On the eve of the release of ‘Soul Mover’, I had the pleasure of speaking to Glenn Hughes about the upcoming release, the human condition and his constant need for change. Through the years, Glenn has become the ‘Voice of Rock’. Will ‘Soul Mover’ prove this beyond any doubt? I tried to find out.

I believe you had a busy day yesterday? How did it go at the NAMM show?

Well, it took us about an hour to get a parking space for starters, and then we were two hours late for the meet and greet and we missed a lot of people. The thing is it’s a very good bass, and they wanted me to be there in person.

Who is the endorsement with?

MANNE guitars. They’re a very well respected Italian guitar company. There are of course many guitar companies around the world- we all know that, but every year somebody comes up with the idea of me having a signature bass and in the last ten years I’ve always said "maybe not now", but this year I thought finally it was the right time with ‘Soul Mover’ coming out and I keep calling it the next phase of my career and I wanted to have my own bass guitar so that anybody who played bass could then sound like the way I play. So this bass is one that I’ve designed myself, and yesterday was an interesting afternoon!

Did you actually play anything then?

No, I didn’t, I just stood there with the bass and people took photographs. I don’t like to do that thing, that horrible playing in a booth thing. All that shredding- I don’t like to do that.

You just got back from the UK where you were recording some new songs with Tony Iommi. Before I ask you about the new songs, I’d like to ask you a couple of things about the Dep Sessions. So, that was eight songs that were recorded in ’96 but never released? Why have you decided to release them now?

About a year ago, Tony and I started talking about working together again. Nobody in the press knew about this, it was all under wraps for many, many months. He went out to his vaults and picked out these recordings of eight or nine songs and he called me and he said "You know man, this is really good." I said I hadn’t actually heard it forever, so he said he was going to go in and remix it. He asked if it was okay with me and I said sure. There was one song on there called ‘Time is a Healer’ which was on the bootleg which we still can’t figure out how that got out. We have suspicions, but we don’t know. So, Tony kept sending me mixes and he was on at Ozzfest at the time, but we went back and forth with various mixes and we finally got a decent mix and so it came out. We released it basically as an appetizer for the new Glenn and Tony album that’ll be coming out in the summer.

You took the keyboards off the original mix though. Why?

I’ll tell you why. I haven’t really spoken about this before. Tony and I both thought that the keyboards were interfering with the Iommi-isms! I mean, Tony’s such a monster guitar player. Looking back, the keyboards were kind of dated and kind of light. We were never really up tight with them. They were okay - we love Don Airey by the way, it wasn’t Don’s fault - but maybe they were inappropriate for what we thought we wanted to achieve. So, Tony added another acoustic or rhythm guitar, and now it’s basically guitar, bass and drums.

That brings me to the other thing I wanted to ask. Most of us know about the situation with Dave Holland, but why did you feel the need to remove him and re-record the drums? Was it a statement about how you felt about it, or were you just not happy with them in the first place?

Speaking for myself, the drums weren’t recorded right. Some of the drum tracks weren’t recorded right, and some of them just didn’t sound or feel right. We were going to replace them anyway, but between you and me, back in ’96, we had thought that we would go back and get Dave to do them again, or maybe replace him anyway. Of course, Dave’s in prison now, so we wanted to clear that. We didn’t really want to have that round our neck.

Yeah, you don’t really want an association with that- no matter how good a drummer he is.

If I may say one thing about paedophilia - it’s an animal that I don’t understand. I don’t understand it because my head’s never been in that state. I can’t imagine that. All I know is that it’s a really, really horrible illness and it was a horrible thing that happened and it needed attending to. That’s something that Tony and I feel really strongly about. We didn’t want to have to deal with it in the press, and deal with it in our own lives. I’m still mortified by it all these years later.

It’s like when you think you know somebody pretty well and then you find out you really don’t!

We were in a band together, we travelled the world together. It’s really hard to comment because the guy’s in jail and as far as I’m concerned, this is God’s business and I’m just a bystander looking on and saying "What is this about?" Everybody I know in the UK’s asking me what’s going on and you know as much as I do. It’s mortified Tony and I and Ralph Baker and like Judas Priest have washed their hands of it, I think that’s the appropriate thing to do.

