It’s early morning and Wildhearts‘ guiding light Ginger Wildheart is on Zoom from his home in York and he’s a little sweaty- “you’ll have to excuse me,” he says, “I’ve just made breakfast with CJ’s hot sauce… to give it a bit of a morning kick and… fuck me it’s hot!”
In reference to the red wine I’m drinking he tells me I’m a lucky bastard and that he’d join me, but has rehearsals soon to trial some new in-ear monitors for the first time so he’ll be sticking to coffee.
So Ginger, congratulations on 21st Century Love Songs – the new album – it really kicks arse. Tell me, was the material for this album written over a prolonged period? Or did it come together in a hurry? “Not really, I started writing it before lockdown, and then lockdown hit and I had nothing to do but kind of streamline it and that’s when the idea of like – I’ll put a few more bits here and I’ll stick a riff in there and the whole thing kind of…organically, arranged itself, or composed itself.”
The sound of the record has a fiery energetic feel – like a real band playing together. Pretty live sounding. “Writing for The Wildhearts, I know what we do well, so if I’ve got a song and I know it needs to be raw and kind of unhinged and in your face I know they’re gonna do it well. So it sounds like a band ‘coz that’s just what we sound like. We still haven’t developed any subtlety. That’s for the best I think – in this day and age of digital interference there’s fewer and fewer bands sounding like they’re just going at it in the studio. So I like to keep that – the essence of what got me excited about music in the first place- listening to the band like it’s a gig. With The Wildhearts I don’t see the point in trying to make concept records. There’s two guitars, a bass and drums and anything else is kind of…” he trails off but the point is made.
Sort Your Fucking Shit Out is a ripper single. “That song’s quite misunderstood as are a lot of songs if you pull them out of an album before you hear the album. Where that song falls on the album it’s a bit like having a conversation with yourself that ends up having a go at yourself, you know? Having a good yell at yourself. A few people who heard it in isolation have said the vocal’s too laid back- I’m like- I’m talking- it’s supposed to be talking in this song, but it’s hard to get that vibe when you’re listening to a song away from context. I can’t wait for people to hear the album in full so they can hear it in context.”
Having heard your work from ‘93’s Earth Vs The Wildhearts debut onwards, you’re still packing the aggression and energy into what you’re doing now, but if anything, more aggressive both in sound and attack. It’s refreshing to see the band hasn’t mellowed out any. “I’m a Motörhead fan, I don’t see why bands have to get mellow when they get older. And also the times – the nineties – were pretty shit, but now the times are unparalleled in awfulness… I’m not sure what happy songs bands can write about really – it seems a little bit incongruous to even try to write something that’s not about the times, when the times are affecting all of us and affecting people that we know and love and… if like me, you’ve lost people to COVID… these are not times for power ballads.”
Going back to the spark that ignited all this for you, I see and hear a lot of Sweet, Slade and Kiss in there… is that a fair guess? “One hundred per cent. I’m still feeding from that blueprint as laid down by Sweet when I first saw them on TV. It was powerful music with guitar riffs, big anthemic choruses, quite aggressive sounding vocals as well for the time. Very pre punk-and amazing songs. Fox on The Run and Action are still my favourite Sweet songs. And that’s still the store that I plunder from -I ’m still ripping those guys off a billion years later (laughter) and it’s still a brilliant blueprint, but now with added punk and thrash. Great live band as well. The one thing I always wanted to have in common with those guys and other bands that I love was they were all great live bands. There was no trickery: these guys could play. There may have been a gimmick with the make up, but when you saw these guys play they’d fucking wipe the smile off your face. They were every bit as good as any of the “serious groups”.”
You saw Sweet live? “Yeaaaah – of course I did!”
You got to see Hoodoo Gurus a lot though I bet? counters Ginger – “Sure did!”
What, for the sake of brevity, three albums would you say affected you most in your life? ““Albums. The Ramones‘ first album. That was a big changer. Cheap Trick’s Dream Police: that was a great one. And probably Overkill by Motorhead. They were the ones that really changed everything. Obviously too, Never Mind The Bollocks – that was another one – where there was a pre- Sex Pistols and a post- Sex Pistols point in history. That’s how important they were in the whole thing. They only made one record, lazy bastards.”
You visited Australia only once in 2008… “Twice!”
Twice? “Twice. 2008 with The Wildhearts and then I toured Australia with Courtney Love. One of the best times of my life was touring Australia with Courtney, fantastic. Around about a dozen shows all in all. We went right across the place and down to Tasmania. I love Australia. I love Australian culture. I love Australian movies, I love Australian music. I’ve grown up on both, and (smiling) I feel cheated that we’re not household names in Australia ‘coz what we’re doing is so catered for you guys, it’s just live loud in your face, foot stomping, it’s like it’s designed for you guys to like it so, yeah, I wanna get there more than anyone.”
Does it feel to you like it’s all gotten a little safe and ‘business-y’ these days? Like people have tried to make rock and roll legitimate, whereas it used to be about the outlaws, the ones that didn’t fit in? “I absolutely agree. Because of Spotify and because of… there’s less excitement about it. It’s all about algorithms and there’s still this industry behind these ridiculous ideas that music for free is gonna work. Of course it’s not gonna work.”
No development deals for bands to grow anymore. One record and, if it works, you can maybe do another. Otherwise: goodbye. “I think Guns ‘n’ Roses screwed that up for everyone because they had a debut album that did the business that normally a third album does. So the industry says: ‘we can save money here, if your first album doesn’t do it, then you’re out.’ That’s dead. I hope that’s dead.”
Gene Simmons has copped a lot of flack for his comment that rock n roll is dead, when I think what he means is the business of rock n roll is dead, not the music. “I hope the bloated old business model is dead, I hope the industry is dead, I hope CEOs and people who make money behind a desk- I hope that’s dead. I hope that’s what he means. But I think rock n roll by its very definition, – and Gene should know this – is a cockroach, and it adapts, it doesn’t die. Rock n’ roll just changes form. And if rock n’ roll is gonna be direct to the supporters – who want you to do well – so your band have a duty to make sure you treat them well because they’re the ones that want you to succeed. And if that’s the deal going forward into the future that’s the deal where you’re actually making music with the people who pay for this in mind. Then yeah, rock n’ roll is transforming into something that’s meaner, more aggressive, more commonsensical and the big fairytale thing is over, and good riddance.”
It’s kind of almost back to the beginning perhaps? “Yes. It’s getting to the point where it’s going pre-genre again. It’s down to the fact that you’ve got a finite amount of inspiration, you know, the bands that you like and the rest of it is all your personality, which is brand new and then it’s how you do it. What are your ideas, what are your favourite sounds. The idea that bands get together and want to sound like each other makes no sense to me. You’ve all got exactly the same tastes? Bullshit! I wanna hear someone who’s been brought up on dance music to be mixing beats with thrash guitars. I wanna hear differences. I wanna hear things that I don’t do. That is more exciting about rock n’ roll than anything. The fact that it’s mutating. It’s something that can’t die, it just gets smarter.”
You guys have a lot of dates coming up and you recently played the Bloodstock festival in England. How was that one? “It was brilliant. It was the second time we played Bloodstock and the first time we played I think we were put on to cover for someone who didn’t turn up. We had a stand-in drummer and the whole thing was just like – this is gonna be awful – so I wasn’t prepared for it to go down well. And then we went down really well and got asked back! OK, second time, and it’s a very very heavy bill and while we’re not a light sounding band we’re certainly not as heavy as Napalm Death. We go on and it depends on so many factors: what time of the day it is, how drunk everyone is, how the weather is, and then as soon as we go onstage the bloody sun comes out! And you know, it’s perfect! We’re heavy enough and riffy enough to get away with playing on really heavy bills or punk bills. We’re carrying on that Motörhead or Ramones spirit. We’re a hard band to dislike.”
You’ve always been very productive, lots of projects and recording going on. Like the days when bands would put out a couple of albums a year. “I’m from that era. I’m from that AC/DC era where AC/DC would put two albums out a year, Motörhead would put two albums out a year or at least one a year. It’s like, why wouldn’t you do that? What’s taking you so long? You’ve only gotta write a dozen or so songs. It’s supposedly what you do. You’re in the wrong job! I have The Wildhearts album coming out now, and then I’ve got my other band, Ginger Wildheart and The Sinners’ record coming out. And then probably recording my solo album next year.”
The current line-up of The Wildhearts is the classic line-up. I know there’s been ups and downs over the years, but you got everyone together again for the last album Renaissance Men. How does it feel for you, like, everybody’s in the right place now? “It’s still chaos.”
It’s being in a band. “Exactly. I’m not sure it’s any different from anybody else’s band. We’ve lost a lot of friends and family and supporters along the way and we’re still there. We’re still looking around the room going ‘how are we – us four – still doing this?’ I know that we lose a lot of musicians all the time so I think it’s a smart move to appreciate the ones that are still here. That’s why I think The Wildhearts are getting a little bit of a break now. I think people are forgiving us for our past misdemeanours and are accepting that we’re actually a good band, we make good music and, drama aside, that’s all that matters, like what we were saying with Sweet and Slade. End of the day, were they good live? ‘Coz that’s the only place where it really matters as far as rock’s concerned.
But it’s still a fucking nightmare.” (Both laugh) “Still fucking chaos.” (More laughter).
The Wildhearts new album, 21st Century Love Songs, is out now.
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