For the greater part of The ’Hearts’ latest ongoing hiatus, however, he has broken the habit of a decade, by side-stepping centrestage for a supporting role in Hanoi Rocks’ singer Michael Monroe’s eponymous hard rock supergroup. Now getting set for his own December tour promoting 10, Ginger explains why big mouth would always strike out again sooner or later.

Last time we spoke you said how much you’d enjoyed having the other Wildhearts take the lead increasingly on the Chutzpah album. Was that desire to take a back seat sometimes partly what led you to sign up to Michael Monroe’s band?
Yeah, that was it really. I just got fed up with doing everything, with being the guy who says something stupid and then it all gets blown out of proportion. I'm opinionated, and being the mouthpiece of a band and being opinionated are often two very inappropriate bedfellows. I just got really, really tired of doing it and so I've had about a year off from being in the limelight. But be careful what you wish for because you tend to get it. I got it, and it's nice, but I miss the microphone. Once you get taken away from a position you just want to go back to that position - but to go back and do it with 10-times more vigour than you did last time.

You’ve not done things by halves to this point, at least not to go by the recently posted Japanese sleevenotes to 10, where you related each song to the headspace it was written in. Were a few memories you’d happily have left buried dredged up in the course of compiling this album?
Oh yeah, songs are like tattoos - I couldn’t go through the hassle of getting a tattoo, or writing a song, if it didn’t mean something massive. It was almost 10 years ago that The Wildhearts kinda split up properly and we had all our drug problems and all of that was such a different time to now. Being a crackhead is so different to not being a crackhead. Writing those notes was horrible, it was really painful to relive that because I don't like going back. I'm not a fan of it anyway, and certainly not in the very open way the Japanese market demands that you write, in a song you say this stuff and by making it a clever rhyme or wordplay it masks the wound.

Would I be right to suggest the two brand new tracks included on 10 come from a comparatively reflective or philosophical mindset?
If you don't get philosophical as you continue to exist then you’re not learning stuff you should, like that big thing isn't big anymore, ‘oh, I get it - big things don't stay big!’ You put two and two together and bingo - philosophy! If you're in your mid-40s and you're a bitter, twisted old fruit then... you're fucked.

You recently shared some ‘wisdom’ with Paul Miles, author of Sex Tips from Rock Stars. Was it not just a little odd having a bloke formally quiz you about your sex life in such depth?
It was WAY beyond odd! That book is in a queue of books I need to get around to - I’m dying to read it but then a part of me is like ’I don't wanna know about anybody else’s sex life!’. It's private, and I can't believe I was so open about it when I did that. It's not something to read before dinner. Or sex.

That depends whether you need tips really. Someone out there might credit you with saving their marriage!
Oh God - I never even thought of that! I hope not, I really hope not.


Upcoming Ginger live dates:
17 December @ The Garage