Glenn: What would you say influenced you as a singer?

Brian: No-one that you’d believe. People like David Bowie, Cat Stevens, The Beatles – no rock singers.

Glenn: And you’ve got that high-powered voice – it’s amazing – the contrast.

Brian: Yeah it’s weird but I learnt (from them). I’m not a big fan of many rock singers. It’s like a lot of them – I think there’s only about 4, maybe 5 really genuinely good rock singers – the rest are all copyists.

Glenn: It’s like how many David Coverdale’s do you want?

Brian: Yeah, exactly. So it’s kind of weird but then again people say that I sound like other people. I’m like, “Well I don’t get that but…”

Glenn: I suppose it’s because of the notes you can hit and a bit of lazy journalism.

Brian: Yeah, they pigeonhole it and make their job easier.

Glenn: Do you have a musical background in your family?

Brian: My father was a singer in the clubs when I was a little kid. One of my earliest memories of music was being taken to a club in Portsmouth called ‘The Radical Club’ on Brighton Road – it’s a working men’s club. It’s like a laser club. My dad used to go there and enter all the talent contests and always win ‘em. Then one day when I must have been about 3 or 4 I said I wanted to do it too and I didn’t have any songs to sing, I just got up there and put my arms around my dad and said, ‘Help me up’. Then I used to do all this (singing) and the audience seemed to like it. At that age I must have thought of myself, ‘F*ck*n’ Hell, this is pretty cool, people take notice of me up here.

I must have been 3 or 4 and I’ve got very distinct memories of that club because I used to go there every weekend. It was pretty wild, a pretty wild place.

Glenn: Can you remember what you used to sing or anything like that?

Brian: My Old Man’s a Dustman.

I laugh and sing the opening lines of the song – “My old man’s a dustman, he wears a dustman’s cap.”

Brian: Yeah. (And Jokes) Up north it’s a cap but in the civilised world it’s a hat!

Glenn: (I laugh) Nice One! Yeah, how did you get involved in the (Music) Biz. Was it through the clubs and various other situations?

Brian: I honest and truly don’t know. I think if you ask anybody you they got involved in the business, the first question they will ask is ‘What business?’ and if it is a business, I really don’t know how it happened, there’s no rulebook. It’s not like you go to school and to university and then take your exams and you qualify for this. It’s weird, it’s like I was in a local band in Portsmouth, then I joined another band in Portsmouth and we made a record and it went in the British charts.

Glenn: Which record was that?

Brian: It was the worst record of all time. It was a band called ‘Shy’ and it was in 1980.

Glenn: Oh ‘Shy’ yeah.

Brian: Not the ‘Shy’ you’re thinking of – the original ‘Shy’, the real ‘Shy’. We had a record that went in the charts in 1980 or ’79 and it got to like number 60 in the UK top 60 and it was a pop band – it was very poppy and wasn’t particularly a great record. It was probably one of the worst singles of all time. I got sick of that pop thing and I wanted to get into a rock band and do something. So I quit the band and moved on to London and I joined a band called ‘White Spirit’ and they’d just lost their deal with MCA and from them I moved on to Ted Nugent. It’s weird, I’m still not sure how it all really went down. One minute I’m in a local band, the next minute I’m in New York with Ted and it was all a bit of a whirlwind and it was all a bit strange. But it was a rocket ship to…

Glenn: … what you’d been doing previously?

Brian: Yeah. It was really weird. It really was and I suddenly moved in from the local band drunks to the major league druggies of the music business. You know, all the guys as big as that (and) stick needles in your arm and snort cocaine. I’m not saying Ted Nugent did that of course because he didn’t – he’s really Anti-drugs. I mean thank god I was Ted first in America because he really did..

Glenn: … help.

Brian: Yeah. Ted was very straight and he told me very early doors, he said ‘If you have a long career keep your head on. Don’t f*ck about, don’t do this, don’t do that, just work hard and you’ll be alright because you can sing. So as long as you keep your voice, you’ll be fine’, and luckily, touch wood, he’s been right so far. So far.

Glenn: So you got on well with Ted?

Brian: I liked Ted. I think Ted gets wrapped up with being Ted.

Glenn: And you always know from reading interviews that you are always gonna get something funny from Ted as well.

