Ginger Wildheart D.I.Y.

By Sue Lewis

 

Ginger released his first compilation of solo material, entitled ‘Ten’ on 10/10/10 through Round Records and the Wildhearts released their first 4 studio albums in deluxe expanded format through Cherry Red Records on the 1^st November 2010. This is an informal interview with the great man himself, who is best known as vocalist/guitarist with British rock legends the Wildhearts and one of the UK’s best loved, most prolific and notorious rock acts of the last thirty years.

 

The first thing I want to ask you Ginger is about your Wildhearts fans; your 'Ginger & friends'/fans and everyone else who are really pleased that your London Birthday Party Show sold out so quickly because now you’re going to be touring around the country with The Wildhearts and they will get to see you too; and the with new Michael Monroe Band album being released early new year and having a partner and children – how do you fit it all in?

 

I’m not sure how I fit it all in but I do I just try not to get to overwhelmed by the amount of things I’m doing, and just finish off the next thing that needs to be done. I find in that way everything just seems to get done, and I do find time to have a private life. The older that I get I find the harder I want to work in leaving behind a decent legacy. I’m recording a new solo album in January and also writing for a brand new project in February, so I’m going to try and up the ante and work even harder in 2011.

So the new solo album is that going to be completely new stuff or is it going to be a mixture of the old stuff and new?

 

No, no its all going to be new stuff and going to be under the name of ‘The Ginger Wildheart Band’ and its going to be nice and noisy!

 

Okay, so there’s going to be no old tracks on there at all?

 

No – I’m too interested in going forward to look back.

 

And the February Project what’s that all about?

 

Well it’s a new project I’ve got together with my old friend Chris McCormack and Nathan Connelly from Snow Patrol, Didz Hammond from the Cooper Temple Clause and Dirty Pretty Things, we just wanna do an album and some gigs but our schedules are crazy but the likelihood of it happening gets less and less logical. I just want to get onto making new albums and Snow Patrol make an album and go on tour and that’s a year and a half process, so it’s just to see if we can pull it off because I’m a big fan of Nathan's writing and he’s a big fan of mine, so I figured it would be a really nice collaboration that one and fingers cross that we can fit that in like some kind of really nice musical Tetris.

So I know you’ve been touring with Michael Monroe and currently in the studio or are you still in the studio with Jack Douglas the producer?

 

No we’ve just finished and the album has been mixed by Jack (Douglas) and Jay Messina and he has mixed some of my favourite albums and bands in the world from John Lennon to Putrid, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper – you name it and having a team like that and I’m such a fan and it hardly needs to be said that it stands to reason but that its such an honour to work with people of that calibre.

 

And any idea when it’s going to be released yet?

 

Yes, I think it’s going to be released late February with the first single coming out in January.

 

And what’s that do you know?

 

A song called ‘Seventy Eight’ (78), as in the year 1978 (laugh).

 

You said Alice Cooper amongst others is a musical influence to you but who is the best band you’ve ever toured with do you think?

 

The best band I’ve ever toured with ummmm…..well….AC/DC were amazing cos they taught us how little we knew and Motorhead were amazing because its just all just complete rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t know either AC/DC or Motorhead.

Pic - Jay Janner

 

Okay, so your new album ‘Ten’ (10) which is a 16 track compilation album is a brilliant concept and Chris Rockson my editor on Soundcheck Magazine, reckons his promo copy is ‘Killer’!! But 10 is covering 10 years of solo material and was released on the 10/10/10, was that deliberate?

 

Of course (laughs)

 

I’m really glad it’s not only 10 tracks but 14 older tunes and 2 new ones – ‘No Way Out But Through’ and ‘This Too Will Pass’, and it must be an inspiration when your audiences sing along with your old songs but do you ever get a bit jaded singing the old ones and wish they’d want to hear more of your new songs?

 

Oh no, I’m not a big fan of rehearsing the old ones, I’m a bit sick of them but they take on a new life every time you play them live which is why I’m intending to play more Wildhearts songs in my Christmas tour because I haven’t played them for a while and it looks unlikely that the Wildhearts will do anything again and if they do it won’t be for a long time but the demand to sing along to the Wildhearts songs is still great and the fans at Christmas, there’s still a special vibe with Wildhearts fans and alcohol, and it’s just a great celebratory spirit. They keep asking me to play Wildhearts songs and of course ‘you’re the boss’, you know what I mean, and when they sing the song comes alive and the old ones are usually the ones I dread playing the most and enjoy playing the most live 'cos they belong to the people.

