FOR someone whose world was irrevocably changed by Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis, it’s little wonder that Ian Hunter has spent most of his life in America. One place in the States, however, that doesn’t exactly throb with the danger and subversion of his beloved rock’n’roll is rural Connecticut.
“It’s Surrey, only cheaper,” he admits. “We’ve been up here three, four years now. It’s a place where you get away from it all. That’s OK when you’re touring, it’s great to come home to, but then Covid started and I kind of got caught short. Keith Richards is in another part of the state, but no, I haven’t seen him!”
Hunter moved to the United States in 1975, just after his exit from Mott The Hoople, assisted by his American wife Trudi and propelled by Britain’s income tax rate. He wasn’t the only one. “Robert Plant was carried out of Britain on a stretcher. The Stones were living in Jamaica. We didn’t have any money, then when the money started coming in they took it all back. There was no way in hell, apart from winning the pools, that anything was gonna work [in the UK] for a working-class chap.”
The tedium of locked-down Connecticut, however, inspired Hunter to write a set of new songs, 10 of which are appearing on Defiance Part 1 this month via the revived Sun Records. Recorded with help from heavy friends such as Ringo Starr, Jeff Beck, Mike Campbell, Jeff Tweedy and Todd Rundgren, it’s high-energy, loud and impassioned. Hunter reveals that Part 2 – which is almost finished – features Beck’s final performance.
“The first one’s more ‘up’,” he explains, “and the second one’s more angry and a bit more political. So the songs chose the albums themselves. To have Jeff on these records, he doesn’t solo but it’s beautiful, you know? What he did, other people just can’t do.”
