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The life-changing moment
Music Radar has another short historical piece, wherein Glenn Hughes confesses how his participation in the America: What Time Is Love? collaboration with KLF became that life-changing moment where he realized that it’s a chance to turn his life around.
“That song, and that session, and the realisation that was to come was a game-changer for me,” Hughes says. “If I hadn’t have done that song in October or November of 1991, it would have been difficult for me to have another life-changing moment where I thought I needed help.
“The KLF coming to be with that opportunity was important,” he says. “I realised that I was gonna be seen on national TV everywhere and everything, and that it was time for me to come to my senses, and get help.”
Thanks to Music Radar for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Fate works in mysterious ways: If What Time Is Love? is one thing certainly not, then advocacy for drug free recreational activities given how it was written for an electronic dance floor/rave subculture where the chemical enhancement of the experience via ecstasy/MDMA/amphetamine spin-offs was de rigueur.
It’s like becoming a teetotaler in a distillery.
September 30th, 2025 at 10:08And what‘s this with Glenn all of the sudden mentioning he was an alcoholic too? Everyone knew about his cocaine/crack addiction of course, but I always thought alcohol wasn‘t a major vice to him. I had assumed that with the exception of Little Ian pretty much anyone in Mk III and IV [Jon (Courvoisier) , David (whiskey) and Ritchie (whiskey and beer)] had more pronounced inebriation habits than Glenn in a drinking band like DP, let’s not even mention Tommy who had a habit of guzzling down and swallowing anything in sight that promised a decent kick.
September 30th, 2025 at 13:58Can’t find a link, but a few years ago I read Glenn’s interview, where he talked about his addiction(s). The journo mentioned that Glenn’s guitar player (I thank Mel Galley it was) was hanging around with a glass of Carlsberg as they talked. Referring to this circumstance, Glenn stated that he had never had a problem with alcohol. All in all, it means that Glenn indeed never had the alcohol problem and started at some point making it up, probably, to boast about the multitude of personal issues he ended up conquering, or his drinking problem was negligible compared to the coke thing.
October 1st, 2025 at 14:08I was a little baffled by it because there are – compared to Ritchie, Jon and David – not a lot of pics around that show Glenn with a drink in hand. He never seemed drunk on stage either – coked out yes, but that is a different thing. I always thought alcohol just didn‘t appeal to him all that much.
No alcohol-related health issues with Glenn either, his heart attack was a classic cocaine abuse symptom whereas, lamentably, both Jon‘s pancreatic cancer and Ritchie‘s gout are very much alcohol-related diseases. With gout, Ritchie shouldn‘t be drinking a drop of beer (= high purine content) anymore (hard for him), I hope Candice keeps a watch on that.
Of course I‘m aware that if you detox from one drug, you are supposed to keep your fingers from others as well to not get any replacement ideas.
October 1st, 2025 at 17:57@ 2
October 2nd, 2025 at 08:29Herr Uwe
I am deeply surprised that no one mans from my favorite band consumes wine..as a first alcohol option..not even David !!!!??…he even wrote a song about wine..and other male life priorities 😉
In vino veritas…Cheers!
Glenn getting a hard time of it again I see… sigh.
Well, I suspect his ‘alcoholism’ wasn’t the four bottles of hard spirits a day variety, but more a slight dependency alongside his other well publicised vices… I guess he’s probably saying that on some level he was alcohol dependent and as such an alcoholic – as are many without realising, or perhaps more pertinently, admitting it. I say kudos to him for talking about alcohol alongside his other issues, raising awareness of addiction and beating it should be praised, never condemned or used to embolden long standing character assassination… ahem.
My dad was a alcohol dependent, he could never really bring himself to admit it… It killed him in the end. Glenn kind of got lucky, but I’m seriously glad he saw the light and if KLF played a small part, then I’m all the gladder for it…* otherwise I wouldn’t have witnessed some of the best live shows I’ve ever seen.
Oh, KLF transcended ‘dance floor/rave’ pigeonholing… pointing the finger at Glenn for perhaps missing the wider drugs culture aspects is a bit rich… KLF were always considered to be a parody band, they were about as tuned into the dance culture as Glenn tbh, but clever enough to sell records to a anyone who was in on the gag or not… If Glenn found this moment to be important, then – who are we to judge?
October 2nd, 2025 at 11:56Uwe @ 1&2…..Glenn was captured in a well-hydrated state in the company of Big Ian, at the Hard Rock Cafe in London in circa 1990/91….I believe you might have a copy of that photo.
October 2nd, 2025 at 20:22DC might be a wine man today, but coming from Saltburn-by-the-Sea in 1973 you just didn‘t, you drank Whiskey or beer. There was no wine culture in working class Northern England.
“Alcoholic” is a wide medical term, but I wasn’t using it in a medical sense, which is much more far-reaching. To me rock star alcoholics were people like Rory Gallagher, David Byron, John Wetton, Alice Cooper or Brian Connolly, really conspicuously heavy drinkers that fell apart doing so.
I never get drunk, but I drink a glass of red wine or two about two- to three-times a week, it just belongs to some types of dinner. I never drink it without food to go alongside. I guess that would still make me partially alcohol-dependent according to some stricter views. But if you asked me today whether I would rather keep drinking grapefruit and pineapple juice, but give up on red wine altogether, I wouldn’t hesitate to affirm immediately – not that fruit juices are really health foods either.
October 2nd, 2025 at 22:24