CJ Wildheart, Scott Sorry and Grand Theft Audio unite for triple headed tour, coming to Hampshire | Interview

And with that band again on hiatus, The Wildhearts’ long-serving guitarist CJ has resumed his solo career, drummer Ritch has returned to a reactivated Grand Theft Audio (GTA) while Scott, who has also played in Sorry and the Sinatras, Amen and Brides of Destruction, ploughs on with his solo career.

GTA released their cult-classic debut Blame Everyone in 2000, blending punk and electronica. They reformed in 2020 and released their second album Pass Me The Conch earlier this month.

The trio are reunited on a triple-headed tour currently tearing up the UK.

Explaining how the tour came about CJ says: ‘It's been five years since I last toured solo, so my manager said: “You've got to do some shows!”

‘Ritchie has been working on the GTA album for a couple of years now, and my manager manages Scott as well. I knew my “best of” album was coming, and I knew The Wildhearts were going to pull everything this year. I wanted to do some shows, so it just happened! Scott's got an album coming, Ritchie's album is coming out and mine will be out.

‘It was an absolute no-brainer, and it might go some way to make up for the disappointment of The Wildhearts cancelling everything again.’

The Wildhearts return, and departure

The Wildhearts have been as known for their fractious relationships as their killer songs throughout their career, with many members coming and going, punctuated by splits and reformations since they began in 1989. Frontman Ginger has been the one mainstay, but CJ has been his most consistent foil with Ritch being the longest serving drummer. Scott was on three studio albums from 2007-10 and has had two more short stints with the band.

When The Wildhearts released the aptly-named Renaissance Men in 2019 it was their first album in 10 years and was also their highest ever charting album – hitting number 11. Another strong album, 21st Century Love Songs, appeared in 2021, bettering the previous album to hit number nine in the charts, and it seemed things were on an even keel. But of course things soon imploded and earlier this year they pulled all future tour and festival dates.

When asked why the band just can’t seem to get along for long, CJ says: ‘It’s our lack of maturity’, he laughs. ‘Actually we are quite mature, but it's’, he sighs, ‘it’s The Wildeharts. We get along, we don't get along, it's just the nature of the band. Let's face it's not the first time this has happened!’

When The Wildhearts finally decided to get back in the studio in 2018, CJ was surprised at the creative flood it triggered.

SEE ALSO: Long-lost Portsmouth music scene compilation from 1981, Git Dayn! gets a rerelease

‘I would've been happy with a handful of gigs, but to get two albums and a mini-album… It’s because we had a really good manager. The Wildhearts are always most productive when we have a manager who takes care of the business sides of things and makes sure studios are booked and gigs are booked.

'It's a shame – we had some huge festivals booked (for 2022), and we're not going to get them again. It’s a shame we just couldn't sort our stuff out. But if there's one band in the world who's going to turn down opportunities, it's us! We have made a career out of it. There's a reason most people haven't heard of us, and it's because of us... It's why we're the best kept secret in the UK.

‘With the Wildhearts I never hold my breath. We hit this point after (2009’s) ¡Chutzpah! and we didn't do anything for almost three years. We've fallen out and made up many, many, many times. It's not that big a deal, we always seem to bounce back at some point, we'll just have to see what happens.’

CJ’s Lives

Focusing again on his solo career CJ has just released a “best of” album, where he has rerecorded tracks from across his output.

‘It's called Lives, as in “past lives”, covering many of my past lives with Honeycrack, with The Jellys, The Wildhearts, as a solo artist. Artists like myself and Ginger, we're like cats, we have many lives and we do bounce back!’

What prompted the decision to release a best of now?

‘I'm 55 for this year. I signed my first record deal when I was 18, I've made a lot of albums. When you think of "best of” albums they tend to be by bands with loads of hits, we haven't had that many hits, but I wanted to do something to celebrate the fact that after decades of making music that I'm still around.

‘I didn't want to do a typical rip-off thing of remastering the songs and sticking them out again – I just couldn't do that. I don't see the point of getting people to buy the same songs twice just because it's had some treble, or some bottom-end, added to it and it's been repackaged. Hence I rerecorded 12 older songs, and I wanted the same drummer who plays throughout my solo stuff, Jason Bowld, to play on the older stuff, and I wanted it to sound like an album and be value for money!

‘I actually play everything on the albums apart from the drums, they're real "solo" albums. I occasionally get some guest singers or get someone to do a guitar solo, but 99 per cent of the playing and singing, apart from the drums, is myself.’

An artist who’s Split

And he is also working on a new solo album – Split.

‘That's five punk-pop songs versus five hardcore-punk songs. That's my feet planted firmly with one in pop, and one in rock and punk and metal – it's really good to do an album encompassing both of those styles I truly love.

‘As I grow older the last thing I want to do is mellow out. I don't want to be one of those older artists who just goes soft. I want to go out on fire and burning and screaming! If anything my solo output has got heavier over the years. I'd rather give up than go mellow.

‘As you get older and you get slower, you want something to lift you up and pick you up. I don't want to make music to put people to sleep, I want music to make them feel good to be alive and uplifting – and I'm a punk-rocker. I want to kick people in the head with my music, basically.

‘Where does it say in the handbook of life that once you hit your 50s you've got to start playing folk or country, or acoustic music – gargh – seriously! I can’t play cowboy music, I’m an Indian – my dad would be spinning in his urn...’

His father, his hero

CJ’s father died earlier this year after a long battle with dementia and Parkinson’s. CJ wrote movingly about him on social media at the time.

‘My dad was my hero and the coolest person I've ever known,’ CJ says now.

‘I know people look at musicians and think that they're cool, but I have yet to meet a musician who I believe is cool. My dad was West Indian and I only saw him get angry twice in my entire life and never heard him swear. That's a cool man – he doesn't lose his temper, doesn't need to do drugs or wear a leather jacket and be covered in tattoos to make people think he's cool.

‘He had Alzheimer’s for 10 years and had been in homes for the last five and he took it on the chin and never complained. I'm surrounded by people – and I include myself in this – who've been given chances, and all they do is bitch and moan and take those chances and screw them up and kick them back in the faces of people who gave them to them. Or they let down the people who are supporting them.

‘My dad never did any of those things and was always grateful for all the opportunities he was ever given. If I could be an eighth of the man he was then I'll be succeeding in life.’

Saucy devil

There’s been another link to his parents in his career in recent years – he also produces a hot sauce called Devil Spit, based on his mum’s recipe.

‘The first bottle came out when I released the solo album Mable in 2014. I was approached by a company who said they would like to work with me on a sauce. I said my mum always made her own hot sauce, so it would be based on her recipe, and I've carried on working with them. But all of the sauces are based, originally, on my mum's hot sauce. I open my shop twice a year for a two week period.’

The sauce has proved popular and often sells out before the two week window is over.

‘If I pressed the button, the sauce could probably take over my life and I wouldn't be able to do the music, but I like to do different things. But the sauce is really close to my heart.’

So does that make him the punk-rock alternative to Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae sauce?

‘Mine's a bit different – mine's got a bit of heat to it. No offence to Levi Roots, but that stuff's like ice cream, mate!’ he laughs.

CJ Wildheart, Scott Sorry and Grand Theft Audio are at The Brook in Southampton on Friday, September 23, doors 7.30pm. Advance tickets £18.50. Go to the-brook.com.