Fastway were an English hard rock band formed in 1982 by former

Motörhead Motörhead () were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1975 by bassist and lead vocalist Lemmy Kilmister, guitarist Larry Wallis and drummer Lucas Fox. Kilmister was the primary songwriter and only constant member. The band a ...

guitarist

"Fast" Eddie Clarke Edward Allan Clarke (5 October 1950 – 10 January 2018), better known as "Fast" Eddie Clarke or simply "Fast" Eddie, was a British guitarist who was a member of heavy metal bands Fastway and Motörhead. Of Motörhead's classic lineup, which ...

and former

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...

bassist

Pete Way Peter Frederick Way (7 August 1950 – 14 August 2020) was an English bassist. He was the co-founder and original bassist of the rock band UFO from 1968 to 1982; he briefly rejoined the band in 1988–1989 and full-time from 1991 to 2008. He ...

. The band went through various membership changes and Way left the band after receiving an opportunity to perform with

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Career

In 1982, guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke of

and bassist Pete Way of

joined to create a new band for CBS Records. They recruited

Humble Pie Humble Pie are an English Rock music, rock band formed by Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton in Moreton, Essex, in 1969. They are known as one of the first Supergroup (music), supergroups of the late 1960s and enjoyed success in the early 1970s ...

drummer

Jerry Shirley Jeremy Duncan Tipson Shirley (born 4 February 1952), known professionally as Jerry Shirley, is an English rock drummer, best known as a member of the band Humble Pie (band), Humble Pie, appearing on all their albums. He is also known for his wor ...

, and the then-unknown vocalist Dave King. The band was named from a combination of their names. However, Way discovered that he could not break his recording contract with

Chrysalis Records Chrysalis Records () is a British independent record label that was founded in 1968. The name is both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders' names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis. It started as the Ell ...

and then received an offer to play for

; he left the band and did not record any songs. The band then brought in session bassist Mickey Feat and recorded its debut album '' Fastway'' (1983) (Feat was uncredited on the album). After critical and commercial success, the band toured to promote the album (with one-time Fixx bassist Alfie Agius as their session

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

player). The band then recruited

Richard McCracken Richard 'Charlie' McCracken, credited as both Richard and Charlie McCracken, (born 26 June 1948) is a Northern Irish bassist who was a member of Irish blues rock power trio Taste, featuring Rory Gallagher. He also played with The Spencer Davis ...

, formerly of

Taste The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste. Taste is the perception stimulated when a substance in the mouth biochemistry, reacts chemically with taste receptor cells l ...

, as "permanent" bassist, and released another success in the form of '' All Fired Up'' the following year. After the hardships of touring, Shirley and McCracken subsequently left. In 1985, Clarke and King reformed Fastway with a new line-up. Recruiting Shane Carroll (second guitar), Paul Reid (bass), and Alan Connor (drums) from Dave King's first band, Stillwood, this line-up released ''Waiting for the Roar''. The record took an

album-oriented rock Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the late 1960s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock. US rad ...

approach instead of the driving bluesy-metal of the previous albums. The success of the record was limited, and it disappointed many fans. The same year, Fastway was approached to make the soundtrack for the heavy metal horror film ''

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''. The film flopped, but the soundtrack re-established Fastway as a hard-hitting metal band. The soundtrack was a moderate success and stayed on the

Billboard Top 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular Album, music albums and extended play, EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an recor ...

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for eleven months. The success of the soundtrack, combined with the little money the band received, caused in-fighting, and the group disbanded. King took most of the band with him and started Q.E.D., a more AOR-styled outfit. They released a two- track

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

. Meanwhile, Clarke decided to restart Fastway again from scratch in 1988 using vocalist Lea Hart and session men, quickly releasing ''On Target'' in the same year, but it sold poorly. In 1990, this duo of Clarke and Hart released ''Bad Bad Girls'', employing various session musicians including members of

Girlschool Girlschool are a British rock band that formed in the new wave of British heavy metal scene in 1978. Frequently associated with contemporaries Motörhead, they are the longest-running all-female rock band, still active after more than 40 ...

. It was widely ignored and sold poorly. After calling it a day in 1991, they released a perfunctory

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...

''Say What You Will LIVE'' (an older recording, curiously with King on vocals). In 1998, Clarke and Hart reunited and released a reworked version of ''On Target'', but there was no commercial success. On 25 May 2007,

Toby Jepson Toby Jepson is a singer and songwriter, and is the lead vocalist and guitarist of British rock band Wayward Sons. He was formerly the lead vocalist and guitarist of Little Angels between 1984 and 1994. Between 2008 and 2015, he was the lead ...

