A Conversation with Ian Hunter – HuffPost 9.13.12

Mike Ragogna: So your new album is titled When I’m President. Candidate Ian Hunter, when you’re president, what will you do, sir?

Ian Hunter: I would much prefer five hundred banks to five banks. I think I’ll tighten up the monopoly commission.

MR: Now, your last couple of albums were a little more political than not, whereas this one covers a lot of bases. When you were writing the songs for this album, what were some of your inspirations?

IH: I don’t know… I’ve read a lot on the Civil War, so I guess that was behind some of it–songs like “Saint” and “Ta Shunka Witco,” the Crazy Horse saga. I’ve always been a fan of the underdog, and Crazy Horse was about the biggest underdog you could think of, plus he’s so interesting because nobody ever managed to take a photograph of him. He believed that if you took a photograph of him, his shadow would disappear, and he was against that altogether. Very interesting character. I really got inside that one. I’ve been doing so much political stuff, so I thought I’d do a rock ‘n’ roll album. So really, it’s just song-by-song.

MR: I have little objectivity, I have to confess, when it comes to you and your music since I’m such a fan. On the other hand, this could be my favorite album since Short Back And Sides or You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic, which I think is a perfect album.

IH: Yeah, that was a good, fun album. …Schizophrenic was short. It didn’t take very long at all. This one took about four days. We had to go back and mix it and everything, but the actual recording of it was done in four days–much of the vocals are live. They sound much more excited and purposeful that way than if you run them into the ground.

MR: Did you do it in the old-school recording session style where you have the rhythm section together and then overdub?

IH: Oh, it was all done live.

MR: And maybe that’s where the rock ‘n’ roll vibe on this album comes from?

IH: You try and do that. You try and get it up and you try and get the power and you try and get the passion and if you’re in it longer than a couple of weeks, you’re not going to get that. Fortunately, I have a band that can actually do their homework, go in there, and it sounds pretty good right from the off. So most of these songs on this record are first, second, or third takes at the most.

MR: And of course you’re using your Rant Band.

IH: Yeah.

MR: Do you feel like this album is reconnecting in some way with your roots?

IH: I don’t really know. I did this album in January and it’s like I’m already onto the next. It’s an album that just came together. It came together really well. We had a lot of fun with it because it was short and it was quick. I’m proud of it. I can’t say much more than I say on the album about the album.

MR: Okay, let’s talk about a couple of the songs, like “Comfortable (Flyin’ Scottsman).” It sounds comfortable, yet not. I’m confused.

IH: [laughs] Just a little bit of fun, that’s all. I had a couple of interviews with Scottish newspapers, and they were asking me if it’s about this or it’s about that. I’ve always liked a little bit of wry humor. I don’t really like coming out and saying anything. I like hiding behind a little wryness. That’s what “Comfortable…” is.

MR: One of the highlights for me was “Fatally Flawed.”

IH: Yeah, I like that. That one’s a song about trust.

MR: It’s beautiful.

IH: Hop Farm, which is a big festival in England, is where we debuted “Fatally Flawed.” It went down great.

MR: Ian, you seem to know American rock ‘n’ roll better than most Americans.

IH: Oh, I’ve always loved it growing up. I loved the American movies, I loved the American music. It saved my ass, really. I’m sitting there at fifteen or sixteen, I start hearing Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, people like that, and it was like, “Oh, okay, that’s what I want to do.” Before that, there was no reason to be here.

MR: And you did move on to do that. Mott the Hoople is no small feat.

IH: A lot of those British bands seem to be accepted by Europe. They’re more Euro-types, and then some bands are more accepted by the Americans, more American-types. I think Mott got more accepted in America than a lot of bands.

MR: Let’s go over your David Bowie connection, with him producing you, etc..

IH: Yeah, that was interesting, because we didn’t really know how to produce ourselves. We’d been produced by a fellow called Guy Stevens. He did London Calling by The Clash, and Guy managed us and produced us. We ended up more or less floundering around, trying to produce ourselves. Guy would raise you to great heights and all the rest of it…it was very passionate, but it wouldn’t sound that great. And then when David came along…I mean, David had worked with Tony Visconti and knew the studio and knew what he could do with it as did Mick Ronson. So the association with them was really good, because we learned how to use a studio. We learned how to make a record, which is kind of different from doing a gig, which is what we thought, when we’d gone in there prior to that.

MR: Yeah, and I imagine it was a little different doing a cover song, you recording his “All the Young Dudes.”

IH: Yeah, well, you know, we’d had two or three singles out at that time and none of them had hit, so basically, we couldn’t get on the radio. When he came along, he gave us “…Dudes” and it was a big opening. I think it got to one or two over there, so we were back on the radio. The crowds got bigger, everything got bigger, and then the band broke up.

MR: Funny how that works. Wasn’t that period when Mick Ronson became a little bit more entrenched in the band?

