Chris Thompson premieres video for Blood On His Hands

Chris Thompson
(Image credit: Chris Thompson)

Former Manfred Mann's Earth Band singer Chris Thompson has premiered his brand new video for Blood On His Hands with Prog.  A vitriolic diatribe against current US president Donald Trump

“I think the meaning is pretty clear," says Thompson. "The leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world cannot tell the truth and seems unable to stand up to or carry out his responsibilities, resulting in a tremendous amount of hardship and a lot of needless deaths. He had his chance and has come up short so often and everything is falling around his ears.

“I keep QuickTime files of all the little ideas that pop into my head while I’m practicing or playing around on my guitar. During a call with my 88-year-old uncle in New Zealand, we talked about the current situation regarding Covid in his country and mine, eventually getting on to the developing situation in America and how it was being dealt with. He was appalled by the President and remarked, ‘that man’s got blood on his hands.’

"As I was listening back to some of my latest QuickTime files, I found a perfect musical accompaniment to that lyric idea, which became the chorus for our song. My wife and I worked on the lyric together, took a little while to get it expressing how we felt.”

The single and video were recorded in lockdown, with bassist Sid Lambert dialling in from New Zealand, former Stage Dolls drummer Steinar Krokstad addign drums in Norway, lap steel from Jesse Siebenberg in California, backing vocals from Hille Belemans in Belgium and Lance Ellington in England, and both keyboards and vocals from Pieter Akkermans and Chris himself in Belgium, where Thompson now resides.

Get Blood On His Hands.

Jerry Ewing

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.