Brian: Yeah. He must sit at home and think up all these things. They are not straight off the top of his head – he works very hard at being Ted Nugent and that’s admirable. I mean it’s not just funny, funny off-the-cuff humour, it’s very much hard work with Ted. He does his homework, he sits indoors and he thinks of stuff and he writes. He’s switched on.

Glenn: How did you get in ‘Bad Company’?

Brian: Through Ted Nugent and I got a phone call from Mick Jones from Foreigner at Ted Nugent’s house. It was like ‘Brian’, ‘yeah’, I said, ‘It’s Mick’, ‘Hey Mick what’s goin’ on?’, ‘Man what are you doin’ ?’ ‘Well I’m up in Ted’s house’. ‘You don’t wanna be doin’ that’. ‘Why?’, ‘I got a gig for ya, would you be interested in joining a band?’ ‘Well what band?’ ‘Well Mick and Simon from Bad Company are thinking about re-forming a band or at least getting a band together, would you be interested in being the singer?’ ‘I don’t know, you tell me, is it going to be better than the one I’m doing? And he said, ‘Yes’. ‘Well I’ll be interested’, ‘Right I want you to come down to New York next weekend and meet with everybody and see how it all goes’.

I made some excuses to Ted saying, ‘I gotta go to New York because I got family members that are coming to New York’, I thought, ‘F*ck*n’ Hell, if he finds out he’ll f*ck*n’ shoot me’. So I got on the plane and down to New York and I met with Simon and Mick at ‘The Mayflower Hotel’, Central Park West. We met in the bar there actually and we discussed a lot stuff and I had a pretty good vibe then – I knew what I wanted to do and I wanted to be in a rock band. They didn’t wanna call it Bad Company and I didn’t wanna call it ‘Bad Company’ because it was gonna be a new band and, you know?

Glenn: Yeah. So I suppose the record company said, ‘You are recognised as Bad Company, you gotta sit with that or it’s gonna go…

Brian: Right and that was the whole crux of the matter because by the time we finished the record, the record company said, ‘What are you gonna call yourselves?’ and nobody could… we had a list this long, like 10 foot long on names and nothing really was a good name so the label then came up to us at the time at ‘Goodnight LA Studios’ in Los Angeles and they said, ‘Look guys how would you feel about calling yourselves ‘Bad Company’? And I said, ‘I wouldn’t like that at all’. That suddenly puts me in those shoes and I don’t wanna be in those shoes’ and they were like ‘Well we’ll triple the advance if you do that?’.

I was kind of outvoted now although we agreed that it was gonna be a 3-piece band and it was gonna be a 3-vote band and that was it. So when those two vote yes I was kinda outvoted so I was kinda, ‘Well alright, we’ll go with it but it’s gonna make life very f*ck*n’ hard for me.

But anyway and it was a crap first record for Bad Company because we made the record not knowing we were going to call ourselves ‘Bad Company’. So it was like keyboards and that and everything that’s not Bad Company. It was a good record, some good songs but the production was all geared to Mr. Mister than Bad Company. It was too..

Glenn: like ‘Radio-Friendly’.

Brian: Yeah. It really was. I knew that it was the wrong record but they’d already outvoted me so there you go.

Glenn: What would you say your favourite times are of being in Bad Company or bad times in Bad Company?

Brian: My best time in Bad Company was proving everybody wrong because many, many people when I first joined the band said, ‘Man, you’re gonna call it Bad Company, you’ve just f*ck*d yourself, you’re dead, your careers over now you know?’ I must admit I spent two years very concerned that if I didn’t pull my finger out and work hard and write songs that were geared to Bad Company then they were probably gonna be right.

But gotta get rid of the keyboards, that was the first major problem I had with Simon, because his buddy Greg, he’s a lovely guy, I love Greg in fact I saw Greg a few weeks ago in Canada – there’s no hard feelings but we couldn’t have keyboards in Bad Company – it’s a rock ‘n’ roll, open-spacious band. The first thing that keyboards do is fill in space – that’s their job.

Glenn: And it doesn’t need filling.

