WRIF Virtual Rock Room with Uriah Heep's Mick Box
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00:00Thank you so much for watching Riff TV. Now this interview is obviously with video, but I don't
00:05interview everybody on Zoom. That's why I put it on my Talkin' Rock with Meltdown podcast. We talk
00:10to rock artists from all over the genre. So check out Talkin' Rock with Meltdown wherever you get
00:15your podcasts. And now to today's video interview. There you are, Mick. How are you? I'm good. I'm
00:23good. Over in London, looking at the weekend coming up. Happy days. Yeah, there you go. We're
00:28here in Detroit. The home of rock and roll. You've probably played over here a bunch of
00:34times, huh? Yeah. I mean, Detroit is a rock and roll city, isn't it? It's probably the capital
00:40of rock and roll, to be fair. Yeah. Yeah. Some would say that. Some would say that the Rock
00:44and Roll Hall of Fame should have been built here, but I don't want to talk about that place
00:47with what they've been doing with it. But hey, you guys are in the Hall of Fame, right? You're
00:51in the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame. We're in the Heavy Metal one, so that's good. We're happy
00:55about that. Yeah, no doubt. So Chaos in Color is out. And of course, I don't know, is it
01:01spelled the Canadian way or is that the English way or how's that spelled, the color? Well,
01:05the English way and the word color is with a U. Yeah. So we kept it English, right? You
01:11know, and why wouldn't we? Yeah. Now, a lot of bands I talk to, especially around this time,
01:17they're talking about their pandemic records that they put out. So this would probably be
01:21yours, right? Yes, indeed. I mean, basically, it all came about was that we were in lockdown
01:26like everybody else. And we were waiting for the government to ease those restrictions so
01:33that we could be together in the room. And while that was happening, we said, right, guys,
01:37let's do some writing. You know, we'll write together, write some songs. And when we're allowed
01:44to be together, we'll do it immediately. And when the government gave us about, I think it
01:50was about a month's window, we started intensifying writing. And then we said, okay,
01:55let's go in the studio and do it. We found up Jay Rustin and said, are you free? And he said, yes.
02:01Then he had all the restrictions of flying in from LA, you know, and all the COVID injections
02:05and stuff like that. You know, we got it all together. It all came together. And we went in
02:09there and recorded it in 17 days. Now, what is it about Jay that makes him like the guy
02:16for rock bands? Well, for us, I think he understands us. Number one, he's very true to
02:24our heritage. Number two, but he seems to have an ability to make it very fresh in today.
02:29He gets great sounds. He's great to work with, you know, pluses everywhere you look,
02:34you know, the end result are fantastic, you know, so we couldn't wish for better.
02:40Yeah. He, he seems to be on many rock records nowadays from, I mean, you, you name the band
02:45that's putting out a rock record nowadays, and he's probably touched it in some way,
02:48shape or form. It seems like.
02:50He's got a good set of ears, mate. You know, that's all there is to it, you know, and,
02:53and certainly with a band like your, I hate with a five strong personality, you know?
02:58In fact, if we were doing it ourselves, we'd already still be in the studio.
03:02Yeah. You'd only be on like your, you'd be on your 12th record or something, right?
03:06Yeah. But with Jay there, you know, he's got a great pair of ears. He's got a really great
03:11way of drawing out the best performances in each of us individually. They're meshing
03:16that together with great sounds and, and the end products goes in color, which was
03:20so, so Jay grew up right across the river here and he's kind of a friend of mine. And
03:23he's told me that, uh, that, that he had some great meals with you guys when you guys were
03:28recording this record and that, and that you watched a lot of soccer while this was happening.
03:31Is that true?
03:32100%. Yeah. Everything stops for your team, you know,
03:35you know, I'm a Tottenham Hotspur fan. So for my sins, of course, cause we're not doing very well,
03:41but, um, you know, when, when there's a game on, we, we tend to build things around it. Yeah. Yeah.
03:47So, so you'd be like, it was off the dinner time. So that's good. That's why they're connected.
03:51Right. There you go. Yeah. You'd be ripping off a guitar solo and you'll hang on my team's on,
03:55I gotta go. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So when you go into the studio with a guy like Jay or with,
04:01you know, whenever you make a record, uh, was this time a little bit different because you
04:05weren't allowed to like kind of be together demoing, uh, writing stuff, or, or was it pretty
04:10much kind of the same? Well, we were lucky enough to, to have a, um, uh, a window of opportunity that
04:15the government gave us that we, we took with both hands and went into a, into the studio again,
04:20and we did some demos of the songs and honed them down, sent them over to Jay in LA. And then we
04:26waited for the time when he could fly over and all the COVID restrictions were, were relaxed. And
04:31the minute that was on, we booked the flights and he was over and it was great.
04:35We, we, we, we're off and running. Yeah. And, uh, you know, you guys have obviously been around a
04:39long time, 50 years, or this is 52 years now. Is that correct? 53 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
04:45That's right. And so, I mean, how many more records you have under your belt? You think?
04:49I don't know, mate, I'm going to write the next one now. So, you know, yeah, it's this way. It's an
04:54ongoing, um, you know, snowball effect, if you like, you know, um, it's something you just keep doing.
04:59What else can I do? You know, it's, it's, it's in my DNA to do it and I'll just keep doing it.
05:04And so I think you just got to look after your health and then you certainly, we've got the
05:08passion to continue. And I think that, that helps you get over any obstacles that are thrown in your
05:12way. Yeah. I was going to say, uh, as a musician, that's got to be somewhat therapeutic, I guess,
05:16to keep writing new music, right? Well, if nothing else, it keeps your mind busy, you know,
05:21you don't want to decay, do you? You know, you just keep looking at new things and everything else.
05:25It keeps you young, you know, and I think that's a great thing.
05:27One of the things that strikes me about this record and about a bunch of records, I was
05:32listening to a bunch of the vinyl I have at my house just yesterday is the use of keyboards
05:36with you guys. And I think I was trying to think of another band that, that uses it like
05:40that. And I, the only thing I could really think of, and maybe you can help me out on
05:43this is maybe like a deep purple or something, but you guys really make keyboard kind of a
05:46front and center instrument, don't you?
05:48Well, yeah, the, the big thing about, um, heap is, is, you know, we, we created a template,
05:53a musical template back in the seventies. And that was, um, you know, hammered organ,
05:58wah-wah guitar, mime-wah guitar, five-part harmonies, you know, which we always use,
06:02you know, we came out, if you think about it, we come out of the sixties where all the harmonies
06:05were very sweet and singing chorus and doing oohs and ahs and things, you know, and then when he
06:10got to us, we, we, we started using harmonies in, in, in, like as another instrument almost.
06:16And, um, you know, many people have copied us since then, but, you know, we were sort of the
06:21innovators, that type of, um, vocal harmony, if you like. In fact, I think it was in America,
06:25we were called once, uh, DJ calls the beach boys of heavy metal.
06:32Wow. That's quite an accolade, isn't it?
06:35Yeah. That's, that's an interesting take. I never heard that one before the beach.
06:39Hmm. Okay. Yeah. You guys, you guys were really around at, at the, I didn't even think about this
06:46till just talking with you, but you were really there at the beginning of heavy metal, weren't you?
06:49Well, it was, it was called classic rock back then, you know, before they, you know,
06:53people started putting it into journalistic pigeonholes, if you like. Um, you know, it's
06:58like everything, um, in this life really, as I see it, as it comes along, you know, we started
07:03the classic rock, then it went to heavy rock, then it went to metal, then it went to death
07:07metal, then it was speed metal and then, you know, and, and it seems that every, um, generation
07:11that takes over, you know, does it bigger, better, faster. Yeah. You know? And, uh, so we, we call
07:17it classic rock basically. And when you think back in those early days, you know, there wasn't
07:22any stigma attached to being classic rock, you know, um, I'll give you an example. One
07:27of the tours we did was Uriah Heap, Earth, Wind and Fire and ZZ Top. You know, it was only
07:33good and bad music. It wasn't categorized like that was now promoters will only put classic
07:37rock bands together, you know, metal bands together or whatever, you know, whereas, um,
07:42back then, as I say, it was only good and bad. So you got all that diverse music in
07:46one night, which I thought was marvelous. Yeah. Yeah. You don't see a whole lot of that
07:50now. I know that like, for example, just throw it out there. I know Nickelback this year is
07:53touring with Brantley Gilbert, who's a country guy. So that's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But
07:58my, you know, I can see Nickelback being a bit country to be fair. What was the biggest tour
08:04you did back in the, in the day? Biggest tour. Oh, you know, they were huge. You know,
08:09we were doing, um, you know, 10,000, 20,000 seaters every night for 365 days in America.
08:16You never cover the same area twice. You know, they were huge tours. We were out for nine
08:19months at a time, you know, on touring. And then back in 72, we recorded two albums in
08:25one year, Demons and Wizards and Magicians Birthday and still toured the world, you know,
08:29so it was heavy going back then. And those, uh, those two records, I mean, man, it's just
08:36so good records. They, they, they stand the test of time. I throw them on there. And
08:40the only thing that sounds, I shouldn't say even bad about them, but I've turned my turntable
08:45there. They've been played so much or crack a little bit, you know, time to get a new
08:49one, mate. That's right. I got to order some new ones for your website here. Get down the
08:53vinyl store. Yeah, no doubt. But, uh, man, those records were massive. And it's like, uh,
08:57back in the day though, you know, I was just talking to somebody about this here today. It's
09:01like you could spend, you know, a lot of time, you know, making your first record,
09:05but only six or eight months to make your second. Right. Yeah. You know, that, that
09:09was the sign of the times. I think basically what it was to be fair was, um, you know,
09:14when you signed an album deal with a record company, you normally signed for six or seven
09:18albums. So you grew with the label and the label grew with you. And that, that, all that
09:21did was create so much wonderful creativity with the bands that were involved in it. Well,
09:26there was nobody looking over your shoulder and going, you look like that sound like that
09:29be like that. And, and, you know, and, and act like that. It was, it was none of that.
