British band ASIA is set to your North America along with other legends like FOCUS, Martin Turner (ex WISHBONE ASH), and CURVED AIR. A pretty cool collection of progressive rock with ASIA being the headliners of the Heat Of The Moment Tour. Legendary album artist ROGER DEAN will also be a guest on the tour! For ASIA fans it will be a chance to see the latest incarnation of the band put together by keyboardist Geoff Downes (who also plays in YES). ASIA also includes guitarist John Mitchell, drummer Virgil Donati, and a brand-new voice in Harry Whitley. Whitley is pretty unknown, but if you check out his YouTube channel you can see Whitley is a multi-instrumentalist, and a fine singer, who has some vocal qualities and similarities to the late great John Wetton. At just 29, Whitley wasn’t born when ASIA was huge, but has become a fan, the new singer, and this tour will be Harry’s first tour of North America, and 2nd time here since a holiday as a kid. I recently spoke with Harry about what lead up to him joining ASIA and the upcoming tour. Below are exerts from our conversation on the tour, his favorite ASIA cuts, and more. We did chat a bit more with Harry noting his recent discovery and liking of Canadian band Loverboy! 🙂 Look for the Heat Of The Moment Tour in the US & Canada throughout July….
Prior to ASIA – “So basically, I’m sort of the unknown entity to all of us. I sort of, I came from nowhere, really. I played in sort of local bands.
I was a keyboard player in a Deep Purple tribute band for a while, and yeah – all that sort of stuff. And then when COVID struck, I started just uploading videos to YouTube, and then, you know, Geoff saw one of the videos and sent me an email, and that was it, really. And that’s sort of how it all came about.”
Being invited to perform at the John Wetton memorial concert last year – “Yeah, so it was organized, obviously, as a John Wetton tribute show . And when the invite came initially, I wasn’t entirely sure what they wanted me to do. They just said, you’re invited to come and perform at this event. You know, we’d love you to come and do it, no pressure.”
Recalling the show – “And it turned into, basically, a sort of short-ish Asia set. So we played a few of the hits – Heat Of The Moment obviously, and a couple more obscure ones as well. And from there, I think the seed was planted in Geoff’s mind, really… about what the future of Asia might be.” Whitley also performed “All along The Watchtower”, along with Steve Hackett – who’d performed the song many times with John Wetton.
Looking at the opportunity Whitley is excited – “It’s an honor you know; great privilege to be able to do it and there’s huge shoes to fill, you know – with John Wetton. So, I’m really thankful that Geoff, you know, and the management and Lisa Wetton and everybody that had the confidence in me to take over the role, and you know, take Asia back out on the road.“
On fellow ASIA newcomers Virgil Donati & John Mitchell – “I play a bit of drums as well, so I sort of knew Virgil as this sort of ‘force of nature’, You know, incredible sort of technical drummer…I can never really work out what Virgil’s doing. So that’s going to be crazy to play with Virgil; it’s like I say – he’s just a force of nature!
I was aware of John Mitchell before, and obviously he played it in the John Wetton band. And I knew his work from Frost and some of the It Bites’ stuff, but, you know, John Mitchell’s in like 37 thousand bands!… So, you know, there’s no shortage of John Mitchell. But, me and John Mitchell really sort of struck up a friendship at the at the John Wetton tribute concert. So, yeah, it’s good that John’s in on this as well, because I think we’re a good team.”
Introduction to the music of ASIA – “As far as listening was concerned, I had classical piano lessons from about the age of five, because that’s sort of my main thing is I’m a piano player really.
And my piano teacher – Tim, was sort of introducing me to bands, you know, as all good teachers do, to try and sort of steer your taste to being, what might actually be beneficial for you to listen to. And he sort of worked through all sorts of different bands. He’s like, ‘oh, you might like Emerson Lake and Palmer, you might like Genesis, you know, here’s all of these different people. And then he said, ‘oh I think you’ll like Asia’. And I remember hearing, I think it was ‘The Heat Goes On’… And it was just great. It was just the sort of perfect blend of everything I loved about Prog and everything I love of that rock like Toto, Journey AOR type of thing. It was just a perfect blend.”
Favorite ASIA album – “I think my favorite Asia album is probably the 30th anniversary, the triple X album. That was the first album that I sort of got into of my own accord, you know, I was aware of them when that album came. That was the one, I was like ‘Yeah, this is great!'”
The whole ASIA catalogue – “I’ve sort of made my way through the whole catalog….The whole Asia canon is great. But, I do have a real soft stuff for the sort of John Wetton thing. I think John and Geoff, when they were together writing, they had something really, really special…
It’s sort of un-matched, really. And it’s everything that I love.
I love those chord progressions. I love that sort of hymnal, big sort of block chords and block harmonies. very sort of churchy hymnal stuff. Very, very British as well.”
The band’s set-list for the Heat Of The Moment Tour – “You know, there’s a little bit of everything. There’s a few surprises in there. I think people are going to like the set-list. …You know, we’re leaning into the first two albums. But there is some reunion stuff in there as well, there’s stuff off ‘Astra.'”
Favorite ASIA ‘deep’ cuts – “But some stuff of the reunion stuff. I love ‘Bury Me In Willow’ – that’s a lovely song. ‘There Was A Time’,, I Love that! And then going back to sort of the earlier things I love ‘Cutting It Fine’, and ‘Eye To Eye’. Eye to Eye is one of my big favorites – I love that song!”
*Check out more from Harry Whitley at his YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/@Harrymusicmusings
Outsider Rock 