Ken Hensley interview

Hi Ken, How are you

It's going great, I'm trying to stay cool in this heat.

What is Ken Hensley up to at this time?

Well right now I'm doing a lot of promotional work for the new CD and also finishing up preparations for  promotion concerts in Serbia and Norway. Then I am off for a while, and the new book is coming out on the 7th August and probably in the middle of September I will be doing some promotional work for the book. In mid October we will start doing our serious shows to promote both the CD and the book.

You have just released Blood On The Highway, your autobiographical CD. It's a great sounding record. Dare I say it's like a good old fashioned rock n roll record. Can you tell me how that came about?

Well first of all thanks for the kind words. I guess there is always going to be an element of the old fashioned in what I do because you get set in your ways and you kind of tend to stick to that. We use a lot of new technology in the studio but it was a conscious decision to try and keep the record as true to the times as much as possible. I appreciate that this is how the record sounds. I wrote the first edition of my autobiography myself, I basically couldn't find a publisher that didn't want money, which did seem strange to me. And I didn't know anything about how the book world worked. So I found a printer in Poland and just basically got 500 copies printed and sold them through my website.

My new label and distribution partner, Membran in Hamburg, has always been best known for distributing really rare classical and jazz packages that the major labels wouldn't touch. We made a deal to distribute the book and also made a deal in order to expand the book, co-write it if you like. The original book was like a long letter. The owner of the company read the book and he suggested that we take the musical part of it and try to tell the story through a CD. I thought about it for a while, I put a couple of new songs together here at the studio in Alicante, they flew down from Germany and we made the deal over lunch. It was very cool.

Why did you feel you had to write it at this time?

To tell you the truth I hadn't thought about it until someone else mentioned it. Then I started to think about it. It's based it around a central theme, which was my 10 1/2 years with Uriah Heep. Although, it does extend a little before and after that. That is essentially the core of the whole piece. What I then did was take specific elements from the story and created a song to highlight each element of the whole episode. It wasn't hard as I had the subject right there in front of me, it wasn't as if I had to make it up.

There are some great vocalists on there, did you approach them and why particularly those guys?

At the very beginning of the project we made a few decisions that we really stuck with. One of the decisions was that we wanted to use different voices, and part of the reason for that was, well there were two reasons. First of all I am not the best singer of hard rock songs, I can maybe do a ballad but I was never the best at singing rock songs. I kind of tend to sing the way I speak as opposed to the great singers of the world like say Paul Rodgers who can make a song sound so very special. I don't have that ability. The other reason was because we were trying to musically illustrate a very specific era we wanted different voices for different songs, so we could capture the older view of the singers and voices of that time. So it was really a conscious decision not to make a 'solo' album. We felt that would make a record that sounded a bit more dynamic and a bit more interesting. I think we really succeeded in doing that. That was a good decision.

The specific singers, Jorn Lande was someone that I had worked with before and so I immediately thought of him when I put the first few songs together, With John Lawton I really felt that particular song was perfect for him. I wanted a female voice for the relationship song, Think Twice,and that was a much bigger challenge, the people that I had thought of immediately were either comfortably retired or couldn't sing anymore. It became a real challenge to find the right person for that song, Eve Gallagher came to me through a friend of mine who lives in Switzerland, where she lives now. We talked and I sent her the song and we discussed the kind of voice that I wanted her to bring to the record. She did exactly as I asked of her. That was a really lucky find. Finally with Glenn Hughes, we had talked previously talked about doing something together and I played with him last year in Russia and this gave us the opportunity to do something that we had been talking about for a long time.

Who are the musicians that play on the CD?

They are all from the Valencia region of Spain, they are all regional musicians not local. The drummer, Juan Carlos Garcia and the bass player, Antonio Fidel had been together for many, many years and played together in a progressive rock band in Spain called El Ultimo de la Fila. They are very creative players, very versatile and this was exactly what we needed due to the dynamics of the album being so extreme. The guitar player, Ovidio Lopez, is someone that I have done a lot of work with in the past, so he was a natural choice. He can play in so many different styles, and seems instinctively to know what a song requires. One thing I did strategically with this record is what I always used to do with Uriah Heep. I just took the basic song into the studio with the structure complete with lyrics and melody and cut the guys loose to make the arrangement and that made for some interesting sessions. They took one or two of the songs and turned them around completely. That was a lot of fun.

