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DAVE WHITE
THE MAN BEHIND URIAH-HEEP.COM AND A PLAYER IN THE HEEPSTERIA TRIBUTE TO URIAH HEEP RECORDINGS.
For many Heep fans and visitors to the official Uriah Heep web site, the name is that friendly guy at the other end who replies to your e-mail, or posts up breaking news on Heep, or shares a new story from Mick. Dave is one of the 3 Webmasters (along with Louis Rentrop and Rodrigo Werneck) who runs the band's official site. Dave White is also a musician who has made a name amongst Heep fans at the latter day Heepventions arranging and playing guitar. Dave played a big part in getting the Heepsteria project done and those who've been fortunate to hear Dave at a Heepvention or on tape (he writes too!) can attest that he's a fine guitar player who is the next best man suited to play Mick's chops - next to Mick!
Here Dave (DW) gives us a full-blown interview about himself, his Heep attachments, and all surrounding the making of Heepsteria.
Q: when did you begin playing guitar?
DW: I started playing when I was 14. 1st guitar was an acoustic "Stella" :-) I graduated to a "Norma", $37 brand new. It looked like a Gibson SG, played like a tank. The lead singer in a band I was in painted it all up with Dayglo like Eric Clapton's SG. It was destroyed one night in East Cleveland, playing Purple Haze at a high school gig and trying to impress a new girlfriend !
Q: what got you interested in Heep, as a fan and what was it about Mick that drew you to become such a fan of his playing?
DW: I think the very 1st thing that "got" me was the Hammond. I was a real big fan of the Vanilla Fudge (we used to play our version of their "You Keep me Hangin On" for our band's auditions), and I have always loved that instrument. I remember having Heep up full volume in my parents den and all I was listening to was the B3. Although it was the Hammond Organ that I used to love, I never really play keyboards seriously (except on our home recordings and the tribute of course). My 1st love has always been the guitar, and Mick, more then anyone else I have ever heard plays exactly what seems to be completely natural and what SHOULD be played in the songs. What he comes up with is like your brain saying "if you could play ANYTHING on this song, in this spot...." it would be just what you are hearing Mick play. I think he is a phenomenal guitar player.
Q: what equipment do you use?
DW: I have 3 main guitars that are pretty old. For most things that I record I use a 1983 Kramer Focus 3000 with a Floyd Rose vibrato bar. It's just like a Stratocaster but much heavier and with a Seymore Duncan Humbucker in the bridge slot.
Dave White
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The pickups are pretty "hot" and it sustains and breaks into
harmonics really well. I've always loved to just wail on that guitar. Seems like an extension of me sometimes. There's nothing like playing full bore and getting it to warm up just right with the amps. It will be my main axe for a long time. I've replaced the tuners, stripped it of it's finish (it's a natural blonde now), and replaced the wiring in a few places. For my other electric things, I use a Cherry Sunburst 1974 Les Paul Deluxe with the mini-humbuckers. It's completely stock except for the replaced tune-o-matic that now has fine tuners on it. Nothing sounds like a Les Paul, and this one is no exception. I use a whammy a lot, and the Paul doesn't have one so I use it mostly for rhythm parts. It's a very loud guitar, and doesn't break up like the Kramer so it's like a different tool for me..I use it where I need it. I also have a 1965 Hagstrom 12 String Solid Body that I have recently re-strung and have started playing again. My daughter has a Charvel Dinky (that I used at HV99) and an Epiphone SG. For acoustic, I have a guitar my wife bought me 3-4 years ago. My amps are a Carvin 60 watt head, a Peavy 65 watt transistor head, and a Traynor bass head that I use for recording bass guitar. The Carvin is a killer amp. I also use my daughters Laney 50 watt combo for lots of power and tone in a really small package. I have the usual assortment of pedals IE: Flange, 2 distortion generators, 2 wah's, Phaser, an octave doubler, echo units, an "all in one" pedal board
that I use now, volume pedals, e-bow, and 2 Rockman rack mounts (one that I am borrowing from Bob Dreher).
Q: how do you get that sound very similar to Mick's?