IH: Mick was in Mott The Hoople for the last six weeks, the European tour, and then I left Mott and Mick left as well, and we went on to do my first solo album, and we did…Schizophrenic. We did several albums together.

MR: Right. And as I said before, I think You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic is a perfect album. I remember WNEW-FM in New York used to play almost every single song from that album.

IH: Scott Muni, right?

MR: The whole gang. And “Cleveland Rocks,” of course, became the theme song to The Drew Carey Show. Did you enjoy that?

IH: Well, the first I knew about it was when somebody sent me the video. The video that Drew Carey did for the intro and the video was amazing. I just thought, “Well, this is definitely happening,” because the video was so good. Yeah, it was a big moneyspiller.

MR: On the next album, you featured even more FM-airplayed tracks such as “Gun Control” and “Central Park and West.”

IH: Yeah. “Central Park and West” was David Letterman’s favorite New York song. I met him on Letterman years ago.

MR: And there’s “All of the Good Ones are Taken,” the recordings and the video. That was another big moment for you.

IH: That was funny because it was the first year of MTV and somebody said, “You’ve got to go down and get on this MTV thing.” And I’d never heard of MTV. So I get down there and it shook me up rigid, because the first act on was Rod Stewart, the second act on was Madonna. I just thought it was some little thing in a hotel lecture room, but there were limos and flashing lights and God knows what else. I was living in the country at the time; it tweaked me out. Then the director came in, because we were up for Video of the Year, and we were like, “We’re gonna win, we’re gonna win!” and all of a sudden, I’m third row from the front and Diana Ross is sitting right in front of me, Quincy Jones is sitting right in front of me, and the camera’s on me and I’m thinking, “Oh, God, no!” I wasn’t prepared for it. I wasn’t prepared for any of it. But we didn’t win, ZZ Top won.

MR: But regardless, “All of the Good Ones are Taken” was such a great song and recording–another great album, too. I kind of skipped over this, but I have to bring up Barry Manilow’s cover of your song “Ships,” another classic from your …Schizophrenic album. How did that happen, and what was your reaction to it?

IH: Clive Davis, who ran a big label, heard it, and what Clive used to do was if he liked a song, he would play it to the artist. For instance, in the case of Manilow, Manilow’s father had passed just before, so when Manilow came in to see him about business and stuff, he had that playing in the background. Manilow sort of picked up on it and that was the way Clive would do things. Manilow picked up on it and then wanted to record it. He wanted to change the bridges. He banged me up and said, “Look…can you change the bridges?” I couldn’t change the bridges, so he put it out as it was. He modulated around it a little bit, went into different keys here and there, but the sum total of it was the same and it was a top-ten record for him.

MR: Yeah, and not only that, but I think it’s one of his most subtle, honest records, which says a lot about the material he was working with. Plus his read probably reflected his father’s passing.

IH: I think it was the last record he ever had a hit on.

MR: Yeah, I think it was his last huge record. You tap a lot of emotions with those lyrics and images. On Father’s Day, sometimes you’ll hear “Ships” playing, but you’ll also hear the Mike and the Mechanics song “Living Years,” like a traditional double play.

IH: “Ships” may have never made it onto a record. When we were doing …Schizophrenic, all I had was the first verse, “We walked to the sea, just my father ‘n’ me and the dogs played around on the sand,” and my manager at the time said, “You’ve got to finish that. That’s got to go on the record.” If he hadn’t said that, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, because we were kind of busy making the record anyway.

MR: Yeah, look at every track on that record. You could’ve called it quits after eight songs.

IH: The only problem with that record was that hits came off it, but not for me. We spent about six weeks after that record was done knowing that record was fine, but could we find the hit? We couldn’t find the hit; we could not find the hit.

MR: My opinion is “Just Another Night” could have been a hit, but “When the Daylight Comes” was a missed opportunity. I think Chrysalis dropped the ball on that one.

IH: I don’t know. I don’t think it was strong enough.

MR: Maybe, but I think it had a great dance and rock groove to it.

IH: Yeah, it was alright. It’s the difference, at the time, between selling 350 thousand albums and selling well over a million albums. You just need that one single to take it right over the top. We just didn’t find it. We hung around trying to find it and, of course, when you’re really looking for a single, you can never get one. A single’s a fluke.

MR: The other interesting thing about the album is it featured some E Street Band mates.

IH: Well …Schizophrenic was started in Westminster, London, and it wasn’t going very well. It wasn’t sounding right. Right in the middle of that, this guy Popovich, who was head of Cleveland International in England and was managing me at the time, Steve Popovich–brilliant man, sadly passed–he said, “Look, if it’s not working there, come back here because the E Streeters will do it with you.” I didn’t know this, so I said, “Great, sounds good.” So I came back to New York and went into The Power Station and we started work with the E Street Band, and Bob Clearmountain, who, at that time, was basically one-up on a tape op. He wasn’t even an engineer. Bob now is probably one of the biggest and the best.

