Classic Replay interview with Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople

Published Sep 30, 2024, 7:00 AM

Join @thebuzzknight for this Classic Replay with the great British musician Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople fame.  Ian talks about his latest project, his time with David Bowie, Mott and even Ringo Starr.

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Taking a Walk. I'll just got a pune like Cat Longs and wherever I'd been in one die it was on the answiam machine A the way to the swim Go yeah, how'd your fox are going all the tour? And I was like, whoa, you get the chills with a Beatles or your own swim machine? And so it was go ahead. It was good.

Fuck.

Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast with your host Buzz Night. Buzz gets the inside scoop from musicians who've created the soundtrack of our lives. On this episode, a British icon who created music history with Mata Hoopa. Singer, songwriter and guitarist Ian Hunter is next on Taking a Walk.

Ian Hunter, Welcome to a virtual edition. We're going to take a walk down memory lane here on the Taking a Walk Podcast and we're going to talk about Defiance Part two and many other things. But thank you for being.

On, sir. Oh yeah, very welcome. I said, pro pluck.

Did you know you're never alone with a schizophrenic?

That was Ronson's title he found out a toilet war?

Is that right?

I had to give him half a track to get that title. Yeah, I gave it to Rafa just Another Night, which was a song.

On my album Another Great One.

Yeah, yeah, he was he was going to make another record. He said no, no, I'm people in this and I'm like, no, I've got out that I've got to have that. So in the end we came to an agreement.

It's wonderful. What inspired you to pursue a career in music, and tell me about the earliest influences. Ian Oh, I was.

I was right right at the beginning, you know, Fast Domeno fifty four, Elvis and A. That album was what fifteen, and then I heard Joni Lewis. It was crazy, you know. We were living in the country that I had just come off rushing books that Second World War, and it was pretty you know, boring, and people were looking for excitement, and all of a sudden, a little Richard Chuck Berry and all this stuff coming out of the States, and we were like, well, this is just something, you know, And I was a fan, you know, it was jukeboxes and stuff like that. I never thought i'd have it be in bands or anything like that. I just I was just a huge fan a rock and all music.

When did you know though, that this was going to be a career.

I really didn't. I mean I sort of going semi pro bands around Northamplton. I was a bass player and somehow grew wound up in London. It's very difficult to get into London in those days because everything was twice as expensive, you know, and if you're coming from a factory and the sticks, you know, an orange course. So Shilanan started sixpence. It's very hard to get into London, so it took a long time. Now wound up with a guy called thirty fingers late. It was kind of the English quittal of Jerry Lay. And with fed I went, you know, with the German clubs, and I started to think more like a musician than I found. You know, I thought maybe I could make a living out of us, and that's how it sort of came into being, you know, over a few years.

I can you share a bit about your songwriting process. How do you typically approach the crafting of a brand new song?

I think every right to well, it's hard to say. Sometimes it's it's it's kind of like a comedian. Somebody says something and you pick up on it where nobody else does. Sometimes it comes and out of it you wake up with it and the morning, you know, I can't really explain it to you. It's, uh, that's why a lot of people don't want songs and some do. It's kind of like comedians, you know, they get the jokes other people don't.

It is being in a certain zone though, to have that creative process. Is that right?

I don't know, because it kind of grew on me. You know. When I joined Mark, I wasn't even the songwriter. They they add Mikee Alison Pete Wats and they were the songwriters, but Pete was more concerned with models of the time. So I mean the way we used to reheard this, they would get there about three in the afternoon. I was there ten in the morning because I was trying to all these instruments and st and as I tried these instruments, so started coming, you know, And I tried a man in front of the band and some sometimes they fed yeah, and sometimes they said no. And slowly I sort of became this Meg Raelson and I became the song wise in that band.

You know, throughout your entire career you've been part of different bands and collaborations. Tell me how difficult that times it can be to navigate the dynamics of working with all different types of musicians.

You just with me, it had to be exciting, it had to be people are like, well, I had to be crazy and Ma was crazy. I did like them. They liked me because I was like, I wasn't the hare of of Matthia, you know. Uh, but we got it okay, And then every bad ever since, it's always been this has got to be fun. This has got to be calaraderie. This hasn't got to be I'm not. I can't take sitting on the bulbs listening to it being we just did. It's just the excitement, the illiginal excitement I felt with Jerry Lee and those people. I guess that's what I was looking for, you know. And then Mark, they they wound up creating that kind of excitement too, you know. And the places that got crazy without yots and stuff, and they were good guiands, not bad ones.

