It`s been over 30 years since Thunderstick's last album, but the masked former Samson drummer (otherwise known as Barry Graham Purkis) is uncaged once more. Metal Express Radio's Mick Burgess caught up with the mysterious skinsman to talk about his new album, Something Wicked This Way Comes, his days in Samson, and the ins and outs of drumming with Iron Maiden. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

Q: Before you were in Samson you were drummer for Iron Maiden for some time.  How did you end up joining them?

Thunderstick: "There was an advert for a drummer and a keyboard player which Tony Moore ended up getting.  I`d gone to an audition and there was a huge corridor full of drummers tapping away on things and I was shortlisted and eventually picked. I stayed with them for 7 or 8 months.  It wasn`t that long really."

Q: Had any of the songs that made the first couple of albums been written at that point?

Thunderstick: "Yes, definitely.  I have a tape from 1977 on reel to reel which I`ve uploaded 30 second blasts from last year as Maiden say there`s no recordings that exist before the Soundhouse Tapes.  I disproved that as I have a tape.  People were going wild about it and wanted to hear more.  Obviously I can`t do more with it as they`d be down on me like a ton of bricks. 'Charlotte The Harlot', 'Prowler', 'Drifter', 'Sanctuary: and most of the songs that made up the first album, we were playing all of those at that time."

Q: Why did you leave?

Thunderstick: "For no particular reason really. The band were in their formative years and they wanted to expand but it wasn`t right especially having a keyboard player, that didn`t work at all.  As Steve was training to be a draughtsman he intimated he was going to go back to university and wasn`t sure what he wanted.  We were due to do this gig and the singer, Dennis Wilcox didn`t turn up.  The rest of us did and we were wondering if we were still going to do it but we didn`t have a vocalist and Steve wasn`t going to do it. That was really the end of it.  I wasn`t sacked and I didn`t leave. It`s just after that gig that never happened I went off and jammed with other people and they never phoned me back and that was it until Samson went out on the Heavy Metal Crusade and when we were putting that together and we were looking for support bands. I mentioned this great band I used to be in and we went out with Angel Witch opening, Iron Maiden second on the bill and Samson headlining. We also had Neal Kay the DJ on the tour.  By that time Maiden were great, were starting to make big inroads and building up a big following."

Q: You were actually invited back some time later. What stopped you returning?

Thunderstick: "I`d also formulated the Thunderstick character by then and we were just about to go in and do the Head On album and I got a phone call just before Christmas from Steve Harris asking if I`d come back to Iron Maiden but not as Thunderstick but as me. I thought about it over Christmas and hummed and hahed about it but I`d just got the front cover of Sounds. I went and played with them after Boxing Day and Rod Smallwood was there too.  He told me Maiden would be bigger than Led Zeppelin. I thought it was really good that the manager strongly believed in the band.  Little did I know that he was right.  They needed an answer right away. I went away and rehearsed with Samson, they didn`t call and I didn`t call and the next thing John McCoy called me to say Clive Burr was the new drummer in Maiden and ironically he was ex-Samson. There was a time I was touring with Samson with Maiden on my drum cases and Clive was touring with Maiden with Samson on his.  It`s a small world."

Read the complete interview here.

Thunderstick issued the following statement with regards to his return to the scene and Something Wicked This Way Comes:

"This is an album that is befitting of the Thunderstick of another era, but screams relevance for today. The whole thing came about because of the tragic death of our former vocalist Jodee Valentine at just 55. Jodee's passing hit me really hard and I wanted to do something in her memory. There are some songs that we were playing live first time around that had never been released, coupled with some new tracks that have been written purely for this album. A new lineup. A new album. A new era."

Tracks are available for streaming and purchase via the player below.

The tracklist is as follows:

"Dark Night Black Light"
"Don't Touch I'll Scream"
"Go Sleep With The Enemy (I Dare Ya)"
"The Shining"
"Encumbrance"
"Fly 'N' Mighty"
"Lights (Take Me Away)"
"Blackwing"
"Thunder Thunder '17"
"I Close My Eyes"

Thunderstick's line-up features:

Thunderstick (drums)
Martin Shellard (guitars)
Dave Kandy Kilford (guitars)
Rex Thunderbolt (bass)
Lucy V (vocals)

Following his departure from Samson, Thunderstick went on to form his own band consisting of two guitarists, bass, and female vocalist. They released the Feel Like Rock N' Roll? EP in 1983, the ful length album Beauty And The Beasts in 1984, both of which were remastered for a 2011 re-release under the title Echoes From The Analogue Asylum, which also featured unreleased material. The band split in 1986 after having recorded their yet-to-be-released final album Don't Touch, I'll Scream. 

Jimmy Kay from Canada's The Metal Voice recently spoke to Thunderstick about the early years in NWOBHM band Samson with Bruce Dickinson on vocals (Iron Maiden). He also spoke about a new book and new album called Something Wicked This Way Comes.

On how Bruce Dickinson first joined Samson (prior to Iron Maiden): “Samson had been playing as a three piece and we had been approached by then CBS record company and they were looking at signing a hard rock band and they had their eyes on us. They had told our management we would stand a better chance at getting a big record deal if we had a singer up front.

"We just finished touring in support of the debut album Survivors and we went down to this pub and there was a pub band playing and sure enough it was Bruce singing. Paul Samson and I looked at each other and said this guy is really good singer. Part of Bruce's stage show was that he would start picking holes (making fun of) in the audience and having jokes at the audiences all done in a lighthearted way. At this particular gig the only place Bruce could use as a dressing room was the men's toilet. Bruce was doing a costume changes in the toilet, so we went into the toilet after Bruce and he thought because he was picking holes at me (making fun of ), he thought  we went there to beat him up. We got talking, and we said would you mind joining our band and he said I cant I want to finish my history degree. So what he did was when we had those three piece gigs he would come out and join us just for the encore and that was it. As soon as he joined the band for real we started recording. He had a lot of material, we had a lot of material, we joined forces and that is what became of Samson's second album Head On. "

Did Bruce have the same business smarts back then with Samson as he has today in Iron Maiden: “Bruce had a zest for life. He was hyper all the time and he thought rather than have an agency to book our gigs, he could get on the phone and book all the gigs himself. Bruce just sat there in the offices of our management, got on the phone and booked a tour."

How Barry helped Bruce find his voice in Samson: “His voice was very juvenile in the early days. Bruce had never recorded an album before. I took a lot of the production credit, I sat there with our sound engineer during Head On. We did all his vocal tracks and he was finding his own voice.

"Bruce loved Ian Gillan, first time he met Ian Gillan we were recording our album in studio doing some overdubs and Ian Gillan came in and came into the control room. Bruce then ran out to the toilet. Gillan said to us you better go get your singer cause the last time I saw or heard him he was in the toilet farting up. That was due to the nerves of meeting his all time hero Ian Gillan."