Unique Baby Stuff

Singer doesn't miss a beat

DEWEY BEACH -- In the late 1970s and early 1980s, British band The Beat (known in the U.S. as "The English Beat") helped fuse ska, punk rock and new wave music to produce a unique sound perhaps most evident on their smash single "Mirror in the Bathroom."

The group toured extensively with The Clash, The Talking Heads, The Police and R.E.M. before disbanding in 1983.

Singer Dave Wakeling would later form the group General Public with Clash guitarist Mick Jones, as well as produce a minor hit as a solo artist for the John Hughes film "She's Having a Baby."

Today, Wakeling lives in California and continues to tour extensively with a reformed version of The English Beat.

Looking back on the early days of The English Beat, what stands out most to you?

Well, I guess I'd say touring with The Clash is what stands out. It's funny because my daughter, who's 16, went to Santa Barbara Bowl to watch Wiz Khalifa on Thursday night and I said, "Oh, I've played that one." You always have to try to curry respect, don't you, with children? Especially daughters. They always roll their eyes at you. "Oh yeah, I played there." "Oh, right, whatever." I said, "Yes, I opened for The Clash there in 1981." Well, she stopped then and she looked at me in an entirely different way.

I wish Joe Strummer were still alive, I could thank him again. (Laughs)

How did General Public come together?

More than anything else, it was that we'd been a long time on the road with The Beat, The English Beat and David (Steele) and Andy (Cox) wanted to take some time off and reflect. And they were worried that we were doing it at such a frenzied pace that we were going to only be able to write songs about being on the road. And they wanted some life to live so they'd have something to write songs about.

Well, me and (Ranking) Roger really liked being on the road. And we also both had started our families and didn't need a couple years off to live life and ruminate -- it was not a financial option. And anyway, we liked what we were doing and we had songs so we decided to form General Public in that atmosphere and it worked out. (Cox and Steele) had a couple of years off and ended up forming Fine Young Cannibals. Everybody did what they needed to do, I suppose.

I was reading your bio and it mentioned this "metaphorical bump on the head from Elvis Costello." Can you tell me a little about that?

I was working at Greenpeace for about five years in the first half of the 1990s, and one of the things that I got to help out on was their tour project -- where you go to a concert and they have a table there with Greenpeace stuff and you could join up or give a few bucks and get a sticker or whatever. And Elvis Costello was kind enough to be one of those artists (who had Greenpeace tables on his tours) and I mentioned to my mates in the office that I knew him and we'd actually been quite good pals at one point. He'd been my hero and he'd picked a line out of one of my songs for "best lyric of the year" in 1980-something.

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