Speaking with 80's Metal Recycle Bin, former TNT vocalist Tony Harnell goes back to his early days and how he was introduced to Norway's TNT. He also offers his thoughts on the whole "grunge vs metal" thing and how it all came to an end. 

Harnell: "I don't think grunge killed '80s hard rock; it's the labels and too many signings. All of those singnings came in the late '80s into the '90s into the early signings of just any band with long hair, a pretty singer and a good guitar player and decent songs. I think it was just too much. MTV was loaded with that and everybody kinda started to sound the same. Our forst record came out in '84 - '85 so we were at the beginning of the whole thing- In '87 when we had Tell No Tales out and Guns N' Roses came out, Bon Jovi had Slippery When Wet out, there wer bands that were kinda different from each other. Poison was the glam band, Mötley Crüe was killing it....there was a nice mixture, but then there was this flood and just too many signings."

Harnell recently posted an acoustic cover of the Judas Priest classic "Before The Dawn" accompanied by the following message:

"There’s really no way to put into words the impact that Rob Halford had on me and my decision to make music my life, but I’ll try.

It all started when my junior high school buddy Ed Gotti gave me my first Priest album, Stained Class, in 1978 when I was just 15 years old. It blew my head apart. I listened to it every day, several times a day, it was my sonic bible that year. Of course I immediately went to the record shop and found Sin After Sin, Sad Wings and Rocka Rolla. I fell pretty hard for Sad Wings as well. And I was the first in line to buy Hell Bent For Leather when it came out later that same year and for me, it was the THE most bad ass album I’d ever  heard or seen! That cover! I literally played the 8 track to death in my first car when I was just 16.

What always struck me about Rob was his versatility. All the colors and textures in his voice, the use of various tones from beautiful to brutal and his ability to convey so many emotions in one single phrase. And of course his superhuman range and pure voiced stratospheric notes.

I surfed nearly every morning and listened to these albums to and from the beach singing full blast and honing my craft, but I didn’t know this at the time. I was literally training my voice without even thinking that’s what I was doing. I was just in a musical trance. Next to surfing it was all I cared about and all I thought about and Judas Priest was driving my obsession.

On the midst of all this heavy music there was this beautiful song 'Before the Dawn'. I just loved singing along to it so much. I performed it in my storyteller set on tour in Norway in September 2019 and it went over so well I figured at some point I’d record it. So here it is. With absolutely beautiful guitars from my brother Hans Petter Vik Sæther and a wonderful mix by my friend Ronny Wikmark.

I hope you like it. It’s from my heart to you."

Photo courtesy of Tony Harnell's official Facebook page