The Official European Dutch John Waite Website

Radio Interview on Total Rock Station(UK)

Broadcasted today ( februari 13th) on Total Rock radio. Interview with John Waite on the upcomming European tour. Starting februari 17th in Vienna, Austria. But also on the new live album, the fantastic album i might say :

In Real Time. 

The cd that will be available at every show. And will be released in Europe on Frontier Records.

Other issues: Robert Plant. Alison Krauss, John Waite The Greatest.

Poison versus Encircled, and how Alice Cooper nicked a song :)

And a spectacular heart warming version from Best Of What I Got.

Done by Malcom Dome.

Thanks Malcom for sending this file!

You can buy In Real Time here

Alison Krauss and John Waite interview on the making of ''Missing You''

John Waite Fireworks interview

JOHN WAITE

John Waite recently toured the UK for the first time in 23 years.

Roland Oei had the pleasure of talking to the legendary singer just before one of his shows to discuss his solo career and his time with The Babys and Bad English. Photos by Allan Messer.

What got you interested in music and made you want to sing?

I came from a really musical family. My mum played the piano. She could dance and sing and was very outgoing. My dad was more serious, into classical music. My brother Joe was and still is a very good guitar player in local bands and got me interested in playing in his band. My cousin Michael, who was probably the guy that really got me started, used to play me Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams and the old blues guys when I was five at my   grandmother’s house to keep me amused. He was a painter at arts school so he was like a hero to me as a kid. In Britain in the ‘50s, music was kind of rare and when you found it you really thought that you were discovering something that was not readily available.

Did you have an original ambition to illustrate children’s books? How far did you get with that?

Well no, I used to be an illustrator. I went to art school for 4 years, graphic designer and fine art. So you never got into that? Well it was just redundant. I wasn’t that good. I mean I think I was good but there were people that I looked across and it’s like people that can dance, you know, people have that thing. I could do a certain thing and do it really well but it was my own experience of what was going on. That’s why I took up music because it didn’t have to be technically perfect. With a background in music you could actually do something with a fault in it and it would still sound beautiful. That’s the way I looked at myself as a singer. I didn’t think I was a world class singer by any means. I was more of a bass player and I wanted to be a bass player and the people I listened to that were songwriters like Paul McCartney and Andy Fraser and Jack Bruce were doing magic with the four strings and I even started listening to the bass lines in classical music. Even in the national anthem, I’d be listening to the bass notes. And I liked the oboe and the double bass. I liked the cello, the viola, all the bass instruments and that’s where I thought I was going to go. What do you feel are the personal highlights of your time with The Babys, Bad English and your time as a solo artist? Well it’s so surreal to come from Lancaster and sort of ... I went off to America before I joined The Babys and I was in a small band in Cleveland trying to get a record deal and I had gone all the way over there and in those days, in the ‘70s, it was almost impossible to get a visa and somehow I hung in there and got over there and stayed for 5 months and I came back 25 pounds thinner and sleeping in a van, really trying to get this whole thing off and couldn’t do it. So I came home and through a guy in a guitar shop, a mutual friend got me involved with Adrian Miller who was trying to put this band together but I can’t imagine what would have happened had I not met Adrian Miller because I was so shy really on some levels, but so determined and stubborn on others, that if I had met somebody else that was full of bullshit I would have probably been polite and said I’ll just go and play bass in somebody’s band or I’ll just go back to Lancaster and I don’t know what I would have done. There were no alternatives, that’s why I am where I am now. I was going to do this or go down with the ship. But it was opportune that I met the right people. Mike couldn’t sing, he didn’t write songs and he was like a guitar player. I played bass, could sing and I wrote songs. But that was as much of a band as it was. There was nothing, it was two guys looking at each other but we got Tony Brock involved who was a very good drummer and that upped the ante and they were looking at me for songs, serious   songs, like what have you got, we need something. So I’m thinking I have two things that I have been pissing around with but I had that confidence and passion, that it was good even though it was just me. When I play this F on the bass and I sing this note, this is where I am trying to get to and 10 years later a lot of people started singing in that style.

Were you involved with the recent The Babys reissues?

Yeah I did interviews for the liner notes and it was the weirdest experience. I had to go back and read my diary to get 1978 right. I kept a diary of 1978 and it was so surreal. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was so over the top and the fact that we made it, the jump from London to Hollywood, I mean young men in Hollywood, it was unbelievable Rock and Roll in the 70s and we had luxury apartments and then we made this hit record. We had been dragged out of the fire. There were problems in the band already when we got there and we were trying to stay together because that was the object of coming all the way from London but as we were making that third record we found we had no songs left and it was ‘who’s got anything?’ and I took the reigns as I was basically writing all the melodies and the words anyway and I started to write away from the band because there was such a lot of bad feeling in the band and it was lonely but I wasn’t giving up on it. I thought we were done but the album that we turned in didn’t exactly set anybody on fire. It was a very good record but they were expecting something else and there was a huge explosion in the band and everything just hit the fan. And we went from a four piece to a three piece and finished the record as a three piece, and as the story goes we ended up getting two other guys in the band and there was a brief period there when we were a three piece like a Rock and Roll Police or whatever, and we cut all the big singles, wrote great songs as a three piece. But that’s the best version of The Babys. When we had those 3 guys firing on all cylinders in a small room It was uncluttered, direct and we had to win.

Onto the solo career. Everyone obviously knows ‘Missing You’, can you remember writing that one?

I was in a bedroom studio in LA and I has finished the ‘No Brakes’ album and they were mixing it and when I was watching the mixes they were doing some guitar overdubs with Gary and I felt it was an obscure record. I knew enough to know that there’s nothing like having a single because 6 months after the album is dead they say ‘Well we didn’t have a single’. I knew something inside me said we needed to have something and I had been writing with this guy and as we couldn’t find the song we had done the previous week, he hit the play button and this backing track came on and I was like ‘What’s that?’ and he put it up and we ran it twice. I had almost the entire thing, 90% of it in  two takes. ‘Every time I think of you’ came from a Babys title of a song. I used the first line of the song to get me started, all the first verse, bridge, choruses were all off the top of my head. The only thing that wasn’t from that night was the second B section. I even sang through the guitar solo because I didn’t know what it was and it all made sense. But I was capable of doing that.

What about the time with Bad English?

I had been given a deal at Epic as a solo artist and the A&R guy was going to find the songs and I immediately thought well I’m out of here because I’m a songwriter and he wanted to find the songs as they always do. A&R stands for always wrong. I just wasn’t going to have it and I told my manager Trudy, look I’m out. And she said what are you going to do, we need this deal, Epic is fantastic. And I said well we could do a band as that’s the last thing that anybody expects and then we went back to the record company and said look, I don’t want to do a solo album, let’s do a band and I just went looking for guitar players. I flew back to England and made all these phone calls and I just couldn’t find anybody and 2 months later with HK management being such a big concern, they were certainly guiding me at that point. They said well if you can’t get anyone over there in England, try this then and I thought why not, I just wanted to throw something at the public that they didn’t expect.

You are on Rounder Records now. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Rounder Records is a blue grass label. Me and Alison Krauss released the duet of ‘Missing You’ and so they put my last record out. That’s her record company.

Tina Turner also covered that song. How did that come about?

She just wanted to do it. Anybody can do the song once you have released it. You don’t have to ask permission. Brookes and Dunn did a country version of it. But it says a great deal about the song. Tina was number one the week before I was number one so she probably kept it in mind. It was very flattering because I remember listening to her singing ‘River Deep Mountain High’ on a record player in my bedroom when I was nine and then you think 25, 30 years later you’re listening to Tina Turner singing your song, your lyrics, you phrasing … there are no words for that, you just take that with you where you go.

What do you think of her version?

She sings very well. I go back with Tina to ‘What You See is What You Get’. The live album, ‘Nutbush City Limits’ and ‘Proud Mary’ are landmark songs. I’m not into big production. I am trying to scale everything back now into live performance because that’s what I loved when I started out, going back to The Babys, the 3 piece Babys. Going back to ‘Head First’, there were no overdubs, it was just playing live in the studio and it had a transparency to the sound. You could hear the bass drum hitting and it wasn’t all double tracked. It was an honest performance and that appeals to me and it always did. But you have to learn how to put it on the table. You have to learn how to show these people music. You give them the unvarnished thing all the time, it’s just going to be unvarnished and it won’t be interesting. There’s a real subtle intelligent way of explaining music. The one thing that makes music beautiful and tragic and yearning is the humanity of it. and you take that out of music and you’ve got a record company’s dream. I mean Jesus Christ almighty, how did we get to that?

When was the last time you were here?

We played Holland four years ago at the Arrowfest. It was a tremendous reception. We keep trying to come back but you see the difference we are having now with all these smaller gigs and the advertising, it’s just chaos over here. It’s mad. We were supposed to play the Scala, we sold 200 tickets and they pulled the gig with 6 weeks to go. And then two weeks later there was an advert in Uncut. You tell me because I just don’t understand.

What about the whole tour that was cancelled a year and a half ago? Oh we got through some booker or whatever, we had an agent working on it and then they just wrung their hands of it and said we can’t make it work. I mean you have to fly the band over, pay the band, get hotels, get a driver, you’ve got to get the gear together and the guys I use are not second string guys and I want to be fair every time I pay somebody but people throw money at you like three grand. Well it’s like what the fuck do you expect for three grand? I could do it unplugged if you give us like five grand. Then I can come and pay everybody and we can live and get the hotels and it’s like … no. That’s why so many people come unplugged.

So when was the last time you actually played in England?

It would have been the Marquee in ’86. We’ve been trying to come back every 3 or 4 years. It’s like… I tried to get Bad English to come and play the Marquee. They wouldn’t come. I got a write up in the Mail supplement magazine and it was like ‘Why?’ He’s big over there but ... it’s just the way it goes. It’s been an uphill struggle since the word go and I maintain that I come back to Lancaster 4 times a year to see my folks. I am very proud of being British and proud of being from Lancaster.

Have a plug of your recent releases.

I have 3 albums up on iTunes at the moment. There’s ‘Temple Bar’ which I just bought about 3 months ago and there’s ‘When You Were Mine’, that’s with bonus tracks, two tracks on ‘Temple Bar’ and one track on ‘When You Were Mine’. And ‘Figure In A Landscape’ with a different mix of different versions of the singles. All those are on iTunes along with ‘The Hard Way’ and ‘Downtown’ which is my last release but ‘Downtown’ was just made entirely for Europe. That was meant to be like a crash course in John Waite because there were no John Waite records in HMV in Lancaster. Not even the EMI greatest hits. I thought right, I am going to go back to America, I am going to put an album together of the greatest hits and I am just going to have it out in Europe and I am going to come and tour the hell out of Europe. I am sick of this shit. I am taking control of it. I got half way through doing it and I got bored. When I got to ‘Missing You’, I didn’t just want to record ‘Missing You’ so I rang Alison up because I loved her voice and hey presto she said yeah and we cut the song and then I looked at the album and thought wow. I didn’t expect that. So I did an acoustic version of ‘When I See You Smile’ because that’s what we do on these unplugged dates that we do in America and I cut ‘Head First’ live and it was sounding great and I started doing different versions of these songs so it’s like a psychedelic meander down my past and since I haven’t been on the circuit for so long in Europe I didn’t think anyone could tell the difference, just hear a really good record and say well aren’t those good songs, let’s go and see him play. So that’s what I put out. It wasn’t intentionally meant to be what it ended up being. It’s a braver record than it looks. But I did ‘Highway 61’ in New York City at midnight. I said who knows that and they all said we do so we did that. It’s an interesting record. But that’s the new record that’s available in Europe until I get another one out.

So that is available in HMV?

No. You have to special order it. And we’ve sold 100 tickets for tonight so what do you do?

Do you feel you have the recognition you deserve in the UK?

I don’t know. ‘Missing You’ went to number 8 when Madonna was number one. It was in there with the cream of the crop. I don’t care, it confounds me now. I look at the world and I understand how the whole thing works and I am not interested really. The fact that I can go and play whatever I want whenever I want and make money is a complete luxury these days and do something I love without having to compromise. I mean it’s a bit of a bind when you have to pull out a few songs that people really want to hear when they see you but Free had ‘All Right Now’ and John Waite had ‘Missing You’ but the point is everybody is very keen to say “Ah, one hit wonder” and you know … fucking hell. Someone said on VH1 last week, he’s been a one hit wonder three times! I thought well thank you my friend. The Babys were massive, Bad English were massive and I was massive as a solo but apparently I am a one hit wonder.

Any message for your UK fans?

I’m a one hit wonder. It’s great. You had to ask the question, I had to answer it. It’s like God is having a joke with me but it’s funny.

Interview published by permission of Bruce Mee.

Interview from issue # 37 of Fireworks  magazine.

get your own copy of Fireworks magazine: http://www.melodicrock.com/fireworks/index.html

25 years after Missing You #1; A Collection!

JOHN WAITE HAS HAD NUMEROUS HITS.

