Tygers Of Pan Tang

An interview with Tygers Of Pan Tang main-man Robb Weir.

By Paul Davies.

As major players in the vanguard of the NWOBHM, the Tygers Of Pan Tang are celebrating their 45th anniversary. If the gregarious, and Tygers mainstay, Robb Weir was told back in 1978 that this ever-changing band would achieve this major milestone, there’s no doubt that he would have roared with laughter. Instead, he’s purring with delight at the prospect of helming the Tygers with a new studio album about to be released and tour dates down in the diary. One of which is on the bill at our very own HRH Spring Festival for which the band are sharpening their musical claws as Robb explains: "We've played HRH two or three times and we're always treated fantastically, and the staff are brilliant. It's really well run. We've played it in the Ibiza as well and, without a shadow of a doubt, it's going to be absolutely great." With a new album of ten original songs to be released in May, Robb reveals what the durable Tygers fans can expect to hear live: "Hard Rock Hell will be the very last time we're playing this current set, which has been running for just under a year.” Robb further details the upcoming live setlist changes: "It's going to be a major change,” he declares, “probably one of the bigger ones that we've ever done. Seven songs out and seven songs in and that will start after the Hard Rock Hell show, when we will have two full days rehearsing the new set. There's quite a few shows this year, and we have to start to introduce the new songs with the new album coming out." There is a tremendous amount of positive goodwill for the Tygers Of Pan Tang, and this was in evidence as the rock fraternity loudly hailed their recent single release Edge Of The World. With its heavy melodic rock sound, and the Tygers' trademark guitar harmonies and knuckle busting riff whetting the hard rock palate for what can be expected on their upcoming Bloodlines album, Robb reveals his thoughts on this new music: "We've always had a pretty good guitar sound, but the new album has outdone everything people were saying about the last album, Ritual, it's going to be hard to top that but I seriously believe that we have."

Robb likens the Tygers Of Pan Tang discography to that of building a stairway! Insomuch as every new album and EP - such as last year’s A New Heartbeat four song (two new, two re-recorded classics) release - is a step up from the previous and builds upon the TOPT's remarkable legacy. With the recording process being executed remotely by each band
member, it was left to the production genius of metal maestro Tue Madsen (Meshuggah) to piece together the multiple stems of music delivered by each band member. During our zoom conversation, hilariously punctuated by his pet parrot mimicking a car alarm, it's patently clear the high regard Robb Weir has for the remarkable results Madsen has produced: "He's been producing for a long time and has a fantastic studio; very state of the art in Denmark. He has done work for more extreme bands than the Tygers and he was recommended to us by our record company, Mighty Music, because they're Danish as well," remarks Robb in his unmistakeable North East accent as he continues: "I think it was probably a little bit of a challenge for him, because he would normally do something a bit more extreme. So, I called him up to establish a line of communication and he's a lovely fellow, such a gentleman. He's invited me over to his house in which he lives on the edge of a forest, which he also owns. Apparently, when you walk through the forest, you come out at a beach and that's his beach as well. I can't wait to go.” It seems like a hard rock fairy tale of musical magic that Madsen has weaved across these new tracks as a spellbound Weir tells me: “What he did was take our clean guitar tracks, and he played them through his stack of amplifiers and got a guitar sound that he liked. And he's mixed the two sounds together. So, it's an absolute wall of guitars."

Robb is enthusiastically proud of the overall results as he opens up on the sequencing process: "A New Heartbeat - from their '22 EP - is on the album. But the album for the UK and the European market has ten tracks on it. For Japan, and The States, it has eleven tracks. We recorded twelve tracks for the album. So, there's another track and all of them were fighting to stay on the record. I have, in years gone by, gone out and bought an album by a great band, come home, put it on, played it and there's about three great tracks on the album and the rest are kind of OK.” Weir steps up this comparison with his thoughts on Bloodlines: "But the difference with our own and, of course, I'm going to say this, but I truly believe it, if you asked me to pick and play my favourite track, honestly, I couldn't, as every track stands up! It really, really does. I'm just so proud of it. We've had some amazing feedback from the first single, Edge Of The World, which is the opening track of the new album" It could rightly be said that this settled Tygers line up is on the edge of something even bigger in their rollercoaster career. However, with a well-earned legend, what’s the state of relations with the many previous band members? Robb beams from ear to ear when I mention John Sykes: "John and I speak to each other about four times a year via email. He's a lovely, lovely man. But, by god I've tried to coax him to release product. I’ve put him in touch with our record company, to get his album out that he's got and hasn't been released. Unless I got on a plane went across there and shook him... John and I used to room together when we were touring. We were quite good buddies and got up to all sorts of naughty and bad things, but we will not go there...,” chuckles a wistful Robb Weir who is relishing the prospect of going out and playing shows with a, possibly, recent career best album to unleash. Now, that's a Tyger feat to roar about.

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