When I was nineteen years old and playing the Hammond B-3 organ in a band called the Salvation Navy, we shared the bill with the Yardbirds. A skinny kid walked on stage with his guitar and a violin bow. He went on to blow our minds with his his virtuousity and a vision of what was to come. His name was Jimmy Page and he formed and new band the very next year, Led Zeppelin, with its roots steeped in rhythm and blues, was to become the greatest heavy metal band that rock 'n' roll had ever known.
One particular guitar solo of Page's, from the song "Heartbreaker", impressed me so much that I was inspired to write the fourth movement of this symphony. It was the forceful way he resolved his ideas in the last four measures that left their impression. HEAVY METAL, the second part of a trilogy containing "Symphony #2-REGGAE" and "Symphony #4-FUNK", had its compositional beginnings on January 13, 1987. Work continued periodically until its completion on March 13, 1990.
To attitude, melodrama and pure, pubescent energy!
