Philly’s Heavens Edge never quite hit it big and the 60-something hard rockers wouldn’t have it any other way

When Philly-born hard rock band Heavens Edge released their self-titled debut album in 1990, it’s unlikely they were dreaming of a tastefully furnished basement in suburban Voorhees. But more than 30 years later, they insist they wouldn’t have it any other way.

The basement belongs to the band’s guitarist, Reggie Wu, and now serves double duty as a cozy family room and the band’s rehearsal space. “Whenever people run into us now, who were fans back in the day, they always say, ‘You guys should have been so much bigger,’” said lead singer Mark Evans, sprawled on the couch before rehearsal. “Yeah, that would have been great. But … if we had become as successful as we wanted to be back then, one or two of my kids might not even be here. Given that lifestyle, my wife and I probably wouldn’t be together.”

In the early ‘90s, Heavens Edge seemed poised to follow the rock band Cinderella’s route from Philly to Headbangers Ball stardom. Evans and Wu were members of the popular local cover bands Whitefoxx and Network, respectively, and decided to try writing together. The chemistry was strong enough that they quit their gigs and formed Heavens Edge with a crop of new songs. Whether it was the shift in fashion from glam metal in the ‘80s to ‘90s grunge or their arrival a little too late in an overcrowded scene, the band never managed to scale those heights.

“All these years later, if a genie came down and said, ‘I can give you everything you would have had, or you can keep what you’ve got,’ of course I wouldn’t change anything,” Evans said. Their follow-up, Some Other Place, Some Other Time, was recorded in 1992 but languished on the shelf until 1998, long after Heavens Edge had called it quits.

That seemed like the end of the story until 2013, when a promoter invited the band to reunite for that year’s Firefest festival in Nottingham, England. The five original members warily gathered to test the waters and discovered that two decades later, the original chemistry was intact. They played the festival and followed with a hometown gig at World Café Live. Sporadic reunions continued at festivals and cruises over the next few years until bassist George “G.G.” Guidotti died of lung cancer in 2019.

Instead of being the second tragic end of Heavens Edge, Guidotti’s passing added fuel to the band’s fire. “George had so much passion to play live and feel the excitement of the crowd, when we split up I think it left a big hole in his life,” Evans said. After recruiting bassist Jaron Gulino, the band returned this year with Get It Right, their first new album in 25 years. They’ll play their first Philly show since the spring release at Brooklyn Bowl this Saturday. “George would kill us if we didn’t keep going,” said Evans.

Get It Right is a pitch-perfect comeback album, a high-energy, hook-laden throwback to the days of big hair and bigger choruses, with a slightly harder edge that acknowledges the intervening decades.

Evans didn’t want to get “too serious” and write like he was “Bono or something,” but he tried to “couch the party lyrics with life experiences.” “At 62, I’m too old to write things like, ‘Fire my rocket / I’m about to explode,’” he laughed. “Back in the day we wrote about partying and [sex]. Now I’m up there singing these lyrics, and my kids and my 82-year-old mother are in the audience.”

Nobody is out to become the next big rock star this time around. Each member has a day job — Evans is a union construction foreman, Wu teaches music, Rath remained in the music business as an A&R man and now is head of his own label.

Guitarist Steve Parry missed this rehearsal due to health issues in his family. They all deal with the encroachments of age, parent- and now grandparenthood. Between-song conversations touch less on sex, drugs, and rock and roll, more on arthritis meds and grandkids. But the kicks are still head high, the spins still tightly choreographed.

“We get to peek behind the curtain whenever we want,” said drummer Dave Rath. “We live it just as much as anybody else, but then we get to come back to our healthy lives and great families. It’s a real privilege and honor to get to do what we do… I always tell these guys, ‘We won. We won.’”

Heavens Edge in concert. Brooklyn Bowl, 1009 Canal Street, Phila., Nov. 25, 8 p.m. https://www.brooklynbowl.com/philadelphia/events/detail/heavens-edge-vvg1fz9wyjdfpp