The one that has become a synonym or a metaphor for him is the phenomenal, fantastic,fabulous hitsingle Missing You.

Written by Chas Sandford,Mark leonard and John Waite. The song is really written for his at the time wife Lyn.

He was really missing her. Him being in New York and she still in the lake district.

It's a denial song  '' I ain't Missing You, I can lie to myself''

Chas Sandford had a tape lying under his chair in his car, with a baseline, guitar and drums only, it was a bluesy kind of song.

Missing You  was the last one written for No Brakes, cause John Waite felt it still needed a hit.

he used the first line from The Babys hit '' everytime I Think Of You'' to get him started in writting Missing You.

the rest is history.

Number One high at september 22 th1984!!

The strenght of this song is also proven by the many remakes that are done:

Tina Turner, Brooks and Dunn, Rod StewartTylor Hilton, Emil Chau(Chinese), DV8, Whatever Jones, Diminished 9th, Vanity Lounge,Andre McNeal,December Score9,Greg Tannen,Christopher Burgan,GP,New Purple Generation,CribShitter,Jim and Darren, Declan Galbraith,Taylor Swift, Matt Boschar,Phil Stacey,Kids Incorporated, Miaa Rose, E'voke, Daretosing, David Wilcox, Bert Heerink,Melanie, Millie Jackson, Mobs 4 real,Heavens Fall hard,Seventy One, Dennis Schutze,Tom Beaudreau, Paola Turci,Susie Ahern, Jessica Knox, Barbara Dickson,

The Concert Vault interview , done on 20th januari 1985. It's about writing for the platinum album No Brakes.

The demos John mentions in this interview3 were never released, like "' Living In America'' '''here We go Again''and '' Twilight Zone''

About being a painter, John went to Art school in London. It is a great interview about Missing You. The song thats about 25 years old now!!

Number One high at september 22 th1984!!

So:

1. Printed interview

2.Radio Interview ( 16 minutes)

3.Live version for Missing You, close after peaking at #1 in the Billboard hot 100.

4.Video's.

Live version MIssing You from october 22 th  1984 Detroit Michigan:

This is the whole interview!!

Missing You: with the Ringo Starr All Star band

Missing You:

The song was featured on the second episode of "Miami Vice"(Heart Of Darkness).

This song is featured in Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

Waite performed this on the short-lived ABC TV series Paper Dolls in 1984.

Interview on 100.7 The Bay Baltimore

This interview is done by Colleen Carew.

Broadcasted on

John tells about his new album '' in the making''

And a lot more !

Just listen.

below: Colleen Carew and John Waite after the show at Rams head.

Music Mirror interview done in Augsburg Germany

This is one of the beautiful juwels one finds unexpected.

John Waite talks in a well done interview about several issues like :

Contacting Tony Brock ( from The Babys).

European tour: more fun in two weeks then in the whole year! he is really enthousiastic about that.

Coming back in the fall for a few gigs, probably!!

Highpoint in his carreer: playing with Alison Krauss in The Oprhy Nashville.

His first ever dates in Germany

New Album, more rocking , without keyboards hopefuly for Christmas.

Moved away and bored with keyboards

I am not a businessman, but a musician

The Mr. Wonderful, European tour

Time Stood Still : huge in Holland

The time of my life on the continent

Where he want to be in 10 years

The two songs he wants to ne remembered for in 100 years, one is Missing You, but hwats the other one ?

Have a listen.

Credits too  Music Mirror

German Music magazine!

Thanks to Eva for allowing me to share this with you.

John Waite interview about Goldcircle

I Think a ''must see, hear'' interview with our great John Waite!!

2001 Interview about being with Goldcircle, where he is happy to be at that time. But also about throwing the real artists out by the record companys and these terrible mainstream constructed bullshit people that are coming in, and pretending to be artists, and these people at the top( of the record company) are perpetuating this to make money. ''Most people you see on MTV are Crap''

''I'd rather jump off a cliff then to be a part of that''

Must see, hear interview with John Waite

I Think a ''must see, hear'' interview with our great John Waite!!

2001 Interview about being with Goldcircle, where he is happy to be at that time. But also about throwing the real artists out by the record companys and these terrible mainstream constructed bullshit people that are coming in, and pretending to be artists, and these people at the top( of the record company) are perpetuating this to make money. ''Most people you see on MTV are Crap''

''I'd rather jump off a cliff then to be a part of that''

Interview with John, done by Dixie Watley

Another interesting interview, well in fact two interviews from around 1985.

But feel free to add some information, cause I am not sure about its origin.

One is with Dixie Watley

These are interviews from 1985 on promoting Mask Of Smiles

Classic John Waite Interview

Classic, long interview with Niswander from 2007.

Where John talks about his future goals, going to Holland(Classics In Rock), and if he likes connecting with people.

no looking back

NO LOOKING BACK

Story and photo by John Chambrone (Published in Dec 2006)

First published on JWOL by Crissy Baronak

LARGO FL- It was twenty two years ago to the day that I saw John Waite in concert for the first time. Back in 1984, his hit “Missing You,” topped the charts and continues to be a favorite of his fans as well as his contemporaries. In the nineties, Tina Turner did a version of the song and this year not only did Waite update it by making it a duet with Allison Krauss, but rocker Rod Stewart also released his version of Waite’s signature tune. I got the chance to sit down and chat with Waite after his recent Largo performance. He said he was honored when Turner decided to sing his song, especially since it was her song “River Deep Mountain High,” that he cranked on his record player in his bedroom when he was 11 years old. He said that she did a “fantastic” job and that he was moved that she used his phrasing. A few years later, it was Stewart’s voice with the Jeff Beck Band and the Faces that emanated from that record player. Stewart was a huge influence on Waite. “To have Rod do one of your songs, for an Englishman, it meant more to me than Tina. It blew my mind, but for Rod to say, ‘Here is a song by an old friend of mine,’…I was really touched. I thought it was really great. I met him a few times and had a few drinks with him. I have always liked Rod.” Stewart will be performing at the St. Pete Times Forum on January 17.

The duet with Krauss came about by his manager calling hers and asking. They called back in an hour with a resounding ‘yes.’ The two met in Nashville and instantly connected musically. “She is the most intense, sincere person and I feel very privileged to have worked with her. To have her sing 'Missing You' with me... it is one of my five biggest moments in my career.” When asked what the other three were, Waite mentioned the time he jammed with the Who’s Pete Townsend and the time he performed with former Small Faces founder Steve Marriott. Both of those moments took place in New York City, Waite’s adopted home of almost twenty years. It happened at a time when he was disgusted with his career and it is just what he needed. “They were two people that I revered and really truly loved. It changed how I felt about New York. I stayed there for eighteen years. I miss everything about that city; the architecture, the weather, central park, the snow, the ruggedness of the weather, the people…they are so truthful. All of my deep relationships have been about the eastern seaboard." Waite left New York for a couple of years due to personal reasons, but plans on moving back there next year.

These days it seems like every band under the sun is having some sort of reunion. During his three decades in the world of music, Waite fronted not one but two very successful bands. In the late seventies his pipes were heard singing the songs “Headfirst,” “Isn’t it Time,” and “Midnight Rendezvous,” with the Baby’s. In the late eighties it was “When I See You Smile,” that made the band Bad English popular. I wondered if any type of reunion was on the horizon for either of his former bands. I was surprised that he practically said no way in hell. “I would never go backwards. When I work with bands that is what I do. It is a great wild time and it is a hit and everything, but I don't do it for the money. After the energy has been gone from a situation I can't imagine why you would go back to that sort of thing. Why would you go back unless it was for the money?” These days Waite is very content to be touring with his guitarist Jimmy Leahey. The pair has been playing together for the past three years. During that time, they played what seemed like every Border’s Book Store in America. This experience gave Waite a chance to reconnect with America and the public. " I lost all of my stage fright and it made me into a better artist.” We talked a little bit about the power of music. The ‘product’ that has been coming out recently is just that. Calling most rock and roll “homogenized, ” Waite refuses to be a cookie cutter artist. “No matter who comes out, they are dominated by some guy behind a desk. Unless you are from the East Village of New York and have a really good rock band with a really good lawyer that will keep those people away from you, it is all product. How can you be in a world where rock and roll is a product? Right now it is dominated by companies that are losing ground because of I tunes and the internet, telling the artists how to do things, and artists are coming back with rock and roll.” Twenty years ago John Lennon proved to us that music can change the world. “ Lennon gave us a tremendous political statement that alters how we think about the world, and how our government runs our life. Songs like 'Give Peace a Chance' were instrumental in ending the Vietnam War because it gave the man on the street a song to sing outside the White House. The White House eventually had to say 'all right we have to pull the troops out.' That is how great rock and roll can be. Rock and roll is bigger than the ******** ****. Rock and roll is incredibly powerful and it is our voice. It is the people that don’t wear suits, the real people, and it will survive, and maintain and change politics.” Speaking of the Beatles, Waite revered the fab four. “I love the Beatles more than I can put into words.” He jumped at the chance to tour with Ringo Starr a couple of years ago. The Beatles former drummer usually enlists some pop stars for a summer tour and Waite was one of them. He said that Starr was a nice guy and great to work with. He also admitted to being spoiled a bit on that tour. “We all adored Ringo, it was fun playing with him then flying around in a private jet eating lobster sandwiches and champagne.” His latest tour may not be as lavish, but he is having a blast just the same. This time around, he performed for a couple hundred folks at the Largo Cultural Center. The acoustic show gave Waite the chance to get up close and personal with his fans. He even offered anyone who wanted to come on stage and sing with him. One concert go-er took him up on his offer and sang the chorus of “Back on my Feet Again,’ with him. He thought she was cute so called her back up to sing the song, “Change,” with him a few songs later. During the performance he joked about how bad the show was the night before at Arrowfest in Houston, Texas where he played for thousands of people. He liked the mellow atmosphere of the Largo show and seemed to be enjoying himself with the more intimate crowd. The acoustic set showcased his career by including most of hit hits whether they are solo or with one of his former bands. Waite prefers to perform acoustically, “I like being truthful with the sound which is what you get unplugged. I am fortunate that my audience allows me to do an unplugged country thing. Then we kick out the jams and do 2/3 of the set with a full band usually.” Waite’s version of “Missing You,” with Krauss, can be found on his latest release, “Downtown – Journey of a Heart.” Describing the new record as kind of a greatest hits album, Waite stated that musically he is going back to square one. He went back through his catalog and re-recorded some of his favorites. The magic of the duet inspired him and he wrote two new songs that he put on the record. “The record really changed. It isn't really a greatest hits and it isn't really a new record. I think people might get it. It is like a crash course in John Waite. ‘Missing You’ is just so profoundly beautiful. It is better than the original.” When I mentioned that I hadn’t heard that version yet, Waite asked for my address and said he’d mail me a copy. Three days later, I received a personally autographed copy of the cd. I thought that was very cool of him. The disc is out in Europe now and should be in stores in the states early next year. “If you buy it I will be able to come back and play for you again.”

Every Step Of The Way in a Dutch TV Studio

It took me a lot of effort to get this studio performance of John Waite on the internet. To show it to you all.

I had it on an old VHS video tape for many, many years.

This is in a Dutch Pop show called Popformula 1.

It was aired at October 7th, 1985, as someone told me kindly.

The interviewer in Erik de Zwart, I think doesn't do a great job, he doesn't seem to know John at all, or at least he seems not to be interested .But anyhow, It's nice to see this again. Enjoy while it lasts.

There is another show with John Waite in the countdown studio with host Adam Curry,with the same song, aired in the same week, will try and get that video up next weekend!!

Midwest Beat interview

By Shelly Harris

From Midwest Beat magazine

Published with the kind permission of Shelly Harris.

It’s fun – it’s really fun,” chimes John Waite, on the line from Nashville, where he’s preparing to debut on the Grand Ole Opry for the first time in his long and diverse career.  “It’s kind of unbelievable.”

 

“Unbelievable” is actually the working adjective for everything going on in Waite’s career right now.  And – in case you didn’t know – it is a career that has, in the long run, been amazingly long-lived and diverse. 

To rewind briefly, the Lancaster, England native first achieved pop-rock star status as the frontman for ‘70s Brit glam-rockers, The Babys, and then reached further acclaim on his own as a high rotation MTVsolo artist with hits such as “Change” and “Missing You”—and many others.  He also had a mid-career “band success” with the “supergroup” Bad English (that included Journey-men Jonathan Cain and Neil Schon) before bolted off to the most creative and soulful era of his career thus far, the Americana-influenced 90s era.

These days though, his career – and his creative inspiration – has hit a new, different, and somewhat unexpected plateau due to his surprise county hit: a collaboration with premier Bluegrass songbird Alison Krauss on Waite’s own self-penned classic, “Missing You.”

What once was old is new again, when you put a new spin on it, still Waite admits he is surprised by the resurgence of interest in his career since the song first came out on his album in the USA in January of this year.

