Fri. Nov. 4

Ian Hunter wrote the verse a long time ago, 1973, when he was 34. It was in Mott the Hoople’s hit "All the Way From Memphis" and Hunter sang, ""Yeah, it's a mighty long way down rock 'n' roll/As your name gets hot, so your heart grows cold/And you gotta stay a young man/You can never be old."

And so, on the phone with him this week, I ask, as Hunter, now 72, continues his 16-date Northeast string of gigs, stopping at the Paradise Friday Nov. 4: Does he do the song in concert? How does it feel being, well, even older?

Hunter laughs. "It gets played," he says. "It’s a good song. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll song. It’s got a piano base, a couple of nice riffs running up and down. It’s fine. It’s still in the set. I really don’t think about the old stuff much. The set is usually a third recent, a third from before and a third why-the-hell-is-he-doing that? ‘Memphis’ is one of those old ones. I’m more concerned with making a new lyrics than thinking about lyrics from ‘All the Way From Memphis.’ I never wanted it out as a single in England. Dick Asher, who ran CBS in London at that time, waited until we toured here and the minute we were gone he put it out on his own and it was top ten so that just goes to show you how much I know. Dick only put it out cause his 14-year-old son liked it."

So, Hunter’s not about to reflect on the rock-aging question right now. I’d asked hm something similar in 1988 and then he mused, about age, "It's better. It's less body and more head. It's not at all what I thought it would be. I like it a lot better; I'm more balanced; I'm a lot more confident. There was a lot of desperation involved the first time around. I'm confident. I think I know I'm good after all these years. I never really thought I was up to much for years and years. But now, looking back, I did some good stuff and I'm still up. So I feel at peace with myself that way."

Hunter, who is playing with his band of several years, the Rant (with ex-Bongos guitarist James Mastro), feels physically and vocally fit. "I think you’ll have a bit of a shock when you see me," he says. "[My voice] is better than ever. I stopped smoking maybe two years ago, and I started singing twice as loud. The hernia’s over and done with and I’m fine again. My voice a little more soulful. It’s a very good voice. I’m really happy with it and I was never happy with my voice. I never liked it that much but it’s come around. I haven’t been out morning noon and night for last 50 years, so I’ve got a couple of notes with me. I’m not a particularly popular artist in the mainstream so I didn’t have to go out touring year round. So, my chops have not been overused.

"The way I sing, it’s not only the lyrical content but how it comes out of your mouth. After all, if you’re not a great singer you have to be a great percussion singer or conversationalist [singer]. Those singers interest me more than a [Paul] Rodgers. That’s what I prefer. Lyrically, you have to roll off the tongue and sound quite natural."

And now, onto the Q/A.

JSInk: Musically, where are you at now?

Hunter: The last ten years has kind of been singer-songwriter time. I’m trying to get a bit more legit, trying to get people to forget that I didn’t always wear silly clothes, dressing in high heels and all that. Of course, it’s a long process cause they’re used to that kind of thing. So, the last three albums have been trying to pull it away from it. This one I’m gonna do in January is more band-orientated, more like a group again, as opposed to a solo effort with a band. I’ve written most of it and it’s not like what I’ve been doing. I didn’t go out and get it, it just worked out that way. The Rant Band is extremely well-oiled now. They’re not playing for me anymore, they’re playing with me. The attitude they have is incredible.

I saw a piece about you where you were talking about rock ‘n’ roll having been splintered into all these sub-genres and you were always a rock ‘n’ roll guy.

I think it’s really stupid. That’s the way it went, people sort of fell for it, but rock ‘n’ roll’s rock ‘n’ roll. Prog came later because equipment improved. Metal that’s just a branch. It’s just rock ‘n’ roll for people who didn’t play that well initially. Glam rock, to call it that, is no different than calling the mods and rockers. There are phases people go through in England and the bands usually coincide within that time. We were perhaps more organic. We always used to include ballads which wasn’t the norm. A rock band was supposed to play rock all the way through and we didn’t really believe in that and I think that’s what gave the original band its longevity.

In the ‘80s when I saw you, you played "I Wish I Was Your Mother," a most beautiful ballad.

People still like that band [Mott] and that band can still tour and earn a lot of money. That was the only difference between us and other bands, we could do different lyrical things and slower songs and get away with it.

