Rocker Glenn Hughes releasing autobiography

If things had turned out differently, Cannock-born rock star Glenn Hughes might not have lived long enough to have penned his autobiography,

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That he is now sober, drug free, healthy and very busy indeed with his music career is something of a miracle considering the tales of excess, addiction, booze, cocaine, groupies, dealers, overdoses and even a heart attack which spill over the 300 odd pages of the book.

It charts an incredible journey as the working class Midlands lad saw his career take off with the bands Finders Keepers and Trapeze before he found international fame with Deep Purple in the 70s and then, as that band imploded, launched a solo career which wobbled alarmingly as he continued to hoover up the drugs and drink.

Since cleaning up though, his solo career has gone from strength to strength and, now aged 60, he has found new success in the supergroup Black Country Communion, masterminded from his beachside Los Angeles home.

Hughes says: "Nobody gets out of this alive and everybody has got their own story to tell. I've got mine to tell and it's a tale of 'How did he survive this?'

Talking about some of the escapades recounted in the book, he says: "You read the stuff about the fire and me on the roof, I could easily have fallen on my sword a few times, being shot at, being pistol-whipped. It's not fun when someone takes a shot at you and that happened more than once to me.

"But these tales were never spoken about until this book. I was actually ashamed of all that. There's a certain amount of shame and there's a certain amount of remorse.

"This isn't like a movie that's fictional, this is a real shoot 'em up story that goes from Tokyo to Tipton, you know? Everywhere I went, my disease was on my shoulder, whispering in my ear 'Oh, it's OK, you can go into that bar and have a couple of bottles of whisky and a couple of lines of coke'. For me, it was like demonic possession.

"A lot of my rock star friends have written books. I started writing this book five years ago. It took me about three years to get rigorously honest. I needed to talk about when I fell off the wagon and kept it a secret. It was something that I needed you to know today because there are people who need to know about this thing that I have, it's a disease. Alcoholism is a drug addiction and it needed to be treated."

The book is full of surprises, such as his former relationship with The Exorcist actress Linda Blair and the role that Whitesnake singer David Coverdale played in helping him beat his demons.

"Linda was making the Exorcist 2 with Richard Burton in New York and LA. I was on the set of The Exorcist in New York, hanging out with Richard Burton, and I mean there are not too many rock stars who drank with Richard Burton.

"And David Coverdale was instrumental in getting me sober. It must have been 1989 he was doing the album Slip of The Tongue in Lake Tahoe where he lives. He was instrumental getting me introduced to a nutritionist. And his producer, Keith Olsen, then introduced me to one of the faculty members at the Betty Ford Centre and I actually got introduced to Betty Ford herself.

"So it's a strange, beautiful world we live in. David was my my truest friend in Deep Purple. He came in slightly after I did, a northern lad, a working class lad from the north like I am and he and I have been the closest of friends from the very word go to this very day."

As recounted in the book, Hughes also brought a touch of rock star glamour to Penkridge when he bought a house there in the 70s.

"It used to be my party pad. I used to go down there with some birds and go to the Lafayette in Wolverhampton. It's a very sleepy little village in Staffordshire and when I was home all bells and whistles would go off and the local constable would be told. And Ozzy was a neighbour - he used to live about seven miles down the road and so when we got together it was very, very loud."

Time and again, Hughes, an only child, mentions his parents Sheila and Bill - who still live in Cannock - and what he has put them through over the years.

"They went without so I could have my guitars. They bought me my instruments, my amplifiers. From the moment I saw The Beatles they got me my first acoustic. They never, ever said to me 'Get a real job, son'.

"They have stuck by me. They've seen me at the greatest peaks, to be so famous at such an early age, and they rode that rollercoaster with me. But they also rode the rollercoaster when it went downwards.

"They picked up a paper once saying that Glenn Hughes had died . . . and it was the other guy, in the Village People, called Glenn Hughes. When Ron Quinton, one of our roadies in Deep Purple, was coming to my home from Malibu at one o'clock in the morning in '75, he died on his way to my home but the press got it wrong and said it was me that had died. They'd read it now twice that I was dead.

"My parents are used to it now but it was difficult for them in '76 to be told their son was a cocaine addict. It was very, very difficult for them, to hear that from my psychiatrist and my doctor. Cocaine was my drug of choice. It's God's way of telling you you're making too much money

"But they stuck by me and in their lifetime they've seen their son kick the habit, the prodigal son, if you will. They have stuck by me. There's only the three of us, I owe them my life. They brought me into the world. I'm very proud to be their son."

Bill and Shelia have kept much memorabilia from Hughes' life over the years but the singer says: "The only thing we don't have is a lot of the memorabilia of my clothing from the 70s.

"In the 70s in Deep Purple I'd come home (to Cannock) in my bedroom and I'd look for a suede jacket or a leather suit or the famous six-inch platform snakeskin boots and I'd say to Mum, where's that, where's the other? And she said 'Well, the fans came to the door and your dad gave them away'!

"One suede suit I had made on Sunset Strip, it was a beautiful suit, hand stitched. And I remember getting a very small tear above the knee, about a half-an-inch tear which could have been easily fixed. Well, Dad saw that tear and he ripped it up and made a chamois leather to clean the Rolls Royce!"

Hughes is hitting the road in November, including an appearance at Birmingham's Glee Club, when he'll perform an acoustic set taking in songs from across his whole career and where he'll talk about his incredible life and sign copies of the book.

He says: "The reason I'm doing this small theatre tour is to get close to my fans, now it's difficult because Black Country Communion has blown up and it's wonderful. I am very accessible to my fans and I like my fans.

"I'll be there to sign the books at every show, for everybody that buys a book, whether it takes an hour or two or three. I want to shake people's hands, it's important to me."

He says that next year will be taken up with new a solo record and tour as well as a third Black Country Communion album alongside Dudley-born Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin drummer John, and Americans Joe Bonamassa on guitar and Derek Sherinian on keyboards.

Before that comes the release on October 24 of the band's first live DVD and BluRay, Live Over Europe, filmed this summer in Germany.

"We decided we'd do it in Germany, half way through the tour and we chose the venues, one being a big club and the next two shows were open air venues, because we wanted to show some difference in the lighting and the way we are on stage.

"It's a really good vehicle for what we are. It captures all four of us. It captures the energy, vitality and emotion."

Hughes says: "You can count on one hand how many people have had success when they were very, very young and then having this wonderful renaissance period again is something that I'm really proud to have achieved."

Glenn Hughes may well have just released his autobiography but he is already busy writing the next chapter of his extraordinary life.

* Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography - From Deep Purple To Black Country Communion (£14.95) is released on November 11, 2011.

* Hughes plays Birmingham Glee Club on Saturday, November 15. Tickets are £19.50 from www.glee.co.uk