The rise, fall and triumphant return of the one and only Danny McCormack.
Interview date: Sept 19th 2020.
The Wildhearts, The Main Grains and Yo Yo’s founding member Danny McCormack has lived a life and I mean proper warts ‘n’ all Rock ‘N’ Roll dreams and nightmares kind of life. From playing worldwide tours in his teens and twenties to playing Top Of The Pops and gracing the Top Ten with The Wildhearts. Danny’s own story is one of the musical highlights, low points and heroin addiction all of which he has overcome but at some devastating personal and physical cost. The amputation of a lower leg in 2018, hospitalisation and a glorious Number One album in the Rock charts in 2019, yep Danny McCormack has certainly lived a life.
In 2019 album The Wildhearts released the critically acclaimed (and stunning) ‘Reinassance Men’ (and Mini-album ‘Diagnosis’) with the original line up of Ginger, C.J, Ritch and (back on bass) Danny McCormack laying down a beautifully desperate, emotionally bruised and organ rattling release. The Wildhearts are true Punk survivors spurred on by a deep love of the music they make and those they make it for, their community. So as the band get set to release the blistering live album ‘30 Year Itch’ OriginalRock.net catches up with the affable, self-deprecating and (my favourite) Rock ‘N’ Roll raconteur Danny McCormack.
Original Rock. Hi Danny how have you been?
Danny McCormack. “Fine mate, really great.”
OR. It’s been almost a year since we met in the Manuscript bar Ostend (before a Wildhearts Show) and just how different the world is now just eleven months on?
D.M. “I Know that bar gig wouldn’t have been able to go ahead would it, f*king hell it were packed.”
OR. So how’s lockdown been for you personally?
D.M. “Boring man, boring, boring, boring…the dogs very well walked though (laughing).”
OR. When we spoke at the Call Of The Wild Festival last year you kindly (and openly) went into detail about your previous addictions has lockdown made it harder for you?
D.M. “Nah, I’m clean from the heroin but I dabble in speed, coke and weed. I’m going through a process at home which deals in distraction techniques, so I’m getting treatment for it at the minute. It’s great I’m still meditating, I’ve meditated since I was about twenty-one. I do tonnes of mental meditation it turns us off and gets us through you know. I’m just waiting for another appointment to come through for my drug counsellor, my drug worker.”
OR. The Wildhearts had a tour booked and…
D.M. (cutting in) “Aye there was talk of Japan there was an Italian trip, going to Finland on a boat, all cancelled man, all panned. It was scheduled for November but it’s been put back until February (2021) now.”
OR. How has the lockdown affected the band financially?
D.M “We’ve just had some royalties through for the ‘Diagnosis’ mini-album and ‘Rennasiance Men’ and that saved our arse because our wages ran out this month, this was going to be the last month of being paid. We’ve got a few more months grace with the royalties. We’re on half wages, we just spread the money thin so we get something for the month but we’re better off than a lot of people who’ve lost their jobs, unfortunately, or been furloughed. We’ve survived you know, paid our rent and stuff.”
OR. It came up last time we spoke that as a band you received pretty much nothing from the previous albums you’d recorded together.
D.M “I’ve never been paid a penny for any album.”
OR. It must be pretty refreshing to record an album and min-album and then get paid for them!
D.M “It’s a eureka moment ! (laughing) Only had to wait thirty fucking years. It’s all down to the management, we’ve got a good manager.”
OR. The Wildhearts are also selling signed (handwritten) lyric sheets are yours going well and have you received any strange requests?
D.M “I haven’t done any for a while, I’ll have to advertise it again, we need to do some more actually.”
OR. Ginger’s just finished an album with the Sinners and C.J is in the process of recording a solo mini-album, (‘Siege’) anything in the pipeline for Danny away from The Wildhearts?
D.M “I think I’m going to record all The Main Grain songs with the guys, we’ve got an album’s worth of material that wasn’t recorded before the split. We’re all getting on now. JJ’s (Watt) not really up for doing it so it’ll be me, Ben (Marsden) and Ginna (Rhodes). So as a three-piece, there’s no live thing or nothing it’s just to record the tracks we didn’t record while we were going.”
