GLENN HUGHES ON A FULL TIME BLACK SABBATH POSITION “I WOULD HAVE SAID VERY KINDLY I HAVE TO DECLINE, BECAUSE IT REALLY WASN'T ME TO BE IN A METAL BAND I’M NOT INTO THAT”

BraveWords caught up with The Voice Of Rock – the legendary Glenn Hughes that has such an incredible storied career – at the recent Bangers Open Air festival in São Paulo, Brazil and the conversation takes many twists and turns as we listened in awe. Hughes is currently celebrating 50 years of the Deep Purple classic Burn and fans are witnessing, most for the first time, material that hasn’t been done in decades. Of course Glenn Hughes had his moment in the Black Sabbath spotlight, appearing on Tony Iommi’s solo album, turned into a Sabbath album by Don Arden, Sharon Osbourne’s father and band manager. The record is renamed – Black Sabbath Featuring Tony Iommi – and Seventh Star was born featuring the stunning voice of Glenn Hughes. Here is an excerpt from the chat which will run in the coming days.

BraveWords: Tell me about working with two icons of the guitar, Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi.

Hughes: “Different. Personality-wise, the two were different. Ritchie’s darker, a little isolated. I’m not saying anything bad about him. He’s a great – I’m talking about the guy I was with in the ‘70s. A great songwriter. Mysterious as fucking all hell, you know? You know what I’m saying?”

BraveWords: Yes I do.

Hughes: “And I’ll always tell it, and you probably heard it too. But, we never had a falling out. With Iommi, one of my closest friends, I met him in 1970 when Sabbath had the big hit (Paranoid). I was playing in Trapeze, and I know all those guys. So for me, to know and work with Tony is like being with my closest friend. We are very good with each other, and that’s great.”

BraveWords: After Sabbath parted ways with Dio, things became a blur when it came to singers. I did a Zoom with Tony Martin recently, and I jokingly asked, “Was there anybody in charge?” And he laughed at me and answered, “No, there was no one in charge.”

Hughes: “You know, Sharon and Don Arden when I was, you know, when Gillan was in the band, after Ray Gillen came in. And then Gillan went back to Purple, I guess. And then Tony calls me in the middle of the night, ‘Hey, um, I’m gonna do a solo album, and I’m inviting you and Ronnie and Rob Halford to do two or three songs each. Are you interested?’ I said, ‘Of course I’m interested. Your solo album. Of course I’ll sing on your solo album. So I went to the studio, Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, and the first song we wrote together was ‘No Stranger To Love’, you know? And then he said, ‘Can you come down tomorrow?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll come down.’ Then we wrote ‘Heart Like A Wheel’. And it went on for about four days and I’m going, ‘Well, am I singing the whole album?’ He said, ‘We would like you to sing on my solo album.’ So I did. And then the last song, Don Arden, Sharon’s father came in, ‘Well, we think we should call it Tony Iommi, Black Sabbath.’ Yeah. See, I wasn’t really singing about dark shit, you know. So I sang on Tony’s solo album, and it later became Sabbath.”

BraveWords: But you look at the heritage of Sabbath, just like Deep Purple, bands that created an entire genre of music. After the Ozzy and Dio-eras, Sabbath delivered some great albums like Born Again and Seventh Star. Funny, there is a Deep Purple connection with both. And of course the Tony Martin run. So we had multiple singers, but the music was still powerful and touched many people deeply. 

Hughes: “I know what you’re saying. Look, Tim, if I’d have gone into that and Tony said, ‘We want you to be the new singer in Black Sabbath’, I would have said, very kindly, I have to decline, because it really wasn’t me to be in a metal, a really dark, metal band. As you know, I’m not into that. You know that. So, to do his album, we’ve listened to ‘No Stranger To Love’, that’s not really metal at all, you know. So I was singing more melodic songs, as Tony Martin did later. So it was a strange situation.”

BraveWords: Were you paying attention to the whole Sabbath career, even Deep Purple after you left?

Hughes: “Well, Ronnie, number one Ronnie was one of my closest friends. Forever. So I was around when they got him in the band, and I was around a lot of that family stuff. The reason I also worked with Tony, because I was such a good friends with Tony and Ronnie together. Ronnie actually asked me if I’d do that album. So, sure. I say only good things about Tony, because I love him as a friend.”

BraveWords: But you were establishing your own solo career at the same time.

Hughes: “Yeah, but I also was struggling with getting my life together in the ’80s.”

BraveWords: I’m aware.

Hughes: “The dark. I’ve been quoted as saying ‘I don’t remember the 1980s’.”

Stay tuned for more from The Voice Of Rock in the coming days!