"Everything that could go wrong did go wrong"
They ran alongside Iron Maiden in the early days of the NWOBHM race. But while Maiden shot to fame, Praying Mantis stalled due to a catalogue of setbacks and bad decisions.
From the outset, Praying Mantis were more melodic and tune-conscious than their rivals in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. In an era when blood, studded wristbands, bullet belts and thunderous riffola were king, co-founding siblings Tino and Chris Troy understood – fittingly for a group formed at no less a place of learning than the London College Of Furniture – the value of luxurious upholstery. “We’re more like a chaise longue than a flatpack picked up at IKEA,” Chris Troy says today, grinning. “Melody has always been innate in us.”
Born into a Spanish-Greek family with the surname Neophytou, Chris had started playing music on a Spanish guitar, so in the spirit of one-upmanship a jealous Tino came home from school one day with a self-made electric guitar. “When things got a little more serious I converted it to a bass for Chris to play,” recalls the elder sibling. The brothers were inspired by Status Quo (Chris recalls Caroline being the first song they played), as well as the twin-lead melodic guitars of Thin Lizzy and Wishbone Ash, whose song Throw Down The Sword was covered in early sets.
It was guitarist Bob Sawyer who first referred to Konstantinos as Tino. “The Troy part came from my love of Greek mythology,” the guitarist says. “The name Tino just stuck. I’ve been looking for a future wife called Helena ever since,” he quips.
With the nascent Praying Mantis making steady progress, the Troys visited NWOBHM’s home the Heavy Metal Soundhouse in Kingsbury, north-west London to hand DJ and scene guru Neal Kay a three-track demo that comprised Lovers To The Grave, Captured City and Johnny Cool, and soon those tracks featured in Kay’s playlist in weekly music paper Sounds. “On one week all three were included, I think,” Tino remembers. “It was exciting. I thought: ‘This is it – our springboard to success.’”
With Iron Maiden having signed to EMI, and the NWOBHM gathering pace, record labels and band managers identified potential targets. With both Maiden and Mantis having tracks included on the EMI-released compilation Metal For Muthas, in February 1980 the two bands set out on a massive UK tour. Maiden headlined and Mantis were ‘special guests’, but they appeared on what was still pretty much an equal footing.
“There really wasn’t a great deal between the two bands, and on some nights we went down better than them, to the extent that they nicked our sound engineer Doug [Hall], and after the second tour they tried to get our drummer Dave Potts to join them,” says Tino. “Dave passed, saying: ‘I think Mantis will be the bigger band.’ I haven’t seen Dave since!”
