForce Records' Jon Zazula organized a showcase gig at New York's Roseland Ballroom featuring Raven in the headlining spot, supported by MegaForce's other two best selling acts -- Metallica and Anthrax. The crowd was full of record company scouts and by the end of the night, all three bands had signed deals with major labels. Raven went to Atlantic Records, Metallica went to Elektra, and Anthrax signed with Island Records. We all know what happened to Metalllica of course, and Anthrax certainly had a good couple of years on the Island roster, but unfortunately for our beloved Geordies, Raven's major label experience quickly became a rocky road full of land mines.

Once the ink on their Atlantic contract was dry, the band went into the studio (with ALL FOR ONE producer Michael Wagener behind the boards once again) and recorded their major label debut, STAY HARD, which was released in the Spring of 1985. Fan reaction to the album was mixed (at best).



Though not a terrible album by any means (in fact it's pretty damn good), STAY HARD's glossy production, experimental touches (a horn section in the instrumental "Bottom Line?") and commercial-radio leanings (i.e. the ballad "Pray For The Sun") threw many of the band's underground fans, who expected more adrenaline-crazed speed metal, for a loop. The accusations that Raven had "sold out" began almost immediately.

There's still plenty of good old fashioned Raven lunacy on STAY HARD, however. The title track starts the album off in appropriately stomping fashion, and "On & On" (released as the album's first single) remains one of their catchiest tracks ever. Fans of Raven's earlier speed style would also be satisfied by "Extract the Action" and a re-recorded version of "Hard Ride" (previously the opening track of ROCK UNTIL YOU DROP). It's a decent collection of anthems that may not be as fast and furious as Raven's earlier works but it also shows that they weren't just a one dimensional gang of speed freaks.

John Gallagher says of STAY HARD "We wanted to write songs with stronger hooks, which was maybe a little more commercial, but Atlantic [was more interested in] playing up our crazy image." He also says that being caught up in the corporate music world was a bit of a culture shock for the young band. "Back then we were kind of alienated from our fans. That could never happen today. We only heard from people telling us we were great. We never heard any of the negative."

The band shot a (very silly) video for "On & On" which got some play on MTV and became a minor "hit," and followed that with a single (without video) for "Pray For the Sun," but overall the album never really caught fire and didn't sell up to Atlantic's expectations. The honeymoon with Atlantic Records was probably already over by that point, but the band had no idea how bad things were going to get from here on...








(Cover to PRAY FOR THE SUN 12" single)

On a personal note, STAY HARD remains a favorite of mine despite its controversial reputation, as it was the album where I first got on board with Raven. Though I was dimly aware of the band's existence prior to the album's release, I had never heard any of their music till "On & On" started getting some play on a local metal radio show. I went out and bought the album on the strength of that track and loved it. Lacking any knowledge of their earlier works, STAY HARD sounded just fine to me, and it still does to this day. However, I can understand why their hardcore fans who'd been following them since the NWOBHM days were disappointed with it.

STAY HARD was only available on LP and cassette during its initial release but made its way to CD during the late 90s thanks to Mayhem Records, who reissued it (along with the rest of Raven's Atlantic catalog) with a few songs from 1986's MAD EP tacked on as bonus tracks.

STAY HARD (and also ALL FOR ONE, now that I think about it) is also one of the select group of albums that I have owned on all three major formats over the years - LP, cassette, and finally CD. Does that make me a major fanboy or what?

I remember this one - the WTF album. Looking back, a good album. But, back in the day? Nah....

I'm with jokeriv. I was already a fan for years when this album came out, but I also thought WTF, back then. Listening back now, the songs are actually good. On and On and Extract the Action are both killer songs. Where the album suffers if in the production. Raven were always raw, raunchy, heavy! With Stay Hard the band was slick and no where near as manic and heavy. The re-recorded version of "Hard Ride" couldn't come close to topping the original. This was the case of a major label out of touch with what the fans wanted. Though Micheal Wagener produced again, the album just doesn't have the power of "All for One". And what's with the horn section in the instrumental "Bottom Line?"

I got Stay Hard, Mad, The Pack Is Back, and Life's a B1tch through the BMG cassette club back in '88. That was my first exposure to the band, so all these Atlantic albums hold a special place in my heart.

I was in the WTF camp back then regarding "Stay Hard", in retrospect...different but not that bad.

I actually like the Pack Is Back. And when 'Stay Hard ' was released, I was not that disappointed since a few bands back then where going in more commercial direction and I think that 'Stay Hard' is a great album and better album then most fans care to acknowledge.