Steve and me had always stayed in touch after the band had broken up. You know drinking socially and we'd see each other every week and have a beer after work. Onslaught was never ever mentioned at all, it was dead and buried as far as I was concerned. Then one day Steve said I should have a look at something and he threw this royalty statement down on the table, and it said it was for five pence. We had a bit of a laugh about it, but it did get us reminiscing about the band and got us chatting about it. Steve then revealed he had secretly yearned to get the band back together for some time. As well as me, Steve had also kept in touch with Jim. So he sought of set the wheels in motion and he also saw Sy through his work. So he was in touch with all the key members of the band, I think he was secretly planning something for a longtime. When he did drop the bombshell he had already spoken to everybody and they were all willing to sit down and have a chat about it. So I couldn't really say no. One thing led to another and we agreed to do a few rehearsals, which were pretty shit to say the least. We all looked at each other and thought fuck we can't do this again, but we persevered and over the course of a few weeks it started to slowly come back again, and we all really enjoyed it so we all started to take it a bit more seriously. 

Me and Steve went on to do a project after Onslaught that never really worked out. We did a tour with Saxon and a small UK tour of our own, but it wasn't something that really inspired us to be honest. After about a year Steve called it a day. He needed to make a living and went off an did his own thing. That is when I became involved with Alan who is in the band now, we went on to form a band. We had a lot of interest but nothing really materialised out of that either. That's when I got the same feeling as Steve, I'd been doing it for three years after Onslaught had split and nothing was really taking off. So I had to weigh up my options and see where I was going. So I went back to doing what I did when I left school, I went back into construction, and have been there ever since. That was the last time I saw Alan up until we got Onslaught back together. The four of us, Steve, Jim, Sy and me wanted another guitarist, and Alan was the first man we all thought of. We popped over to Wales in car one day to his mothers and found out where he lived. Alan jumped at the chance, he'd been keeping his hand in playing guitar so then we had the nucleus of the band back together.

The new lineup of course features Sy Keeler on vocals. Over the course of the bands three albums you had three different singers, so what made Sy the obvious choice when it came time to reform?

We were all very disappointed with the In Search Of Sanity period of the bands history. We were pushed from pillar to post by the record company and management. Basically Sy was treated really badly in all of this, he was forced out of the band by the record company, who we think already had Steve Grimmett lined up to join the band. They had said they weren't happy with Sy's vocals and that they had this guy they wanted us to try out. There was obviously something going on behind the scenes that we didn't know about. It was all a bit murky really. If I'm brutally honest, the album didn't turn out the way we'd imagined it would. It was very polished. The demo's were quite raw and quite angry, even though the songs were the same. Many of the hardcore Onslaught fans found it a little difficult to accept Steve as our singer, as much of a great singer and great guy as he is, he wasn't the right guy for Onslaught. The album was reasonably successful for us, but I think we lost a lot of our hardcore fans along the way. So when we got back together we were very focused on what we wanted to make out of this new album. It had to be a hard and heavy album, much more in the vein of The Force. So Sy was the only guy that could do that job, and if we were going to do this we had to do it with credibility. If Sy would have said no I don't think we would have done it. Basically it was Sy or no one.

Once we had all agreed to get around a table, Steve being Mr. Organisation, came with a big agenda. He turned up with a big sheet of paper with a list of things and we sat down and went through everything. One of his questions was, "What does everyone want out of the band"? The general thing that we all agreed on we all wanted to come and make the album we never got to make last time. As I said we all felt a little disappointed with the Sanity album and it should have been much heavier to follow on from The Force. That was the plan from day one. We never wanted it to be a nostalgia thing, if we were going to do it we were going to do it properly. Try and get back to where we were in 86 / 87.

Given the album has only been out a couple of weeks it is a little early to ask the fans reaction of the record, but how pleased were you with the end result and how would you describe the sound?

