Ed Hale

Ed Hale, affectionately known to friends and lovers the world over as THE AMBASSADOR lives in New York City. The singer/songwriter performs and records with the rock group TRANSCENDENCE, as well as releases the occasional solo album. The group’s albums are available at music retailers nationwide, on iTunes, or at various online music stores such as Amazon.com or CDbaby.

“Still finding myself obsessed with a quiet secret subtle and almost constant gnawing at my insides about the unbearable sadness of how impermanent everything is. Our lifetimes are short here. I remind myself that it is up to me to find meaning while I am here. I try to live my life to its fullest and even then I cannot shake the deep underlying knowing that they are all just moments lived and then soon forgotten. Where is the meaning in that?”

Ed Hale takes a break during recording sessions for the new Transcendence album All Your Heroes Become Villains

The 2005 one hour documentary about Ed Hale and the rock band Transcendence produced by Journey of Dreams and directed by Diane Doyle.

Ed Hale Artist Bio – Last updated April 25th, 2008

If nothing else Ed Hale is a busy man. Most notably, he is the internationally known singer/songwriter and recording artist from the eclectic indie-rock band Transcendence, who has released six albums over the last ten years, either solo or with the group. Hale has been featured, reviewed, and interviewed in newspapers and magazines all over the world and has toured throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. A darling with music critics for nearly a decade for their unique, passionate, and eccentric sound and style, Transcendence also happen to be a prolific outfit. The band is releasing two new albums in 2008: All Your Heroes Become Villains, and The Great Mistake, on the Attack/EMI record label. The two new albums could not sound more different than each other and yet both oddly sound like Transcendence. If that weren’t enough, the band is also still putting the finishing touches to a new 24 song double-disc solo album of Hale’s entitled L’intrigue de Femme for release in early ‘09. Hale has also become increasingly well-known for his frank and sometimes outlandish brand of social and political activism – at times showing up at anti-war rallies dressed as a United States Army General.

Add Civilian Diplomat as his newest title. Hale just returned from a 15 day Peace Delegation to the country of Iran of all places where he and 12 other Americans, including Rolling Stone contributing editor Robert Dreyfuss and writer Larry Beinhart, best known for his book-turned-movie Wag the Dog, were hand-picked to fly around the country to meet with leading government officials including former President Mohammad Khatami and leading religious clerics and Ayatollahs to discuss ways to improve US/Iranian relations and increase peace between the two countries. Heavily involved in volunteer work, six months before this Hale was in a remote village in the center of Ghana on the West Coast of Africa building houses for the natives there made of not much more than mud and clay with Habitat for Humanity. Hale filmed the entire trip and created a documentary about the experience called Going to Ghana, which one can find on YouTube, but soon will be able to rent or buy due to a recent deal with Warner Home Video to release his Transcendent Television series.

Alongside his music career, activism, and volunteer work, Hale is also a fiercely ambitious entrepreneur and businessman who at times comes across as passionate about business and innovation as he does art. Over the years he founded numerous global multi-million dollar companies including The Garden of Eden health food stores, which he sold to the GNC Corporation in his mid-twenties, and the international vitamin manufacturing company Ageless Foundation Laboratories which he sold to publicly-traded Naturade Inc in 2005. Obsessed with anti-aging science he developed the UltraMax-HGH line of products which can be found in health food stores all over America today and fourteen other countries. He also has his hands in real estate investment in The Hale Daniel Corporation, founded and presides over a company called Transcendent Media Group — a record company which is home to six artists of various musical styles from rock to Americana to hip hop, and a television production company which co-produces the reality show which he stars in called Transcendent Television. He also owns a clothing line which features 36 different t-shirt designs.

His newest business venture, Optum Consulting, is a New York based consulting firm with team-consultants in different cities all over the world which specializes in corporate and product branding, advertising and marketing, and integrating Web2.0 technology. The firm helps startups and entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies optimize their businesses, helps them run smoother and more efficiently, bring new products to market, and in the end make more money.

In his “spare time,” Hale’s true passion is writing. Known for the unyielding frankness and very personal nature of his online journals, he has “unofficially” posted daily entries to the occasionally controversial online blog known as the Transcendence Diaries for seven years, which boasts a loyal readership of 15,000 fans and features more than two thousand pages. He is also the author of the award-winning screenplay for the road-movie The Tribe Moves to London, and he is currently completing his newest book, Revolution in Me! Welcome to the Age of Personal Expression.

Also known by the moniker ‘the Ambassador’ for his love of travel and because he speaks five languages that he occasionally also sings in on his albums which add a multi-cultural approach to creating his art that first garnered the band attention, and also help him in his travels as a volunteer. Transcendence’s albums are available at retail music stores worldwide and on iTunes, Amazon.com, Virgin music, and other online digital music stores.

Domestically Hale made two trips to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast helping to rebuild homes in 2006, and locally Hale works with the New York Mission Society volunteering with underprivileged children from the Bronx and Harlem. He also volunteers with local a Homeless Shelter, a Food Bank, Covenant House, Big Brothers & Sisters, and is a Red Cross Disaster Relief volunteer.

Two of Hale’s newest projects include the non-profit website www.TuneInTurnOnHelp.org which funnels attention and monies to some of his favorite notable causes and charities, and www.PeaceWithIran.com, a website that attempts to show a different side to the people of Iran by acting as a vehicle for enlightened journalists and alternative press coverage of Iran, and exposing more Westerners to Iranian culture – similar to what he did with Brasil in the late nineties. His hope for the PeaceWithIran.com project is that it will help put a face to the country of Iran and prevent US or Israeli military strikes against the people of that country.

Hale is a member of NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences), the performing rights organization ASCAP, the International Avatar Network, Amnesty International, International Rescue Coalition, the ACLU, United For Peace and Justice, the ANSWER Coalition, Environmental Defense Fund, Smartmeme, Greenpeace, MoveOn.org, Save the Children, Easter Seals, Christ Church United Methodist, and the Christian Children’s Fund.

For press contact information please contact Ariel Hyatt at Cyber PR: (212) 239-8384 or ariel@arielpublicity.com.

TRIVIA

Ed Hale is currently the singer, songwriter, and guitarist in the rock group Transcendence along with other members Fernando Perdomo, guitar, Roger Houdaille, bass, Allan Gabay, keyboards, founding member Ricardo Mazzi, drums, and drummer Bill Sommer. Transcendence has released three albums and has three new CDs being released in early 2008, All Your Heroes Become Villians, and The Great Mistake. Ed Hale has released three solo albums. His newest solo album, a double disc, L’intrigue de Femme/Finding Francesca is due out in early 2009.

Music came naturally to Ed at an early age, being in his blood. He is the great-nephew of the producer, arranger Tony Morelli, musical conductor and orchestra leader for the Sands Hotel for twenty-five years. Morelli appears on more than one hundred recorded albums by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, and Dean Martin. His former home is now a registered Historical Landmark in Las Vegas Nevada, The Antonio Morelli House.

Hale released his first album, Eddie, at the age of 16 on the Alarming Talent label out of Atlanta Georgia. He was discovered while still in school by music historian and critic turned talent agent Murray Silver who wrote the book Great Balls of Fire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story.

Hale is a descendant of the 17th century Italian Engineer and Mathematician Niccolo Tartaglia who developed the solution for algebraic cubic equations and is best known for his books on applied mathematics Della Nova Scientia and General Trattato di Numeri et Misure.

Ed Hale currently lives in New York city.