After a seven-year gap between albums Mott the Hoople's Ian Hunter is releasing two just a year apart. "Defiance Part 2: Fiction," which comes out April 19th, follows last year's "Defiance Part 1" and, like its predecessor, features an all-star cast that includes the late Jeff Beck, Queen's Brian May, Johnny Deep, members of Cheap Trick, Pearl Jam, the Black Crowes, Def Leppard and Stone Temple Pilots, Lucinda Williams and onetime Mott keyboardist Morgan Fisher. In announcing the album Hunter released its first single, "Precious," which features May, Def Leppard's Joe Elliott and the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Johnny Depp drew the cover art. The CD and digital formats will feature 10 tracks while the Record Store Day double vinyl set will include three bonus tracks.
Hunter — who co-produced the album with his Rant Band guitarist Andy York — tells us that "Defiance Part 2: Fiction" is more topical than "Part 1:"
"I think 'Part 2' is more kind of like…I did 'Part 1' and I tried to keep it up 'cause Covid was going on and the whole Ukrainian thing had started and I thought people were depressed, so I didn't really want to write one of those kind of records where you say what's going on because everybody, y'know, and it's miserable. So I tried to keep this album ('Part 1') pretty up. The second one's a little more political, I suppose." SOUNDCUE :28
The British-born Hunter currently lives in upstate New York. He left Mott the Hoople in 1974 to launch a solo career but fronted the band for reunion shows during 2009, 2013 and 2018.
Hunter had to cancel his last planned tour back in 2019 due to severe tinnitus and did not perform any shows to support "Defiance Part 1."