We are completely overwhelmed with what we have come out with. Andy has done such a great job in capturing the sound we wanted to get, and so far about 99% of the press and fan feed back has been phenomenal. We have had some amazing reviews and some amazing feed back through Myspace and our website. The album is a natural follow on from The Force. Obviously we have come on a lot as musicians and song writers in that time. The result is a very hard heavy album, very aggressive and I think quite controversial lyrically in places. A nasty piece of work is what we wanted to come back with.

You're absolutely right, lyrically the album deals with some controversial topics and pulls no punches and musically the riffs are very hard hitting.  Are all the songs 100% new or were some of the ideas floating around from the In Search Of Sanity days?

There is only one riff that remains from the old Onslaught  and that is the main riff from the song

Pain. When we first started writing songs for this album we kicked about some of the old unreleased material we had, but it wasn't really happening or where we wanted to be. We revamped two songs but the spark wasn't there, Jim sat down with me and said he didn't think that we should be doing this, he'd analysed what we were doing and what he said made sense. I went away for a few days and thought about things. I came back with some ideas for the song Killing Peace. Once we started writing that song the whole focused changed, we found where we were going and the sound we wanted. So we ditched the two songs we'd previously written and started from scratch, and it all became very easy from then. We always start with the song title, that is the way I like to work. If you have the song title you know what sort of vibe you are looking to create with the song. For example Shock 'N' Awe was only ever going to be a fast fucker of a song, it sounds like it's going to be all out aggression, whereas something like Planting Seeds Of Hate sounds a little darker. Lyrically Jim and I wrote all the lyrics for the album. As we hadn't written any lyrics for 15 years we had a lot of topics to write about. Everything on the album is based on facts and what is going on in the world today. It is not all story telling. There is some really bad shit going on, and so it gave us a lot of fuel lyrically.

We were actually speaking to two or three other labels before hand, we hadn't even spoken to Candlelight. A friend of mine is very friendly with the MD of Candlelight and he'd been on to us for a long time to try and give him some demo's of unreleased stuff as they'd be interested in releasing it for us. Then we found out that they had re-released Power From Hell and The Force albums, and from what we could gather they had done a very good job of that. Once they heard we were looking out for a deal again they got straight on the phone and asked us to go to see them before you do anything as we might be interested in what they had to say. They are only up the road from where we are, so we popped along to meet with them and were impressed with their set up. They have a lovely set up where they are. They went through all the facts and figures of Power From Hell and The Force and what they had done, basically they did a fucking good job. The two MD's seemed to be really genuine guys and had a great vision of what Onslaught could be doing in 2006 / 2007. We can get hold of them 24 hours a day if we wish to and they will always take the calls, and have an answer for everything you say.

Yep. We had no input. We didn't even realise that they had even been released. None of us had had copies on CD, Steve actually bought copies off Amazon when he released they had been released. It was quite weird to find all this was going on without us knowing anything about it. I suppose in a way it laid the foundation for us to come back as they have been selling them for five years; and selling a lot of copies. We finally have the albums on CD after all these years.

This has been a totally different album to make from all our others. In the past we have always spent a long time making records. This one we did in eighteen days, which was unheard of for us. We just wanted to go in there and just bang it out quickly, just capture a real exciting vibe. Andy was just great. He is an old friend from years back. We'd obviously seen what he had been up to over the years and liked what he had done. Add that to the fact we were still in touch with each other; he was the obvious choice to do an Onslaught album. It also makes a great story, Andy from Sabbat makes an Onslaught album in 2006. I only spend five days in the studio, three days doing my guitars and two to help mix. The great thing about Andy doing the album was that with every other album I've sat in on every session and had to be co-producer, but due to other commitments this time around I didn't have time to do that this time. So I really wanted someone I could trust there so I could let go of the baby for a little while. It was the best thing I could have done and let someone else have some input into the record, especially with the vocals and mixing. Andy was just superb, he really got some great performances out of Sy and got the exact sound we were after.

