U.K.'s HAMMERHEAD Land Record Deal — 20 Years After They Split Up

U.K.'s Times & Star is reporting that West Cumbrian heavy metal band HAMMERHEAD has landed a record contract — more than 20 years after they split up.

HAMMERHEAD, reformed for a friend's 40th birthday, found bootleg copies of their old songs were circulating on the internet.

Members Buzz Elliott, Brian Hodgson, Steve Archer and Tony Steel and David Taylor, had a big following in West Cumbria when they played between 1978 and 1984.

After the birthday party last year, the band found out that a Greek record company had published the recordings on the internet.

With the royalties, the band made a new CD which has been snapped up by a German publisher.

Singer Buzz, who also plays the guitar and piano, said: "We sold about 230 copies of our first CD in about a fortnight.

"Sonic Age Records in Greece made 1,000 copies for release and we got 75 of those back to sell ourselves. We made enough money to get back into the studio and have now been offered a record deal in Germany. I suppose if our tracks hadn't appeared on bootleg albums then we wouldn't be able to sell the CD around the world. It shows the bootleggers to be more clued up than the record companies as to certain niche markets.”

HAMMERHEAD, who played at Workington's Carnegie Theatre in 1984, are now in talks with London promoters about taking part in a heavy metal festival at either the Marquee Club or the Mean Fiddler on May 28.

Buzz added: "We had a very good local following around the late '70s and early '80s within Cumbria, especially our home town of Workington. We're now using any money we can generate to write some more material in the old style. I've wanted to do this for more than 20 years."

The band are hoping to sell copies of their new CD on the Internet and in Workington's Silica Discs music shop on Finkle Street.