“What defines a band?” For different bands this means different answers. In the case of Uriah Heep, the answer is massive vocals, progressive songwriting, memorable hooks, six string sorcery, and driving keyboards. Phil Lanzon has been responsible for the keys in Heep since 1986. He also serves as a primary songwriter alongside founding guitarist Mick Box. Days away from the release of their 25th studio album, Chaos & Colour, we sat down with Lanzon to discuss this new effort, the events that led up to it, what makes up a Heep setlist, and the possibility of an all acoustic album. Read on my fellow Demons and Wizards!
Greetings Phil and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Phil Lanzon: *shows off “Keep Calm and Listen to Uriah Heep” shirt*
Yes! The world would be a better place if we all did!
PL: *laughs* I’m all good mate! So far, so good. The sun’s just setting down there. It’s the middle of winter. There’s a bit of light, thank God, but all is good.
Perfect. I want to start this interview by going back in time a few years. Uriah Heep is riding high off the success of the brilliant Living the Dream album, you’ve just finished a massive tour with Judas Priest, and boom: The world grinds to a halt. Had Heep been working on this album prior to the pandemic?
PL: No. We had it in mind before COVID hit. It was only talk. Nothing was really written in stone. We thought, “Now what are we gonna do? We can’t leave the house. Well, we’ll just have to write it on a screen, interactively or however.” We did it. We didn’t meet at all to write one single note. It was all done remotely.
Was that a first for Heep?
PL: Yeah, definitely. It was perfectly OK because once we got into it, it was straightforward. You just send stuff in, then you get back stuff. You go play a little bit, work it out, send stuff back. It’s quite a way of working. It does work.
It definitely works with this album. Could you give us some background on the album’s title, Chaos & Colour, and what it means to you?
PL: Well the definition of that is we lived through the chaos of COVID. The thing that sustained us, and sustains the world, is music. So music is the colour, Chaos & Colour.
How does Uriah Heep handle songwriting these days?
PL: *laughs* Because of COVID, it was unique. Normally, Mick (Box) would come to my house with his ideas. We’d sling ’em all together, put ’em in the masher, and if something comes out, it’s a song. There’s a lot of work involved to get to that stage, but that’s how we used to do it. That’s how we’d always done it. He has his ideas, I have mine, and when we put them all together, it becomes quite apparent which songs are gonna work and what needs to change.
Are there ever songs leftover from these writing sessions?
PL: Yes, often there’s bits and pieces leftover for sure. We address that problem, but we never actually use a leftover song. We’ve always gone for using something new. There’s been quite a few little bits and pieces left behind. I tend to write whole songs myself. I’m more of a songwriter who writes complete songs. It may not necessarily be a Heep song. Maybe part of it is. Then you take a piece of it out, put another piece in. Get one of Mick’s ideas, put that in there, and it’s a bit of a roundabout. He’ll start off with a riff and that will create a little idea. Then it’ll grow into another song.
There’s part of me that longs for the days of singles, when perhaps these “leftovers” would end up as B-sides. There were some great Heep ones back in the day. “Son of a Bitch” as the B-side to “That’s the Way That It Is” and “My Joanna Needs Tuning” as the B-side to the original version of “Think It Over” immediately come to mind.
PL: To be honest, I’m not familiar with a lot of those old B-sides at all. I never collected 45s or anything like that.
Phil, by my own admission, I’m a Heep nerd.
PL: *laughs* Hey, it’s your prerogative!
Overall, Chaos & Colour feels even heavier than Living the Dream. Would you attribute this to the lockdown’s impact on the band’s creative process?
PL: I wouldn’t particularly say it’s heavier, no. I think it’s on par, the difference being we were all equally contributing to the songwriting. Because of COVID, we did even more so. I think that’s brought maybe a couple of extra elements. Russell (Gilbrook) brought his part, Davey (Rimmer) brought his part, and that brought more to Heep, but I can’t say it’s heavier.
Speaking of heavy songs, I want to talk about the album’s leadoff single, “Save Me Tonight”. How did this one come about?
PL: That’s Dave and Jeff Scott Soto’s song. As far as I can remember, Davey came up with the riff and arrangement, but there was no vocal or nothing. It was just an instrumental. He’s always been keen on Soto’s writing abilities, so he presented it to him. That’s what he did with the previous song on Living the Dream (“Grazed by Heaven”) and he followed the same formula. That’s how that came about.
There’s a ballad on here entitled “One Nation, One Sun”, which starts out with you on keys and Bernie (Shaw) on vocals, before transforming into a larger than life power ballad suite. What would you say makes the perfect ballad?
PL: *laughs* Power?
Heep packs power!
PL: *laughs* I had to put that in. It’s not just that, is it? It’s quite a few elements, power being the main one. It’s the emotion of the song. The song has to have gut reaction. It has to have heart. It has to have passion lyric wise. Obviously the lyrics are going to mean a lot because it’s what you hear. So if you’re telling a story of love lost or love found or life in general, it’s got to touch people. And if you put together all those elements to make a power ballad, then you’ve got something.