Waite himself notes of the newly expressed professional respect that has been emanating his way since the song came out (including new career perks like a recent appearance on the Tonight Show and high-rotation CMT attention): “It’s like a test:  Can you put up with this?  Can you go do this?  And, if you do, it gives you more … weight.  But, I keep saying to Alison [Krauss], I can’t imagine what I would be doing if I weren’t doing this.  It just seems so right!  It’s like a dream come true.”

 

Regarding how the fateful duet with Krauss came about, Waite elaborates that it was just a matter of a phone call:  “It was like, who’s your favorite singer?  And I was like, ‘Alison Krauss.’ “The next thing I know, we’re looking at each other, and it was, ‘How do we do this?!’ She was … panicked – and I was nervous as a cat! … She was so humble about it!   We’ve done a lot of written interviews together recently, and when it gets to that point, she always talks about how nervous she was.” 

The song then came out on Waite’s current career-sampler disc, Downtown: Journey of a Heart, and is also set to be a number on Krauss’ soon-to-be released album, which includes duets with other country or rock singer-songwriters.  The album will also include another Waite/Krauss duet on a Don Williams song called “Lay Down Beside Me.”

So, the Waite/Krauss partnership, as well as a continuing Roots music slant is a path Waite plans to remain on for some time to come. “It’s for the long haul, really,” he states firmly. “And you’d be surprised – it isn’t really that thought out!  It’s like, she wants to do this, from her heart, and obviously, so do I.  I think it works because it’s so unpremeditated, so natural, and there isn’t really a plan.”

And, Waite reckons, “The die is cast. … So, I think it’s ongoing, I think I’ve arrived at where I wanted to be.  There’ll be a new album of new material in the works, I think in the next six months. … I woke up at 3:00 in the morning because of all the lightening and rain, and I had all these ideas in my head!  You always wait for that moment, and I had it last night. …I’m working with people I adore, and everything is calm and it’s just great.”

“It’s all an adventure. … I take the long view.  I don’t care if we play a tiny club with 100 people and then play to 10,000, because the point is to just play. That’s the reason you go into the studio anyway, so that you can play.” 

Of course, Waite concludes, “It really super helps when you’re in heavy rotation at CMT and GAC … It’s funny when things start to pick up, it just goes! But when things are not going so well, it just disappears.  It’s either feast or famine. It’s the weirdest thing!   But, everyone wants to be involved at the moment, everyone wants to help.  It’s not wasted on me – none of this is.  I appreciate all of it.”

Another interview from British TV -1986

This is an interview filmed by British televion. Just before the Marquee shows.. John talks about The Babys and the name that wasn't good in his opinion. About his former wife , but also about jamming with Stevie Wonder in the China club. But he mentions also the movie Privilege, where he was gonna play in. That movie never was made. Again thanks to Barry Banks!

Rock Eyez interview John Waite

Pict. David felix & John Waite

David Felix: Hi John, it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for inviting us backstage and taking the time to speak with us. It really was a tremendous show& very impressive, and your voice sounds just as good now as it did when you first started.

John Waite: God bless you! Thank you& Thank you very much.

David Felix: So let's start things off by talking a little bit about the new tour and new album. How long have you been out in support of the release now?

John Waite: Since it came out. We've been out since January doing some unplugged dates and full band dates& about an equal amount of both. We've been playing everywhere we can. We've been to Europe and played with a symphony orchestra there. Then we came back and just picked up the tour and playing as much as possible. We actually got to play Opryland with Alison Krauss and Vince Gill& that was a big thrill! It was the first time we ever got to play there so it really was a big thrill for me.

David Felix: Tell me a little bit about your band and how you got together with them.

John Waite: It's the same list of people I've been playing with for a while now. Tim's the newest guy. (Tim Hogan) Jimmy Leahey's been with us for God knows how many years, it's been years and years& he's been with us since 'TEMPLE BAR.' So it's pretty much the same guys I've been playing with for at least the last five years now.

David Felix: Tonight you did an acoustic set& how often do you play with a full band?

John Waite: It's 50/50. When we play bigger dates like festivals or theaters, we tend to use the full band more but whenever I get the chance to play acoustically, I tend to go for that instead. I prefer that because it's more 'country.'

David Felix: Let's talk about the new album a little bit&

John Waite: We basically re-cut everything that was a famous song and put it on one record. I was in England and I couldn't find a John Waite record so we decided to make a greatest hits out of our set list.

David Felix: What made you decide on that instead of a new studio release?

John Waite: Well, it was just for Europe, actually. But by the time Alison Krauss decided to hop aboard on 'Missing You,' we decided to up the ante and recorded some more songs like 'Downtown,' 'Highway 61' and 'St. Patrick's Day.' That made it a completely different record and I thought that for people who hadn't gotten a John Waite record, this would be like a 'crash course' in John Waite now! It's kind of like a 'psychedelic' version of an album and not really what you'd expect. David Felix: Are you currently working on any new material? John Waite: Always! The thing is, you make an album these days and you can't buy it anywhere because so many record companies have gone out of business and the record shops, as we use to know them, are closing down. Unless you download it, it's hard to get. So I'm working on my next move now. I'd like to get out an acoustic album before Christmas and a live album but I have no idea what's going to happen as far as the next studio album goes. The music business is just in such turmoil.

David Felix: Have you been considering using venue such as 'iTunes' and such more?

John Waite: Oh yeah! I have like 80 songs up there now and some that are just exclusive to 'iTunes.' So I understand it but it's just that when you go in to make a studio record, the budget is just so enormous if you're going to try and put it in the shops. It's practicality, really! You can't keep making records and putting them out there if there's no outlet for them. So we'll see how things go.

David Felix: You had one of your first real successes with the band THE BABYS back in the 70's, became almost a household name in the 80's with your solo material and work with the band BAD ENGLISH. Do you find it more difficult now to build and maintain a fan base as oppose to the success you had in the past?

John Waite: No. I think that I'm lucky to come under the wire with the music business being so out of control. I've got such a big catalog that when people see me on the street, they know me and we advertise our gigs, we always have a turn out. I've been fortunate enough to have already established myself so I can just go my own way as an artist.

Judy Felix: Didn't you play a show in the New York City subway?

John Waite: Oh yeah! I'm one of the few people that actually took a band into the New York City subway! (laughs) We almost got arrested! The police came and everything but I played on a rooftop too about 20 years ago and almost got arrested for that! So I've played on a rooftop AND in the subway& I think I've covered all the bases! (laughs) David Felix: A lot of artists from your success period are finding a new audience and renewed success with the younger generation today. Do you find that's true with you as well?

John Waite: Yes& in country. I've found the country audience has really taken to me and I've always loved country& country and blues and that's why I'm a rock singer! It's not one or the other, it's right down the middle. All my influences stem from country and blues so it's been really refreshing.

Judy Felix: Do your country fans know about THE BABYS and the other work you've done?

John Waite: Oh yeah! When I go down to Nashville, everybody just adores THE BABYS. Here I'll be talking about Hank Williams and they'll want to talk about 'HEAD FIRST!' But it really opens up a lot of doors. When you start a conversation, you understand each other more and a door opens into music! So it's very cool and I am very pleased about it.

David Felix: Are you happy with all the success you've had and what else would you like to accomplish?

John Waite: Yeah, I'm very happy with it! I was just thinking last night in the bath tub that someone once asked me what I wanted and I said, 'I want to be, kind of, off to one side and be able to do what I wanted to do without having the pressure of having to be number one every week.' And if you look at my career, that's just about how it's gone. There've been these tremendous 'highs' and that would sustain me through the next five records of me doing what I wanted to do but then I'd have to make another number one record or go away. But with radio like it is now, the older stuff is in regular rotation so my name's still out there and it's the best of every possible world!

David Felix: After all these years, are you still having fun?

John Waite: Of course! When I step up to the 'mic' I always sing a little differently and it's always a beautiful thing just to play music and write. I feel very, very lucky& truly lucky.

David Felix: I recently attended THE POLICE's 30th anniversary tour. It seems that it's been just about as long for you and THE BABYS. Has there ever been any talk of something like that with them?

John Waite: No, no& we had a very hard time with Chrysalis over our  catalog. We never really got out of debt. We toured so much and took so many advances that we never got out of debt. So to put the band back together would be insane because we still owe something upwards of a million dollars! So it's just like 'thank you, it was great.' If you find the records, listen to them but we just don't care.

David Felix: Looking back, what has been your proudest moment?

John Waite: I think playing Opryland with Alison Krauss and Vince Gill. I think that was the most nervous I've ever been in my life other than going on stage for the first time. That, for me, was just      the biggest moment because we got just the biggest reception in Nashville. That really shook me. I remember just coming off stage and I couldn't talk! It was just such a big thrill for me to sing with Alison and Vince live& it was so great.

David Felix: Had you not been a success in the music industry, what do you think you'd be doing now?

John Waite: Two words& 'HARD TIME!' (laughs) I'd probably be in jail somewhere. David Felix: You've been and influence and inspiration to so many people over the years& but who are your heroes?

John Waite: There are just so many. You could mention just about any performer from the 50's or 60's. People in country music from when I was like five years old through FREE with Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke to Hank Williams to Merle Haggard to Alison Krauss to Robert Plant! I'm just such a huge fan of music and people who make music. You recognize it when it's really good and it's like delving into Russian literature or something& you're that involved in it. It's like its own universe! You're always thinking about it and constantly inspired by it. So it could never be just one person&

David Felix: Any Regrets?

John Waite: I should have got a better lawyer when I first started out! (laughs) And a lawyer to watch the lawyer! I've always lived my life the way I wanted to. I've never had to 'cow-tow' nor do something I didn't want to do. I think that's been the biggest wonderfulness of my life& that I got to live it the way I wanted to.

David Felix: What do you do to relax?

John Waite: I'm doing it! I could always say I sleep, but I sleep with my toe tapping! Music is just about everything to me. Judy Felix: What is the hardest lesson you've ever hard to learn?

John Waite: Human nature can sometimes be a negative thing in business when it comes to money. People can and WILL show you sides of themselves that you never thought possible. Money changes people immediately. It's a very bitter reality of life, but it's how life is. You don't have to live your life like that, but you have to be aware that there is an edge to life that's pretty dark& but that's what makes the bright side even brighter! There are people who live their lives purely based on art, being compassionate or being really involved in the world with no care for possessions& and they're very successful. They make great livings or just work in like Africa or something. So for everything that's dark& there's light! Everything is in balance so it's just as it's meant to be.

David Felix: What advice would you have for any budding, young artists out there? John Waite: Umm& listen to nobody else and dig deep!

David Felix: So what's next for you and your band?

John Waite: Listen to nobody else and dig deep! (all laugh)

David Felix: That's about it, John. Is there anything else you'd like to add? John Waite: Just take a listen to the new album& give it a shot. I hope you enjoy it and if you enjoy it, I'm complete! I'm happy!

Interview published by courtesy of Rock Eyes Thanks Brian Rademacher for the permission and the pictures.

Written by David Felix

Interview done in august 2007.

regards

Wouter Kramer

Interview about The babys, Wife, Missing You

Written By Cary Barnhard

Besides being a hit song writer, dynamic stage performer and MTV icon, John Waite is also an eloquent, introspective and genuinely engaging person. Heat Beat had the distinct pleasure of speaking with John from his home as he prepared to return to the road.

HB: What was your first gig?

JW: My first gig ever in front of people was at a youth club in Lancaster. My brother's band was playing and the bass player went for a pint of beer because being in a youth club you can't buy anything alcoholic (and they're a bit older than me). But, he didn't come back. My brother went into this Jimi Hendrix song and there was no bass player. So he stopped and came over and gave me the bass guitar and said, "Play this note!" So, I played the note, which turned out to be like a D and away I went! I had a career.

HB: Before that you had planned to go into illustration?

JW: Yeah. Most of the hip kids, and there were only a few of them because Lancaster was a pretty hardcore town, went to art school. That's where all the kids wound up that were like bohemian kids. All over Great Britain tat was kind of like a standard thing. If you couldn't do anything else that was academic, they sent you to art school. But I actually really wanted to go. All my heroes went there and my interest in art was as deep as music. They're the same thing to me, really. I really wanted to be an illustrator, so I spent four years at art school. And I probably would have pursued that had I not been in the band that played the art school dances. The next thing I knew I was a professional musician.

HB: You were wrongly accused of jewel theft around that time?

JW: We did a gig actually at the Morcam, it's like a night club, and Lonnie Donnigan, the famous British Skiffle singer had played the night before, with us opening. His drummer's drum kit went missing and the police showed up at our sound check looking to see where the drum cases were. And that turned into being accused of a jewel robbery and pulled into a police station. I'm pretty honest and straight forward in most things, but I had no idea what they were talking about. I think it was an excuse to just question the band and put us through a lot of crap. I left town about three weeks later because it looked very bad for me.

HB: Where did you go from there?

JW: I went down to London soon afterwards with a band called England. I lived in London for two years playing the Marquee Club and clubs around London City. And then I came home back to Lancaster and I got a letter from this singer that I'd known in London and I went to Cleveland for five months and joined a band called The Boys. It was a great experience. It was my first taste of America and I fell in love with it completely. When that fell through, I came back to London. The next thing I knew I was in a band called The Babys.

