Into The Northern Lights with Heaven’s Reign

Into The Northern Lights with Heaven’s Reign

Heaven’s Reign is a powerhouse of classic rock energy, hailing from the UK and deeply inspired by the golden era of rock and roll.   The band features three founding members of Rollin Thunder (Rik Cayton, Ian Lynan, Ste Birch), Faster than Bulls (Ricky Moss) and Sketcher/Deep Cellar (Gaz Birch).  Collectively the band shared stages with legends like Bryan Adams, Blue Öyster Cultand UFO.   With the unveiling of Northern Lights on Pride & Joy Music, Heaven’s Reign is destined to captivate music fans all over the world with their gloriously exhilarating rock anthems.  Highwire Daze recently caught up with vocalist Rik Clayton to find out more about the next sensation in melodic rock….

Where’s the band based out of and what is your local music scene like there?
We’re located all over the UK. Mainly the Northwest, but we’re all around an hour away from each other. So not too bad to commute and meet up for practice and songwriting sessions and things. Music scene is great for bands like ourselves at the minute they’re on the rise, there’s a hell of a lot of support in the local live venues, which the first time round and about 20 years ago when we were in a band Rollin Thunder, we were hitting the circuit and the live scene wasn’t as popular as the tributes are or your bigger acts. Now it seems like the bands on the rise are taking over. It’s good. It’s a different scope than what it used to be, and it’s all in our favor at the moment. So we’re enjoying the ride.

Your label Pride & Joy seems to really be killing it when it comes to releasing fantastic albums, including yours. How did you wind up on Pride & Joy?
To be honest, when we first reformed… so we went for many years as Rollin Thunder, and we talked with like Blue Oyster Cult and UFO and learned a lot from them coming up. How they put their stage shows together and things and what to do and what not to do. When we first reformed, it was purely just to get back together because we all miss writing after taking a few years out. We all had families and things. So we literally sat down and just started writing together. As it happened, we played a couple of shows and started getting a lot of interest – and put a couple of just general tunes out to see what the feel was with the public. It went down really well for us. We had like two or three people approach us wanting to sign us for this particular album, Northern Lights. We’ve got friends that have already signed with Pride & Joy, and we’ve seen what they’ve done for them and the distribution that they’ve got. It’s unparalleled. The other companies would get you in certain areas in the UK or limited space in Europe, whereas Pride & Joy tend to get your music out there and put a lot more eyes on you. Overall, for us, was the better deal to go with…  and it’s working out really well. We do fantastic media stuff like this, and they’re pushing the album out for us and giving us advice on the way as well. So yeah, it’s really good to be on board with them, to be honest.

Northern Lights, is there any overall story or concept behind that title and that song? What does it mean to you?
The song was actually inspired after the novel written by Philip Pullman, by Ian Lynan, our lead guitarist. He wrote this song probably 12 years ago. I had the foundation for it. I just imagined it being this really big anthemic movie track. When he told me what it was about and things, he’d actually wrote it for the series that followed on the BBC here in the UK for this book. We’ve put the link up for it on our socials if anyone’s interested in it. There’s a couple of guys that get the references in the song. But for me, I live in North Wales, and in the UK we were getting a lot of the Northern Lights going around, and I just thought… had this idea, this concept for the album cover where all five of us standing, looking at a northern skyline that’s made up of all these cities that we’ve played in the UK so far.

So you’ve got famous monuments from Liverpool and Manchester and Edinburgh Cathedral that make the skyline up for the album artwork, and then slap bang in the middle is the stadium, which is the end goal for us with the River Mersey, which is in Liverpool, close to where we live, just in front of us. Then the Northern Lights in the sky above the horizon. It took quite a while to get it to where we wanted it to be and the look that we wanted for it. We wanted that ’80s vibe to what we do. But Northern Lights was a great track and it’s gone down really well. We had some really good reviews from it.

Let’s talk about the single, Here We Go Again. Tell me about that one.
When we first got together, it was one of the first songs that we had. Again, Lynan had this concept of this song all about getting back in the saddle and back on the road, and should we stick or should we run? Should we go back at it or should we just call it a day and leave what we had in the past? So yeah, Here We Go Again is all about getting back out there on the road for us and going out and having a good time with your friends.

