Ten years ago, Inglorious burst on the scene as a breath of fresh air, leading the charge of young British hard rock groups with quality songs, excellent musicianship and loads of charisma, headed by the magnificent vocals of Nathan James. After four studio, one live, and one cover album, the band announced an indefinite hiatus at the end of 2022. Many predicted their permanent demise, but the release of V in June on Frontiers Records Srl has shown they are not only back but stronger than ever.
Nathan James is relaxed, happy and confident following on from a highly successful four-date Inglorious tour and forty-eight hours after an appearance with spectacular shredder Sophie Lloyd at Download. He looks fantastic, his dedication to a fitness regime showing remarkable results.
A lot has happened in three years, so we tuck ourselves away in a peaceful corner of Shepherd’s Bush on a beautiful summer’s day for a proper catch-up on all things Inglorious and beyond.
Hiatus was inevitable in hindsight. The conditions post-pandemic are as challenging for bands as anyone can remember, and it is no surprise how many acts called it a day or underwent radical changes to their lineup and operations.
Nathan explains that despite receiving rave reviews and positive audience reactions on the tour in 2022 it was a very different story behind the scenes.
The issue did not lie with band relationships – and Nathan is extremely complimentary and appreciative of his bandmates – but with just how difficult things were with travel and venue issues and post-pandemic restrictions still in place, adding to the already stressful environment.
“I’m not surprised people wanted to leave,” he says. “I don’t blame them at all.” 
It was always going to be a break and not a permanent split, although the breaking news at the start of 2025 that Inglorious were coming off their hiatus was a genuine surprise. Nathan had been busy with other jobs. The band may have paused, but plentiful work was found, including an acclaimed run as The Voice Of Humanity on the War Of The Worlds tour and staging an ’80s legends show on cruise ships.
So it was a fair assumption to think that we would not be seeing much additional work imminently.
Adding to the surprise, Colin Parkinson, original bass player for the first two albums, was back on board, also providing co-writing and production duties.
“Frontiers made it very clear when we went on the hiatus that they wanted another album,” Nathan explains, “and it took me some time to get into a place where I wanted to create again.
“The secrecy of it was the hardest thing because it’s been two years since me and Colin first worked on it. We had our first meeting two years ago in a pub, then two writing sessions at his where we basically created all the songs and picked the demos from his stuff.
“I wrote some lyrics, and then we were demoing it in the studio. All of that had to be done in complete secrecy because I didn’t want to ruin it. I wanted it to be fun, and I wanted people to go, ‘fucking hell, I thought they were done!’ And that was kind of fun actually, sneaking around, not telling anyone what we were doing.”
Tour dates were announced at the beginning of 2025, swiftly followed by the single Testify and news of a new album V – pronounced ‘five’, cos, you know, fifth album and all that.
However, Nathan did keep calling it ‘Vee’ at the London gig. “It’s five. I keep calling it V because everyone kept calling it that. I don’t mind. The main thing is that people listen to it.”
The four UK dates were all brilliantly received, the new songs going down a storm, and there was a genuine feeling of happiness to see Inglorious back on stage, with the band and audience all obviously having a great time. The break was clearly both necessary and beneficial.
“Going away and doing other things makes you miss it,” Nathan says. “So for the last few years, I’ve been doing other projects. I really did miss Inglorious, and I think the fans did too, ultimately, because the dates we’ve just done sold really well.”
“KK’s was packed out,” Nathan says, “and it’s so nice coming back and seeing people sing these songs still. Even in London on a Tuesday night, everyone was up for it. It was mental.
“What I keep saying is it should be fun, and now it feels like the best job in the world again. I got to a stage where I was quite jaded by it, but I love it again. You have to be in the right frame of mind to create. I can sing covers whenever. I can sing Eye Of The Tiger any time of the day.
“But in order to create music and to sing these songs that you’ve written about very personal moments in your life, you have to be in the right frame of mind to do it, and I was not. It’s not just going away and singing but having therapy and all these other things that I’ve done since then that has allowed me to fall in love with it again.”
Nathan James is not wrong about singing about personal moments. When you listen closely to the album, there are some real emotional bombshells which mirror the growth and development of the band members over the past decade.
