And the reunited Black Country Communion will deliver it, he promises. On July 20th he and Joe Bonamassa starts working on the reunion album. “Joe and I never fell out,” Hughes tells Danish hard rock magazine, Metalized, as he reveals the story behind the reunion.
Written by Lars Schmidt, Metalized Magazine
There was never any bad blood between the two main characters of what sounded like the saviors of classic hard rock, Black Country Communion. A band that between 2010 and 2012 released three highly praised albums and a live album, but disbanded around the time of the release of the third album, ‘Afterglow’, in 2012.
But the fans thought singer and bass player Glenn Hughes and guitarist Joe Bonamassa were fighting hardly, and the surprise was bigger than the surprise of Axl Rose fronting AC/DC, when drummer Jason Bonham on Facebook posted a photo of the band with the simple caption “2017!!!”. And then the reunion ball went rolling at high speed, the band members confirming the reunion one after the other.
And in 2017 Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham, keyboard player Derek Sherinian and producer and fifth member, Kevin Shirley, will be releasing album number four.
“We’ve always been friends”
It was Joe Bonamassa who initiated the reunion, Glenn Hughes tells Metalized during an interview in […] Medley Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, where right now he is recording his 14th solo album.
“In February I was doing an interview with Gary Graff, the editor of Billboard Magazine in America. Gary asked me some questions about The Hall of Fame. I said to him that I don’t think I will ever be in a band again after Black Country because the legacy of those three albums was so mighty and the band was so good with each member being very, very good. I said to him that Black Country Communion will be the last band I play in. Three weeks later Joe Bonamassa calls me for dinner. I had no idea why,” Glenn Hughes says:
“We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. People thought we weren’t friends. He said ‘Hey, don’t you think it’s time we make another great album?’. I said ‘I do. And do you know that this is the last band I am gonna play in?’ We joked about it. Joe and I are very friendly. We never ever fell out. Joe is a solo artist as I am now. Black Country Communion is a wonderful band. We are going to do this one step at a time. Let’s do the album and think about doing some shows. Let’s see what happens. Let’s embrace it. The fans on the internet thought we were fighting. We never fought. When Joe and I had dinner in March in LA, we hugged each other and said ‘Hey, we’re friends, we’re family’. I am a big fan of Joe as a person and a musician, and I like his fans.”
“I am so happy that we’re getting back together again”
When asked about his expectations for the fourth Black Country Communion album, Hughes simply answers:
“I think the world needs another big rock album.”
On July 18th Hughes will be finished working on his solo album in Copenhagen. Two days later he teams up with Joe Bonamassa to begin work on the upcoming Black Country Communion album. And he is looking forward working with the American blues guitarist again.
“I love Black Country Communion so much, and I am so happy that we’re getting back together again. Black Country Communion really gave me so much energy to write. When I joined the band, Joe and I were working for a year before Jason and Derek and Kevin joined. Joe and I were working together writing in 2009.”
“He was doing great, coming up as a solo artist. He said to me very kindly that he was a solo artist and that he was going to be a solo artist for the rest of his life. And I said to him ‘That’s fantastic’. I never asked him to change and be in a band with me. I had other things going on, I had other people to play with. Joe and I knew that he was going to continue and Black Country Communion would be a band that would play shows from time to time. That was it. We did 33 shows in all in three years which isn’t very much. Again, there was no expectations to play anymore. But when we broke up there was the factor: If you can’t play any shows, there’s no point making new music. You know, I was writing all the time. I said to Joe ‘I think I should go back and make a solo album’, and he said ‘Great!’, and that what’s happened. My first thing is my solo career now.”
Hughes/Thrall reunited
Later this year Glenn Hughes reunites with another old friend of his, […] Californian guitar [] player Pat Thrall with whom Hughes released the highly praised album ‘Hughes/Thrall’ back in 1982. In 2007 they recorded a follow up. But the album was never released. Maybe that is going to happen in a not so distant future, Hughes reveals:
“Pat Thrall will play with me in Las Vegas at the end of the tour in September. He is going to join me on stage. People can expect that. Pat and I have recorded some songs that may be released. I love Pat like a family member. I think the world would appreciate another Hughes/Thrall album. But I am so damn busy! I finish here on the 18th of July, I work with Joe on the 20th of July. And then we start the American tour in August.”