Easy Livin'
Feel Me, Touch Me (Do Anything You Want)
All I Need Is Your Love
Another Day
Heft!
We Become One
Give It All You Got
Say What You Will
You Got Me Runnin'
Give It Some Action
Far Far from Home
For some reason, Fastway never really caught UK punters’ collective imaginations. Was it because ex-UFO bassist and party animal Pete Way (a founder member) upped sticks and quit to play with Ozzy Osbourne before this debut was made? Or that some believed guitarist 'Fast' Eddie Clarke had committed a cardinal sin by walking away from Lemmy and Motörhead?
It’s more likely the latter, but Fastway were also viewed with suspicion for a “crime” no greater – in retrospect – than being ahead of the game in daring to create a classic rock amalgam built on the heritage of Led Zeppelin (an easy reference due to the Plant-style brilliance of then unknown Irishman Dave King on vocals), ZZ Top (Eddie couldn’t resist rewriting the Tush riff for Say What You Will) and Humble Pie (whose drummer Jerry Shirley was persuaded out of French-polishing retirement to pick up his sticks once more). All this and the legendary former Zep/Hendrix engineer/producer Eddie Kramer at the boards…
They were certainly never this good again. At the time, Clarke was proud to describe the record as “fierce”, and Easy Livin’, Feel Me Touch Me and Heft! back that claim to the hilt. Kramer perfectly combines Eddie’s in-your-face guitar, King’s high-register vocals and Shirley’s gut-rumbling drumming. Okay, a couple of the songs are so-so, but even today, there is no denying the power of this record.
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in April 1983
- Havana Moon - Carlos Santana
- Faster Than the Speed of Night - Bonnie Tyler
- Let's Dance - David Bowie
- Sirens – Savatage
- Murmur - R.E.M.
- Rock For Light - Bad Brains
- Headhunter - Krokus
- Whammy! - The B-52s
- Hootenanny - The Replacements
- Midnight At The Lost And Found - Meat Loaf
- You Can't Stop Rock 'N' Roll - Twisted Sister
- In Outer Space - Sparks
- Information - Dave Edmunds
- Living In Oz - Rick Springfield
- Michael Bolton - Michael Bolton
- Out Of Step - Minor Threat
- Steve Miller Band Live! - Steve Miller Band
What they said...
"Feel Me, Touch Me (Do Anything You Want), Heft!, and We Become One are good, but the sputtering Say What You Will and the dramatically bombastic bonus track Far Far From Home rank with Easy Livin' (not a Uriah Heep cover, by the way) as the best songs on Fastway. It's interesting to note that, although Fastway's influences are obvious, the band generally avoided the venomous critical barbs and comparisons suffered by Kingdom Come five years later." (AllMusic)
"It is undeniable that several songs on this album bear a strong Led Zeppelin influence. The hard boogie shuffle of Easy Livin’ is quite reminiscent of Rock & Roll in its structure and key choices. The chorus for All I Need Is Your Love is unnervingly similar to Out On The Tiles, as well as the way Plant-like way that King phrases a few lines. Yet another example would be the drum sound during the beginning of Heft, which evokes When The Levee Breaks. (SputnikMusic)
"The biggest problem with the whole album is that it sounds like a poor Led Zeppelin tribute band recording their own songs. Clarke is exposed as a second division guitarist, at best, without the power of the Motorhead sound, but he must surely be given credit for not forming a clone of Lemmy’s crew and having a go at something a little more palatable." (Martin Leedham)
What you said...
Nigel Mawdsley: It's taken me 42 years to listen to this album! I was, foolishly, put off by the mediocre reviews I read from the rock press on release! I shouldn't have believed what I read.
This is a great album, with crisp production and superb musicianship, and Eddie Clarke's guitar playing is stunning. Yes, I was expecting Motörhead-style rifferama, which it isn't. (Nothing wrong with Eddie's Motörhead stuff, by the way, but what an amazing, versatile guitarist.)