DW: I really don't know how to answer this one, except that over the years, Mick was the one that I listened to the most. I play like I play, and if it sounds like Mick Box in anyway, then I am very happy ! I used to lock myself in my room and play for hours and hours (now it's in my basement studio through the headphones), and I never really played along with Uriah Heep records or tapes until we started the Heepventions and I
wanted to learn his specific parts to the songs. Damn that was fun !! I cranked their CD's through my 8-track multi-track, and plugged into one of the channels, and just mixed myself in...great fun..I miss that !
I also drove my family crazy !
Q: had you played Heep songs in any bands prior to the Heepventions?
DW: Surprisingly no. Most of the bands I was in were prior to Heep when I was in High School.
We always did Led Zeppelin, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds and Beatles, the Fudge, The James Gang, The Who, The Doors, Tommy James, and lots of Steppenwolf. When I was in college, and Heep was in their 1973-1975 stages, I played with a few different groups once in a while and I usually snuck a long separate lead solo in there during the course of a gig, and I think that was where Mick's influences started to show.
Man, I was ALWAYS asking bands in the bars "Hey ! You guys know any Uriah Heep?" ! Some did, some didn't..
Q: how did the idea to record Heep songs with some of the Heepsters originally come about?
DW: To make a VERY long story shorter...I was in contact with Jesse Lowe who did one of the
very 1st Uriah Heep websites "The Uriah Heep Cafe"...Jess and I would talk on the phone a lot,
and in e-mails, etc etc, and we got on the subject of recording together. We decided to try some
thing novel..let's use our old 4 tracks and record a song together...you record on a cassette
and mail it to me, and I'll over track on it and let's see what happens. Jess plays and owns a
HOTW VOL I
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Hammond B3 and one of the original Mini moogs, and is a tremendous Uriah Heep fan.
We decided Stealin would be the one we would do, and his friends recorded the drums and bass
and Vocals and Jesse did the Hammond. They sent me the cassette, and I put on two guitar tracks
and it WORKED ! We sounded like a regular band ! ...and we had never met, and it was great fun!
HOTW VOL II
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...the rest they say is Heepstory! :-) Next, we recorded The Wizard, and this just started to
blossom..and then I met Rich Wagner (Double Trouble on the Trib - "Real Turned On") and we did
an untitled tune of his that we later named "River of Dreams". Somewhere in here, Bob Dreher
and I met on the net, and did "Circle of Hands", and "I Wanna Be Free". All these were done
never having met these people and by mailing cassettes back and forth. It went on and on for
HOTW VOL III
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3 years this way...we were staying up all night recording, and had schedules, and timetables,
and all kinds of e-mail flying back and forth all the time. It was the most fun I had had in
years.
What is the best part of all this, is the associations and the level of talent these people have !
I think Bob Dreher is the most talented guitarist I have ever been associated with.
Amazing voice, incredible range and an unbelievable knack for harmony and chordal structures. I want to be on HIS CD someday !
Graham Hulme is a midi pro...he's got a real knack for getting us to sound tight and "spot on". He's a very talented bassist as well.
Graham has produced everything from lushious piano to bass lines to percussion that you would swear was real. We even dreged up a song of his
that was recorded when he was 17 (Come Away Melinda). Graham sang and played acoustic guitar on this one.
More Joined us...Dave Griffin and his velvet vocals, Mac Steagall
and his bass playing, vocal and lyrical contributions, Joe Doran (percussion and vocals), and Tim McGuinness (guitar and a hell of a song writer) ,
Michael Keuter (Vocalist with the Heep Tribute Band "Easy Livin"), John Lawton...JOHN LAWTON??!! (Another story some time), my Daughter
Kelly is even on one song. We branched into some original material, and now we e-mail midi-files, and pre-mixed Cakewalk files or CD's
to each other... how times have changed...But the feeling will always be like the 1st one when you hear the final product of all the efforts with these guys. It's GREAT !
Q: how did the initial idea for a full blown tribute come about between you and Rob Corich?
