Silverhead-Silverhead (1972)

Silverhead are another of those forgotten but great British bands of the 70s. Rooted in glam rock, they were formed in early 1972 and fronted by singer Michael Des Barres, while Robbie Blunt (guitar), Rod "Rook" Davies (guitar, percussion, vocals), Nigel Harrison (bass), and Pete Thompson (drums, percussion, keyboards, vocals) completed this superb lineup. Around the middle of that same year, the newly formed Purple Records label signed them, making them the first band after Deep Purple to record on their label. This debut album was produced by the renowned Martin Birch, a frequent engineer on hard rock and heavy metal bands like Deep Purple. Silverhead's debut is an appealing mix of hard rock, glam rock, and even elements of proto-punk. Brilliant tracks like “Ace Supreme”, “Sold Me Down The River”, “Rock 'n' Roll Band”, “Rollin' With My Baby”, and “In Your Eyes” deserved better, going largely unnoticed and unfairly overlooked by the public of the time, who were more interested in cutting-edge glam rock bands like T. Rex, Slade, Gary Glitter, Sweet, or David Bowie's The Spiders from Mars, amidst the effervescent glam rock craze of those years. After a more predictable second album titled “16 and Savage” (1973), the band embarked on several tours with some success in the UK, supporting groups like Nazareth and Osibisa, and for a time they were the main attraction at Dagenham Roundhouse, one of London's most important clubs. A third studio album, tentatively titled 'Brutiful', began to take shape in early 1974, but the group would end up disappearing before its completion in July of that same year.