Nazareth

Nazareth is without doubt the biggest Rock Band to emerge from Scotland.
They were the pioneers who took Scottish Rock international and paved the way for the many other great Scottish bands that came later....the likes of Big Country, Simple Minds etc.

The original members first came together in Pete Agnew's band 'The Shadettes" in 1968 and changed the name to Nazareth in 1970.
They toured with Deep Purple in the early 70's where they met Roger Glover who produced their breakthrough album 'Razamanaz' in 1973 that included the hits 'Broken Down Angel' and 'Bad Bad Boy'.
The album was followed by 'Loud'n'Proud’ later the same year featuring the single 'This Flight Tonight' which became a massive hit throughout Europe and sent the band to number 1 in Germany.
It was also a huge hit in Canada where the band became the first foreign band to do a coast to coast tour of the country that wasn't just part of a North America tour.
When they arrived in the country they were told it was the fastest selling Canadian tour of all time and in fact had sold out faster than Elvis who had been there recently.
As you can imagine, you can still hear a host of "faster than Elvis" jokes in Nazareth dressing rooms to this day.

Then came 'Rampant' and the massive tour in support of it's release seeing the band play 50 shows in 9 countries throughout Europe and Scandinavia.
The tour was quickly followed by the release of the single 'My White Bicycle' which gave them another chart hit in UK and Germany.
They were now riding a crest of popularity around the world but still had not managed to get that elusive American hit that every band needs to prove that they really are a global success.

As it turns out, that hit was just around the corner.
The classic album that brought them American success and international acclaim was the next one,' Hair Of The Dog' and it's title track (popularly, though incorrectly known as Sonofabitch due to it's hook lyric) became a staple of Rock Radio throughout the world.
Many bands were later known to say how much that song had influenced them and in fact it was covered by Guns N'Roses on their Spaghetti Incident album, as the guys are well known Naz fans.

The American version of the album contained the beautiful 'Love Hurts' which still sets the standard for a rock ballad vocal to this day. The song became a worldwide hit, reaching number 1 in six countries and remained on the Norwegian chart for 60 weeks.
In 1982 the band released 'Dream On', another ballad that was to become an anthem throughout Europe.

From 1971 till now Nazareth have recorded 23 studio albums, earning them platinum, gold and silver awards throughout the world with 3 platinum and 8 gold albums coming from Canada alone.
Their latest release, 'Rock'n'Roll Telephone' (2014) was described by one music press critic simply as "one more masterpiece" so we'll just leave it at that.
The line up today consists of :

Jimmy Murrison
(the longest serving Naz guitarist in the band's history),

Lee Agnew (drummer since Darrell Sweet's death in 1999),

Pete Agnew (founder member since he can't remember)

and new singer
Carl Sentance who joined the band in 2015
after Dan McCafferty had to retire due to ill health.

Reviewing one of the first shows with Carl performing as lead singer, a member of the Rock press confirmed what the band members already agreed that :
"He fits right in as a man on a mission to prove his worth and totally nails it. He has mastery of the material and wears the songs like an old leather jacket".
Over the last five decades Nazareth have played literally thousands of concerts worldwide ranging from rock clubs to stadiums and when asked one time if he could remember playing in a certain town, Pete answered " if it's got electricity we've played it".

So.....hopefully soon, Nazareth, who remain one of the World's premier rock bands will be using some electricity near you.

News….
LEGENDARY SCOTTISH HARD ROCKERS NAZARETH RETURN NEW ALBUM “TATTOOED ON MY BRAIN”
OUT ON CD/LP/DIGITAL ON OCTOBER 12, 2018

Founding member, bassist Pete Agnew, tells about the new album:
"What I know and expect is that this record, because of our new line up, will come under the highest scrutiny of any record in Nazareth’s history and after that, be judged as one of the best of Nazareth’s career. While there’s always going to be hints of the classic Nazareth sound on our albums, when you consider that all the instrumentalists have been playing classic Nazareth songs for most of their lives, what is fresh, and inspired the new songs and new approach, is the fact that we have a new singer: Carl Sentance. You can change instrumentalists and still keep pretty much on the same road, but there is nothing that changes a band’s approach so definitively as the sound, style and performance of a new frontman. It also influences the way the other guys write songs, because mostly when you write a song for the band you have in mind whether it will suit your singer’s style and how he’ll sound singing it. And of course, with Carl we have not only a new singer but a great new songwriter as well so the whole project was always going to be fresher than a new laid egg, giving all these ingredients we had to work with. Tastes fantastic BTW."