Photo: WENN
Hulk Hogan has revealed that it was Simon Cowell who persuaded him to record a Gary Glitter cover twenty years ago.
The wrestler, who started out his career in a band called Ruckus, performed alongside Green Jelly for a cover version of Glitter's 'The Leader Of The Gang (I Am)', which went to No.1 in the UK in 1993.
Speaking to Noisey, Hogan's longtime manager Jimmy Hart said, "We had a magic phone call from this A&R guy, Simon Cowell, who we’d never heard of before. He brought us in and said, 'I love this album! But it’s already out. I’ve got another idea for Hulk!' and it was the old Gary Glitter song, 'The Leader of The Gang (I am).' He goes, 'Let me tell ya somethin’, it’s going to be number one,' and we go, 'Yeah, right', but then it was number one for five weeks over there! So, it just really turned out awesome!"
Hogan himself added: "He was cool! Just unbelievably nice and friendly... I ran into him at some launch party about three years ago, and I actually didn’t recognize him. The launch was for some docu-soap about my life called Finding Hulk Hogan. I walked right by him and he said, 'Hey, you don’t say hello to your friends?' and I went, 'Oh my god I’m so sorry,' and I gave him a big hug. He’s just so cool, and very different from the character he plays on TV."
Hogan also revealed that he's been asked to perform with One Direction. "I recently got a call about this band, One Direction," he said. "NBC wants me to interview them, then all of sudden their management called me and said 'Would you bring them onstage?' Then they said, 'Would you play a song with them?' and I said, 'Here’s the deal, I’ll interview them. If you want me to bring them onstage, I will, and if there’s a song that has a standard chord progression (because I don’t know any of their music) that I could hear really quick, it’d be fun.'"
Read the full interview over at Noisey.
