A lavishly packaged (an eight-page booklet plus) double album Uriah Heep Live followed, recorded at the Birmingham Town Hall in January 1973. Having completed another Japanese tour, the band (due to tax problems) went abroad to record to Chateau d'Herouville in France. It was there that the solid, but rather mainstream-sounding, Sweet Freedom (#18 UK, No. 33 USA) was created with "Stealin'" released as a single. Having gained worldwide recognition, the band quit the fantasy world in lyrics and made an obvious stab at versatility by adding funk ("Dreamer") and an acoustic number along the lines of contemporary singer/songwriters ("Circus") elements to the palette. Ken Hensley meanwhile had been gradually recording his own, mellower material; his solo debut Proud Words on a Dusty Shelf was released the same year.
Wonderworld (June 1974), recorded in Munich's Musicland Studios in January, disappointed fans and band members alike. "Recording abroad disrupted the band's normal method of operation and that had a big negative effect on the group. Our communication was falling apart, we were arguing over stuff like royalties and we were getting involved in matters beyond music," Hensley said. Box remembered weeks spent in the studio as "dramatic" for all the wrong reasons. "David was drunk for most of the time, Kenny was having an emotional time of it and I was constantly trying to help them so it was difficult for me too. There was also a little bit of friction because (artistic) Kenny didn't like all the attention that (flamboyant) David was getting." Gary Thain was in even more serious trouble. According to Blows, "A strenuous touring schedule, compounded by the bassist's heavy drug dependency (inherent even before joining Heep) was taking its toll, though matters came to a head while on tour during September," when the bassist received a serious electric shock on stage in Dallas during a gig at Southern Methodist University’s Moody Coliseum on 15 September 1974.
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