Just before Uriah Heep's two shows in Athens and Thessaloniki, Solid Rock caught up with Mick Box and chatted about "Celebration", their shows in Greece, the official bootleg series and Uriah Heep's next studio album.

Solid Rock: Tell us a bit more about the new tracks "Only Human" and "Corridors of Madness"?

Mick Box: Actually when we were doing the “re-visit” tracks, along the way we decided we might want to pop two new tracks on, just to show people that we’re still moving forward and there will be another studio album. And we started writing them about two days before we went into the studio [laughs]. I had the guitar idea and I went to Phill and I said “Come on, we gotta move really fast here!” You know, we’re fast writers pretty much. When we were recording the other songs, during whatever break, we dived into another part of the studio and sat around a machine and kept on playing our ideas until we got a few licks together. We got it pretty much written “on campus”. In fact we were only two days in the studio when we started thinking about something like that.

“Only Human” is a great uplifting song, in terms of what’s goin’ on today around the world. I think you just realize that we are only human and it’s quite an important thing to say. Lyrically it has a very strong important message. “Corridors Of Madness” is a bit darker and a bit more of a groove. So “Only Human” is a bit more of a pop-rock thing, if you like, and “Corridors Of Madness” is more of a groove, dark, moody tracks. And they both work. They’re two different contrasting parts of what Uriah Heep is all about today.

Solid Rock: Will we be hearing them live as well?

Mick Box: Oh, yes! The shows were doing now for the 40th anniversary tour are pretty much split between the material on “Celebration”, the older stuff  and the songs from “Wake The Sleeper” and of course we got a few surprises in store for the audience [laughs].

Solid Rock: At various times in various compilations or live albums we see new studio tracks. Any chance of all these tracks being corralled together and released in an album?

Mick Box: Well, that comes down to the record companies really. You see all these compilations and live albums have been released by different record companies and when we signed those deals we were a bit younger and a bit greener [laughs]. So now they own the tracks into eternity and that of course makes it difficult for us to get them back and put them all together on one album. Though I would like to see it happen… Who knows what the future holds, eh?

Solid Rock: How did you come to the decision of which songs to re-record and how come there are no tracks from the 80s in this collection?

Mick Box: Well, it was mainly a record company decision. Edel asked us to do this album and they wanted a collection of songs that were successful in the markets that they wanted to go for. So what we did was choose pretty much our most famous songs all the “classic hits”, if you like. You know the stuff that charted well and got us awards and gold albums so that’s what we did. But who knows, if this goes well I have been thinking of doing a MkII and then we can revisit all those tracks that didn’t get into this album, the stuff from the 80s like you mentioned, and others.

Solid Rock: Did the re-recording stir any memories? Cause you’ve been playing these songs for 40 odd years. Was it different recording them to playing them live?

Mick Box: Definitely. I mean you’re right, we’ve been playing the songs for ages, but I love these songs and the audience loves them and we love playing them, but yes it was interesting to sit down and re-record them and look at them from that point of view. I did get quite a bit of déjà vu doing this album…. [laughs]

Solid Rock: So it was it a conscious decision to stay so true to the originals?

Mick Box: Well, we did mess around a bit with “Bird Of Prey”, changed the bit after the middle, but yes we did decide to stay pretty close to the originals. I mean that’s how they were written and that’s how people came to love them so why change them, right? But what we did differently this time around was that we recorded the songs live which we didn’t do when we originally recorded them.

Solid Rock: The idea behind the official bootleg is really amazing since it gives a personalized souvenir for the audience. Any chance of the Greek fans getting one from the gigs here?

Mick Box: Well you can order the ones we have recorded already from Concert Live. But I don’t think we’ll be able to do one of the shows in Greece this time around. You see, it really is very expensive for Concert Live who have all the equipment to do this and it can only work for shows in Germany and such places where they can get the truck and drive it to the venue and set it up quickly. But in the future who knows? I mean technology’s really moving fast nowadays, so maybe in the near future you can get something the size of a pack of mints and record six shows in that little box [laughs]. But, yes I do think we could do something like that again in the future. I mean, I like more of a polished feel to live albums but these official bootlegs seem to be doing really well, and it’s a good souvenir. People like having something from the show they were at...

Solid Rock: The obvious question. With such a powerhouse of a new album will it be 8 years again before another Uriah Heep studio album?

Mick Box: [laughs] No, no it’s definitely not going to be that long. It’s really all a matter of time, of when we’ll be able to have some time to get some writing in. I mean we’re touring now for quite some time, as usual and this 40th anniversary tour is going to be pretty long so it will pretty much take up a lot of our time. But we do want to do a new album and show that we’ve still got new material in us.  I think this new album will be more of a natural extension of “Wake The Sleeper”.

Solid Rock: How is the tour going so far?

Mick Box: Great! We had a run of shows before for six weeks Christmas and that was really good. Now we’re getting ready to come to Greece for two shows, then we’re off to Russia again and then back in to Europe. We’re probably gonna make it to the States this year, which is great ‘cause we haven’t been there since 2002, which is really a long time [laughs].

Solid Rock: Any new releases?

Mick Box: Well apart from Celebration, we’ve got a CD coming out from out headlining show at Sweden Rock and that’s part of the official bootleg stuff which we talked about before, and then, well we’ll see…

Solid Rock: Do you have any message for the Greek fans.

Μick Box: Oh, um… Well, the Greek audience is really one of the best audiences in the world. I mean it’s really a marriage made in heaven, our music and the fans out there in Greece. I think it’s great that all of our songs are well received, you know the classics and the new ones, so I can’t wait to be back there soon!

 

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