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It may or may not be the last

Glenn Hughes 2023 publicity photo

Louder Sound teases us with a Glenn Hughes interview slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the Classic Rock magazine.

Hughes’ latest solo album, Chosen, is set for release on September 5. It’s the first record to bear his name since 2016’s Resonate, but he tells Classic Rock that it may be the last.

“This may be the last Glenn Hughes solo album,” he says. “It was suggested that I needed to do one for the label, I owed them an album. So I thought, ‘OK, if that‘s the way it’s going to be’, and I wrapped my head around it.

“If I’ve got something else to say, then I’ll let you know, but I don’t know if i will have,” he tells CR. “I’m not going to retire, but making a solo album tears me up. They’re so personal, they just do a number on me.

Read more in Louder Sound.



15 Comments to “It may or may not be the last”:

  1. 1
    Karin Verndal says:

    Thanks for posting this very interesting interview 😊

  2. 2
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Somewhat cryptic all of it. That Glenn Hughes albums do not sell like hot cakes is something he is likely aware of since he released Play Me Out to almost universal indifference. For some reason, even people who like his singing and bass playing prefer Glenn in a band or at least collaborative set up, i.e. they prefer what he did and does with Trapeze, DP, Hughes Thrall, Gary Moore, Black Sabbath, Hughes Turner Project, BCC and Dead Daisies to his (by now quite substantial in number) solo albums which tend to populate the no man’s land between funk/RnB and Grunge with occasional AOR flourishes.

    Unless Joe Bonamassa has had a radical change of heart, I don’t see BCC becoming a regular touring entity from now on.

  3. 3
    Attila says:

    Glenn is great. He rocks, we comment.

  4. 4
    Georgivs says:

    @2 Generally, Glenn is not my fav member of the DP family. And yet I’m one of those very few people (very fine people Mr Trump would say) who care to spend money on Glenn’s albums.

    Blues is a great album made off the cuff with Glenn and boys just having fun, so spontaneous and so direct. From Now On is a kickback to the classic times amid the grunge era. Feel is probably the most refined example of his soul and funk leanings. I played it to the customers when I was a waiter. The Way It Is is one of a very few successful attempts to fuse trad and modern rock. Songs In The Key if Rock is glorious retro. Soul Mover is, well, moving. Glenn is not a chart force on his own yet musically he is as good on his own as any of the projects he’s part of.

    Cheers (raising a glass of vino verde)!

  5. 5
    Marc Fevre says:

    At this stage in Glenn’s career, with an average of 8 years or so between the last few albums of his own, that this might be Glenn’s last solo release isn’t really as shocking as it sounds…

  6. 6
    Jorge says:

    I like Glenn’s solo álbumes. Al of them had some good songs. I’m waiting for this new álbum. I like toThank Glenn for his music.

  7. 7
    Daniel says:

    I don’t think it has necessarily anything to do with the quality of the music, Uwe. I am listening to Songs in the Key of Rock from 2003 as I type this and on songs like Higher Places and Written All Over Your Face he sings with a level of abandon and control that has been sort of missing ever since then. That was over 20 years ago though, so there is bound to be some change. The first solo album that marked a changed singing style was Soul Mover, in my opinion. This then carried over onto Music for the Divine, FUNK etc. With the string of albums from Blues to SITKOR, released between 1991 to 2003, Glenn was able to accomplish a lot creatively, switching between styles masterfully. It all happened during a time when hard rock was out of fashion.

  8. 8
    Jode Jackson says:

    I have To Say… From Now On and Addiction Are My Favorite Solos.. And The Solo Live Albums Are Good… I Like Burning Japan Live.. And I Will Always Buy Every One He Puts Out on Vinyl… Hoping For A Good One!