A Led Zeppelin influence is there, but to be honest, I prefer this album to a lot of Zep long players. The album also seems to have some UFO influences, too. The only criticism I have is the last song on the album, which is a lumbering blues-rock number, Far Far From Home. It's not bad, but I'd have preferred it earlier in the tracklisting. (Why do a lot of driving rock albums finish with a slow song or ballad to 'kill the mood'?)
Despite my one criticism, this is an excellent rock album that I will be visiting again. Shame it took me so long to hear it!
Bill Griffin: I remember liking this when I first heard it as a teen. It is considerably less impressive today. There is a lot of sameness to it, especially the vocals. It got old quickly as I listened. I would not recommend this to anyone.
Brian Carr: Fastway’s debut album is one of the records that has been in my collection the longest. I don’t know if it was a gift or which of us bought it, but it is one that stayed with me rather than ending up with one of my siblings. It still has the store shrink wrap on it and the KMart sticker. Which makes for a fine story, but the reality is that I have limited stereo time, so when I do play vinyl, it’s often my newest purchases rather than long-owned classics. So I really have no idea how long it has been since I last listened to Fastway’s spectacular debut.
Big thanks to the Club for once again righting a wrong. I always liked Dave King’s voice quite a bit, but what really caught me by surprise this week was how much I dig the guitar playing from 'Fast' Eddie Clarke. His leads are impressive throughout and his riffs are absolutely killer. The perfect example is Say What You Will: I don’t know if I ever realised it’s a straightforward boogie rhythm, which often leaves me uninterested, but that riff coupled with King ripping it out makes for a stone cold classic.
Another Day is even better, with its beautiful intro followed by an excellent driving rocker - my favourite track from the album. An additional surprise came in listening to the vinyl and streaming it this week - the Led Zeppelin-influenced Far Far From Home caps off the album on Apple Music, but isn’t on my vinyl.
So what did we learn this week? Listen to Fastway more often, and not only the Trick Or Treat soundtrack. I knew their first album was good, but repeated listens this week make me want to check out the records I never dove into.
Gary Claydon: I mean, what could possibly go wrong? A couple of disillusioned ex-members of genuine A-list bands, known as much for their excesses as their successes, getting together to form a super-group of sorts?
Initially, all seems to have gone swimmingly and when word started to circulate of the collaboration, there was a deal of curiosity about it. Early band jams involved Topper Headon on drums (fittingly in a pub to start with). The ex-Clash man was dealing with his own demon's at the time and probably reasoned that being in a band with 'Fast' Eddie Clarke who, by his own admission, was hitting the booze pretty hard at the time and Pete Way who would admit to hitting just about anything pretty hard all the time, probably wasn't the right thing for him and jumped ship very early.
Renowned tub-thumper Jerry Shirley was recruited through connections of Way's - quite a couple for the fledgling band. The search for a vocalist proved trickier, however. After auditioning a number of candidates, it was a demo tape by an unknown Dubliner that caught the band's attention. Thus, Dave King became the vocalist of the project which now also had a name - Fastway.
Work then started in earnest on writing material and producing demos to tout round the record companies. Then Pete Way simply failed to turn up. No explanation, no contact from the bassist, just gone. There were contractual problems, with Fastway signing to CBS and Way still having ties to UFO's label, Chrysalis and Way was being courted by Sharon Osbourne with a view to joining Ozzy's band, but still, Clarke was left mystified and never seems to have been given a proper explanation by his, now former, bandmate.
Undeterred, Fastway took to the studio with session man Mickey Feat on bass duty (uncredited on the album). What they came up wasn't exactly groundbreaking, but it was a 10 track set of solid, enjoyable hard rock.
With tunes such as Say What You Will, with its insistent riff, Easy Livin' and Feel Me, Touch Me (Do Anything You Want), the band pretty much hit the ground running. A great deal has been made about the obvious Led Zeppelin influence, particularly due to King's Plant-like delivery. There's no denying it's there and is added to by the work of the excellent Shirley, an old school drummer, out of a similar mould to one John Henry Bonham. Shirley hit the skins similarly hard and is a highlight of this
album. As for Clarke, well, he was always a blues man at heart and a better player than he was often given credit for. Here he leans towards a more blues-rock style, underpinning everything with a sureness of touch, revelling in the chance to display more expansive riffing and soloing than he'd become used to in his previous job. Eddie Kramer does a fine job in the producer's chair.
