{"id":323,"date":"2013-12-09T08:28:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T02:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/articles\/?p=323"},"modified":"2013-12-20T12:54:36","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T07:24:36","slug":"defenders-of-the-crown-the-mighty-brocas-helm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/articles\/2013\/12\/09\/defenders-of-the-crown-the-mighty-brocas-helm\/","title":{"rendered":"Defenders of the Crown: The Mighty Brocas Helm"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Avinash Mittur<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"brocas<\/a>It\u2019s a Friday night in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. On 17th<\/sup> and Wisconsin, there lies a little bar and grill called Thee Parkside; if you\u2019re not careful, you might drive right past without even knowing it. I\u2019ve ventured to Thee Parkside just for this night, one that I have been waiting for since the age of fifteen. About one hundred metalheads and I have gathered to see one of the best bands in the world, Brocas Helm. I enter the minute the doors open, and I\u2019m immediately greeted by friends and many of the Bay Area\u2019s most dedicated metal lifers- this is the band\u2019s first local show in nearly four years and before the night ends, the dive finds itself packed with Brocas Helm\u2019s most rabid fans.<\/p>\n

After three strong openers, the legendary act finally takes the stage at half past midnight and my excitement is boiling over. Standing tall at 6\u20194\u201d, frontman and guitarist Bob Wright introduces the first song of the night as one that showcases his two bandmates, drummer Jack Hays and bassist Jim \u201cThe Wizard\u201d Schumacher; the song is ‘Time of the Dark,’ Brocas Helm\u2019s masterpiece and the high point of their thirty year career. Thirty years is a long time for any band to be around for, and Brocas Helm has come out of it with all three of its original members onstage. How did they reach this point though? How does a band exist for three decades, release only three studio albums, hardly ever play hometown shows and still end up with a fanatical, cult-like following? How does a band that breaks every other rule in the heavy metal handbook end up being one of the best on planet Earth?<\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/a>
Bob Wright, singer and guitarist of Brocas Helm. Photo courtesy of Jim Schumacher.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The answer to those questions begins over forty years ago. As we chat over the phone, Bob Wright doesn\u2019t merely recount his past to me; he relives<\/i> it. His boundless enthusiasm and energy brings life and imagery to his endless stories and anecdotes, the first of which takes place at a Deep Purple concert at the Winterland Ballroom in June 1972. Wright offers primary credit to the Man in Black for musical inspiration. \u201cThe guy that got me was Ritchie Blackmore. I got to see him with my hand on the stage! I went to see them at Winterland and we were right in the front row. To see Blackmore play\u2026 that was like, enlightening. I thought, \u2018This is what I want to do. This is cool!\u2019\u201d The heavier rock that Deep Purple was pioneering stood in sharp contrast to the hippie movement that Wright saw first-hand as a small child in San Francisco. \u201cWhen I was a little kid, it was the summer of love, the hippie thing and all that. People say how great it was- it was terrible! There was some good music that came out of it, there was some good art that came out of it, but as far as that hippie thing goes, it was just a terrible, terrible time.\u201d Wright sounds increasingly distressed as he re-experiences the horrors of the summer of 1967. \u201cEveryone makes it sound like it was such a great time, but they weren\u2019t there or they were stoned. I was a kid- I hadn\u2019t taken drugs yet so I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible man! It was the worst, I hated everything that had to do with that kind of music. So I got into the hard rock\/metal thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Wright idolized Blackmore, at the time he couldn\u2019t match the dizzying speed and virtuosity that the legend was known for. One guy that young Bob Wright could imitate however, was KISS guitarist Ace Frehley. Wright offers an honest appraisal of his first hard rock group, a KISS cover band. \u201cWe had a KISS band with all the stuff, though we could barely play. I had the Ace Frehley outfit and everything. We\u2019d play at UCSF and places like that. We were shitty, but at least we were trying. We had our own lights and flash pods and stuff. We could have blown stuff up but we couldn\u2019t play that good. Ace Frehley was not a very good player at the time- I could copy his playing note for note even though I could barely play because it was so simple. He was doing the simplest blues progressions you could do at the beginning.\u201d The cover band didn\u2019t last long however- as Wright\u2019s skill on the guitar grew, so did his desire to play original material. \u201cThat KISS band turned into the band Prisoner, which was my high school band. Basically they had these bands at my high school and I thought, \u2018Man, these guys are shit! I can make a band better than this.\u2019 So I did.\u201d<\/p>\n