Best to just draw a line under it and move on. So, what about the new songs that you’ve recorded? You’ve used Jimmy Copley on the Dep Sessions, but you’ve used Kenny Aaronoff on the new songs.

Jimmy’s a fantastic drummer.

Yeah I’ve seen him with M3.

So, don’t get me wrong, I love him, but we were going as a trio on this (Iommi/Hughes- we still don’t know what we’re going to call it yet!), but we wanted a drummer that was an animal, full on, master drummer of hardcore rock.

And yet a name that would bring people in by himself?

Yeah, and there were only two who I came to the table with, and that was Chad and Kenny. Chad is so busy with the Peppers - they’re going to go on the road for eighteen months - and Tony and I wanted a drummer in our project that would be able to tour with us. We contacted Kenny as he’s bridged the gap from Mellancamp to the Pumpkins to all the new chick things - he’s just an amazing drummer. When you figure you’ve got me and Tony on either side of him, and it’s on a big stage, we wanted a drummer to have his own identity in the rock world. Kenny Aaronoff is that guy!

So, what can we expect from this one then?

Well I haven’t really spoke about it because we’re supposed to keep it under wraps, but I can tell you this Sue - it’s all you could imagine from three very focused people, hard driving rock … whatever you want to call it! It’s amazing, it’s a spectacular album. Here’s the deal. When you interview anyone and ask what’s their new record like, they’re always going to say it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. Yeah, but you know something? Iommi/ Hughes and ‘Soul Mover’ are for me possibly two of the finest pieces of work I’ve ever done. Ever! The Iommi/Hughes is going to get a great push, I think we’re going to get on a great tour, the album will have some longevity, you’re going to see shows, you’re going to see high profile.

Do you think you’ll bring it to the UK?

I hope so. We’re looking at America at the moment, but I can’t really speak too much about it because this is a project where it’s Tony and I, and we’ve got a management company involved. We don’t know anything right now other than the album is completed. We’re mixing as we speak. I’m going back next week to be in London to do some more mixing and we’ll release the album when it’s right. It’s a massive, massive statement. This is the best stuff Tony’s done since Black Sabbath. A huge record for him. I’m touring ‘Soul Mover’ till the middle of May, and then Tony and I are pencilled in to do the promo for our album. And then mid May, Chad and I are looking at America to do a tour with ‘Soul Mover’. Chad will hopefully be available for that month for me, to play in America. The rest of the year, I’m really hoping that Tony and I can move forward with our project. Like I say, the album won’t get a release until we’ve got a tour lined up. It’s going to be a long tour. It’s not going to be a side project. We’re looking at it being Iommi/Hughes in the long term. It’s a new band. Tony and I have been talking about this for 20 years! Ozzy is doing the 25th anniversary of Ozzfest this year, and they’re going to have to do something, so around that or after it or before, or even during, Tony and I will be really working that album.

You recorded your double live album last year with Chad and Kevin DuBrow and others, and while everyone said that the sound was fantastic, some have mentioned that the picture quality wasn’t very good.

Well, I haven’t commented on it because I don’t unless I’m asked about it! So, you’ve asked so I’ll tell you! I’m mortified by it! When we chose the place- it’s the studio where I do most of my records and stuff - I figured I wanted to do it in a place I felt comfortable, and have some people come in from the website and stand in front of me and we’ll do a nice little concert for them. One thing I was kind of worried about all along was the lighting. Without the lighting, you might as well go home. I thought the performance was strong, it was fucked up in the mastering, I was on the road at the time and I didn’t give my quality control thumbs-up to it. I gave the thumbs up to it before it went to mastering and it was perfectly synched. You’ve seen the first tracks on the first 5000 that went out when it was all fucked up.

Yeah, it seemed really dark too.

My feeling was that nobody and I mean nobody took responsibility for it. So, obviously, I’m the artist, so I’m the one that’s going to look like a jackass so I’m publicly going on record to say ‘I WANT IT TO GO AWAY’! In hindsight I should have done the DVD this month, instead of a year ago. My profile is a lot stronger, and I could have had more artists with me and probably done ‘Soul Mover’ live. What it is - Soulfully Live, is for the people in Bulgaria, you know - places in the world that haven’t seen Glenn Hughes for a while or the Russians (who are loving it!), because I play certain markets every year where people get to see me, but this is for people who haven’t seen me for a while. I couldn’t do anything about the lighting, because it’s what it is. In hindsight I should have said you know what, I don’t need to do this right now, but I wanted to do it then. It’s still a good little tool for people to see Glenn Hughes.