“Colin had loads of demos,” Nathan says, “and weirdly, there’s a couple of songs on this record that were demoed from previous Inglorious albums years ago.
“One of the songs, Power Of Truth, which is the last song on the album, Colin originally wrote the riff, and I said no because it wasn’t in 4/4. It wasn’t Inglorious-y bluesy straight ahead, which is what we were seven years ago. ‘No, don’t like that. It sounds like Dream Theater. It’s too proggy!’
“But we’ve grown up, our sound has changed, and Colin came to me with a fantastic lyric to that song. I think he actually wrote that about his frustrations about being in the band the first time, so it was a very personal thing to sing his words in the studio when I recorded it.
“The words are really quite deep in that and very angry, and I started crying in the studio after the first take because it was so intense. We turned all the lights down, and after the first take, there was just silence from the control room.
“Colin and the engineer were just like, ‘That’s powerful. We don’t need to do that again.’ That whole thing is pretty much one take. But even that was like therapy, very cathartic. I knew where he was coming from. I knew why he was frustrated. I was the same. We’ve done a lot of growing up in ten years.”
There is something very satisfying about the reunion with Colin after some of the tensions with previous incarnations spilt out into the public arena. Things are very different today and you can see that by the genuine hugs shared by the band at the close of the show.
Their reunion and the development of the band’s sound is a much more interesting story than focusing on lineup changes, which virtually all bands go through in any case.
“I said to Colin, people get to make those mistakes in private,” Nathan says. “I had to make all of my mistakes in front of all the rock press. They’re not things that other people don’t deal with, I just had to deal with every eye on me, and there was so much attention on us in the early days that you really felt that microscope.”
Age and perspective have shown Nathan what is really important and what is worth fighting for. This is his focus now, telling me that singing his original songs in front of audiences is what really lights a fire in him.
All his other projects, as enjoyable as they are, facilitate keeping this going, and he is confident in his path and isn’t out to do this for anyone else’s agenda.
“Not everyone’s going to like you,” he says. “Even the most loved people, they’re still disliked by some. But you don’t realize that when you’re a kid, and I was in my twenties. I’m now in my mid-thirties. It’s very different, and I’m much more secure in myself.
“I understand that previously it was my insecurities acting out, and having therapy helps you realize. I feel like by forty, I might get the hang of it – fingers crossed!”
So, with Nathan and Colin back together and previous bandmates moving on to other projects, Inglorious welcomed two new members into their ranks. Eyebrows were raised when the announcement came that Richard Shaw, formerly from Extreme Metallers Cradle Of Filth, would be the guitarist while Henry Rogers of feelgood progressive folk band Mostly Autumn took the drum stool. Now, that’s two ends of a spectrum right there.
“It doesn’t make sense, I understand,” Nathan smiles. “On paper, people probably went, what the fuck is going on? However, Rich will tell you this himself. He’s not really an Extreme Black Metal guitarist. He is a very well-rounded instrumentalist who loves all types of music, and he landed that gig and did it for nine years. He has this great feel and also does all this stuff for the Lick Library and is a big teacher.
“I’ve known Henry for over ten years, and he is one of the most versatile drummers I’ve ever worked with. He can play anything. I’ve always been lucky that in the band, we’ve had incredible musicians, and every single incarnation of this band has had greatness, so to replace someone like Phil, who was such a fundamental part of it, was terrifying.
“This group of guys worked the best together, and if you’ve ever met Rich, he’s just lovely. It’s so weird to think he was on stage with that face paint on, and then you see him after, and he’s just a sweetheart from Derby, dead down to earth, dead normal.”
The new album has a wonderful huge sound, and this was reflected in the live shows, all the more remarkable considering that on stage, there used to be two guitarists and a keyboard player.
“The good thing about having Colin in the band is he’s got such a thick bass tone that he fills everything out,” Nathan says. “It never sounds empty. There’s only three of them making that noise, and in the early days of Inglorious, there were six of us on stage.
“It’s really punchy, and that was Colin’s idea. When he came back, he said, ‘I really want to do this, but one of my sticking points is I want it to be a three-piece.’