Is there any desire to tour here in the States or did you ever do that with Rollin Thunder?
No, we would love to. We were planning on going over to Europe with Rollin Thunder with the manager that looked after us. That was Lynan’s dad, the guitarist looked after us and we were just about to go over to Europe. Then, unfortunately, he died. He had a heart attack when we were young, so we lost the path and someone to guide us along the way then. So, it’s kind of find your own route and after 17 years of playing the shows and you know, the big profile gigs and trying to get signed and stuff, it was tight. We would just run out of steam, to be completely honest with you.  But time around the more mature approach with it is not going out on a Friday night with your mates, going playing a show and having a good time and getting drunk. It’s purely all about the music and how we can better ourselves. As you get older, you get wiser, don’t you?

Absolutely. You hope so.
Well, yeah, sometimes.

As Rollin Thunder, you did open for some really cool bands, Blue Öyster Cult – UFO. What was that experience like opening for those two bands?
It was great. We toured extensively with Diamond Head. They took us under the wing at an early age and showed us the ins and outs and how to behave. Just little things like behaving professionally. When you show up to a venue, you know what to do and what not to do and what to say, and making sure you know your sound guy’s name, and if there’s any photographers in the crowd, make sure you’ve got the details so you can get your pictures after the show… just little things that you just… when you’re in the moment, you completely forget about. You’re there to put on a show and then have a good time. It was almost like how they worked the crowd, especially. With Blue Öyster Cult and UFO, there’s so minimal on stage, sometimes less is more with the crowd and just being caught in that moment and slowing it down a lot. I listened to a lot of the Blue Öyster Cult Live, the Live album was fantastic. Just to see how they came across on stage and what they did and what they didn’t do more than anything was probably the biggest takeaway for us. Just how to behave at a venue properly because we were a little bit… we were off the leash in a way when we were younger, so it was probably doing things that you shouldn’t be doing at venues and not promoting yourself in the best way. You’re in a rock band and you’re 19 powering up and down the UK, you ego can sometimes… well, mine did.  My ego was pretty bad when I was younger. These days I’m a lot more humble and a bit more professional on stage and it’s all about just all these people that have come out and paid the hard-earned money to come and see you live. Just making sure that they all have the best time that you can give them and leaving everything on the stage for them. Probably the biggest takeaway from the bands that we tailed with.

Are you currently involved with any other bands or projects outside of Heaven’s Reign?
No. So I have a recording studio in Flint, in North Wales here called Inspire Studios. We do a lot of the vocal experience days and a lot to do with the community there. There’s a place called Flint Guitar School that brings kids off the street and teaches them how to play guitars and stuff like that. So I like to get involved with community projects like that and Lynan, the lead guitarist, he also has a studio and does a lot of networking and things.  But to be honest with you, we’re all five hardworking lads that have got full-time jobs and families to support, and just doing something that we enjoy and that’s what the music is about for us. It’s just about going out, playing something that we enjoy, and seeing how far we can push it. So yeah, it’s good though. Music frees the Soul, doesn’t it?

Absolutely. Last question – do you have any messages for melodic rock fans here in the States?
Yeah, absolutely. Check us out. The album Northern Lights is due on the 28th of February, so not that long to wait now. Worldwide distribution, so you can get it on our website or via Pride & Joy’s website. Check us out. If you like your melodic rock in the line of Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, or your classic ’80s, then I think you’ll dig us. The reviews have been great and hopefully you’ll come along for the ride and watch the journey with us.

The Good Die Young. There’s so many good treks on there.
The Good Die Young was written when Lynan’s dad passed away. Lynan wrote that song about losing someone too soon. So yeah, in the album cover, we’ve actually got a picture of George Lynan, was the guy’s name that used to look after us and mentored us for many years. He was in a band called Gravy Train that were from where we were born and raised. So, in the album cover, we’ve laid a little tribute. So, his picture is in the skyline looking over us with a tombstone at the front and the lyrics. So yeah, check Gravy Train out if you get a chance, guys.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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