OR. So we’re going to get the Main Grains part 2 then.
D.M “Yeah yeah next year and maybe some Yo Yo’s shows. We were talking to a promoter about it but then it all kicked off (COVID-19) and the country, well the world went mad. I’ve known anything like this Guy, ever. Different strains some people getting ill and the other strain is killing people it’s fucking horrible. More new measures, the pubs up here have to shut at Ten and you can’t mix households but they can in pubs which is a bit contradictory but…”
OR. How is the family?
D.M “Yeah everybody’s doing good keep their nose clean and getting on with lockdown, everybody’s great.”
OR. Is there going to be a new Wildhearts album?
D.M “ Yeah we’re writing that, we’ve been doing it during the lockdown, writing songs. All four members are writing songs, I’ve got three solid (songs) and two good ideas so five. Ginger’s asked us to do five songs so I’m doing what I can to make to bring a better vibe to them. I’ve got a host of ideas though Guy, I put them on a dictaphone, I’ve got no recording equipment, but it’s Danny proof, as long as its Danny proof!” I find the words really hard to come up with whereas Ginger finds it really easy so I’m gonna co-write with Ginger, he’s asked to write up as many ideas as I can. So that’s brilliant because I love collaborating with Ginger. We did with ‘Anthem’ and that did really well, I ended up on Top Of The Pops with that. I remember thinking what the f*cks the bass player doing standing the middle! In front of twelve million people or whatever it was.”
OR. Was that the only track from ‘Endless Nameless’ that could have got on TOTP?
D.M “I think so yeah (laughing) it was definitely done (the album) under the influence, it works when you’re on drugs like!” (We pause as Danny confirms The Main Grains album and possible Yo Yo’s shows next year before he continues.) “JJ is doing The City Kids, they’re doing well. He’s got a great voice JJ you know, he can sing, yeah I like his voice. I’m really proud of all of them they’re all doing really well. Sometimes it’s just the singer and guitarist that go do something but it’s all of them, it’s brilliant, the same story with The Wildhearts really, every Wildheart that’s been in the band has done solo records.”
Ginna and Ben along with Polly Phluid have now formed the excellent Spangles. Link below
https://thecitykids.co.uk/home Link for The City Kids
OR. So how many new Main Grains tracks are there?
D.M “ I think there is seven or eight and I’ve got a couple of ideas as well and that will make it an album I think. It was a canny little band y’know it got us (me) back into music.” (After a brief chat about how I was lucky enough to see The Main Grains a few times, including their debut gig supporting Warrior Soul in Camden the conversation then turns to Danny’s ongoing health issues.)
OR. So Danny how’s the leg?
D.M “I don’t know I think it’s been incinerated! (laughing) No like I said earlier I’m going for a walk every single day, three or four times. I’m walking more than I ever have really because I wanna keep match fit. I don’t want to put weight on because I put a lot of weight when I was in the hospital. I was nine and a half stone when I went in, I mean junkie thin. I came out fourteen and a half, it was just five months sitting in hospital eating, that was all I could do. I was eating three times a day usually I’d eat once a day. Now I’m down to twelve and a half or thirteen (stone) and I’m well happy.”
OR. Your body obviously needed it, Danny.
D.M “It did, it was rejuvenating because I wasn’t very well when in hospital, I’d been doing a lot of Coke and Speed in my groin. That what’s happened my femoral artery burst.”
OR. Danny, can I ask why you were putting it into your groin?
D.M “Because I’d run out of veins and it was guaranteed you get first time every time. It was just a fast way but obviously, it has consequences you know. I was injecting speed and coke and the femoral artery burst and blood hit the ceiling, my missus saved me life with a credit card and a towel. You’ve got four minutes to bleed out and the ambulance got there in three and a half minutes. I was very, very very lucky. ( I ask Danny if he remembers anything about the incident as it happened.) I remember thinking this is going to be my last every cigarette as I smoked it I thought I’ve had a good life, well the good parts have been good the shit parts have been terrible. That’s a bi-polar lifestyle y’know. I didn’t want to die in the house where the kids were, I went outside into the hall. I didn’t want to die in the house, I didn’t want the kids to associate the house with death I thought that was it I thought this was my last cigarette man. It was weird I just accepted it I was really calm. Now it freaks us out a bit when I think about it when I think how close I was but at the time I was really calm, Que se ra se ra, I just accepted death.”
