Drummer OLLIE USISKIN tell his fascinating Tales of the Unexpected
When Ollie Usiskin encountered one of the movie world’s most famous and revered actors it was one of the most exciting and life enhancing moments in his own life and career.
What made it special was the unexpected connection between their musical tastes. Who would have thought Sir Christopher Lee would not just be a fan of heavy metal, but also an impressive singer and performer in a style that demanded menace and conviction?
Yet it all made sense as the lively young drummer from North London soon realised. That was when Ollie was called upon to accompany the stately gentleman with a long career in the theatre and movies, making his auspicious debut in the recording studios of rock.
Ollie: “It was 2007 when I first started working with Sir Christopher Lee on a heavy metal album Charlemagne: The Omens of Death that eventually came out in 2013”.
Sir Christopher Lee (born 27 May, 1922) was famed for his deep, commanding voice and screen presence when portraying villainous characters. A classically trained singer with a passion for heavy metal, he was knighted for his service to drama and charity in 2009.
But how did the actor become involved in such music?
Ollie; “Well, Sir Christopher Lee and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi knew each other and talked about their shared tastes. From what I gather Sabbath’s music was influenced a lot by the Hammer horror films and Sir Christopher was one of Tony’s inspirations with his music when he was growing up – seeing those early films in which he played Count Dracula.
“There were a lot of people in heavy metal who became involved with Sir Christopher including bands too like Manowar and Rhapsody who wanted to work with him. Sir Chris did a session for Manowar at Abbey Road studios where his voice was recorded doing narratives for use on their music.
“He was such an iconic figure. In his lifetime he must have starred in over 200 films. And he was always been involved in music. If you go back to some of his earlier films like The Wicker Man (1973) there is a scene where Christopher Lee sings with Edward Woodward in the lounge of a big house. Edward plays a grand piano Sir Christopher sings in a baritone voice.
(In the film Sir Christopher plays the role of Lord Summerisle and Edward Woodward is Sgt. Howie, investigating a case of Celtic Paganism).
Charlemagne
“He also recorded songs like ‘My Way’ and did a version of ‘The Monster Mash.’ Prior to Charlemagne: The Omens of Death album’ (2013) there were several other releases with him singing. When he ended up going into Heavy Metal he was in his early Nineties. Charlemagne made him a potential candidate for entering the Guinness Book of Records as the being the oldest male rock singer ever to release an album!”
Previously there came Charlemagne: By The Sword and the Cross (2010) a symphonic metal album made with an orchestra. (Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor and Sir Christopher claimed he could trace his ancestry back to the legendary figure). Ollie: “All of his fans said they’d heard him do this rock stuff, but they wanted to hear him do full-on heavy metal!
“That’s why Charlemagne Productions the company behind the music decided to create this heavy metal album arranged by my band mate guitarist Richie Faulkner, now with Judas Priest.
“Because Sir Christopher liked Heavy Metal he was approached by quite a few different artists including the Hollywood Vampires with Johnny Depp. They expressed interest in wanting to work with him as well. Sir Christopher was a huge influence on Depp and you can see that in Johnny’s Gothic horror films like Sleepy Hollow. They starred together in Tim Burton’s recent version of Alice In Wonderland when Sir Christopher played a dentist.”
When Ollie hit the drumming highway
London born Ollie Usiskin started playing drums at the age of 12 while still at school. He practised rudiments on a snare drum in the music room gaining a technique he developed later while studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. Tutored by legendary American drummer Alan Dawson, Ollie became adept at playing in a variety of styles from jazz to rock.
Returning from studying in the USA he toured with Crazy Jay and also worked for a while on a cruise ship. He has worked with range of bands and artists including Db-Infusion and guitarist Jim Mullen. But how did Ollie become involved in Sir Christopher’s heavy metal adventure?
“My friend Danny Berdichevsky is the leader of jazz-rock group Db-Infusion in which I play with Gonzalo Carrera (keyboards). I ended up living in the same building as him where Danny was busy teaching and giving guitar lessons.
“He called me into his studio apartment one day and said ‘How would you like to do a gig with Dracula?’ I was like… ‘Dracula!’ I didn’t know what he meant. Then he told me one of his ex-guitar teachers called Juan, was a flamenco specialist and Danny had taken flamenco lessons with Juan who was working with Sir Christopher Lee.
“I was told they’d got a performance coming up at the Excel Centre in Docklands and needed a backing band. Juan wondered if the jazz-rock band would back Sir Christopher. I said it would be amazing and Danny said he’d now ask the other members of the band including Gonzalo and Lakis (Economou) our bassist. If they were available we’d need to organise a rehearsal.
“Quite bizarrely what ended up happening was a rehearsal scheduled with Sir Christopher Lee at our home, which was Danny’s studio apartment in North London. Sure enough, the day of the rehearsal we’re all sitting with our instruments on the floor of the studio and I’ve got my full Roland TD6 electronic drum kit set up in the corner. Gonzalo’s keyboards were near the front door. We then waited for Sir Christopher to arrive with his manager.
A Ring at the Door
“Suddenly the doorbell goes and Danny lets them in and there standing six foot something tall is Sir Christopher Lee! We were all in awe and it was an amazing experience. We did the rehearsal which was a great success and we all got on really well.
“A week later we went a day before the performance to set up the stage area at Excel. On the day we played along – as a band – to one of his previous symphonic metal backing tracks. Sir Christopher sang on top of it. It was in the afternoon and we had a really nice audience and had a good time. Subsequently his Spanish manager whose name was also ‘Juan’ became a good friend and he ended up getting me involved in doing a music video shoot for one of the songs that was on the first symphonic Charlemagne album, ‘The Bloody Verdict of Verden.’
