Spear of Destiny plug new album in live Derbyshire gig

Ahead of their 40th anniversary next year, the band visit The Hairy Dog, Derby, on Saturday, December 3, during a major tour of the country.

Spear of Destiny, fronted by co-founder Kirk Brandon, features the longest serving line-up to date, including Adrian Portas (New Model Army/Sex Gang Children), Craig Adams (Sisters of Mercy/The Cult/The Mission) and Phil Martini (Jim Jones and the Righteous Mind), as well as Clive Osborne on saxophone and Steve Allen-Jones on keys.

Fans will be treated to choice cuts from the band’s latest release, Ghost Population, which hit the market just a few days ago.

Singer-songwriter Kirk said: “The album title came about because of a piece I read online where scientists were researching the available DNA samples from human history — Denisovans, Neanderthals etc. It became clear to them from fragments in the DNA that there was another race back then. They haven’t found out who these people were as yet, but they nicknamed them a ‘Ghost Population’.

“I applied this in my non-scientific way, and thought of how social engineering has marginalised so much of society, not acknowledging the disenfranchised and writing them out of existence. When someone is no longer talked about, eventually they no longer exist.”

With some tracks written during lockdown, and others penned as far back as 1986, Ghost Population is a journey through the evolution of society as much as it is the evolution of the band.

The album includes Ballad of the Dog, “a true story of a piratical burial at sea”, Neolithic By Design, a track set “at the beginning of a relationship (when) both parties are in the maelstrom”, and Pilgrim, one of the album’s “few autobiographical songs” inspired by Kirk’s mum merging together the tales of Jack and the Beanstalk and Dick Whittington when he was a child.

Kirk and Stan Stammers formed Spear of Destiny after emerging from the post-punk band Theatre of Hate, naming themselves after the weapon used by a Roman centurion to pierce the body of Jesus as he hung on the cross. Their debut album The Grapes of Wrath was released in 1983 and they toured relentlessly. After releasing One Eyed Jacks in 1984, and almost cracking the UK top ten with 1985’s World Service, Brandon disbanded the existing line-up and Spear of Destiny vanished for much of the next two years.

After bouncing back with a completely new line-up, Spear of Destiny finally achieved success, with 1987’s Outland spawning some of the band’s biggest hits to date including Stranger In Our Town, Never Take Me Alive and Was That You. They also toured with U2, eventually playing Wembley Stadium with the band.

But, on the eve of a slot at Reading Festival and with their first American tour on the horizon, tragedy struck when Kirk was diagnosed with Reiter’s Syndrome. Over the following years Spear of Destiny struggled amidst Kirk’s diagnosis and legal problems that meant they were prohibited from using their own band’s name.

After reclaiming the Spear name in the late 1990s, Kirk and the band have worked consistently ever since: their ninth studio album Morning Star was released in 2003, followed by Loadestone and Imperial Prototype in 2005 and 2007.