Hoople Dreams

Spencer Patterson

Friday, March 4, 2005 | 5:28 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 5 - 6, 2005

Who: Ian Hunter.

When: 6 p.m. Saturday (doors open).

Where: Live, 5150 W. Spring Mountain Road.

Tickets: $39.50 in advance, $43.50 on Saturday.

Information: 898-1547.

Ian Hunter celebrates his 60th birthday next year, but the British rocker is still a young dude in the eyes of his loyal fans.

Thirty-three years after Hunter's former band, Mott the Hoople, sent hit single "All the Young Dudes" up the pop charts, the vocalist/guitarist maintains a dedicated support base as a solo artist.

Hunter makes a rare Las Vegas stopover Saturday night, when he will headline the grand reopening of club Live at 5150 W. Spring Mountain Road.

Doors open at 6 p.m., with a pair of support acts -- Brent Bowers and Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 -- also on the bill.

Local Hunter fans have an unlikely benefactor to thank for this weekend's performance. Las Vegan Dave Donner, owner of Donner Drilling & Blasting, booked the engagement after bringing Hunter to town last April for a private gig at Donner's home.

Hunter, who went solo in 1974 after five years in Mott the Hoople, has released more than a dozen albums under his own name. His latest, "Strings Attached," a live CD/DVD set recorded with a string orchestra in 2002, will be released Tuesday.

Last week Hunter took time for a phone interview with the Las Vegas Sun from his home in Connecticut.

Las Vegas Sun: So how did you wind up playing at Dave Donner's house here last year?

Ian Hunter: It sometimes happens that guys want you to go to their houses and play and they'll pay you properly to do it. So we went to Dave's house. They'd set up a PA across his swimming pool and we just sat there and played.

The guy's a fan and he's done extremely well in his business, and he just wanted to do that.

Sun: And now he's helped bring you back for a public show.

IH: He's making me come back (laughs). We were going to L.A. for a couple of gigs around the area, so it just seemed that we could do it.

Sun: Your new album has been out overseas since last year, and finally hits the U.S. this week. Tell me about it.

IH: It covers most of my career, plus a couple of new things and covers. It's done with an orchestra and we've arranged the songs quite differently. It's extremely well done. The DVD looks beautiful. They really did a number on it.

Sun: How many dates do you do per year these days?

IH: I don't know, but it's a damn sight more than I used to. I've been getting around. I like these records. I like going out.

But I was off the road for 10 years.

Sun: What did you do during that period?

IH: I can't remember (laughs). Well, I was still making records.

I guess just fighting my way back. When you can get off and have a few bones to spend ... we thought, "Why don't we just relax and enjoy it, then we'll come back." But it don't work like that. Rap started happening, and then hip-hop and then we got old. We never thought of that.

Sun: Do you keep up with David Bowie? (Bowie wrote and donated "All the Young Dudes" to Mott the Hoople in 1972 to keep the band afloat.)

IH: No, not really. We're always in different necks of the woods.

But he definitely saved Mott's ass, at a pivotal point, so I have a lot to be grateful to David about.

Sun: Is it true he initially offered you "Suffragette City" and you guys held out for "All the Young Dudes"?

IH: Yeah, we'd had a couple of stiffs, so radio was closed to us. They weren't gonna give us any more chances unless it was something really special.

We passed on "Suffragette" because it wasn't A-list. It was a good song, but it wasn't A-list. And then he offered us "Dudes." Quite an amazing song to offer someone else.

He never seemed that happy with his version of it. He'd done it a key lower. We do it in D; he'd done it in C.

People give us full responsibility for "All the Young Dudes," but really he was right there with us all the way through it, doing the harmonies, getting it right. Our version turned out to be the better of the two, but he was right in the middle of it.

Sun: You've been covered more than 50 times (famous remakes of Hunter tunes include Great White's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" and the Presidents of the United States of America's "Cleveland Rocks," the theme song for "The Drew Carey Show.") Do you have any favorites?

IH: Remember the girl from Lone Star (Maria McKee, whose band was actually called Lone Justice)? She did a really good version of "I Wish I Was Your Mother."

Sun: Any that made you groan?

IH: Oh, yeah (laughs). But I'm not gonna say which.

Sun: Legend has it Mott the Hoople was banned from London's Royal Albert Hall for a time. What was that about?

IH: We played the Albert Hall and they said that all these boxes (of seats) had been destroyed -- 32 boxes -- and a lot of the seating on the ground floor had been destroyed.

We didn't get paid that night and we got banned from every other serious venue in the country, so it was a nightmare at the time. I heard later that their boxes weren't that strong anyway. Maybe they were looking for somebody to blame in order to get 'em fixed for free.

We were that kind of a band. People were kind of excitable, but in a positive way. They weren't vicious. Some people would get scared by looking at it, but it wasn't like that. It was fine. It was controllable. I used to control it. But it did look scary.

Sun: What's the fan base like now?

IH: It's always extremely loyal. It always was. And we never quite knew why. But Mott encouraged a great deal of loyalty. And still to this day to a lesser extent, I get the same thing and I'm extremely grateful for it.

It's not like it's vast. But it's dedicated.

Sun: I see they're still clamoring online for a Mott reunion. Any chance it could actually happen?

IH: We were close once, in 1990. We all actually got in the same room and discussed it. But I don't know. The older we get the more silly it becomes, because that band was based on pure energy, overdrive, I don't know if we could do that now. We're all a little longer in the tooth.

(Guitarist) Mick Ralphs comes out with me now and again when I'm in England, so I'll say to him now and again, "What do you think?" And he'll say, "Aw, (expletive) it." Or maybe we want to do it but (bassist) Pete (Watts) don't want to do it. It's just never coincided.

It also locks you back into those songs again. I don't mind doing a couple now and again, but I don't like being locked into that completely, you know?

And some of (the band members) ain't played in a while. So I really wouldn't think it would be in the cards. But you can never say never. If somebody walked in with stupid money, you're gonna have to have a look at it. But they haven't recently, so we don't even think about it.