Tommy Justice

'Setting Fire To History' is the new hard rock album from former Ruff Justice mainman Tommy Justice. After Ruff Justice imploded in 2003, Tommy joined PsychoHero from Stevenage, but the band called it a day early this year. But never one to let these set backs stop him in his tracks, Tommy set about releasing his first solo album.
The album is old school rock of the highest calibre driven guitars a kick ass back beat and straight up Hard Rock.
Joining Tommy on the album we have Lee Barker on guitar, Aiden Buccheri on drums, John K on keyboards and Rick Baldwin guest bass player on ?Every Inch A Rock Star? and ?If I Could Change?.
The album kicks off and I mean KICKS OFF in emphatic style with the raucous ?Every Inch A Rock Star?, a real high energy rocker that is driven by Justice and Barker?s guitars and is an instant winner and from here on in if you?re an old school rocker like myself, you?ll be hooked.
Thing's continue with the more melodic edged ?Love You To Death?, before the edgy rockin' continues with the ballsy riff laden rockers ?Let Me In? and ?Backstreets For Lovers?, then it's time to get down and funky with the excellent ?Open Ride?.
'Setting Fire To History' does have is mellow moments and once again Justice goes down the melodic route with the ballad ?Everywhere I Look?, this is Justices ?Every Rose Has It Thorn? with its added orchestrations, before bringing the tempo back up big style shooting from the hip with ?Six Shot Blues?, then ripping into the funky rich guitars of ?The Day They Sold The World?.
But one of my favourites tracks off the album has to be the hard hitting ?Thrill Seeker?. This is ballsy riff spewn high octane rock n' roll at its best, old school with a modern bite.
Thing's take a mellower persuasion with the sublime ballad ?If I Could Change?, another track showing Justice?s gentler side, think L.A Guns ?Ballad Of Jane? for this one, then it's all guns blazing, riff laden rock once more with the mighty ?Take It All Away?, before the album closes is style with the thunderous ?Rats With Wings?, which closes a wonderfully classy slice of Hard Rock. Definitely one for fans of Skid Row, L.A Guns, The Almighty and the like. If you like your rock with more edge than a bucket of razors then 'Setting Fire To History' is for you.
- The Mayfair Mall Zine

Release Date: December 3rd, 2012





Classic rock has been brought forward to the 21st century; it’s like it’s the 80s all over again. Tommy Justice has proved that classic rock still has a place in today’s music and that he can create a great album as a solo artist. His latest effort, ‘Setting Fire To History’, not only shows how far he has come as an artist, but how refreshing it is as an album.


The tone is created with ‘Every Inch The Rock Star’; it sets up with the album and provides that much desired refreshing rock character. The vocals are striking and are immediately picked upon within the first few seconds. It’s classic rock with a 21st century spin that can be compared to other great classic rock albums.

But, it isn’t until you move onto ‘Love You To Death’ and ‘Let Me In’ when the realisation hits that Tommy Justice has created a fantastic album. He engages you and drags you further and further into each song, and there’s the expectance that ‘Setting Fire To History’ will be a great album performed live. It’s as if these two tracks were written with that in mind.

The album continues to thrive and impress, and ‘Six Shot Blues’ and ‘Thrill Seeker’ are entwined by heavy guitar riffs and immense solos that literally engulfs your mind. It’s spectacular. Tommy Justice has undoubtedly gone over and beyond with this album, and with this much dedication there’s a hopeful outlook for potential releases.

Finally, ‘Rats With Wings’ ends the album on a fantastic note and shows that classic rock still has what it takes. It’s fast-paced and upbeat, and the vocals just expel throughout the track and you can’t help but put the album back on repeat. The first and last tracks are so different from each other, but they both provide a extraordinary bookend effect to this album.

This is an unexpected album. It’s exciting and fresh, something that the 21st century is missing out on. Tommy Justice definitely has a future planned out and 2013 will hopefully see a lot more to come. ‘Setting Fire To History’ isn’t an album that rips off classic rock, but Tommy Justice makes it his own and truly shows how influenced the album has been by 80s rock music. A great album with great music that really expresses the best of classic rock.

Written by Yasmin La Ronde





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- Dead Press UK

Release Date: December 3rd, 2012





Classic rock has been brought forward to the 21st century; it’s like it’s the 80s all over again. Tommy Justice has proved that classic rock still has a place in today’s music and that he can create a great album as a solo artist. His latest effort, ‘Setting Fire To History’, not only shows how far he has come as an artist, but how refreshing it is as an album.