OR. So how long were you in hospital for?
D.M “Five months, I was in for two months at first to put a stent in my leg. The stent blocked, I think due to smoking to be honest, so three more days for that and I was out Christmas day then three days after Christmas I was back in for three months so five months altogether. I was in a wheelchair for eighteen months.”
The first time I spoke to Danny was before a Main Grains/Wildhearts (with Dirt Box Disco I think) and he was in a wheelchair. He also showed me a photo of his leg, post-operation… “Like a shark bite Guy!” he cackles down the line but soon after and for the first time Danny’s voice becomes deadly serious and reflective.
OR. So what was it like when you were told about having an amputation?
D.M “I was just glad to be alive. What got me through Guy was positive thinking, I’ve gotta another leg and I’ll get another leg. It was like a mantra: I’ve got another one and I’ll get another one and if I got down a bit I’d say it to myself. I got through it and I got another leg. I was a bit paranoid because I didn’t know if the stump would take a false leg because I damaged my knee at Reading Festival in ‘94. I jumped up the air and landed on my leg and dislocated my knee cap and it’s been really weak ever since then. So I didn’t know if it’d take the weight of a prosthetic but it has actually taken to it. I’m walking now and I’m in less pain. The pain before they took the leg off… I’d have taken it off myself, I was so glad I went because I was in that much pain. I didn’t sleep in a bed for five months (before the Operation) because if I lay down the circulation was that bad my leg was on fire. The pain was f*cking excruciating and I was on morphine as well and it didn’t touch the sides, didn’t touch the sides. I was in fucking agony and I was so relieved when it came off, I’d have taken it off myself if they’d given us a saw. I don’t know if I was on a strong enough dose or not but when my toes fell off (OR. Sorry?) I got gangrene in me foot before the leg came off and three toes fell off but the last one was my little one and it was hanging on by a thread which we thought was skin so the nurse said she was going snip it off, no problem. When she snipped it off I almost hit the fucking ceiling! (laughing) She cut through a nerve, it was like getting an electric shock Guy, I literally jumped out of bed.”
OR. Who was your support bubble when you were in the hospital?
D.M “Me Mother, Dad came to see me every day plus me brothers Anthony and Chris, my sister Sarah and me missus. She came every day, she missed two days because she had a cough and then the dog pulled her down the stairs in my old flat. It was concrete steps and she bounced off everyone. She couldn’t walk properly, she was in a hell of a state, he (the dog) could have killed her the little bugger. He saw another dog at the bottom of the stairs and pulled her away. She missed two days out of five months bless her, I can’t thank her enough, without her support…(trails off.)
OR. Going back to that tour with Main Grains and Wildhearts what was the feeling like when you finally got back on stage with The Wildhearts?
D.M “ Oh I felt like I was home, this is what I do I wasn’t just sat at home on the dole I was doing something positive. Getting the reaction from the crowd…It’s the best feeling in the world Guy. It’s the best drug I’ve ever tried adrenalin, I feel like I’m plugged into the mains it’s electric I get the hairs up my arms the back of my neck, I get so carried away with it. I love it! It’s the best feeling in the world, trust me, I’ve tried everything.”
OR. The fans gave you such a welcome, there was so much love in the room when you came on.
D.M “I know we’ve got really dedicated fans and I cannot thank them enough, they are fantastic. It’s a big Wildhearts family, a big fucked up family!
OR. And how is it in The Wildhearts family it seems a lot more settled than in previous years?
D.M “Yeah we’re a good bunch of lads, we’re older, wiser now you know.”
I genuinely love talking to Danny, he is so honest and so open that it’s impossible for you not to want him to do well and succeed in life. With The Main Grains heading back to the studio, the possible Yo Yo’s anniversary shows and a new Wildhearts album (and tour), 2021 could be a massive year for all concerned but especially and deservedly for Mr Danny McCormack.
ONCE A WILDHEART ALWAYS A WILDHEART.
’30 Year Itch (Live!)’ will be released in October on Round Records. You can pre-order this beast from the link below.
