First off a side note: unlike what it may seem like then this blog has not died nor has it been my intention to be so absent in my blogging. But mundane life has a habit of getting in the way of things more interesting to do and maintaining this blog is not that simple a task: it was never meant to be yet another music -and movie blog amongst thousands of others, it was meant to approach music and movies from a slightly different angle! And with that said, on to the main post...
Up until now I have neglected the Hammer side of this blog and focused on music. However, too many there is an unknown strong link between the Hammer House of Horror movies and heavy metal and the name of this link is...may I present to you: Sir Christopher Lee!
Sir Christopher Lee was born on the 27th of May 1922 during the age of the silent movies, but manage to put an everlasting print on both the large silver screen -and smaller T.V screen with his distinctive and well-spoken gentleman voice.
And by the time that the NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) happened in the very late 1970s and early 1980s, then Sir Christopher Lee was already in his late 50's/early 60's: a point in one's lifespan where one at least at that time was expected to put on some slippers, false teeth and in general become a boring old fart while waiting for death and complaining about life especially regarding young people and their taste in everything from...you guessed it, music to what brand of loo paper they preferred, while doing so. But just as Sir Christopher Lee was outstanding and above the mundane in front of the cameras, so he was as a private person in real life... Sir Christopher Lee was a true metalhead!!!!
Sir Christopher Lee's passionate love affair with heavy metal, which followed him to his grave on the 7th of June 2015, began in the early 1970s when listening to Black Sabbath. And here is where faith makes two very interesting paths entwine and become something truly unique: unknown to Sir Christopher Lee, his favorite metal band had been influenced to play their dark and heavy music by watching gothic horror movies featuring...you guessed it...Sir Christopher Lee!!! Especially in his role as Count Dracula in the 1958 movie "The Horror of Dracula", one of Sir Christopher Lee's and Hammer House of Horror's finest achievements!!!
Once when Sir Christopher Lee met Tommy Iommi he gave Tommy perhaps the second grandest compliments of all time metalwise: Sir Christopher Lee is reported to have called Tommy Iommi "The father of metal" and very spontaneously Tommy replied " But you are the one who started it, really, because we used to watch Dracula and the horror films you did and that's what influenced us"...now that is the grandest compliment of all times!!!!! In another post on this blog the topic on the roots of metal and when it began comes up, but as for actual and to the core British metal...well, we have got a pretty good idea of when that seed was sown...that happened in 1958, by Hammer House of Horror!!!!!!
But Sir Christopher Lee was not only a metalhead and dedicated Black Sabbath fan, but he was also himself a musician: Sir Christopher Lee worked with both Rhapsody of Fire and Manowar, and in addition to this Sir Christopher Lee also released his own metal influenced album in 2006 called "Revelation" at the tender age of 84: it just goes to show that if you stick to your guns, then in the world of heavy metal, then age is truly just a number!!!!
Sir Christopher Lee left us on a summer's day in 2015 after 93 years of movie making and metal-loving, he put the face (and hair) on Saruman and Count Dracula, in the minds of the people that he influenced (amongst others the members of Black Sabbath, Rhapsody of Fire, and Manowar) and a voice on the metal scene and as with the role of the legendary vampiric nobleman that he played so well, then the spirit of Christopher Lee is as immortal and gentleman-dark as a full moon winter's night in The Carpathians!
\m/ to you, Sir Christopher Lee, you are greatly missed <3
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