Oh, it is! And it was good to have friendly faces there both on the stage and in the audience!

Every song was recorded only once, except for two which we lost tape on, so we had to do them twice, but what you’re seeing is exactly what it was live. It’s exactly how it happened. It wasn’t like shot in 3 nights in 3 venues, with 3 different producers, it was shot just as it was live. I’m a firm believer in live. I say in my biog, you’ve got to see me live to appreciate what I do. And that’s the format that I like to go with.

Now, Chad really seems to have become part of the Glenn Hughes family. How did that all come about in the first place?

I met Chad at the NAMM show 2 years ago when I was doing a side project thing called Shape 68 for Sabian. Chad’s a Sabian endorsee and he knew I was going to be there, and we had found each other through some mutual friends. We met each other at my rehearsal, and he looked at me and I looked at him and we’ve never stopped looking at each other! I call him my wife! We go everywhere together, we go on holidays together, our wives are best friends, I sang in the church at his wedding, we’re like soul mates! Like Tommy (Bolin) and I were, so he’s my best buddy in the whole world. I just got off the phone with him before I spoke to you. We’re recording tomorrow with Jerry Cantrell and we’re going to do a song for a movie, so my plate is full. Chad is in the biggest rock band in the world, and he also happens to be my best friend. We haven’t seen the last of Chad - trust me!

I was so disappointed when the tour was postponed from December, because I was just dying to meet him.

The unfortunate thing is the RHCP’S aren’t in the studio now. They’re going in March 1st, Chad’s wife is having a baby on the 14th, so they’re still in pre-production, so there’s no way he’s going to be with me next week. I think most of the people in the UK know it’s going to be a Glenn Hughes show and they’re coming to see me anyway.

Of course they are, it would just have been so much of a bonus for me personally.

I mean this very sincerely, and Chad will tell you this to your face - we will do some shows with Chad. We will absolutely do them but it’s got to be when the Peppers are down for six months. It just so happens that they’ve written 40 songs for the new album, so they’ve got so much to do."

So, you’ve got Thomas Broman on the tour with you then?

Oh yeah!

Well, the last time I saw Thomas was in Sweden, and he was in a band that consisted of him, and a load of TV weatherman! Spridda Skurars!

Ahh, that was my friend Per Holmgren! He was the singer, and they weren’t all real musicians. He would be the guy who was grinning while he was singing! I was best man at his wedding!

The support on the tour is the Lizards. Was that your choice?

That was my choice. I met Randy Pratt at Ray Gillen’s tribute concert ten years ago. Randy’s a sweet, beautiful guy. We’re on a spiritual path together he and I. He’s a vegan and he’s very sweet and I just love him. He’s a good bass player and he’s got this band called the Lizards and when I was with HTP last year I met up with Randy and I asked him if he would like to open up for me on my next European tour. That was it really. I mean I want to be with Randy because I want somebody out with me that I can actually bond with. He doesn’t drink and smoke and I like hanging out with those kind of people. We have a very good connection spiritually.

Well, there you go. I’ve been done out of Chad, so I get Bobby Rondinelli instead! I can live with that! Now, a bit of a sticky one. Having performed last year with Brian May and Roger Taylor, what do you think about the news that Paul Rodgers is singing with Queen?

Tony [Iommi] told me about it because he’s best friends with Brian. I was kinda like WOW! What are they going to do? The idea of Queen with another singer, for me- I mean it might work with George Michael, or it might have even worked with Robbie Williams, but Paul Rodgers is my favourite white singer, and I genuinely have love and respect for him. He’s giving the best performances of his life!

He’s another one like you - he gets better with age!

He’s a great singer and I wish him only the very best. As long as Paul Rodgers is singing, I’m going to be singing! I think that Brian told Tony last month that they’re going to do songs as Paul’s interpretation of Queen. They’re probably going to be in rehearsals in a couple of months, and we only wish them the best.