DW: As you know, we (The Heepsters on the Web) have 3 full CD's of material recorded by the Heepsters. All were done in our home studios, and all were done without ever being in the same room with each other...hell..many times the cassettes went from one country to another, and then to different places
in the States, and back overseas again,.I was e-mailing Rob one day almost 2 years ago, and asked him if he had ever heard any of our songs, and he said he hadn't, so I sent him a copy of "HOTW I" (Heepsters On The Web Volume I). After he heard it, he asked me if I would consider recording in a real studio with some of these guys and try to put out something really good quality. This idea eventually became the
"Tribute".
| Q: how did Ken Hensley get involved in the beginning? (who approached him?)
DW: Ken was in England on business, and met with Rob about the same time as Rob and I were discussing the possibility of recording Heep tunes for him. He told Ken about the idea, and Ken offered his studio in St. Louis to be the place we could record to if we wanted to. Ken and I had been in touch many
times about web things and he and Rob both e-mailed me telling me that the studio was being offered. So we accepted !
Q: how did you and Rob go about enlisting the artists that you did for this album, in particular the various Heep alumni?
DW: Oh geeze...Kevin, you have to imagine the volume of e-mail that was going around and around between the Heepsters in "Dreamer", my job as a webmaster at uriah-heep.com, all the recordings we were doing as "home studio" muso's and the mailing list mail. My level of involvement with friends on the net was pretty heavy, and it was very natural to simply ask the friends I had if they would like to CONSIDER PLAYING ON A TRIBUTE TO URIAH HEEP CD !!!!!! All said YES ! I asked Rich Wagner (Double Trouble-Germany), Thommie Mueller (Cosmic Banditos-Germany), Michael Keuter (Easy Livin Band-Germany), Graham Hulme (England), Clive Rogers (England), the various Heepsters in Dreamer. Rob Corich enlisted Robert Seagrove (Featherwheel - Canada), John Lawton (Gunhill - England), Trevor Hensley, Denny Ball, Native Son, Bronz, and Phil Lanzon. One or both of us "talked " to Denny Ball.
Q: was there anyone you would've liked to (tried to) get on this album but couldn't / wouldn't?
DW: Lots of people...there is a great group of very talented die-hard Heep-fans...you know the names...Dale Fredericks, Mike Fedysky, Merrick (Madman) Crittenden, Brad Todd....there are more too...but I had to draw a line somewhere as to who I asked to join us,
as with 10-15 people involved (although I would have loved to have them all)...it would have been a madhouse just to coordinate ! So I said to myself.."Invite people who had been involved with the HOTW recordings already...this is where the line will be drawn".
It was hard to do that, and I still feel like I didn't do these fine people justice...they have every right to be on this thing as the people who are on it...it was just economically and geographically impossible to get them all..
Q: how was the track-listing assembled?
Mac Steagall on Bass Guitar
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Were artists asked to choose their own favorites or was there a suggested list of songs?
DW: We all chose our own..obviously some songs that others wanted had already been recorded, but by and large we all were successful in getting to do our favorites. Rob and I just kept track of what was already "taken", and informed people when they asked what had been recorded already.
Q: without writing a book, what can you tell me about the experience of being in Ken Hensley's studio with the guys, and Ken , and recording there - with him watching?? What were the highlights there?
DW: Me? Write a book??? :-)))
Dave White, Mac Steagall and Bob Dreher
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Hmmm...there is so much I could say..1st off, just being there was like a dream for us..I mean, here we were in the "Man's" studio WITH the "Man"...he was very cool about everything, and although I think he truly enjoyed the experiences of listening to us put down his tunes on tape, he also was not afraid to step in and either offer some "Heepy" tips, or to professionally criticize us if we were obviously going in the wrong direction. Don't get me wrong here...he repeated more then once that these were OUR renditions of these songs, and anyway we wanted to do them was fine...but he sort of could sense where we were trying to get someplace and couldn't find the right road so to speak. He ALSO was very quick to tell us when something sounded GOOD!
Joe Doran
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AND THAT WAS TERRIBLY COOL ! There we were...all just smiling :-))) There was a 1 hour break in there when all the guys left for lunch and I got to listen to Ken solo on his B3 there, while I just leaned against the Lesley cabinet. You have to realize this was at full Heep volume !! I was definitely in another world and saw all " Seven Stars" ! He had a couple of nice talks with us while we were there and you can read all about them at the tribute site, in Mac Steagall's "Diary" which is published there. All in all, it was really cool to be there watching him watch us !