Initially we weren't going to do any gigs, we were going to write and record an album. It never happened like that, as once people heard we were back together we got a lot of offers to do shows. I dropped an email to a guy that used to promote us in Europe when we first started back in 1985 / 86, just to say hello and we were back together really. The next thing he turned around and told us he had some dates on the Exodus tour. It was really a case of fuck! We've only been back together a few months, but it was an opportunity we couldn't turn down. The opportunity for all this publicity was to great to say no to, and then came the offer to do Sweden Rocks and the offers just kept coming in for us to see places we'd never been and play such big gigs. It did put a hold on writing for a while and delayed things a bit, but it built publicity for the band. So it worked in our favour.

Of course May sees you out on the road on a UK tour. Is this part of a European tour or just UK dates?

Just the UK to start with. It is going to be a little nerve racking as it will be our first UK tour is sixteen years. To be honest it hasn't all yet sunk in. I'm sat here yesterday (the day of the album release) and just can't believe our first album in eighteen years is out. It's a real mind fuck at the moment. I'm sure that when it comes around it will be great as we're loving gigging at the moment and all the shows have been amazing. There will be a bigger pressure though. It is OK when you play a festival as part of a package, but when got out and do a headline tour there is a lot more responsibility on you. 

Given the extensive band commitments you all now have, how tough is it to balance your personal life and the needs of the band? It can't be like it was back in the day now you all have wives and kids.

The work load is probably one the busiest we ever had as a band. It is a little bit difficult, especially the families who never expected this to come along. All of a sudden it's thrust upon them, we are away for a lot of the year. It is hard for them to adjust, I mean my boys don't like

it when I go away. Then again they like their Dad being in a band. There is mixed feelings for them. Steve, Alan and I are lucky that we are self employed, which means we can juggle our time quite well. The rest of the guys are in a easy situation also. It has been a bit of an upheaval but the things that have been going on are just to good to turn down and all the families understand that. They are willing to live with it for a quiet life.

For any band that spend an extended period on hiatus, particularly a decade and a half. There must have been some trepidation and a little apprehension when it came time to reform the band?

We never lacked confidence in what we do, and we are not stupid. If we thought we were doing something substandard or damaging to the bands name, we wouldn't do it. We did lots and lots of research via websites and forums and alike to see what people were saying about the band, whether if was good or bad. We wanted to make sure we got everything as near to perfect as we could. We have had old fans come to rehearsals just to listen to demo's and new material, we've played stuff to old record label guys who signed us for previous labels. We have been very careful to make sure we don't fuck up. If we came back with anything substandard we would just get rubbished. So we have been ultra careful and believe in what we are doing. 

With so many of the old school bands out there now reforming and recording, as in your case for the first time in nearly two decades. What do you think that says about the scene of today and new bands?

To be honest I don't listen to too much new music, and the stuff I do listen to is very formulated and doesn't have the appeal of the bands of old. There are some good bands out there, but will we ever see another Metallica or Slayer or Anthrax, I don't think so. You just don't see bands writing songs like these bands did. I think that back in the 1980's things were done differently to how they are done today, but the competition back in the day was much stronger back then. The music was based on great riffs and vocals with a hook, whereas today I listen to a record now and think "Wow that first track was great" but by the time you've reached the fifth track it's the same song again. It is difficult, as we've not come out with anything original. What we've done is make an old school Thrash metal record and add a more modern sound. To try and write something original these days is extremely difficult, but today all the singers sound the same and you could interchange any one of five bands and they'd all sound like each other. Back in the old school days you could put a band on and you'd know who it was straight away. This is why the older bands are churning out some good material.

Hope that they like the new album and what we've done. We've made an album that we absolutely love and hope they feel the same. We're going to give it 110% live, we're really focused now on the live shows and in my opinion we are a better live band now than ever before. We have learnt a lot and we're back for a little while yet!