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FREE ME
In North America, Innocent Victim had a different cover
from the English release. Although IV had a great rocker in "Free 'N Easy",
a rather poppy single, "Free Me", became the best
known song from the album. The song became
a big hit in many parts of the world including Germany. This influenced Heep to try to write hits on the Heep follow up album,
Fallen Angel.
INNOCENT VICTIM CLIMBS GERMAN CHARTS
On the strength of hit single "Free Me", Innocent Victim
became Uriah Heep's best selling album ever in Germany.
"Free Me" soared to #1 on the single charts and the album road
the single's coattails up the German album charts.
WHAT THE 'ELL?
At Heepvention '99, John Lawton told me about a gag pulled on him during an European tour. John ran onto the stage for an encore
and grabbed the microphone from its stand. The mike squashed in
his hand. The road crew had taken a banana and wrapped tape
around it and they even had wires running into it to make it look like
a mike. The band continued to play the encore waiting for John to sing. They had no idea he was holding a banana!
ADDITIONAL TENSION WITHIN THE BAND
When John Lawton came into the band, he spoke fluent German.
This altered Uriah Heep press relations somewhat.
Heep was very popular in Germany
which meant the band toured the country quite a bit.
Prior to John joining the band, Ken Hensley had done most of the interviews
and communicated most news to the press. Since the German press could converse with John in their native language, many of them preferred to go to John for information on the band. This slight shift in band dynamics caused some tension between
Ken and John.
HEEP MARKETED AS TEEN IDOLS
After the success of "Free Me" on the German singles chart, there was
an obvious shift in the band's image in the media. The band was covered by many German magazine, in particular
magazines geared toward teenagers. Management felt it would be a good idea to portray a neater, cleaner image
in order to capitalize on the new found market. Seeing the band being promoted as teen idols
must have been mind- blowing for longtime Heep fans. Luckily, this was just a passing fad.
(BRAVO MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON
LEFT)
TOP OF THE POPS
The UK single from Firefly, "Wise Man" was selected to be
performed on the UK TV show, Top of the Pops. Heep's management began rounding
up the band to play the gig, which was a very important one for UK exposure. The band was on a break and Mick Box, who was living in New Mexico
at the time, had flown to the US. Mick had planned to drive from the airport in
El Paso, Texas the rest of the way to his home. About half the way home, his car broke down and stranded him in some small town. Gerry Bron's wife, Lillian, somehow managed
to locate Mick and arranged for a police escort to an airport. Mick made
it to the show on time but badly jet-lagged.
POTATO SOLO
John Lawton related another tour story to me.
Heep was touring in Europe with Woody Woodmansey's U Boat. Woody played a drum solo on
the last song of the set. On the last night of the tour, Woody started
his drum solo and all of Heep's crew were smiling and
staring up above Woody's head. "Woody got the drift and gazed above his head as he was playing.
They had rigged a large net filled with potatoes ready to unleash at the end of the drum solo. Well I can tell you by now the anticipation of what was going to happen was gripping." John felt Woody might have even extended his solo a bit to delay the inevitable. " ...of course by now, the people in the front rows had checked out what was going on as well. Needless to say, Woody was sweating buckets by now and the climax grew and grew, but the Heep crew took pity on him and waited
'til the very end and as they were taking
their bow, down came the potatoes, creating a drum solo of their very own".