Do you ever remember one of those shows that sticks in your head because, oh yeah, either because of the fan reaction or something. But did something went awry?

Brother? The Mot fans weren't kind of like Mott fans, and that was it. It was like a tide that followed you all over, you know, and when they would go anywhere you went. And I can remember gigs there where they were all on stage and they were all singing. And then we tried to make a live valabum and that was a disaster because everybody go on the stage and the cables went. But they were kind of I remember Newcastle, Yeah, they had Newcastle. They brought dogs out, which was not a kind of thing to do because they thought it was a nasty riot, you know what I mean. And it wasn't it. It was a happy role. It's just fun and that was what we were kind of aiming at at that time, just having a great time. There wasn't much money involved. It was just having a great time.

You know. One of the things I've always loved about you and your music. You incorporate, you know, different elements of different stuffle, some some rock, maybe there's folks somewhere in their glam rock. How do you balance diverse influence as well being true to you know, what your unique sound is.

Well, what happened was I somehow haven't wound up as a singer, which I wasn't, you know, I was a base star maybe I'll just sing harmonism and stuff. It's in move, you know. Guy Stevens was like looking for me to get off the piano and get in the middle of the stage and sing and around that same time like everybody else there. Bob Bob Dylan affected me a lot, you know, And so I started doing that phase sort of singing, which is what non singing to do. Jack is an amazing facing. Dylan is a past master, and I just kind of copied Dylan for a couple of years until until it got silly, you know. So I started off to you know, you develop your own thing out of that.

I love Bob got silly. What happened?

No, No, And it was just well I had Bob Dylan. I'm English guy. I don't know what he's talking about, but he's right, it's absolutely right. Well how he's doing it is right. And Suddy Bonner was another one, uh yeah, study and Shure he was another one. He couldn't say him that great, but he came Acrooss. He got big number one. You know, I got you bathed stuff like that. I thought, that's the that's the word I'm going to have to go, you know, because I'm not for watches.

You know, I mean your lyrics touch on the themes of rebellion and society and personal experiences. So going back to Bob Dylan, uh for a second. He obviously had some impact as he wrote about rebellion as well.

Right, it wasn't so much that it was it was the way he was singing. I was English, so therefore I didn't really understand a lot of what he was talking about. You know, probably just still don't. But it was just right. It was just so right, you know, and I you know, I copped off him. Actually, you know, you developed into your own thing. I guess most singers, you know, they start off with some they get it influenced. Everybody gets influenced initially, you know, and then you sort of wade through it and come out yourself eventually.

Did you ever have the opportunity to run into Bob and tell him about the impact that he made on you.

Yeah, I've met him a couple of times. I mean, oh, you know what I mean, Sorry, but he's great. He's really nice. I mean, what are you gonna do?

Did you get the cold fish handshake? Oh?

It's good a while, but he does stand the street in h in the village one night, Ma. You know one form the I wouldn't want on the pavement. He knew we were Robin Start I remember at the time said on Bob's new album, he's trying to sound like Mark the Hooper. So it was all fun, you know, it's all you know, just for fun.

Can you tell me about the first time that you met David Bowie.

Yeah, it was Guilford Civic Hall, a gig just outside London, and what had happened was we split up. We've been in gas tank since Switzerland for Either records and we didn't like them. There were two recke so we decided this is or not. We haven't had a hit record. We've been guying a couple of years. And so Pete watched the bass player rang up David to a gig because David was at that time forming his band, and David said, well you were in Mark you know, and Peter said, no, we've split it, and then David said, well you can't do that, you know. It turned out that David liked the band and a lot, and so he came to see us at Guildford. That was the first night I met him and I wound up in a limo with him afterwards, and Angie and Andie whispered to me in the back of the limo, he's it took him four hours to get ready.

That's great.

And then from then on we're still on my Island records and we're just doing a tour and flowers in the dressing room every night, and these people from Ireland, you know, Johnny Gloo, Alec Rosley, they would going, what were the need flowers forevery night? You know, But what was happening was the beginning of you know, our time with Columbia and the Fleece and David you know, did.

He offer you Suffragette City? Is that correct?

Yeah? You know, we'd had a couple of singles out and we they've been on the BBC and they haven't been hits. Well, when you have a couple of singles that they missed, from then on in, you're not going to be on the BBC unless it's something extremely special. And we were writing good stuff, but we knew that bib wouldn't and stuff that sitting was good, but we knew they wouldn't play it. It wasn't good enough. So then he sits down and an office said waiting the straight and plies all the young duos to it was an acoustic guitar, and that was a whole different kettle of fish. You know. That was we can do this thiscom beat.

