BACKSTAGE WE HAVE DAVID RATH AND REGGIE WU. TALKING ABOUT THE HISTORY OF HEAVENS EDGE .THEY WERE BOTH ASKED THE SAME QUESTIONS.
If we go back to the beginning. How and when did Heavens Edge first get together? What was the first song you guys wrote together?
Dave: The band first got together in 1987 when Reggie and Mark noticed each other in their respective local groups, "Network" and "Whitefoxx". At first, they simply decided to write together for fun. The first song they ever wrote together was a song entitled, "Never Too Hot". They really enjoyed working together and continued writing. After writing approximately ten songs, Mark and Reg thought they might attempt to put a band together. They held auditions looking for musicians who blended well together. They wanted a band that could play, perform and get along together.
Reg: Mark and I were both playing in bands in the area (Network & Whitefoxx) and I approached him about getting together and doing some writing on the side. The chemistry really clicked and we decided to leave our bands and start a new band. I did not think Mark would leave his band because at the time Network was the biggest band in the Philly area. But I'm glad he did. The first song we wrote I think was a song called "Baby I Not That Kind". or "Never Too Hot" It was pretty cool.
Who came up with the name Heavens Edge? I always thought that sounded like a great bandname.
Dave: The name was chosen by a fan of Mark’s old band "Network". Apparently, they were holding a contest to choose the name of a new band they were forming. Someone submitted the name Heavens Edge. Well, the new band never formed and the name was not used. Mark always remembered it though. Thus, he had it pegged for the band he was putting together with Reggie. When the time was right, he informed the band of the name.
Reg: Mark's band Network was releasing a CD and had to change the name because some band in Canada had the rights to the name. So they held a drawing for the audience to think of a name and Heavens Edge was one of the names. I guess the band did not like the name, but Mark remembered it and suggested it for our band and I liked it so we went with it. It is funny that later down the road people would say "did you get the name Heavens Edge from Evans/Reg?" We were like "no, but that is pretty cool" So we ended up using Evans /Reg for our publishing company.
The Network album has just been released, and Reggie was in White Foxx before Heavens Edge. What other bands did you guys play in?
Dave: George was in a band called Public Enemy. He also did a stint in the legendary South Jersey powerhouse, The Dead end Kids. Steve Parry was in a band called Able Kane. David Rath was in a New York cover band called Rotten Candy.
Reg: George was in Ragdoll, Dave was in Rotten Candy, and Steve was in Able Kane
I have a tape with the songs Eyes Of A Stranger, Never Too Hot, Speechless, Bad Reputation. Was this the first demo you ever recorded, or are there other demos that was recorded before this?
Dave: That’s the first. Recorded right in Reggie’s living room.
Reg: Mark and I both had 4 tracks machines so we would put everything we had down on tape. We probably have about 50 to 70 songs on tape like the demo you are speaking of.
How many copies were printed of the Limited Edition Demotape, that you sold at your shows?
Dave: No one really knows. We think there might have been about 3,000.
Reg: This is just a guess but I would say 2000. I know that they sold like crazy.
The radiostation WMMR featured you quite frequently. I have 2 full liveshows and 2 acoustic songs (Just Another Fire, Some Other Place) played at the station. Are there other stuff available?
Dave: We did do a lot of live radio stuff over the years. However, not much of it was recorded and kept by the band. I’m sure someone has a few tapes hidden away. We did one on a station in Baltimore when Jimmy was in the band that I really liked. If someone has a tape of that, please let me know. I’d really like to hear it.
Reg: I think within the guys in the band, we have a lot of live videos and live tapes of us performing. But I don't think anything else from WMMR.
What was the turning point when recordlabels started to pay attention?
Dave: Labels started coming out when the band started getting press in the industry trade magazines, such as the Hard Report. Back then that was the best way to get labels to pay attention. The band got the press because we were drawing nice sized crowds in the clubs around Philly.
Reg: It kind of happened pretty fast. After the first demo was released (Skin to Skin, Find Another Way, Hold On and two live cuts) an industry magazine called The Hard Report wrote a killer review on the band. (I have always wanted to thank them, so THANK YOU). Within a couple of days the labels started calling. We set up a showcase at The Troc here in Philly and 7 labels came out to see us. We got an offer from everyone of them after the show. It was definetly a night that we will never forget. We were in the dressing room and each guy from each label would come in and give us their pitch. For example the dude from Columbia saying "don't go with Atlantic, come with us)"and so on. It was definetly dream come true. We chose Columbia because they promised us the most, as far as promotion, money and support. Wow, were we wrong!!
What other labels were interested, and what made you go with Columbia?