  9. 9
    Daniel says:

    The changed singing style only applies to his studio albums though. Live he can still channel 1974, as seen in the below clip from Almunecar the other night. It shows him still very much at the top of his game. Interestingly, he sounds much more at home with the DP music, from a vocal standpoint, than what he did with BCC earlier this summer, where he sounded tired by comparison. But here he is back in full power once again, despite commenting that he feels a bit tired 🙂 https://youtu.be/O42cklQ7jco

  10. 10
    Max says:

    Well as much as I adore his singing and his bass playing and his commitment when playing live – I take his interviews cum grano salis. Good heavens what has this man told us over the years. And listening to the first tracks from Chosen he seems to have released his inner hard rocker once again whereas he used to say that funk and soul were his true love. Not exactly Stevie Wonder stuff we hear here. Just the same there might be another solo album or another supergroup or who knows.

    Just as Uwe suspected … I don’t think BBC will take off big time due to Bonamassa’s massive solo career. And it shows in the songwriting big time. I am not a fan of JB but he sure saves his best for his solo output. I wonder what GH saves his best for though …

  11. 11
    Ronnie Bellamy says:

    @10 I agree Max, he has said a variety of contrary things over the years, from Trapeze being a better band that Purple to the latter being the best band he was ever in, then saying he doesn’t like MKII Purple but then recording Maybe I’m a Leo and Highway Star and performing Smoke On The Water live on several occasions (probably best he doesn’t know that Joe Bonamassa’s favourite lineup is MKII).

    Glenn’s solo work is a very mixed bag, he’s generally better when he has others writing with him as I don’t think he’s consistent enough on his own. I also struggle with how earnest he can be, there’s very little humour in his work compared to someone like Gillan. In addition, why does he have to be so ‘method’ about things? Sure, solo material can be very personal, but why can’t it also be pure fun and not some cathartic process? I just find it a little pretentious. As the years go by I find Glenn more annoying, and relapsing in to screams so much live does my head in.

  12. 12
    Uwe Hornung says:

    I believe I was misunderstood by some of you: I did not want to insinuate that Glenn’s solo albums are in any way bad or lack care, they all have something. But for whatever reason – and I’m not to blame because I like it, I’m just observing a fact – Glenn’s music just doesn’t strike a commercial chord with the public. It never did, not with Trapeze, not with DP (where no Glenn Hughes-written & sung number has ever garnered substantial airplay even though stuff like Holy Man and This Time Around is great) and not with any of his many post-split releases. Glenn’s salient “hit” is the freak-genre’ish novelty number What Time Is Love, that’s it. It’s more an accident (with a great outcome) that he is on that.

    Glenn has a certain way of writing music & constructing vocal melody lines + he is prone to using “non-straightforward” chords (something he is proud of, David Bowie was always proud of finding and using non-conventional chords too), but that doesn’t really explain the lack of commercial appeal his music suffers from. He seems to be perceived as very much a “musicians’ musician” with all the accolades he regularly gets from other players and singers, but the public shrugs (and has always shrugged) its shoulders. It’s a bit strange, really.

  13. 13
    Daniel says:

    #4. I feel Blues is one of his most inspired albums singing wise. Check out closing track “A Right to Live” for example. A simple blues backing that Glenn does wonders with.

  14. 14
    Daniel says:

    Well put regarding being a musician’s musician, Uwe. So is Sting but he had the big hits both with the Police and solo. Glenn never had any big hits like that. His lost 80s didn’t help his profile. Considering he basically had to start over on his own in 1991, just as hard rock was going out of fashion, he’s done well since then, comparatively speaking.

  15. 15
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Ronnie has a point, yes, Glenn can be pretentious and his lyrics are sourpuss, esoteric, own therapy-navelgazing and/or pseudo-religious New Age hogwash. I never thought him a strong lyricist and no line he has ever written has moved or amused me. I don‘t really listen to his lyrics, his words are mostly melismatic to me, get up, stand in line, it‘s getting tighter all the time, uhum whatever you say, Glenn, nice rhyme … 🙄

    As a lyricist, he can‘t hold a candle to Ian Gillan, but then IG is one of the top lyricists in hard rock alongside people like Phil Lynott and Phil Mogg of UFO.

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