A Satanic Invite By The Wildhearts

Members of the UK Rock Music Press were invited to a special “Satanic Invite Of The Wildhearts” evening to listen to the new Wildhearts album “The Satanic Rites Of The Wildhearts”. Following an intro by the record company, seven tracks were played, before a chat with Ginger himself. Luckily, having reviewed the entire album for Fireworks I have access to an advance copy and was already familiar with it enough to have a bit of a boogie at the back. I was standing up as there was not a seat to be had in the house, the event being full to the gunnels. Phones were confiscated in case anyone dared to secretly record the music.

Dante Bonutto of Spinefarm started by confirming the album will be released on March 7th and stating that it was uniquely Wildhearts, and this was not surprising as one person was writing all the songs. He then introduced Ginger (as responsible for a lot of his grey hair) explaining that he had long worked with the Wildhearts having been the AOR man for the Wildhearts first album when one of the first things he had to contend with was Ginger riding a tractor into a swimming pool. They jested that life had got easier since then “well it couldn’t get any harder” and continuing the metaphor they said it was like jumping in the deep end with concrete arm bands and an anchor. Ginger said he had thought the Wildhearts was over at one point, but now he could imagine the current line up going for another ten years and ten albums. With the first album they didn’t expect to get through that one and didn’t expect to still be alive now!

For the latest album Dante had asked Ginger to write the album of his career and Ginger said that did make him think long and hard about what he put on the album. Dante said that he was excited by the mixes on the new album and ‘Failure Is The Mother Of Success’ was the theme of the album. Ginger said he thought that there were a number of potential singles on the album, but had not expected it to be that one, but it was a positive message for the end of the album, a twist at the end compared with some other darker material album on the rest of the album. As to how the album came about he said that he had been ill and wanted nothing to do with the music industry even considering other careers, but then one song after another popped into his head fully formed and he realised that he was pregnant with this album.

‘Blue Moon over Brinkburn’ tells the story of how Ginger had been held violently against a wall and told he would amount to nothing after telling a teacher he would be a rock star. Ginger told that teacher he would play him his first album one day, but once the album was recorded Ginger did not care enough to go back. The school was dangerous and after he got out of it the real world seemed easy. When he did finally visit the school it was boarded up and closed and Ginger couldn’t believe he had lasted longer than the school.

On ‘Kunce’ Dante observed the lyrics were a list of people that got on Ginger’s nerves, but Ginger clarified that it was co-written with others who also contributed their pet hates. It was postulated that there should be a ‘Kunce’ Part 2 and 3 where Wildhearts fans would contribute to the lyrics and Ginger loved the idea.

They talked about the myriad of styles on the album and remembered how the Wildhearts had been described as “the Beatles meets Metallica, the Sex Pistols meets Cheap Trick”. Ginger noted that while doing just that was making others successful now, at the time of the first album people commented “you can’t mix pop with thrash”. That made Ginger think “all the more reason to do it”. Ginger explained that once when he was working in a restaurant he got home in time to watch Jason and The Scorchers who mixed punk and country and Ginger thought “what if I could mix up all of my record collection – Motorhead and The Hollies”.

Dante said he couldn’t work out if ‘Troubadour Moon’ was happy or sad. Ginger said it’s about a guy who writes music because he loves it and needs to get stuff out of his system. “Art gives comfort to weirdos”, quite different from the business of commercialisation of art. Ginger said the only expert for an artist is the artist himself, who is the only one who will know if it is right. There’s no guarantee of success, but if you do fail and you’ve done it on your own terms then at least you can look yourself in the mirror.

Various people made cameos on the album including producer Jim Pinder’s daughter Eliza and Ginger’s dog Maggie. The band would not be looking to reproduce the album with all its hidden elements live. Live was completely different every night and depended on the audience as much as the band. Ginger’s new line up loved pyro and this would enhance everything too.

Pinder said The Wildhearts was one of his favourite bands, the essential ingredient of a Wildhearts song being great pop sensibilities turned on their head to keep you guessing by being combined with Death Metal or something diametrically opposed.

Ginger said he liked to let his songs come through and be born without thinking about the process too much. ‘Maintain Radio Silence’ is one of his favourites, because it does’nt sound like one of his. ‘Hurt People’ was almost unchanged from the demo and the lyrics came as quickly as writing them down, although presenting it on the recording was more difficult and had left Ginger and Pinder late in the studio finishing it off. However Ginger likes to record quickly: if he doesn’t get a solo or recording first or second take he thinks it may not be going to work. Pinder said it needs to be alive and spontaneous and just the right side of wonky. Ginger agreed saying loads of 70s music is miles out of tune and that’s why we love it – “harmonies should be oscillating, fighting each other like in Country music”. Pinder said they were aiming for modern, but with important Wildhearts elements.

Ginger didn’t necessarily want his music to be called catchy, because that can be good or bad. While he was not a lyric snob (as some of his favourite bands have terrible lyrics), often it was all about the lyrics for him.

The sleeve of the latest album has symbolism in common with the artwork of the first album (during the photoshoot of which a scorpion had a fight with a hissing cockroach and squirted poison into Ginger’s eye blinding him for a week). Ginger said the cover of the new album was taken in real life with him almost getting frostbite in a bath of cold water and milk.

The album is called Satanic Rites because Ginger loves Hammer Horror films and wanted to have a film related title and realised mentioning Satan was provocative.

After the event Ginger stayed around to have a beer and socialise. It was a great insight into the man who has a streak of genius and a common touch, suitably contrarian for a Wildheart.

Dawn Osborne