The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed
By Kris | June 20, 2003
In the studio with Ginger early in the making of the forthcoming album ‘The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed’ · Words by Kris Coverdale
It’s with a more than a little trepidation that I walk down a darkened road in North London, looking for an address where I’ve arranged to meet Rudy & Gary (The Wildhearts management) for a quick chat about how the website is going and plans for the future. Trepidation in part because everyone I’ve mentioned the address to has asked if I have my bulletproof jacket with me. After what seems to be an endless walk I eventually climb the steps on the outside of a warehouse like building to knock on a very unlikely looking first floor door.
Once answered, I find that the management are not yet here and am instead lead into a cramped studio control room to find Ginger as surprised to see me as I am seeing him. Consummate pro that he is though, he’s swiftly making me welcome and in seconds I’m perched in the producer’s chair, beer in hand, with songs from the new album blasting out.
The songs are still early versions and Ginger is continually pointing out changes and improvements to be made: “faster, heavier, catchier…” but as always with the Wildhearts, the quality more than shines through.
‘It’s All Up To Me’ is first up, showcasing a heavy Zeppelin like groovy riff and a polished sound. This is followed up by ‘Top of the World’, which as anyone who has seen the recent tour can testify, is already well on its way to classic status: by the end of the first chorus I’m already singing along to the Guns n Roses-like main line of ‘top of the world, where the sky’s so blue and the girls are so beautiful’ like I’ve known it since birth.
‘Nexus Icon’ is stylistically different, featuring a low fi distorted verse with sharp, shouty vocals that begins to bring Endless Nameless to mind. However just as I’m beginning to pigeon-hole it, an uplifting wall of guitars soar in for the chorus and do that big melodic kick to the head that the Wildhearts have honed to a tee.
‘Its Only Love’ is another with potential hit single written all the way through it like Blackpool rock; the verse alone is catchier than SARS and I’m still singing the chorus now after just one listen. It’s a classic Wildhearts tune, but far more ‘up’ than what has gone before – you’re going to love it!
Ginger beams like the proud father that he is, as I marvel at one amazing song after another. When I comment that it sounds like every song could be a single he points out that is exactly the plan “Then a record company can release anything they want from it and we’ll still be happy”. Sounds like a great plan to me.
Taken as a whole, even in this early incarnation, the album sounds like somewhere the Wildhearts have never been before: a summer album. If unlike me, you live in sunny climes and can go cruising with the top down, this is the CD you’ll be turning to everytime. Comments Ginger “we want it to be the soundtrack to people’s summers, to their festivals”.
The overall feel is akin to the positivity of Silver Ginger 5 songs, played with that indefinable Wildhearts sense of attitude and rock n rolling, street-fighting, heart-stopping, melodic heaviness that sets them apart from the crowd. I’m also getting overtones of outdoor drinking, with an aftertaste of overwhelming optimism and a slight hint of burgeoning love affairs. And it’s even better than 40%…
But before I can get too cosy with the new songs though (which is probably just as well, as re-reading that last paragraph I seemed to be losing the plot a little with the excitement of it all), the bands management – Rudy and Gary – arrive. A very productive chat follows which leads to among other things the recent band chats we’ve seen during the tour and also a forthcoming merchandise section.
Whilst we’re talking I can hear Ginger laying down rafts of extra guitars to ‘So Into You’. Along with Vanilla Radio this is receiving steroid injections for its appearance on the album (note at the time of writing ‘Stormy’ wasn’t set to appear on the album). By the sounds of it, the band is developing a thing for Phil Spector / Brian May-like walls of guitars.
Following the meeting we marvel a little further at the new songs and I take the chance to chat to guitar tech ‘Hot Steve’ about the infamous sticker splattered black Les Paul that has become the onstage trademark. I’m shown both the guitar (a 25/50 Anniversary, guitar spotters) and its infrequently seen spare. Having shown me round the main guitar and its customisations Steve proffers it to me.
How can I turn down an opportunity like this? So quick as a shot I have it slung around my neck. And slung is the right word. Ok, so Ginger is taller than me, but its lower than Eminem’s jeans. And it begs to rock. Powerchords are essential on a beast of a Les Paul like this. So I proceed to forget how to play the guitar in front of producer Russ, Hot Steve and Ginger himself. Still I think I manage to rescue the situation with a quick rendition of Joan Jet’s ‘I love Rock n Roll’ which sparks a mini singalong, before the evening descends into drinking and guitar playing.
