With their one and only, self-published 12" EP from 1984 Damascus carved their name into Heavy Metal history. Whereas in a lot of cases the "importance" of a band gets blown out of all proportion because of the rarity of the vinyl, this is not true regarding N.W.O.B.H.M. legend Damascus. The four songs on their "Open your Eyes" 12" are just so good musically that it is hard to overlook the sheer quality of this rather obscure outfit from the Merseyside area. Speaking strictly in musical terms, "Open your Eyes", "Something on my Mind", "Cold Horizon" and "Midnight Train" are brilliant Heavy Metal songs with a very strong production. For a long time bassist Mike Booth was not aware that Damascus meant a lot to quite a few people: "I have come to realize this in the last few years. It's a great feeling to have produced something that is well thought of. I only heard of the N.W.O.B.H.M. as a movement about ten years ago. When I read that characteristics were rock music with a high level of musicianship and plenty of accented stops like Iron Maiden I saw the connection to us." In addition to those mentioned four songs of the 12" single the "Cold Horizon" album on High Roller will contain five unreleased tracks. Mike explains: "The album features nine tracks that we recorded during two sessions at Amazon Studios in Liverpool. 'Open your Eyes', 'Looking for Daylight', 'Another rainy Day' and 'Midnight Train' were recorded in January 1984. 'Something on my Mind', 'Cold Horizon', 'Goodbye Harry', 'Dreamer' and 'Women in Black' were recorded in June 1984." Damascus was originally formed in 1983: "Dave had left Thin End Of The Wedge (where Bill Campion played the drums) and he got in touch when he was looking for a bass player. I had met him in Curly Music (a guitar shop) when I heard him trying out a guitar around 1978. We had jammed but had not managed to put a band together. Pre-Damascus me, Bill Campion and Dave rehearsed with a different singer and called the band Tarot. We did a couple of gigs then the singer quit. We then went looking for another singer and found Billy Downs. When he joined we all decided a new name was in order. That was Damascus." As mentioned above, Damascus were stemming from the Merseyside region, after London, Sheffield and the North East probably one of the main hotspots of the N.W.O.B.H.M. Mike confirms: "There were lots of bands, but also lots of live venues like the Moonstone (pub) where there was live rock seven days a week. Because we rarely appeared on the same bill with another band the competition was only really down to finding gigs. Howard Croft was good at that. We didn't support any big bands. Mainly we played places where there was just us on the bill, and mainly around an established rock circuit in the North West of England. We did play once in London at Dingwalls." Not many Merseyside Metal bands made it big (maybe apart from Spider who snatched up a couple of prestigious support slots for well-known bands) and this had a reason as well: "I'd say the rock scene was low key in the 1980's. The main Liverpool scene was involved with the post-punk bands like Teardrop Explodes, Echo And The Bunnymen, OMD and loads of others. Bands like Damascus weren't commercial at that time."