You you know, I have chills just thinking about that moment.

Yeah, I remember sitting there thinking, one, I can sing it, you know because subs bluesy stuff I'm not good at the first thing was I knew I could sing it, And the second plane was isn't it? And you know it's kind of Nat being behind it hit before it's even recorded. It's just a song and so strong.

And what's amazing about it, Ian is how it has stood the test of time.

Yeah, I was still talking about it and Mark did a great nobody. You know, we improved it. We didn't just sit and do it, you know, we improved upon it. And he was there and he was helping out and to doing what David did. You know, he taught us a lot, you know, because we didn't really know much about the studio with Geystein, our previous producers. David knew how to work the room, you know, you know, they're the buttons.

What do you think of how he constantly reinvented himself and has that inspired your reinvention as you have reinvented through your career.

No, No, I think David was a performance artist who played the part of a rock and wall singer and did it extremely well. And I funk whatever you want to talk about the stages he went through. He was a performance artist. That's that's where he came from. Lends again, stuff like that. So he was you know, he had that role for that while you know what I know, the ziggy Wolf, and then he went out to other things. I think the Foice was mold and the Elvis. You know, Defrace's idol was Colonel Tom Parker. But Flores was telling you was Johnson was a diver's mona, and I think that's what that's what Defrase wanted. And you want to dive it to be Elvis too.

You know, we're living in a divided society obviously, yet I'm constantly amazed at how music is this one thing people can generally agree upon. Do you agree with that fact in the world today that that's really the one thing people can agree on?

Football? There's a coom football. I see football, You know what I mean? Two teams. Yep, somebody's gonna win, someone's going to lose. I'm sixty thousand people who don't really know that much about it, right, just waving about it, you know.

Yeah, But as we moved to talk about Defiance Part two, what's your take on the rest of the world.

We're in a bit of a mess, you know. I try to avoid it on part one. I can't call up with me on part two, however, you know, we're living in a hysterical country, so hopefully it won't turn out as bad as everybody predicts. I just have an opinion like everybody else. I try to not be the didactic and all that kind of stuff, but sometimes it leaks. And this albs a bit dense, you know. It's a bit dense something in the first one, and I think the next one will be a a little lighter. This one's pretty political.

Can you talk about some of the folks that you collaborated with in both Defiance Part one and Part two?

Yeah? Sure, who?

Well how about Jeff beck for starters?

Well, you know, I was Johnny Depp. John was working with Jeff Nor Johnston a little while now, and he likes what I do, so he said, you know, I'm over here with Jeffedy, woman and do something with Jeff. And so he sent him two tracks and Jeff flighted on both of them. You know, he played on the third Rail on part two and it was Jeff. I mean it was like for me, he was in the sixties. God, you know, we came through in the seventies, so we looked up to those guys, you know, like the Beatles and the Stones and the whole you know, So to abject back on your album for me is a personal win, no matter what. Plus he played great, and plus sometimes he would do things and then he would not let him go because he didn't think his performance was good Enunfortunately, on both tracks he was fired. He passed them, you know, he okayed And his lawyer said, the third Rail, which is on Part two, is the last thing he ever did.

It's amazing.

Not this Wire's manager.

Yeah, how about Robin Xander, Well, I've known.

Them for a long time on them off Big here and there, you know, Rake and Lobbin, so great guys and the proper Block Wi Woe, you know, and it's a privilege. But a lot of these baby, it's all privilege, you know, what Stone Temple, those guys and such gentleman you know, and intelligence, and you've got to send the right kind of material to the right kind of people. Is it in the area, you know what I mean? Like Mike Campbell, you know, it was perfect for him and ring Go on Bed of Roses on the first you know you do that check was one seventeen and I'm sitting there with Andy York I said necessary to ring Go for fun, you know, and Ringo was like, if I like the song, I'll do it. If if I don't like the song, I WoT And then four days later we got it back and it was done, you know. And Mike Campbell then takes it and makes it even better, you know, as he does with everything. It's still great. It's good. It's been a great fun.

And you you were part of Ringo Star's all star band at one point.

Right, Yeah, we went out, we did a tour.

Who was part of that.

Group at that time, The Color of the Lions, Sheila Shila A was on the drums. Sheila started to make him do a drum solo. That was fun.

Well, but I want to ask the question differently about that, So tell me about your connection with Ringo Star and ultimately playing with him in the All Star band.

