So, it varies from week to week. But Richie came down. We met up here, and we got up and played together. And he was having the time of his life, I think. And such a lovely guy, as well. It was good to see him getting the recognition, at last, that he finally deserved.
There were a countless number of musicians and bands around and, of course, you learned to know a lot of them and played with many people in different situations and circumstances? I mean, over the years you get to know so many good musicians. Especially in the London area, there are so many great players here. And I was working with so many really good players. And they provide accommodation and all that kind of stuff. So, you can book for the whole thing, and the guy that runs is a guy called Eddie Yates.
He contacted us and asked me if I would like to do a Priest thing there. I knew enough really good musicians that could carry it off, so, I hired the musicians, got them together, and we started to rehearse the material. That was like going back to the old days, my time with a Priest. I just wanted to do the stuff that people associate with me. And so, we concentrated on four albums. So, he brought in Simon Phillips to play on the album. How well do you know Simon, and what do you think of him as a drummer?
He came from a musical family. And his father was called Sid Phillips, and had his own, sort of; I think it was Dixieland sort of jazz band. He played with the group, and he sent Simon along for drum lessons for this old jazz drummer. So, he got hired to play doing that, and then he got into the session scene.
Les Binks: Yeah, and with countless others. And everyone was still using tape in the studios, you know? And there was a lot more work for session musicians because if you wanted— As far as I remember there were some very basic little analog drum machines. So, if you wanted a real-sounding drum, you had to hire a drummer.
So, around that time, I moved to London around that period. And I met up with a guy called Mo Foster, who is a well-known bass player, and was doing a lot of session work. We formed a band called Fancy, and we had a hit single in America. It got banned here by the BBC. They thought it was too provocative. So, we went and did a tour in America. But getting back to the thing with Simon, we had a girl singer in Fancy called Annie Kavanagh.
So, she knew Simon from working with him. Simon and I were doing session work on the London studio scene around the same time. But he was younger than me. We had to send out to buy some more mics. So, he was getting quite a lot of work. And we both were around that time.
And it was kind of nice. I liked doing that because it gave me an opportunity to work with many different musicians from different genres. And my first professional band was a showband in Ireland.
And you had to be very versatile. You had to play whatever happened to be currently in the pop charts, TOP You had to play a rock and roll medley. You had to play a certain amount of ballads, and whatever people wanted to hear. And we talked about the same topic, Irish show bands. Eric said it was impossible at that time to make a living by playing original songs. You had to perform hit songs from other groups to stay alive, and Thin Lizzy was no exception when it started its career.
Well, you say it was different in London. But despite that, a lot of bands came out of Ireland and made it in the UK and elsewhere. And so, I knew Thin Lizzy from back in those days. And Fancy was the rhythm section for that album, we had Mo Foster on bass and Ray Fenwick on guitar, as well. And of course, we had a lot of guest singers. John Lawton joined us for some of the stuff, as well. And we did a big concert at the Royal Albert Hall to promote the album when it came out.
Judas Priest had only done about two albums on a small record label called Gull Records. They were struggling. And they were on the verge of breaking up because of financial restrictions. And these guys had a management company called Tramp Entertainments Limited.
So, they all went for that. But by that time, they parted company with the drummer that was with them then. So, Roger brought in Simon to play on that album. And I think they asked him if he wanted to join the band at that time.
Of course, they were still a struggling band then. And Simon had a lot of other commitments on the session side. So, he had that lined up, so he had to turn the Priest tour down.
And then Roger mentioned me. So, I was approached. And I went along. And they sent me a pre-release copy of the album to listen to the material. And eventually, to cut a long story short, he asked me to do the tour to promote the album.
And we were just taking it a step at a time, see how we all got on and musically, everything gelled, or whatever.
So, we did a British tour. And I was really impressed with the fans, the metal fans because— although most of them in the UK were male. They would follow you around the country. And that really impressed me, the loyalty and the way they loved the band because up until that point, Judas Priest had only made two previous albums. And then we did America for the first time.
That was the first American tour. So, I kind of knew…. So, you knew what to expect from the US? When Judas Priest finally landed in the US in , what kind of reception did the band get?
Les Binks: It was great. The thing about America is that, in the UK back then, not so much now, but back then, you see, when I grew up, my dad was a carpenter.
