Ken Hensley is back with a new CD and a new band. Ken Hensley & Live Fire have released their first album, titled Faster. Ken has been playing with the band for several years live but this is their first venture into the studio. Hensley has written a batch of tunes that live up to his past work on Faster. It is truly a return to the era of Uriah Heep.

In the interview that follows, Ken and I discuss the new album in-depth, as well as how anger helped fueled his creativity. We also talk about his animal sanctuary and why the Uriah Heep album High and Mighty is one of his favorites.

Ken: I had to go all the way to Norway to find that band. I live in Spain, and I have learned that the farther north you go, the more people rock. I was really glad to get the opportunity to make this record with these guys.

Ken: We started playing live about five years ago. We haven’t done a lot of shows but I always promised them that, one day, we would go into the studio and make a classic rock record.

In the meantime, I had started writing a totally different album that was a totally indulgent, singer/songwriter album. It was totally non-commercial and impossible to market. My manager and I flew up to Germany to play the band some songs and they hated it. I ended up signing a deal with Edel in Hamburg. I gave them the CD and the said, “We love you and we want to push you back into the marketplace, but we need a rock record from you in order to do that.” I pulled some songs out of my book and wrote some new ones and they gave me a budget – not a big one but it was a budget. Here I was, 65 years old and heading into the studio with my band to make a record. I had the time of my life. Everything really fell into place.

What sold the project in the first place were the songs. Max Edel said all along, “This has nothing to do with your history, or your age. It just has to do with the songs.” I am only hoping that this album makes enough impact that I can move on to the next one.

Ken: Blood on the Highway was a concept album that worked very well. It was conceived that way, and put together that way. With the new album, I went back to the way that I used to do it. I would write the songs and take them to rehearsal and play the songs for the guys. I would ask the guys for their creative input and they would take ownership of the album.

Because they felt like they were part of it – they are part of it, financially, as well as spiritually – and that makes a difference. It was really a throwback to the way we used to make records in the 1970’s. We combined that with the incredible technology of today and it was very fun, warts and all. I feel like it worked.

Ken: I have no problem with that at all. That was a brand new song. There were a couple of songs that were already in my book. “Set Me Free” was a completely new song.

I started out playing all of these little riffs on the guitar and, one day, I figured out that they all kind of fit together. I knew that was going to be the opening song on our album and it is the opening song in our live show as well.

I had a huge smile on my face when I was making this album. I was breaking a lot of rules and playing balls out rock n’ roll.

Ken: It was totally fun. I wanted it to be fun. The business of music is serious but recording music should be fun.

The live performance is between you and the audience, and it contains a constant ebb and flow, back and forth, from each other. People can pick up when it is fun and that is important.

Ken: That has been commented on before, and I was aware that was going to happen. It was deliberate; I placed that lead where it would have the most impact. I wasn’t worried about the comparisons because “Still Got the Blues” is not a bad thing to be compared too. It is a great piece of music.

Ken: Ken [Ingwersen] is a great guitar player. The highlight for me, concerning Ken, was the second song on the album, “The Curse.” It starts out as a little shuffle but it gets progressive at the end. I can listen to the solo he played on that one all day long. That is a magic moment for me.

Ken: I wrote that song about three years ago. It has some roots in my Christian beliefs. I believe that God is going to get fed up with what we are doing to his world and come and take it back. It also has echoes of “The Magician’s Birthday” in it; good versus evil and that kind of stuff. I tried to come at the same subject from a different angle.

Ken: Actually, we recorded three songs with the orchestra. We recorded “July Morning,” “The Last Dance” from Blood on the Highway, and “Circle of Hands.”

We are going to record 12 songs with that orchestra next year at the end of March. They will be 12 Uriah Heep songs and it will be a double live CD.

A friend of mine in Norway is the number one radio personality in that country. His show, translated, is called The Men’s Department. They were celebrating fifteen years of this show and he called and asked me if we would do these songs. It was done for a TV show as well. I had a DVD of it that I gave to my manager. He mentioned it to Max at Edel. When Max heard it he said, “I have to have this on the album.” By the time they approved it, we didn’t have time to remix it. We took the mix we got and mastered it with everything else. It will be coming out on DVD later in the year. It hatched the idea to do the double live CD of Uriah Heep songs. It will be recorded in March of 2012 and will be released when the powers that be say it will be released. I am really looking forward to it as I can’t describe to you want a wonderful experience it was.