I just got a phone. I came home from wherever i'd been one day and it was on the answer machine all the way to this Ringo you know, I had your Fox are going on the tour and I was like, whoa you get the chills one the Beatles or your answering machine. And so I went and it was great. It was good fun. Greg Like, I'll be kind of fans with Greg Lake on that tour. He was my mate. You know, he's a lovely blood. Greg Blake, the great player, you know, King Crimson and then the LP, the LP, I want to his keee on the Pink Crimins were amazing. We are opened for them early on and Martin, they were they were frightening.

Tell me about the period of time when Queen had first come to the States and Queen and Mott toward what are your memories of that early period.

Well, they was a great father because I became It became one big band, you know, and Fred being Fred was hilarious. He walk up and down back state going why don't these city baskelets get it?

Yeah?

Fred, it's going to take a couple of times on this is a big country, you know it it'd taken that long. But they were characters, all of them.

You know.

I really like those guys. And I still talked of Bride and Rodger, you know, but but Er we're got our different continents, but I still talk to him and they're still ruddling. It's normal chaps.

So I love it.

It was like a nice band on the road when they when they were opening for us, you know, and then we got a Washington, Washington. Yeah, we were staying in that Nixon hotel. What was the White I don't know, Oh, water Gate, Yeah, we were starting at the Watergate. I was Brian came down with something bad. They had to get him on and playing quick, and so that was the end of it. But we've done a British tour and then we were halfway through the American tour and that's when they.

Had to go.

And I don't think about candles or somebody like that came in and that for but they went through the roof really quick.

You know.

Tread was so out lageous something fun. But I have to say they were they were watching us every night because I don't think they'd quite got those stage thing together, they got their music together. But well they'll tell you themselves. They were watching something to night.

Are you considering going out on an acoustic tour?

Oh, Mike, you know, no, No. Wheny of my age, you know, things come up. You have to be careful what you're doing. It's in the works, you know, to cancel off once because of sickness in the family. And I do have tonightiss, which a lot of people have on car used to it, but there's no real cure for it. And if I commit it and then can't do it, and a lot of travelers get very upset with you, you know, because it's expensive. Bad days you get out of the plane. If I'm playing New York, they'll come from England. I want them to put them through that, you know, that's a hotel at the affairs and then the gig itself. I want to make sure that I'm absolutely fit before I go for it. Yeah, and it would be acoustic, you know, Q and acoustic, and.

There'd be one other mandatory aspect. I'm sure it would have to be fun for you.

Oh, it would be fun. I got that figured. This isn't going to be a serious play a bit inside from nineteen forty eight. There's not going to be like that at all. I want to have fun.

Do you have any advice that you'd give to aspiring musicians looking to carve their own path out in the industry.

Well, Dylan said to me, you know what I like about you? And I said what he said, you hang in, And all these years later that would be my value. You hang in. It's another business where success comes quickly or easily, I guess, like a lot of other things, you know, and there's a lot of ups, there's a lot of downs, and you just have to keep going. And that's what's inside you to that extent, you know, you just have to hang in. And so the phone a n.

Used to approach the days where you yearn to learn something brand new.

Oh yeah, that's my whole time. Yeah, I mean, I'm already on the next once it's started. Stumbach. That's it, you know.

Is there anything you'd like to learn that you haven't learned?

Oh yeah, sure, I'm out of factories. I'm not a genius. The stuff I don't know is enormous. But then again, ye know, I'll join the club.

Are there some people that you'd like to collaborate with that you have not collaborated with.

You know, loads of people, my heroes like Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Jerry Lee. I wouldn't want to work with Jerry Day. It was difficult. I remember Hi playing the Ritz in New York and his bound didn't even go to the dressing room. They got off the front of the stage and mingled with the audience. I wouldn't have wanted to be part of loud.

And how about any new music you've discovered by maybe artists we haven't heard of that you'd like to bring to our attention.

Oh, I'll do that, buzz I never did. I'll just write, you know, stuff that comes into my hands. I've been doing this for a world fifteen years or something. If you're in a nice queen factory for fifty years, you en up a nice green I mean, y'all, ye do it? Sit out? I light wating songs and you know the ex hopefully is going to be different. That's my flob.

Congratulations Ian on Defiance Part two, and it's so great to have taken a walk down memory lane with you, and thank you for all the great music that you continue to give us sir oh yeah, very welcome buzz and thanks for being on Taking a Walk.

Thanks for having me, body, thanks for having me.

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