Ginger Wildheart
Ginger Wildheart (born David Leslie Walls; 17 December 1964 in South Shields, England), sometimes known simply as Ginger, is an English rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career as a guitarist in The Quireboys, but is best known as the founder and leader of The Wildhearts. In addition, he has released numerous solo albums and has been involved in many other musical projects. Career. Early career. Ginger played in many bands including South Shields band The Cups and Beki Bondage's band The Bombshells. He was a member of the English band The Quireboys from  1987 until 1989. After being sacked from The Quireboys, he was briefly in the New York band The Throbs, before going on to form The Wildhearts. He has led several incarnations of The Wildhearts since 1989. Side projects. In addition to leading The Wildhearts and maintaining a solo career under his own name, Ginger has participated in numerous side projects and collaborations: Solo career. In early 2001, during The Wildhearts' first disbandment, Ginger proposed a series of CD singles with three tracks each, to be released each month for one year. Known as The Singles Club, this project included the  first material released under the name Ginger and operated parallel to the Silver Ginger 5 project and a reformation of The Wildhearts. Due to financial problems at Infernal Records, only 18 tracks were recorded, and only five singles were released. A compilation of all 18 tracks was released in 2005 as the double album "A Break in the Weather". Ginger also performed regular acoustic shows during this period, resulting in the live acoustic albums "The Great White Monkey" (2004) and "Potatoes & You" (2005). Ginger released the solo albums "Valor Del Corazon" in 2006 and "Yoni" in 2007. The latter was  described by critics as the most calm and eclectic record Ginger had made to date. The album featured guest appearances by Bernie Torme and Toadies singer Vaden Todd Lewis. In mid-2007, Ginger guested as the vocalist for The Scorchers in place of his hero Jason Ringenberg, billed as "Ginger and The Scorchers" on a few dates in the UK. Ginger's third solo album, "Market Harbour", was released in 2008. In March 2009 Ginger began writing a regular online column for "Classic Rock" magazine titled "Ginger's Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll", in which he discusses lesser-known albums . In May 2009 Ginger embarked on his first purely solo tour in which no Wildhearts songs were performed. The tour received rave reviews, including one from writer Steve Beebee in "Kerrang!" magazine. Ginger created an internet TV channel called "Great White Monkey TV" featuring tour footage and backstage video from every show on this tour. Ginger was the penultimate act at the "Kerrang!"-sponsored Camden Rocks festival at the Underworld in London on 6 June 2009. Ginger's performance was considered by "Kerrang!" Magazine to be the highlight of the day and received a review of 5 out of 5. Also  in 2009, Ginger formed the supergroup Camp Freddy for a one-off show in Las Vegas with special guests including Corey Taylor, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum, Billy Morrison, Chris Chaney, Dave Navarro, Steve Jones, John 5, and Ozzy Osbourne. On 10 October 2010, Ginger released "10", a compilation of tracks from his solo career, as a 16-track CD on Round Records. The album is a retrospective of his solo work (including Silver Ginger 5) since 2000, along with two previously unreleased tracks. A second collection called "10 (Two)" was also released as a free 10-track download. For his  next solo project in 2011, Ginger decided to avoid standard record company distribution and explore crowdfunding options. He launched the ambitious "Triple Album Project" via PledgeMusic, announcing a plan to record a 30-song triple album comprising hitherto unfinished and unrecorded material dating back to 2007. The campaign met with immediate success, hitting 100% of its funding total goal within six hours of launch. Hard copies of the full album, consisting of 3 CDs in a hardbound case, were offered only to contributors, and those contributors were invited to participate in a poll to select their favorite tracks. The top  12 songs selected in this fashion would be released as a standard single CD for the public via typical retail channels. As the pledges continued to come in, Ginger announced in February 2012 that the title of the triple album would be "555%" and that when the pledge total hit that percentage of the original funding goal, the 3-CD hard copy of the album would become unavailable, though contributors would still have access to all 30 tracks via download. Furthermore, the publicly-released single CD would be titled "100%". The 555% funding goal was reached three days later. Despite  PledgeMusic's policy of not revealing funding amounts, Ginger announced that the campaign for the "555%" / "100%" album generated over a quarter of a million dollars. The "100%" physical CD release reached number 9 in the midweek UK album chart and sold out its print run, ultimately charting at number 27 on the official UK albums chart. The success of the crowdfunding project for the "555%" / "100%" album inspired Ginger to continue this model. Over the course of 2012 and 2013 he released one album with Hey! Hello!, two with Mutation, and the solo album "Albion", all of which were  also funded by contributions via Pledgemusic. In 2014 Ginger briefly broke away from the crowdfunding model and set up a modern online version of an old-style fan club. A subscription to the Ginger Associated Secret Society (G-A-S-S) came with a guaranteed three brand new songs on the first day of every month. During this period Ginger also toured with the Courtney Love band, and she appeared in G-A-S-S song "Honour". In December 2014 Ginger announced another Pledgemusic campaign to jointly fund a new solo album and a biographical book. This Pledgemusic campaign quickly  reached its funding goal, and 10% of all the money raised thereafter was donated to the charity Shelter. The album "Year of the Fanclub", consisting of songs from the G-A-S-S project, was released in 2015, and the book on Ginger's life and music, titled "Songs and Words", was released in early 2016. Ginger's next crowdfunded project was the country-oriented album "Ghost in the Tanglewood". The album was supported by an acoustic tour assisted by Jase Edwards. The album "Headzapoppin", was released in late 2019. The album "The Pessimist's Companion" was released in 2020  by the recently relaunched Round Records.