UHAS 29 Autum 1998

BERNIE SHAW - SONIC ORIGAMI

An exclusive interview.

UHAS: The first thing to ask is how you feel "Sonic Origami" stands up as a follow up "Sea of Light"?

Bernie: The more I listen to it, the more I think it's stronger than "Sea of Light". I think we've progressed song writing wise, I think we've definitely progressed production wise "Sea of Light" is a great album, it's recorded well, it's mixed well, there is a certain. style of block harmony that is very typical of Heep that we used but we've progressed a little bit beyond that so instead of just three and four part harmonies blocked up, we've doubled lines and put a lot more oohs and ahhs in. There's more finesse to the vocals, we've used combinations of twos and threes, not just all five singing in a block as we did last time, it was a very strong trade mark but I think this has got a little bit more atmosphere and mood.

UHAS: It seems to me that the album has a more smooth and sophisticated sound to it
than "Sea of Light", would you agree?

Bernie: Yeah, I think that's down to Pip Williams, Pip is a world class producer and for all the 12 years I've been in the band we've never used anybody quite like Pip before. We touched on it with Richard Dodd when we did "Raging Silence". Ashley Howe was also involved at first with "Raging Silence" but it ended up being just Richard. Richard has gone on to be one of the top producers around the UK now, if you open up studio magazines there's photos of Richard next to tape machines saying: "I'm Richard Dodd and I use this sort of tape", the boy is hot stuff now. Pip has done work with everybody from "The Spice Girls", to "Kiki Dee", "The Moody Blues", "Status Quo", "Barbara Dickson", unbelievable amounts of different people, he's a true producer, he doesn't just focus on one style of music. He's an arranger, he does string arrangements, he's got perfect pitch so he knows exactly what's in and what's not in key. Especially with me, I'd be saying: "it sounds good to me Pip", but he'd bring me in the control room to listen to the take and he'd be right, what I'd be hearing in my mix in the head phones would not be quite the same as what's going on the tape. That guy has so much expertise and his pedigree is as long as you arm and it really shows up in the music.

UHAS: Was it a very different way of working from a production point of view than when
you did "Sea of Light" with Kalle Trapp?

Bernie: He had more of a hands on approach, Kalle was doing a lot of the engineering as well as being in the producer's seat. This time we had Norman Goodman turning all the knobs and Pip was just next to him, listening and saying: "That's alright, that's in tune, that's the way I want to go". We used a recording system called "Radar", it's a computer and you're not using up lots of tape, it's information on a chip so he could take five really good takes, listen to them all and take bit's from each. There's only a few studios in the country that have this system but it's definitely the way to go, it saves so much time, there's no waiting for tapes to rewind, you get direct access to the part of the track you want to go to and you save hours of time just on tape rewinding.

UHAS: Is that one of the reasons you choose this particular studio?

Bernie: That was one of the main reasons and it's got one of the best control rooms in the UK. Pip had used it a lot before and wanted to use it again with this particular engineer that was there. Unfortunately the engineer ended up not working there so we brought

Norman in who I used to work with in the "Praying Mantis" days, and they were a very
good working team.

UHAS: So it was Pip who steered you towards that studio rather than the band wanting to
go there?

Bernie: It was definitely Pip's idea but we wanted to record in the UK if possible.

UHAS: What was the working relationship like between the band, Pip Williams and
Norman Goodman?

Bernie: Great! Within a very short time of working together we were all thinking. They were both part of the family and within days we all were thinking: How can we not work together again? There was a serious bonding between us all. It's not just that we wanted him to fit in with us, we wanted to fit in with him, it was a very good partnership and I think that we will, if at all possible, work together again. It was hard work, it's probably one of the hardest albums I've done, but Pip comes up with phrases and jokes about everything and he said "if it was easy, everybody would be doing it". He also had sayings or phrases to identify parts of songs such as certain drum fills, for example, the last drum fill on "Only the young" he described as: "F*****g about on the drums, f*****g about on the drum kit". And that's exactly how the fill runs. Another was: "All of a sudden a f*****g great oven". One of the guitar lines he identified by saying: "Always be kind to a kitten". Or such as the shuffle rhythm on "Everything in life", he called that: "Donkey diddley". The songs were never referred to by their title, it was always something from within the track, wether its a bass line or a vocal line or whatever, he'd have a name for it and when he said the phrase it was spot on. I guess you had to be there to really appreciate how it was but it kept a good working atmosphere all the time. For the hours we were putting in you needed that light heartedness.