The tone is created with ‘Every Inch The Rock Star’; it sets up with the album and provides that much desired refreshing rock character. The vocals are striking and are immediately picked upon within the first few seconds. It’s classic rock with a 21st century spin that can be compared to other great classic rock albums.

But, it isn’t until you move onto ‘Love You To Death’ and ‘Let Me In’ when the realisation hits that Tommy Justice has created a fantastic album. He engages you and drags you further and further into each song, and there’s the expectance that ‘Setting Fire To History’ will be a great album performed live. It’s as if these two tracks were written with that in mind.

The album continues to thrive and impress, and ‘Six Shot Blues’ and ‘Thrill Seeker’ are entwined by heavy guitar riffs and immense solos that literally engulfs your mind. It’s spectacular. Tommy Justice has undoubtedly gone over and beyond with this album, and with this much dedication there’s a hopeful outlook for potential releases.

Finally, ‘Rats With Wings’ ends the album on a fantastic note and shows that classic rock still has what it takes. It’s fast-paced and upbeat, and the vocals just expel throughout the track and you can’t help but put the album back on repeat. The first and last tracks are so different from each other, but they both provide a extraordinary bookend effect to this album.

This is an unexpected album. It’s exciting and fresh, something that the 21st century is missing out on. Tommy Justice definitely has a future planned out and 2013 will hopefully see a lot more to come. ‘Setting Fire To History’ isn’t an album that rips off classic rock, but Tommy Justice makes it his own and truly shows how influenced the album has been by 80s rock music. A great album with great music that really expresses the best of classic rock.

Written by Yasmin La Ronde





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- Dead Press UK

Hailing from the UK, Tommy Justice is not a name you are likely to have heard of before, unless you’ve already read our interview with him on the pages of May The Rock Be With You? On debut album Setting Fire To History, Tommy Justice delivers one hell of an impressive straight up hard rock record. Opening up with Every Inch The Rock Star no time is wasted in getting to the point of what Tommy Justice is all about – massive gang vocal chorus’s, blazing guitars riffs, some pretty shit hot guitar shredding pyrotechnics all topped off with a damn impressive production for what’s an independent release.

Love You To Death will hook in anyone with a love of the Kane Roberts, Chris Laney, Desmond Child and Mutt Lange style of bombastic rock anthems. Actually this song could easily slot right in on Alice Cooper’s Trash album and it would probably have been released as a single too. Let Me In is another song that you could class as “single” worthy, whilst Backstreets For Lovers and Open Ride mix things in a raw and sleazy way. Everywhere I Look draws on the Bon Jovi and Def Leppard school of power ballads and does it in fine style complete with all the trimmings, yes even down to a big drum fill, awesome! Thrill Seeker and Take It All Away take things into a more metallic direction with the latter having that real Iron Maiden galloping feel. There’s a pretty impressive bag of tricks unleashed on us through this album, but at the core is always an appreciation for the song and that means plenty of my favourites – hooks, big choruses and melodies, things that I say there can never be enough of in a song!

Setting Fire To History is a mighty fine debut album that deserves to get Tommy Justice heard amongst the wider hard rock community…so what are you waiting for, go listen! http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/setting-fire-to-history/id509581270


Check out our interview with Tommy Justice…

- May The Rock Be With You

Right from the off, it's fair to say that Tommy Justice is a bit of an enigma. I'm not sure whether he travelled to 2012 via Doc and Marty Mcfly's time machine or what, but this guy can churn out some massive classic rock tunes that sound like they've been pulled right from the 1980s. The fact that he has put together this album as a solo artist as well after the capitulation of earlier bands makes it all the more impressive. With the influences behind Setting Fire To History being such a throwback, it perhaps feels strange to say that this actually sounds very refreshing but the range across this album helps give it so much character, from the anthemic hard rock tunes, to the softer and more melodic side.

The opening track, Every Inch The Rock Star just sets the tone and hits the spot. The vocals are immediately the most striking thing about the record, comparable again to so many classic rock bands. To compare his vocal range to a vocallist perhaps more current, Tommy Justice is very similar in style to Chris Jericho from Fozzy. In fact both bands share many similarities, both writing no nonsense great rock tunes in homage to their heroes from the past.

As it moves on to the next two tracks, Love You To Death and Let Me In you will quickly realise that in your; CD Player, iPod, (or whatever device you operate through), you are listening to a really special album. So much of it is just extremely engaging, and it is clear that Tommy Justice and his band would be brilliant in the live arena. It definitely feels like these songs were written with live shows in mind.

