English Rockers Inglorious Pay Tribute to Musical Heroines
An unusual new covers album celebrates the music of women and helps support a women's charity.
Thank you for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. I appreciate your time.
In this issue, I’m pleased to bring you the story of a new album by the British band Inglorious. If you’re not familiar with Inglorious, it’s one of the bright, young hard rock bands out there today. The band’s fourth album, We Will Ride, came out earlier this year and will probably be on a lot of “best of” lists at the end of 2021.
The band has just released its second album of the calendar year and this one is special. Inglorious put out Heroine just days ago and I recently spoke to the band’s lead singer, Nathan James, about it.
Here’s the story…
Inglorious is a band that should be conquering the world, but the band’s fourth release, the excellent We Will Ride, was recorded and released during a global pandemic. It was supposed to be a showcase of the band’s current lineup, which is exceedingly talented.
Stylistically, Inglorious draws upon influences from the likes of Whitesnake and Deep Purple. Vocalist Nathan James, who has performed with Trans-Siberian Orchestra and with Uli Jon Roth, formed Inglorious in 2014. It went through a couple of lineup changes and the current one may be the best. In addition to James on lead vocals, Inglorious features Danny Dela Cruz and Dan Stevens on guitars, Vinnie Colla on bass, and Phil Beaver on drums. James and Beaver have been in the band together since 2014 while the other three joined in 2018.
After releasing We Will Ride in early 2021, the band found itself without a way to hit the road with a lot of venues still closed or severely limited due to the pandemic. But one thing the band could still do was record. So, James decided to put together a covers album that Inglorious was contracted to record anyway.
“I thought, why not do it in lockdown when that’s pretty much the only thing we were allowed to do, was record,” James said. “So it made perfect sense to do it now. We won’t get this time ever again, probably, to do it.”
But rather than going the obvious route of putting together a list of classic hard rock staples, the band went another way. Inglorious pulled together 11 songs that were all recorded by women who had influenced James either musically or vocally. The resulting album was Heroine, which came out Sept. 10 on Frontiers Music.
“I wanted to do something a bit different,” James said of his choice of covers. “Everyone assumes that I love only those classic rock voices — Paul Rodgers, (David) Coverdale, (Glenn) Hughes, (Robert) Plant, and it’s more than that. I’m in my early thirties, so I kind of grew up in the early 2000s. So, my music taste is different to someone who’s in their fifties, although I love that music and if you saw my Spotify playlist, you’d probably think I was in my fifties. All of my 70s and 80s references come from my dad’s collection of music and come from me investigating that myself when I learned about it.”
Heroine gathers a few of the kinds of songs you might expect a band like Inglorious to cover. There’s a galloping version of Heart’s “Barracuda” and a percussive cover of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” for example, as well as the hard rocking “I Am the Fire” by Halestorm for something a little more contemporary.
One of the covers is Inglorious concert staple “Uninvited,” which is a searing and soaring rendition of the Alanis Morissette original.
Many of the rest are far less obvious choices for a hard rock band. There are tributes here to Whitney Houston, Miley Cyrus, Tina Turner, Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne, and Cyndi Lauper. But Inglorious reimagines them in a way that works.
“I’m influenced by all these people and Avril Lavigne and stuff were a huge part of my growing up,” James said. “It's showing people just the versatility of this lineup (of Inglorious). The musicianship is quite astounding.”
James isn’t wrong. From the intricate guitar solo by Dela Cruz in the cover of Lauper’s “Time After Time,” to the huge drum sound of Beaver in “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” the band shows off its chops throughout. Beaver and Colla provide a rock solid foundation for the songs while “the Dans” color in the sound with their guitars.
Perhaps no one shows more versatility than James, who has to sing parts originally conceived by the likes of Houston, Aguilera, and Morissette; produce the power of Ann Wilson; mimic the soulful swagger of Turner, and hit some seriously high notes written for Amy Lee of Evanescence and Lizzy Hale of Halestorm.
“Bring Me to Life,” the Evanescence song Inglorious recorded on the album, is the highlight to James — in part because of a special guest.
“My favorite is ‘Bring me to Life,’ because I get to sing with Jeff Scott Soto, who is just one of my best friends and one of the best voices in rock,” he said. “So, to be on a song with him, finally, is is pretty cool. Yeah, I just love that song. That song is our childhood. That's my teen years in school. So, it's very nostalgic when I hear that song. It means a lot to me. It takes me back to being 15 and not fitting in at school and being maybe a bit of a pain in the ass.”
The songs all rock with the exception of Lauper’s “Time After Time,” which is treated more delicately. The guitar work shines on this track, to which James didn’t want to give the full Inglorious treatment.
“If you listen to the lyrics that she's written, they're so emotive. They're beautiful words,” James said. “And I felt like it made more sense for us to do it that way than to try and just make it uncomfortable. It needs to be pure and I really wanted to show off Danny (Dela Cruz), my guitarist. He plays the most beautiful solo in that song.”
Ironically, the songs that old-time rockers (like me) might be quick to dismiss — “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus or “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera — are among the highlights on Heroine. The band treats them with great respect but illustrates perfectly that a well-written song can translate easily to a new genre and find a whole new audience.
“That's really a song that shouldn't really work,” James said. “A Miley Cyrus song shouldn't work with five dudes playing it, but it definitely works. We performed at a biker festival the other day here in the UK and 4,000 bikers were singing along, so it definitely works.”
Another album highlight is the closing track, “Uninvited.” The Morissette song, originally released on the City of Angels soundtrack, builds slowly and relentlessly into a maelstrom of intensity and James hits impossible notes. He also nails Morissette’s off-kilter manner of separating the syllables of words in the lyrics at unexpected places.
“The reason this album came about was because we were doing this cover on tour, and I remember thinking, ‘God, people really react well to that. Maybe we should record it,’” James said. “And everyone kept saying, ‘Put it on your next album, put it on your next album,’ and we weren't going to put it on an original album. It feels like Zeppelin. I mean, it's got that big, over-the-top, just relentless kind of riff.”
Heroine is full of surprises, like the horns that show up in the cover of Turner’s “Nutbush City Limits,” a 1973 song about her hometown, and the piano — played by album producer Josiah J — on “Bring Me to Life” and “Uninvited.”
It’s an album that should appeal to any fan of the hard rock genre but pop fans may find plenty to like as well, as long as they also like crunchy guitar riffs, mind-blowing solos, and rhythm sections that are part metronome and part freight train.
But Inglorious doesn’t just talk a good game when it comes to paying tribute to women with the release of Heroine. One pound (about $1.38 in U.S. currency) of every copy of the album sold will go to Women’s Aid, the national charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children.
Heroine is available now from all major retailers and streaming sites. Signed copies of the CD and different colored vinyl versions are available on the Inglorious website.
Tracklist:
1. Queen Of The Night (Whitney Houston cover)
2. Barracuda (Heart cover)
3. Midnight Sky (Miley Cyrus cover)
4. Nutbush City Limits (Tina Turner cover)
5. Bring Me To Life (Evanescence cover)
6. Fighter (Christina Aguilera cover)
7. I'm With You (Avril Lavigne cover)
8. I Hate Myself For Loving You (Joan Jett cover)
9. I Am The Fire (Halestorm cover)
10. Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper cover)
11. Uninvited (Alanis Morissette cover)
For my full conversation with Nathan James, check out the video below: