Uriah Heep: ‘We’ve still got the same passion for our music that we’ve always had’

The gig, which features a support set from Diamond Head, is at the venue on Friday, December 6 (7pm).

Formed in 1969, Uriah Heep released their debut record ‘...Very ‘Eavy ...Very ‘Umble’ in 1970, and soon became one of the biggest bands of British rock’s golden age.

Now, they are rapidly approaching their 50th anniversary, having released 25 studio albums and sold more than 40 million records worldwide.

Speaking to lead guitarist Mick Box over the phone, I ask whether he realised when he co-founded the group that it would still be going five decades later.

“I don’t think anybody in their right mind would have thought it would last this long,” he laughs.

Joking aside though, Mick makes it clear that he’s glad the band has endured, explaining that he always wanted to be a musician for life: “I would have gone wherever that would have taken me, but it happens to have been nearly 50 years in Uriah Heep and I’m very happy about that.”

Fans and critics are happy too, with the group’s most recent album, Living The Dream, getting great reviews.

“It’s been received by the fans and media brilliantly,” says Mick. “To the point where many fans and people in the media are saying it’s one of the best albums of our career, which is quite something when you’re heading to your 50th anniversary.”

Take a quick look through the various reviews online and you’ll see praise for the band’s clever harmonies, fiery keyboards and hard-hitting guitar riffs. You’ll also see many commenters talking about how fresh and energetic it sounds.

So how do Uriah Heep keep that level of exuberance so high after all these years?

“It’s down to one word really,” says Mick, who turned 72 earlier this year. “It’s ‘passion’. We’ve still got the same passion for our music that we’ve always had, certainly I have, and the love of playing guitar. I think that gives you the energy to continue on through, because it can be a bit arduous on the road, you know?”

The routine of travelling and performing can be “quite exhausting”, Mick explains, which isn’t surprising when the band often play up to 125 shows a year.

“But I think once you’re up on stage all that just falls away. The adrenaline kicks in and you see the faces on the audience light up and we’re off.”

I ask about the writing on Living The Dream and what the veteran metallers wanted to achieve with this album.

The answer is reasonably simple: Mick says they set out to record a “typical Uriah Heep album”.

“We created a template back in the ‘70s on how we should sound with the ‘wah wah’ guitar solos and five-part harmony,” he says. “So we’ve got all those trademarks in.”

Keyboardist Phil Lanzon and Mick did most of the writing, with bassist Davey Rimmer (a member since 2013) creating the blistering album opener ‘Grazed By Heaven’ with Jeff Scott Soto from Sons of Apollo.

“There’s an element of progressive rock there with songs like ‘Rocks In The Road’ and ‘It’s All Been Said’”, Mick continues, explaining that the band kept to a format, but also let the songs breathe and take on a life of their own.

“It’s a bit of everything on this album and it sort of incorporates everything that Heep’s about. You’ve got the ballads, you’ve got the hard rock stuff, you’ve got the metal stuff, you’ve got the progressive rock stuff. You’ve even got the folky stuff in ‘Waters Flowin’.”

“We didn’t do one genre of music,” he adds. “And that’s probably born out of the fact that prior to being Uriah Heep we were a band called Spice. The reason we called ourselves that was there were a million spices.”

“We wanted to experiment with everything and that went into Uriah Heep. That sort of thinking has stayed with us ever since.”