RAVEN
Biography and full discography of RAVEN, with a page for every album, on METAL BOOST.
Biography
RAVEN
Biography
At a glance
| Formed | 1974 (per the band's own site) |
|---|---|
| Origin | Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| Genre | NWOBHM / heavy metal / speed metal |
| Current line-up | John Gallagher (vocals, bass, 12-string bass), Mark Gallagher (guitar, vocals), Mike Heller (drums) |
| Recent label | Silver Lining Music |
| Official site | ravenlunatics.com |
Out of Newcastle
Raven grew up around two brothers from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the industrial north-east of England: John Gallagher on bass and lead vocals, Mark Gallagher on guitar. The band's own site, its current label Silver Lining Music, its former label SPV, and outlets from Blabbermouth to BARKS all date the band to 1974. Cherry Red's reissue copy is the one dissenting voice, saying the brothers conceived the group in 1972 and played their first gig in 1975. That disagreement has never been resolved.
The beginning was modest. Gallagher told Classic Rock that he and Mark decided to form a band at a point when the two of them owned a single acoustic guitar between them, and only got moving properly after second-hand instruments arrived at Christmas. A four-piece with twin guitars came first; the trio of John, Mark and drummer Rob "Wacko" Hunter settled at the turn of the decade, and the official site treats Hunter's arrival as the moment the line-up was fixed.
What opened the door was a local gig. Tom Noble, who managed fellow Newcastle band Tygers Of Pan Tang, saw them play and offered them a single. Neat Records issued "Don't Need Your Money" in 1980, John Peel played it on the radio, and the name travelled. Neat was a small label run out of an office above a bingo hall in Wallsend, with Venom and Fist also on its books; Raven's 1981 debut Rock Until You Drop was the first long-playing record it ever released.
"Athletic rock", and who said it first
The phrase attached to Raven for most of their career is "athletic rock", and there are two accounts of where it came from, both on the record.
The band's own website — including a 2015 capture in the Wayback Machine — plus Silver Lining Music and Metal Blade all present it as the name Raven gave their own music. John Gallagher says otherwise. Speaking to Classic Rock in 2015 and to ClassicRockHistory in 2022, he credits it to David Wood, who ran Neat Records, and remembers first seeing it either in a Neat advertisement reading "Athletic rock from Neat" or printed on the sleeve of their first single. It fitted, he says, because of the running tops and armbands they wore on stage.
Either way the band took the phrase up, and closed their 1983 album All For One with a song called "Athletic Rock". This page does not pick a winner between the two accounts.
America, and Metallica
Raven's first American tour, in 1983, had an unknown Metallica as its support act — Metallica's first tour, and remembered by the name the two album titles made between them: the Kill 'Em All For One tour. Anthrax and Exodus were on the bill too.
When Megaforce's Jon Zazula pitched Metallica as "the biggest band in San Francisco", Raven assumed he meant Y&T and had never heard of them. Gallagher's first impression of the music was that it sounded like Motörhead played at the wrong speed, which is what persuaded him. At an Oklahoma date the crowd threw things at both bands all night, and Metallica finished by turning their backs on the audience and playing as fast as they could. What struck Gallagher about the younger band was that they operated as a gang rather than a frontman with hired hands — which was how Raven saw themselves.
In August 1984 Raven headlined a sold-out show at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan over a bill of unsigned bands, and all of them came away with major-label deals. Raven's was with Atlantic.
The Atlantic years
The band moved to New York and made Stay Hard in 1985 and The Pack Is Back in 1986. The push was commercial and it did not work. Gallagher has summarised what Atlantic wanted from them as a hybrid of two arena acts, a formula he says failed completely — and points out that the man who signed them, Larry Yasgar, was the label's dance and disco A&R, brought in because the rock A&R man was unavailable.
The correction came quickly. The 1986 Mad EP was self-produced, and Gallagher rates 1987's Life's A Bitch among the band's better albums; by his reckoning the only genuinely commercial Raven record was The Pack Is Back. When the deal collapsed he was left in upstate New York with fifteen dollars, shifting boxes of vegetables at an airport.
Rob "Wacko" Hunter left in 1987 after seven years, sending word to the manager through a roadie; Gallagher had no contact with him for about eight years afterwards and puts the departure down to wanting to be with his family and no longer enjoying the band. Hunter went a long way in another direction and is now a Grammy-winning jazz producer whose credits include Harry Connick Jr. Joe Hasselvander, previously of Pentagram, took over, and 1988's Nothing Exceeds Like Excess pushed the band back toward speed metal.
A wall, and four years of silence
In November 2001 Mark Gallagher was badly hurt. By John's account Mark was already bruised from a car crash at a T-junction when, visiting a friend on a building site, he chased a wind-blown cap and a long, deep wall came down on him. Both of his feet were dislocated and one calf was torn away from the leg. John credits his brother's fitness and stubbornness for the fact that he survived and eventually walked again.
