Never give up.
That’s not a lyric quote, but rather a three-word summary of this, Ian Hunter’s 16th studio album as a solo artist. When tinnitus struck in 2019, the former Mott The Hoople frontman battled through it, remaining philosophical. When the pandemic hit, making impossible even the limited touring he’s done since reaching his mid-70s a decade ago, he buckled down and wrote. And when the pandemic persisted, Hunter and his co-producer/guitarist Andy York started calling up friends and putting the new songs together part by part over the internet.
There was only one problem. Hunter wrote so many songs, and so many of his friends jumped at the chance to be a part of the project, that he and York ended up with 20 completed tracks—two full albums’ worth.
Defiance Part 1 came out last spring and it’s a corker, lit up by Hunter’s characteristically fiery and clever songwriting, with the unique addition of a rotating all-star cast of performers backing him on song after song. Part 2 pulls off the same trick in the sense that Hunter and York succeed in splicing together remotely-recorded performances by an abundance of notable guests without ever losing the thread of the album. All of these tunes clearly inhabit the same sonic universe—that same boffo-bar-band universe that Hunter first championed with Mott—but it also feels like the glue holding these albums together is Hunter’s distinctive presence. These are Ian Hunter songs because he wrote them, sang them and lived them, and every player on the album pays due respect, playing to the song and the singer, rather than indulging in any sort of “Hey-look-at-me” shenanigans.
Opener “People” kicks things off in stirring fashion with a wordless “Nah-nah-nah” chant cueing up a big, loose sing-along of an anthem. Of course, because it’s Hunter, it’s an anthem that’s actually about something: the bane of every thinking artist’s existence, marketing. “We know what people want” goes a repeated chant, answered back with “No, you don’t / No, you don’t / No, you don’t / You’re just giving us the finger.” Hunter is backed on this track by three-quarters of Cheap Trick, with old pal Joe Elliott of Def Leppard on background vocals.
Both of the first two songs are about the illusions that surround us, that we live inside of and need to throw off. Title track “Fiction” opens with Hunter singing “I am your fiction man / I manufactured me” over pulsing piano, with bass and drums providing a steady push. It’s a classic Hunter rant, sung from the perspective of an unnamed figure who has invented their own legend and props it up with a constant stream of lies. “You are my congregation… Any reason to believe is all you need / So you believe in fiction” he sings, and while there’s an abundance of charlatans loose in America on any given day, his main target feels as obvious as a bright red baseball cap. 
Batting third, “The 3rd Rail” offers a gently rolling ballad with typically incisive lyrics about an infamous subway-station incident and subtle, expressive guitar work by the late Jeff Beck. In spite of the darkness of the lyric, there’s a warmth to the song that feels unmistakably Ian Hunter.
“This Ain’t Rock and Roll” is a song Hunter has written a dozen times already and seems to do it better every time. “They don’t make them like that anymore / This ain’t rock’n’roll,” the eighty-something road warrior rants over York’s loping guitar, leading into this Hunter classic couplet: “Some flew out of the cuckoo's nest / And some flew out of the Fillmore West.”
The sequencing is, as usual, spot-on, with the pleasantly sassy “Precious” delivering pure fun with an assist from the great Brian May, Hunter’s mate from the very beginning, when Queen used to open for Mott The Hoople. “Weed” finds the master of derision unimpressed with over-indulging potheads, delivering a screed backed by three-fifths of Stone Temple Pilots. “Kettle Of Fish” shakes us awake again with a booming snare and bassline under jabbing guitars, an atmospheric rant again featuring three-quarters of Cheap Trick, this time with the late Taylor Hawkins on drums.
Track eight must mean it’s time for another lyrical, bluesy ballad, and Hunter delivers once again. “What Would I Do Without You?” rides Hunter’s own rolling piano on a song of devotion that seems clearly directed to his wife Trudi. The irascible rabble rouser can also be a sentimental softie, and Hunter’s lyrics on this duet with Lucinda Williams are sweet and endearing right up until the point where he finally winks at the camera with: “I’m gonna stop now ’cause I’m making you cringe.”
Hunter’s real secret—besides great songwriting and good friends—is that regardless of whether it’s a kickoff anthem or a down-list goof, he sings every line like he means it. “Everybody’s Crazy But Me” is both a growly boogie rocker and an epic octegenarian rant, graced by a lyrical Waddy Wachtel guitar solo. Finally, closer “Hope” is a typically philosophical Hunter ballad:
I'm well aware that life ain't fair
You see it all the time
I've seen smiles in poverty
And tears in the finest wines
The song appears to have grown out of the lockdown experience (“When every day's an identical day / And every night goes slow”), and shifts at every chorus as Hunter intones: “You gotta have hope / You gotta have hope / Hope is all you need to get you through.” There’s a nice swell as it builds and finishes in a tight 3:39.
Other performers on these star-studded tracks include: Dane Clark (John Mellancamp, John Prine), Morgan Fisher (Mott The Hoople), Phil Collen (Def Leppard), Benmont Tench (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers), Tommy Mandel (Byan Adams, Dire Straits), Johnny Depp, Billy Bob Thornton, and Hunter’s own Rant Band (Steve Holley, Paul Page, Dennis Dibrizzi and James Mastro).
The thing about Ian Hunter—one of them anyway—is that he is piercingly self-aware. He knows he’s a songwriter and performer and always will be, and he recognizes that he’s fighting the clock, making albums in his 80s, in the middle of a pandemic, while battling tinnitus. It doesn’t feel the least coincidental that the final track on this album is titled “Hope,” because that single word encapsulates everything that went into making these two albums. You hope you’ll get to finish them, and hope there may be more beyond, while understanding that tomorrow is never guaranteed.
It’s also clear Ian Hunter has this whole aging-rock-and-roller gig nailed. Retirement is out of the question; songwriting and singing is who he is and what he does. Rock and roll is about rebellion, and who’s more rebellious than a cranky old man with a microphone in his hand? But Ian Hunter isn’t telling you to get off his lawn—he’s telling us all to get off our asses and shake ’em while we’ve got ’em.