“At first, I was a bit hesitant, like, oh god, am I going to miss the twin guitars? But when you’ve got someone as great as Richard, you don’t. And that’s what made it harder to find a lead guitar player this time, finding someone as versatile as Richard, who can play stylistically the blues from albums one and two and can play the Metal from three and this new album and can also do all the other stuff in between.”
Songs old and new made it into the setlist, the older ones getting a bit of glow up in the process, including Making Me Pay, which cheekily incorporates the riff from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera brought front and centre.
It’s there on the album version, too, but more subtle. This is a throwback to Nathan’s time as a potential Jesus on the reality show Superstar, something that he can laugh about now and appreciate.
“When we wrote album two, I was still slightly bitter at Andrew Lloyd Webber from all the shit he put me through on national television,” Nathan says with a mischievous smile, “and I thought, how can I get back at him?
“So I stole the riff, which I think was about my only musical contribution to [the live version of that] song. ‘Put it all the way through that!’
“This is the catch, though. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the exposure to warrant getting such a good deal with Frontiers. They put their money where their mouths were, which ten years ago was much appreciated, in a world full of people who promised nothing.
“They actually went, ‘Here’s the money, we’re going to get behind you’. It’s so weird being here where we are today because it all happened around here. All my meetings were at the K West Hotel with Derek Shulman, who signed Nickelback and AC/DC, so being here feels very nostalgic.”
There’s no resting on laurels, though. The pressure is on, and there is a genuine sense of relief and gratitude that the reviews for V have been so good.
There are an extra five tracks still to see the light of day, which Nathan hopes may be an EP or possibly a future extended version of the album.
He is also hopeful that Inglorious can be sustained in the current climate where it is so difficult for artists to thrive and virtually impossible without other avenues of support. Hard decisions have to be made, and that includes considering what gig goers have to pay for merch these days.
That was one of the reasons why there were only CDs and vinyl on the merch stand for the recent dates, and not T-shirts, as it was not economically viable for such a short run considering what the price point would need to be.
“A lot of people don’t get the fact that for a lot of bands, you’re actually having to buy the merch yourself,” Nathan says. “Then, if you don’t sell, you’re stuck with it. Two hundred and fifty t-shirts sell potentially one hundred and fifty or so. Also, since COVID, the markup is unbelievable.
“You’re having to charge £35 for a t-shirt, and I just don’t feel like I can justify doing that to someone. If they really want a t-shirt, they can go on the Frontiers website and get one cheaper. If we do a longer tour, I may rethink merch, but for now, I’m just happy they’re there.
“Same with the CDs we have. You have to charge £20 for a CD now. You’re paying percentages on that to every single person, and also the venue markup as well. Financially [Inglorious] can’t be a full-time job for anyone. It can’t. It’s so hard.”
This is where Nathan’s wide portfolio makes perfect sense. He is also pleased that everyone else in the band, past and present, has other projects and bands.
There’s a busy summer ahead. “To be in War Of The Worlds and play the O2 Arena and do these amazing things – I’m so grateful for,” he says. “I’ve got an amazing gig coming up with BBC Radio 2 in Malta where I’m singing Purple Rain with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Summer Of ’69 by Bryan Adams, and other great tunes.
“I now get to do these things because I’m not letting Inglorious overtake my life. I’m doing another Iconic album [the supergroup with Joel Hoekstra, Michael Sweet, Tommy Aldridge and Marco Mendoza]. I fly to Italy on Wednesday for that, and then I am putting vocals on a solo album.”
Inglorious are going nowhere soon, though. The band are appearing at Steelhouse Festival this July. Nathan confirms that there is lots going on behind the scenes and is hopeful to announce another run of dates.
Until then, there is a great album of new songs to listen to. “Just give it a listen from top to bottom,” he says. “It’s like 40 minutes of people’s time while they’re at work or in the gym. Listen to it and see if you like it because we’re very, very proud of it.
“If you do enjoy it, send me a message. It’s nice to connect with people. It’s nice to see people at the shows, and I look forward to seeing people at dates in the future.”