Raven stopped playing for more than three years, and Mark was still in a wheelchair when they started again. The album that ended the silence, Walk Through Fire, did not appear until 2009 — and the first place it appeared was Japan, on King Records.
Since Mike Heller
Joe Hasselvander suffered a serious heart attack in May 2017, ending a tenure of three decades. Three deputies covered the shows — Jimmy Mess in Chicago, Mike Heller on the East Coast, Dave Chedrick in Europe — and Heller joined properly in the second half of that year. He had drummed with Fear Factory and Malignancy, and Gallagher credits him with raising the band's tempos and technical ceiling.
Metal City (2020) was the first studio album with Heller; All Hell's Breaking Loose (2023) was recorded at his own studio in Los Angeles. In 2022 Raven shared a Florida stage with Metallica at a show honouring the late Jon and Marsha Zazula, who had managed both bands in the 1980s — with Raven now the support. They had already opened for Metallica at a São Paulo stadium show in front of some seventy thousand people, a reversal the band tells as part of its own history.
February 2025 brought the fiftieth-anniversary EP Can't Take Away The Fire. Most of that year was then lost to what Gallagher calls a medical gap year: he had brain surgery following a bleed, and Mark had both an ankle and a knee replaced. As of April 2026 the next album had not been recorded; Gallagher says the plan is to start that summer for release in early 2027.
Raven in Japan
Raven first played Japan in 1995, at Club Citta in Kawasaki. Ward Records' own copy describes it as a show both band and audience had waited a long time for, and it produced the live album Destroy All Monsters – Live In Japan. Gallagher has since mentioned that he had a throat inflammation when it was recorded.
The RAVEN JAPAN TOUR 2019 was two Tokyo nights in March — the 14th at Kichijoji CLUB SEATA and the 15th at Shinjuku BLAZE — presented by the radio station bayfm78, supported by BURRN! magazine and booked by UPP-tone music. The two nights were deliberately different: the first drew only on the first three albums as a "Raven classics day", the second was an all-time set that included unreleased new songs. Marty Friedman appeared as a special guest on the first night, and Young Guitar's printed setlist marks him on "Fire Power" and "Wiped Out"; Gallagher said the choice followed Friedman telling them he could play anything off the first two records. Both nights ran to an unplanned second encore — on the second, the curtain had come down and the house lights were up before the calls brought the band back for "Crash Bang Wallop".
Two nights with Night Demon set for Daikanyama UNIT in May 2024 were cancelled, but Japan did get the fiftieth-anniversary tour that November: Shibuya DUO MUSIC EXCHANGE on the 12th and Live House ANIMA in Osaka on the 14th, with a fifty-person fan meeting in Yurakucho between them on the 13th. Japanese editions have kept coming too — All Hell's Breaking Loose on King Records' Metal Frontier line, Metal City and the 2019 live album through Ward Records.
Members
John Gallagher
Lead vocals and bass, with 12-string bass credited on recent records. In the band since the beginning.
Mark Gallagher
Guitar and vocals. In the band since the beginning.
Mike Heller (2017– )
Drums. Also of Fear Factory and Malignancy. Deputised in May 2017 and joined properly later that year.
Joe Hasselvander (1987–2017)
Drums. Came from Pentagram and Savoy Brown; left after a serious heart attack in May 2017.
Rob "Wacko" Hunter (–1987)
Drums, from the settling of the trio line-up, seven years in all. Later became a jazz producer.
Discography (as catalogued here)
| Year | Title | Format |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Rock Until You Drop | Album |
| 1982 | Wiped Out | Album |
| 1983 | All for One | Album |
| 1984 | Live at the Inferno | Live |
| 1985 | Stay Hard | Album |
| 1986 | The Pack Is Back | Album |
| 1987 | Life's a Bitch | Album |
| 1988 | Nothing Exceeds Like Excess | Album |
| 1991 | Architect of Fear | Album |
| 1994 | Glow | Album |
| 1995 | Destroy All Monsters: Live In Japan | Live |
| 1997 | Everything Louder | Album |
| 1999 | One for All | Album |
| 2009 | Walk Through Fire | Album |
| 2015 | ExtermiNation | Album |
| 2015 | Party Killers | Covers |
| 2019 | Screaming Murder Death from Above: Live in Aalborg | Live |
| 2020 | Metal City | Album |
| 2023 | All Hell's Breaking Loose | Album |
| 2025 | Can't Take Away The Fire | EP |
Sources
This account draws on the band's own site at ravenlunatics.com, including older versions preserved in the Wayback Machine, and on official pages from Silver Lining Music, SPV/Steamhammer, Metal Blade, King Records, Ward Records, Tower Records and Cherry Red/HNE, together with reporting and interviews in Blabbermouth.net, Louder (Classic Rock and Metal Hammer), Loudwire, BARKS, Young Guitar, Songfacts, Ultimate Guitar, KMUW, NYS Music, ClassicRockHistory and Extreminal. Sources disagree about the founding year, about who coined "athletic rock", and about whether Walk Through Fire is a 2009 or a 2010 record; where they do, the disagreement itself is stated rather than resolved. Album ordinals are used only where the band or its label states one.
