Quartz is an English heavy metal band from Birmingham. They came to prominence during the initial rise of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), but their origins can be traced back to the mid-1970s.
The band had strong ties to Black Sabbath, with one of Quartz’s prominent members in the 1970s being Geoff Nicholls (who was a member and off-stage musician with Sabbath between 1979-2004). Tony Iommi was a friend of the Quartz members from their early days playing in bands, and ended up producing their first and self-titled album Quartz in 1977, bringing in friends like Brian May and Ozzy Osbourne to give the project some further star power.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s go back and start at the beginning.
Quartz dates back to 1974, when they saw the light of day under the moniker Bandy Legs.
Prior to the founding of Bandy Legs, Geoff Nicholls played lead guitar for the Birmingham bands The Boll Weevils, The Seed, Johnny Neal and the Starliners, and played keyboards for World of Oz.
Guitarist Mick Hopkins had played in Wages of Sin, a short-lived Birmingham band that toured as a backing band for Cat Stevens in 1970. After that band’s dissolution, he followed his Canadian bandmates Ed and Brian Pilling to Canada to form the band Fludd, but left less than a year later after they were dropped from their original record label.
At that point, Hopkins went back to Birmingham and co-founded Bandy Legs, later known as Quartz, with guitarist/keyboardist Geoff Nicholls, vocalist Mike “Taffy” Taylor, bassist Derek Arnold, and drummer Malcolm Cope.
Bandy Legs became a very popular live band in their wider regional circuit. Their members were already well known to their audiences through their previous bands, and as they were well connected and friends with others in the business, they often supported bands like Black Sabbath and AC/DC. On a tour with AC/DC, Sabbath’s tour manager Albert Chapman agreed to take them under his wing, further positioning them for a wider breakthrough.
They were signed to Jet Records in 1976, and only changed their name to Quartz in time for the release of their 1977 debut album, Quartz.
Most of the band had been close friends with the guys in Sabbath since the sixties, growing up in the same area. Tony Iommi knew them well as early as the 1960s, and they had stayed connected through their recent bouts of supporting Sabbath on tour. In fact, Iommi insisted on producing their album, as he’d become a huge Quartz fan, which the guys were thrilled about.
In an interview with MetalMouth in 2012, guitarist Mick Hopkins said “[Working with Iommi] was great fun, we learned a lot from him.” Geoff Nicholls, who would soon end up working longer with Iommi than just about anyone, added “Working with Tony on our first album was an eye opener as he showed us a lot of technical stuff which helped us with future things we did.”
There were some surprises as well. Malcolm Cope (drums) still sounded shellshocked when he said during the 2012 interview “I couldn’t believe it when he added flute to the track Sugar Rain.”
One song from these album sessions would turn out to provide some inspiration for a later Black Sabbath song. Mainline Riders had a droning, atmospheric build with a steady bass line. When Geoff Nicholls was called in to help out the band during the early sessions for Heaven & Hell in 1979, he found himself playing bass and went back to the Mainline Riders riff. It quickly built from there, turning into the framework for the Heaven And Hell song.
“They already had Children of the Sea [when I arrived],” said Nicholls of those Sabbath sessions. “Geezer wasn’t there by that point so I had to play bass at first to start getting the songs worked up. The very first song we did was Heaven And Hell – not bad for a first go, eh? Tony had a riff which he put over my bass line. I had used a very similar chugging bass line in Quartz for the track Mainline Riders so I just did that. I was just messing about with this bass riff and suddenly everything started to build up from there. It was very, very simple but it really worked.”
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Iommi was (and is) a close friend of Queen’s Brian May, so he invited him to the Quartz sessions. He ended up making a guest appearance on the track Circles. May was keen to do his Queen-style layered guitar editing on the track, so the band left it to him and Iommi to get it done. “We left him in the studio,” Malcolm Cope told MetalMouth, “and returned a few hours later from the pub to find piles of recording tape on the studio floor.”
The layered approach wasn’t as natural a fit as May first thought, and in the end he gave up, agreeing that it sounded better as Quartz was already playing it.
At one point, the song also featured Ozzy Osbourne on backing vocals, but his contribution was cut from the final mix by Iommi. “As I remember,” Mick Hopkins said, “I don’t think Tony really wanted Ozzy on the track.”
In any case, the song did not make it onto the final track selection. “I think Tony thought the song was a bit too commercial for the album,” Geoff Nicholls shrugged. Dropping the song wasn’t a big bone of contention within the band. Mick Hopkins said, “We had used Circles as a b-side when we were still Bandylegs, so it hadn’t occurred to us to use it on the album.”
The track seemed destined to forever remain a b-side, as Quartz used it as a b-side again on the Stoking Up the Fires of Hell single. It finally got an album inclusion as a bonus track when their second album Stand Up & Fight (1980) was reissued on CD in 2004 by Majestic Rock.
In spite of Iommi’s assistance, the band’s busy touring schedule never translated to the level of sales they or their label hoped to achieve. The band would tour with Black Sabbath to support the release, and there wasn’t a lack of other high-profile showcases either, as the band played at the Reading Festival in 1977, 1978, and 1980.
