Legendary vocalist-bassist Glenn Hughes has spoken out about his decision to put CALIFORNIA BREED to rest only several months after the release of the group's debut album. CALIFORNIA BREED, the band originally built around the foundation of Hughes, drummer extraordinaire Jason Bonham and newcomer guitarist-singer-songwriter Andrew Watt, split up in January 2015 because Hughes said he "couldn't commit" to working on a second CD without Bonham. Jason quit CALIFORNIA BREED in 2014 ahead of a scheduled tour in Europe and the U.S., forcing Hughes and Watt to recruit former QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE drummer Joey Castillo to sit behind the kit for the duration of the trek. During a recent interview with the "White Line Fever" podcast, Hughes addressed CALIFORNIA BREED's sudden breakup, saying that "it was a very stressful band for me to be in. I was bamboozled into forming that band with this young man, Andrew Watt — a very talented young man, but it was the wrong move for me," he said. "The guy is a millennial, the guy is 25 years old, and it was difficult to play with somebody who's in a different headspace from me. And Jason not wanting to tour was a difficult thing. "Looking back at CALIFORNIA BREED, I should never have toured behind that," he continued. "I should have just released the album and moved back on to my solo work. [It was] a great record, by the way, but I don't have very fond memories of that period. I was just recovering from open-heart surgery. It was a difficult period for me. But I look back at it and I learned so many different things." Asked how millennials — defined as those born between 1981 and 2000 — are different from people of his generation, the 65-year-old former DEEP PURPLE bassist/vocalist said: "The way I see it is this, and this a generalization: millennials want all the power and all the money of people that have already got it without working for it. I'm sorry — that's the way I see it; that's the way I see it in this world. And people in my age group have worked their asses off to get this. And a lot of youngsters — and some youngsters don't feel that way — they just want it all, they want it now, they want what you've got, and they're not willing to work their asses off for three or four decades to get it. And it just doesn't work that way." While Hughes didn't clarify whether he was referring specifically to Watt, he said that Andrew "comes from a group of people from that generation. If you were born in the early '90s, you have a different angle and a different viewpoint of the world. You have the whole Internet thing; you grew up with the Internet in front of your fingers. It's a different demographic. It was difficult for me to work with people that had a different angle on life. "I'm old school. I've had a heart attack, I've been shot at, pistol whipped, run over with a car, I've been stabbed, and all of a sudden, I'm working with people that have no idea what I've been through and they just want success," he added. "And success, you just don't get it overnight." CALIFORNIA BREED supported ALTER BRIDGE in the U.S. in the fall of 2014 before heading to Europe and closing out the run supporting SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS on their five U.K. arena dates. CALIFORNIA BREED's self-titled debut album sold around 4,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 78 on The Billboard 200 chart. "California Breed" was recorded at producer Dave Cobb's Nashville studio and featured equal co-writing credits from Hughes, Watt and Bonham.
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