Dave: Atlantic, Capitol, EMI, Elektra. Once an offer came in, they all jumped on board - not all that uncommon these days. We went with Columbia because our friends "Britny Fox" were on the label. They seemed pretty happy so we figured we’d be happy too. We had no idea how to make a decision like that. In the end it didn’t work out for us there. Columbia was a great label though. When they wanted to get behind something, they were pretty powerful. Luck and timing are everything – ours just ran out.
What are some of the bands Heavens Edge supported/played with? The support gig to DIO at the Spectrum arena, was this the largest audience you guys played in front of?
Dave: We played with a lot of different groups; Soundgarden, Faith No More, DIO, Childs Play. We jammed with Sebastian Bach, from Skid Row. I guess the Spectrum was the largest building we ever did. We loved hanging around other bands. Everyone was always having a great time. Heavy Metal is fun music.
Reg: Not too many bands because Columbia pulled the plug on us only six weeks after the CD came out. But some bands we played with were: Danger Danger, Extreme, Faith No More, Megedeth(at the Concrete Foundations Showcase). I think the Dio show was the largest audience we were in front of. It was an awesome night.
I met Danny Danzi through the website. He’s an extremely talented musician as well. He supported you with his band Passion back in the day. What do you think of the fact that you guys, and a crazy swedish Heavens Edge fan (that being me :-) actually indirectly helped him get a record deal some 10 years later?
Dave: Dan is super talented. We are very happy for him. The great thing about Dan is, he is such a great guy. He deserves every bit of success. You never know what can happen. Thank God for the Internet!
Reg: I am very happy for Danny. He is one hell of a musician and great person. I use to enjoy watching Passion. Not only for Danny's playing but I always like the songs. They also had a great singer who sounded like Steve Perry.
Tragedy struck when G.G. was shot by some maniac at the Empire Rockclub after you had played a gig. And obviously George was quite ill for some time. Could you tell me a bit of the story behind this.
Dave: Some idiot was thrown out of one of our shows for fighting. In his anger he returned to the bar with a shotgun hoping to kill the bouncer that tossed him out. Unfortunately, George was the first person he saw. He blew off a few rounds, hitting George in the abdomen. The gunman became frazzled and left. Believe me, everyone was very lucky. It could have turned in to a total massacre. George is lucky to be alive, we all are. George was laid up for a while. But, he was tough, and the band was close.
Reg: Some guy got kicked out of the club by the bouncers and he came back for revenge with a shotgun and George happened to be the first one who walked out. He took 120 pellets all over his body we thought he was going to die. Because he was in good health when it happened he was able to bounce back relativly quick. He was laid up for a couple of months, which stalled the album for a little bit. Which in this business a couple of months is crucial.
The cool thing is that George ran a huge medical bill and had no insurance, so all these Philly bands held a huge benefit for him. Guys from (The Hooters, Tommy Connwell, John Eddy, Cinderella, Britney Fox, Tangier and others) all played and raised a lot of money for the bills.
Heavens Edge were destined for superstardom. You had the songs, the musical talent, the stageact, the looks, well everything that makes a band successful. But for some reason Heavens Edge never really made it big outside Philadelphia. I know the musicbiz isn’t fair, but in my eyes you guys were one of the most talented bands out there. Do you believe Columbia gave you enough promotion? John Mrvos leaving Columbia right when the album was released, did that have any effect on you? Your management, did they do a good job?
Dave: Thank you for the compliments. One can always look back and see what went wrong. All of the reasons you’ve stated are partially responsible. In the end it was two things. One: the new label president, along with the rest of the industry, had soured on Melodic Rock. He wanted to move the label in a different direction. Even though Metal bands were still selling out clubs, the industry was convinced that no one wanted to hear this music anymore. They shut it down. Two: it was undoubtedly true that the tastes of the public were changing at that time. There really was not as much excitement around the music as there had been in previous years. It’s something that happens all the time. Styles of music come and go. The bands that can adapt, make it through. We were not very flexible or adaptable at that time.
Reg: Thank you for the compliment. I am sure that John leaving Columbia had something to do with everything falling apart. But, the main problem was that the president of the label did not like us. He was brought in after the album was completed and I guess to his credit, he saw the music industry going into another direction. (Grunge) He has been highly succesful with Columbia so maybe he did the right thing. Maybe management could of done things differently but I think it just wasn't meant to be.
How did you get in touch with Neil Kernon? He seemed like the perfect choice as producer.
Dave: He was producing our friends band "Britny Fox". They seemed pretty happy with him. So we went with him too. He really had quite a track record. He was a big time guy. We were honored to work with him. He knew pop music, metal, classic rock…..everything.
Reg: Columbia gave us a list of producers they would of liked us to work with. I think John Mrvos had worked with Neil on prior projects. I was a big George Lynch fan and always dug his tone so I was excited. Neil was awesome to work with. He is very talented. We had a great couple months together.
