On the 23rd of Febuary 2018, The Wildhearts played a one-off benefit gig for their former bass player Scott Sorry. Scott had been diagnosed with a life threatening brain tumour in late 2017. The band jumped into action and put together a mouth-watering lineup. The Professionals, Sonic Boom Six and Massive Wagons were all on board and a gig was booked to take place at Warehouse 23 in Wakefield; sadly, the venue has since been forced to close its doors. That night though, it rocked with highly charged, volleyed out and emotional Punk ‘N’ Roll. Danny was back in The Wildhearts, and his band inclusion after his amputation bought a weird symmetry to the evening as he was sitting in Scott’s place, whereas a decade before, Scott had stood in his…Only in The Wildhearts. I had reviewed Scott’s previous riotous and chest thumping gig at the famous 100 Club on Oxford Street the year before, almost to the day and loved it. The Wildhearts community adores Scott, and with good reason. His inclusion and contribution to the self-titled ‘White Album’ and its follow-up ‘Chutzpah!” means his place in The Wildhearts hall of fame is guaranteed. On stage, he always gave 100%, and his punk attitude shone through. So as he walks over to introduce himself, I feel a great sense of pride, happiness and relief. He’s here because he’s here, and that’s all that matters: ladies and gentlemen, the softly spoken (in his own words) scrawny Punk kid and truly remarkable Scott Sorry.
GS. Firstly it’s great to see you back on the road and in the UK; The 100 Club gig seems like a long time ago.
Scott. “It seems like a lifetime ago.”
GS. So I must ask, how’s your health?
Scott. “Umm, great. I’d like to say better than ever, which is kind of a weird thing to say, but it’s true. (pausing) When I got that diagnosis, it changed my life completely. I went vegan, sober and started running and mountain biking and all that sort kind of stuff. I just took it really seriously and changed my life so I could be there for my wife and kids and give my body every chance to heal. They (the doctors) don’t know how but it has because I was given…(changing tact) my oncologist recently told me I wasn’t supposed to make it past eighteen months, and now I’m on five years, so something worked.”
GS. The no meat, dairy or alcohol is that something you’ve continued?
Scott. “I’m not as strict as I was with the dairy; I’ll have some cheese once in a while, you get a little bit of satisfaction from it, but for the most part, I’m plant and vegetables. For that, the first fucking year (after the diagnosis), I only ate raw green vegetables and these horrible green smoothies, which were fucking dreadful. It was like Chlorella (algae), Spirulina (another type of algae and a strong antioxidant), and broccoli all pulsed together and mixed with all these terrible powders. The thing is, I loved it because it tasted so bad. I’m an addictive dude; I’m hardcore. I like doing hardcore shit, so I went from, (pausing) I haven’t done hardcore drugs in years, but that was my personality, “let’s just do this thing as hard as we fucking can and drink this terrible drink because it will get me fucked up, too, oh God I’ve got drink it because it’s so gross. So I had the same intensity by flipping it (drugs or alcohol for disgusting smoothies).”
GS. The Wildhearts community came together (as they always do when needed) and rallied around with a benefit concert, merchandise and fundraising. Did you feel that support from across the channel, and can you describe what it meant to you and your family?
Scott. “I, one hundred per cent felt its warmth, and it was huge because it wasn’t just me that felt this support; it was my wife and kids. That was the heavy part for me, you know. I was dealing with it (pauses); how do I explain this? I became extremely focused, more focused than I’ve ever been, but watching my wife and kids; it meant so much to me and then seeing how much it meant to them as well. I mean, they thought that I was gone, and my family had never experienced The Wildhearts family before and seeing how (the support) affected them made me even more proud to be part of that Wildhearts family. So much more gratitude because it wasn’t just helping me; it was helping them, almost more because I was like, fuck it, this isn’t going to beat me, I’m winning one hundred per cent right, but my family is terrified. Sometimes when support comes from outside the bubble and us. (pausing) I can say I’m the one who’s going to beat it, but I’m the one who’s fucked, and when that support came from the outside (deep breath), it gave them hope. It meant more to me than anything; how much it meant to me I can’t even put into words; that’s the closest I can get.”
GS. What’s it like being back on the road with CJ and Ritch?
Scott. “It’s unreal. Honestly, it’s so much fun because we’re all in the same space, and we all just wanna have fun. We just wanna be brothers and do the thing and do it right, and all the bullshit can just wash away. It’s like one bus with a bunch of dudes who play at different times on the stage. Everybody walks off with other people from other bands, hangs out and then meets up with other groups who’ll then splinter off, and everyone just has a great time. It’s not like any tour I’ve ever done before, and it was exactly what was needed for everybody.”
GS. CJ made it very clear to me that it’s a clean space away from all the Rock ‘N’ Roll bravado and drama of people falling out of their bunks at 2 am etc.
Scott. “There are no fights. I mean, we talk about old times, but it’s mostly funny, crazy old times experiences but not, do you remember that fight we had? Of course, those tales occasionally come up because of a funny story which leads onto it.”