HB: When you were playing in London, what was it like at that time?

JW: Unbelievable! It was like 1972-73. There was tremendous musicianship and a sense of a real energy and fashion wrapped up in the city itself. It was very hardcore. I was living in a room that was like 8x10 with the roadie and the guitar player; living off milk and rice. We couldn't afford more that like one pint of beer in the pub and stuff. We were all signing on the unemployment. But, there was a tremendous sense of romance to be in London. It was hard. It was winter and there was nothing to keep the place warm with, but you had the guitar, and you had the dream. It was a great period, really.

HB: Did The Babys have to struggle for credibility?

JW: Not really. I think the whole thing with the manager calling us The Babys was to get us some attention, which it certainly did! We could have been called…. whatever, The Chefs, that actually came up once, "Let's call ourselves The Chefs", it wouldn't have the same notoriety.

HB: What was it like to have the success of "Missing You"?

JW: Great! I always tried to be obscure. I've tried to sort of make my mark and walk away, and with "Missing You" I couldn't. And I think at that time in my career it was time to accept the fact that I was capable of having that kind of success, and I had just to do it! Stay in the game, you know. It was fun, but it was also difficult on my marriage and it was very difficult, I think, on my parents and everybody. I was suddenly number one around the world. It was tough on my wife; it was tough on everything. But it only comes at certain times and you just have to go; go on tour and leave and do the work or everything you've done in your life has been for nothing at that point.

Interview with Dan Kimpel

This is an interview from 2002

taken by Dan Kimpel

Published with consent from Dan Kimpel

John Waite :
well it might have been the Sixties a lot of the stuff you're talking about,
Clapton, Keith Richards, they all went to art school. I think at that point
there was a revolution taking pace in London and it spread out through Britain
of people in both aspects, painters, who would do a drawing and music was
always heavily running along side that.

studies?

pretty musical, a record player going playing old blues and Free and Jimi
Hendrix and the Beatles and White album. In live class you'd be paining some
naked girl and there'd be John Lennon singing "Sexy Sadie" in the back, it was
kind of funny. It was young and everything was Turned don ten. The arts
figured
very heavily. In European life the arts are very pronounced and I think in the
sixties all of the guitar players and the misfits kind of wound up at art
school.

Figure in a Landscape

I was trying to get at the fact that you go get kind of isolated in
life and you
do move forward through these days and you become the hero of your own story,
really, you come in this book, this film , and your life becomes slightly
unreal the move you live it. The fact you move through these scenes, Deja Vu
and always moving back into the past; F. Scott Fitzgerald, the thing about
always being swept backwards into your past and that life is fairly much an
illusion, so Figure in a Landscape was arty and referring to painting but it
was this unreality of life.

Babys.

The fact that the original English Band I didn't realize until we were
finished
how good it was. When you're young your always trying to force something new,
running as fast as you can and demanding more from other people than you would
normally demand, You're impatient. Someone sent me a live album from
Philadelphia in ;77 I was playing bass, we were a real four piece band and man
it was good I never knew we were that good. Being self-critical you[re always
trying to move forward and do new work and reinvent the wheel. It's rock and
roll but some of the performances on that CD. I never knew we were that good.
And maybe that's part of the charm of what we did, we were that reckless.

U.S.

It's an Englishman's' life, an Englishman abroad. If you[re living in a
separate
country than the one you're born in y you're continually  amused by stuff that
happens to you because you're a resident alien, you're from outer space or
something. the fact I grew up listening to American culture, everything from
"Champion the Wonderhorse" to Elvis Presley to Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix it
was the natural extension of where I was gong, to cross the pond, to get in a
aeroplane and come to American, you know. That's when things got really
interesting it was really in the moment, in the experience.

I think you look at things through and Englishman's eyes, New York City
to me is
probably the most beautiful city in the world. it's right up there with Paris.
But because I spend so much time in New York I look at things like Lafayette
and Broadway and even uptown 72nd st. I lived on 72nd St. for two years, I've
lived all over the city and I've had this really strong affair with it. ? love
New York. It's home.

Missing You

I actually wrote that with a guy, we were working on another song
called "Royal
Blue" and I went back the second night to work on this tape and he was looking
for this tape, he was working on another song, just a backing track, and he
played me 4 bars of this backing track and I said 'stop the tape,
what's that?'
And it was a backing track to missing you, no melody no nothing, just
this bass
guitar, guitar paying and a drum machine. Doing things on the fly as I do, I
just trip out and go. I went to the mic and started signing and he ran
the tape
for me and I found my footing, where I thought it meant to be and then he
rolled the tape and hit the record button and said 'why don't you try a few
things.' And I  went for it. To get me started in used the old Babys song
title, "Everytime I think of you. and this whole floodgate of ideas happened.
Apart from the second B section which is "Heartbreak Overload" I put in weeks
later every note is what came out and I sang through the guitar solo. I sang
through this bridge section., it all makes sense. he stopped the tape and I
said That's #1 isn't it? and he said yeah, And I just left. We didn't' bother
with the other song. I went back to the studio they were mixing and it
was that
good. All the things in life that you don't rehearse, you just do, like
walking
in the dark you know, walking with confidence, you arrive at where yore
supposed to go. With the light on it's more difficult.

hahaha

Cinematic

No. I had no ideas. When the Babys got signed we were actually the
first band to
get signed because of making a video demo. we were so unbelievably out of luck
in London, we couldn't get signed to anybody. With a name like the Babys they
wouldn't listen to the tape. We were good, and very young, a snide compliment
'a bunch of Babys you know?' Yeah, you're fucking right we are, watch this. So
we filmed ourselves. Mike Mansfield, this big producer, took us in the studio
and filmed us playing  and it was our demo.

SO from the word go, from the Seventies, video was like the recording studio;
it' wasn't anything unusual or threatening, it wasn't that new to us. I don't
have anything to say about it. I try to write songs that will spark off ideas
in people's heads. And the movie takes place in your head sometimes on a
different parallel kind of course. There is this great art in video making,
it's film making, it's wonderful if you do it right.

Bad English

it was like pulling teeth. We had really a hard time. There's a lot of tension
there, I thought it was going to work in our favor and by the time we hit the
second record it did. We graduate into this level of it stared to sound
different. The first record we did the expected thing. It was a big, big hit
but there were wonderful moments like forget me not that went through the roof
and "ghost in your heart" really different, dark subjects but shadowy, not so
pop. and that's what I would have hoped the rest of it would have gone to.

we were finding our feet with each other and discovering how to work with each
other. And I think the whole world was watching to see if we were going
to come
out with something wild. And I don't know, I think some of the time we
achieved
stuff we newer thought we would. it was an interesting ride for me, an
interesting two and a half years.

Car tripsa

Oh Yeah, running from the police.

Well the illusion is stripped away and you deal with working class people in
working class situations and ordinary day to day life which I think is
the true
America. You get caught u in Los Angeles, or New York, or maybe Chicago if you
go there. But when you go to a place like Cleveland where I actually
lived as a
21 year old, I went there to join a band from England, then went back home and
started the Babys you move in these circles and you see this truthfulness

Memorial Day

I was Memorial Day recently and you get these flashes of how America is and
what's been happening and the price that was paid by a lot of people, the
currency of life for this level of freedom and you start to see people
in urban
situations an out in the farmlands and you see this true America. And it's not
Norman Rockwell, but it's not so far. It's got a real beauty to it and it s a
real thing and it reminds me of why I came here. But there's other times that
are like I'm in L.A> and I'm doing 'what am I doing in the United States?' But
the true America is a beautiful place and I think the only way to see that is
on wheels, stay in motels, knock on doors interact with people. That's the
America I think I like.

Will Jennings.

I think in his heart of hearts will is a rock and roll guy, And a
really country
rock and roll guy. Very lyrical guy. I tracked him down and rang him up and
said 'Let's right a song together' I went over to meet him and he was a great
guy very well read and everything he came up with was from this top
shelf, this
invisible top shelf. And it was like, 'hello, that's interesting' and I don't
usually work with people, lyricists, because it's strongly what I do,
so it was
interesting to work with musically with someone who's doing the lyrics. And it
was a wonderful thing. We wrote a couple of songs but the demo is like
a reggae
song. this charges through, more country, more roots, sexy representation of
it. We put this wonderful singer in it, Debbie Holiday, who has her own career
and she's just singing the hell out of the chorus. We put these jets on this
country rock song and it went into the stratosphere.

Fitzgerald

It's a real cross section. They all look like people I hang out with.
You don't
look out and see an audience, they all look familiar. Which is a giant number
of people and they all look like people you had dinner with last night, they
all look familiar to me. it's a strange thing. I think  y you get people from
the Seventies that remember "Isn't it time" "Everytime I think of you" back on
my feet again, Midnight Rendezvous, all of that stuff then there's
other people
that got 'Missing you and the solo stuff" then on to Bad English, "When I see
you smile" "The Price of Love and other stuff" then over the past few
years you
get a complete cross-section. You see very young kids there, too. Who've just
discovered the Babys. It's a huge cycle. I mean I'm just the songwriter.

If  you ask me why I'm still in the game there isn't a lot of options.
It's what
I do. I get out of bed in the morning and I reach for a guitar. And
before I've
put the kettle on to make some tea I'm already hitting chords. And that's what
I do, and if I'm #1 or whatever I'd be doing that if I'm 3101 I'm still doing
that. I have no choice. I'm a songwriter.

Courtesy Of Dan Kimpel

Visite his website: Dan Kimpel.com

Interview about the end of Bad English:John Waite

This is a lengthy interview with John Waite from 1991 on Dutch radio Veronica John was at the time in Holland for his collaboration with Adrian Vandenberg John Waite talks about: The end of Bad English, about living in Mulholland,crashing his Porsche and Jeep. But also very thouroughly about Ego's from his Bad English bandmates. And about his own Ego, and about wanting to be rich. This interview in my opinion gives some insight of what made Bad English history: A clash of ego's.

Interview november 2006 John Waite

Date: november 2006.

Interview with John Waite.

Q:your current position in the band?

A:There is no name at the moment although the band is always referred to as The No Brakes Band.

Q:Tell us about the history of the band. More specifically, when was the band formed, how did you meet, and have there been any particular highlights or low points in your career, any crucial events that have taken you where you are today?

A:The band is American. At one point they all came from the south so I can say I was once the lead singer in a Southern rock band! There’s no way I can even begin to describe my career.

Q:Was there ever a time when you wondered if your band would remain just a local outfit and never make it in the industry?

A:Thinking I wouldn’t make it was my day job for 7 years.

Q:What is your latest album and why should people buy it?

A:The new album was made just for Europe. It's for people that are not familiar with what I've done. Sort of a crash course in John Waite.

Q:How would you categorize the style of the band? And did you ever consider or try playing other styles of music than the one(s) you are playing now?

A:Why would I change styles. money? That’s worse than going out there playing the same 10 songs for the rest of you're life. If you keep moving forward everything alright.

Q:Can you share with us one or two of your favourite moments with the band?

A:Every night is really different from the night before. It changes constantly.

QHow is the writing process in the band?

A: I write songs away from the band or jam

Q:What brought you on the path to becoming a musician? Did you ever consider or take any other paths through life besides music?

A: I went to Art School for 4 years.

Q:Do you have any idols? If yes, who?

A:Pretty woman

Q:Do you have any regrets looking back at your career? For example any songs or even full albums that you regret recording? If so, what made you regret it?

A:I have very few regrets

Q:Are there particular songs in your catalogue that the fans love but you're not particular fond of yourself?

A:No

Q:How important do you rate the lyrical side of your albums?

A:Words are 50% of great music. It's the balance of groove, sound and meaning. ( so I guess that’s 33%).

Q:What do you think about the state of the music industry today?

A:Same as it always was.

Q:What do you think is the best way to fight music piracy?

A:With a shotgun!

Q:Do you have a life philosophy? If yes, what is it?

A:My philosophy is No Fear!

Q:Can you describe a typical day in your life?

A:Lots of wine

Q:What do you like to spend your time with besides music?

A:Lots of wine...fucking!

Q:What's the craziest thing that has ever happened on a tour?

A:Being given the run of a whore house in Amsterdam.

Q:You're heading off to live on a deserted island for a couple of years with your portable entertainment system... Which albums, movies or books would you bring? (Max. 3 of each) .

A:Fire and Water by Free, Kate Moss and a canoe!

Q:What is your favourite joke?

A:My shoes

Q:Can you tell us about any future plans for you and your band?

A:I would love to see the new album do well in Europe so I play there more. Don't forget I'm European, it means a great deal.

All The Best Joh Waite

Interview done Steen Jepsen - 10/12/2006

Thanks for permission to publish

Wouter.

Dutch radio interview august 2006

Image Hosting | Video Hosting | Myspace Games

A Brand new John Waite interview on the Dutch radio station Main Stream Rock Radio.

