Rocky Newton

What do Rocky Newton, Def Leppard, Lionheart, MSG and Grand Slam have in common? Read on to find out!

A couple of weeks ago I heard that a musician from my hometown was recording a video with his band “Grand Slam” close to where I live in Valencia. I’ve heard of the band “Grand Slam” but I felt a little ashamed at not really knowing Rocky Newton. We both come from Grantham and we both went to the Kings Grammar School, he is friends with my cousin, but our paths had never crossed.

I drove down to Biker Bar in Moraira where the band was shooting the video and hung out with Rocky Newton and the rest of the Grand Slam members – Benjy Reid, Laurence Archer and Mike Dyer.

I had just two questions to ask Rocky – three things our hometown is famous for and for him to tell me about his musical career:

Hi, I’m Rocky Newton and three things Grantham (G Town!) are famous for are - Margaret Thatcher, Gingerbread and Isaac Newton – of whom my family are the closest line of descendants. He also went to the Kings school, which both you and I went to!

Well, the first band of note was “Lionheart” – of who I am still a member and we have a new album out now called “The Grace Of A Dragonfly” We formed “Lionheart” in London in 1980 and then we went over to LA to record an album, we toured until around 1985 when the band reached a natural conclusion.

I was then asked to go over to Germany to play with Michael Schenker on some studio albums, for his brother Rudolf from the Scorpions. Michael went on to create the band MSG (McAuley Schenker Group) and asked me to be part of it – which was incredible! We singed to EMI in the UK and Capital in the USA and ended up touring the world and I was involved in the next 3 albums, even getting to write some of the songs myself.

Before all of this I had a band called The Next Band with two other mates from the Kings school – Frank Noon and John Lockton. We ended up moving to Sheffield and befriended a very young Def Leppard. We were there when they auditioned for drummers and on their first record, they borrowed our drummer (Frank Noon) because they were between drummers at the time. This was 1979.  Their career took off at a lot greater pace than ours, but we kept in touch and I got a call from the lead singer (Joe Elliot) and he asked me to go down to London to record some backing vocals for “Rock Of Ages”

Fast forward a few years and we were all at Frank Noon’s wedding and Joe asked me again to do backing vocals – in fact I ended up doing the backing vocals on the entire “Hysteria” album and spent 3 months flying backwards and forwards to the studio in Dublin. Singing all the high harmonies on those huge Def Leppard tracks became a bit of trademark for me!

I moved to LA in 1988 and lived there until 1993, when I moved back to the family farm in Grantham.   I played with “Sweet” in the 90’s, which was a fantastic band to play with – then I didn’t play for about ten years.

I got married, I was bringing up my son and out of the blue I got a call asking if I wanted to reform “Lionheart” and also be part of another band called “Air Race” - who were another band from the early 80’s

Then I got the call from Laurence Archer from “Grand Slam” asking if I would be interested in being bass player for them. Grand Slam was originally formed in 1984 after the breakup of “Thin Lizzy” and originally members were Phil Lynott, Brian Downey and John Sykes - all ex- “Thin Lizzy” members. John Sykes left in to join “Whitesnake” and was replaced by Laurence Archer from “UFO”.

I’ve known Laurence for years and used to play with him in a band called “X-UFO” - which was for a bit of fun more than anything!

So here we are now in 2024 Lionheart is still going strong, Gland Slam are celebrating 40 years and have a new album out on June 7th, festivals lined up and a healthy tour diary booked in!

I’ve played with a lot of people over the years and never thought I would be still doing it as this age, I can honestly say it’s been a lot of fun and I am looking forward to he future!

Thank you to Grand Slam for taking time out of shooting to hang out with me for interviews, the staff at American Bike Rental & Bar, Moraira and members of the Saturdarah MC Costa Blanca for letting me use their bikes in the photoshoot.

Words and photos: Rhyan Paul