Image ref 11425620. Copyright Rex Shutterstock No reproduction without permission. Please see www.rexfeatures.com for more information.
RETURN TO FANTASY: MICK BOX ON URIAH HEEP GETTING BACK TO BUSINESS, AND THE LOSS OF OLD FRIENDS…
It’s been something of a tough time for Uriah Heep of late. Well, it’s been a tough time for everyone, of course – but you have to feel for the position that the Heep lads found themselves in this last year and a half. Having just released their finest album in years, Living The Dream, the band were looking forward to a grand celebration of 50 years in the business, since the debut album Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble was released back in 1970. A heck of a milestone for any band, and doubly so when you consider that they have been active, touring and releasing new music throughout that time – indeed, apart from a very short period of hiatus in the very early ’80s, after the band split following the Conquest album and before regrouping for Abominog, there has always been a Uriah Heep. This is no ‘legacy band’, reuniting to tour one more time and crank out the hits, this is a living, breathing band which guitarist and founder Mick Box has tirelessly been at the helm of for half a century. As I said, some celebration to look forward to, and then some…
And then the Covid pandemic hit. Touring arranged to take the party on the road in mid to late 2020 was scrapped, and rearranged for the same times in 2021, as people optimistically assured themselves that, as they said in the early days of World War Two, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be over by Christmas’. Except it wasn’t, and the rearranged dates for 2021 were rearranged again, and when this party finally happens (hopefully!) in 2022, Uriah Heep will actually be 52 years old. But I think I can echo the thoughts of just about every Heep fan around the globe that a couple more candles on the cake isn’t going to put a damper on things of any sort whatsoever, and I’m quite certain the band will be saying that same thing.
I caught up with Mick Box for a Zoom chat – something from the realms of science fiction back when Heep took their first steps – and naturally those plans were uppermost on my agenda to ask about. But first off, rather than wondering about upcoming plans, I was keen to find out what had actually been happening in the world of Heep – and Mick was eager to fill me in on events…
‘We’ve actually just finished recording the new album’, he said happily. ‘It isn’t mixed yet, and I don’t know when it will be released, but the recordings are in the can, and I’m really pleased with it. It’s funny, when we first started we took quite a while recording the first album because the studio was such a new environment for us, but by now we’re so used to recording that we can get in and out and do it really quickly. The current line up of the band is so good [with the last recruit being Davey Rimmer on bass, who replaced the sadly late Trevor Bolder back in 2013] that I just can’t wait to get back out there and playing again regularly. We had a fairly good run playing the stuff from Living The Dream, but it was cut short, of course, and the 50th Anniversary celebrations got shelved completely in the sense of live shows. We’ve done a few shows just recently again, and it feels so good to be back’.
When touring hopefully resumes in earnest, will that be promoting the new album, I wonder, and when will the release be planned for so that can happen? ‘Well, that’s very much up in the air at the moment’, replies Mick. ‘Really, that’s up to the record company how things are done on that front. You see, we have shows arranged for next year at the corresponding times that they should have happened last year and this year – a UK tour is set for the Autumn, and there were plans to go to Russia before that. The Russian part of things is uncertain, because they still have a way to go before opening up enough following the pandemic, but if we can’t do those shows we will get live work arranged for elsewhere instead, we’re so keen to get out there and do it. Now, those shows were all arranged as the anniversary celebrations, and it may be that the new record gets held over until afterward to avoid the two things getting in each other’s way. We may put the record out and have the shows promoting the new material and also being the anniversary party, but that’s up to other people to decide, I’m not certain at the moment how it will be approached.’
Over the pandemic period I have been busy myself on the Heep front, I mention, having published a biography of the band’s 1970s years (Decades: Uriah Heep In The 1970s), with original bass player Paul Newton providing the foreword. Mick has a copy of the book, but explains that he hasn’t read it all: ‘I’ve looked through it but I haven’t read the whole thing I must admit – it’s an odd thing reading about yourself! You did get one small thing wrong though – in the very early days of the band, when we were still called Spice, Alf Raynor didn’t play bass, he just played acoustic guitar. In fact, I think the only reason we had him in the band was because he had a van! I believe the book’s been quite well received though from what I’ve seen. It was good of Paul Newton to do the foreword for it – he’s a really nice guy, Paul, always has been.’ I mention that Ken Hensley had been very helpful working with me, and what a shock it had been for me when he passed away suddenly so soon after – so I could only imagine how that was for Mick and others who knew him well.
‘Oh, unbelievable’, Mick agrees, sadly. ‘I was in shock for days, stunned. We lost Lee [Kerslake] as well shortly before that, but at least with Lee we were expecting it, with the cancer and the other things he had. We’d had about five years to prepare, knowing that we’d lose him at some point. But Ken, there was no hint. I think the last thing I saw of him was when he did an unboxing thing with the anniversary box set that we put out, and he seemed fine. John Lawton as well, of course, he passed away recently, and that was another big shock’.