So, yeah, Fastway. The band's successes would be modest ones and their output would decline sharply, but the debut remains a classy hard rock romp.
Adam Ranger: A great slice of 80s English hard rock. Great riffs and playing all through (not surprising, really!). Every track is different enough to keep your interest.
Four standout tracks for me. Another Day starts like a quiet ballad and, just when you are set for a quieter song, the riff kicks in. Heft! Has a great, almost forbidding riff. We Become One has a Dio-type feel, and I'm good with that. And the Closer Far from Home has that blues rock Zeppelin feeling, and again, I'm good with that.
Really good to hear this album again. A real shame that Eddie didn't go on to greater acclaim with Fastway. Can't help but feel he lost his way a bit later down the line. But this album rocks and is a fantastic bit of English hard rock history
Martin Cross: I heard of Fastway back in the 80s but hadn't listened to this album until it came up on the forum.
It's a good album with no real standout tracks to take the shine off the rest. With Eddie involved I expected it to sound a bit like Motörhead but it doesn't. It's not up to some of the stuff that came before it (late 70's early 80's). 6/10.
Evan Sanders: Based on the comments, I was looking forward to a relatively undiscovered classic from the early 80s. Maybe it's me, but I found the Fastway debut to be closer to an elevated version of hair band rock, which is not the best compliment. The hit Say What You Will and some other songs work fine as bar band numbers, yet there is not enough memorable music here to make me want to dig deeper into their catalogue. It gets points for being listenable rock, but doesn't rise to the level of classic. 6/10.
Philip Qvist: Maybe I'm reviewing this album from a different perspective, but to call an album underrated would suggest that it has something special going for it, but for whatever reason has slipped totally under the radar.
And that's my problem with Fastway's self-titled debut; it is good for sure but it didn't exactly give me that special vibe. Fast Eddie Clarke was a fine guitarist, while drummer Jerry Shirley's contribution to rock music is pretty well known. My issue is with singer Dave King, who tried his best to sound like Robert Plant, but did not quite achieve that goal. The result is an album with 11 songs that started to sound the same, when a bit of variety was needed.
As I said at the start, it's a good enough album, and songs such as Another Day and Far Far From Home reinforce that view, but Fastway hardly fits in the special category. Scoring a 6 might be a bit harsh, so I will probably go for a 7 this week.
John Davidson: No frills, hard rock/metal with just about enough charm to pass muster. The faux American vocals made me think this was pitched as much towards the US market as the UK, but musically this is NWOBHM even if it's five years after that was a thing.
The vocals sound somewhere between Vince Neil and Paul Dianno - which is strange for an Irish fella but it kind of works. Musically, there's a strong dose of Zep-style heavy blues, alongside an early Leppard feel, but 'Fast' Eddie solos like a metalhead so it never falls into pastiche.
I didn't buy this on release (poor student that I was) because I read that Pete Way had already left the project before recording even started, but I feel now like I missed out. Another Day sounds very much like a rocked-up UFO song - so maybe he left behind some ideas.
Maybe they were the wrong band at the wrong time to make it big, but there is plenty to admire here - even if Give it All You Got sounds like an early Mötley Crüe song.
Not a lost classic but a solid slice of late 70s rock (albeit released in 1983!). I'll listen through some more, but it's likely to be 7 or an 8 for me.
Mike Canoe: I've heard 80s hard rock compilation mainstay Say What You Will a million times and love it, and I've heard the Zeptastic Far Far From Home (mere dozens of times) and love it, but somehow I never got around to listening to this full album. I'm happy to report that the whole album hits that sweet spot right between hard rock and heavy metal.
