Review by Daniel for Steeler (USA) - Steeler (1983)

Four-piece heavy metal outfit Steeler were formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1981 by budding young singer Ron Keel who would only have been about 20 years old at the time. Ron would later go on to become Black Sabbath’s vocalist for a short period after Ian Gillan left the band to reform Deep Purple in 1984 & that remains Ron’s main claim to fame although he didn’t get the opportunity to record anything with Sabbath with Glenn Hughes taking up the vocal position for 1986’s “Seventh Star” album. Now Ron had managed to put together a pretty decent band in Steeler with the group taking their moniker from the Judas Priest song of the same name. But a trip to LA’s Sunset Strip very quickly opened his eyes to the possibilities & saw Steeler swiftly relocating to Los Angeles to chase their fortunes. Former W.A.S.P. bassist Rik Fox joined the band a short time afterwards & it wasn’t long before Steeler drew the attention of Shrapnel Records head Mike Varney who had only recently been responsible for releasing Exciter’s “Heavy Metal Maniac” album.

Shrapnel was still a small-time label operating out of Mike’s bedroom but Mike certainly knew what he liked & that was ultra-shredding lead guitar solos. In fact, Shrapnel would later go on to become the biggest name in instrumental guitar shred records & are still running today. Mike had a good ear for talent & could see an opportunity with Steeler so he wasted no time in pushing them to upgrade their guitarist. He invited Ron over to his place to spend a day going through what Ron describes as “literally thousands of tapes”. But there was one tape that stood out pretty obviously from the rest & that was the demo of a 20 year-old Swedish neo-classical shredder by the name of Yngwie Malmsteen. Ron only wanted the best & Yngwie was indeed the best so Mike Varney made contact with him & made him an offer. Yngwie wasted no time in accepting the offer to join the band & frantically made plans to relocate to the US while Ron held off on signing Mike’s contract until Yngwie received his green-card & arrived into the country.

The story goes that, with the exception of one full song & a short one-minute intro, the resulting self-titled Steeler album was pretty much written before Yngwie joined the band which would be why Yngwie’s signature sound can’t be easily identified in the riffs on offer.  But there can be no doubt about who is completely nailing every solo because the kid was already a complete phenomenon. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the world hadn’t seen the level of virtuosity that Yngwie possessed before. He completely blew the competition away & has rarely been matched since. I’ve recently read an interview with Ron Keel where he stated that Yngwie was only in the band for about four months in total before leaving to chase his own career by joining LA hard rockers Alcatrazz who were fronted by former Rainbow front man Graham Bonnet. Rainbow were a huge influence on Yngwie so it doesn’t surprise me that he’d be attracted to the idea of joining Alcatrazz. Yngwie had about two months with Steeler before the recording of the album & Ron says that he struggled to develop much of a relationship with him during that time as Yngwie just wanted to keep to himself & practice continuously.  He clearly had big plans for himself & there were few moments in his day when he didn’t have a guitar in his hand.

So what is the Steeler album actually like then? Well it’s a pretty decent combination of heavy metal & the US commercial hard rock scene around them. Ron is a decent enough front man but Yngwie is the obvious superstar here & he’s the main reason that most people will have heard of Steeler. It’s a shame that his rhythm guitar tracks are too low in the mix but his solos are the definite highlight of the release. He’s already the full package here with all of his trademark techniques being fully entrenched in his kit bag even at this early stage in his recording career. 

I have a fair bit of time for around two thirds of a tracklisting which relies mostly on catchy singalong hooks digging their teeth in rather than aggressive metal riffs getting your head banging. I think bands like Dokken are not a bad point of reference as they worked with a similar framework of memorable poppy choruses & mind-blowing guitar solos. If that sounds like it might appeal to you then don’t let the cheesy hair metal image put you off. There should be enough quality here to keep your interest & the three minute unaccompanied guitar shred intro  to "Hot On Your Heels” is worth the price of admission alone.