Pic - Jay Janner

The album tells the story of the first step you’ve taken in creating an independent personality for yourself as a writer and a father (which is a quote I got from somewhere!), do you think the album did that for you, do you think it fulfilled that first steps in creating your independent personality?

 

Well yeah, the last ten years have been clearing up from drugs, becoming a father, stepping out, making my own solo albums, putting my own label together, it’s been a massive learning curve in the last ten years, much more so than the previous ten years and probably less so than the next ten years (laugh). Yeah I’m glad I’m not an idiot anymore, I’m glad I’m not a crack head anymore, fuck that, I don’t take heroin and I’m glad my kids are beautiful and healthy and I’ve got a lot to be thankful for now.

 

Anyway, alongside the new solo album release ‘Ten’, The Wildhearts have also got a four studio album released on the 1^st November 2010 through Cherry Records. Again, a great concept to re-release your old albums with a twist with all 4 discs being sold as double CD’s with each of the Disc 2’s being a bonus of B-sides and rarities, and EP tracks from each era. Was it the fans that inspired you to do this or was it something you wanted to do for yourself?

 

Well, it wasn’t really me who decided to do it; it was the label that put it out and they just said are you okay with this, well you know if it’s good quality and B-sides and everything. I think its something to do with Universal Records and you know actually as a collector myself I like to have everything together on one CD, like Cheap Trick B-sides and rarities, I’ve got them all together on various discs and if I’ve got them on one discs and I’m good with that so the littlest test being what the fans would say about it, to see what they say about it and the response has all been positive. I saw them for the first time yesterday actually and I gave them to my daughter and I was delighted with it, the packaging looks lovely and it’s great to see the B-sides and I’m looking forward to listening to it myself.

 

Talking about your fans, you’ve created an online marketing team of fans. Is this proving to be successful and how does it compare to going down the ‘normal’ marketing route?

 

I don’t know how successful it’s been 'cos we haven’t actually done anything yet, but we’re probably going to start with promoting the tour and see how that goes. I hope it’s going to be successful, because it will be a great change in the way that music is marketed, especially for bands who have been around a while, and maintained a certain quality and a level of loyalty from the fans, but being relatively obscure within the music industry. I think there’s been way too much money thrown around at bands that quite frankly don’t deserve it, and there are anonymous bands that do deserve a break, but they can actually benefit from the fact that they coming in ‘under the radar’, it’s a great way of your fans being a part of what you’re doing as well, and who better to tell you how to promote it than the people who are buying it ? – you know, I really like the idea that the fans are promoting and marketing it 'for the fans', and its not just some guy trying to con them out of their coffers.

I’ve recently had this problem with a management company over a band I did a show with, and the band said themselves that they wanted to do smaller venues rather than big venues, to keep music live in the community and reach the people who couldn’t afford to go to all these big venues and places, especially during a recession - but for the management, it was all about the money, it was nothing to do with what the people or fans wanted and even what the bands wanted themselves. I mean do you find you quite often have to disagree, if you like, with the people that control all these things?

 

Well, I mean that’s why I started on my own Record label and Management Companies for myself, cos I didn’t agree with the way that things were commercialised and exploited. I felt that if you’re not going to do something about it, then you continue to be part of the problem and not the solution. So I got off my arse and started my own label, educated myself. I try to educate myself on a daily basis cos the music industry is changing all the time and we need to educate ourselves in the innovations in the DIY ethic. Its just about where I came in and punk was all about DIY... all through history its always been about DIY. So it’s up to the musician to educate themselves, if you are going to let someone manage you and not read blogs, and have not been in touch with your fans, then you kind of deserve everything you get cos you’re just a lazy bastard. There’s no excuse for being stupid in this day and age, if you’ve got a computer there’s no excuse.

 

On your song ‘The Man Who Cheated Death’ you claimed to have had ‘Divine Inspiration’, so what is inspiring your writing at the moment?