When Sabbath weren’t on the road, Quartz managed to land prestigious supporting slots with other prominent hard rock bands: Iron Maiden, Saxon, UFO, Gillan and Rush. Around this time, Quartz were considered to be at the forefront of the up-and-coming NWOBHM boom.
In 1979, Geoff Nicholls left to join Black Sabbath. Initially he was supposed to help out for a couple of weeks during the early Heaven & Hell sessions, but he ended up working with Black Sabbath for some 27 years, making him the person with the second longest stint in the band after Iommi. He was an associated member, playing keyboards on all albums and tours in that timeframe as well as supporting in the songwriting department (but never getting a credit).
In December 1979, Quartz played a gig with fellow Brummie metallers Cryer at Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham. Quartz recorded their performance and released it as the live album Live Quartz – Count Dracula And Other Love Songs the following year.
The original Quartz line-up lasted for another studio album, releasing the excellent Stand Up and Fight in 1980, produced by Derek Lawrence (known for his work with Deep Purple, Angel, Flash, Wishbone Ash, Legs Diamond, Jethro Tull, and Kim Fowley).
Stability started to be a problem after that album’s UK tour, when vocalist Mike “Taffy” Taylor departed to found Taffy Taylor’s Big Roll Band. This would turn out to be an unfortunate career move for himself as well as Quartz, as everybody’s momentum disappeared. Quartz had fully been expected to be the next break-out band from the NWOBHM movement, but would instead see Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard and others take that role in turns while Quartz started struggling.
During this period, drummer Malcolm Cope also joined the roll call of Quartz members being called up to assist Black Sabbath, albeit on a short-term basis. He would help them out on the pre-production demos for 1983’s Born Again album.
Cope had also been approached by Ozzy Osbourne to join his solo band in 1980, but Malcolm declined, strongly feeling that Quartz was his band, that they were on the verge of something bigger, and they had just signed a deal with MCA to record Stand Up And Fight.
In 1983, Quartz regrouped – or at least they tried. Taylor was replaced with David Garner, who fit in well on all counts. He was involved with the songwriting and initial sessions for the third studio album, but left before the vocals were recorded. He was replaced with Geoff Bate who provides vocals on the album. Bassist Derek Arnold also threw in the towel ahead of the sessions, being replaced by Stephen Mcloughlin.
The new line-up recorded their third album Against All Odds (1983), but things had started to become a hassle. Worst of all, their level of success was dwindling, not improving. They quietly disbanded in 1984.
Quartz may have gone out with a bit of a whimper but had a very good run for many years. For a time, they were a tremendously popular live band in the UK, but they never managed to climb the tiers of popularity beyond a certain point, and they never made much of a splash abroad.
Even so, there would be mixed feelings about their decision to call it a day. In the 2012 MetalMouth interview, Malcolm Cope said “The decision was taken as there had been a lot of line-up changes and too much inconsistency had crept in the band.” Mick Hopkins added, “It’s now a decision that is deeply regretted.”
Perhaps it was the feeling of unfinished business that made the band surprise everyone, potentially even themselves, when they returned in 2011!
The initial intention was to do a one-off charity gig at The Asylym in Birmingham, benefitting the Teenage Cancer Trust. Who talked them into it? Their old pals in Cryer, their fellow Brummie metallers whom they had shared stages with back in the late 1970s.
Cryer had reunited under similar circumstances the year before, performing gigs that are still remembered for stunning vocals from Graham Careless, sparkling guitar solos from Huwey Lucas, and a polystyrene head that would not blow up. They were keen to have Quartz join them as a double headlining act for next year’s charity gig.
Mick Hopkins said, “Our friend and number one fan Tim Perry who has worked so hard for Quartz over the years, kept pushing the idea after Gary Chapman of Cryer got his band back together for a reunion gig and suggested we should consider the idea.” Derek Arnold added, “Gary actually shouted from the stage ‘If we can do this, so can you guys!’”
Once the decision had been made, things came together remarkably quickly. It would nearly be the full classic line-up, just missing original vocalist “Taffy” Taylor, but with David Garner in his place – the vocalist that nearly sang on their third album back in 1983.
The show was very successful and soon led to further shows. Before they knew it, the band was once again the main thing in their lives.
Quartz were glad to be back, erasing some of the residual regret after their demise in 1984. After playing many independent shows and even festivals in 2012 and 2013, new albums would follow. After releasing a compilation of unreleased material with 2015’s Too Hot to Handle, the first real taste of what the new band was like came in 2016 with the hungry and vital Fear No Evil.
The band’s original lead singer, Mike “Taffy” Taylor, died on 27 September 2016. Geoff Nicholls died at the age of 68, from lung cancer, on 28 January 2017. The band would go on.
Lockdown slowed things down for Quartz, but it enabled them to work on new material again and their fifth studio album appeared in 2022. Titled On the Edge of No Tomorrow, it marked the return of Against All Odds singer Geoff Bate to the band, although David Garner as well as Sabbath vocalist Tony Martin also appear. The band pays tribute to Nicholls on this release, which contains several contributions from him. The band show no signs of slowing down, but continues to deliver the type of music they have always done in their usual style of hard-tinged, melodic, effortless fun.
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