, former lead singer with

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, announced he had accepted an approach from Fastway to perform lead vocal duties during the year's

festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

appearances. An updated line-up played the

Sweden Rock Festival Sweden Rock Festival is a rock festival outside the town of Sölvesborg in Blekinge in southern Sweden. The festival offers the best possible mix of classic rock, hard rock, metal, blues and related genres. The first version of the festival, k ...

, Japanese Hard Rock Hell, and the

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. Besides guitarist Clarke and Jepson, the new band featured drummer Steve Strange (not to be confused with Visage singer

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) and bass player John McManus (

Mama's Boys Mama's Boys were a 1980s hard rock/heavy metal music, heavy metal group from County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. The band includes the three McManus brothers Pat, a.k.a. "The Professor", (guitar, fiddle), John (bass, vocals), and Tommy (dru ...

). In an interview with Komodo Rock at the Hard Rock Hell Festival in November 2007, Eddie Clark confirmed that he and Toby Jepson would be working on new material. He said "Toby and I are going to sit down and maybe do a few tunes over the winter. See if we can write some tunes." In 2008, Toby Jepson announced he would go on to front Scottish hard rockers

Gun A gun is a device that Propulsion, propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or water cannon, cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). So ...

full-time. In late 2010, "Fast" Eddie Clarke returned to the recording studio to record a new, and what turned out to be the final Fastway album with Toby Jepson, titled '' Eat Dog Eat''. The album was released on 14 November 2011 by SPV/Steamhammer, the first album of entirely new material from Fastway in over twenty years. Clarke died on 10 January 2018 after a battle with

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

at the age of 67. No official statement about the disbandment or the future of Fastway was made following his death, but the band was mostly inactive by then. Two years and seven months later, Way died on 14 August 2020.

Band members

Lead and rhythm guitar *

(1982–1991, 1998, 2007–2011, died 2018) Vocals * Dave King – lead vocals (1982–1986) * Lea Hart – also rhythm guitar & bass (1988–1991, 1998) *

– also rhythm guitar & bass (2007–2011) Bass *

(1982; died 2020) * Alfie Agius (1983 – official touring member) * Richard "Charlie" McCracken – bass (1983–1984, 1991) * Paul Reid – bass (1985–1986) * John McManus – bass (2007–2010) Drums *

(1982–1984, 1991) * Alan Connor (1985–1986) * Steve Clarke (1987–1989) * Steve Strange (2007–2010; died 2021) Keyboards and rhythm guitar * Shane Carrol (1985–1986)

Session musicians

Rhythm guitar * Kim MacAllifie (1990) * Chris Bonacci (1990) * Terry Thomas (1998) Bass * Mickey Feet (1983) * Neil Murray (1988) * Nibbs Carter (1998) Drums * Gary Ferguson (1998) * Matt Eldridge (2011) Keyboards *

Don Airey Donald Smith Airey (born 21 June 1948) is an English musician. He came to prominence as the keyboardist of the rock band Rainbow during 1979–1982. He has been the keyboardist of Deep Purple, the band from which Rainbow was a spinoff, since 2 ...

(1998) * Paul Airey (1998)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

* '' Fastway'' (1983, CBS) – US #31 * '' All Fired Up'' (1984, CBS) * '' Waiting for the Roar'' (1986, CBS) * ''

'' (1986, CBS) * ''

On Target ''On Target'' is the fifth studio album by British rock band Fastway, and their first album without original frontman Dave King. Track listing Personnel ;Fastway * Eddie Clarke – guitars, backing vocals *Lea Hart – lead voca ...

'' (1988, GWR Records) * ''Bad Bad Girls'' (1990, Legacy Records) * ''Eat Dog Eat'' (2011, Steamhammer)

Singles and EPs

* "We Become One" (1983) * "Say What You Will" (1983) * "Easy Livin'" (1983) * "All Fired Up" (1984) * "Tell Me" (1984) * "The Stranger" (1984) * "The World Waits for You" (1986) * "A Fine Line" (1988) * "I've Had Enough" (1990) * "Bad Bad Girls" (1990)

References

External links

Official Fastway Myspace page

Official Steve Clarke website
*
Rock detector's
band biography
Fast Eddie Clarke, Interview: "Back In The Saddle" October, 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fastway 1982 establishments in England English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1982 Musical groups disestablished in 2018 2018 disestablishments in England Second British Invasion artists Columbia Records artists SPV GmbH artists Enigma Records artists Steamhammer Records artists