There was a Mott reunion in England two years ago. Any chance of that coming here?

No, no, I don’t think so. They know how to play.. It was better in England than it was originally. I was totally surprised by it and they were hilarious to be with, but unfortunately our points of view differ on various things and Mick [Ralphs] and I have one manager and they have another manager. So it seems like never the twain shall meet, but it was really good and a lot of fun.

Several times, I saw you play with Mick Ronson, who was your partner/right-hand-man for years. What are your best memories of him?

For a while he would do a song called "Sweet Dreamer," which was based on a Patsy Cline song. It was about eight and a half minutes and went through so many different modulations and I couldn’t even be bothered to learn it so I used to go backstage while he was doing it and listen to it – it would draw you in every night. I’d be having a drink, having a sandwich and all of a sudden I’m back side of the stage listening to it. It had a hypnotic sound. Then I started learning the song and I got up there and played it with him. It was just a thing we would do live. When we went out, he’d start the show with "FBI" the old Shadows song, and toward the end he would play this. He didn’t like singing. To give me a break and let people hear him properly. "Sweet Dreamer" was pretty mind blowing. He was very under-rated. His instinct was unerring, very clever. Mick would come off as a dumbass, but he was an extremely clever guy. It was just his way – simple, simple. He used to bend with his little finger and he’d go under the E string and under the B string to get to the G string to bend it. Most guitar players bend all three strings. I said why aren’t you bending all three strings? And he said, "Why would I do that?" It was kind of like reverse Spinal Tap. The other thing I remember he made the barbecues at my house for 20 years because him and his wife and our kids grew up together and all of a sudden nobody was making the barbecue. I didn’t know how to do it, Mick had always done it. He always marinated the night before and there he wasn’t. Very strange. 1993 it was.
 

What effect did Mick’s death have?

It shook me up. I started writing properly again after he died. We’d been jerking off during the ‘80s ‘cause he hated the ‘80s – the corporate thing took over the business. We absolutely hated it and it knocked it off our stride. We weren’t writing properly, I wasn’t writing properly. He went on keyboards, gave up on guitar. Then when he died I thought, this isn’t meaning anything, it’s rubbish. Slowly, but surely, I started writing decent stuff again, and by the time I got to 2001 I did "Rant," the best thing I’d done for a while. Makes you feel better, you know.

How do you keep going in today’s rock world?

I’ve got a decent following and I’ve run parallel with it They support me and look after me, we’re in the middle of 16 gigs on the east coast and it’s fine.

How did you approach the songwriting on the new record? Was it from the point of view of an older man looking at life?

Just what I’m interested in at the time. You obviously don’t do little boy-little girl anymore. That would be stupid. And I’m not a heavy metal guy, that’s not the kind of lyric I write. I read something and feel it a bit. The melodies more or less come to me, I don’t go out and get ‘em. If there’s any talent involved it’s messing with the words, the lyrics..

You can be very reflective in your lyrics.

I’m not different than anybody else. Married, divorced just before Mott, didn’t have any money, worked in a factory for a few years and that’s what I wrote about it. I didn’t get into it with Mott ‘til I was 29. I’d already had 40 odd jobs. That was then, and that was how the Mott lyrics came about. Had we come out of school and got lucky, we wouldn’t have had those lyrics, we would have just had boy-girl.

Looking back at David Bowie’s "All the Young Dudes," your breakthrough hit. Did it save the band? Was it that pivotal?

Yeah. I think David saved our arses at that point and before him [producer] Guy Stevens. We were selling out everywhere in England. Something had to happen. If we had been a smaller band, David wouldn’t have noticed. But he did notice and liked us. He’d recorded "All the Young Dudes" a couple of times and it wasn’t working out. He did it in C, we did it in D. He did alto parts and wasn’t coming off anywhere near … and he knew of it and he couldn’t think of it any other way and that’s when he gave it up. That’s one of those weird things where the song suited us more than the guy who wrote it. Very rare that that happens. He was great, man. He put every inch of himself into it, not only for the single but the album as well. He was a good A&R guy, Dave.

Tickets: $25. Starts at 9.

967 Commonwealth Ave., 617-562-8000 www.thedise.com