Watch: Pre-MERCYFUL FATE Band BRATS Performs Live For First Time In Nearly 45 Years

Michael Denner's pre-MERCYFUL FATE band BRATS reformed for the first time in nearly four and a half decades to perform at the Metal Magic festival in Fredericia, Denmark on Friday, July 11. Joining Denner on stage for the concert were fellow original members Yenz Cheyenne on bass and vocals and Lars Monroe on drums.

A few hours before the BRATS show, Denner's longtime MERCYFUL FATE bandmate Hank Shermann took to his social media to write: "After nearly 45 years, BRATS returns to the stage tonight at the Metal Magic festival . Playing most songs from the '1980' album with original members Yenz, Lars Monroe and Michael Denner.

"BRATS was my first band formed in spring of 1978. Yenz and Lars joined early 1979, Michael autumn 1979 and King Diamond November 1980. Quite some history.. GO GUYS, hit it hard."

Apart from the future MERCYFUL FATE guitar duo of Denner and Shermann (who called himself Hank De Wank at the time),BRATS featured singer and bass player Yenz (also known as Yenz Leonhardt or Yenz Cheyenne; born Jens Arnsted). Yenz later went on to form GEISHA and Y (together with KING DIAMOND bassist Hal Patino).

When the "1980" album was reissued in 2022, Yenz said that the BRATS were his first serious band.

"In August 1980 I was 19," he explained. "I was standing on Strøget, the main shopping street in Copenhagen. The street was packed in front of the Bristol Music Centre in Copenhagen, where we were scheduled to play an in-store gig. This was the holy place where I since childhood had purchased my vinyl collection, and now it felt like the whole city was here to celebrate our new album. Old-school punks and metalheads of the surging New Wave Of British Heavy Metal had a brief moment of unity over the release party for our new '1980' BRATS album. The newspapers and magazines were out in full force."

Soon after the release of "1980", the original BRATS band fell apart, giving birth to MERCYFUL FATE. Back then, for Yenz at first, it felt "like reaching for the universe." He said: "I remember thinking: How the hell did we get here that fast?

"We want to thank everybody who was part of this crazy ride back then, and everybody who's been appreciating this album ever since," he added.

In a 1983 interview with U.K.'s Metal Forces magazine, Shermann reflected on BRATS' early musical output while discussing MERCYFUL FATE's formation. He said at the time: "Originally, Michael Denner and myself were playing in a Danish outfit called BRATS. We recorded a track for a compilation LP entitled 'Pære Punk' which was released in 1979. It seems a little strange now that there should have been this punk / heavy metal crossover, yet at that time there was only a fine dividing line between the raw power of punk and the heavy energy of metal. People are quick to forget, but IRON MAIDEN originally came from the punk circuit. Paul Di'Anno was sporting a skinhead haircut back in those days. Then within a few months the emphasis had changed to heavy metal — all the leather studs and Di'Anno grew his hair long. Anyhow, the guys at CBS liked what we were doing and offered us an album deal."

Denner added: "Along with Hank and I — we played lead guitar and did some vocals — were a couple of other guys: Yenz was the bass guitarist and lead vocalist, and the other guy Monroe played drums and piano. We spent the early part of 1980 in the studio in Copenhagen, and laid down twelve songs which were later put out by CBS on the continent, titled '1980 Brats'. Basically, it was a heavy metal album tinged — or tainted, some might say — with a punk feel. Eight numbers were metal songs, three were punk and the other was a Russian folk song, sung in Russian by myself. That album was very useful to us in a number of respects. It gave us some very important studio experience, a good deal of exposure on TV and radio throughout Europe and through a quirk of fate brought us together with our current English manager and publicist, John Kibble."

Asked how well the BRATS album did, Denner said: "Without talking specific figures, we were selling thousands, especially in France. So much so that we were in the process of setting up a French tour when out of the blue CBS dropped us. At the time it seemed catastrophic, yet with hindsight MERCYFUL FATE would probably never have come together but for that decision. The CBS thing caused BRATS to go their separate ways; I started a new band called DANGER ZONE with [future MERCYFUL FATE bassist] Timi Grabber, while Hank joined forces with an already notorious singer named King Diamond, who had been working with a band called BLACK ROSE. DANGER ZONE wrote five numbers for a demo, and we decided to ask Hank and King to come along and work with us on the recording. The demo complete, we realized that the four of us clicked; we set about writing new material, and looking for a new name. Our ex-manager's girlfriend came up with the name MERCYFUL FATE and it stuck."