09:34You know, you were just, you were just get your own devices and you come up with what you came
09:38up with. And, um, and I think that was very healthy in terms of, um, the great music that
09:43come out of those times. Yeah. So, uh, uh, you guys are, when are you guys hitting the road
09:48again? We are, um, we're doing a few things. Um, we got the album out of course, right. We
09:54did all the promotion for that. And then we probably do a load of summer touring, you know,
09:59with festivals out in Europe. And then we'll look at all the other touring, um, as, as it
10:03transpires. I mean, I don't know about you, but our business closed down basically in January and
10:08it sort of comes awake at the end of January and then coming to February and things start
10:12formulating. But prior to that, Bernie and I, um, our singer, we're going out to do a, um,
10:17a thing called rock meets classic in Germany that we've done before. And that's with a 40,
10:21that's with a 40 piece orchestra. So that'd be a lot of fun. Yeah. And that's going to be,
10:25uh, Dee Snider, Joey Tempest, uh, Mike Tramps on there, Ronnie Romero. You got a lot of guys.
10:30Uh, that's going to be all through the month of April. That's cool.
10:32It's great. We did it once, um, with Alice Cooper once. And that was a lot of fun. Cause
10:35he warmed up to lady in black, one of our songs backstage, which was a laugh. And then, uh,
10:40we got to come out and do the encore of schools every night. And how good is that?
10:43I know, man. Happy days. Yeah. That's really cool. And what was that?
10:48Oh, about probably about eight years ago. And then I think four years after that,
10:52we did it again with Don Felder from the Eagles and we got up to do take it easy every night,
10:57you know, on the encore. So, you know, they're great to do. I guess this one,
11:02I think Joey Tempest's headline is, so we'll have to get up and do the final countdown, but you know,
11:06it's all good fun. Yeah. Um, was that with, uh, was Nita Strauss and all those guys in the band
11:11with Alice at the time? Oh yeah. Yeah. The same old guys, you know, you know, wonderful guys,
11:16you know, Ryan Roxy and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're great people.
11:20So, uh, before we got on, you were talking about the, uh, the rock cruises and stuff,
11:24and you just mentioned festivals and that, how many rock cruises have you done?
11:28I think we've done about four, but they've always been the, the rock legends cruise that flies out,
11:33you know, flies out of floats out of Miami. Yeah. You like those Florida, Florida,
11:40I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You like, you like playing on those?
11:44Well, I would like to do them again. Yeah. Cause they're great fun. You know,
11:47the good thing about it is you play three shows, uh, one in the small theater,
11:51one of the big theater and one on deck and everyone does that. So you get a chance to do
11:56your show and go and see, see the other bands, you know, so it's fantastic. You know, we,
12:00we love it and we love doing them. Yeah. And you get to meet some of the,
12:03the fans up close and personal. There's probably not nowhere to escape too much on those.
12:06You cannot escape my friends. The good thing about it, they're good fans and you know,
12:11they don't bother, you know, but they'll, they'll come along and ask for autograph or a picture
12:14and that's fine. Yeah. And that's kind of part of the deal. I part, part of the deal when you're
12:17doing those things, huh? Oh yeah. Yeah. No, without them, you're just a noise in the rehearsal room,
12:21aren't you? Right. Yeah, exactly. Um, Hey, uh, just want to ask your thoughts on, uh, Jeff Beck.
12:26What did you, uh, were you a Jeff Beck fan? Fan? Uh, I think that's, I'm understating it.
12:33I love everything that Jeff did. You know, he was my favorite guitarist, all time guitarist,
12:37um, you know, from high ho silver lining from the early sixties to, you know,
12:42when he worked with the Yardbirds to, you know, and my favorite, probably two favorite albums.
12:47Um, if I put them in the top 20 would be, um, truth and, uh, Beckola of Jeff Beck, you know,
12:54Jeff Beck group with Rod Stewart singing, uh, Ronnie Wood on bass, you know, Mickey Waller on drums and,
13:00uh, and Nicky obviously on piano, you know, and, and you listen to them and they're just real records,
13:05you know, they're, they're four guys, five guys in the studio, all going for it. One time,
13:10one take, that's what you're listening to. You know, it's fantastic. I love it.
