Thunderburst = Ides Of March

Her forleden hørte jeg igjennom Head On skiva med Samson. Et album jeg har hørt altfor lite på, for når jeg kom til instrumentalen Thunderburst oppdaget jeg at den var kliss lik Iron Maiden's Ides of March. En rask titt på hvem som er kreditert som låtskrivere på Thunderburst avslørte ganske raskt at Steve Harris var en av dem. På Ides of March står Mr. Harris alene som låtskriver. Litt rart med tanke på at Thunderburst ble utgitt ett helt år før Ides og de er som nevnt temmelig like.

Den grymme sannheten om låtene finner vi et intervju med tidligere Samson trommis Thunderstick på (Until Recently) The Only Samson Site On the Web.

M: But what about Thunderburst / The ides of March then? That must have been conceived while you were in the band (Iron Maiden)?

B: Yes, it was. I came up with a drum pattern that did that constant rolling. I would have ideas and Steve would then transpose that, because I don't play guitar. It was the same with Samson... I'm unable to pick a guitar up and show my idea, I have to sit there and go "du-du du-du du, no that's the wrong note" and we'd go through it like that. So that's how it came about. And I had a drum pattern and I was trying to explain the chords to go down on the drum pattern cause the whole thing goes around the drum pattern. I think we played it a couple of times with Iron maiden as an opening track. Just an intro, it was a throwaway thing, not really a track. The story behind that was that after we'd recorded "Head on" and they'd recorded "Killers" Clive Burr went round to Paul's house to listen to the new Samson album and in turn took the new "Killers" album with him. So Paul put on side one and they were "Yeah, it's great stuff", turned it over and up came Thunderburst and Clive nearly fell of his seat and went "Fuck, that's 'The ides of March'". Paul was like "What the hell is he talking about?" So anyway, long story short, I got summoned to EMI and there was Rod Smallwood and Steve Harris sitting there and a lawyer, solicitor, and an EMI representative and just me sitting there. So what was decided in the end was that Steve Harris would share 50-50 the publishing rights on the Samson version of it, but I never got Sweet F.A. on the Iron Maiden version...

...hmmm...i rettferdighetens navn skulle vel Thunderstick hatt låtskriverkreditt på Ides of March. På en annen side var det Steve Harris som hadde råd til advokat...

Hele intervjuet kan du lese her.

[Listening to: Thunderburst - Samson - Head On (2:06)]