Inglorious are back, briefly, unexpectedly and with the original lineup intact. Nathan James talks nostalgia, shared history and the one-night-only reunion set to take fans back to where it all began.
Cast your mind back a decade to the heady days of 2016. You might remember Pokémon GO taking over the world, Leicester City winning the Premier League, or the immortal line, “What a sad little life, Jane.”
Forget all that, 2016 was the year that a young British hard rock band released a stunning self-titled debut album, rose rapidly to prominence and opened the floodgates for a new wave of homegrown acts.
Inglorious, led by Nathan James after his reality TV breakthrough and stints with Uli Jon Roth and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, captured hearts with top-quality hard rock, tracked fully live, with a vocal performance to match the greats.
Momentum had already been building the previous year, through YouTube videos and early singles being A-listed by Planet Rock. Their success proved this was exactly what audiences wanted and opened the floodgates to a raft of British acts who were formed, or found their breakthroughs, in Inglorious’s wake.
Five albums and a decade later, a lot has happened, globally and within the Inglorious camp. There have been lineup changes, twists, turns and plenty of gossip column fodder, but Nathan and the band have answered critics every time by walking the walk and delivering consistently solid gold performances.
They have never lost the capacity to surprise either, so when the news broke at the beginning of the year that the lineup from that first album would be reunited for one special show at KK’s Steel Mill on 17 October to celebrate that debut, double-takes and rapid blinking reverberated around the rock world.
We were not the only ones to be surprised either.
“I did not see it coming,” Nathan James says, still sounding faintly amused by the whole thing. “It was me having a little drink and one of the fans tagging me on Facebook saying, ‘It’s been 10 years since the first Inglorious album came out.’
“I was feeling quite nostalgic, and I messaged Colin [Parkinson] saying we should really do something to honour this moment. Shall we do a gig? Should we do a one-off gig with the current lineup [Nathan, Colin, Richard Shaw and Henry Rogers] playing the album?
“Then I had a little bit more to drink, and I went, ‘Why don’t we ask the original guys?'”
Colin messaged Phil Beaver and Andreas Eriksson. Nathan messaged Billy Taylor. The answer, remarkably, was immediate.
“Everyone said yes, pretty much straight away. We all had individual conversations, which were really nice, really exciting, and then we started a WhatsApp group, and then here we are.”
It is pretty much a miracle that diaries could be synchronised, especially as the pace does not let up for Nathan, in a year that he describes as “insane.” He sings all over the world.
Zoom was not around in 2016, but I am very grateful it is established now. Today he is somewhere in the vicinity of Dubrovnik though on any given day he could pop up anywhere in Europe or the States on a given day.
It is good to take this time to recognise what has been achieved over the last decade, both as celebration and recognition of the legacy. We talk about the buzz that built around Inglorious and the genuine excitement that seemed to grow with every show.
“What we achieved back then was kind of mad, really,” he remembers. “We were touring so much. We managed to open for Steel Panther and do all those festivals, Hellfest, Copenhell, Download. We are getting nostalgic about playing these songs for sure. But it doesn’t feel so much about us. It’s more that there is going to be about 1,000 people in that room who also have their memories of this album.
“Whether they first heard us on Planet Rock or they saw us opening for the Winery Dogs before we had an album out, everyone’s gonna be taken back to that time when they first heard us, and that’s exciting. Sharing that moment with people who love this album as much as we do is really cool.”
The danger with any reunion, of course, is that the mythology could collapse the second the amps are switched on. Does the chemistry still exist? Does the banter still land? Can five people with separate lives, kids, careers, countries and commitments still speak the same language?
According to Nathan James, yes. Instantly.
“It’s the exact same,” he says. “The banter is the same. None of us are the same people. Three of the dudes in the band are fathers now. A lot of growing up has happened. We’ve all been in other projects. We’ve all seen how things work. We’re adults in a musical sense and a personal sense.
“What’s been cool is the WhatsApp group chat has been so reminiscent of exactly how it was ten years ago. It’s the same banter. We’re making the same jokes. We talk our own language as a band.
“You remember that at one point in time, we all did love each other, and we’ve all been through the same experience. We are five people who have an experience that no one else has had.
“We all were there for those crappy load-ins, the really early club tours, the ten-minute soundchecks on arena gigs and all that crazy stuff we can’t quite believe now that we managed to pull off. But we did.”