Interview done  by Mark Koenraadt. Many thanks to Mark!!

John talks about Arrow rock festival, Holland, and Dutch fans.

But also about Adrian van den Berg, The major record deal and the story behind St.Patricks Day.

John speaks over the European tour and many other matters, that might interest the true John Waite fan.

A must hear interview from august 2006.

Interview in AskMen: The Hard Way, Future plans

John Waite talks about the music industry, Bad English, Playing Missing You and Ringo Starr

Short bio
John Waite has been in the music industry since 1975 and has had numerous hits with bands like The Babys and Bad English. Maybe the name doesn't resonate with you, but chances are you've heard the hit songs "Missing You" and "When I See You Smile."

Born on July 4, 1955, in Lancaster, England, John got an early start performing. When he was only 10 years old, he replaced the lead singer for his brother's band during a local gig because the regular singer didn't show up.

Waite later attended Lancaster Art College. He studied graphic design in hopes of becoming an illustrator for children's books. During his college years, he was in a band that played at local college dances. Upon graduating, Waite was wrongfully accused of theft and moved to London.

While in London, he joined a band called "England." Eventually England broke up and Waite moved to the U.S., where he and the former singer of England started up a punk band called The Boys.

A few months later, Waite moved back to London. One night in a pub in London's East End, he met Mike Corby. After an all-night drinking binge, they decided to start a band together. About 18 months later The Babys signed their first record contract. The rest is history.

After 30 exciting years in the biz with many ups and downs, Waite is still making music and touring. In fact, he never stopped. He laid low for a couple of years in order to forget about the music industry's influence as a whole and return to his craft, which is making music.

He recently released his long-awaited solo album The Hard Way, which has been in the works for over four years. We got the chance to sit down with John, as he gave us a sense of where he's from, where the music industry is now and where he is headed.

The Interview:

Q: Thanks for taking time to talk to us. I am sure you're really busy promoting your new album. What time did you get up this morning?

About 6:30 a.m. I usually go to the bathroom, hit the gym, you know, ride the bike a bit. No matter when I go to bed, I wake up pretty early.

Q: Tell us a little about your new album, The Hard Way.

It's a collection of songs that I got possession of last year. Half of the album is from previous recordings and the other half is new tracks I put together to go with it. I decided to put a record out this year. I was going to do this last year, but I did the Ringo Starr tour. That put me back about eight months. It's kind of like I'm doing it to please myself.

¿ Quick fact ?
John Waite sometimes signs his initials as "JCW"; the C stands for Charles, which is his middle name.

Q: How was it performing with Ringo Starr?

It was great, half the time I would go blank. I would turn around and look at Ringo and he would be smiling with me, you kind of forget where you are. He's a great guy. He's very funny and very dry. It was kind of unreal. We were on a private jet flying around with one of The Beatles. It was worth putting everything on hold to do it. For me, it was one of the biggest things I have done in my career.

Q: Tell us about your career. How did all this start?

I was born into a musical family, a working class family. My mother played the piano. My dad was very into classical music. My brother was in a band. I grew up surrounded by it, and I grew up with no radio. We didn't have a radio until I was 8. My aunty Doris gave me a radiogram and a bunch of 45s, and I grew up surrounded by Irish folk music, country western, blues, rock 'n' roll, and rockabilly. I wasn't influenced by one form of music until I was 17. I was in this musical cement mixer, which was Great Britain; we've got everything musically. As far as local bands, I played in a few local bands when I was in art school. I eventually moved to London and joined a band called England. It was a 3-piece jazz-rock band. I moved to the U.S. to try to join a band that was going to make it in Cleveland for six months, then came back home.

Q: Why Cleveland?

They offered the job. The singer from England, the jazz-rock band rang me up and told me they needed a bass player. I spent five months touring clubs and I love Cleveland, I actually have the keys to the city. I went back to London and got a job, and just went to the grind and eventually started The Babys -- that was my first recording contract -- and the rest is history.

Q: In 1984, you had your first hit single "Missing You." How did that impact your career?

It has been the reason that it has been hard to stay big, or stay in the spotlight because it was just so big that it sort of finishes your career. It was enjoyable because I could go into this second tier thing. I never wanted to be a Madonna, I always wanted to be a musician and write great songs. If it meant doing half as much work and keeping a low profile, I was very happy with that. Then Bad English happened and we were back at No. 1 again, and since then, there have been a string of albums that have done extraordinarily well, and some that just came and went, but it is an ongoing process, you keep putting music out until you fall over.

Q: Do you ever get tired of playing "Missing You"?

All the songs onstage have a life of their own. There is heart and soul in the group and there's heart and soul in the song. I get lost in it every time I sing it. Some songs just sing themselves and that is one of them.

Q: I totally agree; can you compare the '70s and '80s from the artist's point of view?

I think the '70s still contained a lot of soul and the record companies hadn't taken over the industry. There were still people making tremendously significant music. I think going into the '90s, the beginning of the end had set in. Madison Avenue was running the music business. The A&R [artists & repertoire] guys were telling you what to play. You could not be an artist and be in the business. I went to a small label. They gave me complete carte blanche. I wrote the songs myself and I produced it, I was given a huge budget and made the best record of my life. The music business as we know it is well gone. You are always going to have people who sing any song for a dollar, half of the industry used to be in The Mickey Mouse Club. People will do anything to get in the doorway. Behind all of that bullsh*t, there is the East Village and the small towns in the Midwest. People want art, people don't want this cookie cutter crap that is put in front of them, and spoon-fed stuff written by a professional songwriter. I am sure people have always been intelligent to that, but I think there is a conscious decision to walk away from that.

Q: Tell us about some of the experiences you went through that showed you how fickle the industry is.

I have seen people I was associated with go ahead and write stuff that I thought was just for the peanut gallery and became successful doing it. Then you can put your heart and soul into a record and one guy doesn't take a phone call and you lose the record. I have seen that happen a couple of times in my career. You can't take the blame for somebody else dropping the bomb. It is such a mean business. If you really are an artist, you will get off the floor and you will reach for the guitar or the pen because that's what you're here for and you really have no choice about it. If you look at Bob Dylan, wow, he's as important to art to the last century as Picasso was. Music can change the world and I think we should be allowed to make the best art possible.

¿ Quick fact ?
John appeared in an '80s television show called Paper Dolls, as himself.

Q: How keen are you on remaining a solo artist? Would you return to Bad English?

I would never do that. I did that the first time around. I lost a record that was heading toward the charts but they changed the label from EMI America to EMI Manhattan and I lost the record and I was bitter. I didn't think the public would have any patience for me to come out with a record. I figured I could sit out a couple of years and come back with a solo record. There was a sense of urgency for Bad English to be successful.

Q: If you were asked to do a remake of "Missing You" or "When I See You Smile" for a large amount of money, or to write a new one for a fraction of that amount, which song would you choose?

It doesn't matter; they're both John Waite songs.

Q: What can we expect from you in the next few months?

There will be a lot of touring. We have more work now than I had since 1990. There's a huge amount of work.

Q: Thanks for your time and good luck with The Hard Way.

For more on John Waite and his music, check out his official site, www.johnwaiteonline.com.

Veantwoording:
Dit artikel is origineel gepubliceerd in Askmen.com
Copyright berust dan ook bij Askmen.com
Thanks to AsMen.com.

Wouter Kramer.

John Live on Magic 107,7

Our favorite John Waite stopped into the studio of Magic 107.7 to promote his newest album, "The Hard Way".
John played also on April the 12th at the Borders Books at the Winter Park Mall to sign copies of The Hard Way

What's really nice is to hear John talk about some personal matters, and improvise on his songs...

Interview Part One

John Waite singing

Just for the fun of it:

ringtone

John Waite on Y98 Radio St Louis

Singer/songwriter John Waite stopped by the Y98 studios before his performance at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. After his interview, he played a medley of some of his greatest hits

Thanks to Guy Phillips who gave me kindly permission!

Enjoy ! Wouter.

''It is our pleasure to give you permission to link us to your John Waite website. He's a terrific guy and we had a great time with him when he was on the air with us in our studios in St. Louis (Missouri). Thanks for asking permission and best of luck to you!''

Sincerely,

Guy Phillips
Y98FM
"Phillips and Company Morning Show"
St. Louis, MO. USA

John Waite Medley

Interview at the DIY convention

many Thanks to Melinda Newman for this great interview!!

JOHN WAITE: NO BRAKES ON MY CAREER
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

JW: John Waite
MN: Melinda Newman

MN: Hi I am Melinda Newman, West Coast Bureau Chief for Billboard Magazine. I know he needs no introduction, but I want to give him one anyway because he just got in from Kentucky and I want to give him a few more minutes to collect his thoughts.

JW: It's too late

MN: John Waite has had a remarkable career that spans more than thirty years and has spawned numerous hits, including Isn't It Time, Everytime I Think Of You, When I See You Smile, and the classic Missing You. It all started more than three decades ago when John and his group, The Babies, cut their teeth playing gigs in London. Following success in the U.K., the group broke through in the U.S. After five albums with The Babies, John went solo and hit record Nirvana with his third solo album. That project included the international hit Missing You, which is still a radio staple more than twenty years later.

After a few more solo albums, John joined the super group Bad English again scoring worldwide success in the late eighties. In the last decade, John has been writing, touring, and even playing with one of his musical heroes Ringo Starr.

His latest solo album, The Hard Way, came out last fall on his own No Brakes Records. As part of the promotion, John has been doing a Borders tour, in fact that is why he was in Louisville, playing a few tunes, greeting fans, signing autographs, and we're quite sure selling a few records along the way. Please join me in welcoming John Waite.

JW: Thank you everybody. It's very nice to be here.

MN: I have several questions I am going to ask and then in twenty-five minutes we are going to open it up to any questions you want to ask John.

You clearly had lots of options, you could have gone to a major or an Indie, but what made you decide to start your own label?

JW: Well there were two offers on the table from major record labels. The labels were headed by people that I had worked with in the past. People that I had a very strong, deep, emotional friendship with and had been successful with. They heard the record and the dialogue went on for a week and then it stopped. One of them went on holiday and the other one just didn't pick up the phone again. Well I thought if I was digging someone's music I wouldn't be going on holiday. I wouldn't be leaving the city until I had really taken care of that. I think that this is my best album and I thought that these people would get it, but even though they might have got it and had some suggestions about mixes, one of them still went on holiday and the other one had his hands ties doing something with his company.

I just thought, I get up in the morning at 6, making e-mails, I am on the phone immediately. I am calling my band up or writing songs, I am doing something that pertains to my career that I want to see happening that day. I don't go on holiday really, and if I do I take it with me. I really do, I live it 24-7, every day of the year, and my heart is in it. It's not about business, it's not about shareholders, figures, demographics, or bullshit like that. The word demographic just fucking gets me nuts. It's an insult to the public, it's an insult to everybody involved in music. It's somebody behind a desk making decisions about music and who they are going to sell it to and they try and adjust the music to fit that demographic.

MTV started off as a deviant, kind of beautiful machine, that played these great artists and now it's just gone to shit, and because it's run by people who are in it for the money. I digress, but the thing was that I thought I couldn't deal with this any longer. I am no good with uniforms, I am no good in offices, I'm no good with suits, and I am not going to listen to anybody anyway, and I own this album already. It's about distribution, it's about going out there and playing for people, so I decided to get No Brakes Records together, which is my own label, and here we are today.

MN: I want to talk about distribution. How did you get distribution, both in the U.S and internationally?

JW: Well it isn't released in Europe yet, but my manager and I have given it a lot of thought and there was this small company coming out of South Carolina called Red Eye. They are a very small muscular, stripped down kind of company that can really do the job. The record is in every single record store in America, five deep. It gets re-ordered and they are there, they get the product to the store immediately. It's in Best Buy, Virgin, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, Tower, everywhere and it's a small distribution. So, why would you want to be with a label and pay them eighty five percent of what you are going to make, to make fifteen percent to pay them back for distributing your record and all the things that they buy on the side are for their own pleasure and their own luxury and it comes out of your fifteen percent. Then you have to pay everyone back times ten and it's all bent anyway, they are fiddling the books all the time. These guys are like legal criminals. I mean you can tell that I really hate the music business but I really love music. It's so unjust and if you can just go out there and find distribution and you are prepared to go out and play in every single city that you can get to, it makes a huge difference because people believe you and you are going to them. You aren't going through some huge company, it's grassroots, and if you are good live that is what you are supposed to be all about.

MN: You were just running down some numbers with me and we were talking a few minutes before. You were talking about eighty five percent and fifteen percent. Run down some numbers with me in terms of how much per record are you keeping, minus your expenses, versus the comparison with The Babies, solo during Missing You, and Bad English. How much per record are you keeping now versus then?

JW: Well The Babies never got paid a penny, and I still don't get paid for the catalogue. Chris tells me that I owe them money. How about that?

MN: So they are saying that you are still under coup?

