Born and bred in the South Wales valleys.
In today’s “In the Spotlight” I give you Ade Wilding!
Hi Ade and thank you for joining us today.
Who is “Ade Wilding”?
Ade Wilding is an aged and weather beaten Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist/Dog lover who hails from the verdant Valleys of South Wales, UK. (Although to be honest after this latest heatwave they’re not so verdant at the moment!)
Was guitar always your first love or do you play other instruments?
Guitar was and still is my first musical love. I can play a bit of keyboards, but I’m not really very proficient. To be honest I’d have a go at most instruments, with the exception of drums. Me and drums don’t really get on! Thank the Lord for sampled drums! Harps also scare me quite a bit, way too many strings. Which is a bit of a shame as the Harp is the national instrument of Wales!
Fave brand/style of guitars?
When it comes down to it, I’ve always been a proper Gibson Les Paul man, I mean they just look and sound the biz for Rock. Unfortunately due to my injuries, I can’t use them live for any length of time, due to their heavy weight. So for a number of years now I’ve been relying on a few Ibanez guitars from the RG and SA range and recently started using a nice spalted maple PRS SE Custom 24.
Creating a new tune, where do you find your inspiration?
From the musical side of song writing, I never really sit down and set out to write. Tunes just sort of come to me! This can happen at any time or place. I’ve quite often woken up in the middle of the night with a tune stuck in my head, so have to get my phone, open the voice recorder app and hum it before I forget it. I’ve also been driving someplace and had to do the same thing! Mind you an awful lot of these get discarded, especially the ones from the middle of the night!
Lyrically, there are a couple of songs where I’ve written in the 3rd person and made up a fictional tale, but the majority of my songs are written from personal experiences. Although I think my lyrics can sometimes be a bit naive! I tend to write a lot about love, i.e. falling in, or out of it, finding it, losing it etc! I’ve written a few about the pointlessness of War, make love not war type of thing. Also loneliness is a subject I return to quite often, as it’s something I’ve suffered from in the past. I think the lyrics that I’m most proud of though are “Pandemic”, which was written during the lockdown of 2020 and is a sort of protest/WTF is going on song!
What is the most meaningful compliment you have ever received?
In a review of my debut solo album, I had one of my songs (“I Won’t Give It Away”) described as being “McCartneyesque”! That really was immense for me, being a big Beatles fan!
What are you currently working on?
I’m a bit all over the place at the moment!
Studio-wise, I’m in the early stages of recording a 4th album with Prog/Classic Rock Band “GSG” (The Geoff Smith Group), all previous recordings are up on the usual streaming services.
With my solo music, I’ve split it into genres, which is something I’ve never really done before. So I’ve got a Blues album, a Rock album, a Singer/Songwriter/Acoustic album and an Instrumental/Prog Rock album on the go! Although that may yet all change, and I might release EP’s or singles instead of albums. I’m not really 100% decided on which way to go!
Live music-wise, I’m rehearsing/gigging with rock covers band “Mr Ben”, playing songs mainly from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s (after all, that is when all of the best music was written!).
I’ve also been asked to stand-in for one night only with “Jon Langford’s Men of Gwent”, to play at a concert to celebrate Newport City Council putting up a plaque on the building Joe Strummer stayed at whilst he was living in the then Town. We’ll be covering some of Strummers classics and also be doing some Mekons, Three Johns and JL/MOG originals.
What are your plans for the future?
Really just planning to carry on doing more of the same until I can’t do it anymore, or all of my money runs out!
I am really hoping to get to play some of my original music live at some point, but not sure whether that will be solo acoustic, or in a group form!
If you had to choose just one of your songs to represent who you are as an artist, which would it be?
That’s a really tough question for me! I think it would probably be “Hang On To Your Love”, as it’s got a bit of everything that I’m trying to achieve, i.e. I think it’s a very melodic song, with some nice vocal harmonies, but also has lots of rocky/bluesy guitar twiddling bits too!
What is the one thing you would like to tell your fans?
The music will keep getting better!
What is the one thing the Music industry should know?
That they should be very afraid! That there are so many uber-talented Indie artists out there, and so many people I talk to are fed up to the back teeth with being force-fed some of the drivel that’s being served up by the “mainstream music business” that it’s going to implode! Imminently!
That was my chat with Ade Wilding and I am so grateful we had this opportunity to get to know him better!
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