Ten Questions With Chris Wolstenholme

by Andy Scheffler
www.cordmag.com
July '04

Okay we’ve got a little ten question segment that we ask every band. What do you do on downtime between recording and touring?

Um I think not a lot to be honest. I think the thing is over the last five years we’ve either been recording or touring. There’s not really that much time in between but I think average things like actually spending time with girlfriends and wives and kids and that kind of thing. I mean I think we get so little time at home, when we go home we just kind of enjoy the simple things like going, you know, going to the supermarket or go for a walk in the park or whatever, you know. I don’t think we do too much when we’re at home. I think it’s just kind of recuperation time from touring.

Excellent. Vice of choice.

Um… I guess booze isn’t it? (laughs)

Simple! Favourite venue or city to play in.

I think Paris has always been good for us. I think France was one of the places where we actually started to do really well, and I can remember going to Paris and playing a place maybe a little bit smaller than this (ed. note - "this" is the Commodore Ballroom and it hosts roughly a thousand people) and the first time we were there, the album wasn’t even out and loads of people turned up and the place just went absolutely crazy. And every time we’ve been back to Paris it’s just always one of those gigs where you know it’s always gonna be good you know. And I think the last time we played there was actually the biggest gig we’ve ever done on our own. I mean we played in an arena to like 18,000 people. But I think yeah Paris has always been good.

Issues and aspects of the world that concern you these days.

Government. Generally just, yeah… I think just generally the people that are making a lot of the decisions, won’t have the heart and really not being able to trust a single one of them.

One interview question that you could care less to hear again. Not including that one.

(laughs) Describe the sound of your band. That must be a pretty common answer.

That one and influences.

Right.

And ‘where did you get the name?’ (Wolstenholme laughs) What was your favourite Saturday morning cartoon? I don’t know if it was different in the UK, if that was a big like, Saturday mornings were for cartoons.

Saturday mornings, um…

Children’s show. When you were a kid.

I just loved Tom and Jerry you know. If that was ever on I always like sat there for hours. What I did always when I was a kid was rent out the VHSs with like episode after episode of Tom and Jerry. (laughs)

They were fun, I liked them.

Yeah! So violent though, when you look back at them when you’re older, you think they're surprisingly violent.

Oh I know the old cartoons just had no censorship at all… the Warner Brothers ones with the anvils and all the rest of it…

Yeah!

Aside from a musician, what else did you aspire to be when you were growing up? And did you ever do anything to attain that?

I think when I was… I think I always wanted to be a football player. Or soccer player you know. I always played football a lot when I was a kid and I think once I hit about 13 or… 12 or 13 when I started playing the guitar all of a sudden, you know, you find yourself hanging out with a totally different crowd. I mean I can remember when I was 12 or 13 I was hanging out with, well what I guess you call jocks. You know, the kind of sports kids, go to the gym and that kind of people, and I was kind of one of them for a bit. And then when I hit about 12 or 13 I started playing the guitar and all of a sudden you’ve got all the people who are into like grunge music and smoked loads of pot and grew their hair long and that kind of thing. And then all of a sudden I wasn’t fit to play football 'cause I smoked too much! (laughs) And I think, you know, I don’t think it’s anything you can really do at the same time. I mean it’s always at school you had the sports and you had the hippies you know sort of and there was a big conflict in between so you couldn’t really be both. You had to be one or the other. And I chose the path of music. (laughs)

We’re happy you did! If you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would it be and what would you hope to accomplish?

I’d like to trade places with the Queen. Just to see if she does anything at all you know. (laughs at me doing the queen wave). Yeah I’d like to know what they actually do you know. What do the Royal Family actually do? I don’t think they do anything. I think they just sit back and get paid millions and millions of pounds and don’t do anything. (laughs, then there’s a huge noisy interruption by a buncha venue staff bringing food up to the dressing rooms).

Okay a shark and a bear fight. Here are the rules. There’s just enough water for the shark to exist, swim around a bit, keep himself alive. There’s a small rock in the middle of the water for the bear to stand on. You came in at a perfect moment (addressing Warner rep who just walked in to check our progress).

WARNER REP : Oh yeah?

The weird question. Neither one’s been trained, neither one’s been fed for a few days. It’s the baddest of grizzly bears against the baddest of great white sharks. Who wins?

(back to Wolstenholme now) You said the bear’s got a little rock to stand on?

Yup.

I think the bear.

Yeah? Action plan?

Kick him in the head I think. If you got him in the right place you know, you can probably take him out in one kick. But then again, the shark could bite his feet off pretty quickly as well. I think they’d probably both seriously fuck each other up a little bit. I think it would be quite even. I think the bear just might take the edge though.

Okay. He’s just lost a limb. And finally, if you could ask me one question, what would it be?

Let me think. That’s a real tough one.

Pressure’s on…

I want it to be a good one... Where did you get your bracelet?

This one?

Yeah.

Uh, it was a Christmas gift from my sister… it goes with the belt. So I don’t know where it came from. Actually it might say… (unclips bracelet). Le Chateau. Oh that’s cheap! Damn!

(laughter)

It’s a clothing shop, like rock and roll clothing for the average consumer. They're in all the malls and stuff (Wolstenholme finds this hilarious). That is all.

Cool, thank you (still laughing). Thanks a lot. Cheers.