JW: A million dollars. Yeah. EMI, they run a lot of the catalogue too, and it's the same thing. I make some sort of payments. I get money coming in from all different sources, but they won't account to you and you continually owe them money. I actually phoned up Chris one day and said " I have got to find out what you owe money and where do I stand with this". Somebody said that there had been a fire in the accounts department in New York City and my file had gone up in smoke, they were really serious, and that was the end of the conversation.

MN: So compare that with the time that you were in Bad English...

JW: Well I was a moneymaker. We did pretty well, but the money was coming from live and t-shirts and publishing was huge. I think we sold about two million records and we still didn't go into the black.

MN: So you never made a penny off of any records that you sold on a major compared to how much you are making right now?

JW: Yeah, right now I make nearly eight dollars a record and that is after everyone has been paid and all the commissions come out. I make nearly eight dollars, that's a huge amount of money. If you sell a hundreds thousand records that's a fortune, and it's not impossible to go on the road and sell a hundred thousand records. People come out to see you and they all come to buy the record.

MN: What you are obviously not counting in is the fact that you are a well known name. People are going to come see you-

JW: Yeah, but I have been up and down like a sailors trousers. One minute I am number one and the other minute I am number eighty-nine, then I am number one again and then it's like who's John Waite? I have been doing this for like thirty five years, it's only got so much currency having hits at a certain time.

MN: That was kind of what I was going to ask you. It was going to be my last question to give people some hope, but you walked right into it now. Given the vagaries of the music industry, a lot of people out there are struggling right now. Like you said you've been at it much better than I could, but you have had some ups and downs, what advice would you give them if they are struggling right now? Should they be looking for a day job?

JW: I think there is no choice involved. I think if you are an artist there is absolutely no choice. If you are not doing what you love, you are going to be seriously unhappy. So there isn't a sacrifice that there isn't worth making. If you got the heart to do it, then that's all there is in life. If you could do something that is art and pleases you, you will be happy all your life. If you get a day job that you can't stand you will probably end up an alcoholic or you will shoot yourself. So I recommend, no matter what the odds are, getting deep in there and doing your best work. Never give up and keep your vision. The guy behind the desk doesn't know better than you do. When it comes to art, you have lived those years, you've got the art, you've got the heart, they don't because they are businessmen. They look at you like a chicken dinner, they don't get it, just hang on to what you got and to yourself. Get a good lawyer.

MN: How did you educate yourself?

JW: The hard way.

MN: Nice little plug for the CD that I am sure John is selling later.

JW: It's called the Hard Way on No Brakes Records. I had some horrific things happen to me in the music business, but rather than just be crippled by it and going to be a carpenter I am no good at being a carpenter. There was no choice. Every time they knocked me down I just got back up because there was nothing else to do.

MN: What do you wish though before you started No Brakes? What was the one thing you wish you had known about running your own label?

JW: I haven't found the thing with it yet that I can't handle. I think that promotion, record companies have huge promotion departments, and that is the one valuable asset that they have. It's very expensive to get airplay. If radio loves your records then great, but a lot of people can't add the record because they are on Clear Channel and it's locked up. Some guys, it's like Bill Gates, they own the record business, and they decide what they add. They decide who they hire to play their tours, it's just incredible because it's like Big Brother in the music business. Promotion is valuable, and if you can get a promotion guy then you are really ahead of the game.

MN: Have you hired any Indie promoters?

JW: Yeah.

MN: What's your experience been with that? Would you recommend that people do that?

JW: Yeah, I think it's invaluable. They all know each other and if they like your record it's word of mouth inside the small business. That is the one thing that I can't replicate. It all takes a certain amount of money, but I can afford to do everything like cut a record, hire people to work in the circle that I've got for the tour that I am doing, but promotion is like a million dollars you go to radio with to get your record played, and I am just hoping that this time around that people are going to be so moved by the record. I mean it's very naïve to say that, but what else have I got? I have to believe that people are going to respond from a soulful place or I might as well just stay home.

MN: Even if a radio station isn't playing you, have you been able to do a radio tour while you have been doing this Borders stuff?

JW: Yeah. We have been doing these Borders tours, which is like a bookshop. We go in there and we play for about half an hour and we have been doing it for about six months. We actually call it the Booze, Babes, and Books tour.

MN: Is Borders providing all three?

JW: No. Book tokens.

MN: Just checking.

JW: A friend of mine, Jeffrey Gaines, the folk singer, beautiful guy, I saw him play in Cleveland at a Starbucks about ten years ago and I thought it was a great idea to go into a bookshop or a Starbucks at lunchtime and play these songs. Ten years later I am doing it. In Cleveland we had two hundred and fifty people show up, in Cincinnati we had three hundred. I mean for a little bookshop, well it's kind of big, but I mean three hundred people it's impressive. People are knocked out that you made the effort to do that, and it's sincere. We have a meet and greet after, we shake hands and you look them in the eye and you talk to people. You can't buy that or it's back to MTV, The Real World or whatever the fuck it's called, it's just absolutely garbage. It's got to be about music again or we are all lost. That is why the big companies are in trouble, because it's not about music anymore it's about demographics.

MN: How did you set up that Borders tour?

JW: My manager just called them up. It doesn't cost them anything, we just asked them if we could do it. They have a little room where authors go and read and they do question and answer just like this. It will facilitate an acoustic guitar and a small P.A., so we just do a budget on it. It makes no money whatsoever apart from the CD's that we sell, but when you are selling that amount of CD's it will just pay for itself I guess. I set aside like ten grand for a certain period just to get us through. We do gigs in the middle of it, we peel off and do full band gigs. We are going to Detroit next week, playing a big gig there, and that money will go into the Borders tour. We stay in Red Roof Inns, we eat Taco Bell, we drive around America with the windows down.

MN: Because the air conditioning doesn't work in the van?

JW: No, because the Taco Bell. It's a hard life out there.

MN: Does Borders advertise or do you buy advertising so people know to come to the Borders? Or are you doing that via the Internet?

JW: No we are doing that on the radio. We played L.A., and in the L.A. Weekly they ran a thing with a little picture, talking about the album, saying which location. We played Fourth Street Promenade in Santa Monica and Westwood. They advertised it. I am not too sure what the advertising situation is out on the road in America, but we do radio and morning shows. It's good because morning shows allow you to play a lot of hits acoustically and I am pretty lively. The fact that I can get on the radio and promote the Borders thing, one hand actually watches the other. I don't know how easy it would be to do it without having the radio, because radio is everything. When people are driving to work in the morning, stuck in traffic, and you can get on the air,that is the keys to the kingdom right there. All of America is on a freeway somewhere stuck.

MN: That is where you have an advantage over a lot of people here, because they can't call up and get on a morning show-

JW: That's right.

MN: They don't have a background.

JW: There are sometimes when I can't get on, it's not like I am Prince Charles. Sometimes it's John who?

MN: For any artist who has name value, would you recommend any of them being on a major label? Is there anything, other than the radio promotion, an advantage to them being on a major label?

JW: Well just seeing what Liz Phair did, she was sort of a left of center, avant garde kind of really odd act. She couldn't get arrested. She was the queen of Indie music, she's beautiful, she's very gifted, and she's creative, but she couldn't get arrested. So she went to major, well Matador was attached to a big label, and they sort of groomed her a little bit and they made these great videos and put her out there and she played the game. She used the major labels, sold a couple of hundred thousand records, and she stands a chance next time of hitting a number one record. So that, in Liz Phair's case, worked very well.

MN: I want to talk about the Internet and how you use that to market. In terms of reaching your fans, in terms of downloads, and we can tackle them one at a time. You have a website right?

JW: JohnWaiteonline.com

MN: How did you use that to reach out to your fans?

JW: Well a lot of people log on everyday and it's out of New York, it's very hip, it's worldwide, well they are all worldwide now. People do log on and it's the same thing with all of us, we just log on to our favorite websites to see what is going on. People do show up at gigs, come to radio shows, benefits, and I mean it's indespensible. I think back to Ani Difranco, people who take the bull by the horns, people who make their own records and have their own companies, without the Internet I think it would be quite difficult. Well then again she started off with just the acoustic guitar and no Internet, and then she found the Internet.

MN: Did you do any kind of viral marketing? Where you sending out e-mail blasts or collecting a database or any of that kind of stuff?

JW: Well Sharon Williams, our Internet person, I think she is in here somewhere.

MN: That's an interesting thins because you are mentioning your manager, the person who runs your Internet, how important is it if you are really going to try and do it yourself that you are really doing it yourself with a team?

JW: Oh yeah. I mean when it says John Waite, No Brakes Records, that's nothing. It's like being John Waite the lead singer in a band, if you take the band away I am just standing there like Tom Thumb. It doesn't matter. At the moment I have a great team around me, I have people I really admire, I have a manager that's not really big time she's more of a publisher, she's a woman, I like working with women because they are more sensitive. They are not competitive with guys, they talk to you and look at you in the eyes, so I have this team of people that are just great. Without that team I would be still on the phone with Borders asking if we could do a show down there.

MN: I think there is a lot of power in saying Hi this is John Waite-

JW: In certain places maybe, but-

MN: They probably don't believe it's you.

JW: No. They believe it's me.

MN: Are you aware, like one of the panelists from the previous panels runs a company called CD Baby, do you know about them?

JW: I know about them yes.

MN: I went on it and you aren't on CD Baby.

JW: There must be a reason for that. I think I am on iTunes aren't I?

MN: You are. You should also be on CD Baby, just a little plug for them. They are an absolutely amazing site, I don't think Derek is in the room right this second, but you two should meet. Also on that panel they were talking about the value of doing a video is greater than before because of MTV and VH1 might not play you, but there are so many outlets, there are a ton of local and regional outlets, but also Internet outlets. Did you make a video?

JW: Yeah, we just cut one last week for this new single called New York City Girl, and we made a very cut price, fifteen thousand dollars video. Tom Petty's daughter, Adria, she's a producer, a filmmaker in the East Village, and her boyfriend, Ed Gillete, is this wiz filmmaker. Mike Taylor lives in Tom Petty's guesthouse, so it's a long story.

MN: It's all about connections.

JW: It's all about connections and looking cool. So I got it together, flew to New York, and we cut a video about ten days ago maybe. That is going to be on Music Choice, I mean Music Choice is really cool. I think that is taking over for MTV as a very eclectic, fashion proof, division of a video, it's very innovative. Music Choice seems to have a lot of great young people there, and they are music fans. The guy running it is no more that about 32, so it's a very interesting situation. So it will be on Music Choice.

MN: So you would still recommend making a video since there are outlets for it?

JW: Well yeah, it's not like it used to be. In saying that, just the Internet, if you want to get it on the Internet I mean that's a fabulous thing.

MN: I want to talk about publishing, because for me, even after all these years at Billboard, it is the most Byzantine part of the business, virtually impossible to figure out. Do you own your own publishing?

JW: No.

MN: Do you wish you did?

JW: Are you kidding? I do at the moment. The songs I write now and the songs on the new album I do.

MN: Right. Some of them said Sony for you and some of them said-

JW: Yeah. I signed a deal with Sony about ten years ago for a large advance and then they renewed it again about five years ago for another large advance. It all comes back to me a year from July. From '89 forward, I get like a hundred and fifty songs.

MN: But would you recommend someone sign a publishing deal?

JW: No. I think you should get a day job before you sign away any publishing. Hang onto the songs because that is where the money is and two hundred thousand dollars after taxes is a hundred thousand, and after you bought the Ferrari it's nothing. Just kidding. Money disappears on you and if you don't have it to spend you won't spend it. You'll make your way some other way, you really will. And what is a big advance? You'll spend it foolishly or with tax it's just dumb. Why not have all your songs and have somebody administer it, you can make a fortune. If you have any kind of a hit you'll be secure for life. You'll be able to buy that loft. Never do a publishing deal.

MN: Do you have your own masters back from the labels?

JW: No, I got my masters back from my last deal, which is in fact why I was able to do this record. I used half of those masters as a spine for the record and then I cut some more song to put them alongside with these remixes. That enabled me to actually make a new record and put it out, otherwise it would have cost a hundred and forty thousand dollars.

MN: We talked about your experiences with major labels, but a lot of these people are obviously DIY, but major labels may come calling or big Indie labels, if they do decide to go into some kind of negotiation what are the three things that you have learned that you would say go in with this eyes wide open if they start talking to a label other than one they own?

JW: Well it depends what they'll talk about. If you could own the masters then that would be a tremendous advantage, but it's unlikely they will let you do that.

MN: Some Indies will.

JW: Indies will but a major won't.

MN: They might split it with you.

JW: I think accounting is crucial, like every six months. If you are going to take the advance to make the record you're kind of lost because they will just keep adding to that. They will add to it things that you have never seen before you will be charged for. I would say if you are going to do a deal with a major, mortgage the house or get a day job, but pay for the album. Deliver them the album so that you own the masters. You want to know where the money is from day one, you are in profit, and you have promotion dollars that need to be recouped. If you do a small tour and you don't take tour support, tour support will absolutely destroy you.

MN: That's what I wanted to ask you next.

