Bio

The son of a contemporary classical composer who Igor Stravinsky once called "The Pitch Doctor", Frank Heiss was already playing drums at the age of four. He would become an accomplished orchestral timpanist and drummer, performing Mahler's First Symphony and The Bartok Concerto for Orchestra around the world while still in his teens. As a drummer he was heavily influenced by Bill Bruford, John Bonham and Billy Cobham. After being exposed to breakbeat music in 1992, he started using electronic musical instruments. Eventually using exclusively sequenced electronic instruments in the spring of 1995, Frank Heiss moved to New York City where he met Dr. Walker of the electronic duo Air Liquide from Cologne, Germany.

After his first visit to Germany in 1996, Frank spent several years living, recording and performing in Cologne, Boston, and New York. During this time he performed on the same bill with artists such as Coldcut, Freddie Fresh, and Wagonchrist. In 1996, a deal with Liquid Sky Music was established, and Alive was released in 1997. Bending Spoons was released briefly in 1998, on the EMI Harvest label, which was once home to the music of Soft Machine, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd. Unfortunately EMI dis-continued the Harvest label only days after the release of Bending Spoons. In the fall of 1999, Frank Heiss completed a 16 date US tour as the opening act for The Sisters of Mercy. The album Steak was released in 2000, and the EP Still Alive was released in 2004. Frank Heiss continued to record new Tube albums throughout the new Millenium. He briefly moved to Denver, Colorado where he formed an electronic super-group featuring live piano and trombone. The name of the group was Hardware Junkiez, a reference to the sheer quantity of hardware they carried around. Frank Heiss picked up sticks again while living in Denver and started the project heisskopf.