At their height during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Samson stood among the central figures of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, carving out a path of intense, riff-driven aggression next to Motörhead, Judas Priest, Diamond Head, and Iron Maiden. Frequent co-headlining tours with the last of those acts proved especially formative for the band’s growth. Following the 1981 release of the well-regarded Head On and Shock Tactics, lead singer Bruce Bruce—later recognized under his birth name Bruce Dickinson—departed to become Iron Maiden’s new frontman. Founder Paul Samson then pursued a short-lived solo path, yet the group, despite shifting lineups and an unstable industry climate, maintained a steady output of strong material through the 1990s until his 2002 passing brought operations to an end.
Guitarist and singer Samson assembled the band in 1977. After typical early instability, the core lineup stabilized around Samson on guitar and vocals, Chris Aylmer on bass, and drummer Barry Graham Purkis, widely known as Thunderstick for his macabre masks and his habit of performing from inside a locked cage. Issued in 1979 on the Laser label, Survivors served as the debut album; although Bruce Bruce is pictured on the artwork, the recordings predated his official arrival.
Head On, the 1980 follow-up, introduced Bruce Bruce on vocals for the first time and climbed to number 34 on the U.K. albums chart, which prompted a re-release of Survivors featuring Dickinson’s vocal tracks. Shock Tactics arrived in 1981 with another round of aggressive, critically praised songs, one of which, “Riding with the Angels,” entered the U.K. singles chart. Mounting setbacks—chiefly inept management and a collapsing label—coincided with Dickinson’s decision to replace Paul Di’Anno as Iron Maiden’s singer. Thunderstick likewise exited to launch his own Thunderstick project, leaving a brief vacancy filled by Mel Gaynor, who later achieved wider recognition as the drummer for Simple Minds.
Samson signed with Polydor and added ex-Hackensack and Tiger frontman Nicky Moore along with drummer Pete Jupp. The refreshed lineup produced 1982’s Before the Storm, whose singles “Red Skies” and “Losing My Grip” both registered on the charts. After 1984’s Don’t Get Mad, Get Even the band effectively dissolved, allowing Samson to issue the 1986 solo album Joint Forces. He later recruited fresh musicians for 1990’s Refugee and 1993’s Samson. In 2000 Samson reunited onstage with Nicky Moore, Thunderstick, and Chris Aylmer for a handful of shows. The group’s story concluded in 2002 when Samson died from cancer; at the time he had been writing new songs with Moore that surfaced on the 2006 posthumous release P.S. Vocalist Nicky Moore, who fronted the band during the 1980s, succumbed to Parkinson’s disease on August 3, 2022.
