- On the phone with David Lee Wilson - 2000
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- Glenn Hughes really shouldn't need an introduction; he has been one of, if not the, most distinguishable voices in rock for nearly thirty years. After many years of powerful music that pitifully failed to gain much of an audience 2000 could be the year for Hughes to finally break out as a solo performer. His legacy as a member of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and to a lesser extent, Trapeze has ensured that there will always be a loyal following craving the old material but what Glenn has done on "The Way It Is" blows open the door of possibilities. In a single disc Glenn Hughes has defied the extremes of his talent and criss-crossed the surface of popular music to produce what is, without exception, the finest musical statement of his career. There is a feeling of rebirth in Hughes's voice that lifts this album to heights never visited by any of his former outfits. Sure his work with Sabbath and Purple will continue to be the hard rock/heavy metal standard but this album is an all out confrontation with the Billboard charts, if only there was someone in the business offices to push it. To this end Hughes has hired a new management company which seems to be doing the trick setting up tours across Europe and, hopefully, America. One can only hope that the powers that be simply allow this music an audience, if done, it just couldn't be stopped.
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- Having fallen so completely for this particular record I revisited a bit of my collection of Hughes work and in the listening I found that few times has there ever been a synergy to the composition and performance that would be comparable to the music on this disc. Simply put, this is an incredible disc by a legendary performer and worthy of vast amounts of airplay. Personally, Hughes is militant about his music and the fact that, for the first time in his life, he is making it without the cloud of drug or alcohol. Hughes is driving the car again and though the funk remains the sloppiness is gone. Clean and crisp funk? Get the album and see.
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- Slightly before embarking on a tour of Europe with The Michael Schenker Group and Thin Lizzy Hughes took the time to call in a few thoughts about the new album and a few other things he had on his mind.
 DAVID LEE: Since the record company didn't see fit to send me a copy of the record could you tell me a little bit about it? Is it a continuation of what you were doing on "ADDICTION?"
- Glenn HUGHES: No. It is an album that is less intense. It has got groove, it has got ballad it has got soul, it is more of a soundtrack of how I was feeling at Christmas. When I sang on "ADDICTION" I was five years sober and I was still, I wanted people to know what it was like for me to walk through that torment and destruction and all of that shit and I had to churn up all of those feelings again. It really kicked my ass to do it and consequently I didn't make a record for a couple of years so when I made "The Way It Is" it was just on the backside of that, living life as a sober man. I lost a lot of my youth, man. I lost a lot of growing up and so I am still a kid! I am still a forty-year-old fucking kid! "The Way It Is" is fresh and it is very varied, as all of my albums are, it is not just one-dimensional. It is different. It is groovy and it is aggressive but it is not so intense on the lyric. It flows really well. It is a great album to listen to. It takes about three or four times listening to it to get into it because it is not an album that you can get into right away. It is a bit deeper.
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- K2K: But longer lasting?
- GH: Oh yeah. As I have said to my fan club, you are going to dig this album in the next year and the year after it is going to come back and get you.
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- K2K: The thing that, I think, Glenn Hughes needs to do and I have been told that this is going to happen, you need to get out on the road in America.
- GH: It is my wish to tour here in November but at the moment there are no shows booked and you can put in your article that it is Glenn's wish to play in America this year. It is my wish to do that and we are looking for the right venues and the right promoters to do that now.
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- K2K: Running through my Glenn Hughes file, an admittedly I have been a fan so I don't even have the pretense of impartiality so it is a rather large file, I notice that on previous tours you have brought out a lot of Deep Purple material but I also know that was not the most pleasing stuff, personally, for you to do. Why is that?
- GH: You will notice that I am doing the songs that I wrote and the songs that I sang. I really wouldn't sing David's songs; I wanted to pursue the songs that I had written. When I play concerts around the world where people haven't seen me before or they haven't seen me since Deep Purple, they really want to hear those fucking songs. I am trying to break away and do brand new songs now. I am going out on tour and I get to play a lot of them but I change them and I do lots of different versions of them, like funk versions of them or ballad versions. I have got a huge collection of material to choose from, I have got so much. I like to play Trapeze songs, HUGHES/THRALL songs and I am even going to play a Black Sabbath song on the next tour.
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- K2K: Really?
- GH: Off of the "SEVENTH STAR" that I did with Tony.
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- K2K: It would great to hear some of that live again. Which song?
- GH: "No Stranger to Love." I have got so many songs to choose from, maybe a hundred!
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- K2K: It has been some time now but you actually recorded a second album with Tony, didn't you?
- GH: Yeah, somebody bootlegged the fucker! I haven't spoken to Tony about this and I have got to call him because my record label called me and said "You know that there is a record out there with one of our songs on it." and I said "What!" Obviously, somebody has got a hold of this fucking tape and I haven't a fucking clue how it happened. I am really upset about it. Tony is going to be pissed off as well.
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- K2K: I spoke with Geoff Nichols when Black Sabbath was in town a while back and he intimated that the plan was to take Tony's solo thing out on the road and that you would be involved with that. Is that still likely?
- GH: That was the plan but Tony is working with, let's call them the resurgence of 90's metal, and I think Tony is working with a lot of other guys who are probably a lot more current then I am. I won't name names but they probably won't have a long history in this industry but I think that he is liking working with the newer artists and that is good for Tony. At the end of the day, Tony and I will work together again
- because, number one, we are from the same generation and, number two, we are so strong together musically and such good friends that Tony will come back to his dearest and oldest friend and do that. I absolutely adore Tony Iommi as a human being. He is one of the nicest and soulfulest cats ever. I love him to pieces and Tony and I will work together again. When? I don't know.
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- K2K: Obviously after this version of the Sabbath thing is finally laid to rest.
- GH: It is definitely going to end at Christmas and then Tony will take a small break and then Tony will get bored. Tony Iommi is a workaholic cat that wants to play a lot and I will be very surprised if he doesn't call me directly in the spring. But once again, Tony and I are such good friends that if we don't work together it is O.K. because we are already tight. I am so fucking busy for the next year anyway. It is unbelievable how much work that I have coming out.
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- K2K: You have been very visible on all of these tribute albums, is that going to continue?
- GH: Too many, I have stopped doing them now. I turned down the Ozzy and the AEROSMITH tributes because I have done too many of them. After the Alice Cooper one I said that this would be the last one until I get to do something that I really want to do, like Stevie Wonder or something where I can really get into it. The money, it ain't about money anymore. I am comfortable and I don't need to do any of those things for money it is just that I do them for favors for my friends. I have got so many friends that want me to do these things and it is like I am kind of tired of it now.
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- K2K: Have you given much of an ear to the cover versions of your songs?
- GH: No, you know, somebody asked me "Who would you like to have on a tribute to Glenn Hughes?" and I said "I don't fucking know." I just want to see somebody that can sing because I would hate to hear somebody sing my fucking songs that couldn't sing.
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- K2K: This will sound overly ingratiating but honestly Glenn, who could really cover your stuff? You have such a striking voice that there are probably only a handful of singers in the world that could even attempt it. I was just listening to a latter day ASIA album and their singer. . .
- GH: John Payne, he is a good friend of mine.
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- K2K: He has come the closest to the phrasing and attack of a vocal line that you use, at least to my ears.
- GH: I haven't heard what he is doing with ASIA but when he got the gig in 1990 we were hanging out a bit and Geoff Downs is also a good friend of mine.
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- K2K: Was that gig offered to you at one time? I know that they like to keep the band with a singing bass player, apparently.
- GH: No. John was a guitar player at the time but I guess he just turned to playing bass.
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- K2K: That is something else we should touch on, after thirty years your voice is still unquestionably in top form but what about your bass playing? How do you feel about that?
- GH: Bass playing, let's just say of late because I have picked up the bass guitar again after having put it down for a while and picking it up again, man, I am all over the fucking thing!(laughs) I am just all over it all again. I have no fear of the vocal thing. My vocal range and my vocal capability, I have no fear of and now I have that with the instrument of the bass again. I put it on and I am not one of these cats that plays bass like a guitar, I play bass the groove way and it is, the notes that Glenn Hughes does not play are the most important. It is the groove and it is what you do not play and how you play with the bass drum that is so fucking important and no bass player in these white rock bands have a clue how to play like that. They follow the guitar player and if they could just groove with the drums it would be so much easier. For me it is grooving' with the drummer.
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- K2K: With all of the different drummers that you have played with has there been one that you have just clicked with and said "Wow, that is magic?"
- GH: My new drummer, Bob Harsen, from Detroit, he is my new cat and he is fucking amazing and he has just joined my band. He is funk and he is from Detroit so obviously he kicks ass but he has got a big funk edge and he is really, really a musical drummer.
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- K2K: Who else is in the band now?
- GH: Joaquim Marsh, my guitar player from the "Addiction" album and he is on "The Way It Is," he has been with me for a few years. Hans Zumellon, my keyboard player, American/German name, he plays, I don't want to confuse any rock fans but I have a very intense Jazz/Funk keyboard player. Anybody who knows Glenn Hughes knows that I come from a very intense Funk background. Before Purple it was very much intense funk. All the keyboard players that I have in my band are players that, number one, understand Hammond organ and, two, have an incredible Jazz feel to them in the acid-jazz form. A Stevie Wonder/Herbie Hancock type of feel in their playing because I do a lot of vocals that concern a lot of minor 9th's and triad 11th's and all of these chords that I like to use. I like to incorporate that into my music.
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- K2K: Does he lug about and actual Hammond on tour?
- GH: No, he doesn't play it out on the road but he does in the studio. We are going to go down to Eb for the first time ever, on this tour. I want to get it a bit heavier so we are going to tune down a little bit.
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- K2K: Not grungy but funky?
- GH: No! You know, I think that Tony even goes down to D. I think that he goes down even lower than that sometimes. I have never actually gone down to Eb but I did a couple of songs with Stevie Salas on my album and I liked it.
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- K2K: Now there is an incredible guitar player with a feel for the funk.
- GH: Yeah. He is on the album, on two tracks.
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- K2K: You have got so much going on as far as performance on record and so on but you have found time to start a record label as well?
- GH: Yeah. Pink Cloud.
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- K2K: What is the first release going to be?
- GH: "Incense And Peaches." It is a bunch of songs that I have never released and the first one is called "Incense And Peaches" and it is more groove-oriented material.
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- K2K: Is it more current stuff or stuff from the vaults?
- GH: I would say that it is from '95, '97 and '98, just stuff that I have got in the vault that no one has ever heard before and let me tell you, Dave, nobody has got bootlegs of this!(laughs) I do actually keep a record of my stuff and I don't actually make copies anymore so hopefully nobody has ever heard this shit before!
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- K2K: You have a website that you are investing a bit of yourself in?
- GH: www.glenhughes.com!
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- K2K: Humbly titled!
- GH: Of course!
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- K2K: The Internet has opened up a whole new point of access between the artist and the fan, is that something that you are feeling yet?
- GH: Absolutely, I mean, anybody can get on-line and talk about Glenn Hughes and I have got four great editors to take care of all that shit whom I love dearly and, once again, I surround myself with loving, nurturing people. Of course it is a business but it is nice to have people around that you actually care about. That is my whole life, man. Hanging out and giving myself back to my fans and my family, no time for negatives at all.
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- K2K: There has certainly been a marked change in the interviews that I have read since you have gotten clean, a sense of positively I guess is what I am trying to say here.
- GH: Oh God, yeah. Again, I choose not to drink, I choose not to do drugs and I choose not to fuck around running around acting all stupid. I have got a great life, great family, great friends, great animals; I have just got a great thing going on here. I am a lucky guy.
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- K2K: Are you trying to play catch up with the time that you lost while you were in the clouds?
- GH: I would be lying if I said that I wasn't.
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- K2K: You mentioned a tribute album and I should have asked you about what songs you would like to see on it?
- GH: Well, you can dissect the albums "Play Me Out" and "Feel" and "Hughes/Thrall" and, you know, I can't do that because all of my work, there is always parts that I love. If you want to get deep, "Play Me Out," my first solo record, is great, there are parts of the Purple stuff and there are even parts of the Tony Iommi stuff that are very strong. Trapeze, my first band, I mean, you have got to go back to 1970 and listen to that. There is stuff off of my 1972 album, "You Are The Music" which is phenomenally brilliant today. You put it on and it was almost thirty years ago and it still sounds fucking amazing. The songs are great.
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- K2K: Are some of those songs going into the live set as well?
- GH: Some of it, yeah.
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- K2K: So it will be a complete career retrospective type of show?
- GH: Oh yeah, it definitely will.
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- K2K: Well, I am very much looking forward to actually hearing the record and then, hopefully, seeing you do some of it live.
- GH: Listen to it (the new record) when it comes in three or four times because it is going to take a little while to settle in, it is a deep record. The album is the soundtrack of my life and the way that I feel at the moment. It is a very up record and a very spiritual record as far as what I am singing about. It is also a record about letting go. This is an album that I wrote when I was deeply hurt over a relationship that ended and it is like, I came through that. I don't write songs about wizards and demons and goblins and fucking boll weevils, I write stuff about the heart and this is an album full of that.
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- For more information about Glenn Hughes - http://www.glennhughes.com
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- Written by David Lee Wilson
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