The Flying Hat Band

The Flying Hat Band were an early 1970s Birmingham, England hard rock act that, alongside Judas Priest, ranked as the Midlands' favourites to succeed.^[1] Despite not having released an album, the band proved a successful club act and eventually went on to support Deep Purple on one of their European tours.

The band folded in April 1974 following Glenn Tipton's departure to become the second guitarist in Judas Priest, who at the time had just signed their first record deal with Gull Records. Peter "Mars" Cowling joined Canadian rocker Pat Travers in 1975, and was part of Travers' band for several years. Trevor Foster joined folk rock group The Albion Band and Little Johnny England.

Personnel

Final lineup

• Glenn Tipton - vocals, guitar
• Peter "Mars" Cowling - bass guitar
• Steve Palmer - drums

Former members

• Trevor Foster - drums
• Andy Wheeler - bass
• Pete Hughes - vocals
• Frank Walker - bass guitar

Discography

Signed to Vertigo, in 1973 the trio recorded a studio album which was never released as the label deemed the music had too much in common with Black Sabbath. Glenn Tipton is said to be in possession of the master tape, but it is unclear whether any material from it will eventually surface.

Although the information here is generally correct, the album was recorded in late 1970/1971, not 1973 and the personnel were Glenn Tipton: guitar, Trevor Foster: drums, Pete Hughes: vocals and me, Andy Wheeler: bass. It became very obvious that Vertigo Records were sitting on the album, as they felt we were very much like Sabbath and they didn't want any distraction from Sabbaths meteoric rise. It was clearly obvious that we weren't going anywhere and so I left in late 1971 to join Fairport Convention as their front of house sound engineer. The album was recorded in one day. I have the original acetate of the recordings and having obtained the cd and vinyl of Buried Together, I can confirm that these are the original recordings, with the original personnel, with the exception of vocals, which are now Glenn's.

In 1992, small German label SPM International mysteriously released a split CD entitled "Buried Together", featuring progressive rock band Iron Claw (erroneously labelled as Antrobus) alongside four Flying Hat Band demo tracks, dated back to 1973.

Those tracks are:

• Seventh Plain - 2:55
• Coming Of The Lords - 6:46
• Reaching For The Stars - 4:36
• Lost Time - 2:39

Trivia

Drummer Steve Palmer is the brother of Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer).

References

External links

• Musicmight band page