Q: OK can you give me an example of Ken's Heepy tips or professional criticism? :-)
DW: Circle of hands..he told us we were making a mistake in playing it for 8:58... Time to Live..he adjusted the Hammond sound to better suit the song, I had a problem with the bridge that he jumped on, and we just did it and did it till I got it...was a mental block or something on my part in that section of the song. Remember..I did all the Hammond parts by myself with everyone else in the control room, and with Ken at the board.
Q: Do you think it was an emotional thing for him?
DW: I think that #1) he was happy that it came out so good, and #2 yes, it was emotional for him as well, because we had "Captured" the feeling of his original compositions. He told us that a few times.."I can't believe you guys sound so good...These are very good..."
Dave Griffin
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Q: what can you tell me about Ken playing on a few of the songs with the Dreamer band? How did he take to doing it?
DW: Well...I forget exactly how we got around to asking him ... but our original version of Circle of Hands was 8:58 long, as we did it like the "Live 73" version, and there was room in there for the complete organ and synth solos...there were a few um.."comments" about the length of the song, and we asked Ken or Ken offered to do the slide guitar parts that you now hear on the song. We ran out of time for him to record them while we were there in June, but when I came back in July with Dave Griffin, Ken had completed his slide tracks and he played them for us...it was amazing to hear him on there ! Rain was done on the spot in one or two takes and just a few fixes as Dave sang WHILE Ken played. He had a Roland Keyboard running stereo
through a sound module of some kind, and into the board. Dave sang in the studio, and Ken played in the mixing room. We have the whole thing on Video...it really came out wonderfully!
Bob Dreher
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Q: Good , so there'll possible be a video to purchase with/after the CD?
DW: Well, It's the videos Lannis took while we were there..lots of good things in there, and I have one of my own from the 2nd trip I took..Oh..I think we could be persuaded to release a composite..mine have all the Dave Griffin stuff on there, and Lannis has all the other guys.
Q: did Ken have any problem remembering the song (rain) or his parts on COHs? :-)
DW: He did take about 3-4 minutes noodling around on "Rain", and commented "I haven't played this song in years :-)" Then, all of a sudden, he was in the groove, and he performed it flawlessly .
Q: what were some of the earliest tracks you heard for this project? and when did you know it was going to be something big?
DW: Aside from Dreamers stuff, I think the 1st I heard was Rich Wagners band doing "Real Turned on"...after that, it might have been "July Morning" by Rob Seagrove...
Q: what do you think of John Lawton's contributions to this project? how was John's attitude or approach to these recordings?
DW: His attitude was great ! John was all for contributing his two tunes on this, and when Graham and John realized they had the opportunity to perform together on the "Medley", they jumped at it ! I was able to meet John at Heepvention 99, and I gotta tell you, he is one HELL of a live performer, and he and Iris Lawton are two of the nicest people in the world.
Q: Rob Seagrove and Gregg Dechert take on perhaps the most popular Heep classic (to the old fans!) - 'July Morning'. How do you like their version?
DW: I love it..especially the middle parts where all the harmonies are..Rob really shines on this! Did you know they rented a church and played the intro on a huge pipe organ ? His version is superb, I bet I have listened to it 50 times since I 1st received a copy last winter.
Q: what can you tell me about the cover art concept? It's an interesting drawing, and strangely could be a Heep cover!
DW: Andrew Buckle is the graphic artist that Rob enlisted. I have the samples of the ones that DIDN'T become the cover...there were all kinds of them. Andrew and Rob finally settled on the one with the heads...it kind of "grows" on you. Seems a bit Roger Dean, but definitely Andrew's own !
Q: how difficult was it to keep a secret from Mick?
DW: Ha Ha Ha !!! I drove everyone nuts with this I bet ! Every e-mail had a FYIO or a "Shhhhhh" in it !!
Sure there were leaks and even some hints of this in a Brazillian magazine, but all the people from all over the world were very considerate and really did want to keep the secret just that..A SECRET ! We wanted to surprise Mick with it !
More to be added...............
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