UHAS: You didn't write any of the songs, what role if any did you have in developing or
shaping them into what is actually on the album?

Bernie: I didn't write any of them but when it comes to arrangements we all have ideas on
how the construction of the song should be and looking for any waffle that can be taken
out, 1. can be quite brutal when it comes to cutting out fluff and 1 think my forte is my
contribution to getting a nice clean arrangement rather than coming up with original ideas. Also the vocal approach and voice sounds, 1 think this album more than any other - even "Sea of Light" - sounds like me, in the past I've take on characteristics which have not necessarily been my idea. 1 like to be me, 1 don't like to impersonate people, 1 did enough of that in Canada when 1 sang in the covers bands. One of the best compliments I've had was when some friends of mine who heard the album the other day said: "From the first second we knew it was you it sounds like you". 1 went: "Thank you". That's what 1 wanted this album to sound like. The mix that Pip has gone for is very much up front vocals which aren't swamped. Even the backing vocals are up front. "Sea of Light" was pretty good on that front, "Raging Silence" lacked a little bit, the vocals could have been a little more pronounced and "Different World" wasn't my cup of tea mix wise at the end of the day. We had more of a hands on role in the mixing, Pip and Norman would do it but then we could make our comments and they'd take them on board. We didn't just concentrate on our own parts, I made more comments about guitar sounds that I did vocals which I think is a more objective way to look at it. With "Sea of Light" we all listened for our own bits and it was a little counter productive. I think it was Mick's idea that we all listened to each others parts to get more constrictive opinions. I was very happy with the final mixes, they took their time to achieve but they are quite complex, each song is an average of five or six minutes and you can't put that many vocals and sounds on a six minute song and make it all sound right in two hours.

UHAS: Were you there from the start of the recording or did you go in once some basic
tracks had been put down?

Bernie: I was there from the very first to the very last minute, Mick and I were the only two that didn't have a break, everybody else managed a day or weekend off but Mick and I were there for the entire time.

UHAS: How would a track be recorded, what's the process you go through?

Bernie: We had a very short time for recording the album, I don't know anybody else who could record 14 tracks and mix them in two and a half months. The most important thing and the most time saving thing was that we booked three weeks in the rehearsal studio before we started recording. The ideas were in the form of guitar, drum machine and keyboard demo and a vocal line that I'd already learnt. In the rehearsal studio we developed everything up and got Pip in during the last week to get his influence on it all. So a lot of the work that would normally be done in the recording studio was already done and it saved us a lot of time. WE went right into the studio and the first day we spent setting up, then we started recording on the second day. The first thing was to get a good basic rhythm track down of bass, drums, guitar and Hammond. That way we had less overdubs but it was harder to do as there were more instruments playing at once. There's more margin for error that way but that didn't happen because we'd spent the three weeks rehearsing. Within about 14 days I think we'd done all the basic bed tracks with a rough guide vocal then we had to put all the other parts on, the solos, the lead vocals etc.

UHAS: Some of the songs are quite complex in that they contain a number of different instrument sounds, there seems to be more of a wide or full sound to it that "Sea of Light", how did that develop?

Bernie: We didn't intend it to be that way at first but Phil and Pip both had a lot of ideas to put different strings sounds on, then there were even harps and penny whistles and we spent hours going through banks of real sounds on disc that can be played through the keyboard. We weren't able to do that in the rehearsals because the songs hadn't been developed that far then. But it got to the point of when to say enough because it all started sounding so good, but we didn't want to overkill it.

UHAS: How difficult do you think it will be to reproduce live?

Bernie: Very difficult, I think we've set ourselves a very high standard but Phil will be able to reproduce what we've recorded so it should be a very good live representation. There are a lot of different guitar sounds but not necessarily a lot of guitars so Mick won't have too much of a problem. The only thing you always loose is when there's no rhythm guitar behind the lead solo, but everyone has that problem live unless there are two guitar players.

UHAS: As we've just discussed, the album's got quite a big, full, even polished sound, do
you think that's representative of what Uriah Heep are all about?