While I realise that Fastway was 'Fast' Eddie Clarke's band, singer Dave King is the real revelation here, a rough and ready rock'n'roll voice that could (bullet) belt out songs with both power and grace. Credit also due to the propulsive timekeeping of Jerry Shirley. I won't pretend to be sophisticated enough to recognise Clarke's tone or style, but the guitars sound great and give these songs the oomph they need. Hard to pick a favourite at this point. I just let it play.
Stateside, Fastway were known primarily as a one-hit wonder who later hitched their wagon to the wrong rock'n'roll movie, soundtracking the film Trick Or Treat, primarily known for Ozzy's acting debut and being so bad it's really bad. Reading up on Fastway this week, they seem to be one of those "two steps forward, three steps back" kind of bands. Which is a shame, because if they were this good right out the gate, who's to know how far they could have gone with a few tune-ups and a little more promotional muscle?
Greg Schwepe: It’s the summer of 1983 and I’m at my summer job during college, most likely painting some structure and having to deal with the daily game of Find And Scrub Off The Paint Splotches every day when I shower after my day at work. But the bright side to all of this is having the FM rock station on our portable radio all day and getting to listen to great music. And also become familiar with any new bands that might get onto the stations’s playlist. And lo and behold, one of those new bands was Fastway.
The most I knew about the band, according to the scant facts provided by the DJ during the intro, was that “this is a new band, Fastway, led by guitarist 'Fast' Eddie Clarke, formerly of Motörhead.” And that was it.
I also found out that once something gets in the rotation, radio stations play the crap out of it. Which is why I took a liking to Say What You Will, because I heard it easily 3-4 times a day for part of that summer. Which was fine because I liked that song and it got cranked every time I heard it.
In a nutshell, Fastway is your basic balls-to-the-wall 80s hard rock. While I never bought their debut back in the day, I did check it out a while back when streaming made it possible to listen to everything in the world I could never afford to buy when that was how you had to do it. And I found that had I bought that vinyl back then, it would’ve been a nice collection of rocking songs.
You’ve got the guitar of 'Fast' Eddie leading the charge. The slightly Plant-ish vocals of Dave King. And the drumming of Jerry Shirley, who really makes his presence known here, to tell the truth. Back then, I certainly knew about Peter Frampton, but had not yet ventured back far enough into his former band Humble Pie, where Shirley kept the backbeat. And keeps that up in his new role in Fastway.
I always say, come out firing on all cylinders to grab their attention…and Easy Livin’ does just that. And why slow down? Feel Me, Touch Me (Do Anything You Want) follows and keeps the vibe. All I Need Is Your Love and Heft! both give off Zeppelin-ish vibes. And again, Jerry Shirley’s drumming is there front and centre.
While Say What You Will was my introduction to the band, it may be that song and You Got Me Runnin’ that are neck and neck for my favourite tracks on this album.
Overall, a nice debut by a band with a few veterans from successful previous bands. After checking this out I headed to the follow-up All Fired Up for more of the same. 8 out of 10 for me on this one.
Mark Herrington: Fastway is a great, hard-rocking debut, with ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke (Motörhead)on lead, Dave King on vocals, Jerry Shirley (Humble Pie) on drums, and bass uncredited but apparently by Mick Feat, with Pete Way (UFO) having departed.
The 1983 original vinyl album finished at track 10 - so consider any others a subsequent bonus. I missed this the first time around, and only discovered it a few years ago, when listening to hidden gem rock lists. It certainly stood out and took me by surprise with its quality.
It is an LP I like and return to, because it has a good variety of good-time, catchy, hard rock songs with great guitar and vocals. Highlights for me are Easy Livin’, Feel Me, Heft and Say What You Will. I can hear a bit of Zeppelin, the odd echo of a Motörhead riff, but there is an overall consistency to the whole album. A good score from me.
Jim McElhattan: Great album and band. Very underrated. Used to listen to them all the time.
John Edgar: I bought this album in April 83. I played the heck out of it. The production presents a great 'wall of sound' feel. Great car (or truck) music. I still spin it a couple of times a year.
Final score: 7.51 (55 votes cast, total score 413)
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