UK rock legends The Wildhearts are soon to release an album that’s somewhat different to their previous output. Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before will be a covers album, with The Wildhearts interpreting their favourite tracks from bands as diverse as Helmet, The Descendents and The Georgia Satellites.
I was lucky enough to make a Transatlantic phonecall to Wildhearts frontman Ginger while he waited his turn in a New York tattoo studio (where else?!) to ask him about Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before, other forthcoming Wildhearts material … and what life is like for, as Sting once put it, an Englishman in New York.
TDP: How’s tricks, Ginger – what have you been up to?
Ginger: Just getting myself set up in New York, really, getting myself legal. I’ve been getting myself some work over here, I’ve got a three year working visa sorted out … staying sober, working out and getting a sane approach to life in order!
TDP: Good stuff. What’s New York like at this time of year?
Ginger: New York’s wonderful, any time of the year! New York’s amazing, it’s just full of energy, it’s got a great sense of opportunity. If you can imagine something happening, then you can make it happen in New York, you’ve just gotta stay focused, keep your eye on the prize. It’s just full of people who share a similar energy and approach to life – you don’t meet many shirkers here.
It’s got a spirit that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world; that’s a result of it being as cosmopolitan as it is, but the difference between London and New York is that people actually live together and benefit from each other’s cultures here. And that makes for a much more open approach to people getting on, y’know?
There’s none of that element of people looking at the ground or avoiding eye contact here. You can’t go anywhere in New York without some complete stranger sparking up a conversation and swapping numbers with you, and as opposed to LA these people actually do call you back.
TDP: So tell us about the covers album, Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before – is it something you’ve always wanted to do, or quite a recent idea?
Ginger: I think it’s something you’ll always want to do if you’re in a band and you share similar musical tastes, listening to new music and turning each other on to new music – especially if you’ve done it for as many years as we have now! Because we really are big fans of music – ever since The Wildhearts started back in the late 80s, if one of us heard a new band, the first thing to do was go to the rest of the guys and say “hey, check this out!”
And we’ve always talked about the idea that it’d be really cool to do a whole album of songs that the fans maybe hadn’t heard, so it’d be on the surface like an album of brand new material, but also to some extent educational, in that you can kind of steer your fans toward some really cool bands, as a kind of starting point for finding out what else these bands have to offer. There’s a lot of pretty obscure stuff on Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before, and we hope to explore further on volumes 2, 3, 4 and onwards …
TDP: Oh, so it’s not just a one-off, then?
Ginger: Well, this is a collection of songs we put together when we decided we were going to do it, and it was just compiled from what we had on our iPods – we didn’t even get into our vinyl collections, or further still our old single collections! One of the benefits of having been around for a long time is that you see a lot of bands come and go, a lot of trends come and go … but the one thing that makes something a classic is simply a great tune. And we’ve got a lot of great tunes in our collections … so yeah, we’re definitely going to be doing more of these, without a doubt.
TDP: Have you had any feedback from the original artists of the songs, at all?
Ginger: Yeah, we have! Ian McNabb from Icicle Works got in touch to say he really liked our version of “Understanding Jane” … he actually said it was better than theirs, which was pretty ridiculous, really. And The Unband got in touch, and they were really stoked that someone had even done a cover version of one of their songs - I think it’s the first cover of one of their tracks that they’d ever heard. I mean, the really fun part of this from our point of view has been the getting in touch with the bands concerned and being able to say thanks in person, y’know?
TDP: Indeed! So, when can we expect another full studio album from The Wildhearts?
Ginger: Well, because we’re a bit Transatlantic now, and everyone’s gotten into the habit of making babies and all that, it’s hard to get the band together, but we’re hoping to meet up around the Download period and start writing some stuff then. Nowadays just getting everyone together is a big task in itself, y’know …
But I really do insist that this time we write the new Wildhearts album together. Normally I just go and write the thing myself and teach the band the songs, but I don’t want to do it that way this time. We should be writing and starting the recording by late this year, early next year … so probably aiming for summer of 2009.
TDP: Excellent – what about your solo material?
Ginger: Well, I’m working on a tonne of material that I’m going to be recording in a slightly different way to what I usually do. I can’t say too much in case I jinx the project, but it’s going to be hopefully a pleasant surprise for everyone – definitely a surprise, nonetheless!
But I’m going to be taking less of a front-man kind of approach to it, flexing a bit more of my songwriting, musical arrangement and producer muscle – which normally I wouldn’t get to do, because I’d be playing every instrument and singing on everything. So I’m going to take a bit of a back seat as far as the performance goes, and see how that works … but it’s such a huge undertaking, what I’m about to do, that I’m probably not going to start recording it until the end of the year.
TDP: Something to look forward to, then! OK, I’m going to leave you in peace to get your tattooing done, but before I go, one last question – who do you reckon is going to take the forthcoming election over there in the States?
Ginger: Oh, Obama, without a doubt. Everything is pointing towards him winning, there’s a good atmosphere and good energy, which can only be a positive thing, and he’s by far the most positive candidate. In fact the others, quite frankly, haven’t got a hope in hell.
TDP: Great! Well it’s been super to talk to you, Ginger, thanks for your time – we’ll all be looking forward to the new Wildhearts material.
Ginger: Thank you, and have a great evening!
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Posted in Interviews |
Tags: covers, Ginger, metal, rock, rock'n'roll, Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, The Wildhearts