Why didn’t Just Another Fire and Rock Steady make the debut album? I think specially Just Another Fire could have been a huge hit if promoted properly.
Dave: Bad choice on our part. We never even presented it to the label. We were not convinced that an acoustic song could be a hit. Brilliant!
Reg: I think Columbia felt we had Hold On To Tonight for the ballad and I remember them saying they wanted the debut album to be not really long. So those two songs were cut. I know George and Dave did not like Rock Steady. So that was easy to cut that song.
I have the Skin To Skin video with two different editings. How come that you made two versions of it?
Dave: Truthfully, we had heard grumblings in the industry that MTV was frowning upon metal videos with chics in them. So, we pussied out and shot extra footage and edited it in, removing the models. We should have left it as it was. MTV was done with metal anyway.
Reg: At the time all videos were girls and sleeze and so on. Columbia felt that the video with the girls was too normal at the time. I didn't like the girls in the video because my whole life has been spent practicing guitar and when it comes to my guitar solo on my debut video on MTV some chick was air guitaring it instead of me. So I was cool with the idea of adding the live footage instead of the girls.
Mark Evans say in the MTV Headbangers ball interview that you were supposed to cut a second video for Find Another Way. What happened with that one?
Dave: We shot half of the video in Philly. We were on our way to LA to shoot the rest when Columbia decided not to continue. We were blown away! That was the song that got the band signed in the first place. The single had already been shipped to radio. Weird. I’ll never understand that.
Reg: We cut half the video. It was gonna have a huge screen behind us copying what we were actually doing live. The dude who did all the Queensryche videos was directing it. We shot all the footage for the screen when the president of the label heard the song and pulled the plug on video. He totally hated the song. He said it was the biggest piece of shit he ever heard. Pretty much blew our minds!
How many copies did the debutalbum actually sell?
Dave: Approximately 125,000 world wide.
Reg: About 125,000 worldwide.
At what point did you leave Columbia? Did you have any other labels interested at that time? I heard something about Capitol being interested.
Dave: After Columbia tanked the Find Another Way single, we knew we had to leave. They would not let us tour or anything. They wanted us gone, and we wanted to split. So, we did. We took our settlement money and recorded a new domo. That demo is the bulk of the MTM record. Fortunately, from that demo, the band got an offer for a development deal with Capital. We recorded more stuff with that budget. But, by then, the band had lost all of it’s spark. We were getting tired of chasing the industry. When Capital expressed disinterest in our new songs, we knew we were in trouble. We had nowhere else to go.
Reg: Even though we had a guaranteed 2 record deal with Columbia we felt it was best to leave the label because we knew the president of the label hated us. The second one would of just been a slow death. So we got out and started shopping to other labels. Capitol picked us up and we did some demos for them for about a year but grunge was starting to be real big and they knew our style of music was on the way out. So they decided not to pick us up.
What was the reasons Steve Parry and Mark Evans left the band?
Dave: Steve and the band were not seeing eye to eye on a great many things. So he and the band parted ways. If the career of the band was going along nicely, it never would have happened. And, we thought we could jump-start the group with some new blood.
Mark never left, the band broke up.
Reg: I don't know why Steve left. Isn't that horrible? Mark never left. The band really broke up and Dave and George decided to start something new and asked me to join. That is how American Pie was started.
Jimmy Marchiano replaced Steve, but was only in the band for a short period. What happened?
Dave: Jimmy was great for us because he was loaded with enthusiasm. The only problem was, he was interested in furthering his own career, not the career of Heavens Edge. He left to join Dean Davidson’s new band, "Black Eyed Susan". That was a tremendous blow because we were in the midst of a series of showcases with Capital at the time. I can’t believe they signed us anyway. Every time they saw us, we had a different guy in the band.
Reg: Two weeks before we were about to showcase for Capitol, Dean Davidson from Britney Fox asked Jimmy to join his band. I guess Jimmy thought the opportunity was better with Dean, but it really was a bad situation for us. I thought the band was really smokin up to that point and to bring in another guitarist 2 weeks before a showcase was a bad thing. We ended up doing the showcase with another guitarist (Toshi Iseda) but we did not get the deal. By the way, Toshi was an awesome guitarist.
You continued with another singer Shaun Carmen and changed the name to American Pie. For how long did the band exist? Did you regard this as a fresh start as you changed the bandname allthough there were still 3 old H.E. members left?
Dave: American Pie was around for three years. We really wanted to shake off the industry stigma of a band that had under achieved. The best way for us to do that was by changing the name and moving in a different direction. It was a lot of fun for a while. But, in the end, it was simply a continuation of Heavens Edge. We were burned out. Heavens Edge broke up and American Pie was together the very next day. We should have taken some real time off to recharge our batteries.