For fans who have lived with the record for a decade, the prospect of hearing the deep cuts again is a major part of the draw. As the catalogue grew, some early favourites inevitably slipped from the set. So hearing them once more is a mouth-watering prospect.
“We’re keeping it exactly as was,” Nathan James says of the approach to the debut material. “Our original thing when we first came out as a band was that we wanted to sound the same live as we did on the CD.
“At the time, everyone was using backing tracks, everyone was overproducing everything, and we were like a giant middle finger to all of that. That’s why we recorded the album live.
“That whole first album, from a musical point of view, is all one take, which was the cool thing about that record. It might not be perfect, but we’ll have the same energy. It’s the same dudes.”
There will also be “a few surprises in the setlist”, including material from the second album and some of the covers that helped spread the word in the early days.
Everyone is going to have their favourites, but for Nathan there is one song that will carry a special charge. “The one that’s gonna get me, I think, emotional in the moment will be Holy Water. Standing in the crowd, getting all those people to sing that with us is gonna be just brilliant. I can’t wait for that moment.”
There are going to be more emotional moments too as the significance of these songs hits home on the night.
“Remember that Unaware is the first song I ever put lyrics to in my life,” Nathan says. “It was on Planet Rock’s A-list, and I’m now gonna stand on stage with Colin, who I wrote it with, and perform that to 1,000 people who are gonna be having the time of their life at this gig. Watching a gig that they never thought would happen.”
The surprises for October keep coming. The weekend after the Inglorious reunion, there is another monster date in the diary: Wembley Arena with The Rock Orchestra.
The ensemble achieved a number one album this year with its debut Classics Volume One, which featured Nathan’s vocals on Enter Sandman, and he has been touring with them in the US. You can read an interview with Rock Orchestra creative director and producer Nathan Reed here.
“I’ve just found out this week that I’m actually going to be playing Wembley Arena with them next month,” he confirms. “I’m not doing the whole tour, I’m just doing that one show on the 25 October, the weekend after the Inglorious gig.”
The symphonic world suits him. If Inglorious is the sweat-and-spark end of his identity, the symphonic side taps another current entirely. “I’m getting a bit of a name for myself as the kind of orchestral rock dude, which I love,” he says. “Singing with an orchestra is my favourite thing.”
This summer alone has taken in the BBC Concert Orchestra in Malta and the Czech Philharmonic Rock the Opera at Vienna Opera House, with more to come.
“Because of my Trans-Siberian Orchestra roots, that’s the path I’ve taken. That symphonic, classic rock thing is definitely my bag. I feel so comfortable doing it now. It combines my two loves, theatre and rock.”
Nathan James is busier than ever, with a thriving career and livelihood as a singer, and there are moments when he surprises himself, looking back, but the band that he formed over a decade ago remains his anchor.
“I had to write a biography for The Rock Orchestra program, and there are things I’d forgotten I’d done”, Nathan says. “I’ve sung with Steve Vai at Lake Geneva. I’ve sung with nine Whitesnake guitar players. It’s so insane.
“Singing with Glenn Hughes, travelling the world with TSO, all these amazing people that I’ve worked with, like Al Pitrelli from Megadeth. It’s nice to be reminded of it. There is so much that I am proud of, and the thing that I’ve done the most writing for was Inglorious.
“Out of all the projects that I’ve been involved in, Inglorious was my baby. It’s my thing. It did us so well. We had such an amazing time. We’re all able to look back and go, wow, look at what we achieved back then.”
Inevitably, there will be calls for a recording, and a request for more shows, but this is a one-off, with no livestream, no safety net and no second chance.
“There’s no recording. There’s no full video. There’s none of that. It is one night only,” he confirms, before conceding that the door may not be slamming shut on the future.
There is a caveat, though. “I’m never gonna say never,” he says. “If we all come off stage and go, gosh, that was the best time of our lives, why don’t we do something next year? I am sure there will be talk about it potentially.
“However, we’re also busy. As I said, three people are dads, and many of us are still working musicians. Billy is a fireman, and Andreas lives in Budapest now. I am between Florida and the UK. So it’s logistically very difficult, and I’m now booked out until January 2028.
“In order for us all to get together, logistics is the nightmare, which is why this has taken so much planning.”
For now, though, the message is simple. Be there on 17 October.
October
