Ian Hunter is back with a new album, Defiance Part 1. Although it was a product of the COVID-19 lockdowns, it’s not a bummer of a record.
Hunter tells ABC Audio that once everything shut down, “I had nothing else to do so I went to the basement and started writing songs.” But he didn’t let what was going on in the world influence his writing.
“I just thought everybody’s miserable as it is, why make them more miserable?” he explains. “Why compound it, you know what I mean? … So why not do something avoiding the subject.”
The album features an embarrassment of riches when it comes to special guests, including Guns N’ Roses’ Slash and Duff McKagan, Todd Rundgren, ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott.
It also features the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins on three songs, including “Angel,” where he drums, adds backing vocals and more. “He was tremendous,” Hunter says. “He’s like an encyclopedia, there’s nothing he didn’t know about music.”
He describes Hawkins as having “endless enthusiasm.”
The late Jeff Beck also appears on the album, with Hunter revealing “it’s the last stuff that Jeff ever did.”
And Hunter has more music on the way, with Defiance Part 2 coming either late this year or early next year. The 83-year-old’s persistence is what inspired the album’s title.
“When you’re my age, usually the articles start off with my age and why I shouldn’t be doing this because I’m old, and I don’t see it that way,” he says. “I’m really enjoying what I’m doing, and to play with all these amazing people was lovely and I don’t see why I should stop.”
Defiance Part 1 is out now.
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