Some more highlights on the album come from tracks such as Six Shot Blues and Thrill Seeker with their heavy chugging riffs and absolutely blistering solos making it feel like you're listening to some sick love-children of Motley Crue and Iron Maiden. Every now and again you get through an EP or debut album to listen to and immediately it's clear that the artist has an extremely bright future, and this is absolutely the case here. If Tommy Justice can continue to produce albums like this one, as well as continuing to impress on the live scene then the potential for where he'll be in the future is absolutely massive. He doesn't just feel like a novelty rip off of the bands he is influenced by so much, instead he has his own message to spread. He looks the part, he sounds the part, and he can play some seriously ballsy rock tunes. Tommy Justice is one to watch for sure.

- Room Thirteen

The splendid chaps over at Skratch The Surface recently sent us through a copy of Setting Fire To History, the new album from Tommy Justice due out on the 3rd of December 2012. A English rock guitarist, Mr Justice cut his teeth playing in bands like Ruff Justice and PsychoHero before going solo in 2012. Since then he’s gone on to play the likes of Weyfest alongside 10cc and ASIA, and is now primed to release this album. Featuring updated songs from the Ruff Justice and PsychoHero days as well as some new tracks of his own, this promises to be a hard rock ride through music, so I figured I’d better hit play and see what was going on!

As Every Inch The Rock Star gets the album going one thing is very clear, this is some serious stuff! Immediately launching us into a stadium rock style melee of hammering guitar lines, pounding rhythms and gravelly vocal lines, the mix forms into something which is impossible to sit still to, the sort of thing which is going to get you moving, shaking and drinking along. There’s a real sense of 90’s style stadium rock here, adopting a sound which is far more accomplished than you might expect and showing us that hard rock is alive, well and being led with Tommy Justice at the helm. Love You to Death continues this approach once again, the opening moments of guitar work leaving you a drooling heap in the corner and destroying any hope you had of being that guitar god, this guy is simply pushing it up a notch. Managing to incorporate a serious dose of emotion and melody into the mix to make sure you can connect with the track, this is one which is smoother sounding than the previous track yet still manages to hold all of the drama and punch you’d expect from a hard rock album like this. I guess if I were to compare this to anyone it would have to be the massive hard rock bands like Bon Jovi and Aerosmith but with an element of Lordi thrown into the mix – which might sound odd, but it seems to work when you hear it. 2 tracks in and this album isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, it’s all looking good so far!

Let Me In once again continues the hard hitting approach, this time launching us into an anthem like melee of hammering guitar lines and more awesome rhythms to get you shaking, forming into something which is sure to become a live favourite from the off. Once again packing a punch from the off, there’s a really catchy edge added into this one meaning you’re going to be singing along as soon as you’ve heard it a couple of times, it’s got that feeling of being a track you want to hear more of, something which is going to push the record to the next level. Backstreets For Lovers sounds like it’s going to be a slow and bluesy number but don’t be deceived, as it kicks in we’re once again shown a hard rocking and groovy approach to things, the sort of track which will get asses shaking and beers flowing. This track is testament to the idea of never believing a name, somehow turning what sounds like a love song in its name into something far heavier, funkier and downright dirty. As a result, this track stands out as a serious high point on the album, and one of the tracks which I class amongst my favourites, definitely one to check out if you get a chance.

Open Ride once again manages to push the bar up to a new high, hammering into a track which packs all of the punch of a hard rock track but combines it with all of the funk and groove of a solid blues number. This is another track which showcases the guitar work of Tommy with aplomb, showing off how a guitar is more than just an instrument, it’s something which can create sounds which take you to a new place and show you what real music is. Everywhere I Look continues this approach of blowing our minds as we work our way through the album, this time slowing everything down and instead throwing in an acoustic guitar line to form an emotional and hard hitting track, the sort of thing which will get lighters in the air, arms swaying and people singing along. Turning from the soft acoustic ballad which starts this track and developing into a hard hitting anthem packed with emotional vocals, orchestral effects behind the music and subtle distortion, it’s like being transported back to your first love and feeling it all over again, in short, one hell of an awesome track.

Six Shot Blues, The Day They Sold The World, Thrill Seeker, If I Could Change and Take It All Away all continue to push the boundaries of what should be possible from a hard rock album, each track coming as a unique taste of his style and showing us just what he’s capable of, but all too soon we reach the end of the album and we’re only left with Rats With Wings to close things for us. Now, I say we’re only left with Rats With Wings to close the album, but what a finish it brings about. It’d be rude to say he’s saved the best for last on an album this accomplished but it comes mighty close, hammering towards the finish line with a raucous guitar line, f - LOUD-STUFF.com