Ken: To tell you the truth, no. I am not surprised to hear that comparison because both Bernie and Eirikur [Hauksson] have the awesome task to fit into David Byron’s shoes.

Ken: I thought he did a great job on “Circle of Hands.” Eirikur is a singer, who is capable of doing many things. I have not spent a lot of time coaching him, but now that we have made this record together, we have spent some time together. I coached him some in the studio.

He has been in cover bands all his life. For any singer that spends the majority of their time in cover bands, it is a horrible thing to break out of. When you give somebody like that a set of original songs, then you need to coach them, and get them to cut loose. You need to get them to take possession of the song and do it there way. It is awfully difficult. I have worked with musicians of all calibers, in all countries, who have been in that box for such a long time that it is hard to get them to break out of it. I have to encourage Eric to allow his own personality to come through.

Ken: First of all, Heep was the point in my career where all of my dreams came true. I realized all of the things that I had wanted to do for such a long time. I’m deeply thankful for that time. I grew a lot in that period and I grew a lot more in the time period right after Heep. I developed all of my writing habits and my performing habits during that time with Heep. It was a springboard for me.

There was a point, ten years ago, when I had to make a conscious decision of what to do. I had people who were pushing me to use the name “Uriah Heep.” They would tell me they were my songs and that I deserved it. For me, it wasn’t about legal trademarks and all of that; it was that I didn’t want to stay with one foot in the past. I wanted to see if I could get by on my own. It took a long time before I got comfortable with that. I didn’t want to tell an audience that they were going to get one thing and then give them something else. The bottom line was that I wanted to see if I could stand on my own. It was the only way, for me, to have creative freedom to do what I wanted to do.

I just finished a new record and it is an album of songs that are very uncommercial, as I said before. I wouldn’t have the freedom to do that if I locked myself into the past. First and foremost, I am a songwriter. I wanted the liberty, the freedom and the unrestricted space without any preconceptions. I have to let it flow naturally. I turned down some commercial advantages that were offered to me in an effort to stay free from all of that.

Ken: I will answer your question very specifically…It’s the “End of Never.” After the head of the old label shrugged his shoulders and said that he didn’t get it, after hearing my new songs, I got so angry that I went away and wrote that song. If you read the lyrics you can see that it is really pointed at him.

Funny enough, that song has a word in it that I would usually never use in a song. I left it there because it was really how I felt at the time. The reason this guy gets the credit on the album cover is because it really stirred up a lot in me and I started to write the other songs that are on the album. He actually made this record happen.

Ken: I wrote that one for the Sweden Rock Festival, as that was the theme for the festival that year. When I was looking for songs for this album, I pulled that one out and it worked great. It is a little bit rebellious, which I think is okay. It says that there is nothing wrong with rock n’ roll, no matter what people try to say, or how they try to tarnish it. It is a straight-ahead rock n’ roll song.

Ken: We have a place where we rescue abandoned dogs and cats. We keep some of them as pets and we find homes for some of them. We get them fixed up, neutered and treated by a veterinarian. We give them a good life. Now, we have sheep and goats. It has turned out to be a fully-fledged animal farm. Fortunately, it is generously kept running by the people that donate to our charity that is set up to finance the cost of what we do. Generally, my wife takes care of it. We have a farm employee that takes care of the animals. We are doing a lot of fun things out there. We are growing, and sharing, organic vegetables and fruit. We are doing a lot of really cool things. That is one of the reasons why I miss home so much now.

Ken: That’s a sneaky question! To be honest, musically speaking, it was probably High and Mighty because it was like making a solo album with the band. I think some of my best songs are on that album. It was a commercial failure. It was dismally under promoted. It wasn’t even released in the States.

Historically, I would have to say Look at Yourself, as that was the album that really broke us in the States. You move on from there and we get our first Gold record, I remember that moment very, very clearly but, musically, I’m more attached to High and Mighty.