FORMED in 1969 Uriah Heep went on to become one of the Premier League prog rock bands of the 1970s but never quite won the championship.

However, they managed to shift in excess of 30 million albums and are still touring and recording more than 40 years later.

Fronted by guitarist Mick Box, who has been present throughout, the band – named after a character in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield – are undertaking a short tour of the UK, despite the fact that they were struck down by illness recently.

Speaking from his home singer Bernie Shaw explains.

“We’ve just finished the tour from hell,” he says.

“We did 26 concerts on four continents in less than eight weeks then both Mick Box and I got bronchitis. And in February we were in the Caribbean on a Legends of Rock Cruise.

"There were The Doobie Brothers, Paul Rodgers and Alice Cooper amongst others, and it was so much fun, we even took our wives.”

“But,” he continues, “all eleven of us in the entourage got sick. I managed to get to the doctors, who told me to rest but I told them that I had shows to do so they pumped me full of steroids and anti-biotics and we didn’t pull any shows.”

He laughs: “The crew just drank their own body-weight in Jack Daniels, which, as any rock and roller will tell you, is the best anti-biotic there is.”

Heep’s latest album, entitled Outsider, was released last year and will feature in the tour’s set.

“It’s a great album,” the obviously proud singer tells me. “It stands right up there with the ‘classic’ line-up albums. It’s very modern sounding with some great, radio-friendly songs.”

“We’ll do about five of them live and they sound better than on the album.

“A lot of bands do an album, then tour it – what you should do is write it, tour it and then record it. You see once you’ve sung a song 85 times you’ve got your teeth into it and it has evolved.”

From their debut album – Very ’Eavy… Very ’Umble – in 1970 the Heeps slowly built up a following. But despite this the band’s albums never really set the charts on fire.

Their ‘classic’ albums, such as Look At Yourself (their third album and first chart entry), Demons and Wizards and The Magician’s Birthday all resolutely stayed outside the Top Twenty (OK, Demons and Wizards reached number 20).

Their sole Top Ten album was 1975’s Return to Fantasy, which reached number seven and was helped by a TV advertising campaign with a voice-over by Arthur Mullard.

“I don’t really know why the band never had great chart success,” says Bernie.

“The band has always had something to say and like some of the top bands at that time had their own originality.”

The sound of Uriah Heep is unique as the band places heavy emphasis on the Hammond organ and some pretty amazing three, four and sometimes five-part vocal harmonies.

“Those have always been the major trademark of the band and it’s kept strong in the writing,” explains the singer.

“The recipe works and it comes naturally to us.”

Bernie enjoys singing the band’s songs and has special fondness for some of the old standards.

“I love The Magician’s Birthday and Demons and Wizards,” he says.

“I like the fantasy aspect and they were telling a good story. It’s good versus evil and always positive, not like a lot of songs about soul-searching that other bands record.”

“And I like songs that have strong energy like July Morning, The Wizard and Easy Livin’.

“I love the imagery in the lyrics and I love the melody. That’s been the template since 1970, there is a chemistry in the music and you know what they say – ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”

As for the show itself Bernie is promising us something special.

“It’s a whole different repertoire this time,” he enthuses.

“There’s one song, Hangin’ Tree, which I’ve only ever done a couple of times and we’ll do the entire Magician’s Birthday track as well. It blends into a nice 90 minutes,” he sums up.

And the future indeed looks bright.

“Mick and Phil (Lanzon, the present keyboard player) are still turning out songs. They are continually writing, an artist carries on.

“And although we keep recording, the days of living off record sales are gone; our favourite pastime is touring.”

Uriah Heep has a full year planned, as Bernie tells me.

“After the UK tour we have a whole two days off then we’re off to Holland, then Germany and Sardinia and then we’ll be into the summer festival season.”

“We’ll be playing pretty well everywhere.

  • Uriah Heep play the Engine Rooms in Southampton tomorrow. Tickets are available from the Box Office and all the usual agencies.