Reg: We just wanted to to do something different without having to sound like Heavens Edge. We lasted a couple of years but could not secure a deal. Shawn is still a very close friend. We wrote some great songs together.
Then you guys went separate ways until Magnus Soderkvist of MTM one day calls you up. Tell me a bit about your reaction to that first call.
Dave: Of course, we were surprised. We were so happy to finally get those songs out there. The photo shoot we did for the record was great. It was like we never stopped hanging around each other. Magnus and the people at MTM really know what they are doing. We are thrilled to work with them.
Reg: My wife told me that some dude from Sweden was on the phone and my reaction was that "who the hell is that" Magnus has been great and very supportive of the band. I am very grateful to him for giving these songs a chance to be heard because I thought they would just collect dust in the closet.
You recorded Cuts Both Ways and Rollercoaster in spring ‘98. How was it working together as a band again?
Dave: Rusty. We were very rusty.
Reg: It was a lot of fun. I think we were very rusty and it could of been a lot better had we had more time. All the guys in the band are like brothers. We still all talk most of the time. We recorded it Vortex Studios here in Jersey. Jim is a good friend of mine and he did the engineering.
Some Other Place was released in the U.S. through Perris Records almost a year after the European release. What took so long?
Dave: It took a while for labels in the US to realize that Metal and Hard Rock are still commercially viable.
Reg: We really did not start shopping for a while. It was until Rob from Ruffhouse records started to help us out is when we got hooked up with Perris. I guess we just thought there would not be that much interest on the band here in the States.
Do you have other songs that hasn’t been released? If so titles please :-)
Dave: Yes we do. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to wait until the third record comes out for that.
Reg: Mark and I wrote around 75 songs for the first album and about 30 songs for the 2nd. Shaun and the band wrote about another 30 songs for American Pie. I would have to dig down thru tapes to get names. Sorry.
You also recorded the song Don’t Go Away Mad for the Motley Crue tribute album "Kickstart My Heart" How did that come together, and who approached you about it?
Dave: I’ll have to ask Reggie. That recording was a lot of fun though. I think the band was playing like the old Heavens Edge on that one.
Reg: Scott Bazzett had approached us about doing it. He was friends with the label who was putting it together. We got together and rehearsed for it 2 times. It was very strange for me because I hadn't done any covers since I was 16 years old. In Heavens Edge we use to mess around with Walkin The Dog but that is about it. It was a lot of fun but I don't know if it was ever released. Steve also played some great slide work in it.
Are there any possibilities that you guys will make another album together?
I met Magnus up in Stockholm earlier this year, and he mentioned he would like to see another album. And so would also all the H.E. fans around the world.
Dave: As long as people are interested in hearing Heavens Edge, we’ll put out music.
Reg: Mark has moved to Florida, so trying to get together and write and record might be kind of hard. Maybe we could work something out with using different studios (one here in Jersey and one in Florida) but we have to look into it more. I would love to do another album.
What about any livegigs? I get questions all the time through the website.
Dave: We would love to. It would have to be the right opportunity though. It could happen.
Reg: No live gigs are planned at this time. With Mark in Florida it would almost be impossible. I really miss playing out live.
What are you guys up to these days? Has anyone of you recorded/released material together with other musicians? Does anyone of you still play live locally?
Dave: Mark Evans lives in Florida and works in construction.
Reggie Wu lives in New Jersey and writes commercial music. He also teaches guitar and piano. His company has worked on songs for Tropicana Orange Juice and Wriggly’s Chewing Gum. He still does some producing and songwriting for many artists in the area where he lives.
Steve Parry works for a CD manufacturing company in New Jersey called Disc Makers. He also writes music and plays with other local musicians.
George Guidotti lives in New Jersey and has recently been playing with a couple of local bands. He has performed with the band Drop Zero who have opened for 311, Kid Rock, Cypress Hill and Rammstein.
David Rath lives in New Jersey and has done some studio drumming for local artists. He has his own music management company and currently manages an alt-country band. He is also the Director of the Philadelphia Music Conference. It is the third largest music industry conference in the US. Over 200 bands come in to Philly for three days to showcase for record companies, producers, managers, lawyers and all people from the music industry.
Reg: George was playing in Dollhouse Puppett, Drop Zero. Drop Zero is Rage Against Machine type band and Dollhouse puppet is a grunge band. He is not playing with either band now. Dave is managing bands and got appointed Directer of the Philadelphia Music Conference. Steve works at Discmakers in Jersey. Mark is in Florida with a painting company. He is the head of the division down there. I am currently teaching and doing background music for video productions and TV/Radio commercials. It is a lot of fun and very challenging. The company is called Sound Farm Music.
Daniel Staresina October 2000.