There are some parallels musically to Uriah Heep on Blood, was that done tongue in cheek or is it just a musical style that you are comfortable with?

There was definitely nothing tongue in cheek about it, but if you bear in mind that we were specifically telling a story around a rock star's life in the 70's. I could only tell the story through my own eyes and through my own experience, even though there were a lot of people out there with me. I think that there was a chance that stylistically it would have some similarities. I am very comfortable in that production style and very comfortable in that writing style and in the instrumentation and the melodies and harmonies. It was just working with my co-producer, Dani Saiz that I found some subtleties that you will hear the more you listen to the album.

The CD packaging is very nice, its like a modern day Look at Yourself, was that something that you were conscious of creating?

I talked to the people who designed the cover and there were a few things that I wanted to do. We wanted to reflect some of the topics from the lyrics of the songs. The mirror is me now and me then. Its me now looking back at how I was then, so it is reflective. The parallel with Look at Yourself is minor really in the sense that the mirror on Blood on the Highway is only a small part of the cover whereas it was the whole cover of Look at Yourself. We did think about that but I had no hesitation in doing it, as it is looking back over my shoulder

Are you aware of how sales for this release are doing?

I am aware that it is doing well. Everyone feels very happy with the way it is going. It has had great reviews and great reactions from the fans. The general feeling from the PR people and distributors is that it is a record that will sell well over a period of time. It is not a record that will go gold overnight but it is selling at a consistently high level.

Has it charted in any country yet?

I know that it was in a few retail charts but I will not find out any further details until the end of the month when I get the sales figures.

How does the writing process differ for say this album compared to writing songs in the mid 70's when I guess you had drugs to contend with?

I really don't think that the drugs played any sort of positive role in what I did in the 70's, they played a very negative role. I have been so clean now for so many years that I don't even remember what it was like to take drugs back then. All that used to happen in the old days was that I used to write stuff then throw it away as I had been up for two or three days doing cocaine . The principle difference now is that I have much more freedom in terms of time to write in a relaxed way. Where I live now is extremely isolated and it is extremely peaceful and I don't have the noise of the world beating down on me all the time. And what I have now is a company who believe in what I am doing and are prepared to invest in it enough to make it very comfortable and very enjoyable to do. The album took nearly 7 months to record and finish. That was primarily because I hadn't finished all the songs before I went in to the studio. I was writing, recording, writing, recording, it was an unusual process in that sense as I normally go into the studio with all the songs already written. But for this album I was writing as I was going along.

Blood On The Highway is a great story, is it something that you would consider putting onto the stage?

We have actually talked about that. We talked about a stage musical in the very early stages of this project. It is just one of those things that the company suggested and although it would be beyond me, I think that it would be a great experience for me. I would obviously have to write some more music, but beyond that it would totally be in someone else's hands as I don't know anything about putting on a stage musical. It really would be a thrill to see something developed in this way.

Is this something that you would tour with?

There is no doubt of that. We did the pre-release party for the CD in Hamburg earlier this year. We played the album from start to finish with all the original singers, with the strings and everything. This was actually something that people came to us at the show and asked about us bring this show to other towns. We could easily do that but the difficulty with this is the other guy's schedules and then on top of that it would cost an enormous amount of money to put on. It is enormously complicated. If we turned it into a stage musical, that would be one of the only logical ways to expand the story. I also could do Blood on the Highway Vol. 2 but I am not too keen on doing that. I would be prepared to use the musical touring company concept in order to expand the story.

Was it the rock and roll lifestyle that got you into drugs and how did you finally kick the drug habit?

