Photo Credit: Andy Ford
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“There was only two ways it was going to go. I was going to end up in jail or in the ground.” When THE WILDHEARTS announced their hiatus in 2022, it appeared that the wheels may have well and truly come off the band. Although its members ploughed on with various solo projects, it also seemed like this disintegration of the group might take frontman Ginger Wildheart down with it.
“My life had spun out of control,” Wildheart candidly shares. “I ended up getting sectioned, which turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.” Known as one of rock’s most prolific artists, taking his foot off the pedal was exactly what Ginger needed to take stock. “It allowed me to just stop everything and refocus – and focus on myself.” However, the temporary cost was his lifelong passion for creating music.
“When I came out of the hospital, I had no interest in music. None at all. And obviously, I had no songs.” Considering Ginger’s near hundreds of song-writing credits over the years, it was an atypical position for the Geordie troubadour to find himself in. Dedicating time to his own recovery however led to inspiration eventually striking. And it struck hard. “The songs just started coming! It was like a dead direct line, a hotline to something bigger than me.” Wildheart chortles and adds, “The material was coming in so fast and furious, I was having to say, ‘look, can you fucking slow down?!’”
To say the recovering Wildheart was caught off-guard by the sudden inspiration would be an understatement. “I literally didn’t want to play the guitar. I hadn’t played for so long, I couldn’t play!” But that rustiness proved reinvigorating too. “It was like starting out again. And that’s where I found the magic was.”
Unexpectedly armed with a wealth of material after this particularly difficult patch in his life, Ginger found himself in the position of now trying to get an album off the ground. After recording demos, an offer was soon on the table from Spinefarm, though with a key condition, as Ginger explains. “We can do a deal, provided you don’t do this with the last lineup.”
For longtime fans of the band, particularly its “classic” line-up (debatably Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack and Ritch Battersby), this may seem like a bit of a surprise, but not to Ginger. “I don’t blame them,” he admits. “As exciting as anyone might think a bunch of 50-odd year olds getting drunk, taking drugs and getting into trouble is, it’s not.”
Was it that easy to close the door on the old line-up however? “I’m fatally loyal sometimes,” Wildheart begins. “Which is probably something that people won’t believe about me because you know how many changes there’s been in the band,” he adds with a self-aware smile. Before recording began proper, Ginger reached out to both CJ and Battersby, sharing the material and asking if they’d do the record. They both turned it down, providing Wildheart with the closure he needed. “Great, you’ve both allowed me to move on,” Ginger adds gratefully.
That did however mean rebuilding the band ahead of recording this new album, for which Ginger tapped a few familiar faces from his pool of collaborators. Jon Poole, ex-CARDIACS member and often-times WILDHEART himself, was a no brainer for the bass. Ben Marsden, who Ginger describes as “the man most biologically predisposed to be in THE WILDHEARTS” slotted in to the other guitar slot naturally. Rounding out the lineup for recording was Cheb Nettles who had played on the demos. With the pieces in place, recording went uncharacteristically smoothly. “We did the album and it was one of those magic sessions where, from the first beat that went down, everything worked,” Ginger beams.
The resultant record, Satanic Rites Of The Wildhearts, feels like a departure of sorts from the last few releases under THE WILDHEARTS banner. Ginger notes, “there was an innocence about this one where we weren’t questioning any part of the process – is that song too poppy, is that song too heavy?”
Rather than be hemmed in by what THE WILDHEARTS should sound like, Satanic Rites… sees the band stretch their musical focus beyond punk-thrash melodic aggression. Instead, it taps into the more experimental vein of releases like Fishing For Luckies and Ginger’s varied solo material. It’s a course correction for the band that Wildheart implies has been coming since their second album, 1995’s P.H.U.Q.
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“P.H.U.Q. was supposed to be a double album and I had this vision that we were going to be able to go anywhere. And then the record company said, ‘We’re going to cut all the long and interesting songs and we’re going to try and make a carbon copy of the first album.” While the excised tracks would soon resurface and become classics in their own right (first as part of the aforementioned Fishing For Luckies and eventually in 2022’s P.H.U.Q. Deluxe), Ginger took the pushback to heart. “It killed me. It killed my spirit.”
Satanic Rites Of The Wildhearts is both the first step in this new chapter for the group and an opportunity for Ginger to let go of some of the band’s past. “You’re dragged down by the past,” he reflects. “The present is the only place you’ll ever be. So that’s how I’m approaching everything now. And that means putting things to bed!”
It’s certainly not the first rebirth of THE WILDHEARTS and who knows if it’ll be the last. But with a new record on the horizon and a tour kicking off just as the album drops, Ginger’s enthusiasm for this moment is infectious – though he’s well aware of the sceptics. “I’m really excited about where this is going. And everybody who’s going to accept change and wants to follow us on board, it’s going to be very exciting for them!”
After over thirty years in the game and weathering countless setbacks with THE WILDHEARTS, Ginger’s resilience and longevity is driven by one key lesson above all: “Don’t die. Stick around for the punchline.”
Satanic Rites of the Wildhearts is out now via Snakefarm Records.
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