Both me and Bernie had met Mick on previous occasions. But I then got recommended to go in for an audition and at the same time as I auditioned, we had other people auditioning for the singer position, so that was all going off at the same time. On if it was a coincidence that he and Bernie ended up in Uriah Heep at the same time – It was, I got a call to join the band from somebody else, a third party person called me and to go meet up and Mick (Box). On the outside, they look totally two totally different things, but there are a lot of similarities, they both came from the same era, the same stable. They had the harmonies, Heep had the harmonies, there was a lot of similarities, a lot of similarities. For me, it was not so far removed, if you take out the pop songs, the “Co-co”s, and all those novelty songs, there wasn’t a lot of difference. They got financially lucky with a few pop hits. On playing in both Sweet and Uriah Heep – Well, don’t forget that essentially, Sweet was a metal band, a rock band. It was just me and a piano and him, and he had the right range for the music we were doing, and that was it from there on and off we went. On how he first met vocalist Bernie Shaw – September 1978, we were auditioning, the little band that I was involved with, which of course, involved the two main members on bass and guitar, Mick (O’Donoghue) and Ralph (Hood), we were auditioning for singers because the singer we had let us down, so we put feelers out for singers and Bernie came along and I auditioned him. Hensley is that he wrote some wonderful songs, you can never knock that, and we play them every night, so now I have great for him, and his songs, but I never, never found that I was thinking, “Am I doing the right thing here?” None of that. I have, or never had at the time, thought about looking about who I had taken over from, (that was) last on my mind, I never even considered it and I still don’t today. We went to America on a three-month tour, “Well this is marvelous”. For me, it was a question of joining another band of an ilk that I was interested in, and for me, it was just an enjoyment thing, and it was like a crazy, “Oh well, this will be fun”. On how he reconciled being true to Ken Hensley’s part while adding his own style – We’re going back to 1986 now. It’s like any band is like when the Stones finally kick it, when Paul McCartney goes, when all these people do disappear, which will happen one day, there will be someone to fill that space. Eventually, when we’re not around anything, well, there’ll be another Uriah Heep. I can’t see that in the near future, but if that should happen, someone will take over. On if the band would stop should Mick Box decide to retire – No, if for any reason we decide to retire or just don’t wanna do it anymore. So I guess we got lucky with Jay and so good news. It’s like medicine, what works for one may not work for another. But you’ve gotta remember that with a producer, if you hear a producer’s product and you go, “Well, I want to sound like that”, and you get that producer in the studio, it won’t sound like that because we’re all different animals, we’re down different roads. It’s not easy to find the right person right off the bat, you can be lucky, of course, and you go on recommendations naturally from various other bands and artists who have used those producers. I say it’s not easy when you want to change a producer or go down a different road, try something new, you’re gonna find somebody else for maybe another genre of music, it depends. On finding the right producer to work with – It’s very difficult.
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