It was a lifestyle that had us messing about with soft drugs like hash, having a joint here and a joint there. We never had too much money in the early days so we couldn't really afford to buy anything. I didn't even know what cocaine was until my first tour of America, by which time I was 25. It wasn't like we were drug hounds or anything like that. For the first 4 or 5 years of the band we kept ourselves totally clean while we were performing, it was after performing that we cut loose a little. The problem for me was that the first time I tasted cocaine I loved it so much and wanted more. As I became an addict, I started to believe that I really needed it. This is how this drug affects you psychologically, it makes you believe you can't live without it. I now know from my personal experience that you really don't need it. As I look back now I am sad about that time of my life because it really ruined so many personal and professional relationships. I was just so obsessed with it that it was more important to me than anything else, including my family, friends, co-workers. It was just totally 100% addiction, it was  horrible. And that is time that you can never have back or repair the damage that was done. Needless to say, now I feel very strongly against drugs and in any situation that I am asked to comment on it I will say that. As far as the second part of the question, being completely honest with you, when I left England after recording Free Spirit, I moved to America thinking that I needed a complete change of scenery, so that I could get my life back together again. I thought two or three years would have been enough to get back into things and get my feet back on the ground. It took 13 years before I stopped taking the drugs and return to some sort of normality. The way it happened was that one morning I just woke up and I just looked at myself in the mirror, went into the room where the drugs were hidden and flushed them down the toilet and didn't want to take them again. People talk about going cold turkey and all that stuff, but you ask anyone who is addicted to a hard drug and cold turkey is practically impossible. I always give the credit to divine intervention. That is my explanation.

You moved from the US to Spain, was that part of your rehabilitation?

No not really, I was done with cocaine by about 1992-93 then I enjoyed living in America, I was working in the music business but not doing anything tour wise. I purchased a studio with some friends of mine and that was good, we spent some time rebuilding it and modernising it. Then I thought that maybe I should write some songs and I had my own studio in which to do that. That was fine as I was learning and relearning my craft and the first couple of albums were like starting over and I developed a real taste for it again. I did some shows with John Lawton which was absolutely awful (the shows that is, not John!). We went to Germany where previously we would play sold- out shows in arenas and here we were actually playing to half empty clubs. Things had definitely changed and I thought, well, I was important at one time and maybe I would be important still and then you get this rude awakening that things had changed. The last 4 years in America were not particularly comfortable for me, I was in a marriage that was falling apart. I had enough of it, and I said to Monica why don't we move back to Europe to be near our families. We decided to move back to England and moved into this 16th Century cottage in Cambridgeshire and settled down to the pub life and I began making another record. But England was so difficult to live in.....the weather was awful and it was so expensive. We made the decision to move to Spain after a year of living in England.

What effect did the death of David Byron have on you?

It has more of an effect on me now than at the time it actually happened!

When it happened I was on the road with Blackfoot and the immediate affect was that I left Blackfoot. Thinking of what had happened to David, I always knew that David had a problem and the only person who didn't think he had a problem was David. He wouldn't accept that he had a problem. I was so busy dealing with my own demons that I didn't really take the time to help him deal with his. The immediate thing I did was to go into a corner and I hid from the whole thing. That could easily have happened to me and I didn't want it to. The easiest thing was to come off the road and go back to having a normal life. Which is kind of what I did.

Did you think you could have been next?

Well yes I did, when you are abusing something whether it be alcohol or drugs or whatever, who knows how much your system could tolerate. There are so many stories of young healthy athletes who die after taking their first hit of Cocaine. Then there are people who like me have taken it for 16 or 17 years and are still alive. Everybody is different and I thought to myself that it wasn't worth the risk.

You went into semi retirement after David's death. Did you think that was the end of your career which of course was your own decision at that time?

I did. I was enjoying the sun, taking a break from the music business. I really enjoyed my time with St. Louis Music, it helped me get my feet back on the ground and it helped me stabilise my life in so many ways. I really enjoyed my time in that company. However I wasn't born to do that, I was born to make music. The challenge for me was how I was going to take this passion that I have and continue to make a profession out of it. After being away for so long, that was a really difficult thing to do.

How did you re invent yourself after your semi retirement, how did you structure it, and get the record label going?

The one thing that I never stopped doing was that I never stopped writing. When you can write you can write forever. There is no limit to writing unless you run out of ideas. That is what kept me going. Having a hard core fanbase and a really good webmaster also helped. I would be able to make a few records and sell them through the website, I didn't sell a lot but it was enough to keep me going. It felt like I was making progress. I always thought that my writing was getting better, my production was getting better. I was getting more readjusted and getting back to where I was in the early days with my ability to write and record decent records. I knew that I was never going to get back to where I was and that was due to the industry changing. As regards to the record label, most of my releases were done through independent labels and independently distributed, these were people that I had known. They sold a few hundred copies here and there and it was enough to put food on the table. This record company that I am involved with now in Germany came to me through an amazing string of coincidences and eventually brought me to record Blood On The Highway and I feel now that writing wise and confidence wise I am back to what I was doing in the 70's. Obviously I am not the same person that I was in the 70's but that might be a good thing.

How different is the music industry now to what is was when you started?

That's not the easiest question in the world to answer, there are so many different aspects. Just this morning I was talking to a Brazilian magazine and he was asking about the bad press that we and other similar bands got I was trying to explain that back in the old days there was no rock press, no internet. No one knew what they were doing, the bands didn't know what they were doing. We knew what we wanted to do, we found a way to do it and we broke all the existing rules. We had long hair, we wore silly clothes, we played  really loud. You know Cliff Richard didn't do that, I thing the closest to that was The Who.  It was quite natural for the rock press in those days to compare us to what had had gone before. They predicted that we would fail, There was no rock radio, no progressive rock, there was none of that. Everyone was growing up together and an industry was being created as it went along. Now of course the industry has grown up out of that and on from that into an industry that is purely about money and not about music. That's the chief difference. We did what we did in the 70's without all the new technology that is available to us now. We had to be incredibly creative in order to achieve anything at all back then. Now it seems like you could make a record tonight and have it for sale tomorrow. If you had said to me back in 1972 that it would be possible to do that then I would have laughed in your face. I wouldn't want to be a band trying to start out now.

You played your first gig in 1960, here we are 47 years later. What is the secret of the success of Ken Hensley?

You are testing my memory now, all I know is that it would be about that year....more or less! I got my first guitar about then and was strumming a few chords. I do know that it was a long time ago.

The secret? Well you know that my faith is the most important thing in my life now. I became a Christian in 1993. In practical and human terms I have a wife that loves me very much, supports me, encourages me and whacks me across the head if I step out of line. I have a lot of determination, a lot of energy, a decent head and those are the things that have kept me going throughout my career. I would have told you 20years ago that I was lucky, but now I am telling you I am blessed.

When did you realise that writing music was something that you had a talent for?

I started writing when I was very young. I began writing poems when I was at school. It seems to me that writing is my primary gift and that is the thing that I have focused on. I knew that if I could get back to writing songs that I felt good about then I knew that I could find a home somewhere for them. That was either in my own projects or maybe someone else's project. I have two writing projects now which will take me into and beyond 2008. At the moment though, I am busy promoting Blood On The Highway in its various formats for the rest of this year. I have one which is another concept album called "Love and Other Mysteries", which is mainly ballads, dealing with the strange things that happen in life. One of the songs is about a friend of mine who lives in Norway and he has a daughter who was dying of cancer and she went into remission and is now completely cancer free. The song talks about the dramatic psychological things that he went through during that whole process. My main challenge for 2008 will be to write music for a documentary film. I can't say much about it though as the company wants to keep it a secret for now! The head opf the company is coming over to Spain for three days just to brainstorm the plan, and put together ideas and concepts for the project. That specific project will take most of next year to complete and I am extremely grateful for the opportunities that I have been given.  

The band had so many changes in personnel, was that a problem for the band at that time?

It wasn't a problem in the beginning, basically I joined Spice which was the group that preceded Uriah Heep. There was such a meteoric change in that band once the five of us got together that it was decided to go for a new band name. That is where Uriah Heep came from, it was like a re-launch of Spice. During that process the bond between Mick and David and me became so strong, we really left the other guys behind and it was very obvious then that we needed to find the ultimate bass player and the ultimate drummer. We went through a lot of people in that process to find Gary and Lee. We had stability for a few years and that was when the band took off. As soon as Gary had his problems and had to be fired, then it all sort of fell apart. Those changes were very difficult, so in the early days the changes were exciting and challenging but in the later days the changes that we went through were disturbing and not very exciting at all.

What was the main reason for leaving the band when you did?

I had tried to leave for a couple of years. I wasn't really happy with the band after David left. John Lawton did a really good job because he is a great blues rock singer, but David was a pop rock singer and that is what made Uriah Heep what it was. I was writing for David, and John did a good job of some of those songs but on others he didn't. I was in a band at that time that sounded like Uriah Heep but didn't really feel like it. The big problem came when we had to let John go. I was then democratically outvoted 3-1 to hire John Sloman instead of Pete Goalby. That was absolutely the end for me as John was definitely the wrong singer for the band. The proof in the pudding there was when shortly after I left the band they fired John Sloman and hired Pete Goalby. There have been conspiracy theories among some people suggesting that the other members knew that if they hired John then I would leave. However I don't think any of them were smart enough to do that. So that was the end for me as it was totally the wrong choice.   

