In an interview, by Andrew Darlington

Eight Miles Higher: Interview: ‘Ian Hunter: Ballads Of Mott The Hoople… & Beyond!’

Hunter is asked whether he looks back on the Mott the Hoople albums with pleasure:

"No. I mean, that guy did that. And now I’ve got to beat him. It’s as simple as that. I look back on them with absolutely nothing. I don’t feel a thing. I never look back. I can’t look back. I can only look forward. I still feel I’m a viable proposition and I’m still happening. But whether I am or whether I’m not, why should I want to look at that ****? I don’t think I even have any of those albums. What interests me now is what I’m writing now. I mean, to look back and do all that ******** is alright when you’re seventy-five or something, then you can go ‘ah, we weren’t too bad after all’ (in frail quavering voice). But right now I’m not the slightest bit interested. No – neither was Mick (Ronson). We never sat around listening to old records and all that like people seem to think we do. Never."​

Is it easier working solo?

"I’m not a solo artist. I really am not. I never have been. It just seems to be that way. I’m always part of a band. I’m playing tonight as part of a band. I just never seem to get into a regular band situation, because – I don’t know, perhaps nobody asks me or something? But I much prefer a band. I do write solo. I’ve never been able to sit down with another person to write. To me it’s a very personal thing. We’d never write together with Mott, what we used to do was write separately. Mick (Ralphs) would write solo, I’d write solo and we’d just bung ‘em in and if there were pieces missing we’d help each other out. You can come in with a riff and go ‘I’ll give you this, put that there’. You can do it that way. That is how we did it. But I can’t even bear to have somebody around while I’m actually writing. I don’t mind later if it gets chopped around, but not at the time. I’m so fixed on what it should be that it just pisses everybody off anyway."​