Bernie: Oh yeah, even back in the old days they were still putting a lot down and we've just evolved that. For their day back in the early 70's they it was inventive but it's 1989 now and things change. But we've got five people who are trying to keep that ideal of good melodic rock happening, and that's what I think we've achieved, good melodic rock. Not a lot of bands are playing stuff like that, it's either gone completely sparse or to the other extreme with over the top "Asia", "Yes" and "Pink Floyd" type of arrangements. We're not into that category but we're on the melodic side of it and still with lots of harmonies and really nicely constructed backing vocals. When Phil would pick out on the piano our individual harmony parts, we were thinking : what's that!, but when they were all combined together they sounded great, one part on it's own sounded very odd but the combination of all the parts really worked. Phil has a very good ear for constructing harmonies and even Pip would question him about wether it would work, but sure enough Phil would be right. Pip could sit there with music manuscript paper and script the songs out as we played them, that's how good his ear is, but Phil had him wondering about some of the harmonies.It is more complex than the last album and I thought that was good for it's time, it still is, I still like to listen to it but this new one just blows me away. WE all agree that if the record company works half as hard and half as diligently as we have, then we'll have a good product.

UHAS: What has been the record companies reaction to the album?

Bernie: They're absolutely knocked out. They had a meeting with Mick, Pip and the guy who's looking after us in America, during the first week of mixing and they heard the four tracks that Trevor had written. Half way through the first song the record company guy stopped the tape machine and got the whole of the A & R department in to his office to listen to it. They couldn't believe we had 14 tracks of this standard in two months. Even Terry Shand who is the chairman of "Eagle Records" came in had he was just knocked out by what he was hearing, they can't wait to get hold of it. If they had their way it would be out in July, we're holding the rains on them because we feel that's too early, we don't want to be lost in the shuffle of all the big bands who are doing their big tours during the big summer rush. We're hoping for a September release so if we stick to our guns and let them have plenty of time to get everything right, artwork wise and promotion wise, there's more of a chance that it will all be done properly. Unlike "Sea of Light" which never got to breath. The Germany company was a new company and the guy had never done it before. "Eagle Rock" is new but the guy's come in right from "Castle Communications" where he was the managing director. He knows what he's doing and not only are they a record company, they're also a video company and they've got some heavy weight names, "The Stones", Michael Bolton, Tina Turner, hopefully the record company will be as strong.

UHAS: The band seem very happy with the new record company and their initial good intentions for the band. But that has been the case in the past where the story has been: The last record company let us down but the new one will do the business. For one reason or another things didn't happen as we may have all liked, how confident are you that everything will work the way you hope this time?

Bernie: You can't be too pessimistic about it, what you say is true about the past but you've got to have faith in the people or there's no point in carrying on. Everybody will promise you the world but there's so many different factors that can go wrong. Even from the off, you could sign for a million pound but if they sign you as just a tax write off they're not going to work your product. You've got to make sure that you're signing with a company that wants you and wants to sell records. Rainer Hansel started "CBH Records" because he wanted to expand from the live promotion side of the industry. I think he bit off a little bit more than he could chew. I know that there's only a couple of bands on his label now and they want to get off. He's not doing anything, he doesn't know what it means to be a record company. He's a great promoter and we thought that would carry through into his record company but it didn't. "Eagle Rock" is a record company, Terry Shand ran "Castle Communications", he knew from their books who was selling and who wasn't from their back catalogues and Heep were their biggest selling band. When he formed the new company he wanted us, "Castle" sell millions of records and now Terry wants a part of that for the future, he knows we can sell old records but he also knows that we can sell new records. He has a great track record in the industry and all the people who are in the company are all old school people. John Knowles who's in charge of the A and R department is very well known in the industry from as far back as the 70's. All the names that you come across in the entire set up are all proven names within the business. They all have the right pedigree and there's no reason why this horse shouldn't run but at the end of the day it's all up in the air and there's no guarantee but they are all very excited about "Sonic Origami" which is great.

UHAS: "Sonic Origami" is quite a striking title for the album, where did that come from?

Bernie: Yeah, it's a neat title, I think I was the one that pushed for it most because it was just so over the top but it just rolls of the tongue and it's very modern. As we were recording we had a big sheet of paper stuck on the wall and if anybody had a saying or word or a line out of a song that they liked, we'd write it down. We had about 40 working titles but a lot of this titles came from Pip. When he had a bunch of good takes of a track and he wanted to put parts of each together to see how it worked, he'd say: "We've got all the takes, now let me do a little bit of sonic architecture". That was his phrase for taking an intro from one take and putting it wits a verse of another and maybe a chorus of another. We thought the phrase was kind of neat and I'm not sure how oragami got thrown into it but someone said it, it got written down on the board and the more we looked at it the more we liked it. As you know origami is the folding of paper into shapes but as a band we fold sound into songs, we're making shapes from music rather than shapes from paper so it just fell together. It's a little bit away from the norm for Uriah Heep but it's bang up to date, I could see that one of these bands on "Top of the pops" would have an album called "Sonic Origami", so why can't we? Visually it should influence someone with a good imagination to come up with a great album cover.