JW: When I was in The Babies, the first time we went to New York City, I was with these two Playboy Bunnies in this Volkswagen-

MN: You enjoyed yourself.

JW: It gets better. They took me to Time Square, I was really drunk, and they told me "look at that" and it was a huge billboard and it was The Babies. I was just thinking that must have cost a hundred grand.

MN: And that would be a hundred percent recoupable, at least fifty percent. It varies with labels what percentage is recoupable.

JW: Exactly. If you are doing a video and you aren't splitting the recoupment on that then you are being charged by absolutely everything. So really get the point straight on what you are supposed to be paying for.

MN: I want to open it to questions, but I want to give you guys time since we started a little late we were going to cut it a little short. Please raise your hand and go to one of the mics...

(Audience Question Inaudible)

JW: No. Out of money that I have made out on the road, publishing royalties, and BMI has been great in the past. I am ASCAP now, but the one thing that I never great at all creative with is BMI, I just let that money come in because that's money in the bank. If you are in serious rotation, like maybe twenty different songs around the world, that's been the one staple that I could say I thank God for it, because when I have been broke and on my knees that money has come in.

(Audience)

JW: It's a full band, it's four guys, me, a tour manager, and a sound man.

A week. Well say if you get fifteen grand, twenty grand, or fifty grand, I wouldn't know the percentage, but I would say it costs about eight grand per gig to have the band there and hotels, but if you have a good tour manager they could do a great budget for you. Like with this Borders thing we are staying at Red Rood Inns because we are on a budget. It's Taco Bell.

MN: You have a booking agent. You never know who we might run into at Red Roof Inn. Would you recommend that people try to find a booking agent?

JW: Yeah.

MN: That's hard to find though at a certain level because ten percent isn't enough for them to invest in.

JW: Some of them take fifteen. But if you do it on a very grassroots level and you are playing small coffeeshops, small gigs, you can do it on the phone. You can have your tour manager call up and organize a small tour, and you can get in the back of your van and just go. As long as you are getting gas money and a place to sleep you are going to survive. I suppose it's the next level where it gets interesting, you are trying to do as many gigs as possible, trying to get the band out to play bigger gigs, but playing the bigger gigs the overhead is bigger as well. There's all sorts of things you wouldn't believe you have to pay for like worker's comp, insurance, if someone in the band gets run over then you are responsible. If someone in the audience gets hurt you are responsible.

MN: Now how did you educate yourself on that?

JW: Someone got hurt in the audience at a concert once.

MN: So you really found out the hard way?

JW: Yes. A roadie almost got his head crushed by a truck. Thirty-five years of this and you just watch it coming at you, but after awhile it's very simple. There is nothing really complicated about it if you are paying attention.

MN: But you would recommend someone have a good lawyer?

JW: Yes. I think it's indispensable.

MN: Other questions? You?

(Audience Question Inaudible)

JW: Yes very much. I think if you can go to Europe you can make a fortune. Sheryl Crow, when she was working, she is one of the hardest working women in show business, she worked everywhere in America that she could, when there was down time she couldn't go back into those markets for awhile to let them cool down, so she went to Europe. It was about ten years ago when she first came out, I was just drifting around Europe just in this bad period, and I would be walking down the side street somewhere and there would be a poster on a wall saying La Monde- Sheryl Crow tonight 8pm. You think Jesus Christ, you walk pass La Monde and it's the size of a cupboard, but she went and took care of it grassroots and she made that connection with the fans. I think Europe is vital and it's a huge market now. Germany is gigantic and so is France.

I haven't been on a European label in a long time but I know they are selling a lot of records. I know that I have gotten a few offers for this album, we have been interested in dealing with a few labels, I am not really sure which ones I have been dealing with because it's been a few months, but some of those people sell hundreds of thousands of records with smaller labels. They are really intense, the Germans especially.

MN: So you said that you don't have European distribution, but it's something you are working towards?

JW: Yeah. I mean I would love to have a major record. It's just so difficult to get to Europe with a full band, because you have to buy like five or six plane tickets, hotels in Europe which are very expensive, a coach to drive to each country, it's just insane. They offer you the Unplugged option, which is like going in and playing in small clubs unplugged. It's very uncomfortable on a lot of levels because you really want to bring it home, it's not a folk act it's a rock act. Thank you.

(Audience Question)

JW: Opening for me?

MN: Do you have opening acts?

JW: No.

What happened did you play? They asked you to reschedule, who did that? Jeff Wolley? I have no idea about it. We do this benefit once a year for this women's shelter in December. I am sorry to hear that you didn't get to play.

Hey that had me on the side playing acoustic. I just fly in and do that I have very little say about who else is on that bill. I am sorry if you got booted.

MN: Speaking of, are you looking to sign other acts to No Brakes or is that solely for you?

JW: No, it's too complicated. I have got my hands full. I mean it's not that big, it's just for me. God forbid if I had a really huge success I would. There are people in this town that are really brilliant that have to play Molly Malone's, sandwiched between five other acts that are just brilliant people. Because it's L.A. they are overlooked because there are a billion musicians here. I would like to help people, I always try to include, that is why I am sorry about the opening slot that guy missed.

(Audience Question)

JW: I can't say what I hate about my team, they won't work with me. Mike McVeigh is a promotion guy from the Midwest that is a very believable, solid character that is very influential in the music business. He's a consultant. I met with Mike in a hotel in L.A a few months ago and he has connected us with a few people at radio, suggested this to them, a window to get me on the air or to do a show for them, to do a promotional thing, and you would be amazed at the impact of that. It doesn't cost the earth, it's just a small thing where he picks up the phone and calls. He loves the record, which I think really helps. McVeigh has been a real player in this, he has made a lot of difference. I think my manager, she's Linda Blum, a publisher from L.A. Linda and I have always been at odds, I have known her for about twenty-five years and every time we were in a room together we wouldn't hit it off. I bumped into her in the songwriting circle about a year and a half ago and we kind of went to the next level. The next thing I know we are working together. She's very influential too, and like I said about women they are kind of in it for the long haul, they keep an eye on you.

MN: We don't have commitment issues.

JW: I used to. That was pretty good actually.

(Audience Question)

MN: Are you asking about if you are trying to do tours outside of your own market, trying to link up with the band who has a local following?

My hunch is that if someone has a local following they are not going to be nice enough to let you- she's asking if you are doing a tour, do you try to find someone who has a local following?

JW: Yeah. Local bands, if you are playing a three thousand seater in Detroit and you look like you are going to headline and there is a really great local band with a following, you could put them on the bill and you can guarantee about five hundred people showing up. That really helps.

MN: I am getting the sign. Is there anything, no pressure, you want to say? Any sage words of wisdom?

JW: No I think I said it before about hanging onto yourself. I don't want to repeat myself because it gets a bit lofty. It's all about the arts. I do wish you the best of luck because it's a difficult business. If you believe in yourself and what you are doing, you will get through to the side of it, you really will.

MN: Thank you so much.

Note: I've tried and contacted DYI convention for permission to use this interview, but never got a responce, Wouter.

Picture: courtey polstar.

Las vegas review by Shari

Again with the courtesy of Shari my wonderfull friend from the Usa, who lets me use her review

John Waite at the Aladdin: A Concert Memoir
Faithful readers of this site (Reese, Heather, and my grandparents or aunts/uncles/cousins whenever they need some dirt on me -- Mike doesn't count as he visits in order to pass the pop quizzes regularly administered in our relationship) will recall that one of the highlights of my summer was the John Waite show at Boulder Station. It came at the end of my last day of teaching for the academic year, kicking my whole first mongo vacation as a professional educator into proper focus. (Which is to say delightfully unfocused.)

My bouncing reaction to that show also found its way to the most excellent "John Waite - unofficial Dutch fansite." I'm not sure it makes as much sense there, away from this space, where my references to Tutti Dolci are part of a certain leitmotif and better understood.

(I'm totally showing off. I never use leitmotif in every day speech; I'm just practicing for the camera. It makes me feel less guilty about being up at 4:30 a.m. and starting to write this when I need to be busy living up to my name being on this page.)

I was going to say that this "concert memoir" of last night's John Waite show at the Aladdin (Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada aka NV, let's keep Google happy with our keywords here) will attempt to not wander off into totally non-JW territory, but we're not off to a good start. No promises.

Yeah, so anyway! What a great show!

Which means nothing. What is a "great" show? Well! I will tell you! And I will make free with the exclamation marks!

So, the Aladdin's Showroom-Thingy upstairs is where I saw Colin Hay. It's an intimate venue, more intimate than Boulder Station, and more aloof in its seating. I don't know what I mean by that. The cocktail waitresses are (even) nicer, though.

(Not that I was drinking. No, I was busy finishing H*ck Finn so I can at least think about writing a paper on it tomorrow... oops, I mean today. You know, I'm studying Mark Twain and Gertrude Stein in particular this semester, and if I start writing "a by-and-by is a by-and-by is a by-and-by, reckoning as we're like to be in the continous present," then please forgive early and often.)

I sat off in the front of the right-side section. To my left were two people who may or may not have wanted to be there (or anywhere away from a bar) - alas, not sitting next to people who are ready to be "into it" affects the whole experience. Especially when one of them keeps checking her drink to make sure you're not toe-tapping near it. But they eventually succumbed (such is the power of the band), despite the male unit's calls for "Aqualung!", and to their left was John de Lancie, perhaps best known for playing the indominitable Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he was totally into it.

Well, no, but the guy looked a lot like John de Lancie, so there you have it. Ask me about my Rod Stewart sighting in front of Anthropologie at Green Valley Ranch last week. (I've started shopping there again, despite past resolve.)

The energy was good overall, but I really think we all need to start standing at John Waite shows. Isn't that what we used to do in the stadium days? (OMG - the bad old days, indeed. I don't think I could ever go to an arena show again. It's something society could file under "stuff we all did before we knew better," like rushing home to watch The Cosby Show.)

(I'm not being snarky. After all, I'm, like, the only person on the planet who half-agrees with Bill Cosby's recent rants. But watching the once-beloved Cosby Show on Nick-at-Nite actually makes me embarrassed for the entire late 80s.)

Yes, we all need to get back into sitting and standing as needed, depending on tempo and the will of the crowd. Okay, I'm pretty sure I'm the same person who was recently complaining about people who stand at concerts, but John Waite is the exception. We need to stand more. At least for one song. It's just too hard to move properly in a folding chair.

There's more than this amiss in the receiving world of JW's powers, but back to the show for a moment. The band was the same band from June - great guys - especially the charming bass player. (Okay, charming and competent, but sometimes it's nice to get a dose of showmanship with your show.) At one point he ran around to the bar and played and danced with a woman who ran up. What is his name (damnit)? Ah well, some fan will Google their way here and set me straight. John Waite has a great band. Everyone looks like they're having fun. They could be a band. All together, with their own band name, I mean. But then they'd have band fights and what works for Fleetwood Mac doesn't work for everyone else.

They opened with "Change" and blistered mightily through without holding anything back - John in full form from the start. (We should have stood up, I'm telling you.) I think one of the most amazing things about Waite is that his voice is So Damn Clear. How is that? I'm 35 (thirty-six tomorrow, if you want to buy me a Canon Rebel XT or Nikon D70 so I can lose my incentive to stay in grad school and can then quit and finally be bitter about something meaningful and not just about having to iron every morning because teaching in your jammies is frowned upon) and my voice is not getting any smoother. Is there somewhere an oil portrait of John Waite's vocal cords growing knobbier and crusty? What nether deal did you strike, Mr Waite?

I don't know if I like the studio versions or the live act better, but Waite's voice, while obviously very fine when recorded, just doesn't compare to the belting he does in person. He really is made to sing to 15,000 people at once. (But again, no more with the arena shows.) So, even if you only know one song, go to his concerts just to see someone who knows what he's doing. He can make anything work.

Now, this may sound like fangirl sycophancy. Please. I'm not afraid to criticize. If you think otherwise, you've clearly never heard some of the petty, whiny things I've said about Lindsey Buckingham, and if I were building a dream musician I'd put Buckingham's fingers in the bucket with Waite's voice.

I mean, I was a little disturbed when I read this (nicely written) review and the author griped over having to hear "Show Me How to Love You." What?! "Show Me..." is quite possibly the hottest song since... Berlin's "Sex (I'm A)"? (No, bad comparison.) I don't know. I just know it flows out to the audience as pure heat. It's like scraping jalapeno seeds out of the chile pod with your thumb and then putting your thumb in your ear. Or maybe somewhere else. Again, I don't know. It's all excited blues mashy wailing stuff. And, so, one guy isn't into it - no prob. I am. And you know what I'm going to complain about? John Waite didn't sing it last night!

But that's okay. There will be other shows. Like, every other show that comes to Vegas, if I can manage it. It's a lifestyle essential, the dependably awesome rock concert, and worth seeking out. It's as fundamental as fondue.

