Come My Fanatics - by Dan Franklin (Hardcover)

About the Book

"'Electric Wizard is heavy, man -- we don't sing about love and flowers.' Jus Oborn. In 1993, in the market town of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, England, the heaviest band in the world was born. Led by guitarist and singer Jus Oborn, Electric Wizard began as an untameable power trio. They inhaled the iniquity of their lives and vomited it out in colossal waves of doom metal, synthesising the forbidding local landscape, biker culture, video-nasties, black magic rituals and titanic doses of psychedelics. In 1997 they released their revolutionary second album, Come My Fanatics... Then, after triumphant and calamitous tours of the USA and following the release of arguably the heaviest rock album ever recorded, 2000's Dopethrone, Electric Wizard all but imploded, destroyed by the very reality they were fighting against. However, when guitarist Liz Buckingham joined Oborn on guitar for We Live, they drew a magic circle around themselves in a new line-up that went on to explore deeper occult horrors on modern doom classic Witchcult Today onwards. Come My Fanatics is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the subculture the band has absorbed and, in turn, created. From seventies exploitation cinema, through the writers of Weird Tales magazine and a panoply of the marginal and downright sinister, to the band's own live ceremonial happenings -- this is Electric Wizard's world. We're just dying in it."--

Book Synopsis

'Electric Wizard is heavy, man - we don't sing about love and flowers.' Jus Oborn

In 1993, in the market town of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, England, the heaviest band in the world was born.

Led by guitarist and singer Jus Oborn, Electric Wizard began as an untameable power trio. They inhaled the iniquity of their lives and vomited it out in colossal waves of doom metal, synthesising the forbidding local landscape, biker culture, video-nasties, black magic rituals and titanic doses of psychedelics. In 1997 they released their revolutionary second album, Come My Fanatics... Then, after triumphant and calamitous tours of the USA and following the release of arguably the heaviest rock album ever recorded, 2000's Dopethrone, Electric Wizard all but imploded, destroyed by the very reality they were fighting against.

However, when guitarist Liz Buckingham joined Oborn on guitar for We Live, they drew a magic circle around themselves in a new line-up that went on to explore deeper occult horrors on modern doom classic Witchcult Today onwards.

Come My Fanatics is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the subculture the band has absorbed and, in turn, created. From seventies exploitation cinema, through the writers of Weird Tales magazine and a panoply of the marginal and downright sinister, to the band's own live ceremonial happenings - this is Electric Wizard's world. We're just dying in it.

Review Quotes

'Dan Franklin has somehow written a book that reads exactly how Electric Wizard sound, with everything turned up to eleven and an omnivorous approach to the outlaw occulture that inspired them. A deafening classic'--David Keenan, author of This Is Memorial Device

The mythos, the madness, the mastery: a journey to the blackened vortex of the most eigmatic band in the cosmos. Franklin ventures further into the Wizard's subcultural maelstrom than anyone has ever dared. Absolutely essential'--Harry Sword, author of Monolithic Undertow

About the Author

Dan Franklin has written about metal and heavy music for over ten years. He is a contributor to music and pop culture website The Quietus. His first book HEAVY was published in 2020.