The Mission, Wayne Hussey announces first album in 12 years – The interview: "That tea at Iggy Pop's house"

The Mission are gearing up to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of "God's Own Medicine", their debut album released in 1986, but they're also looking ahead to the future: the band led by Wayne Hussey is in fact working on a new record, their first in twelve years, due out between February and March 2027. The news comes from the singer and guitarist himself in an interview given to Dave Ling for Classic Rock/Louder, in which he looks back at the band's early days, their sudden success and some memorable encounters, from Iggy Pop to John Paul Jones.

40 Years of "God's Own Medicine"

To celebrate the anniversary of "God's Own Medicine", The Mission will play four special shows at the Forum in London, each with a different setlist. On the first night they'll perform the album in full, while the following dates will be devoted to different phases of their career, with different opening acts each time. It's a project that doesn't seem to faze Hussey, who has always been in favour of changing up the setlist from one night to the next: "There are three or four songs you have to play, but I love spontaneity. It keeps everyone on their toes, myself included."
Released in 1986, after Hussey and bassist Craig Adams left Sisters Of Mercy, "God's Own Medicine" quickly established The Mission as one of the most popular acts on the British gothic rock scene. Driven by singles such as "Stay With Me", "Wasteland" and "Severina", the album went gold in the UK, propelling the band to a level of success that, according to Hussey, didn't come as a surprise at all. "We'd all already been in other bands, we certainly weren't newcomers. We'd worked hard to get there and we knew what we were doing," the musician recalls, though he admits that the popularity went to his head at first: "I was young and I enjoyed everything I could. But after a couple of years you start to find yourself again in the middle of all that whirlwind."

Despite their popularity with audiences, The Mission often had a fraught relationship with the music press. A review in the American magazine Trouser Press dismissed their debut as an unlikely cross between Led Zeppelin, Yes and Echo & The Bunnymen. Hussey smiles today recalling that criticism: "I like Zeppelin and the Bunnymen, and as a kid I even went to see Yes. We were never particularly loved by the press, so we learned early on to take certain things in stride." In fact, he misses the more combative character of music journalism back then, populated by bylines like Nick Kent and Paul Morley, compared to today's press, which in his view has become far more conservative.

Tea at Iggy Pop's House

That very connection to classic rock would lead to a prestigious collaboration on the second album, "Children" (1988), produced by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. "It was fantastic, he taught us so much. All of a sudden we even found ourselves invited round for tea at Iggy Pop's house," Hussey recalls. He adds a particularly touching episode: "We were the first project John worked on after Led Zeppelin split up. One night we stayed up late, drinking and listening to their music. At one point he started crying, telling us how much he missed John Bonham."
But the frontman doesn't necessarily consider those years the best period of his life. If anything, it's the prospect of going back into the studio with his old bandmates that excites him most today. The Mission's new album, still untitled, is expected to arrive in the first part of 2027, breaking a long recording silence. "We're putting together our first album in twelve years, and it's wonderful to keep making music with your friends," Hussey explains. "And if nobody likes it in the end, that's fine. We've reached an age where certain things don't matter so much anymore. We do it for ourselves."

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