(See, Mike and I were having this big discussion about fondue and whatever happened to it and wasn't it like a "here to stay" staple in the 70s, but no, it turns out Mike didn't have a fondue set like I did, complete with little powdery packets and marshmallows, although we did both have sno-cone sets and we concurred that these were utter crap. So, really, the Dependably Awesome Rock Concert is fondue because it should be a fundamental lifestyle experience, but too many people have learned to live without it.)

(Now, if you were to ask me what kind of fondue John Waite is, I'm be stumped. He has the powerhouse vocals of a robust cheese fondue, the kind where everyone eats it wearing patterned sweaters and sitting on deep-pile carpeting near a fireplace, but he also has an acoustic and/or light sweetness that bespeaks a dessert fondue, such as something in a chocolate hazelnut raspberry - classic and appealing in its parts, but rarely found so deftly mixed together.)

Speaking of food, I hit the Spice Market Buffet before the show and it wasn't as good as last time. I think it's because they replaced the cheese enchiladas with shrimp enchiladas, leaving me nothing at the Mexican station. Also, no pesto. However, I tried the onion roll and a twisty, circular piece of bread, and both were nice, as were the curried chickpea dish and the spicy eggplant. The mozzarella balls were off, though. Wynn wins for now.

Back to the music. What did he play? Hmm. No "Keys to Your Heart" or "Thinking of You" as with last time - I don't know if the set list is always changing or this show was shorter. "Change," as mentioned, "Back on My Feet Again," "When I See You Smile," "The Hard Way," "Isn't It Time" (very nicely dedicated to some long-time fans in the audience who were having an anniversary), "Midnight Rendezvous" (went on forever and did so beautifully - I think we all needed a sip of water after that), "NYC Girl," "Whenever You Come Around" (is this really a country song? I'm not convinced), "Missing You" (anybody who's still recovering from hearing that song 30-300 times a day twenty years ago will be pleased to know that the live rendition is simultaneously faithful and fresh), Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" (which is just plain fierce - we should not only have been standing but have been on top of the chairs for this one), and I can't remember what else. Anything else?

The encore was "Head First," thankfully, because I was totally in the mood for it. I wonder if this song will ever get old. And I was really worried for a bit that we weren't getting an encore, although not as worried as Feta. (A total inside joke that only two people will get, especially a certain person who keeps making up alternate versions of "Head First" that I have to keep reminding myself aren't the real thing - and no, it's not me performing these jolly sacrileges.) By the way, Ask MeFi had an enlightening thread about encores recently.

I hope I've sold you on putting more John Waite into your life. I'm not saying he's going to be the best concert you ever see. I don't know you. You're probably just some person who got here by Googling for something unrelated and maybe you prefer German opera to this kind of thing. Maybe you're listening to Der Rosenkavalier right now and can't even get through this post because it's so bloody long and you have to keep pausing to turn up the iPod and sway your head to the Strauss. Maybe you're here because you Googled for +"Der Rosenkavalier" +Strauss and now you feel very tricked.

Don't! What I'm saying is that (one) Waite puts on a great show for everyone, not just fans, and (two) Waite is bogglingly underestimated and deserves a listen. On the one hand, he's this Sure Thing, this lead singer for two proven bands (The Babys and Bad English) and this multi-charting solo artist. On the other hand, he's often treated like a one-hit wonder. It's like the music industry Powers That Be have filled their brain drives with Britney viruses and slick, over-produced malware, and now they don't have room to add new files or, worse, new programs. Yes, that's a pathetic, laboured analogy, but it's now nearly 6 a.m. (with time out to fuss at poor Mike), and the part of my head that keeps the incoherent babbling to a steady but manageable level is fast asleep.

Gliding razor-like musicianship aside, there is one more matter worth reporting on: John Waite is a really nice guy. At the end of the show, puddled in your post-entertainment grin, you want good things to happen to this person. Meeting him and discovering that's he just a normal, kind fellow who knows where his lunch money comes from but also has the quiet confidence of someone who delivers every dollar's worth, if not more... well, it just makes me want to go throw on the Birks and ring doorbells.

(Ha! Wouldn't it be fun if, instead of Jehovah's Witnesses, people came to your door wanting to "tell you the good news about 'New Thing' from the Figure in a Landscape album"?)

(Well, no, it would still be evil spamming, but the idea is fun. You know, the "missionary" would say "I just want to leave these mp3s here on your coffeetable." Maybe they'd also sell you a fondue pot. It all comes full circle.)

In short: I had a really good time. John Waite concerts are fun. I'm going to stand up next time.

About the picture Shari comments:

It was such a good show! It was fun meeting John - I used most of the
little bit of time to try to persuade him to add "New Thing" to the
playlist. Oh well, everyone wants to hear more and he can't possibly
sing them all, but "New Thing" is such a pretty song!

My camera batteries were nearly dead, so I only got a few blurry
concert shots before I put the camera away to save for after the show.
Too bad, since lots of people were openly taking photos and no one
seemed to mind. The Aladdin guy who took the photo of me with John
messed up the first two times, and John was really great about trying
to help him figure out the camera. What a nice guy.

Have fun in Missouri - wish I could go! Maybe if you also tell John
you want to hear "New Thing" then he'll start thinking about it.
I'll look forward to your review(s)! -S.

Visit Shari's website:

http://www.shari.com/

[url=][/url]

Concert review by Shari june 2005

Great concert review by Shari
Published with her agreement

14 June 2005

Me and John, We're Going Out Tonight
It has taken 72 hours to come down off my John Waite high long enough to write about it.

Wow.

It's a great show. If you're like my co-worker who thinks of JW as a one hit wonder, pay your $45 (or $70, if it's September at the Aladdin-soon-to-be-Planet-Hollywood-casino-gag) and get re-educated.

(Or reëducated, if you read The New Yorker.)

I have to admit that I underestimated the pale, red-haired Romantic from Lancashire. I mean, I thought I was really something because I knew not only "Missing You" (duh) but all of The Babys' Broken Heart plus a few post-MY songs like "Every Step of the Way" (I had the single!) and "These Times Are Hard for Lovers" (I can still remember the video!). I figured just knowing he was in a band before MY was "training" enough to see him live.

I'm so wonderfully wrong sometimes.

A little pre-concert Googling clued me in that JW has a dedicated fan base. Very dedicated. Like, almost Barry Manilow levels of devotion and semi-scariness. And I saw them at the show. They were the ones yelling "Midnight Rendezvous" and "Head First" and I was busy thinking, "Huh?" (Yeah, some Babys fan I turned out to be. MR was new to me, but HF is a song I used to really like when I was a pre-teen but somehow forgot about it for a couple of decades. Its lyrics inspired the title for this post; I am not, for the record, going anywhere with John Waite. Unless he asks right after singing "Show Me How to Love You.")

Anyway, the show was great. He sounds completely different live, and in the best of senses. Sure, I was disappointed that "Wrong or Right" didn't make an appearance, but who knew he could breathe new life into "Missing You"? The man is passionate. Clear-voiced. Thoroughly polite. Full-on. And his eye contact is... sigh... ever so sincere. Persistently sincere.

(A moment's break while I swoon a little.)

Now you know what Mike's been putting up with for the past three days. However, Mike being nothing but supportive, he has taken to loyally bursting into short rants over how "people like Britney Spears get all of the attention while talented people like John Waite get ignored," and his reaction to my new favourite song, "New Thing" (from Figure in a Landscape, purchased after the show), was, "This is a quality song! Why doesn't John Waite get more attention? If Phil Collins did this song, you can bet that..."

(And here we spent a few seconds trying to remember Collins' last hit.)

Oh, and at first I thought Mike was saying it was a koala song, and I was delighted, thinking about how, just when I think I know everything about life with an Australian, they spring something new on you, like praising a song as a koala song. Except Mike dislikes koalas, so that didn't make sense.

What else? I've figured out that John Waite probably says "baby" more than any other songwriter in history, but apparently this has no connection to his being in a band called The Babys. Also, he can say it however much he wants, as it totally, totally works.

After running out of gas today next to the Excalibur and having to spend $1250 to get more (this number makes sense if you understand that I had to call upon my warranty to get roadside assistance, thus losing my right to a refund if I managed to go another 18 months or so without it), I took a deep breath and bought a front row seat for Waite's return to town at the Aladdin in September. (Front row seats don't cost any more than other seats, actually; I'm just gloating. Being able to get good seats is often a perk for the solo event-goer.)

Speaking of seats, the Railhead at Boulder Station is a superb venue. There isn't a bad seat in the (little) house. (Veteran visitors must have known this, as the third and fourth rows were empty on our side of the stage.) I'm not expecting as much from the Aladdin, but anywhere I can hear the music and see the bass player grinning will work for me. (Going to a larger hall is possibly for the best -- after awhile I actually started blushing whenever Waite would look my way.)

Hopefully the room at Texas Station is just as good; I'm hoping to see Foreigner there in December.

Otherwise, the next concert on the docket is Colin Hay, also at the Aladdin. Front row seat for that one, too. Now, in his case, let's hope for lots and lots of Men at Work, third album excepted, as I can't have a 72-hour crush on Colin, too. I am an old woman of 35. My hair may fall down my back in unapologetic waves of Shea Butter and Honey (do not ask how much I've spent at the Bath and Body Works sale -- can you believe they're getting rid of Cinnamon Frosting Tutti Dolce?!), and my calves may be ginger-scrubbed every morning (at least the Pure Simplicity line is 2-for-1 right now), and -- thanks to my current grad class -- I might just entice you all night with tales of Cleopatra's scheming sisters or Aboriginal cannibalism or how floating bits of Einstein's brain rode in the trunk during an epic road trip a few years ago...

...but I do not have the energy to continue playing "Head First" (which you should download, as $130 is too much money, and you know I disapprove of anthologies) or "Masterpiece of Loneliness" or "I'm Still in Love" or anything else more than 10 times in a row if my limited qualities of Exciting Girlfriendness remain untapped. I am not those "girls" to the left and the right who are willing to work at their fandom. So I shall follow the fist-size crumbs back to Mike, and Mike should find me a bootleg live version of "Show Me How to Love You," as the original studio version does not compare, and life without some tall man (Waite is 6', Mike is 6'4ish) singing this song will be wholly unbearable.

Shari's site:
http://www.shari.com

interview in Lancaster Post

Source: Lancashire Evening Post

Headline:The return of a one-hit wonder

Subhead:Byline: Elaine Singleton talks to a man In his adopted home of America he can draw crowds of 10,000 to his gigs yet here at home in Lancashire he's still a one hit 80s wonder. John Waite scored a massive hit in 1984 with Missing You and then, in the UK at least, he disappeared back into obscurity. Meanwhile in the States where he has lived for 20 years, he had a successful chart career, starred in a TV soap opera with Morgan Fairchild, a lip-glossed, shoulder-padded icon of the 80s, and has just completed a three month tour of the US with Journey playing to audiences of 10,000 a night. In Europe too his star still shines and it was on the way back from some gigs in Holland that he called into his home city of Lancaster to see family and friends. The flying visit to the UK brought some welcome career news too. His new single Keys To Your Heart has just made the Radio 2 playlist and is getting airplay three times day. With the likes of Wogan, Ken Bruce and Steve Wright plugging his music, John, 47, hopes that maybe, 17 years on, he can grab another UK chart hit. In the last couple of years he's been living in Santa Monica, LA, but until he moved he was living in Manhattan, New York, just a block away from the Twin Towers. Like people the world over John was hit hard by the tragedy, and seeing the devastation and loss of life so close to his former home, in streets he knew so well, was particularly difficult. He was in America on September 11 at home in Santa Monica, when the phone rang. "My manager called and told me to put on the TV. Like everyone I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There are just no words that can do justice to what happened. "The people there are still very stunned. I think everybody is in a state of shock. It's just terrible." Two decades in the States have done nothing to much alter John's Lancastrian vowels. Now and again a trace of an American drawl creeps in or perhaps an Americanism like mail for post or garbage for rubbish, but other than that he's still a Lancashire Lad. In fact despite living across the Pond for so long and having such success out there, Lancaster and Lancashire are still where he calls home. "I've lived in America now for 18, 20 years, but when I'm home in Lancaster I know it's where I'm from. My family's here and I still have friends here that I see when I'm over," he said. One of those friends is Lancaster's tourism officer David Wright, well known around the city for his historical calendar walks, Georgian and maritime festivals, garbed in appropriate historical clothing. He and John were at Greaves Secondary School together and used to bunk off games to go to the Waites' Barton Road home so they could listen to Sergeant Pepper rather than freeze on the soccer pitch. John's music career began when he played in a rock band with brother Joe but it was at the tender age of 18 that he first tried his luck in the States as lead singer of The Baby's. When they split up in the early 80s he came back home, wrote an album which bombed and then decided to go back to America and go solo. His Yankee success started there, but apart from that brief 80s success with Missing You, he's never set the UK on fire. However, with new single and new album, Figure In A Landscape, poised for release, and with the support of newly trendy Radio 2, he hopes that at last he will crack his home market. And then the man who once made national newspaper headlines as Britt Ekland's toy boy need Waite no more for UK stardom. 03 Oct 2001