Forty years after the riff to BUDGIE's 'Breadfan' was unleashed, a free iPhone and iPad app tells the story of the early days of the influential Welsh rockers, from 1967 to 1973.

The Budgie's First Three Albums app includes 75,000 words of text, 300 images, two hours of audio interview clips and two previously unreleased music tracks.

Budgie’s original line-up of Burke Shelley, Tony Bourge and Ray Phillips made three albums in three years at Rockfield Studios. A self-titled debut in 1971 was followed by Squawk in 1972 and Never Turn Your Back On A Friend in 1973 – the latter album houses 'Breadfan', widely hailed as a precursor of thrash metal.

The three albums were made on shoestring budgets, yet punched above their weights to influence heavyweight bands to come, including METALLICA, SOUNDGARDEN and MEGADETH.

The app has new interviews with the three band members, plus an exclusive new, heavy instrumental number from guitarist Tony Bourge. “I did 'MyGrain' in one take on the guitar as a three-piece band might play it live, to try and capture the feel,” Bourge says. “There is a hillside near Cardiff called the Wenallt, and I always wanted to set up a 100,000-watt PA and play this kind of music to the population at about six in the morning!”

Budgie's First Three Albums is available as a free app in the iTunes store here.

As previoulsy reported, forty years on and ex-Budgie riff master Bourge has a new 20-track album named Crank It Up, released under the moniker of Anthony Bourge.

According to a press release, "the album contains a wide variety of styles, from riff-based rockers reminiscent of the metal Bourge forged with Budgie, to songs and instrumentals steeped in the blues, to ethereal pop numbers."

The album’s Shw Mae Mama is a dark, heavy blues song – with a Welsh language chorus that translates as ‘How are you Mama?’ “Mother Earth has a hole in her head but she’s not dead, and neither is Budgie,” Bourge says, referring to both the song’s subject and the influential Welsh rock band’s legacy.

East Bound is an instrumental inspired by a painting one of Bourge’s sons did before he left for China. “There was a large dragon’s tail and two birds flying over the sea, heading east towards a very large setting sun. Strangely enough, the red sun and the dragon’s tail seemed very Welsh,” Bourge says.

Crank It Up is available from online music stores.