MR: An interesting tangent is that Popovich had the label with Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell. According to Todd Rundgren, that album was a send-up of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band initially.

IH: I didn’t know that.

MR: Yeah, and there’s Popovich’s label hooking you up with The E Street Band. I think it’s hysterical.

IH: Very strange. Pops is sorely missed. He was a big find, a genuine record man.

MR: I also wanted to throw out there, speaking of people who’ve passed, Mick Ronson. That had to hit you hard.

IH: That was just, you know, before and after. I mean, that’s how my life has been.

MR: But in a way, it did motivate you into getting back to making records, right?

IH: Yeah, it did. Because Mick was never the hardest working guy on the planet, and neither was I, together, we could have probably done a lot more than we did. We were lazy. When he went, it was like a little wake-up call, like, “You’ve been given a bit of a gift here, respect it. Stop messing around with it.” I think we’d been messing around for about eight or nine years. Our careers were more or less in the hole, and that was it. It was all over. It’s a long way back, but his passing was a real wake-up call.

MR: However, you’re also one of rock’s most prolific writers. You have about twenty albums, don’t you?

IH: Yeah. Something like that. I didn’t really know that, but that’s what the count is at the moment.

MR: Okay, let’s grab another song.

IH: I kind of like the last song on the record, a track called “Life.”

MR: “Life” it is.

IH: It seems that in the West in general, there’s media hysteria. I don’t mind a bit of hysteria when it really matters, when it’s definitely serious. But there’s hysteria over nothing all the time, and it just seems to be since we’ve got media twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they’re inventing stuff to be scared of that we shouldn’t be scared of. Some things should be laughed at, and not taken too seriously. That’s what the last track is about.

MR: Ian, with a career like you’ve had, what advice do you have for new artists?

IH: Hell, I don’t know. I really don’t know what they’re up against these days. It’s moving so quickly, it’s almost like you’ve got to be an IT genius to keep up with what you’re supposed to do next. It’s very difficult. I think hone your chops, really work on a live gig situation. A bit of showmanship doesn’t hurt these days. You’ve got to be different than the next band. There are so many bands that want to make it, there’s got to be something odd about you. I don’t think records seem to be the way to go anymore. It just seems to be gigs. So you want gigs, and they’re difficult to get. A lot of clubs make you pay or at least make you guarantee that a certain amount of people will show up.

MR: And, of course, clubs stick you in for like a half an hour with ten or so bands palying a night to load up the numbers.

IH: But to be honest with you it was always that way. We never had to pay to play in the beginning, but you played for nothing.

MR: I don’t envy the kids in that nowadays, they have to divide their time between being creative and being their own management with social media.

IH: Yeah. And social media’s continually changing. One minute it’s this, next minute it’s that. One of my sons is in IT and it’s really hard to keep up with. Every three months, there’s a whole situation change. It’s going too fast, I think.

MR: There’s nothing savored, and I think it’s creating a lot more disposable music than we’ve ever had before.

IH: Well, now you’re seeing what the labels had. Everybody hated the labels, but that’s what they were doing; they were listening to thousands of things every week, most of it crap. It always has been about ninety-eight percent crap, two percent great.

MR: Right, they were a filter, with all the good and bad that implies.

IH: Yeah. Can you imagine doing that for thirty-four years? All the stuff you’ve got to listen to? I guess it’s like reviewers on magazines. Imagine the amount of stuff they’ve got to go through?

MR: And it could be said also for interviews. (laughs)

IH: You must have enthusiasm to continually interview people. Some of them, you’re not particularly interested in, it must be hard to keep going.

MR: It can be a challenge mainly from the sheer number of interviews. But for the most part, I love all my interviewees, and I’m always learning from the artists.

IH: I guess you have to love it.

MR: Yeah, I think you’re right. Hey, with this album, you’ll be touring, right? Will you be touring the whole country?

IH: At the moment it’s just the East Coast. I’m doing Europe, I’m doing Scandinavia, I’m doing Italy, a lot of stuff in England and Scotland and then we come back and we’re doing mainly East coast for now. You know Philly, Boston, Cleveland, places like that.

MR: You know, I’ve heard Cleveland rocks.

IH: Well, it used to. I don’t know if it still does. I go there and it’s always fine. I don’t know what the radio situation is there. It used to be amazing. It used to be WMMS, people like that.

MR: I have to confess, I haven’t really been keeping up on Cleveland other than taking a trip to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with a young artist I was working with two years ago. Anyway, sir, I have been keeping up on you, and I really appreciate the fact that you gave us some time. Ian, I’ve always loved your records. Please come back and we’ll do it again.

IH: All right, fine. Thank you, Mike!

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne