3-WIND WITH

The Wildhearts’ Singer Ginger

We first did 20 Questions with Ginger on July 27, 1999.

We did his Rewind on August 10, 2000.

Now it’s 2003 and since The Wildhearts recently put out a new album called “The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed,” we thought it was time to catch up with our favorite bloke and find out what’s up!

1. What are you currently up to?

Recovering from touring with Motorhead.

2. Please name all the past and present members of The Wildhearts in alphabetical order?

Are you kidding? You don’t have enough space on your site.

3. How do you guys come up with songs like “Sky Babies” that is 11 minutes long and has a million different time changes and tempos? How do you put something like that together and even decide on long the song should be and when it should end?

It’s just a matter of getting all the bit’s you have lying around, and sticking them together. The end is when either the band or the audience fall asleep.

4. You guys just did a bunch of dates with Motorhead. Tell us a good Lemmy story.

That would be very un-professional, plus he’d probably fucking kill me! He is everything you think he is, and more. The term legend doesn’t even scratch the surface.

99% of other rock stars are not worthy to sniff the steam from the mans shit.

5. The Last of Ginger:

Last CD you purchased = Therapy “High Anxiety”, Cooper Temple Clause “Kick Up The Fire,And Let The Flames Break Loose” and The Proclaimers “Born Innocent”. All bought together yesterday.

Last movie you saw = “Rules Of Attraction”…shite ending.

Last book you read = Currently reading “I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer” by Tony Sanchez

Last time you visited the US = Fucking ages ago. Must be a couple of years.The band are coming over in March tho’…and I’m going to NY next week.

Last time you were arrested = About 4 years ago, by some fat fucker that I mercilessly abused. Fat policemen should be force-fed crystal meth until they at least look lean enough to be threatening.

Last time you talked to Nikki Sixx = A while back, come to think of it. I don’t ring people nearly enough.

Last song you wrote = I wrote a song yesterday, called “Narcoticide”

Last time you did cocaine = Last night, at a Darkness party. Just the one line, mind you…. and it didn’t come from the band. Let’s just get that straight! I don’t mind a line every now and again, if it’s offered at a party. I don’t know anyone that does mind, actually!

Last thing that went “pear-shaped” on you (yes, we’re flaunting our knowledge of British sayings) = Had a big bust up with my missus recently, thought we weren’t gonna make it through. Then we had fantastic sex all day and realised that we still rock!

Last magazine you bought = Kerrang! Yesterday.

6. What’s the most amount of drugs you’ve done in a 24 hour period?

Shit…..I must have done my body weight in freebase, quite a few times. I used to smoke an eight-ball (3 and a half grammes) with the greatest of ease, then get more. I’m really lucky to have that kind of ‘messing with mortality’ behind me.

7. When, where and why did your relationship with AntiProduct and Alex Kayne end? For a while there, it looked as though you two were getting married and then nothing. We have his side of the story, what’s yours? Will there ever be another Clam Abuse album?

He accused me of doing something I wasn’t doing. That’s not a friend, in my mind.

8. Approximately how many unreleased Wildhearts songs are laying around in a vault somewhere and any plans to do anything with them?

I have tons lying around that will never be recorded. I write too many new ones to go back. Maybe I’ll live longer than I think I’m going to, and they’ll all see a studio. Who knows?

9. What’s the big deal about Elvis Costello?

He’s a brilliant songwriter, has a classic voice and gives hope to ugly people everywhere that you too can be a legend.

10. Give us a memory about writing or recording the following songs:

Caprice = Waking up with the word in my head, and writing the song before I looked it up in the dictionary. It meant exactly what I thought it would too, so the song made it!

Do The Channel Bop = Ripping off all those ’80’s LA bands that had riffs with that ‘swing’. Unashamedly provoking the ‘cool-police’.

Two-Way Idiot Mirror = Getting along awful in the studio, and the death of Kurt Cobain actually pulling us all together.I Wanna Go Where The People Go = NEW FUCKING YORK. Setting fire to the Chelsea Hotel, getting royally fucked up on ONE mushroom, having our gear stolen….stories for days.

Suckerpunch = Ripping off “Overkill”, ‘cos it’s the coolest rock song ever written. I got invited up onstage with Motorhead to play it with them, last week…..Hammersmith Odeon….can you imagine it? It just doesn’t get better than that.

Nexus Icon = I wrote it on a flight back from Japan, thinking that all iconic legends have a weird relationship with their mothers. The story built from that.The Bullshit Goes On = It was written about someone who actually came to the studio while we were mixing the song, and didn’t even notice that the words were about them! We were fucking pissing ourselves!

Everlone = Living in the ‘shitsville’ flat, with the roaches and the mayhem….I always wondered if Dave Grohl heard the song before he wrote ‘Everlong’. Pretty similar title for such an odd word, right? I’d be chuffed to fuck if he did, anyway.

Top Of The World = Life being fucking shit. No money, band disputes and dramas, bills mounting up…and the old saying “I got so far down it looked like up to me”, going through my head. The song took as long to write as it does to listen to.

