Two months after his latest hit single “Scene in San Francisco” entered the Billboard Top 30, the second from his last solo album Ballad On Third Avenue, Dying Van Gogh Records announced that Ed Hale has signed a licensing and publishing agreement with Fieldhouse Music, a division of BMG. The deal comes fifteen years and eight albums into the multi-talented New York based singer-songwriter and recording artist’s career, who has amassed a catalog of thousands of songs and had numerous placements in films, television shows and commercials over the years. John Loeffler, President of Fieldhouse Music/BMG, commented, “Fieldhouse Music/BMG is very excited about the signing of Ed Hale. He has an extensive catalog of great material and is a true talent.” Fieldhouse Music/BMG is a company that offers a new breed of music production which specializes in discovering and promoting new talent for film, commercial and TV soundtracks. Hale, who has been riding a wave of landmark successes over the course of the last two years both as a solo artist and with the rock band Ed Hale and The Transcendence, commented “The universe has been very good to us lately. I felt like I knew these guys at BMG from the first minute I walked in the door. In fact, the security guard at their office didn’t even bother to check me out or make me sign in or anything. She just looked at me and said “BMG?” and I said “Yep” and just walked right in. It was wild. Felt very comfortable. I’m psyched to see what we accomplish together.”

NEW YORK, NY, May 08, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Ed Hale’s been a critically acclaimed force in modern rock for years as front man for the eclectic band, Ed Hale and the Transcendence. Since becoming an accidental Adult Contemporary star via his latest solo hit, the acoustic-driven “Scene in San Francisco,” the New York-based singer-songwriter’s career has been in overdrive.

Hale just signed a lucrative publishing deal with Fieldhouse Music/BMG, a company offering a new breed of music production which specializes in discovering and promoting new talent for film and TV soundtracks.

John Loeffler, President of Fieldhouse Music/BMG, commented, “Fieldhouse Music/BMG is very excited about the signing of Ed Hale. He has an extensive catalog of great material and is a true talent.”

In addition, the entire catalog of Ed Hale and his band The Transcendence — eight albums in all — have been picked up by TouchTunes Interactive Networks, which introduced the first digital jukebox 14 years ago and is now the leading in-venue entertainment network, streaming music through jukeboxes and piped-in digital feeds. TouchTunes reaches consumers in over 52,000 bars, restaurants and retail locations in North America.

“Scene in San Francisco,” which is Hale’s second single to break into both Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Top 30 Chart and the Top 15 on FMQB’s AC40 Chart — putting Hale in the company of pop superstars like Maroon 5, Adele, Kelly Clarkson and OneRepublic — has also been picked up by the Landmark Theatres chain for their In Theatre Music Program where the song will be played in more than 500 movie theaters around the U.S. in May.

Hale says he’s been “walking on clouds,” and enjoying the many perks of his most recent rise in popularity, including endorsement deals with Kurzweil Music Systems, Nord, Ultrasone, Gibson Guitars and Dean Markley Guitar Strings. “All these companies have been super cool, and the new gear will really help us with recording the new albums,” Hale stated. He is set to release at least two new albums in 2012.

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Ed Hale‘s latest Top 20 single “Scene in San Francisco” will be one of the featured songs during the pre-movie music soundtrack in all 256 uber-cool Landmark Theatres around the United States in the month of May. Other artists featured in May include Keane, Rufus Wainwright and Kris Allen. In 21 metropolitan cities and reaching an estimated 29.4 million arthouse Theatre diehards, if you happen to live in one of the following cities you just might have a chance to hear the song for yourself, at the movies. Cities include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington D.C.

This little nugget just surfaced. A Canadian television show called After Hours recorded and aired an episode featuring interviews and live concert footage of singer-songwriter Ed Hale and band while on tour in late 2010. The band had been on the road for five weeks and was ending their tour in Vancouver BC. The editing is a bit sketchy but it does feature two nearly full versions of the songs “Incompatible” and “Marsha’s Sleeping” being performed live, along with various other interview footage. You can see Ed and the band trying not to laugh a few times. But it’s all in good fun.

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.

The multi-cultural musical ambassador has been using the new social app Pinterest to engage a few steps deeper with his fans. Pinterest allows users to “Pin” anything visual they see on the internet onto “Boards” they custom design and then share these boards with their friends. Hale said of the internet’s newest craze “We get hit with these things every day. It’s insane to think we’re going to keep up, because now there’s some new website or app we’re supposed to join everyday or else we’ll evaporate into thin air by midnight. But actually I quite like Pinterest. It’s intellectually stimulating. Can be at least. You can learn a lot from spying on others!” To follow Ed Hale on Pinterest click here.

