Three things you need to know about California Breed: (1) They’re a powerful band with a sound harking back to the good old days when guitars were nasty, the basslines were gnarly, the drums were dark and scary, and the vocals were the wings that flew you to hell (2) Glenn Hughes is 62 years old and has lost nary an octave to his voice (3) these guys will be playing live in the fall – an event not to be missed if their onstage sound is half of what their debut album promises.
Two-thirds of California Breed are familiar names: Glenn Hughes has been piercing eardrums for since the sixties, singing with Deep Purple, Trapeze, Black Sabbath, Black Country Communion and Kings Of Chaos; and Jason Bonham is a spawn of the legendary Zeppelin drummer John, as well as having fronted his own band Bonham and playing with groups such as Foreigner and Heart. The youngster with the long hair on guitar is Andrew Watt, who knows his way around both rock and blues chords and is beginning to make a name for himself.
The first thing you notice about Hughes when he calls in to chat with Glide about their self-titled new record, which launched this week, is his pure enthusiasm. This band makes him happy and the music they created together has him downright giddy.
Your voice sounds amazing. How do you continue to do it over and over without losing any of your power?
You know, I get asked that quite a lot, and for me, really and truthfully, I have like a four, sometimes five, octave range and for a man that’s quite heavy. So I’ve got to get a lot of sleep. I’ve got to get a minimum of eight hours of sleep the night before the show. And when we’re on the tour bus I have to have like wax ear molds put in to take any sound away. I drink a lot of water. I don’t do any dairy. I eat appropriately and I have a fifteen minute to forty-five minute vocal session with a teacher that’s on my iPod that I do religiously every day I’m on the road. It’s like if you’re an athlete in any way, shape or form, or a dancer, if you don’t warm up, especially the vocal cords, it’s not going to be good. We all found this out in the sixties and seventies, how hoarse we used to get. So may I suggest to anyone out there that’s an athlete or a musician: warm up!
You have a new band called California Breed which has been getting great buzz. How did you guys come together and how quickly did the songs start appearing?
Black Country Communion broke up in September 2012 but we didn’t tell the press until March 2013. So cut to the chase, February 11, my dear friend Julian Lennon was having a party in LA to celebrate his fantastic photographs. And at that party, the night before the Grammys, Julian wanted me to meet this kid, you know, this guy Andrew Watt. So I met this young man and he was very, very articulate and very intelligent and spoke of music, spoke to me and I really kind of went, this is kind of interesting. So I went, “Do you have any music I could listen to?” And he sent me some music a few days later. I loved it. He came to my home the week after from New York and in one afternoon we wrote two songs: “Chemical Rain” and “Solo.”
The next day I called Jason Bonham up, who is actually in LA. We went in the studio in Burbank and I said, “Let’s just see what happens.” And we came out with these two songs. And that was the start of the band. But we kept it very, very quiet.
“Sweet Tea” is the lead-off single. What can you tell us about that tune?
Crazy thing about that. That song was probably one of the first songs I wrote and I started to sing [begins singing the chorus] as I’m playing it on the acoustic guitar. Then Andrew asked me if he could finish the lyric for me and I said, “Go ahead. You’re young so go for it.” But that song kind of wrote itself. I wrote like three or four songs in a day. I think I wrote “Breathe” and “The Grey” as well in like one afternoon. But I think “Sweet Tea” might have been the first song I came up with. No song on this album was recorded for any other band other than California Breed. There were no old songs from bands or solo things. Everything was written specifically for this project. It’s been very, very real.
How has your creative process, your songwriting, evolved over the years?
I’ve been singing solo for like twenty-three years and let’s just say going back in time when I look at my life, I got sober in the early nineties, I used to make records every two years or something. And I would write specifically. Let’s just say I was going to make an album at Christmastime. I would start writing in September. I’d write like twelve songs or thirteen songs and I’d be done. Now, I’d say for the last ten to fifteen years, I write every bloody day. I had my mom and dad come to my home at the beach and it was like Christmas Eve and I’m writing away. And I said, “I’m sorry, give me like a half an hour.” So I write every day. It’s almost like I really don’t have any say-so in the matter. It’s like I get out of bed, clean my teeth and I go upstairs in the studio and I write. And also in this band, Andrew Watt is a really, really great young songwriter. And Jason Bonham, who we all know about his drumming, is also a good songwriter. So I said, “In this band, this particular band, let’s make it a collaborative effort, teamwork. You can finish one of my songs, I’ll finish one of your songs,” and that’s the way this band has happened.