Brian: It doesn’t need filling – it never does. In real good rock ‘n’ roll – it’s not what you play, it’s what you don’t play. With Greg, I loved him as a guy, he’s a wonderful, wonderful guy but we really didn’t need him in the band and I told Greg, ‘Greg, I have no plans for you being on the next record’ so he kind of let go. Well Simon really objected to that and said, ‘You can’t do that, he’s a friend of mine and he’s in the band’ and I said, ‘What’s he gonna do, play tambourine? Because there’s no room for him in the songs that are gonna be written’ which (was for) a record called ‘Dangerous Age’.

Glenn: I got them all with you on.

Brian: Well anyone that’s a Bad Company fan will notice a huge difference of the sound and the structure.

Glenn: It’s as ballsy as hell – there’s more there.

Brian: Yeah.

Glenn: And it’s like a different band altogether.

Brian: Yeah and it’s like a spacious sounding record. It’s more of a basic rock record – a good sounding rock record for its time. But that was when the resentment started to come in too. I mean, there weren’t that many good times in Bad Company.

Glenn: On-stage great but like…

Brian: Not even onstage great. (With regards to) resentment – we never really after that record, we never spent time in the studio together. It was pretty weird, pretty weird.

Glenn: Do you have any favourite songs from that period that you like performing, even thought the band was not great – are there many songs that stand for you?

Brian: There’s many songs that stand out. I mean there’s songs like ‘No smoke without a fire’. We kinda did that and my son was 3 years old at that time of that song being written and I used to bring the demo tapes home and play ‘em and play ‘em at home and just try and get a better focus on where we needed to go tomorrow on the tracks.

My son after a couple of days would always say, ‘Dad, Dad, I wanna hear the ‘Fire Song, I wanna hear the ‘Fire Song’. I thought, ‘well that’s weird, why would a 3 year old kid relate to that song so strongly’ and I mentioned it to a few people and they said, “Well, you know kids just have this ear sometimes’ and I was like, ‘Oh well, alright, I quite like it, so maybe I’ll suggest to the label that it should be a single’. I did and they said, ‘We’ll give it a shot but we’re not really sure about that’ and it turned out to be the song that let us back up a little bit – the song that kinda certainly put us on the radio big-time in America and certainly helped sell the record. I think it’s platinum now but it was gold.

Glenn: Maybe he related to it because of the strong melody and he could remember it a bit like in the same way that young kids remember nursery rhymes….

Brian: I’m assuming that’s what it was. I mean it is weird – very strange.

Glenn: You’ve been solo for a while – what’s your favourite solo material?

Brian: The favourite one, the one that I’m in the middle of and I’m very frustrated right now because it just seems that I was gonna sign to a label (in Germany). They are not a great label.

Glenn: Yeah, there’s no tour support from what I’ve heard.

Brian: No there’s nothing. They gave me an advance for this new record – a very pitiful advance but it was late coming through and they didn’t send the right amount of money. I sent the money back and they said, ‘Let’s do another deal, let’s make a better deal” or whatever and I just don’t trust them again”. I’m done with that and if I never make another record that’s fine too.

Some others are trying the old %&%& Records trick, like throwing enough sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks and that’s a stupid way of making records.

Glenn: I guess it was the same thing when CD’s first came out.

Brian: Yeah. I so much fear for new artists nowadays because if you took people like Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens they’d have never made it nowadays.

Glenn: Yeah.

Brian: You get one shot and you’re out. You know with music’s sometimes an artists worth developing. It’s all about money now – money, money, money – now we all know that money’s important – we all have to live, we all have to get by but when it becomes the be all and the end all for decisions on creative people and..

Glenn: It’s pressure.

Brian: Well it’s not so much pressure, it’s just stupid to pull the rope on someone who.. If you signed ‘em in the first place then obviously you have got some sort of belief in ‘em.. So either it’s real belief and you truly believe in ‘em or it’s just you’ll believe they make you a lot of money in a short period of time. That’s not belief – that’s just b*llsh*t and if you believe in someone then stick with ‘em. Thank god though that a lot of record companies have killed themselves through their own stupidity and greediness.

Glenn: Have you thought of coming over to the UK for some shows?

Brian: (laughs) I’d love to but nobody wants me.

Glenn: Promoters and all that.