O.C.D. = CJ wrote the music for that on a four track. It was the first song he’d ever submitted to the band, and I played it in the car, alone, shitting myself that it was going to be rubbish. I was pretty overjoyed by what came out of the speakers!

Ride The Wave =I wish I could have finished off the track, as it had a ton of ideas intended to be included….before some cheap, backstabbing little cunt sweet-talked the record company into releasing it himself, unfinished. Instantly becoming an enemy for life.

Liberty Cap = Magic Mushrooms!!!

11. For the video “I Want To Go Where The People Go,” you guys played on the back of a flat bed truck as it drove the streets of New York. Did you borrow that idea from Dokken’s video “It’s Not Love?”

Wow, I didn’t know they did that. I fucking LOVE that song too! No, we stole the idea from the Stones. Most of the best ideas in Rock n Roll came from the Stones, let’s face facts.

12. If The Darkness can get a US deal, why haven’t The Wildhearts?

I have absolutely no idea. Your Country is making less and less sense every year.

13. You have been called “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll plagiarist of our generation.” Discuss.

I will take that as a great compliment. All good Rock n Roll is plagiarism. There are, after all, only three chords worth giving a fuck about. Four if you want to be flash.

14. What’s your real hair color?

Like a reddish brown. Pretty non-descript, to be honest. God bless hair dye.

15. Yes or no, has Ginger ever:

Seen a UFO = Yes

Met David Lee Roth = No, fucking love to tho’.

Touched Samantha Fox’s boob = See above.

Regretted a tattoo = No.

Done drugs with Ozzy = No, but he once told me off for drinking a vodka and pineapple. That was quite surreal.

Gone to rehab = No, I could never afford it, I spent all my money on drugs!

Read a Harry Potter book = Yuck, no.

Heard Butch Walker’s solo CD = Yes. What’s that first track all about?

Had sex with a Playboy Playmate = Yes, she became one.

Thrown rocks at David Blaine while he was in that box = Yes! What a twat. Bet he’s really glad he came to Britain to do his silly little stunt !!!

16. Who is the most annoying American celebrity and the most annoying British celebrity that you’d like to put on a boat, send into the ocean, and blow up?

Bush and Blair. Do politicians count? What am I saying? Look at Arnie.

17. You called President Buch a “genocidal cunt” back in February. Did you get any Dixie Chicks like negative feedback on that, or was it ok because nobody really knows who you are anyway?

Fuck, I got fucking death threats. I found out more about Americans from that experience than anything before it. Stupid Americans are really scary! And by that I don’t mean that all Americans are stupid…just the stupid ones.

18. Why do you always seem to get so defensive when fans mention your weight on your website? You seem slim to us.

Do they? Do I?

I drink, so I get ‘puffy’ every now and again, but the older I get the slimmer I get…which doesn’t suck. I’m having a healthy year next year anyway. I probably got defensive because I was hungover. I’m as nice as all holy fuck, these days!

19. Is it true that your reputation in some circles as a back-stabbing thief who would sell-out his own mother to get press space is one your’re actually proud of?

I never backstabbed anyone, I’d rather say it to their face. Thief? I guess Rick Neilson and Robin Zander could accuse me of that! The press thing? I wish I was more ‘press-hungry’, but I’m not. I think my relationship with Kerrang tell’s you everything you need to know about my ‘press-courting’ style.

But it’s nice to know I’ve got a bad rep…. a reputation is a reputation, right? At least I’m in the conversation somewhere!

Like Diamond Dave once said “you’re giving me a bad reputation…..spread it around!”

20. Time for Metal Sludge’s Word Association.

We mention a name and you give us your thoughts.

Brian Johnson = A true Geordie to be proud of. And a gent. Still rolls his own cigarettes.

Paul Stanley = Made fun of me when I was a little kid, in the middle of a crowd of Kiss fans, so I always thought he was a cunt for that. But he was THE Rock star in his prime.

Alex Kane = Nothing

Simon Cowell = Great. I loved the way he wound up people in America, then made them love him. A greater example of a true Brit than Hugh fucking Grant, that’s for sure.

Murderdolls = Great lads.

Steevi Jaimz = Small man, small memory.

Alice Cooper = A God…….. has the creepiest guy I ever met working for him tho’Lars Ulrich = Must be rich enough to not give two shits about Napster.

Conny Bloom = The coolest motherfucker ever to stride Swedish soil.

Justin Hawkings = The new king of the hill. The most hardworking man in Rock, and a genuinely lovely guy.

Sharon Osbourne = Loved her like a Mum, wouldn’t return my calls when I wanted her to manage me! I guess one Ozzy is enough for anyone. I still hate what The Osbournes has done to Ozzy’s fearsome reputation. We need rock Gods more than TV shows.

C.J. = The voice that was always meant to sing with me. My bro’ in blood and sonics. And too good looking by far.

For more info on The Wildhearts, you can visit their website at www.TheWildhearts.com!