The thunder of heavy metal is music to the ears of a Swansea record shop employee.
And the lure of long-hair, leather and power chords has proved too much for Peter Cowie who spent 20 years of his life touring the world with a succession of rock music’s master-blasters.
Peter, who works at the HMV store in Swansea’s Quadrant Centre, is now helping with the second coming of one of the area’s seminal heavy metal bands and is helping launch them on a second career as their tour manager.
The 43-year-old from Bonymaen has always preferred the shadows of the road manager’s job to the spotlight of centre stage but now the band that began his infatuation with live music is back.
Acrimony, the Swansea-based outfit he helped found 20 years ago are now renamed Sigiriya and have a new CD out, Return To Earth which will be available soon on the Church Within label – and available at HMV at the Quadrant Centre.
“I was always interested in music and played the drums,” he said: “There was a pub in Swansea called The Coach House and I met up with the other guys there and the band was formed.
“It’s the same lineup now with Dorian Walters on vocals, Stuart O’Hara on guitar, Darren Ivey on drums and Mead on bass and I’m the tour manager for them and have sorted out the recording contract.”
Peter started out as a roadie with the band and a drum technician and as Acrimony toured he came to the notice of other bands including Nottingham’s Iron Monkey with whom he worked for a while.
Then Brummie metal giants Napalm Death came calling and whisked him away on the start of a 20-year rollercoaster rock’n’roll ride which also saw him work with another of metal’s iconic acts, Cradle of Filth.
“I play drums, bass, keyboards and guitar,” explained Peter: “But I’m not interested in being on stage. I enjoy making sure everything runs smoothly and it was a great life that took me all over the world.
“There’s not much security though, no pension plans and I was missing my son Geraint’s childhood but working at HMV is a dream job for me because I love music and I often get people asking me for advice about bands and CDs.
“I loved it on the road though and I had a lot of fun and could tell a few tales too.
“I started off with drums but had to learn to do everything because that makes you more valuable and at one time I was even on a permanent standby contract so that I had to be ready to fly out anywhere within 24 hours if I was needed.
“I was sitting at home one night and the phone went about 10’o’clock and the next day I was in Portugal with Cradle of Filth.”
Touring has taken him from Finland to Japan and even to South America where the popularity of heavy metal proves there’s more to Latin American music than sambas and salsa.
“They’re absolutely mad for it out there,” Peter said: “We were in Santiago in Chile with Napalm Death and we played a football stadium with 65,000 capacity but there were that number of forged tickets out there as well and there was a riot, it was insane.
“We had to be locked in the dressing rooms with the sound of gunfire while the army broke it up so we then played two concerts, one for the people with genuine tickets and one for those with forged ones.”
He’s hoping the new CD with Sigiriya does well but can’t see them returning to the days of touring for months at a time: “The boys have all got jobs now but they still love playing and I love being there in the background.
“The road manager is always first there to get things ready for the sound checks and last to finish by the time all the equipment has been put away but we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t enjoy it.”
