Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

For General Public’s Dave Wakeling, the second time is just as good

This article first appeared on March 1, 1996.

"Dr. Livingston, I presume?" cackled Dave Wakeling from Dana Point, California-a stone's throw from my former Mission Viejo stomping grounds, and my teenage notion of heaven on earth. I could practically hear the ocean over the phone, and it took quite an effort for us to stick with the issues at hand-questions about his work with Greenpeace, his friend Ranking Roger, his former band The (English) Beat, and the newly resurgent General Public. We only wandered a bit.

Q: Let's go back a few years...what caused you and Roger to quit the Beat and go into business for yourselves?

A: We got bored of each other...some of the band wanted to take a few years off, me and Roger wanted to do something, so we just flippantly said, "Eh, let's start a group, then!" It just felt like the right thing to do at the time. I suppose you don't go out with the girl you first kissed for the rest of your life, do you?

Q: Pete Townshend loved "Save It For Later"-did you ever get to meet him?

A: Oh yes! About 18 months ago, actually...he played at the Wiltern Theater and I was invited. I drove to Los Angeles all nervous and excited. I was escorted backstage, he came and we talked for about twenty minutes. He told me how lucky we were to be songwriters...that was his bit of wisdom. Pete dedicated "Save It For Later" [to me] and pointed me out; everyone clapped, I was all embarrassed, and they played it as the first song. I wept, I'm afraid!

Q: Any Beat songs you still like to play?

A: Yeah! We play "Save It For Later," "Mirror In The Bathroom," I like "Best Friend," we play "I Confess" most nights-just showing off that I can make the notes!

Q: Were you expecting General Public's debut album "...All the Rage" to be such a big hit?

A: Hmm...whenever you bring out a record, part of you thinks it's going to be like the follow-up to The White Album, and part of you thinks it's going to be forever known as The Shite Album. [laughs] If a song comes out anywhere near the emotion you had when you wrote it, you're very satisfied with it and you hope that it will make a connection with other people. You have to remember the famous phrase: "Every hit has a thousand fathers, every miss is a bastard [laughs]."

Q:Around that time, your music was starting to be used in a series of John Hughes films...

A: Yes, he went mad for us for a bit, didn't he? He turned up backstage at Irvine Meadows, and asked us if we'd like to write songs for a couple of movies that he had coming up. I said, "Yeah, we'd love to-why?" And he said, "Because anyone who puts a bassoon in a pop song is my kinda guy."

Q: Your 1986 album, Hand To Mouth-did that title reflect your situation at the time?

A: In a lot of different ways...whether it was compulsive smoking, biting your fingernails, wanting to smack somebody in the mouth [chuckles]...nobody had gotten particularly ostentatious, but we'd managed so's that everybody in the group was making a good living, and everybody wanted to make sure that they could continue it.

Q: After that album, you and Roger went your separate directions. What happened?

A: Part of it began to show its head during the recording of "Hand To Mouth." Roger was really thrilled with machines that could do drums and sequences. He really liked the machine beat, and I really didn't. I tend to write from the lyrics; the lyrics suggest the melody, and the melody suggests the rhythm. Roger tends to write from the rhythm upwards, and when we were both meeting in the middle, that was pretty good. "Never You Done That" is a perfect example of that; on the new LP, "Never All Alone" is the same sort of deal. At the end of recording, it became apparent that we were either going to have a Paul side or a John side, or we should just go off and follow our own muse, which is what we decided to do. One of the reasons we got back together was that the technology had moved forward, closer to what was acceptable to me, and Roger had been touring with the Special Beat and had acknowledged and learned some of the indefinable benefits of live musicians playing together.

Q: Are you happy with "Rub It Better," the new album?

A: Well, I'm never happy with anything...but I'm certainly quite pleased with it.

Q: How did you pick (former Talking Heads guitarist) Jerry Harrison to produce?

A: Actually, we wanted George Harrison! Somebody at the record company wrote it down wrong. When [Jerry] turned up, he seemed like such a nice guy...we actually wanted a lot more Sitar on the album! [laughs] I liked Live, and I liked the vocal sound on the Crash Test Dummies album, and both of them were [produced by] Jerry Harrison. The Beat had opened up for Talking Heads-when they became the two-tone Talking Heads, you know-and Jerry had been quite an avid Greenpeace supporter. I worked with Greenpeace...we fit together quite well, musically and politically.

Q: Are you still involved with Greenpeace?

A: Not at the moment...but it's their twenty-fifth anniversary next year, and I'd like to be involved with it some way.

Q: Ever been on Greenpeace's boat, the Rainbow Warrior?

A: Oh yeah, a few times. Got to pretend you were a real sailor!

Q: How about a real surfer? Have you picked up a board down in Dana Point?

A: Oh, no...I'm afraid when it comes to the Beach Boys, I'm a Brian. I don't mind watching 'em and singing about it, but I ain't getting in the water.

Q: You know, we spoke to Ziggy Marley a few days ago...he's going to be playing the Hard Rock within a day of you.

A: His dad said something nice about the Beat once...said that we were his favorite two-tone group, during some interview in Norway, which I kept proudly.

Q: What can we expect from live Public '95?

A: It's tight...very tight, without being slick. There seems to be a deal more communication between the musicians on stage, a lot of looking at each other and smiling. There seems to be a very happy vibe going, as all of us try to duck and dodge and weave and make sure that Roger doesn't run into us, a constant worry for most of the instrumental players. We work very hard, but it seems effortless.

Q: Two more questions-what's the best route to enlightenment?

A: Moderation, I'm told [chuckles].

Q: And what's your favorite brew?

A: Uh, tea! I'm in that interesting phase of being a part-time recovering alcoholic, so I'll go for a few months without a beer. A shame, because I really love the taste of beer-but beer really loves the taste of me more!

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