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"Ian Hunter today (September 3) releases his 13th solo album When I&amp;#039;m President. The record is Hunter&amp;#039;s first since his band Mott the Hoople&amp;#039;s 2009 reunion, and follows that year&amp;#039;s political Man Overboard. Digital Spy got on the phone to talk to Ian all about the new album, and also quizzed him on Mott&amp;#039;s past and future, &amp;#039;All the Young Dudes&amp;#039; and why he&amp;#039;s no fan of the music business. So what&amp;#039;s the new album all about? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a rock and roll record. The last two have been singer-songwriter, politically inclined. This is much more of a band album, it&amp;#039;s a rock album. It was done really quickly.&amp;quot; The title track seems quite political... &amp;quot;The last line in that song is, &amp;#039;So, them&amp;#039;s pigs are gonna fly&amp;#039;. That song is a guy in a bar, trying to solve the world, as many of us do. It&amp;#039;s not to be taken seriously. I think it&amp;#039;s the only political thing on there. It&amp;#039;s mainly America, 1800s, Civil War, a lot of that.&amp;quot;      There are a load of different sounds on the record - do you listen to current stuff and does any of that have an influence on you? &amp;quot;Nah, I&amp;#039;m not a listener. I&amp;#039;m a reader.&amp;quot; What are you reading then? &amp;quot;The stuff I read is pertinent throughout this record. American history I find is a lot easier. I was born in 1939 - Wyatt Earp died in 1929. It&amp;#039;s recent, you see! You can still put your finger on it. So I started getting into the Civil War and then other things too, Indians and stuff like that. It was tremendously interesting to me at this point in time.&amp;quot; You were born over here, so how in tune do you feel with old school US history? &amp;quot;I was 35 years in England. I&amp;#039;m 38 years here, so I guess I&amp;#039;m a bit of both. The longer you&amp;#039;re here the more you get interested.&amp;quot; This is your first album since the Mott the Hoople reunion in 2009 - did that comeback have any influence on your solo stuff? &amp;quot;No, none whatsoever. The East Coast tour I did in America with the Rant Band, that was what got me really motivated. The Mott thing is kind of separate and apart. It wasn&amp;#039;t going to make a record, it was just there to do the job and that was what we did.&amp;quot;      The reviews told of grown men weeping in the aisles - how did it feel to get that sort of response? &amp;quot;It was a big part of it. I was more concerned if we still had it. Mott was a very strange band. It kind of had an x factor. It wasn&amp;#039;t particularly great musically, it was just something odd about the band. After 30 years you wonder if you&amp;#039;re going to have that x factor and we had it. We had it in rehearsals. That&amp;#039;s what I was worried about. Then when we got there, we walked on and it was overwhelming. It was incredible.&amp;quot; Is there any chance of any more Mott gigs in the future? &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t hold your breath.&amp;quot; Is there anyone out there you want to work with who you haven&amp;#039;t yet? &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a lot of great people out there I&amp;#039;d love to work with but a lot of it&amp;#039;s geography, where you live. If someone lives down the road you naturally gravitate towards them. I always wanted to work with Leon Russell but never got the chance. He was actually going to produce me at one point but he fell out with the record label - so he wouldn&amp;#039;t be getting paid!&amp;quot; All sorts of bands have cited you as an influence - is there anyone you&amp;#039;re most proud of influencing? &amp;quot;I dunno, I really don&amp;#039;t know about that. It&amp;#039;s a difficult one. People tell me that Mott influenced them, and I look at them and I don&amp;#039;t see the influence. But that&amp;#039;s just me, I was in it. I wasn&amp;#039;t on the outside looking at it. Sometimes it&amp;#039;s a lot easier to do that. When you&amp;#039;re in it, it&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Why would anybody want to be like us?!&amp;#039;      &amp;quot;I always remembered Noddy Holder, years ago I met Noddy and we went out for a drink and all the rest of it. And he said, &amp;#039;Do you realise we were the reason we [Slade] started?