“Bowie drove me down to the audition to meet Tommy… I saw this guy with green and purple hair”: Glenn Hughes recalls meeting Tommy Bolin at his tense Deep Purple audition

Glenn Hughes may have ongoing disputes with the current members of Deep Purple. However, he recently gave more insight into his special friendship with the late Tommy Bolin, who was Deep Purple's guitarist between 1975 and 1976.

“Well, when I joined Purple, I was left with, you know, in a band that weren't really a family band,” admits Hughes in an interview with Guitar Interactive Magazine.

“As you know, it really wasn't a fun place to be. On his [Tommy’s] audition, [David] Bowie drove me down to the audition to meet Tommy, and I walked up to Tommy, I saw this guy with green and purple hair. I whispered in his ear, ‘If you don't get the gig, you're coming back to my house tonight.’

"And he got the gig and he stayed at my house for three months. He moved in with me, and we became best friends. We wrote Gettin’ Tighter the first week together at my studio and look, I can talk about guitar-playing friends all day, but Tommy's in my top three friends and guitar players."

In the same interview, Hughes reveals where he currently stands with Deep Purple's three longest-serving members, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, and Ian Gillan, after a tense exchange at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony back in 2016.

“I will never speak to any of them again,” he asserts. “Simply because they were rude. Both Roger, Ian, and Gillan were rude to David [Coverdale]. Very, very hurtful. I didn't give a fuck actually, because I knew they were rude to begin with.

“I was the only sober man there. I don't care about those guys. Gillan was rude to me on stage, accepting the award. He looked at me in the eyes, like I didn't exist." 

In April, Deep Purple ushered in a new era with Portable Door – the lead single from the upcoming album =1 and the first release to feature new guitarist Simon McBride.