"They recorded the first night at the Hammersmith, which was a bit stupid. They should've recorded the third night, which was pretty good. In league with everything else that happened in that band, that was typical."

"Somehow we trip along outside the business, get to play for a lot of people and don't have to deal with the assholes. You're not a monstrous band but it's just as much fun. I wish it could've been like this all the way through. Mick Ronson and myself, we could see corporatization creeping in ... you couldn't say anything because the argument would be 'you're not selling as much as you used to.'"

Almost addressing the whole Occupy Wall Street, top-1-percent rant indirectly, Hunter reckons, "It's so corrupt they don't realize they'll corrupt themselves out of money — money will be worthless. I've seen some of these guys, they live to show off the place they live in but there's no deep-seated satisfaction in making money off money. They just show off what they got because that's all they can do. It's a very dry business, whether it's accounting or lawyers, anything to do with money making money. And I'm bitching about being ripped off. Who hasn't been ripped off? My point being whoever ripped me off, they've reconciled it to themselves but they didn't earn it. I know who did what. Simple as that.

"But apart from that being miserable for a decade, you wake up one day and realize you're living and you're back in business again."

Ian Hunter & the Rant Band perform Saturday, Oct. 29, at the Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; 248-544-3030. 

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