Ascending like a rocket through the late-1970s London music scene, London-based hard rockers V1 coupled an incendiary hard-rock sound with rabble-rousing showmanship. Lead guitarist Terry Wapram had left this previous band ‘Iron Maiden’ around 6 weeks earlier to work with bassist Charlie Borg and was soon joined in this formative V1 by ‘Maiden’s frontman Dennis Willcock, Whilst ‘Maiden spent the next few months in the wilderness forging a new line-up, Wapram and Willcock pushed forward with a new sound and a clean-break. The popularity of V1 was thus built on an original set of material. V1 gained a reputation for its loyal fan base – the V1 ARMY - and soon gained a residency at one of East London’s best music venues, The Ruskin Arms. Studio time was booked at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge, where a self-produced three-song demo tape was recorded. These recordings were characterised by the thundering bass of Charlie Borg, the piebald partnership of Alan (drums) and Elliott Jordan (guitar), and the twin pillar frontline of Terry Wapram (lead guitar) and singer Dennis Willcock. The quality of the demo was enough to persuade their former comrades in ‘Maiden to follow suit. With a bright future almost assured, V1 then made the error of following well-intentioned advice to reduce their gig schedule so as to focus on securing fewer but larger shows. The vacuum in the gig listings created by their absence was duly filled by none other than the newly re-launched Iron Maiden, now pioneering a faster, harder type of heavy metal. Momentum lost, V1 split-up prematurely, leaving behind only the scarcely circulated demo tape and memories of those legendary Ruskin Arms gigs. Willcock resurfaced briefly with the equally entertaining ‘Gibraltar’ but spent the next three decades outside of the music business. However, the intervening years witnessed a resurgence in interest in the NWOBHM, with V1’s recordings highly sought after by collectors, and in 2015 a compilation of V1 and Gibraltar’s demo tapes was issued on CD via the High Roller record label. V1 now re-emerges with a blazing new line-up, rolling back the years with a veritable blitzkrieg of hard rocking buzzbombs. From call-to-arms opener ‘V1’ to the bombastic finale ‘Armageddon’, the legendary V1 catalogue has finally been recorded and mixed to album quality. It is a certainty that there will always be interest in V1 due to their NWOBHM heritage, particularly their place in the Iron Maiden family tree. But listen to this album and I am sure that you will agree with me when that ‘Armagedon….’ evidences V1 to be a killer band in its own right, and deserves to be listened to as such." Alex Gillet, March 201
