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 25 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 Gianni Pontillo who joined the band in 2026

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.