 

Oh argh well…….It’s one of those unquantifiable things, its one of those questions and answer things – everything inspires a person to write, maybe your life, other people’s lives, other people tell you stories about other peoples lives, things you read, on the internet, in the papers, you know, its your dreams, your failures, your philosophical outlook on both, inspiration comes from anywhere, its more about keeping your inspiration radar open and tuned in for incoming information. I don’t tend to have too much problem writing cos there’s so much going on, so much change that I find that trouble is, I have so much inspiration in my head that I don’t have time to write it all. I just find that as you get older you get more philosophical, you just have to or else you’re fucked and so I tend to write about a new opinion on things as I tend to evolve as a person.

 

I know it’s what I try to explain to my own kids and they just think I’m an old git but you know…….I guess I’m more spiritual now is what I’m trying to say.

 

I know and if they’re lucky they’ll get to your age as well and some of them won’t but you have to try.

 

I think when we’re younger we just don’t give a shit, but I guess that’s what you’re trying to say – you learn from things and pain – you yourself have dealt with quite a lot of ‘lowness’ over the years.

 

That’s right – you go through some of the worst things in your life but then it’s a springboard for something brilliant in your life happening, and you’ve got a spiritual understanding that nothing is as it seems and nothing lasts, everything changes, and you just learn to live in a moment. Once you’ve developed that, you already got an almost natural rhythm of Buddhism going on in your life, whether you know it or not. I didn’t know I was so close to Buddhism until I started to read Buddhist philosophy and I thought, ‘oh shit’. I agree with everything, I’m already a Buddhist and I thought I was against Buddhism (laughs). I’m a punk rocker, a punk rocker and not just a hippy, and then you realise the first teachings, and the last word of Buddhism is to be your own man, which is roughly translated to question everything – and that’s the first rule of punk and the only thing I know is that I’m full of shit. (Laughs)

Now, Ginger and the Wildhearts have a reputation for intense lyrics and intense live performances, what’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you on stage?

 

 

On stage – well there’s been quite a few - on our first festival in Finland we started a riot and at Download festival we got the ‘power pulled’ cos they thought we were going to incite a riot, cos people were throwing things on the stage and it just turned into fucking mayhem; we had times when we covered the stage in puke and we’ve all been involved in coming down off drugs and stuff and we’ve actually been on stage, taking ecstasy, acid, got drunk and started fights, typical of most bands I suppose. When your on tour, every band, no matter how good your intentions, the longer the tour - the crazier it gets, it’s just the nature of the beast and we’ve had daft things happened on stage and there’s not many bands that haven’t. The ones that haven’t are probably the ones who can’t deal with it and are probably not around anymore.

 

Who did you wanna be when you grew up and when did you have that ‘Eureka’ moment when you realised that you were meant to be in a rock and roll band? Has that always been there? Did you always want to be a Rock Star a Punk star?

 

Ummmmm……. I remember when I was little I saw Sweet on the telly and the guitar player had a sticker that said ‘shit’ and an inverted smiley face, and it pissed my parents off and I thought ‘that’s it, there’s something happening here, that’s it my little brain has taken something in. I want to annoy people and disturb and disrupt but with a cartoon edge to it, you know'? I don’t just wanna be like a vacuous sloganeer that only appeals to a socialist student, but want to appeal to socialist students as well, I just thought that something so anarchist as that Sweet dressed in all their makeup and everything, singing this pop song and the guy had an offensive sticker on his guitar. Something twigged and then you know I first heard The Ramones and that was it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and the first person I wanted to be and still be is Keith Richards….. the original punk!!

 

I guess you're looking forward to going back on the road again with your own band?

 

Oh yeah, I always look forward to going back on the road, its kinda where I live, when anyone asks me where I live ,I always say, well I live on a bus and I’ve been fighting it for years you know trying to settle down, do the right thing and get jobs as a song writer or something like that and it just never ever worked, and then, as soon as I go ‘well’ I’ll just join a band and get on the road, be able to get paid, the bills get paid, the family get fed and the kids have got shoes that fit and I’m busy and I’m being used like the workhorse that I wanna be. So I love it, I live to be on the road, I’m Lemmy, I do half my year on the road and half my year off the road and it’s probably not going to happen for a long time, and I’ll spend most of my time on tour like I always do!

 

So, at the same time Steve Conte is going to be touring are there any dates when you’re in the same town or, will you be linking up, or……?

