GLII URIAH HEEP “S’IMBARCANO” IN UN NUOVO TOUR AMERICANO

British prog-rock heavy-metal legends Uriah Heep are ready to rock in a town near you. They’re gearing up for their debut performance at the Ridgefield Playhouse on June 25. The band will embark on their U.S. World Tour that kicks off in Atlanta on June 14 and ends at the Baltic Open Air Classic Rock Festival in Germany on July 11. More dates can be found on the band’s website.

Lead vocalist Bernie Shaw, the only Canadian in the British band, spoke with me about the tour, their upcoming performance at the Playhouse, and life on the road and what makes them rock ‘n’ roll icons. The band plays six nights a week with little time off and 130 gigs a year.

“A lot of it has to do with chemistry within the band has always been very strong and the live performances have always captured something for the people,” Shaw said of their iconic status by telephone from England. He continued, “It’s also the factor with having really good songwriters in the band ever since 1970—we’re a band of five guys playing good rock ‘n’ roll. We go on and we play four instruments, we sing live there’s no backing tracks or no sequencers or synthesizer stuff.”

The band borrowed their name from a character called ‘Uriah Heep’ in a Charles Dickens novel. Many of their early songs are known for having fantasy themes in their lyrics in the early and mid- 70s.

“It’s been something that stayed with us for 41 years—as has a lot of our fans,” Shaw said. “I’m happy to report for the last 49 days we’ve been across Europe and the fans are getting younger saying, ‘Hey, there’s nobody else out there doing what you guys are still doing!’ They raid their Dad’s album collection or their uncle’s eight-tracks and they’re hearing ‘Heep’ and they’re saying, ‘You guys kick ass like Iron Maiden!”

Last year marked the band’s 40th Anniversary. They went on a world tour with their 2010 release, ‘Celebration.’ Their 23rd studio album, ‘Into the Wild’ was released this past April and is available now.

Shaw has been living in London since 1978. He’s been the lead vocalist of the band for 24 years. He migrated there from his hometown of Vancouver Island in Canada. His father is English so for Shaw moving to the UK was a bit of a homecoming for him since his Dad was born there. The band had several personnel changes over the years. Their current lineup is Bernie Shaw-lead vocals, Mick Box, guitar, Phil Lanzon-keyboards, Trevor Bolder-bass guitar and Russell Gilbrook-drums.

“I met up with Mick Box in 1986 so it’s been 23-24 years now. With any band that has been around 41 years, there’s people that come in and out of the band. This lineup when I joined had been pretty well stable. It wasn’t until just four years ago when the drummer Lee Kerslake retired that we actually had a personnel change. That’s when Russell Gilbrook took over the drumstool.”

When it comes to requests on their tour rider, Shaw said the band never asks for anything too extravagant while on tour. He prefers the most expensive American wine, Opus One.

“In the early 70s, the original lead singer David Byron had a taste for Dom Periogne champagne- so I think there was a case of it in the dressing room—but for the last 20 odd years we got bottles of Jack Daniels—we’re more ‘winos’ than hard liquor drinkers and we usually have a nice white burgundy French and Valpolicella Classico Reserva Spanish wine. Of course that will change when we come to America we’ll probably drink California wine—I don’t know if I’ll be able to drink any Opus One, which is probably one of the most expensive finest white wines in the world!”

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The band is widely known for their classic hits, ‘Stealin’, ‘Wizard,’ and ‘Easy Livin’ According to Shaw, their iconic hit in America is ‘Stealin’ and ‘Easy Livin.’ Currently, Mick Box and keyboardist Phil Lanzon write many of the band’s songs.

‘”They know each other back to front—they sit there and write songs and lyrics together; they know my voice better than me and they come to the table with 10 or 12 songs and say, ‘Ok let’s knock these up.’ And most of them are very, very good! Easy Livin’ and ‘Wizard were pretty worldwide hits—the biggest song in Europe was actually, ‘Lady In Black,’ which we still perform it’s an acoustic song with only two chords but it was on the charts for six months! And we won the equivalent of an Emmy twice on that song,” Shaw said. “So that’s very close to people’s hearts in Europe.”

For a band like Uriah Heep, life on the road is ‘second nature’ because they’ve been at it for many years. Shaw said that the band is like a family and they never get tired of being on the road. As long as he has a computer with him where he can communicate with his wife and kids, it doesn’t hurt as much.

“We do a lot of touring—it’s where our main ‘bread and butter’ comes from. It’s what we love to do—we tour 53 countries now and it takes a long time to get around it. I never really unpack my suitcase—I haven’t done that since I was 17 when I was doing the clubs across Canada. The gigs are further apart you’re taking an airplane rather than a converted school bus! And the crowds are all bigger. It’s a bit of a mental preparation where there’s eleven people plus a couple of drivers—there’s up to 18 people on the road so it’s a little bit like a ‘small army’. You got to be disciplined but it’s not so much the preparation it’s once you’re out on the road how to keep it going. It’s almost a two-hour very high-energy show, there’s a lot of audience participation and you got to be more of a ‘gymnast’ these days than anything. You got to pace yourself—we all like a drink but nothing to excess,” Shaw explained. “We try not to go on tour longer than seven weeks at a time.”

After the U.S. tour, the band returns to the U.K. and then heads to Russia and Europe.

“We were the first rock band to ever play in Russia in 1986. We’re doing some summer festivals across Europe. Then we head to Scandinavia and then there will be a South American tour booked later on in the year and before Christmas we’ll be doing a British tour. So it’s turning out to be a very good and busy year,” Shaw said. At this day and age, if you’re lucky enough to get the bookings, you got to take them!”

For more information on Uriah Heep, visit the band’s website, at http://www.uriah-heep.com/.

www.examiner.com n.y.