With everything becoming a hazy glow, its soon time to leave, with both the chorus of ‘So Into You’ and the parting words ‘don’t forget your shotgun for the walk back to the station’ ringing in my ears, and I walk back along the darkened paths of North London musing on what a blinder of an album the Wildhearts have on their hands.
N.B. The album is currently scheduled for an August / September release.
Ginger Message Following Latest Ginger Says
By Ginger | June 4, 2003
Thank you for all the kind messages regarding the latest ‘Ginger Says’. Like I said in the intro ‘the human race isn’t a total waste of time’, and you lot just went and proved me right! You’re a great bunch. I’d miss you all way too much to do anything stupid to myself. So I won’t! You’re stuck with me for a long, long time.
Love
Ginger
Ginger Says – Greetings From Hospital
By Ginger | May 30, 2003
Just got back from a trip to Hell. It all started when… well, let’s go back aways.
I’ve always had a tremendously competitive streak. It has blurred my decisions, marred my enjoyment and misdirected my attention for years, ever since I got into this business, in fact. And if one can make comparisons between brains and computers then I downloaded far too many tons of useless information, with no idea how to erase it. And when it clogged up the system the computer ‘shut down’. It is far too easy to do, to fill your head with needless stress.
This comes to you in the form of a warning.
So, I did what I’ve heard people do when they break their head, they go to the Doctors to get it mended.
“Wassamatter, Ginge?”
“Well Doc, been having these suicidal thoughts for years now, but just the other day they turned into suicidal intentions. Scared the living shite outta me, to be honest, and although I’d never actually go through with the act it is still best for the safety of me, and the rest of the world (I’m ticking like a fucking time bomb at this point) if you give me a pill that makes me feel normal, like other people.”
A script for Lithium is produced and the evening is spent enjoying the most simple things, from my baby girls toothless grin to re-runs of Friends. Like normal people do. The next day an ignorant pig in a car made me want to step out onto the road and pummel him to hospitalisation.
“Doc, those pills aren’t working”
“Then you must be admitted into hospital. Immediately”
Fair enough. If it’s gonna work it’s worth a try, and believe me at this point I’m ready to try anything. Except that I didn’t get to see the face of my Doctor for more than 10 minutes once admitted. In his place is a younger Doctor (dunno why, but older Doctors put you more at ease, right?) who prescribed me a cocktail of pills so great that Elvis would have said “taking the piss a bit aren’t you, mate?”
It reads like Keith Richards monthly shopping bill, except this is my daily dose:
Sertraline (aka Lustral, an antidepressant) 50 mg
Zopiclone (a sleeping pill) 15mg
Librium (aka Chlordiazepoxide, a tranquillizer) 60mg
Chlorpromazine (aka Largactil, a tranquillizer) 50mg
Diazepam (aka Valium) 80mg
Lithium (a mood stabiliser) 800mg
Sounds like it would ‘fuck with one’ a little, right? Right! This Doctor ‘dosed’ me up good, while inserting little nuggets of information into his new, delicate and very impressionable, patient’s head such as:
“Who’s name is that tattooed on your hand?”
“It’s my son”
“He’ll never forgive you for that, and hate you for it when he gets older”
“And what on earth do you mean by that?”
Oh, it’s just something my Father used to say to me”
“And what on earth do you mean by that?”
“I don’t really know”.
So, this guy has assured my family that in 4 days I will be well. This was not essentially accurate as within four days of dribbling, burbling and bumping into walls I decided to test out the effects of asphyxiation using a shoelace. No-one told me it takes 2 seconds to asphyxiate oneself and I was found on the floor, broken shoelace around my neck waiting for the ambulance that this Doctor ordered to take me to Whittingtons, in Archway (a nut-house basically) to be sectioned on his recommendation.
Now, you gotta have figured out that assessments and recommendations don’t seem to be this guys ‘thing’, right. And a verdict of ‘attempted suicide’ by a six foot bloke trying to hang himself with a shoelace just isn’t going to hold up in an enquiry.
My Missus, after being told that her rights can be overridden by this Doctor rushed to the NHS hospital where I was being ushered, to stop this redirection taking place. And there, sat on an old chair with dried blood covering the arm, I sat and explained to the Senior House Officer for Psychiatry (Jesus, our seats didn’t even match, talk about underfunding) that I wasn’t in fact suicidal, but instead had suicidal thoughts from time to time. A common partner to being extremely creative and therefore over sensitive and over analysing everything.