Now, onto the ‘Soul Mover’ questions! Released in the UK by frontiers as we speak. I’ve read a few reviews so far (and even written one) and the general consensus is that it’s your best album since ‘Addiction’ and possibly of your career. Now, I’ve been playing it constantly for a month.

Yeah, I read on the notice board when you first got it Sue! You know something? It grows on you, doesn’t it?

Absolutely! The thing is, like ‘Addiction’ - a reflection of what was happening to you at the time - do you think ‘Soul Mover’ is?

I’m getting chills now! You’re the first person that’s got it! On my website I said this is the next level for me. What people aren’t understanding is, it’s not about money, or how long my hair is, it’s about spiritual progression.

Is that what ‘Change Yourself’ is about?

Absolutely! Each year, I become more healthy and clean and sober. It’s been 14 years now. They say after 10 years, things start opening up in your life and round about 15 years, you start to get real honest with yourself. That’s about where I’m at now. You have to remember- with this record, I didn’t listen to record executives in Japan, or wherever. I said this is an album I’m going to make for me, and that the real Glenn Hughes fans all over the world will go with it! I think that my fans want me to make music that comes directly from my soul. Not from somebody’s pen writing the cheque. The last couple of years I’ve been financing myself to do what I want to do to get to the next level. I think somebody has to do that eventually in their life. Chad pushed me to do it. He said "We don’t have to do any metal type songs, we can just make Glenn Hughes music!" It’s like I’ve said before. It’s like a soup, and in the soup there’s hard rock, soul and funk. Mix it up and you get Glenn Hughes music.

So sometimes the funk comes out more, sometimes the rock?

There are a few people Sue, who have reviewed me who don’t understand the funk. Here’s the deal - I’ve been holding it back for so many years, like a racehorse that’s trying to gallop out of me. Now I’m letting it out gradually. I’m only giving it gradually, like ‘Dark Star’ and stuff. That’s so Glenn Hughes 1971!

Well, when I posted on the board, I said that I couldn’t decide whether some of the songs reminded me more of Kings X or Mothers Finest.

Well, you ask those guys who their influences are, and they’ll say Trapeze. Ask any one of the 3 guys in Kings X who was the trio they liked most in the ‘70’s and they’ll say Trapeze, without a doubt. That’s a good compliment coming back on me from that. Now remember, before Purple, all those years ago when you were a very small girl, I was in Trapeze which was a very, very hard rock, funky band. If you listen to Purple from Roger Glover era to Glenn Hughes, from a bass playing and song writing point of view, you’ll hear tremendous shifts. Roger’s a great a guy and a great bass player, but you’ll hear a groovier, skankier bass player- which is me- compared to Roger’s straight ahead style.

Well I did get into Deep Purple when I was about ten, and from the other albums I had listened to, then to listen to ‘Come Taste the Band’, I thought WHOAH! That’s just so much better!

Here’s the deal. This is really for the magazine. I want you to print this. I CAN’T HIDE ANYMORE! I want each year for my audience to know ME! They’ll never really know me, because I don’t. What I am is an open book. I have absolutely no secrets. I want to take the listener, the fans, the audio listener, the video watcher into a new generation of Glenn Hughes music. I’m taking them gradually each album. You can actually hear that the album ‘Soul Mover’ is more focused because it took me 6 months. I wanted to live with it while I was recording it, I’ve mixed it 3 times, took away vocals, added vocals, done bits and pieces. It’s a very focused piece of work.

I wanted to know a little about a couple of the individual tracks. ‘Change Yourself’ - that’s coming from right, deep down inside, isn’t it?

Yeah, it’s about moving forward. It’s about letting it all go, it’s like saying goodbye to yesterday and living right in this very moment. It’s about grief, it’s about acceptance. It’s about ‘I am who I am’. You’ve got to change, and you’ve got to do it yourself.

I can relate to that a lot. A lot has changed in my life in the last 20 years and it is a very gradual process, but then when you look back on it you think "How have you managed to get through all that?" Which leads me onto ‘Let it Go’, which sounds like you’re reflecting on all the dark times that you’ve been through in your life, but looking forward.