&amp;#039; I said, &amp;#039;No, how did that come about?&amp;#039; He said, &amp;#039;Well, we went to see you at Wolverhampton Civic and we thought, &amp;#039;If they can do it, anybody can!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; You had a break for a few years before Mick Ronson&amp;#039;s death spurred you to start making music again. How much had you missed it and how hard was it to get back into it? &amp;quot;You always think, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ll get it back&amp;#039;. It&amp;#039;s not easy. No manager, no label, no gigs, no interest, and you&amp;#039;re getting older. It&amp;#039;s like, Jesus, this is harder work than I expected. But that in itself became the motivation.  &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re getting on in years? Well, there&amp;#039;s another motivation. And you have to have motivation. So I&amp;#039;m at zero. Fine, I&amp;#039;ll do it again! It&amp;#039;s never going to be Premiership, but that&amp;#039;s not what I want. I don&amp;#039;t want that. I like hovering on the periphery, because the business is so sick. I don&amp;#039;t like it.&amp;quot; What don&amp;#039;t like about the industry? &amp;quot;A guy came round my house, he had a top-five single and a top-ten album. The album had done a million. They owed money. That&amp;#039;s how much it cost. You see? I don&amp;#039;t want to do that, I don&amp;#039;t want the pressure. I had the pressure with Mott and I don&amp;#039;t react well to pressure. I like playing music. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve seen people who are warm individuals, and I&amp;#039;ve seen them come back cold. It just becomes a gig. It&amp;#039;s plan two or three years ahead, it&amp;#039;s a job like any other job, and that&amp;#039;s not what rock &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; roll is. Rock &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; roll is supposed to be free.&amp;quot; Bands can sell stuff direct to fans now - will that give younger acts the chance to sidestep all that industry stuff? &amp;quot;The ballpark&amp;#039;s evened up and I&amp;#039;m glad about that. I think that&amp;#039;s great. Also there&amp;#039;s a whole load of crap out there! People who couldn&amp;#039;t get deals have all got their own little gig and they can get it out on the web. The web&amp;#039;s been great for me and Mott. We were never that big, but there was pockets all over the world, and when the web came along they started contacting each other.&amp;quot; Most young people who get into Mott or yourself go via &amp;#039;All the Young Dudes&amp;#039; - is that something that bothers you? &amp;quot;Look, I&amp;#039;m not a gardener by trade. I have a rudimentary idea of how to plant things. A lot of people are like that with music. You can&amp;#039;t blame &amp;#039;em, they&amp;#039;re busy! It&amp;#039;s up to them what they do, what they like. I&amp;#039;ve seen enormous bands who are crap. And it was like, &amp;#039;How are they fooling millions of people?&amp;#039; But they are.      &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s no accounting for taste - you pay the money and you get what you want. I can&amp;#039;t argue with that. I can only do what I do to the best of my ability so I&amp;#039;ve satisfied myself. If I&amp;#039;m not satisfying myself I&amp;#039;m a very unhappy person, and I try to avoid that!&amp;quot; You said it was hard to get back into music - do you think your old collaborator David Bowie is going to be doing anything soon? &amp;quot;I think David had a couple of shocks physically. Your health&amp;#039;s more important than anything, you know. I think he&amp;#039;s proved a point, I think he&amp;#039;s proved his point. I think he&amp;#039;s left a hell of a legacy and let the guy dig his garden, or whatever he wants to do, you know? &amp;quot;I know he likes messing about with pottery and stuff like that. He&amp;#039;s very into art. He really was never a rocker. He brought Ziggy and he&amp;#039;s a performance artist, who just happens to have a great ear for music.&amp;quot; Ian Hunter&amp;#039;s new album When I&amp;#039;m President is out now via Proper records. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a403380/ian-hunter-interview-mott-the-hoople-had-the-x-factor/>