1. What are you currently up to?

a.       Currently up to our necks is what we’re up to! Total madness. But a very cool kind. Semi-controlled madness. Just a lot of incredible things happening right now all at the same time. It’s a thrill and a rush for sure. But it also requires extreme focus and attention, which isn’t usually the stuff of artists if you know what I mean… More than anything else I’d say we’re all very excited about the upcoming release of the new Transcendence album All Your Heroes Become Villains. It’s hitting retail and digital stores all over the world as we speak and people are loving it. The concept of the album is resonating with people at this time. One critic called it “The perfect soundtrack to a beautiful apocalypse.” That pretty much sums it up I’d say. So that’s a good thing. Right now t’s making a big splash on College Radio here in the States.

b.       Oddly enough, at the same time we’ve got this other thing happening with my last solo album Ballad On Third Avenue which was totally unexpected. The second single “New Orleans Dreams” has been climbing up the Adult Contemporary charts here in the US and spinning in 21 other countries. Including the UK of course. Right now the song is currently #10 in the US. Because of this, there’s a whole new interest in this solo album. We didn’t see this coming. So we’re literally working PR and promo on two totally different albums at once by the same artist. AND trying to book two separate tours to support these two very different albums. It’s insane.

c.        We’re doing a ton of press, which is always fun, and at the same time we’re working on the music videos for the “Villains” album. Of course we are also planning the US tour, deciding which cities to hit and which other countries to books some shows in. That’s a daunting task. But obviously well worth it once we’re on that stage. We love performing live. It’s THE rush of all rushes. If that doesn’t sound like enough, we’re also in the studio and just about halfway through recording two new “Ed Hale solo albums”. We’re still attempting to get our minds around what these new albums ARE… what their all about… We recorded about 20 songs so far and we’ve found that about a third of them sound like Adult Contemporary, a third of them sound like a more mellow singer/songwriter vibe, and another third sound more like they belong on a Transcendence album. They’re more alt-rock. It’s weird how we work like that. It confuses some people… but not us. We’re used to it.

d.       And of course there’s the mysterious The Great Mistake album that we still haven’t officially released, but it’s been sneaking around the internet for a few years. We just found the master tapes and gave them a listen and they sound incredible. Just over the top raw garage rock but catchy as hell. So now we are all involved in this heated debate as to “when should we release this new-new album?” It obviously doesn’t make sense for us to release it now. And yet it sounds so damn good we want to! Take French band Phoenix and mix it with some Strokes and Vampire Weekend… add some early seventies Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground or Wolf Mother and you get a pretty good idea of what the sound of this new new album sounds like. It’s done. Just needs to be mastered. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. I just love it.

After catching up with Ed Hale last week in the first part of my interview with the singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboard player for the former Miami based band Transcendence, today we delve further into the group’s current status and the making of their latest album, All Your Heroes Become Villains.

I encountered an interesting parallel story during a recent weekend in New York. During lunch with musician pals Richard X Heyman and Edward Rogers, an obscure British musician named Jimmy Campbell came up. Campbell wrote a few mildly successful hits in the mid ’60s during the full flush of the British Invasion. Few Americans know of Campbell, but Hale sure does. His label, Dying Van Gogh, has a multi-artist tribute planned and Rogers is contributing a track to the effort! Anyhow, here’s the rest of my little chat with Mr. Hale.

Read the full interview here.

Radio Industry Journal Friday Morning Quarterback interviewed Ed Hale last week in their Get to Know feature. Read the interview below or click here to go to the source.

Get To Know… Ed Hale

Town and state you grew up in:  Well, that’s a tough one. We moved and lived in sixteen different cities before I was 11 years old. A single mother in her early twenties raising two boys isn’t the easiest thing to do, but we eventually settled down in a small town in southern Florida called Naples. Everyone knows Naples Florida. But talk about surreal, growing up in a retirement beach resort type town… Small-town America. The ocean to the west, swamp and forest to the East and South, and one tiny resort town after another to the North for hundreds of miles. “Landlocked” is what it felt like if you were a young wild and rebellious teenager who thought he was the second coming of David Bowie. (laughs) So I was outta there by the time I hit sixteen. Though looking back now… it wasn’t such a bad way to grow up. We were safe and secure, with a real sense of community, and shielded from a lot of the more harsher realities that other kids are confronted with who grow up in large cities. Frankly, I’ve got a treasure chest full of fond memories now of growing up in Naples, FL. But of course like many kids who grow up in small towns, all I wanted to do was get out of there and make something of my life bigger than that.

Town and state you live in now: Umm hum… Another tricky one. But I’ll give it a go. The simple answer is we live in Seattle and New York. We’ve got a beautiful old house in a small woodsy town just outside of Seattle where you can see the stars at night and hear everything from hummingbirds fly to crickets chirping to the relaxing sound of water flowing through a babbling brook that runs through our backyard. It’s a very peaceful escape from the madness of New York City, which is where I actually spend most of my time. Upper West Side to be exact. New York has been home to me for a very long time and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. There’s just nothing like flying in and seeing that first glimpse of city lights down there once through the clouds. If we were Gladiators, New York would be our Rome. It’s where it’s at for sure.
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An interview with Ed Hale will appear in the December issue of the United Kingdom’s premier acoustic guitar print magazine, Acoustic Magazine, talking all things acoustic guitar and acoustic music. Look for the full interview when the December issue hits stands in mid-November. In the meantime, here’s a tiny sneak peak below. Enjoy.

What’s the secret of good playing?
Well that’s an easy one. PRACTICE! (laughs) You’re either on your way to becoming a great player or not. And I don’t think that path ever ends. But if you are on your way to that, and you really want it, then you have got to do nothing but practice your instrument. Night and day. Day and night. When you’re watching TV, you’re quietly practicing your guitar. When you’re making love you’re still practicing your guitar in your head! (laughs) I sleep with my guitar beside me. If I wake up in the middle of the night I like to reach over and feel it there. I collect old vintage acoustic guitars. They’re one of my favorite things in this world. So I’ve got a few. That way you can keep a guitar in every room of your house. So there’s just no excuse not to be practicing all the time.

New York, NY, July 06, 2011 — Ed Hale is known for being a musician and singer/songwriter, however there is more to his music than meets the ears. On his last solo studio recording Ballad on Third Avenue, a rousing collection of alternative pop-rock acoustic tracks, he sings about love and all the emotions that are forthcoming.

Yet there is much more on the album that needs your attention, particularly the track “New Orleans Dreams”. The track is a rather poignant take on the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the ineptness of our government to help the suffering people of the area when it was needed most. This is a story that continues today several years later as people are still reeling from the disaster of the hurricane and many other natural disasters that would follow in that area including the disastrous BP oil spill.

CONTINUE READING

The power of pop music, the challenges of life on the road, converting to Islam, making babies, getting in and out of Iran, Peace in the Middle East, the illegal invasion of Iraq. All topics surely to come up in the next episode of ICTV’s television program The AfterHours Show, the full hour which will be dedicated to the American singer/songwriter turned activist Ed Hale. The one hour show will air on SHAW Channel 4 in Vancouver, BC three times next week, Monday and Tuesday at 11:00AM and Saturday at 10:30PM. For fans who want to get in on the action and on TV, the Channel 4 camera crew and the show’s host Ebby Mohseni will be filming Hale’s final concert of his West Coast tour at the Railway Club in Vancouver at 8:00PM. Full details are available on Hale’s Facebook Page.

Hale has been mesmerizing audiences touring the West Coast of the United States and Canada for the last two months with a four piece band made up of his hypnotic vocals, Cheshire Cat grin and signature open-tuned acoustic guitars, two cellists, and virtuoso keyboardist Peter Capelle who provides everything from ambient electronica to straight up mind-blowing piano embellishments. The band has performed in major cities from Los Angeles to Seattle promoting Hale’s latest solo magnum opus entitled Ballad On Third Avenue. Their final concert of the tour in Vancouver is being filmed for use in the next episode of the weekly television series The AfterHours Show. The show will also feature extensive interview footage with the singer, who will hopefully shed some light on the recent rumors about the breakup of alt-rock supergroup Transcendence, which Hale has fronted for ten years, which also includes Ex Norwegian singer Roger Houdaille and Dreaming In Stereo guitarist Fernando Perdumbo. The critically acclaimed indie band’s record label is months away from releasing their long awaited new album All Your Heroes Become Villains. Leaked copies of the band’s last recorded work have garnered hyperbolic raving reviews in the music blogosphere for over two years, but rumors abound about the album’s release date being delayed due to the band’s secret demise while the members have busied themselves with various solo projects.

Regardless of whether the Transcendence mystery is cleared up or not, Hale will certainly make for an intriguing subject on Mohseni’s AfterHours Show. Controversy, mischief and intrigue are as ubiquitous when Ed Hale is in front of a camera as are his always present scarves and eye makeup. History, politics, art, music, beauty, truth, philosophy, sex, technology and design and just about anything else pop-culture usually abound whenever the singer is interviewed. Not to mention a conspiracy theory or two. Viewers can also look forward to discussions about Hale’s recent interfaith wedding and subsequent conversion to Islam, his upcoming trips to Pakistan and Israel/Palestine, as well as his non-profit organization PeaceWithIran.com and his controversial meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year at the United Nations. All this while openly professing to be “an active practicing Christian and member of the United Methodist Church, but entirely understanding and empathetic to our fellow atheist brothers and sisters around the world…” make Hale an enigmatic figure. Perhaps Mohseni and company are biting off more than they can chew in a one hour show. But hey there’s always the sequel!

ARTIST WEBSITES: www.edhale.com, www.myspace.com/edhale, www.facebook.com/edhalemusic

ASCOT MEDIA’S CONTACT INFORMATION
Rodney Foster – Ascot Media Group, Inc.
rfoster@ascotmediagroup.com
281-324-2180

Ed Hale fans are delivered a rare treat this weekend by being able to call in and speak live on the air to the singer!!! Of course they can also email questions in via the internet during a live on-air interview on the weekly call-in radio program The Believe Show hosted by Barbara Bruce. The thirty-minute interview will air on Sunday August 22nd at 7:30 Eastern Standard Time or 4:30 Pacific Standard time. The long running Phoenix Arizona based program focuses on positive motivational and inspirational stories and leaders in a wide variety of industries who are making a difference in the world. The Believe Show airs on KVWM 970 AM on the radio dial in Arizona, or can be heard live online at www.barbarabruce.com. The well-spoken and well-traveled singer/songwriter/producer/entrepreneur and social activist, who is currently on a national tour in the United States promoting his latest album Ballad On Third Avenue, will as usual probably not be at a loss for words, but will instead have plenty to share about his most recent experiences on the road, his new album, or any number of the other ventures he seems always involved in at any given moment in time. Fans are welcome to start calling in to the station no earlier than 4:00 PM PST by dialing 928.368.8100.

A new interview with Transcendence singer Ed Hale in Exclusive Magazine. The singer, who just recently released a new solo album, Ballad On Third Avenue, and more recently surprised friends and fans by getting married to the beautiful Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai in dual Persian and Christian Ceremonies.”

‘All Hale, Ed!’

Ed Hale, the iconic singer of the rock group Transcendence, never known for doing things ‘ordinary,’ definitely did it his way in what may be the ‘interfaith wedding of the year!’

On February 13, Hale’s last Triple A radio hit single, ‘I Walk Alone,’ no longer applied to him as he and the beautiful Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai, began their life together in a style that crosses all cultural barriers.

At a church on the corner of Park Avenue in New York City, they were joined in a formally Islamic fashion in a traditional Persian wedding, followed immediately by a traditional Christian wedding.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Ed Hale about all this, and first wondered, being that he just married his soul-mate (congratulations!) in a Multi-Interfaith, one-of-a-kind wedding, if he could kindly explain this a little more. “Thank you for the congrats. Nahal and I knew that if we were going to have a wedding that it needed to be special. Something that was bigger than just the binding of the two of us as one. If we wanted to do that, we could have just eloped off alone the two of us and done it privately. But we felt a responsibility to our friends and fans and family… we wanted to share it.”

“Many people already knew our story. How long we had been together. How in love we were. Always the iconoclast, I wasn’t too knowledgable about weddings per se, but I knew that if I was going to get married in public that it had to be about more than just the two of us. So we really worked hard at this idea of ‘celebrating love,’ in all its shapes and forms… rather than just making it about us.”

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In its next issue Revolt Magazine will be publishing a special series of Summer Lists by today’s hottest music artists. Next week’s list features a contribution by Transcendence singer/songwriter Ed Hale as he offers up his Top Ten Things to do in Summer list – with items such as “kiss a mermaid” it is surely not to be missed! Look for the feature starting Monday July 20th, 2009 on news stands or the internet here.