Writer & Photographer : Stewart Lucas
Stewart Lucas is a highly experienced voluntary sector leader specialising in strategic change. He has been involved in a number of initiatives that have fundamentally changed the way the world operates including the 2012 Paralympic Games. Up until September 2017 he was CEO of Lancashire Mind and led the charge to alter the way that Lancashire’s providers, commissioners and residents view Mental Health. During his time in post he took a lead role in bringing National Mind and Mind Network together in closer harmony. Currently he is working with the five Greater Manchester Mind’s to develop a shared and collaborative way of working that responds to the opportunities provided by devolution and sits on key strategic boards across Greater Manchester influencing the way that Mental Health is defined within the emerging infrastructure.
But that is not what you are interested in, Stewart is an unashamed metalhead and has weaved his love of the extreme end of the genre into everything he does. Whilst he would describe himself as a frustrated music journalist and uses his Facebook account to bore his friends and family about his latest band crush, ROCKFLESH is his first serious foray into serious writing (aside from Board Papers, Funding Bids and Five Year Mental Health Strategies, but they don’t count as they have nothing (or at least very little) to do with Metal).
Stewart was a teenage age metal fan in the mid to late eighties and cut his teeth on Thrash, Grindcore and Queensryche. During the extinction event that was Grunge, Metal and Stewart took a break and he actively saw other genres such as Dance, Indie, Americans and Drum and Bass (with whom he had a passionate but short fling in 1995). However it was System of Down’s Toxicity and Slipknot’s Iowa that tempted him back down the rabbit’s hole in the early noughties. Desperate to find out what he had missed he decided to go deeper than your obvious choices and actively explored the European scenes. Through that deep dive he developed a love for the extreme triplets of Black, Doom and Death Metal’s as well as their more flamboyant and camper cousin Power metal.
Demanding job and young family aside, Stewart still manages to go see bands as much as he can (and/or when his wife lets him) he also greedily gorges on as much new music as he can through that wonderful invention called Spotify. He is a regular at Bloodstock, Damnation and Download and it is highly likely that he was the six foot five bugger that stood in front of you at the Ritz, Academy or Rebellion. His vision and hope for ROCKFLESH is simple, he wants to use his passion and enthusiasm for all spectrums of metal to help you the dear reader to discover your next favourite band or to unearth a hidden gem. And as Stewart is fond of saying, if you have never heard 'Heartwork' by Carcass or 'Slaughter of the Soul' by At the Gates you’ve never lived my friend. Stewart is also available for Summer Seasons, Children’s Parties and Bar-Mitzvahs.