The video did incredibly well, achieving nearly four million views on YouTube. It’s also been shown and discussed on Sky Arts and Channel 5.
Ollie now reveals the techniques used during filming. “When we see Sir Christopher in ‘The Bloody Verdict of Verden’ he is sitting on a chair holding a sword with a castle in the back ground. You can see skulls and birds flying around while he is singing. That was mostly done with the background of a Green Screen. It’s like a big green poster or a wall of green. With computer technology they can film stuff and put anything behind it and that’s how it’s done on a lot of movies now”.
He explains when they went to shoot the video the management wanted a heavy metal band and Ollie actually ‘fixed’ the band. “A bass player friend of mine Tony Newton had a band at that time called Voodoo Six. I took some of its members and asked him if they could take part in the video. Tony ended up coming with two of his band’s guitarists, Chris and Matt. So we had three of them and me on the drums. I was a playing a red Pearl Export kit which had a very nice sound! Incidentally another guy who also sang in the music video was Grav, the drummer with Voodoo Six.”
Heavy Metal Calling
“We had to mime to the track and Sir Christopher did the same thing to his part. Then all the effects were done. There were quite a few people involved and a member of his management team played double bass on the video. A young woman played keyboards and another played violin. That video came out and then the management had the idea of doing a full heavy metal album. We had a discussion with Sir Christopher’s manager, Juan, who said we needed to find someone who could re-arrange a previous symphonic album into a full metal record”.
Ollie thought of Richie Faulkner a band mate for years, who later became lead guitarist with Judas Priest. “He was an expert on heavy metal and working on arranging stuff. I spoke to Richie about it and he was interested in doing the work.
“At the time he was touring with Lauren Harris who is the daughter of Iron Maiden bass player Steve Harris. He was going out for months on tour with Iron Maiden as the support act”.
Prior to that Richie had also played in Tony Newton’s Voodoo Six. Richie agreed to do the work and a meeting was arranged with Sir Christopher in Sloane Square where he used to live. “It was a nice day and we sat outside in the private grounds of his apartment.
“Juan, Richie and myself had a chat with him for an hour or so. Richie was a big fan of Sir Christopher’s work so it was an amazing experience for him. He did the arranging and programmed all the drums. I then learnt the drum parts he’d programmed and a lot of it involved double bass drum playing”.
Ollie had a double pedal so he went to a rehearsal room and for several days and learned note for note all of the drumming on the tracks. On the album he played an acoustic kit and all the recordings he did with Sir Christopher were on ‘real’ drums.
“I found a local recording studio and recorded practically the whole album in one sitting. There’s a funny story, because I shot myself in the foot with one of the songs. It was the third track on the album which was really strenuous with lots of double bass drum playing.
“Quite naively I saved that track until last. By the time I got to it, I had completely burnt myself out. I was exhausted and when I tried to play this last track I barely got through it. But the album was edited and it came out great!”
Other musicians on the album included a father and son team from Guatemala. “Hedras Ramos Snr. was on bass guitar together with his son Hedras Ramos Jnr. who is an absolute monster guitarist. Originally we wanted Richie to not only arrange the album but play on it as well. But around that time he got a recommendation to audition for Judas Priest, passed, got accepted into the band and went straight off into a world tour.
“It was an intense time for him. He apologised that he couldn’t do the album. But we were very understanding. You don’t get an opportunity to join a band like that very often. So the two Hedrases ended up playing on the record. Hadras Jnr. learned all of Richie’s guitar parts and put his own edge on it. He was in his early twenties and did an incredible job on Omens of Death”.
The album was released and featured in Rolling Stone and Metal Hammer magazines. The Guardian and other national newspapers gave it good reviews. The management then wanted to do a Christmas single with a bonus track. The main track was ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ and the bonus was ‘Silent Night.’
“When it was released it ended up Number 2 in the rock charts which was amazing. You’ll never guess what was Number One? Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas’. But we were Number 2 for several weeks. We nearly got there!”
Memories of Sir Chris
“People ask me what it was like to work with Sir Christopher Lee and I always have to say one of the things I regret was I didn’t really get to know him on a personal level.
“The reason is while I grew up watching a lot of his films, when you actually get the opportunity to work with him as a person I was completely star struck! Whenever I met him I was so in awe of him and his work I never really knew what to say.
“When we met him and Richie and his manager we were sitting in his private grounds and Richie did most of the talking. I barely got a word in! I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and offend anyone”.
Less is more! But Ollie did the rehearsal with him and the live show at the Excel together and the shooting of the music video. “What was really nice was at the end of the shoot he came down to say ‘hello’ to everyone. That was the type of person he was. He was a sociable, nice man and very humble and he worked in movies right up until the end of his life. He had a lot of energy and just wanted to keep going.
“There were plans to tour the album with him in a choreographed show about Charlemagne and all the bloody battles. Then sadly he passed away (7 June 2015 aged 93).
“Playing with him came at the right time for me as I’d grown up playing rock and heavy metal and was schooled in that style. He was one of my heroes, and meeting and playing with Sir Christopher Lee was a real honour and one of the highlights of my career”.
CHRIS WELCH
Footnote: Ollie Usiskin currently plays drums on a project called Chrono Jazz, whose album Interplanetary Funk co-produced by electric bassist Jimmy Haslip was released on September 5th, 2025.
Ollie also plays on a tribute album to ex-Soft Machine guitarist Allan Holdsworth The Nineteen Men of Tain that also features Mike Stern, Bob Franceschini, John Etheridge and drummer Paul Wertico, produced by guitarist Enrico Pinna.