And we love this album. I don’t really like to talk too much about past things I’ve done, what I’ve done and what I haven’t done. I’ve been a man to talk about THE moment. We’ve been sitting on this album for like six months, five months now, and we’ve been waiting for it to come out. So we’re getting ready to promote and do some shows and we’re going to start the tour in September and we’re all excited.
How long will the tour last?
You know, for me, I’d like to have a cycle, like every band has a cycle for like sixteen or eighteen months. That’s the cycle I would really appreciate. I know we’ve got gigs and tours being looked at in both North America and Europe, and obviously the Far East and South America. So I think from mid-September on, we’ll be going for it.
For the concerts, are you going to be doing just California Breed music?
No, honestly, if we had two albums out, like if we were on the second album on the second tour, we’d probably be playing pretty much all new songs. But I say this to you, we’re probably going to play probably all of this album. And we’ll play, obviously, a couple of selective songs from our pasts, which people will know. But for me, it’s the first time ever, I can announce, that it looks like we’ll be playing pretty much most of this album. And I think my fanbase has always wanted me to kind of play new music. There was a time maybe when it wasn’t so. But now, I’m sort of more obviously wiser as I’ve gotten older. I think that the past is the past. Everybody knows what I’ve done in the past and it’s been well written, but I’m so proud of these new songs with these two fellas I’m working with, and I’m the oldest guy, but we’re such a fresh energetic young band; although I am sixty-two (laughs). Trust me, I don’t feel it. I belong in a rock & roll band singing rock songs to a rock audience. Whether it’s in Brazil or whether it’s in Baltimore. It’s the way I was raised.
Is there a song that you’re really looking forward to singing live from the album?
You know, every bloody song on this album, to me, is like a mini-movie. There is some stuff here that I’m singing about that’s kind of painful and private for myself but songs like “All Falls Down” and “Breathe” and “The Way,” “Invisible,” I guess, it’s the proudest moment I’ve ever had making this album. And it was just done in days, done really quickly, and that’s the way albums should be made. I remember in the eighties when we used to take like eight or nine months to make an album and it was so boring.
What songs have you written that you think are great?
Oh man, you know, there are a lot of things I’ve written, especially of late, the stuff on the Black Country albums and now on this album, like the last track on this album, “Breathe,” which is a duet with Julian Lennon. Obviously “Sweet Tea” is the first song and the first video. Then with Black Country, the song “Cold” and the song “Black Country.” I mean, I could go on and on about stuff I’ve written that’s sort of jumped out at me. I write some stuff in the middle of the night and I wake up with a recorder next to the bed and in the morning I’ll wake up and sometimes I will forget and I’ll go back and go, “Oh my God, I think I wrote this in my sleep.” I’m not joking, I’ve done that, and I used to be a guy, twenty years ago, that used to sit by a computer with a guitar and wait to have something come up. But now it’s kind of spun around where I have a recorder in the car, I’ve got one when I’m watching TV. My mind is always thinking music and spinning music and it’s pretty cool.
How would you explain the chemistry between you and Jason? You two guys really connect.
I’ll tell you what it is and this is not to spook people out but I was really, really close with his father. And his father would come and play with my band Trapeze back in early 1971 and 1972. John would play with Trapeze, and he must have played with Trapeze at least twenty times in the UK. When Zeppelin weren’t touring, John would find himself on stage with my band Trapeze. And I’ve known Jason since he was two years old. So there’s a kinship, like a family, with Jason and I. I played with his dad and I played with Jason. Not many people have played with both Bonhams except Led Zeppelin of course. I knew his dad really well and I think John is involved here, if that may sound real or not real, for me, it’s kind of the way I think and I kind of feel like we look out for one another. I can learn from Jason. Jason is a father, I’m not a father. And Jason is younger than I but he learns from me, I learn from him. We both are very, very close.
I saw you last year at the Kings Of Chaos concert for the Dolphin Project. You sang some acoustic songs and then performed with the band and you blew everyone away.
Oh yeah, you know, the great thing about that is that we’re all close friends and we get to do these things and help. It’s always my pleasure to be of service.
What still excites you after all these years about writing music and playing music?
Emotion. It’s emotion and emotion could be, you know, love, it could be pain, it could be hurt, it could be sadness, it could be death. I only write about the human condition. I don’t write about anything fictional. I write about stuff that you and I and our families go through. And there are great things in the fictional stuff but I write about real things. I’ve had so many things to sing about these last forty-five years, so many things have happened to us and to me that I get to share, you know, and it’s kind of my message.
Live photographs by Leslie Michele Derrough