I’m telling you and the listener what it was like for me, the last 60-90 days for me in 1991. I’m going back again to remind me first of all - when I sang "Saint Peter stood beside me, but I could not let it go" that just tore me up to tell you that. I was so addicted that God was actually standing with me and I just looked at him and I couldn’t put that straw down from the coke. I wanted you to know that I had to let it go. Since I let it go, all this has happened to me. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

What I was thinking of when I heard it was, do you wake up sometimes and do you still have - not so much regrets about what you’ve done, because everything you do gets you to where you are now, but feelings that perhaps you wish you’d made some better life choices?

You know the best thing that’s come out of all this is that I remember how bad it used to feel. That peeking out of the window, I was 18 stone, my skin was grey. I never left my Hollywood Hills home for one year! The delivery man was the only person I saw! I’m a giving, loving person who wants to extend myself through my music. I don’t worry about demons and goblins, I write about what you’ve gone through. I write so that you can understand it. It’s painful and emotional and you can feel it hopefully. My music is all about feel.

You recorded the album mostly live, all standing together in one room. More people seem to be going for the more raw, organic feel these days. How was it for you? Why did you decide to do it that way?

I can’t believe anyone talked me into doing it the other way! You know, you lay the drum sound, then you take a minute and then you lay the bass sound. That takes forever. Chad said "We gotta make this album live." The Peppers have always done it live and Trapeze did it live and in the interim, everything else I did from Sabbath, to Hughes Thrall, to Gary Moore was done separately and it just smacks of corporatism. I just don’t like it. But you know when I listen to the bass playing on the album, particularly ‘Let It Go’ and ‘Orion’ and ‘She Moves Ghostly’, it’s just full on attack, and that comes from live with guitar and drums, and I’ll never be able to thank Chad enough.

Last year you and Joe Lynn Turner went to Russia and recorded some track with the deputy prime minister. How did that come about?

That was fun! His name is Mikhail Mann - his father was one of the most powerful clergymen in Russia over the last number of years. He was murdered about 30 years ago and Mikhail had to go undercover for 3 years and he then became a politician in his early 20’s. Before that though, he was a rock ‘n’ roll singer and bass player and I was who he modelled himself on. So, he wrote some songs about 20 years ago modelled around what he thought was his interpretation of Glenn Hughes and he sang them in Russian, before the wall coming down in Germany and everything else. His dream was to get together with me one day and we met on an MTV show. He’s a very, very financially well off man - one of the new Russians. He’s not been made by mafia reasons, he’s a very good business man, a very powerful man in Russia. When you meet him, you’re meeting like a president or something, but he’s such a sweet guy. My profile shot up like a rocket in Russia, because you’ve got MTV and VH-1, and you’re national papers. And so Joe and I went over there and we sang in English. We interpreted what he sang in Russian 20 years ago. We did 8 songs, and it’ll come out in Russia - that’s about it! I don’t really want it coming out anywhere else. The music is very ‘80’s. Well - it is 20 years old!

That’s certainly a pretty diverse thing for you to do!

Well there’s been a lot said about me in Classic Rock and Kerrang that I’ve maybe done too much work with B people or tribute albums, and I have done a lot of work, but I’ll tell you why - because I love singing! I’m going to hold the reins back now and just do Tony and Glenn and my solo stuff and I’ll do the things with Dave Navarro and Jerry Cantrell for movies and stuff - something on more of a higher plane. I’ve got to be careful now, I’ve got a lot going on.

So there are no plans for a new HTP album then?

Hughes Turner Project is no more. I called it in November. You’re the second person I’ve told in the press. When this gets out, you’re going to get people either loving it or hating it, but I had done enough with Joe, and I was uncertain with the kind of music I was doing with that project. It wasn’t really me anymore. Music that would satisfy an ‘80’s crowd - and I’m not knocking that, but I never did like the ‘80’s! It was all a bit too light for me, it wasn’t really gritty enough.

So, there you have it. No more HTP, but Iommi/ Hughes. No more ‘80’s rock, but lots of gritty, funky tunes. That’ll do for me!

Our conversation then digressed into me getting a lecture from Glenn on how Wigan Athletic needs to improve their team if they want to succeed into the Premiership! The man is almost as passionate about football as he is about music, but one way or another he is definitely a ‘Soul Mover’!