Were you blamed for the demise of Uriah Heep?

I can hardly be blamed for the drug addiction or the alcoholism, which I think was the beginning of the demise of Uriah Heep. What I can be blamed for, if blame is the right word is I could be held responsible for standing my ground. The choice of John was just so wrong for Uriah Heep.  

Uriah Heep are still touring and recording, do you have any feelings about that either negatively or positively?

That is an extremely provocative question, and I have got myself into so much trouble in the past answering questions like that, but I am going to answer it truthfully. It's not Uriah Heep that's touring, to me Uriah Heep is David Byron, Mick Box, Ken Hensley, Lee Kerslake and Gary Thain. I cannot be blamed for feeling that way as I was in that band. That was the band that sold millions of records. What Mick Box has now just consists of Mick. Trevor Boulder came into the band on the down slope of the band's career. He is not an original member of Uriah Heep and the other three members are newcomers. In fact the drummer they have has just joined the band. The only real justification for this band to be called Uriah Heep is that Mick legally owns the name. I feel very strongly about that and as I said I have got my self into so much trouble in the past with comments like that. I don't go out on the road and call myself Uriah Heep, I do play songs from that era but they are songs that I wrote. I think I have a justification in doing that and at least I have the balls not to go out and call my band something that it patently is not. They can do whatever they want to do. I don't care what they do. I do hope that they have success with the new record. The bottom line is that we are both on completely different roads. It's another world to me.     

Do you keep in touch with the other members of the band?

Definitely not, unless there is some financial, legal or other issue that jumps out from the past I have no need to. It wouldn't really benefit them or me to keep in touch. Our attitudes are completely different and our ways of going about things are completely different. I am a stubborn old bastard and I have proved in the past that I know what I am doing and I am proving it again and I always stick to my guns.

I take it that you are still receiving royalties for Uriah Heep, is that enough to retire on?

Yes I am, I used to receive loads at one time but maybe not so much now. It does put some food on the table.

So it is not enough to retire on?

I wish I knew what retirement was. I don't even know if I could do that. To give up a life's work and work here, driving a tractor and running a farm....I don't think I am ready for that yet. The money is not an issue, for me the important thing is fulfilling myself by using the gift that I have got. If one day I get to the point where my heart is not in it then I will stop. Right now retirement is not on the horizon.  

You played at the Magician's Birthday party, how did that go for you, were you well received?

I think that I was well received. I believe that the majority of the people there were happy to see me back on the stage with Uriah Heep. Unfortunately I know that a lot of the hardcore fans really weren't there for that purpose. Some said that it was just a money making event and me being onstage with Uriah Heep for the first time in 20 years was obviously going to attract a lot of attention and put more bums on seats. Musically it wasn't very fulfilling as it was like going back in time and was a bit spooky for me. I suppose that I learned something from the experience that I would never do it again.

I have watched the More Than Conquerors DVD that you performed with under the Wetton/Hensley band. The two of you seemed to have a great time on stage and that showed on the DVD. How did you come to be performing with John Wetton once more?

I was involved in some business with the guy who once managed John and he was helping him through his difficult times. We just reconnected, John was having a really rough time at that particular point in his life. By the way I saw him with Asia not so long ago in Russia, it was a phenomenal show. It was great to see him and he has more than 80% of his voice back now and I am so happy to see that. This came about really as an extension of the Magicians birthday party, we did enjoy ourselves as you see on screen. But the very first day of that convention I developed a really bad cold and I could barely talk never mind sing. So it was hard for me to really enjoy myself because all the time I was fighting the problem that I had with my throat. It was a combination of having a cold and being nervous and I think that kind of let me down a little bit.

You retired from touring, but you still do the occasional gig, are there any plans to resurrect touring?. Maybe a UK tour?

I would love to come back to the UK and I am speaking to an agent there to maybe do some shows in late November. I am doing two shows, one in Serbia and one in Norway. That will be the end of the current batch of shows. Now it is festival season and I take time off to celebrate my birthday. I will be going out to do book signings and all that kind of stuff. My agent in Madrid is currently working on dates in Germany starting Mid October. The shows that we will be doing will be specifically targeted at all the local distributors in the various countries in order to promote the CD.

You played to 7000 fans in Finland recently, that must have been very exciting. How did the gig go for you? What was the line up of the band, is it the same as on Blood on the Highway?

No, I don't use the studio musicians on live performances. Spain's players are great feel players but they are not the best rock players in the world. They don't have the right attitude, and a lot of live playing is about attitude.  I have been working with these guys from Norway for a couple of years now. They understand what it means to turn the guitar up to 10 and hit a power chord and really mean it when you do it. I have guitar, bass, drums and our lead singer is a guy from Iceland called Eirikur Hauksson who actually was their representative in the Eurovision song contest. He has a great rock and roll voice and together we make such great music. The reaction has been amazing everywhere we have played. In Finland they were expecting 5000 people but they jammed 7000 in there and the reaction from the audience was just great. You can measure the reactions in several ways now, obviously the reaction on the night and then if you look at the guest book on the website you then start to see the reaction there. We know we are doing something right and everywhere we go we spread a lot of goodwill and have a good time.

You have your annual summer party in Norway this year on Aug 4th. What is the format of that gig and do you have special guests?

This is the 4th year and last year for the first time it was sold out. We really felt like we did it right. The first year was fun and there was about 500-600 people there and we all had a good time. The 2nd year we experimented a little bit and the 3rd year we experimented a little bit more. The crowds have been getting bigger and last year we had the biggest crowd and it was the best show we ever had. This year I was talking to Glenn Hughes about doing a show with me in Hamburg for the Blood on the Highway concert. We then found out that he would be in Norway at the time of the Summer party and that he had a slot open. We decided to ask him along as a special guest. It will be the usual show but Glenn will be singing the two songs that he sings on the CD. I will then be his guest, doing 5 songs, so I now have to learn all the Deep Purple numbers that we will be doing. I have never played any Deep Purple in my life before.

Next year I would love to have Asia as our special guests at our summer party.   

Can you tell me how the Esperanza Street charity foundation came about and what work does it do and how active is Ken Hensley in its work?

It was my wife's idea, we have two friends over here in Spain and they have a daughter who has down's syndrome and she is extremely active and very capable. She is computer literate and she is a black belt in the handicapped equivalent of Karate. We were listening to some of the horror stories she was telling about being mistreated and then how she was given a job and not being paid etc. It got us thinking about how we could help people in a similar situation. My record company in Germany has a music shop, which sells CD's  and books  and stuff like that. It has 8 people working there and 7 of them are handicapped which was the boss of the company's idea. When I heard that then we came up with the idea of doing something similar in Spain. Esperanza Street exists in a general sense to help people in difficult, dangerous or life threatening situations by offering them shelter and it also exists to shelter abandoned animals, of which there are far too many here in Spain. It also exists in order to give handicapped people as much of a  normal life as possible. We are planning to open a shop near to where we live and it will be modelled on the one in Hamburg. Where I am mostly involved is, well it took seven months to get all the paperwork sorted out and approved by the Spanish government. We have a component in the charter which is called "musicians in need" and that is designed specifically to help musicians from the late 60's and the 70's who helped to build an industry that eventually threw them in the trash and now are either very ill, or helpless or broke or whatever. I want to try and collaborate this component of the foundation with the PRS member's fund which is something that we give a percentage of our royalties to. So if a member can't pay his rent, or can't pay a bill then that's where we will help. It's just a way of doing things to try and help other people.

You have your faith, was that something that has always been with you or did you discover that at a later time in life and how?

I grew up in a kind of religious family, my father was a Royal navy man and he was very strict in a kind of Victorian way. We went to church on a Sunday and always dressed up for that, but it didn't mean anything to me then. To me that was what we did on a Sunday morning. I went to a boys school, a grammar school, and they taught scripture there but I was always taught to fear God but never understood or never thought that you could have fellowship with him. It was during the early 90's that I started talking to a guy who was a pastor of a Presbyterian church in St Louis and one day he said that all I needed was a personal relationship with god, and I thought yeah he is going to really want to know me. You know, God has helped me to understand everything, he has helped me to understand Christianity and basically I have handed my life over to Jesus and I said you run it now as I have screwed it up so much as anyone can possibly do. Ever since then my whole life has changed 100% and changes every day.    

There are so many great Christian artists and bands about at the moment. Have you done any Christian rock albums and if not, is that something you would look to do in the future?

I did do a record called a Glimpse Of Glory in my studio in St Louis with a bunch of singers and musicians from local churches. I went into the studio and wrote some songs that were very specific and faith based. I do plan to do more of that in the future. Right now I am really concentrating maintaining my faith through daily bible readings, daily prayer time. I am also spending time sharing my faith with people when asked to do so. I know a lot of Christian musicians who are out there. Christianity is a very personal relationship with God and that has to be right first before anything else can happen.   

What other musical projects are you involved in at the moment either musically or as a producer?

I have just finished producing a CD for a German band called Max and the Minors.  They are young kids, great musicians, great songs. They have a baby faced young singer that has a voice to die for. That will come out in October. A while before that I produced a CD for a girl in South Africa, very much in the Stevie Nicks type of mould. That was a lot of fun too. The next job in the studio is to mix the live recordings of our recent show in Hamburg which will be in 5.1 surround sound for the live DVD release. We had to do a bit of work with the audio as it was recorded at 96kHz which is absolutely suicidal when you are trying to record live rock n roll. So I have a lot of forensic work to do which will take 4 or 5 weeks to complete. I will start that in the 2nd week of August.    

Is producing something that you enjoy doing, and how much does it differ from writing and playing the music?

It's very different because although I am not involved in the root material, I am involved in painting the picture that the band wants to have painted. For me the fundamental criteria for doing a production or making guest appearances on other people's album is if I like the music. If I like the music and I am enthusiastic about it then I know that I can do a good job. If I don't like the music then I won't accept the project, there is no point as I wouldn't be able to contribute anything. So creatively it is very rewarding because once you understand what the band is trying to say then the job as a producer is communicating that to the engineer and making sure that the sonic picture gets painted is exactly the way that it should be. That is a big challenge and I enjoy it very much.

I hear that you were a good footballer, was there an option to be a professional footballer?

Laughs out loud, when I was 16 I received a professional contract with Luton Town. I was actually offered what they called in those days a apprentice professional contract and the idea was that I would train with the team during the day and at night I would go to night school to learn a trade. So that at the end of my football career I had something to fall back on. It was a very complicated story but by then I was so hooked on music that I decided to stay at school and asked Luton to wait a year while I finished school and make up my mind what I actually wanted to do. Of course they wouldn't do that. Anyway my father then threw me out of the house because he wanted me to be a footballer and not a musician.

If you weren't involved with music what would you like to do?

I think that I would like to teach, but I have only really developed that interest in the last 5 or 6 years. I have had many opportunities now to talk to people and offer them advice on certain things. So I think I would like to teach but probably my favourite thing to do if I had the opportunity and I wasn't a musician would be to become a focus for the freedom that I found in my faith. That is something that I would love to do but I don't know if I am qualified enough to do that. It sort of the thing that I would like to do. More than anything else I will be very much involved in Esperanza Street as a side thing to what I am doing in my musical career. Monica and I really want to help people who can't get that help from anywhere else.

On your website you have the Blood on the highway book, which is an expanded version of when too many dreams come true? Where does that take the story up to now?

The story is now up to the beginning of this year and what happened was that we brought in a friend of mine, Matthias Penzel, who is a professional writer and has written for Rolling Stone and Kerrang among others and works on a lot of different writing projects. He came and spent a few days with me and I have known him for some time. He dragged out about 10 cassette tapes worth of material from me, most of which I had forgotten about until I started speaking to him. I feel a lot happier with the book as I feel it is much more complete now and so I am actually very excited to see it, and that will be next week. I think this version will be so much more interesting for people to read.

Is that only available from you?

It will only be available to begin with from Amazon.com. It will then be translated in German and then it will be available more widely as they develop the retail distribution.

Finally, what is next for Ken Hensley?

Well as I said I have a few projects to do. There is also the Blood On The Highway CD and book, the live DVD which will be incredible. The rest of this year will be concentrating on promoting Blood On The Highway in its various formats. Next year I expect to be working on the film and also on my new solo project. You know who knows what will happen, as the bible  says 'A man makes his plans and The Lord directs his steps' I will make all the plans and I don't really get too attached to too many things. I am the kind of person who likes to be busy. I am still a highly motivated individual.

Well Ken I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview

Thanks Tam, it was a pleasure to talk to you

Tam Laird

Caerllysi Music and Progplanet

July 2007

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