Brian Tatler

Brian Tatler
Tatler live at The Twist, Colchester in 2008
Background information
Origin	Stourbridge, Midlands, United Kingdom
Genres	Heavy metal, hard rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar
Years active	1976–present
Labels	Happy Face, MCA, Castle, Metal Mind Productions, Geffen
Associated acts	Diamond Head, Quill, Radio Moscow
Website	[1]
Notable instruments
Gibson Flying V Gibson Les Paul

Brian Tatler is an English musician, best known as the guitarist and co-founder of the Stourbridge based heavy metal band Diamond Head.

Originally trained as a mechanic, Tatler is most famous for his first band, Diamond Head. Tatler founded the band along with schoolmate Duncan Scott, playing on a cheap fuzz guitar and Scott on some biscuit tins. They later enrolled the help of Sean Harris and Colin Kimberley on vocals and bass guitar respectively.

The band recorded and released self-financed demo tapes in 1977 and 1979. Although only recorded within six hours on a four-track, they gained enough attention to tour as support with AC/DC and Iron Maiden. Although many record companies fought to sign the band, none were willing to commit fully. The band grew impatient and decided that they would release their material through their own label Happy Face Records. The band released their debut album on this label most commonly known as Lightning to the Nations, although it has never officially had a title. This album came in a plain sleeve with no title, having on it only a signature of one of the band members and no track listings. Amongst the stand out features of this album were the epic riffs created by Tatler, which prompted Sounds magazine to claim that "one Diamond Head song contains more Chords than an entire Black Sabbath album".

Tatler has cited early influences to be bands such as Scorpions, UFO, and Rainbow. Tatler has stated that some of the first albums he bought were Led Zeppelin's second album and Deep Purple's Machine Head, and that his favourite album is Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, as it contains his favourite song "Kashmir". He has said that although most of his guitar work was inspired by Ritchie Blackmore, it was the punk rock movement that showed him that anyone could form a band. Nowadays, Tatler tries not to be influenced by more modern bands to keep his traditional sound, although he imagines that "little bits creep into the writing process".Black Sabbath was also a big influence on Tatler. Am I Evil? the band's best known and most influential song was directly inspired by the Sabbath song Symptom of the Universe.