With the news that Grand Slam are back with new long-player Wheel Of Fortune set for release on 7 June 2024, the band have said they will also re-release their debut album Hit The Ground, having given it a makeover.
“I stopped playing for a while and started a film career,” Laurence Archer told us. “In 2018, I was working on a location in Guadalupe, and I made the decision to record the Grand Slam songs properly. Essentially, what has been out there has not really been representative of what we did back then.”
“Phil [Lynott] and I had done some work-in-progress demos in his backyard studio, and unfortunately, someone stole them and released them.
“So, it’s always been a goal of mine to re-visit those songs and do them properly. I had been thinking about showcasing them fittingly for over 30 years instead of hearing these horrible demos that people put out.”
Mike Dyer has made the vocal job his. Hit The Ground contained a number of old Grand Slam songs, but there were new ones, too. “I went over to Laurence and would sit watching him play something, OCD, five thousand times until it starts moulding like the potter’s wheel in Ghost,” Dyer told MetalTalk in April 2022 after the band show at Islington Assembly Hall.
“The top line is there. Laurence might moan about a few little bits and pieces or find a hooky chorus, and then I have a thing about lyrics. I think Phil was a poet. I want to write words that mean something instead of ‘yeah, baby on the Sunset Strip’ or cruising somewhere in your dad’s car. I’m from Birkenhead, and it’s not as cool as L.A.”
Re-mixed, re-mastered, and featuring new artwork, Hit The Ground – Revised, will be released on 10 May 2924 in digital formats and 7 June 2024 in physical formats.
The new version of Hit The Ground is available to order from here.
The new album, Wheel Of Fortune, will be released on 7 June, with more singles and videos to follow.
“We have a strong bond in our writing and our perception of what we want to do,” says Archer. “So make no mistake, Grand Slam has only just started.”