GS. So have you talked about future plans with CJ and Ritch?
Scott. ”Oh, sure, we’re talking. I’ll probably get home for a week, decompress and then, why not. Why not make music with your friends.”
GS. It’s almost too obvious.
Scott. “It is. And look, look how much fun we have (together); why not?”
GS. You released a single, ‘Black Dog Dancers, ’ in November last year, so is there an album coming down the line?
Scott. “We were starting another album, and then Roger (Seagal), our bass player and my or our best friend, got killed in Philadelphia. That really put a stop to any new music and took us to a point where we said, do we wanna keep doing this without him? We wrote a song for him (’Saint Of Philli’), and that kinda snowballed into this tour. Now that we see that we can still do this without Roger (pauses), let’s go forward and work on this stuff again. I’d really like to have a new record out by May.”
GS. So the songs are there, but it’s a question of re-opening that box and revisiting them, sadly, without your friend.
Scott. “Right, and a lot of those songs will probably reflect that loss (pauses) because he was larger than life dude, but it’s gonna be celebrating life in any way you can, I guess.”
GS. How do you balance your life between the day job and being a musician?
Scott. “I’ve got a wife and kids and responsibilities, and it’s hard for music to take care of that. Say we did something that really took off, there’s still the fact of, so what do my family do? So it’s finding a balance that works and bringing it outside of just being a hangout with the guys. Like this, right now, is a great hang with the guys, bringing that to another level…there’s a puzzle in there, and we’ve got to figure it out. Right now, I have a day job, and Ritch has a day job, and I think CJ is the only one without a “day job”. There is always a way to figure out the puzzle; it’s just that I don’t have that answer yet.”
GS. When this album sees the light of day, will you release it independently, crowdfunded, or is there a label you’re working with?
Scott. “I don’t know; that’s a part of that same puzzle. I don’t know if I’d ever want someone (else) to own what I do again. If the structure is there to be able to distribute it independently and properly, that’s the way to go, but that is also really hard to do. I’ll start looking at options as we get the ball rolling.”
GS. I’ve spoken to a few bands who have said they make more money selling a hundred albums direct to their fans than they do selling, say, twelve hundred through a label.
Scott. “We’ve started a new Bandcamp site/page and put all our stuff on there, and I’ve already seen, just from people buying songs through Bandcamp; I’ve seen more money in the last two months than I have in the last ten years.”
GS. Plus, there is Bandcamp Friday, where the artist gets all the proceeds on that one day of the month.
Scott. “That’s a great thing for Bandcamp to do, and it’s a big incentive to put your stuff on their platform. They don’t take as much as other services anyway, but Bandcamp Friday is one of those things, it’s like, c’mon hit it up.”
GS. Scott, one last Wildhearts question. You did three albums, ‘Chutzpah!’, ‘Stop Me’ and what we call ‘The (self-titled) White Album’. So when you reminisce on your time in the band, what was your favourite moment when you thought, fucking hell, I’ve arrived?
Scott. “One hundred per cent ‘The White Album’. That whole touring cycle was one of my most fun times in life because it was a culmination (pausing and changing tact). Looking back at it, that was the peak of my musical career, to this point, anyway. It felt like the band was firing on all cylinders, everybody was getting along, and the crowds were amazing. Always up for it, and they accepted me pretty quick. Ginger had said about (pausing). When Ginger called me and asked if I wanted to do it, I had just finished replacing Nikki Sixx in a band, The Brides Of Destruction. Replacing Nikki Sixx…(laughing), that was a motherfucker. When people show up to see a band, and they think it’s Nikki Sixx, and you get this scrawny Punk kid, they’re gonna fucking let you know, and I had to win them all over, and I did. I just went fucking nuts on stage and got everyone’s face and didn’t let them deny that I could hold my own. I might not be Nikki, but I can hold my own. So when Ginger was saying, people are going to give you a hard time (about replacing Danny), it was like, c’mon, it’s totally fine, but I didn’t experience it that much with The Wildhearts. They were pretty welcoming, you know. I was and am a fan of Danny, and I wasn’t trying to replace him. I just wanna play in the band, and if he can’t do it, then I wanna play with Ginge because he’s my friend too.”
GS. Plus two fantastic (original) albums, although it’s ‘The White Album’ for me.
Scott. ‘Chutzpah!’ and me, we’ve had some fisticuffs, you know.”
GS. Now you’ve got to tell me why?
Scott. ‘I fucking hate the production on it, and that wasn’t my favourite time in the band. That’s when it all went a little bit downhill, for me anyway.”
GS. So finally, what do the next twelve months hopefully hold in store for Scott Sorry.
Scott. “Hopefully, a reissue of ‘Highball Roller’, which is the record we did with The Sinatra’s. More music and more touring. I have one hundred per cent got the bug again, so we gotta figure out that puzzle (smiling).
From Friday, October 7th, check out https://sorryaudio.bandcamp.com/ Twitter page
For more news, merchandise and tour information, head over to Scott’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialScottSorry/