ED HALE INTERVIEWED IN LIQUID HIP – PART 1

Liquid Hip Magazine interviewed Ed Hale in it’s April 25th edition in a piece entitled Ed Hale On Your Heroes And Villains.
“These bands that get in the studio for two years and are forced to record 50 to 70 songs in order to come out with 10 tracks and the record companies are still not happy … they’re looking for ‘hit singles’ rather than a great fucking album. Well, we haven’t been working that way. — Ed Hale And The Transcendence
Nothing Ed Hale does is by the numbers. Even his band, Ed Hale And The Transcendence, isn’t structured like others. It includes five core members, five guest members on every record, and another five musicians who sit in with the band for live productions. That doesn’t count Karen Feldner, who has provided vocals for the band since their first album, Rise And Shine.
Yet, despite its sheer size and scope, the band has managed to maintain a distinct sound, even if it is one that can be hard to pin down. Their fourth studio album, All Your Heroes Become Villains, has been described as everything from a concept album of Brit-pop and world music to seventies glam rock and progressive alternative, but it is really something else all together. Continue reading…
“It wasn’t supposed to be a concept album, but we were trying to make sure the songs were connected in some way because critics had said our albums ‘weren’t cohesive enough.’ We didn’t know that was one of the rules to making albums,” Hale laughs. “It was only later, with a lot of it coming from DJ Kamran Green, that we started hearing how the songs could be tied together. This guy smoked more pot than anyone I had ever seen in my life. He’s got this medical marijuana card, right? So he smokes out 24-7!”
It was also Green, Hale says, who would stay up after everyone else had called it a night between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. When the band would return in the late morning, Green would still be working — creating brilliant little snippets of music that would be incorporated in all the songs, tying them together, and giving it a “rock opera” like quality.
All Your Heroes Become Villains is a collection of personal insights.
One of the most powerful songs on the album, “Blind Eye”, carries a potent message. Hale has always been regarded as an outspoken social and political activist, but this song throws its hands up in the face of everything, moving from protests that feed the system and toward passive apathy, just to survive.
“Sometimes I want to feel that way. I did when I wrote it. I mean, regarding how evil all the governments of the world are, yes, I feel that way,” Hale said. “You and I know that I can’t get into that here, in a public domain. But that’s what the song is really about … the fact that we are forced to turn a blind eye to all of it.”
Instead, Hale points to a host of entertainers that mostly stay away from politics and take matters into their own hands. People like Bono for his work in Africa, Sting and his wife Trudy saving rainforests in Brazil, and Matt Damon attacking water shortages, he said. Instead of trying to change legislation, he points out, they go out and get it done.
“Blind Eye” isn’t the only politically charged song on the album. “We Are Columbine” is equally poignant, laying the ownership of what Hale considers injustices on the societies that make them possible. Musically, it’s one of the best rockers on the album. Lyrically, it is among several songs Hale says he didn’t write as much as they wrote themselves.
“It’s a hard song to stomach if you don’t agree with the position it takes,” says Hale. “It didn’t take anything to write, but I had to ask myself if I had the courage to write it. To say those things.”
To read the complete article head to Liquid Hip online by clicking here.

ED HALE AND THE TRANSCENDENCE FRONTMAN INTERVIEWED IN ABSOLUTE PUNK

AbsolutePunk.net Interviews Ed Hale and The Transcendence Frontman Ed Hale   

03.27.12 Interviewed by: Linda Ferreira
3. What bands are you influenced by?
I think each guy in the band has a different set of influences. So I can only speak for myself. But one thing I will say is that almost all of us are pretty much into anything. We’re IN the music business, you know. So there’s no real style or genre that we don’t come into contact with. I mean, right now, while we’re doing all this promotion for my latest single “Scene in San Francisco” which has jumped into the Billboard Top 30, our keyboard player Jon Rose is out on tour with Julia Iglesias in South America. Crazy. But you know, that’s the biz. All our work right now is centered around promotion, meet and greets, record signings, interviews, photo shoots, so the guys in the band have time to do other things. And this is a great gig for Jon. No way he could take it, sincerely do a great job, or even get the job, unless he was into a wide variety of styles of music. Dig?
Me, I’m into anything and everything. I really NEED music. For my health and sanity. To make me feel good. Like it’s part of my soul or something. I did this photo shoot yesterday that was very elaborate. A lot of makeup and styling and people on deck. And in order to get into it, we had to have music going in the background. They asked me what I wanted to put on. They were using Pandora, which is an incredible tool. One of the coolest things to come out of this new age. And we’re in this photography studio filled with people of all different ages and backgrounds and at one point someone put on contemporary rap. But I just wasn’t feeling it. It totally ruined the vibe of the shoot for me. Plastic, put on, contrived, commercial for the sake of being commercial, all posing and bragging and nothing substantial underneath. This is what it felt like at least. In the room.
But I had to be “on”, right, totally ON… for the camera. So I went for the pure shit, the stuff that created me and who I am. Lou Reed, David Bowie, T Rex, Donovan, Hendrix, The Beatles, Zeppelin, Lennon, Wings, The Stones, Bob Dylan. Even the Dandy Warhols or The Pixies, The Replacements, Radiohead, U2, Muse. At its heart, this is where my music is coming from at i’s core. Plus a few thousand others I suppose.
4. If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
The Rolling Stones in the 70s. For obvious reasons. Never has been and never will be another “world’s greatest rock band” quite like the Stones in the 70s. Way before all the bullshit started in the music business. Crafting songs like pottery to fit a specific genre using computers. Narrow-casting to please niche-niche markets based on polls and statistics. This kind of thing has ruined music as we know it today. We’ve got people like Adele or Katy Perry at the top of the charts who use three to ten people to help write a freaking song. And another five to produce it. That’s become the norm now. Everyone pandering to everyone else in an attempt to please a very small imaginary group of music listeners who are scrambling away from regular radio in hordes for that exact reason. They’re out there looking for something REAL and SINCERE and AUTHENTIC and the radio and record exec guys just don’t see it. Albums like DARK SIDE OF THE MOON were made with a small band of four guys and a producer and a few engineers. And that’s it. Real artists who could write great songs, looks be damned. Yeah, I’d love to tour with Pink Floyd if they ever got back together with Roger. For sure. I’d do anything with Paul (McCartney) just because he is still alive and, like many, I feel like I owe him a great deal for who I am today.
5. Best food to eat on tour?
I live on Sprite, coffee and protein shakes man. Among other things. I may not be the best role model for that kind of question.
To read the full interview Click Here

“HALE IS DIGGING DEEP AND REVEALING THROUGH MUSIC THE TRAVAILS AND PLEASURES OF LIVING LIFE”

CD REVIEW IN BOOTLEG MAGAZINE August 2009: Ed Hale has recorded a solo album away from his Brit Pop band Transcendence but hasn’t left the pop sentimentality too far behind, using the skill to help shape something acoustically raw and introspective. Ballad on Third Avenue is rich in memorable and pleasantly catchy songs that eschew common trappings of a larger sound in favor of recording more sparse and intimate material. It succeeds in practicing restraint and in also telling stories weaved through American landscapes. The album recalls the jingly soft sounds of late sixties bands that seemed to crystallize sugary melody versus stomping easily all over it.

SINGER/SONGWRITER ED HALE SHARES HIS VIEWS ON 2008 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN JAPAN’S WORLD TREND WATCH

NIKKEIBP IS THE LARGEST AND MOST TRUSTED SOURCE OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS IN JAPAN. WITH DOZENS OF PUBLICATIONS AND NEARLY 600 STAFF WRITERS. MANY HAVE EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE AND CREDENTIALS IN THEIR FIELDS. IN THIS ARTICLE, SINGER/SONGWRITER/SERIAL-ENTREPRENEUR ED HALE OF THE ROCK BAND TRANSCENDENCE, A RESIDENT OF NEW YORK, SHARES HIS VIEWS ON THE UPCOMING UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE.

WORLD TREND WATCH

NEW YORK RESIDENT SINGER-SONGWRITER ED HALE OF TRANSCENDENCE

WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO WORK WITH ED HALE OF TRANSCENDENCE – BY GIL MAGNO

Dear Students, Friends and Readers:
I have started a series of updates to publicize those of my diligent students who are working in their art and who actually have contributed to society in the form of a CD recording or performances that bring joy and entertainment to others. I am very pleased to announce that I now working with Ed Hale of the band Transcendence. As many know, Ed Hale & Transcendence are known worldwide.

A few months ago I reveived a phone call from Ed Hale’s management requesting an appointment for vocal classes. We began on 9/18/01. He was already well known all over the world. He studied until 9/12/02 and graduated from my Courses #1, #2, #3, and half of Course #4 before he eventually moved to New York. I found him to be an unusual individual with an evolved consciousness and a desire for his music to make a difference on the life of this planet.

Even though I have had hundreds of students who will use their voice singing rock, Ed didn’t seem to fit the part. He seemed too developed a being to be a rocker. Then he gave me a copy of his CD, Rise and Shine. I listened to it very carefully and I was flabbergasted. Even though the songs are played in rock style, I could actually hear what he was singing about. It wasn’t just a confusion of noise mixed with rhythm to which the voice was an accompaniment. I fell in love with that CD.
Most rock-and-rollers have no imagination in playing rock. Since most only know three chords and play them infernally loud, the voice becomes a blur; and all this is loved by the nightclub owners, because with the people driven crazy they will buy more and more booze. Ed’s music is not that kind of confusion. You can actually sit down and listen to it with pleasure. Every song is distinct in melodic content. I call it a Concert Rock Band. The band has recorded I believe, seven CDs. You can buy them in stores or order them from CDBaby.com or Amazon.com.
Here’s what Ed Hale had to say about our classes: “Working and studying with Gil Magno is working/connecting with an aligned soul, no pretense, no compromise. He is connected to all highest ideals of man and this comes across in his teaching so you walk away from a lesson with him feeling as though you have come in contact with the highest and best in you. It is pure inspiration that lasts for many days after the lesson ends.”
[Marcus Pan, Legends Magazine]
“The musical group known as Transcendence is a tight-knit collective of some of the most notable musicians from the Miami and New York music scenes who first came together in 2000. The band is known for their reverence for melody, and an often eclectic and sometimes unnerving yet enticing tendency toward stylistic changes. “Smoothing across genres like a skater on ice, Ed Hale and company show amazing songwriting skills throughout Rise and Shine. They have just released a debut on TMG Records that is one I cannot listen to less than twice a week… Fusing such styles as brit-pop, Brazilian, rock, new wave, and classical – among others – Transcendence create a wild array of songs but somehow hold them together with left-field bite.”http://www.transcendence.com
Magnoart Studio & Publications
Gil Magno – Vocal Coach/Author
www.GMagno.com