Battle Hymns

Manowar was formed by bassist Joey DeMaio and guitarist Ross the Boss, who met on a Black Sabbath tour: DeMaio was working on Sabbath's crew, and Ross was playing guitar in the support band, Shakin' Street. As Ross tells it, Bob Currie, an EMI A&R chief he had known for years, paid for a demo, and Ross travelled to DeMaio in Auburn, New York. With Carl Canedy of The Rods on drums and Eric Adams, then still using his real name, Louis Marullo, on vocals, the four of them recorded the demo that won the band its EMI contract. The album was recorded at Criteria Recording Studio in Miami with engineer Joe Foglia and mixed by Jon Mathias at the Record Plant in New York. Ross the Boss and DeMaio produced it, with Bob Currie as executive producer. Adams sang, Ross played guitars and keyboards, DeMaio played four- and eight-string bass and bass pedals, and Donnie Hamzik played drums and percussion. The label credits every song to Ross and DeMaio except "Metal Daze", which DeMaio wrote alone, and marks "William's Tale" as adapted from Rossini. Orson Welles narrates "Dark Avenger"; DeMaio has called it a meeting of like minds, and the band's biography still lists being the only band to record with Welles among its achievements. Liberty Records, a division of Capitol Records, released the album in the United States in June 1982 on LP (LT-51125) and cassette, and both numbers appear in a Capitol advertisement in Billboard's issue of 12 June 1982. The band's very first concerts came that summer: the 2010 re-recording includes live versions of "Fast Taker" from Abilene, Texas, on 31 July 1982 and "Death Tone" from Dallas on 1 August. The American deal did not last, and DeMaio later said the label dropped the band without knowing how to market it, leaving Manowar all but finished. The album was reissued in 2001 as Battle Hymns – Silver Edition, remastered from the original tapes, and in 2010 the band re-recorded it in full as Battle Hymns MMXI for its 30th anniversary.