 Transcendence frontman Ed Hale’s latest single, “Scene in San Francisco” from his solo album Ballad On Third Avenue, continues its rise up the charts this week in the Adult Contemporary (AC) radio format, with over 1000 spins per week and several new stations adding the song to heavy rotation, including WDKB out of Dekalb, IL and KHMX in Santa Rosa, CA. The song has also been getting heavy airplay on Sirius XM channel The Blend, Clear Channel’s iHeart Radio, The TM Studios Weekly Hit Disc, and the National AC Premium Choice Channel.

The song is still holding strong at #26 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Top 40 Chart and #15 on the FMQB AC Chart among stiff competition — including Adele, Jason Mraz, Katy Perry and Coldplay — in one of the fiercest months in years in the format, one that many radio promoters are calling “a blood bath”. Hale’s “San Francisco” remains the #1 Most Active New AC Independent Song and Artist on the charts for the 12th consecutive week (as measured by BDS/R&R and Mediabase). Word is the official music video will be released on Monday April 9th, 2012.

Longtime Ed Hale and The Transcendence guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Fernando Perdomo talks about the recording process of the band’s latest album, All Your Heroes Become Villains, available at music stores everywhere, amazon.com or the iTunes music store.

“The All Your Heroes Become Villains album was recorded in a very interesting time of my life… a thrilling two week love affair I had with a talented singer had just ended and I was down in the dumps. I had an awful haircut ordered by a Latin artist I was touring with and I was totally ready to make an amazing record with Transcendence.  (We ended up making two but that’s another story!)’ [Editor's note: Perdomo is referring to the band's often leaked and lauded but as of yet unreleased The Great Mistake album.]

“Upon arriving to the studio, I knew instantly this was gonna be an interesting project. Ed now lived in New York City but he had flown down to stay indefinitely to finish the album with the band. He was so amped up. Everyone was. He had this artist, Gina Rowland, who he had met online, there working on her art for the album cover in the studio with us while the songs were being recorded. She sat quietly and listened to get influenced and inspired by the music. We fell in love instantly…

“Recording my guitars was hard on the record because Ed had strict rules for what he wanted … No Santana, No Blues, No Allman Brothers, No Clapton, No Springsteen… He had all these annoying signs hanging up on the walls. He was constantly making signs with big magic markers and hanging them all over the studio walls. “There’s no such thing as over produced” and “There’s no such thing as not enough production”. Contradictions everywhere. All the time. The process was confusing. He was searching for something…. He was being very fluid. Also, the songs had some heavy metal influences and electronica elements to it that did not make sense to me at the time… but again he was searching for something else, something we hadn’t done before.

“Halfway through the making of the record I went off to LA to join the band PRICE. That’s when Zach Ziskin took over…  He had already tracked guitar on the album. He’s like the fifth Beatle of Transcendence. My LA and PRICE days ended with my mom getting diagnosed with Cancer. I came back and added my guitars to the album. We panned Zach’s guitar part towards the left, mine towards the right, and Ed’s rhythm guitars dead center. The crazier I played the more it fit the album! That’s Transcendence.

“Years later… I almost cried listening to the finished record in my car… The album is a masterpiece… and a real testament to Ed Hale’s writing and vision and the whole band’s genius… and EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE. And so is life… you never know what will make sense in the end…”

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

Barron Collier High School grad number 25 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart

By ANNE CLAIRE SHILTON
Posted March 19, 2012 at 10:34 a.m.

If you had the Naples Daily News delivered to your home in the 1980s, it’s entirely possible that your morning paper was flung by the hands of a future rock star.

Number 25 on last week’s Adult Contemporary Billboard chart was a song called “Scene in San Francisco,” written and performed by none other than former Naples Daily News paperboy, Ed Hale.

Seeing her son’s song on a Billboard chart is a moment that has been a long time coming for Adele Hale. The former Naples resident has known her child was meant for rock-stardom since he was a baby, drumming in diapers on the pots and pans.

“He was born to be a musician, he was composing mini concertos on our baby grand piano when he was 13 or 14,” reveals Adele Hale.

But what your mother thinks of your work and what the systematically brutal music industry thinks of your work are two different things.

A musician for the past 20-plus years, the success of Ed Hale’s new song puts him in the company of Lady Antebellum, Train and Adele. And for the Barron Collier High School graduate, it’s about time.

Read the rest of the feature online: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/mar/19/long-time-strumming/