Stories Behind Manowar Songs

Wheels Of Fire
All 4 of them LOVE drive car really fast.
They were actually pulled over by the local police while recording this song.

Heart Of Steel
People close to Joey often ask him if he really does have a steel heart.
This was a reply.

The Crown And The Ring (Lament of The Kings )
This is the band's favorite song on Kings of Metal . Was recorded for a HUGE sum of money (which made Atlantic mad) in Birmingham's St. Paul Cathedral with a professional church choir. They were all dressed up, while the band had their traditional jeans and/or loin clothes on only.
Joey always said that classical/church music is very heavy...

Warrior's Prayer
Joey decided to retell this story in the manner his grandfather told it to him when he was a kid...

Blood Of The Kings
About fans of Manowar (in Europe) and their letters, which sometimes gave material for the songs, these letters are the Blood of the Kings...

Achilles
Achilles appeared on Homer's Iliad,where it says about the Trojan War.
The song was also dedicated to Deena Weinstein (for her book "Heavy Metal", where she wrote exceptionally favorable about Manowar), and who was Joey's close friend for a number of years.

Hail To England
From Sir Thomas Melory's narration about King Arthur.

Thor
The song Thor is about the Norwegian god of thunder thor. Manowar have always been influenced by the Norwegian mythology.

"Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy In Eight Parts"
..." Every section has its meaning: When you read the story, then you will understand that the drumsolo for example, symbolized the assembling of a new army - the hammering of the drums is like the hammering on an anvil... The bassolo stands for the desacration of Hector, how its ankles were stabed and how he was chained at the chariot. Of course the listener need some time to see through everything. We don`t make easy music for stupid people!"

"Metal Warriors(Brothers of Metal Part 1)"
"That is a song about our audience; about the brothers and sisters of Metal - them MANOWAR-Fans! Because it were the HEAVY METAL- fans who took MANOWAR out of the little clubs and they made it possible that we play now in big halls! Our audience made us to the "KINGS OF METAL". They are our `Metal Warriors`! So: whimps and posers leave the hall!"

"Ride the dragon"
" There`s a fantasy-background : We live in a world full of trouble and we want to escape from this trouble as far as possible - look at the trouble in Eastern Germany, or in New York, the Riots in L.A...
And so everyone wants to go into his fantasyworld. The dragon is one of these fantasies: You ride on him through the air, you let all trouble behind you and you feel in yourself a great magic power !..."

"Burning"
" The meaning of this song is that everyone of us has his own problems which he must dissolve in any way. And every human has his faith. Some believe in heaven, others in hell. We should let everyone his belief, I believe for example that we have got down on our world enough trouble, so we have the hell on earth. When we will die - at the end of the rainbow- ,then there must be everything better in the sky! "

"Power Of Thy Sword"
" A track about the band : If we are on stage, we don`t play, we fight with the power of our swords - The guitars are our swords; the strings were made of steel... But the song says likewise that you can`t understand MANOWAR only by listening at the albums : You must combine everything : Artwork, lyrics, music and our show ... You must see the band - see how the group is fighting with their swords on stage!
Then you will see for what the band stands!"

"Demon`s Whip"
" Dave and Rhino like very much to look at horror-films, 24 hours a day- later, the two should open a video-tape library ... And "Demon`s Whip" is a fantasy-theme of one of these horrorfilms... We have written this song originally for the soundtrack of the film HELL RAISER , but it was for the film people - you properly know- "too heavy", hahahaha..."

"Master Of The Wind"
" That is for us a very special track! We got this letter from a MANOWAR-Fan.He was lying in hospital, had a very bad desease , and it was his dream to meet MANOWAR before his near death. Of course we thought that this letter was Bullshit - you understand? That is why we contacted the boy`s parents and
everything was true. Then we went to hospital and meet him - and that was a real sad thing that we were so helpless and that a so young human being has only some weaks to live! At this time we worked out Master of the wind. With the help of a cassette recorder we let him listen to the track. For the boy the song was very great and he wished for himself that every MANOWAR Fan could hear "Master of the wind". We changed it a little bit - and now it is reality that all MANOWAR-Fans could listen to this piece of music. The Message is a appropriate one for this sad event: It will come better days again and if this young boy can`t see these days in life on earth, then perhaps on any other place - maybe beyond the rainbow..."

All Men Play On Ten
As we all know, Manowar is the loudest band on earth. And in 1984, the level 10 was the highest level on music machines. So Manowar wrote this song to tell that all men have to play on the loudest level. But there was an answer. A company created a new machine which has 11 levels in 1985. This is a beautiful song. The band often took a guest-guitarist on their concert for this song from the crowd.

Guyana (Cult Of The Damned)
It deals with an religion group. Their guide was called "Reverend Jim".
He ordered all his people to kill themselves (childrens, too, that's why there are these "mother"-screams at the end of the song). At a concert in Switzerland after Lady Di's death, all the crowd sang together with Eric. But instead of "Guyana", they sang "Diana".