Saruman sings! Star’s metal frenzy
 |
|
He did it his way … Christopher Lee as Saruman in a scene The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Source: News Limited
YOU’RE never too old to rock.
Ninety-two-year-old British actor Christopher Lee — who built his reputation on Hammer horror films in the 1950s and ’60s and went on to star in the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars films — has released a heavy metal album.
Showing his mettle … Christopher Lee in 2012. Picture: Carl Court
Source: AFP
The EP, Metal Knight, features Lee’s trademark basso profundo voice over the sort of pounding drums and soaring guitar sounds you might otherwise hear on an album by Muse.
“I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers,” Lee said in a YouTube video explaining the project.
It’s not Lee’s first foray into music, or indeed heavy metal. His previous releases include A Heavy Metal Christmas in 2012, featuring headbanging versions of The Little Drummer Boy and Silent Night, and another album of what he called “symphonic metal”, Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross, in 2010.
In 2010 Lee was awarded the “Spirt of Metal” award at a Heavy Metal awards night — an event that he later confessed was “a very unnerving experience”.
Metal Knight contains seven tracks, two of which are cover versions of numbers from the musical Man of La Mancha, about Don Quixote.
“Don Quixote is the most metal fictional character that I know. Here is a very old man full of daring, bravery, courage, determination, romanticism and dreams … single-handed, he is trying to change the world, regardless of any personal consequences. It is a wonderful character to sing,” Lee said.
For those about to rock, Lee salutes you.
