Bonamassa angered by Hughes ‘bullying’
Blame game: Sherinian, Bonamassa, Hughes and Bonham
Black Country Communion guitarist Joe Bonamassa has revealed his anger at bandmate Glenn Hughes’ attempt to “bully” him into doing things he’d already said he couldn’t do.
And he refused to appear at their one-off concert in Wolverhampton because he was worried Hughes would “make some stupid fucking announcement on stage” related to whether the band had a future.
Disagreement between the pair went public after Hughes said he thought upcoming album Afterglow might be their last because he needed to be in a band that toured, and Bonamassa’s busy solo career made that impossible.
After a brief angry Twitter exchange the frontman tried to calm the situation by stepping back from his statements – but the guitarist says the damage had already been done.
Bonamassa tells Music Radar: “Going into making the record I had a lot on the table. Everybody knew that was the deal for me. There were all facts on the table. And we had a great time making the record.
“I heard about this nonsense second-hand. I’d read a blog, or I’d read this or I’d read that. I was going, ‘Why all of a sudden is it my fault? I’m doing what I said I was going to do for the last three years – and now, because somebody changes his mind, that’s now my fault?’
“The thing that became more than slightly annoying to me was getting email from kids in Brazil going, ‘My lifelong dream is to see Black Country Communion, and because Glenn Hughes says you don’t want to do it, now you’re the fucking blues antichrist.’
“I wouldn’t have done that to anybody. No matter what the situation is internally, you never air that dirty laundry and those grievances in public. You call me on the phone, you know? And he never did.”
BCC fans were surprised when they cancelled the Wolverhampton concert, scheduled for January, just days after tickets had gone on sale.
Bonamassa explains: “I’ll never go a gig out of obligation to fleece the fans and have this 800-pound gorilla in the room, with everybody going, ‘Well, this could be the last’ and waiting for Glenn to make some stupid fucking announcement on stage. We’ll all have egg on our faces.
“When it came down to it I said, ‘It’s probably best for me to step away from the situation and chill out. Not break up the band, not say it’s over and not say anything other than ‘I choose not to participate in that event at this particular time.’”
Tags: ‘bullying’, angered, Bonamassa, Hughes