13:15Did you have a chance to meet Jeff? Yeah. A few times. Yeah. A few award ceremonies,
13:21um, out in Germany where Beck Bogert and, uh, Apposy were playing and, uh, yeah, a few times. Yeah.
13:29He's a lovely guy. Yeah. I was talking to Rich Williams from Kansas. Like I was telling you a few
13:32minutes ago and he says he never, he saw him, but he never got to, he never met him because he
13:36would just stand there dumbfounded. He said, it's a bit of that to be honest, you know, I mean,
13:41the funny thing about, you know, being loving everything you did is I never sat down and
13:45learned at one of his licks. I never, never, I always saw it as a fan, you know, which was
13:49unusual, you know, but that's how I viewed it, you know, and he took the guitar playing to areas
13:55that nobody else went, you know, and, and, and he embraced every genre and then come up with
13:59something new with it. So it was amazing. Yeah. What other guitar players, uh, really
14:03like influenced you even, even today, is there any modern guitar players that you like?
14:09Um, I don't think you can deny Richie Cotson, you know, is, is, is a hell of a player and a great
14:15singer to sing. I'm only a voice from heaven, mate, you know, it's unbelievable, you know,
14:20so much soul and bluesy and marvelous, you know, so people like that. Yeah. But early day stuff,
14:26I was into more jazzy stuff, you know, like, um, uh, tell follow Barney Castle and, uh, and
14:32Les Paul, Mary Ford and people like that. That was more my, my entry into music simply because
14:38my guitar teacher that I only had for under six months was, um, the second guitarist to
14:43Django Reinhardt. And, and he lived in my, my, my hometown in the East end of London called
14:48Walthamstow. So obviously when his teachings were very jazz based, but I loved that because
14:53I love all the voicings of the chords and, and stuff, you know, I really enjoyed it,
14:57but then it grew into rock and, and we've been doing it for 53 years, mate.
15:01Was, was, was there that one moment that made you decide to pick up a guitar that you,
15:07that you really got you into music? Um, yeah, when I was 14 years old, I think my, if you
15:13look here, that's my first guitar on the wall there. Really? Oh, that's cool. That's awesome.
15:18You still got it, man. It's 12 pounds, 10 old money from a pawnbroker's. We bought
15:21it. Wow. And that's a picture of my mom next to it. So, you know, I still have it and it
15:26means a lot to me. So yeah, when I got that, that was when I thought, hang on, I, I can
15:31get, when I was having the lessons, I could, you know, it was giving me a lessons for a
15:35week. My mother could only afford one lesson a week, but I could play it back that afternoon
15:40and I was getting frustrated. So in the end, it was come to a point where I learned enough
15:44that I, you know, went off and, you know, let myself, to be honest. Yeah.
15:47Yeah. I was talking to a Rudy Zarzo a couple of weeks ago. And of course he has all sorts
15:51of a Randy road stories. And the reason I bring it up is because you were just talking
15:54about guitar lessons. And, uh, I guess the, one of the kids, one of the guys that was
15:57teaching him when he was growing up, uh, went to his mother after about six or seven months
16:02or whatever, and said, uh, I can't teach Randy anymore. And she's like, well, why not?
16:05He goes, because he's starting to teach me now.
16:09That's amazing. He was a great guy. I mean, I knew Randy from, um, my association with
16:14Lee Kerslake. It was in the, in your eye heap, you know, and formed the Blizzard of Oz
16:18with Bob Daisley and Randy and, and, and, and Lee and Ozzy, obviously, and, uh, did the
16:23first two albums. So I always used to keep touch with, with Lee because we were like, um, brothers
16:27with different mothers, if you like. Yeah.
16:30I used to go down and watch them play down in Shepperton studios and amazing, amazing
16:35playing.
16:36Well, you knew Randy, huh? Wow.
16:38No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a big fan of heap. So that was really nice. Yeah.
16:42Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, man, so good. 53 years of, uh, you're right. He, chaos and color
16:47is, uh, out right now. And, uh, Mick, good to see you here in person. I've interviewed
16:51you before, but I think it was on the phone. I'm much taller on the phone. I'm only five
16:55foot six, but in this, this, this kind of thing, you know, it's like, well, I'm, I'm
17:00vertically challenged, mate. So I'm vertically challenged and I'm proud of it.
17:04Good thing you're coming little packages.
17:06Yeah, that's right. A short guys, guys stick together. So, Hey, uh, maybe we'll see you
17:10next time you're here in the motor city and, uh, safe travels. Have a great time
17:13on that, uh, that rock meets classic tour and a good luck with the album.
17:17Thank you, my friend. We look forward to coming out of Detroit and rocking it
17:20mate. Yeah. We can't wait.