Page 7 - Black Velvet Rock Magazine Issue 114

BV114 pg 04-09 CJ cover Interview.qxp_BV114 pg07 12/06/2026 21:10 Page 4

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you get older, you shouldn’t mellow. I want to go out on fire. I
want to go out screaming. And the last thing I want to do is
slow down and mellow out as I get older. I don’t think that’s a
requirement of old age, to slow down and get mellow, so, if
anything, I want to be more ‘punk’ and more screamy and
more shouty. But, the one thing that goes through all my solo
albums and most of my bands, is melody. If it doesn’t have
that melodic hook, then it isn’t my music. I’m not making it.
“I wanna wake up. The world is dull enough as it is. I like
to get my heart going. I like people singing along and jumping.
That’s one of the reasons why I like dance music so much, is
because of the effect that it has on me and half the world. It
makes them want to get up on their feet. If anything makes
you want to get up on your feet and get moving, then it’s a
good thing.”
We think he needs a slot at Rebellion Festival in Black-
pool.
He says, “I had a slot at Rebellion last year. I was offered
one, but unfortunately, I had to look after my son. There ain’t
a festival or a band or a show in the world that’s ever going to
take me away from my family, so I had to turn it down. I was
hoping they’d offer me the slot again this year, but I must’ve
pissed someone off. It’s no biggie for me. If I’m offered gigs,
I’ll play them, but if I can’t do them because of family commit-
ments, then, unfortunately, the gig is gonna get kicked in the
bin.”
One show that he’s got booked in for later in the year, is
the Scott Sorry tribute show, Still Kings, at KK’s Steel Mill in
Wolverhampton on October 30th. CJ was a good friend of
Scott’s, as well as a bandmate at one time.
CJ tells us about their friendship. “We used to hang out a
lot, me and Scott, when we were on the road. On days off,
what was that Wildhearts album? It’s the album me and Scott
didn’t really like, ‘Chutzpah¡’, the songs are good, but we
didn’t really like the Euro production on it. But, during the
recording of that, we were locked away on a farm in Denmark
for a month in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty dull. We
used to escape to the nearest town, but we had to get bicy-
cles. We didn’t have any cars or anything, so we were lent
two bicycles, ‘cause the nearest town was maybe ten miles
away, so we had to cycle. So, when we weren’t working, me
and Scott would cycle to this town and get very drunk and try
and cycle back,” he laughs.
“And they’re the better moments I really remember with
Scott, little things like that. Not so much being on stage, it was
just hanging out. We used to go and ride by the sea and stuff
like that, or, I remember once, we got told off for being in a
barn on a farm. We were just exploring. They’re the moments
you remember. There are so many rock ‘n’ roll moments with
so many different rock ‘n’ roll bands, and friends and musi-
cians, and they’re all the same really, but there were always
these little things I did with Scott, and Ritchie as well, and
sometimes with Ginge, when we were wandering off. They’re
the moments you remember. They’re more special and they
tend to be more normal moments.”
The song ‘Twenty Two’ sees CJ thinking back to the tour
that he did with Scott and also Ritch Battersby. CJ says, “It
was us three coming back together and working together for
the very last time. It was a great year. My favourite number is
2 as well. It had some synergy, something special about that,
2022, there’s a lot of 2’s in there. Yeah, it was about that year.
I’d love to go back to 2022. I’d love to go see Scott again. And
I’d love go out on tour with Scott and Ritchie. They’re my bud-
dies and it was wonderful. Such a good tour.”

he album spotlights a lot of poignant and touching
Tmemories wrapped up into the songs, some happy,
some not so happy. CJ sadly lost both of his parents a few
years ago, and the closing song of ‘DEViL’, ‘Fade’, is a song
with them both in mind.
“My parents died in the last four years, they’ve both gone,
in the space of about 9 months,” he says. “They both had de-
mentia. My dad was a lot further down that road than my
mom. My dad forgot most of us. He couldn’t speak. I didn’t
have a conversation with my dad for the last five years of his
life. With my mom, she was starting to go, but it was awful.
When my dad passed, I had to stop telling my mom that my
dad had passed as she would just forget. So, I’d just pretend
to her that he was fine. And they were in different homes as
well. During lockdown, they didn’t see each other for 16
CJ WILDHEART