Brian: No, it’s like when I was in Bad Company we used to do tours, not that many but we did tours of the UK and Europe and they were always sold out shows and always very heavily attended shows but since I’ve left the band my Agent has tried to get shows in London, in Germany but no-ones that interested. There’s no genuine demand for me and I understand that.

Glenn: You know what, even though you’ve been over a long time, you’ve not lost that British accent at all.

Brian: I ‘ope not.

Rick: How long have you been here?

Brian: 20 years. You know when I go back to England people say, ‘F*ck*n’ ‘*ll you don’t half sound American.

Glenn: You don’t sound a bit American.

Brian: I don’t hear it. I really don’t.

Glenn: I read about when the reformation of Bad Company happened that they didn’t inform you about it and that Paul Rodgers got on board with it.

Brian: Well I wasn’t upset by it but I think the only reason that happened was money. I think Mick and Simon after I left they hired Robert Hart, he was a pretty good singer but he sounded too much like Paul Rodgers and if you’re gonna have someone that sounds like Paul Rodgers then just get Paul Rodgers.

It was actually quite funny because the songs that they had for that 1st record after I left were all the songs that I’d rejected when I was in the band. They would bring me the song and I’d be like ‘Oh my god, this is terrible. But they hated me; they really hated me because I was honest. Well they hated me because: A) I was getting too much acclaim – they thought I was trying to take over the band which I really wasn’t trying to do. I was the one that did work hard and wanted to make the band a success and everything was geared to make Bad Company a success but not Brian Howe – Bad Company and B) Every song that was picked out to become a single turned out to be one of mine.

Glenn: But that’s the record company isn’t it?

Brian: Yeah. It was all ego and it was all stupid and it was just pathetic. I can go out and do good shows (that include performing) Bad Company (material) and people will say, “Isn’t that a bit cheap?’ ‘Why is that cheap?’ I was in the band ten years, I wrote a lot of the hits for the band, I sang all the old hits, the band were very happy for me to sing those old hits because they were getting they were getting back royalties on all the old records so they were being promoted through me singin’ ‘em. I made a greatest hits record with me singing all the old hits – why the shouldn’t I sing ‘em?

I don’t think there are any singers that haven’t been influenced by Paul Rodgers, I know I didn’t mention him earlier but I remember when I’d just left school I went out and bought ‘Wishing Well’. One of the favourite singles from that era was ‘My Brother Jake’ and it’s like and the band ‘Free’ – they hated that song.

Glenn: Aren’t you writing a biography at the moment?

Brian: Yeah, yeah. It’s early days yet.

Glenn: Outside music, what do you enjoy doing apart from having a few beers with your mates?

Brian: That’s it – music – I don’t really do much. I got my scooter. I run around doing that. I got a Waverunner. I bought the latest Honda. The very fist Honda Waverunner was like a f*ck*n’ rocket-ship and I go out on that. I go fishing, I do stuff like that.

Glenn: What sort of fishing do you do?

Glenn: In that area?

Brian: Yeah. Well he got hold of some old tour books and stuff. It was like f*ck*n’ wild. Then I found an old case. The reason I wanted to do this was because I did find an old case in the garage that had a lot of tour books and unknown to anybody, I dare say a lot of pictures – just little snaps like whatever and I would also make notes on every page of the tour book - where we were, what happened and whatever and it was pretty..

Glenn: Fascinating?

Brian: Yeah. Yeah, yeah and I didn’t realise I was doing that but.. you know, we’ll see.

Glenn: Sounds good. Yeah. What made you decide to stop in Fort Myers?

Brian: Oh boy, Fort Myers - well I came to Fort Myers first of all when I was with Ted Nugent in 1984, then I came back through in ’86 with Bad Company and by pure fluke we ended up having 4 days off here and it early December. I believe it was like December 11th or 12th and I stayed right next to us right here – The Lanakai and I just fell in love with the place. I couldn’t believe it this. It was f*ck*n’ December.

Glenn: Rick (Wilson) was the same.

Rick: Yeah.

Glenn: I remember the fist time I came here it was like we stopped over at ‘The Lighthouse’.

Brian: Oh yeah.

Glenn: And I was like ‘what a place’, the Reef and all the nightlife – Paradise.

Brian: The Reef is gone man (in an American dialect).

Glenn: So Stet Howland told me when I asked him about it when they played Rock City, Nottingham, November 2004.

Brian: It was a sad day when that went.

Glenn: Yeah I met Stet (Howland) there in 2002 and he said you lived here as well, so now it kinda ties it all together.

Brian: Wow! That’s weird. Very strange.

Glenn: I remember you saying when I met you last night that you liked the new Buckcherry record.

Brian: F*ck yeah. I listened to it all afternoon. I love that record. It’s a great record. Sonically, production wise, the singer – I didn’t used to like that singer but f*ck me – he’s turned into a singer now for me – I mean for what I want in a singer.

As songs, they are beautiful songs – well put together, plays us some venom, plays us some anger and plays us some deviousness – f*ck*n’ great. A really truly great – probably one of the best rock records I’ve heard in like 2 years. If people don’t buy that Buckcherry record then there’s something wrong with ‘em.

This record is monumental. It’s a great record. I’m almost excited about that record as I am about a record I heard about 7 years ago – a band called ‘Moke’ .

Glenn: Moke, yeah.

Brian: I don’t know if they’ve heard of them in England but they’re an English band but they’ve broken up now. They’ve made 2 of the best records I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m trying to find them again on CD, I’ve got them on i-pod but I can’t find them on CD’s anywhere.

I thought Moke were probably one of the best bands I’ve heard in like 30 years. I thought they were exotic, they were great, they were creative, they were genuine, they were everything a band should be and I guess they didn’t sell record. I am presuming that because they made 2 fantastic records that were just breathtaking and why on earth the public didn’t get it I will never know. I’ll never understand that because they were by far the flagship of British bands as far as I was concerned.

Glenn: Yeah I remember them.

Brian: Great band, great band.

Glenn: If you had the chance to duet with a few people who would you look to duet with that you’ve not done already?

Brian: I don’t really know – maybe again people you’d think I wouldn’t wanna do it with. I’d like to do something with Faith Hill but that might not involve singing. I think Shania Twain is another – I mean she’s f*ck*ng great. I know that many don’t take her serious – I know many people don’t but she’s really f*ck*n’ – she’s not stupid. She’s got her ‘ead screwed on and she can sing too. She’s not a shirker – she can actually get out there and do it and yeah, she looks good but apart from that she can sing. Her husband (Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange) too is pure brilliance. He’s ridiculously brilliant – it’s just stupid.

Glenn: Have you met Mutt a few times?

Brian: I’ve met Mutt once in Chelsea – in Chelsea Football Club at a Foreigner party but I have actually close to meeting him before he was successful in Oxford, Surrey and I actually met a girl called Stevie Lange which was his first wife.

Glenn: Yeah I remember an interview on the Friday Rock Show with Joe Elliot and Tommy Vance was trying to find the tape of Stevie Lange.

Brian: Yeah, she was a great singer and she was really cool and they were still married at the time and she gave a tape of me to Mutt and Mutt wrote a note saying, ‘You sound really cool – almost Stevie Wonder’ish’.

It might have been the stock thing to have said back then you never know.

Glenn: How did the Hurricane gig come to be here in Fort Myers?

Brian: Well that was partly my idea. It was myself and K-Rock. We put that together and I’ve known Brian (Johnson of AC/DC) for years because Brian was the one that actually told me to move here really. Brian found me my house and he said, (Does an impression of Brain that’s humorously intelligible) and I think he meant buy it and we’ll probably be able to go drinking. So I bought the f*ck*n’ house and three weeks later he moved to Sarasota but I’ve stayed here ever since. I kind of keep in touch with Brian. He does live 90 miles away so we’re not like in constant touch.

Glenn: So you are not in drinking touch?

Brian: No, no but he’s cool. Brian’s cool. He’s cool.

Glenn: What have been your favourite people that you have worked with e.g. headline acts?

Brain: I like everybody, I mean I don’t have any favourites, I mean I’m kinda too focussed. When I’m gonna do a show I’m kinda focussed on what I’m doing. I always try and open up – I don’t wanna be a headliner because quite frankly it doesn’t matter.

Glenn: As long you are there and people see you.

Brian: It’s not an ego thing with me; I don’t need to be a headliner. It’s like I’ll play whenever I can get on there and we’ll just get on and get the job done and f*ck*n’ rock! And that’s what we do. The other night I was doing a show with Starship, Micky Thomas of Starship and I was supposed to be the headliner and I said to them, ‘We couldn’t just go on early could we? Just f*ck*n’ see what they could do and Micky said, ‘Yeah alright, I don’t mind, I’ll go on after you’, it’s like great. I don’t care about all the stardom bullsh*t – I don’t need the f*ck*n’ you know…

Glenn: I guess it’s just good to have the fans and be appreciated by people that you know.

Brian: Well as long as my band plays well and we a good show I’m a happy camper. I don’t care if I’m on 1st, second 3rd or last. I don’t care. My life is perfection – I live on the people – I live a life of perfection. I leave here maybe on a Thursday; I fly out and do maybe 2 shows, maybe 3 shows a week and I fly home. I don’t need any bullsh*t, I don’t anyone to tell me you should be on first or second – I’ll just play – just tell me what time you want me on and I’ll be there. There’s no more bullsh*t, there’s no more … you know. It doesn’t matter what time of day it happens as long as it happens.

Glenn: That’s what counts.

Brian: Yeah. That’s me, that’s me.

Glenn: I bet you still get recognised a lot by old fans, ‘like Brian, how are you doing man?’

Brian: Yeah it’s like weird. (There’s the) old Bad Company fans – the Paul Rodgers worshippers that didn’t like anything else – that’s fine and there’s still quite a few of them. That’s ok, that’s their prerogative. We sold millions of records and a lot of people only recognise me as being the singer of ‘Bad Company’ which is really weird and it works to my advantage when I go out and do a show but hey, if the world’s big enough for me, for Paul Rodgers, for Bad Company and for anyone else - it’s big enough – it’s no big deal, it’s no big deal.

Glenn: What style is your new album in – is it Classic Rock or have you moved on from that or what?

Brian: It’s actually, very graphic – it’s a little bit of AC/DC’ish if you like but I hate categorising the stuff but it is a little bit. I’ve got one song at this point that is probably one of the best songs I have ever written and it’s a song called ‘Surrounded’ and it’s a magnificent, magnificent song – it’s absolutely the best song I have ever written – period. I don’t know if to keep it for myself or let someone else do it.

I think I’m gonna probably let someone else do it because I’m so lazy right now, I’m not bothered about finishing this record – unless I can find a label that is genuinely interested in music I’m not gonna waste my time. I’m not worried about records, I’m really not - that’s the last thing. I won’t finish it until I find a label that has got the balls to support me. If I never make another record, I don’t really care. Well I care in a way how I’d like that record out but I don’t care, I’m not gonna play the money game and I’m not gonna play the bullsh*t game where I have to cater a record for people who don’t know what the f*ck they are doing. It honestly doesn’t bother me if next record doesn’t come out. If I record a 5-song e.p. I can sell that at gigs. Labels and me don’t get along very well. I don’t play that corporate game. I don’t need ‘em. The trouble nowadays with music is that the labels – they’re not record labels – they’re money labels. When they become music labels again then the world will be a much better place.

I mean, A&M, owned by Herb Alpert – that label – thy would invest in an artist like Gallagher and Lyle and it kinda went on to being successful after 3 albums but they still put money in, put money in, put money in to keep.. Because they had faith. That’s not happening anymore and they wonder why the record industry has disappeared. Well it’s disappeared because you have invested in money and not in artists. If you think (about it) there’s no characters anymore in music, there’s no people – you can’t relate to anybody.

Glenn: Yeah, Malcolm Dome from Classic Rock Magazine said exactly that – where’s your big rock stars that you can relate to now?

Brian: Yeah – they are all just caricatures and Malcolm, I’ve known Malcolm a long time and he’s never lost fight of the fact that it’s about music. Malcolm’s cool – he does support the wrong football team (laughs), you know, but he but he can’t help that.

Glenn: I mean, where’s your new Angus Young?

Brian: There will be people, but these people are never given time to come through anymore.

Glenn: Guys that are reading the interview back home, what would you like to say to them?

Brian: Get off the internet, get out – it’s a nice day.

(We laugh)

Glenn: That’s a good ‘un. Cheers Brian.