Seminal British rock-band Uriah Heep is heading down to Australia for a tour that includes The Gov on 25th March.
Originally formed in 1969, Heep have worked continuously since, with the inevitable line-up changes, including lead vocalists. Bernie Shaw has taken that role since 1986, and is, consequently, the band’s longest serving front-man.
We spoke to him just before the band went off to play a Bahaman rock-cruise, with the likes of Alice Cooper.
The story goes, that Shaw was playing with his then band, Stratus, at London’s famous Marquee Club, when Mick Box, the Heep’s founder and lead-guitarist, just came up to him and offered him the job. We wondered if this was one of the stories from the rock apocrypha.
Pretty well that’s the way it went. Mick was in the audience during Stratus’ last show at the Marquee club, and afterwards we were backstage getting changed, and basically there was a knock on the door, I opened it up, and there was Mick. He said he’d been sitting in the back of the room all night, listening, and he thought I had a similar range to their last vocalist and they were looking for a new lead singer… And 29 years later…
So what was it about Shaw that Box felt was right for Heep?
I think the main contributing factor was my voice, which sounds good with other harmonies around it. You take Jimmy Barnes for instance (Barnes has performed with Heep) great vocalist, but you don’t want to hear Queen-type harmonies around him. But then there’s Freddy Mercury who had a great voice for harmonies. You choose the right brush for the paint.
How long did it take Shaw, a relatively unknown musician, to feel settled into Heep?
[The other band I was in at the time], Praying Mantis, would do, if we were lucky, ten shows a year. I went from that to…I think our first gig was going to be someplace like Moscow! Mick never gave me the impression that I was the new boy. He always gave me free reign…helpful tips in the studio.
In fact, Shaw is effusive when he speaks of Box.
Mick is such a lovely guy, and I’m very proud to say he’s my best friend… I’ve learn so much from him. I don’t want to say he’s a mentor, but he’s like kind of a big brother to me. He’s done and forgotten more than you’ll ever know. And survived it, losing friends along the way. He’s a very caring individual, who wakes up every morning and sees the goodness in the day. He never ever bad mouths people, no matter what. He was ripped off in the 70s…he lost millions, stolen by management. He should be in a seventeen-room mansion by now, but he has no bitterness. . .I’ve learnt a lot from him and I still love the guy. He was best man at my wedding ten years ago.
Although lots of the old, rock acts are still working: Deep Purple, Status Quo and so forth, most of them only do a handful of gigs a year, whereas Heep do over 100 a year. Shaw agrees
We are probably one of the hardest working bands around. And now our audiences are changing, We’ve always had a very strong core of the mature generation, who’ve been with us since the beginning, but about seven or eight years ago we brought out the studio album “ Wake the Sleeper”, and this gave us a) more females and b) more under 30s. and they’re just kind of discovering the band for the first time. Now at the front of the auditorium where we used to have seats for the older audience, we have to clear space! The older audience is still coming, but with the young kids… they’re loving it!
And what can we expect on this Australian tour?
Although the band has been to Australia many times, this is only my second ever visit, so I’m really looking forward to it. We’ll be doing lots of songs from the new album then we’ll go back to the older songs like “Easy Living”, “Free Me” and so forth…song s that everybody remembers. We’ve done so many albums, we have to do a cross section of the old and the new.
How will a huge rock act like Heep, perform in smaller venues, such as The Gov?
It’s the same show, just more sweaty and bit more crowded on the stage! We are about to do a rock cruise in the Bahamas, which will be very small venues, and then a couple of weeks across America, playing a lot of big venues like casinos…but we do the same show. We’re not a band who can trim. It takes a lot of time to put a set together, and that set takes you on a journey emotionally and song wise. If it’s 500 or 5000 in the audience, the show is still the same.
And finally, a complaint against Heep, filed by a friend here in Adelaide:
“Ask them why they cancelled their gig at Portsmouth Polytechnic in 72. They got replaced by Roger Whittaker!”
Shaw had no answer to that. He was laughing too hard.
Uriah Heep will play The Gov on March 25th.
Interviewed By Tracey Korsten
Tickets on sale now: https://www.metropolistouring.com/tour.php?tour=2015_uriahheep
Thu 19th – Sydney – Rooty Hill RSL
Fri 20th – Sydney – Metro Theatre cap.
Sat 21st – Melbourne – Shoppingtown Hotel
Sun 22nd – Melbourne – Chelsea Heights
Tues 24th – Perth – Astor Theatre
Wed 25th – Adelaide – The Gov
Thu 26th – Brisbane – Eatons Hill
https://www.uriah-heep.com/newa/index.php
