Here he is, the bold, the volatile, the immensely talented Ginger.

GINGER: That’s a really, really easy question to ask, but not really an easy question to answer.

SK: Tell me about the latest tour, album, whatever.

G: Right now we’re touring to make some money, to clean up the debts off of our last tour, thanks to our last tour manager, who will remain anonymous. When we’re done with this tour, we’re going back home to record a new solo album, then another Sonic Circus album, in between touring some more and going to Japan. We’re also probably going to record a new Wildhearts album at the end of the year.

SK: Tell me a bit about Valor Del Corazon. Where did the title come from?

G: It was a title given to me during a really emotionally draining period of my life. A very traumatic period of my life, so traumatic that there was a lot of paranormal stuff going on. We didn’t have a title for the album while we were recording it. One morning, I woke up, and it was given to me. From kind of a divine source that I had been getting a lot of inspiration from. That’s when God comes into you, when you lose yourself.

G: I have a lovely story. Can I tell you the story? It’s so sweet, you might want to print it. I saw this picture, and there were some footprints in the sand and a dialogue between a man and God. The man says, “God, you’ve always been there with me walking along. I can see because there are two separate footprints in the sand. But when things are really, really terrible, there’s only one set of footprints. Why do you leave me when things are so bad?” God goes, “My child, I didn’t leave you. I carried you.” How sweet!

SK: It is very sweet, indeed. Now how does that tie into your new album?

G: Valor Del Corazon was a title given to me, and it’s spelled wrong. What I thought it said was “strength of the heart,” but what it actually says is “the strength heart has.” It’s like the strength of universal heart, everyone’s heart. It’s much more of a universal title. That’s why I say I was given it. I didn’t go and get it translated.

SK: You call it “most adventurous and most personal.” Why?

G: Adventurous because I’d never done instrumentals before, and I’ve never done a lot of things that I did in this album. Personal because it was all written around the time when I was going through the really low periods of my life. A lot of it is in reference to relationships breaking up, the stages you go through in recovery and re-discovery.

SK: I heard you recorded it at Willie Nelson’s studio. How was the experience?

G: Oh my God, you haven’t got enough tape! It was weird. When you go through anything traumatic, you have this weird bubble around you, some kind of cloud. When we entered the studio, it was the day that it disappeared. And it really felt like, “Oh my goodness, it’s over!” It had some really amazing healing powers, that studio. Frank Sinatra recorded there, Rolling Stones recorded there, Willie Nelson recorded all his albums there, live! He doesn’t record them piece by piece, he records them with a live band! But the most touching thing about the studio was that they have a ghost named Pooky that would only show up on really good sessions. He was an assistant of Willie Nelson that died of cancer a number of years ago. And he showed up on our session. He made himself apparent in a number of ways, the ways you can’t deny. Like there was a coat hanging on the door, and I heard this bang, and the coat was swinging like there was wind. But there was no wind! And I saw that coat swinging and said, “Okay, I believe it.”

SK: Do you think pain, sorrow, heartache, those things are more inspirational for singing?

G: Unfortunately, yes. I wouldn’t say it’s conducive to better material, but it’s definitely conducive to more material. Because happiness, you only got a number of songs about being happy. Shiny happy people. Whereas when you’re really miserable, you don’t wanna go socialize. You wanna sit down, and the guitar becomes your friend, and you have an endless amount of time on your hands. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you do want to create in situations like that.

SK: You mentioned earlier that the shows in New York City last March were bad. Why?

G: Oh, it wasn’t bad. The first one was really bad, and the second was, what’s worse than really bad? What’s the worst thing you can be? The equivalent of this dressing room? Appalling. Dogshit. Really smelly dogshit. Dogshit on everyone’s shoes. It was awful. I never wanted to be anywhere less. And New York is my favorite city in the whole world. I never wanted to be anywhere less than the stage on that second night. It was organized by this legendary figure by the name of Bebe Buell. Lovely woman.

G: Let’s say we got a lot of surprises. But you know, I thought about that, we went to New York, and we sucked. So we’ve got to go back. Absolutely. With the whole group. We’re an eleven-piece now. So we got to get a whole group to do a proper show. And we found out something really, really useful too. Rock magazines are like Rottweilers. They do strange things. The worst show in my life in New York got three out of five in Kerrang magazine. And the Download festival, possibly the best show we’ve ever done got three out of five.

SK: You mentioned the Wildhearts recording at the end of the year. I’ve been curious to know how the tour with The Darkness a couple years back went?

G: It was great because The Darkness guys are really good friends of ours. We also saw a lot of America, and that was fantastic. There was so much to see. But then typically, it was the Wildhearts. We all started arguing after a while. And then it was not a good place to be.

G: I’m still thinking the same. We might record now, we might do three or four big shows, but not tour. I don’t think I could tour with the Wildhearts again. I don’t get fucked up no more, I don’t do drugs, so I couldn’t really tour with the Wildhearts. And first of all, I don’t want to.

SK: Ever considered writing and producing for other people?

G: Like Butch Walker?

SK: Yeah.

G: No.

SK: I bet it’s good money.

G: But there are other ways to make good money. Making porn movies makes good money. Every now and then, it does get in my head to produce for other people, but I don’t wanna be an awful producer. I think the best producers are the ones who don’t really care. Because I care about music, I’d be arguing about a chord in a song. And the band wouldn’t like that. It’d be a miserable experience. And another thing is you’d have to listen to the bad music all the time. There’s not enough money in this business to make me listen to Avril Lavigne over and over again.

SK: You seem to be very active on MySpace. What do you think about the impact of MySpace on the music business, based on your experience?

G: Oh, I love MySpace. It’s a full-time gig, it really is. Just to look at all my messages on MySpace it’s overwhelming. But it’s fantastic. I’ve gotten in touch with so many people that I’m a big fan of, people I haven’t seen for ages through MySpace. It’s wonderful. Apparently it’s quite effective as a dating agency as well.

SK: What new bands or music are you into?

G: Well, I’m always getting into old stuff again. But as for the new new stuff, the new Mastodon. They give Strapping Young Lad a run for the money, and that’s impossible.

G: Not recognition, obviously! I don’t know. I don’t care about recognition. Actually, probably lack of recognition keeps me going. It means I’m working, I got stuff to do, and I have something to prove. If I was famous, I’d become used to that. And I’d have to be with some big record label, and with them you can’t make four or five albums a year like I’m doing this year. You gotta wait until the next period, which can be three years later, after the market improves or whatever. I couldn’t make an album every three years. I couldn’t breathe with all the music in my head.

SK: This is something I’ve asked a few people. Do you think rock’n’roll can be rock’n’roll without decadence? Booze, drugs, girls, you know, spoils of the road.

G: Why would you wanna do rock’n’roll without booze, drugs, and girls? To me, that’s the reason why you do it. Of course, music is the reason why you do it, but you can always record and not go on the road. Studio is a very very professional environment. But you go on the road, you have all day to wait, lots of time to kill, before you go on stage. And musicians are not the most imaginative people. So they need something to do, so they drink, do drugs and girls. As for me, I don’t do drugs anymore, but I do still like girls and red wine.

SK: Future plans?

G: I don’t make plans anymore. I stopped making plans.

SK: Final words:

G: Try this game. It’s a brilliant game. It’s guaranteed to offend. It’s called Punk or Hippie. When you’re with your friends, you gotta decide if somebody’s punk or hippie. You don’t get to choose, everyone else gets to choose. And you won’t believe how offended people get when somebody calls them a hippie.

And there you go, straight from the horse’s mouth.