Having played in Heep since 1986, you are the band’s longest serving keyboardist, ahead of only the legendary Ken Hensley. Did you have a relationship with Ken at all and what stands out to you about his playing?
PL: We had no relationship per se because we never really met long enough to have one. It was very sparse. One show here, one show there, a couple of brief meetings there. I never got to know Ken personally at the time. Of course, I respect all of his songs, which will stand the test of time. I liked his style of Hammond playing because it had character. The sound and the character of what he played is always something I remember.
Singer Bernie Shaw also joined Heep in 1986 and has been in the band ever since.
PL: ’87. January of 1987.
My bad! NWOBHM aficionados will of course remember you and Shaw previously playing together in Grand Prix. Was it you who suggested Shaw for the band and what’s it like working with him all these years later?
PL: Well the band I was in, which was to become Grand Prix, I was already with them. We had a singer who let us down. This was back in 1978 I think, *laughs* going back a while. Geez, 1978. That’s like a century ago *laughs*! Anyway, we were auditioning singers and a lot of people came through the door. One of them was this Canadian guy, Bernie. He came in and I auditioned him. I just had a piano and it was just me and him. It turned out he had a great range, and he still has, for what we were doing, so we got him straight in and that was that. We just carried on from there into Grand Prix and the rest is history *laughs*. Ironically, after all that time passed by and there were some dodgy years in the early 80s with not much work around, then the Uriah Heep thing turned up in ’85, ’86.
There are no shortage of classic albums in the Uriah Heep catalog. Has the band ever considered playing one of these albums live in full?
PL: We did in Japan a few years back. My memory’s not good as to which one, but we did do it in Japan. We also played the entire Wake the Sleeper album when that album came out. We managed to slot in every single song off that album, alongside the old Heep songs, and it worked! But that’s the only time we ever managed to do that was on that album.
It’s funny you mention that because I’ve always admired veteran bands who do that with new albums, and the ones who do make it work. Besides Heep, I know Rush did it with Clockwork Angels. I feel like Maiden’s done it with the last few albums. It’s a gutsy move, but when you’re still writing material of that caliber, why not? If you’re a fan of the band and you love the old stuff, and the new stuff is as strong as the old stuff, ideally they should dig it.
PL: Yes, indeed! It’s something to bear in mind because even now, some of new stuff from Chaos & Colour will easily fit in with the old Uriah Heep songs. When we do the next tour, when we go back to work in April and May to do the festivals, we will have incorporated some of the songs from Chaos & Colour so we could carry it throughout the year and into next year.
Further elaborating on touring, when it comes time to decide a setlist, is it hard for you guys? You’ve got almost 55 years worth of music under your belt now.
PL: It’s bloody insanity *laughs*! You could only imagine. We’ve got too many songs, so you have to pair it down and pick half a dozen of the old, most favorite songs. Then circle those around and it’s the only way to do it. You have to do it that way. Imagine if Uriah Heep went out on a big world tour and didn’t play any of the old songs.
Right. I’ve admired Heep’s willingness to finetune the setlist and switch things up, especially when you did the Priest tour. I remember seeing a post Mick made about how the band wanted to do a heavier setlist for that tour, so you pulled out songs like “Too Scared to Run” and “Rainbow Demon” that hadn’t been in the set for a while. As a diehard, I was thrilled. The attention to detail is something else.
PL: Another thing to add to that is we just did a 10 week tour of Europe and Scandinavia. We supported ourselves on the tour, first playing acoustic and then electric. We pulled out a couple of acoustic songs, a rare one called “Confession”. It was just me and Bernie and the song went down an absolute storm. It was very, very difficult to choose the right songs for the anniversary tour, as you could imagine. But it worked out great in the end, the acoustic and electric sets were absolutely wonderful.
With Heep being such a nuanced band who encapsulates so many sounds and styles, could the band ever see themselves doing a full-on prog/folk album?
PL: That’s a good point. We’ve done tours that were just acoustic, but never actually thought about making an album like that. Anything’s possible!
Speaking of possibilities, will 2023 be the year that Uriah Heep returns to America?
PL: I would like to say yes, but it’s in the lap of the gods. It’s in the lap of those in the world who dictate. I’d sure like to say yes. In fact, I’d love to. We’d all love to. Let’s see if we can arrange it somehow. We’ve got to do it! Even if we can get half a dozen major cities in America and just do one hit like that, even that would work, but fingers crossed.
The new Uriah Heep album, Chaos & Colour, is available now on Silver Lining Music. For more information on Uriah Heep, visit www.uriah-heep.com.
Great intervieuw with a great musician
And a very fine person.
🤘🤘
Anybody else listening to the new album while reading this interview?! 🤘😎🦾