And there was no… nobody knew anyone who made a living as a professional musician. I was making more money doing that than I was in my previous occupation. They never really accepted it. But in America, they were more welcoming of musicians. They had accepted you as a legitimate, and that was a more legitimate way to make a living. And consequently , a lot of the big venues there were really professionally geared up. I mean America was the start of stadium rock.
And so, they had mass venues that would hold seventy thousand people, hundred thousand people. But I think that in America, they always had high respect for the UK bands. And of course, Led Zeppelin was huge in America. And we were lucky enough on that very first tour to open up for Led Zeppelin at Oakland Coliseum. But yeah. We opened up for Led Zeppelin at Oakland Coliseum. And I think there were odd thousand people there.
So, we were getting a lot of exposure for the first time in America. And it was before MTV and all these other things that came out. So, in order to make it in America, which was the major market, you had to get on FM radio play. All these commercial radio stations played rock stuff.
But when we got to San Antonio, we had reversed the billing because we got a lot of airplay in San Antonio, and we just built a big fan base there. So, you never know how these things work out. But that was what went on. So, you can be really big in one state and totally unknown in another.
So, it takes a long time to crack America as an entire country. He had a very young little boy. And he had some sort of horrible accident or something, and he died. So, they canceled the rest of the tour, and that was one of the last gigs on that particular tour.
So, we were constantly touring. We did a lot of stuff with a band called Foghat. A lot of these bands. But the first tour was really successful, and we came back to the UK. And of course, the next thing on the course was another album. So, this was the first album that I was asked to contribute to and play on.
I had to quite often travel up to Birmingham, stay in a hotel, and rehearse with the band at various rehearsal places up there. And there was a little recording studio there. It was only little, so what we call a demo studio. It was run by some local guys. And I know they had sort of basic recording equipment in there.
Click to expand Thanks, mate. I love those old Judas Priest records too, they were so original and unique!!! Ian Williams said:. Money disputes I swear I read somewhere he left over money disputes. Given what Scott Travis does with the band, I can't believe they thought Binks was too technical for them, but then again given who they got to replace him, I guess it is possible.
Yeah, listened to him on Unleashed in the East when I'd just started playing as a kid. The double-bass drum work for its time sounded out of this world Nioce tom fills too I remember. ChrisCirino Senior Member. I wore out "Unleashed in the East" trying to copy his licks when I was a teenager.
My current band plays several of Priest's Binks era tunes and I always try to remain faithful to his interpretation. I guess If they fired him to go in a new direction ala Dave Holland, they certainly suceeded.
I loved Priest in the 80s but I could never stomach Holland's lack-luster playing and atrocious drum sound. Sidenote: I looked up Dave Holland on the internet to see what he's been doing lately and was suprised to find that he is currently in prison for attempted rape and indecent assault of a teenage boy. Presumably they should add terrible drumming to his list of offeneses. And no this is not a joke. You will enjoy them! Very true. I read that article and another, regarding Dave Holland attempted rape to a teenage boy when He was teaching him the boy drumming classes for a sort of time.
An strongly reason for me, not to create a - thread - about Dave Holland. Back to Les Binks. He is a drummer with an extraordinary determination to play. Binks toured with Lionheart and Tytan — soon after their first single release. Through his connection to Roger Glover who had just wrapped up production of their Sin After Sin album, Binks joined the up-and-coming heavy metal act Judas Priest in March for their world tour — their first on American soil.
Binks remained with the band for two and a half years, until July , recording the studio albums Stained Class and Killing Machine and the live album Unleashed in the East. Binks made a home demo of the track with friend Steve Mann of the Michael Schenker Group helping on guitar, and at a band rehearsal he picked up a guitar to show them the song. The band loved the song and vocalist Rob Halford then crafted the song's lyrics and title.
The album project began as a soundtrack for an animated film based on a well-known English children's book, but a promo for the film never gained any interest, so the project was scrapped. Glover went on to release the soundtrack as a "Roger Glover and Friends" title. One of the featured vocalists, Eddie Hardin, later released his own albums, the first of which was 's Eddie Hardin's Wizard's Convention, which again included Binks on drums. Binks played for the band Fancy who had two U. James Leslie Binks born April 5, in Portadown, Northern Ireland , is an Irish heavy metal drummer, who is most notable for having been the drummer for Judas Priest from to Les Binks.
Les Binks height - How tall is Les Binks? Bruce Arena. Bao Xishun. Reggie Jones.
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