Trivia
Raven first played Japan in 1995, at Club Citta in Kawasaki. Ward Records' own copy describes it as a show both the band and their audience had waited a long time for, and it produced the live album Destroy All Monsters – Live In Japan. Gallagher has since mentioned that he had a throat inflammation when it was recorded.
The origin of the name is unromantic. Asked about it in 2023, John Gallagher said the band had kept a list of possible names as kids and Raven was simply the one that annoyed them least. He also drew the angular logo himself, around the time they signed to Neat.
The phrase Raven have been described by for four decades — "athletic rock" — has two competing origin stories, and both are on the record. The band's own website and the copy on their labels' artist pages present it as a name Raven gave their own music. John Gallagher does not. Speaking to Classic Rock in 2015 he credited it to David Wood, who ran Neat Records, and said the first time the band saw it was in a Neat advertisement reading "Athletic rock from Neat". Either way they took it up, closing 1983's All For One with a song of the same name.
Rock Until You Drop was not recorded in a block. It was made a day at a time over a long stretch, and producer Steve Thompson has since admitted why: he told Neat's Dave Wood he could only take the band one day at a time, because they were so wild. Gallagher says you can hear the group changing across the record as a result — "Hell Patrol" and "Don't Need Your Money" are among the earliest things on it, the Sweet medley "Hellraiser/Action" and "For The Future" among the last.
The wrecked-gear photograph on the front of Rock Until You Drop was carefully staged in an underground car park. Neat sent down a photographer Gallagher describes as a wedding photographer, and by his account the man's jaw hit the floor when he walked in.
The Wiped Out album and the companion Crash Bang Wallop EP were recorded and mixed together in six days flat. Gallagher explains the tempos as a response to what the band had been watching from the stage: crowds reacted hardest to the faster material, so they pushed it.
The title and idea of "Faster Than The Speed Of Light" came out of a stack of physics books Gallagher was reading at the time, about whether anything can travel faster than light. His reasoning was simple enough: a fast song needed a fast idea.
The support act on Raven's first North American tour, in 1983, was an unknown Metallica. When Megaforce's Jon Zazula pitched them as "the biggest band in San Francisco", Raven assumed he meant Y&T — they had never heard the name. Gallagher's first impression of the music was that it sounded like Motörhead played at the wrong speed, and that was what sold him. The run is remembered by the name the two album titles made between them: the Kill 'Em All For One tour.
Albums
An eight-track EP marking the band's fiftieth year, issued by Silver Lining Music on 14 February 2025: five new songs, plus three live recordings that between them feature three different Raven drummers.
The fifteenth studio album, recorded at drummer Mike Heller's own studio in Los Angeles and released by Silver Lining Music on 30 June 2023.
The fourteenth album, and the first studio record with Mike Heller. Gallagher pitched it as the album Raven would have made straight after 1982's Wiped Out.
The band's third full live album — a late-November 2017 show in Aalborg, Denmark, captured without Raven knowing a tape was running.
A covers album made as a reward for the Kickstarter backers who helped fund ExtermiNation; the band's own site files it as a bonus release rather than a studio album.
The thirteenth album, paid for in part by a Kickstarter campaign that took over $27,000, and rolled out across territories through SPV/Steamhammer in April 2015.
The comeback record after the long break that followed Mark Gallagher's injuries, and the first place it appeared was Japan, on King Records, on 25 March 2009.
The studio album that followed Everything Louder. The band's own album gallery files it under 2000.
A fifteen-track studio album from 1997, closing out the stretch the band spent working around the German metal scene.
A live album recorded in Japan. Gallagher has since said he had laryngitis when it was taped.
Made in Germany after the band took up with Kreator's management. Gallagher calls it darker and heavier than the low-budget record before it.
The seventh album, self-produced for Combat Records in America and the first with ex-Pentagram drummer Joe Hasselvander.
The last Raven record for Atlantic, and the last with Rob "Wacko" Hunter on drums. Twelve tracks.
The second Atlantic album, cut at Bearsville with Eddie Kramer producing — and the Raven record John Gallagher is hardest on.
The Atlantic debut, made after the move to New York, and home to the MTV single "On And On".
The double live album that closed the Neat years, its sleeve boasting that the record carries no overdubs.
The third album, co-produced by Michael Wagener and Accept's Udo Dirkschneider, and home to the song "Athletic Rock".
The second album, recorded and mixed in six days alongside the Crash Bang Wallop EP, and released in May 1982.
The 1981 debut, and the first LP Neat Records ever issued — recorded a day at a time over a long stretch.