Unbelievably not! I’m on tour in Japan solo, when he’s on tour in the UK, and then when I return to the UK he leaves that day……to go home, it’s like the timing couldn’t be worse. We don’t even get to see each others gigs it’s really annoying, but you get use to that in this business. Take Sparks for example - possibly my favourite musical outfit ever, they played 21 albums, 21 shows in 21 days – and I was so busy I missed every single one. There are tons of great bands I’ve never had the chance to see yet because I’m always on the road; You accept it as part of the gig.

 

There are a million ‘wannabe’ Rock Stars all around the smaller venues – have you got any tips for them?

 

Yeah, educate yourself, find out what’s going on, find out how you get your music heard, find out how you get your music promoted and marketed – you don’t have to pay for any of these new forms of self promotion. Educate yourself on internet promotion, obviously people know about Twitter and Facebook already, but there are tons of outlets and there’s nothing more important in the world than for you to find out where they are. You can find out what they are by going on YouTube and typing 'management' – 'mgmt' they’ve got a new video which tells you exactly what you need to do to go from A to Z in a band. And then once you learn that, just don’t ‘suck’ – that’s the advice I would offer ‘don’t suck’!!

 

I do this with a friend of mine Rock Promotion but its kind of a ‘Keep music live in the community’ rather than a Rock Promotion ‘get out there and be a massive’ and the reason we’re doing it is because we are actually ‘punters’, and of course my Metal Hammer experience some years ago, but I hear all these people all the time, they come to me and no-one will give them a break, I mean I’ve got a page on Facebook where we just plug them, we don’t charge them anything, we do it because we believe in them, but I mean its so sad that everything seems about money these days and not about what the people have to offer.

 

I disagree I don’t think it’s about money these days, I think it can be if you want it to be, and the cup can be half full or half empty.

 

I mean in terms of Management and Promotions – that side of things you know they don’t wanna take the risk with the new bands so much as they seem to want to do a while ago. That’s what I’m coming across anyway.

 

So why don’t the young bands educate themselves and manage themselves ?– if you can’t get a break what are you going to do? You either do it yourself or start crying – I did it myself you know, anyone else could. It didn’t cost that much money. It only costs money when your paying people 20% of something, it only costs money cos you’re losing money, haemorrhaging money by paying for Management and what are they doing, they’re only picking up the phone and delegating jobs to people. Well, learn your trade and delegate jobs to your fans. It costs nothing.

 

A couple of my own little personal questions I was interested to know about, I don’t know if you remember someone called Mark ‘Gus’ Gustavina? He sent me a message cos he’s a friend of mine and he asked me to ask you if you missed the band ‘Split Pigs’? Does that mean anything?

 

[Laughs loudly] What the Split Pigs? Of course I miss Split Pigs. I miss everything about that time it was a great time.

I can’t find any info on them, I’ve gone all through Google, the internet and this and that and everything and I can’t find anything on Split Pigs.

 

Well the thing is, Split Pigs are friends of ours, we use to just have wicked parties and the whole posse around them was all great and the girls where crazy and there were lots of drugs and rock n’ roll and it was just a mad time, for mad people and I loved it. It was kind of where the Wildhearts started.

 

I was looking at your video ‘Jake and Jiffy’ . Are you going to be doing any more video’s like this as you did all the music on that – anything like that coming up?

 

The what?! Jake and Jiffy?

 

Well it’s actually on your MySpace site? There’s a little cartoon there with Jake and Jiffy – its like a Muppet thing and you did all the music for it.

 

No – I think what that is someone took one of my songs and made a Muppet video – it’s nothing to do with me.

 

Oh, because when I was reading about it, it’s saying that you did all the songs for it, wrote them all and it seemed that the way they put it was like it was ‘made’ with your full co-operation, because its actually quite funny. Have you seen it?

 

Oh it is - I have – you’ve actually reminded me of that guy because I want to do a lot of video’s for the new album I’m gonna make, I might get in touch with that guy actually and get him to do one of the videos. He’s great.

 

Oh so I might of helped you in some respect then? [Laugh]

 

Oh you really have. That was a great piece of synchronicity that was.

 

Anyway, it’s been brilliant thank you Ginger.

 

God Bless you. Thank you so much.