The Crisis Response & Resolution Team (angels, every one of them… but more about them later) turned up to provide a verdict on my mental stability, or lack of. They eventually determined that the most humane way of dealing with my case would be to visit me at home as opposed to tying my arms behind my back and chaining me to a wall. It was that simple, and that perilous.
If it was not for the Crisis Response people you’d be getting no albums or tours, my children would be getting no hugs, and my family would get no money to eat.
So that was my week, how’s yours been?
Seriously, the last figures published by the Today show give you a greater idea of the sheer criminal neglect that mental health research suffers from. Annual charity donations are split like this:
£82 Million – Cancer
£43 Million – Animals
£40 Million – Blind
£13 Million – Heart and chest disease
£2 to 3 Million – Mental health research
It is currently estimated that one person in 32,000 suffers from Aids, one in fifty affected by mental handicap, one in 30 from cancer, and one in 10 from psychiatric ill-health. One in 20 adults suffer from it at any one time, while 70% of sufferers remain untreated. 80 million working days are lost every year through depression at an estimated financial cost to business and industry of around £4 billion a year. One in 10 men, and one in 5 women suffer from a severe depressive episode in their lifetime. It is estimated by the Medical Health Foundation in Britain that 6 MILLION people suffer from psychiatric ill-health in the UK in the course of an average year.
That’s one in ten of the population.
Between 25% to 50% of manic depressive sufferers have attempted suicide at least once. More than four in every five seriously depressed people will be troubled by suicidal thoughts.Two in every five will take preliminary steps to do so.One in seven sufferers of depression will die by suicide. 5000 people kill themselves every year, and the majority of these are believed to be depressed.
Depression is the most frequently occurring psychiatric disorder, but just take a look at HOW common.
At the present time in the UK:
One in 32,000 people suffer from Aids
One in 50 people suffer from mental handicap
One in 30 people suffer from Cancer
One in 10 people suffer from heart and respiratory disorders
One in 10 people suffer from mental illness
Mental health illness is as common as heart and respiratory problems, three times as common as Cancer and THREE THOUSAND times as common as AIDS. In fact the closest thing it has in common with these illnesses is that it KILLS.
If you have any history of mental illness and/or depression then have it seen to.
NOW.
Get in touch with your GP and ask them to refer you to the Crisis Response & Resolution Team. These people are a care in the community affair that visit your house and talk to you like you are a valid human being, and not a conveyor belt case getting in the way of a golf meeting. In all lines of work there are those that care and there are those that resent their position, and spend their time dreaming of being on the next rung.
BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT CARE.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE …………YOU ARE NOT ALONE …………YOU ARE NOT
ALONE…………… YOU ARE NOT ALONE …………..YOU ARE NOT ALONE
………….YOU ARE NOT ALONE ………………YOU ARE NOT ALONE……..
Really, you aren’t. There ARE angels out there. They care. They care for you. Talk to them, and learn to love yourself again. Sometimes the pain you feel is heightened by the fact that no one can see it. There are no broken bones or running noses. But that excruciating pain that removes you, that hurts, that makes you feel disembodied and alone… truly, truly alone, that pain is real. As real as any broken bone. They believe you when you say you have a migraine and they can’t see that! People are afraid to help with, or even believe in mental illness. Just in case you’re bluffing. It’s also kind of embarrassing for them, even though they themselves are probably experiencing the same feelings occasionally (just look at the statistics above), but see it as a weakness to admit it. You are not alone. It’s hard to think, no fuck that… it’s IMPOSSIBLE to think that things can get better, but believe me they actually can. You’ve got to believe me on this. The human race isn’t a total waste of time. There are some good people.
Through the Crisis Response & Resolution Team I have found people that have no hidden agenda, no ‘checking their watch’, no ‘waiting for pay day’. Just a heart and a need to help. To help you live. To save lives, the most beautiful and vital thing of all.
If you think you’ve had enough then you could be just the person needed for recruitment into the Crisis Response & Resolution Team staff. Who better to talk to a suicidal person than a suicidal person?
None of this “pull yourself together” bullshit.
