{"id":522454,"date":"2026-01-17T09:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T09:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/522454\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T09:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T09:34:14","slug":"am-i-evil-by-diamond-head-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/522454\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I Evil? by Diamond Head: the story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal<\/a> spawned its fair share of anthems during the early 80s, from Iron Maiden<\/a>\u2019s Running Free to Saxon<\/a>\u2019s Wheels Of Steel.<\/p>\n

But one gem that tends to get overlooked is Diamond Head\u2019s mighty epic Am I Evil. In fact, some believe it\u2019s a Metallica<\/a> song, due to that band having covered it on their 1984 Creeping Death<\/a> EP and have played it live regularly ever since.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

According to Diamond Head co-founder\/guitarist Brian Tatler<\/a>, back in 1980 a lot of work and planning went into the making of what became a metal classic.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can remember wanting to write a song heavier than Black Sabbath\u2019s Symptom Of The Universe,\u201d Tatler recalls. \u201cSo when I came up with that riff, I think we all said: \u2018That\u2019s good. We should work on that.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\"Diamond\n<\/p>\n

Diamond Head in the late 1970s: (from left) Brian Tatler, (Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe song evolved over a period of 18 months. We seemed to keep adding to it. We added the fast section, and then I must have come up with the intro \u2013 which was kind of based on Mars from The Planets suite [an orchestral work by Gustav Holst] \u2013 and that got sewn onto the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can remember coming up with the ending, and the very last thing to be written was the guitar solo section, where it changes key, and the tapping. I think we started it around 1978 and finished around 1980, when we went in to record the album [Lightning To The Nations, 1980].\u201d<\/p>\n

To match Tatler\u2019s heavy riffing, singer Sean Harris came up with the suitably dark lyrics, which included the most extreme opening of any metal song up to then: \u2018My mother was a witch\/She was burned alive\/Thankless little bitch\/For the tears I cried.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\u201c\u2018My mother was a witch\u2019 was a great opening line,\u201d Tatler says. \u201cHis mum probably took offence, but she\u2019s probably forgiven him now. I\u2019m not sure what the whole thing\u2019s about. It just kind of works as a rock song. I suppose you could say it\u2019s about evil in man \u2013 good and bad; the yin and yang.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Diamond\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Pete Cronin\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

Shortly after the completion of the song, the group tried it out on an audience. As Tatler recalls, it immediately passed the test: \u201cAs far as I remember, it always went down well. We soon learned that slow songs didn\u2019t work live; the faster ones would stay in the set. Am I Evil must have gone down well, because we probably would have chucked it out otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I can remember wanting to write a song heavier than Black Sabbath\u2019s Symptom Of The Universe.<\/p>\n

Brian Tatler<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Am I Evil appeared on two different Diamond Head studio albums. \u201cWe recorded it for the White album [aka Lightning To The Nations],\u201d explains Tatler. \u201cWe had to re-record it for the Borrowed Time album, and it felt a bit strange doing it again.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut on the White album, I do definitely remember listening back to it and \u2013 once I\u2019d got the guitar solo right and all the keys that change underneath the guitar solo \u2013 it just blew me away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tatler also recalls how he got his particular guitar sound on Am I Evil. \u201cThere\u2019s a slightly strange sound on the guitar which is a wah-wah \u2013 this Morley Power Wah Boost. It was set at a cutting, \u2018nasal\u2019 position. It gave it a little more of an \u2018evil\u2019 sound, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the song instantly became a favourite among Diamond Head fans, Tatler remembers the day he was introduced to Metallica\u2019s version of it: \u201cWe were in the studio, and Sean had gotten a copy of [Metallica\u2019s] Creeping Death, the 12-inch single, with Am I Evil on the B-side. We listened to it, and thought: \u2018It\u2019s heavier and tighter,\u2019 but we didn\u2019t think it was any better than our version. Because, of course, we\u2019re proud of our own recording.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no idea that Metallica were going to become the biggest band in the world. At this stage, in 1984, they were on Music For Nations, and it didn\u2019t look like they had the potential to conquer the world \u2013 to us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew Lars [Ulrich, drums], and we knew how ambitious he was, but I don\u2019t think any of us had a clue that they were going to take that style of metal and bring it to the masses in the way they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thankful that they did, because I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do without the songwriter\u2019s royalties of those four [Diamond Head] songs they\u2019ve covered [Am I Evil, Helpless, The Prince and It\u2019s Electric].<\/p>\n

\n

\"Diamond\n<\/p>\n

Diamond Head\u2019s Brian Tatler performing with Metallica in 2011 (Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

\u201cImitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so of course we\u2019re flattered that they covered us. They could have covered Witchfinder General, couldn\u2019t they? [laughs]\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so of course we\u2019re flattered that they covered us. <\/p>\n

Brian Tatler<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having split up in the mid-80s, Diamond Head reunited sporadically throughout the 90s, before Tatler soldiered on without Harris. To this day Am I Evil remains in the set-list.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we play it live, that riff seems to stir up something in the audience, and it\u2019s always a winner,\u201d Tatler says. \u201cYou just can\u2019t fail if you fire into that riff. The crowd duly responds. It\u2019s just got something about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fairly easy to play as well. It almost seems like, if you like rock, it\u2019s one of the first riffs you learn. And I quite like that \u2013 it\u2019s not some clever, complicated thing. It\u2019s like a Smoke On The Water \u2013 a nice, simple, heavy riff that you can hum and remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metallica: Am I Evil? (Oslo, Norway – June 26, 2024) – YouTube
\n\"Metallica:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tatler agrees that Am I Evil is among Diamond Head\u2019s best songs. \u201cI would say it\u2019s one of the best, yes. It had all the ingredients \u2013 a good riff, a good chorus, it went fast, there\u2019s a big guitar solo in it, it had good dynamics\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cSongs like that are hard to write. I don\u2019t know how we did some of those songs. They don\u2019t obey rules of songwriting; we did whatever we felt, rather than followed any rules like verse-bridge-chorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a na\u00efvet\u00e9 in the early songs. Like I said, it always works. You never play that song and think: \u2018That\u2019s a bag of shit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 107 (March 2007)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal spawned its fair share of anthems during the early 80s, from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":522455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-522454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115909759237948107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}