UHAS: How is the artwork coming along for the cover?

Bernic: Outside the record company art department who are dealing with the all the text
and the booklet, we've got 4 independent artists working on ideas for the actual cover
artwork. We've got a little bit of time which is nice because you can't rush an artist, it takes
as long as it takes but we do need a strong visual impact with the album.

UHAS: On one of the tracks, "I hear voices", there's an unusual sound to the vocals, how did you achieve that?

Bernie: We recorded it normally but when it came to the mix they wanted to give the vocals a particular effect, but not necessarily a mechanical one. It was either Pip or Norman who caine up with the idea to re feed the vocal back through a little speaker to get a transistor radio type of effect. I think it suits the song and it's very novel.

UHAS: "Across the miles" isn't written from within the band, how did you come to use that song?

Bernie: We've always looked around for songs just to see if there are any songs out there that we could do a good version of. For example, we did a good version of "Hold your head up" and "When the war is over" on "Raging Silence". We weren't purposely looking for an outside song to do, but if there was a good one out there why not do it. It was just a case of putting some feelers out through publishing companies, agents and managers. Mick even approached Russ Ballard because of the work he'd done on "Abominog". He sent us some songs, we had some from Swtizeriand, Germany, everywhere. Pip and Mick waded through the stuff and came up with a short list that would suit the band. We were looking for a good radio friendly single and out of the 250 or so songs that were submitted, I think three were what we were looking for and from those, "Across the miles" was the one that everybody went for. We changed the key and we changed the arrangement pretty drastically but I think the writers will be happy with it.

UHAS: Mick mentioned in the last issue that the band were looking for a commercial side to a portion of the album to give the band some radio friendly songs, which other songs do you feel are in that category besides "Across the miles"?

Bernic: I think "Perfect little heart" is a good radio song, it touches "J Giles band" nerves in me, "Only the young" has a very strong chorus and it's not that long. "Feels like" is a very strong song and very commercial in it's way. I like "Shelter from the rain" but I'm not sure it it's radio friendly but it may have a chance. "Heartless land" in it's openness and it's acoustic approach is very radio friendly, I can hear that on German radio and "In the moment" I can hear on German radio. I think there's a good cross section of songs that would be radio friendly in the UK, over in Europe and in America. The only thing we've done consciously is when we've done the mix we've made sure that the vocals can be heard, that's the number one priority in America, they want to hear the lyrics. That's not always the case in the UK and Europe where it almost give me a good beat first and push the hook. Out of the 14 tracks there are at least six that are radio friendly.

UHAS: What made you decide to resurrect "Everything in life" after six years since you first recorded it as a demo?

Bernie: It never really had a chance before and I'm glad we didn't loose it, it's a good "Donkey diddley donkey diddley" song and the new recording is even better than the original, it's a very up song and it's now got a bit more life and a bit more bop to it. I'd completely forgot about the song and it was only the last couple of days in the rehearsal studio when Mick said: "What about this"? It took us ten minutes to throw it together again and Pip really liked it. It gives the album that extra up tempo track because the album's tempo is almost medium to slow where "Sea of Light" had a few more short sharp tracks
to it.

UHAS: Will some of the "Sonic Origami" material make up part of the live set before the album is released?

Bernie: We haven't discussed that, personally I hope not, I would like to come out with a whole new show on it's release because it's a strong album and I don't think we should little snippets before hand. It was fun doing "Words in the distance" for quite a -while before it was released, but I'd like to come out and just hit everybody with the new stuff. The next tour will be a promotional tour, not just another tour for the hell of it, it will have a definite purpose and that will be to promote "Sonic Origami". In the past we've been known to play four or five tracks from a new album and the rest of the set is old hits, that's one of the stigmas of having the history that Heep have and it's going to be very difficult to put a new live set together, but as Pip says: "if it was easy, everybody would be doing it"!

Interview by Alan Hartley and David Owen.

Back