As the late, and astoundingly strong willed, Spike Milligan once said about people that say ‘snap out of it’:”That’s silly… like going round with a broken leg and saying ‘come on – walk, you’ll be alright'”
Spike Milligan suffered from bipolar manic depression all of his long life, but never succumbed to suicide, and neither need you. Counseling and medication mean that in this day and age you need not suffer.
You / we have a long way to go to find out what medication suits us. No two depressives are alike, and no theory on depression has it ‘nailed’.
The thing that has the greatest success rate is counseling. Whether it’s a expensive shrink or the guy in the chip shop. Talking is best.
Be strong. You’ll find that it’s worth it in the end.
Contact your GP, or write to me. I’m always here.
Just please, please stay alive.
Your’s in madness!
Ginger
So Into You – 22 in the charts
By Kris | May 20, 2003
The latest single ‘So Into You’ has entered the UK singles charts at number 22. Thanks go to all those who have supported it by both buying the single and requesting it wherever possible!
So Into You – Request on XFM
By Kris | April 25, 2003
As you know, a new single is on its way. And in customary Wildhearts fans fashion we’d like to promote it far and wide. The first object of our affections is the lovely XFM. And the even more lovely Lauren Laverne [now the not quite so lovely but ultra cool Ian Camfield – Ed 29/04/03].
So Into You has already been c-listed on the station, but we can do better than that! The single can be requested by calling the studio on 08700 800 1234 (national rate) or at www.xfm.co.uk/musicresponse.
Let’s make our voice heard!
Tour update
By Kris | April 25, 2003
Hi, today’s update from Gary about how the tour is going:
“Manchester was a great show: thanks to everyone who attended, sorry about the late start, the production is taking a little longer than expected to put up but we are getting it sorted quicker now. Ginger had a nice 30 minute massage on his back and is now in fine bodily form! Darling are getting a great reception from Wildhearts fans and again a big thank you for that, supporting new UK talent is essential to keep our music industry on its toes.
Stidi is having trouble sleeping on the bus so I was thinking maybe someone could lend him a teddy bear to sleep with just for that little bit of comfort! Jon Poole is enjoying his tour with us and has asked me to thank you all for making him so welcome. CJ is as usual just keeping cool and taking everything in his stride. Today is Glasgow Barrowlands and I’ll let you now on how things went tomorrow”.
Gary Garner – Tour Manager
Tour update and So Into You release date
By Kris | April 24, 2003
A quick message from the band’s management about how the tour is going:
“The tour is moving along very nicely. The Nottingham show was held up a little due to production set up but it looks and sounds great in my opinion! The band are on fire on-stage at the moment – the set last night was amazing but I may be a little biased. When you see any of the crew when you come to the shows give them a pat on the back as they are working their tits off to make this happen. Ginger picked up a little injury to his back but he is having some massage treatment and is fine.”
They also sent through the setlist that the band have been taking onstage with them, which you can look at here.
In addition we can confirm that the next single ‘So Into You’ is released May 12th and will be across 3 formats: 2 CDs and 7″ vinyl.
Address for Messages to Danny
By Kris | April 19, 2003
The address to send messages of support to Danny is:
Danny McCormack c/o Absurd Management
The Business Park
18 Rockingham Road
Kettering
Northants
In addition, all mails to the danny@thewildhearts.com address will be passed on through Absurd Management.
Looking forward to the tour, from Wednesday (the official tour start date), members of the band will be available in the chat room between approximately 5:30 and 6:15 on all tour dates (apart from days off).
We still need to complete our final street-teams, so if there is anyone in Folkestone or Norwich who can help out, please contact
gazagarner@aol.com as soon as possible.
The next single ‘So Into You‘ will now be released on May 12th
Chat Room on Website
By Kris | April 16, 2003
We’re pleased to announce a new addition to the website. We’ve introduced a chat facility which can be accessed from the left hand menu so we now have somewhere to gather and chat about the band.
Chat with the band will be scheduled soon too, once everything is running smoothly!
And now for the technical bit: when accessed, a pop-up window should appear. Please accept this certificate otherwise you cannot access chat.
Also please be aware that chat members with @’s in their names are moderators, and while logged in 24×7, we might not actually be there, so don’t be upset if we aren’t able to answer you right away.
And lastly, have fun!
Folkestone Street-Team
By Kris | April 15, 2003
Many thanks to all the people who replied to the requests for help for both the ‘Call to Arms’ and setting up street-teams.
We still need people for a street team in Folkestone, so if you can help, please can you contact Gary Garner at gazagarner@aol.com