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HIGH AND MIGHTY

The band decided to produce High and Mighty themselves using engineers Ashley Howe and Peter Gallen. Hensley felt Bron deliberately neglected promotion on the album because he didn't produce it. Bron contended it was Heep's worse album. The band was very experimental with the recording. As Mick said, " ....at one point David was singing through Lee's drum floor tom with a mic underneath it, and our manager, Gerry Bron, came into the studio and saw what we were doing, declared we were all mad and walked out." Additionally David was accidentally locked in an echo chamber for three or four hours and some of the backing vocals were sung on their backs through piano strings. Bron and the band were really at odds at this time. Heep slipped in the secret lyrics "You can take the contract and stick it up your flue" into the background vocals of "Woman of the World". Bron failed to notice before the album was released. To launch the album, thirty journalists were flown to the top of a Swiss mountain for a reception!

LEE THE BEAR

There's a legend that Lee actually tackled a bear at the High & Mighty reception in the Swiss Alps. Actually Lee tackled a man in a bear suit and Lee commented that the man was not amused! :-) Additionally, Lee said that during the H&M promotion, he was about to fall off a cliff when he was warned in the knick of time by the other members of the band.

PHILADELPHIA FIASCO

Mick recalls an incident in Philadelphia involving Byron, "We were playing this 20,000 seater and David, having been drinking heavily, rushes out onto the stage, steps onto one of the legs of the mike-stand and of course, it smacks him in the mouth. The whole crowd roared, oblivious to what had happened but David, thinking they're having a go at him, turns around and says, "You can go and f**k off if you don't like it!" I'm standing there at the side of the stage thinking "Oh no, he's just told 20,000 of our fans to f**k off!" We couldn't catch a cold there after that."

HENSLEY FLIES BACK TO ENGLAND

Ken Hensley, upset with some of David Byron's onstage antics, flew back to England in the middle of the US Tour. Bron persuaded him not to quit the band but Ken essentially told the rest of the band it was him or David. During a Spanish tour, David Byron put his foot through a plate-glass window. Byron was sacked after the last night of the tour. Gerry Bron on David Byron at the time, "He created impossible situations. By comparason with Ken, who was certainly no angel, he was a total pain in the arse. He was making himself more and more unpopular." As Hensley said at the time, he felt David had begun to let his drinking affect his performance on stage. Previously David would just get drunk after the shows. Ken stated, "David was pissing away his career and ours with it." As Mick told Sigmund Ruud years later, "I think he (David) had lost the plot a little bit." Coincidentally, Heep's support band for the Spanish tour, The Heavy Metal Kids, fired their lead singer, Gary Holton, on the same night Byron was sacked. Additionally, the keyboardist for the Heavy Metal Kids, John Sinclair, would turn up again in the Uriah Heep story.

DAVID BYRON - A TRUE LEGEND

David Byron's personal life was on a downhill slide after leaving Heep. He was involved in numerous projects but none of them provided the vehicle to thrust him back into the lim elight. In February of 1985, David Byron was found dead in his London flat. The believed cause of death was epilepsy aggravated by excessive alcohol use. The music industry had lost one of the most talented and underrated showmen of all time. When Ken Hensley heard of David's passing, he quit Blackfoot and walked away from the Rock and Roll lifestyle.

LEE SAVED ME LIFE!

Tim McGuinness bumped into David Byron at a pub in Cleveland after a Rough Diamond concert at the Agora. David told a story he claimed happened while he was still in Heep. "David told me something to the effect of "I was down front doing my bare - chested poses for the ladies when a huge black man jumped on stage with something looking like a knife pointed straight at my chest and Lee threw a drumstick at the guy and hit him in the head, giving security time to jump on him and restrain him. Lee saved me life" Even though it's a pretty dramatic story, Tim said he doesn't have any reason to doubt David. I suppose it's possible David was just pulling his leg but it would be interesting to hear if Lee had any recollection of the event.

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