Shaun Astor / Tahoe Onstage photos
Dave Wakeling is the frontman and songwriter behind the band’s The English Beat and General Public, whose hits include “Mirror In The Bathroom,” “I Confess,” “Tenderness” and “Save It For Later.” With his brand of introspective yet upbeat pop anthems that ruled the radio throughout the 1980s, Wakeling partnered with Ranking Roger for an epic era of songs that commonly receive mention on those kitschy television “Top Songs…” countdowns.
Though The English Beat split with Wakeling and Roger going their different ways, with both continuing to front their own versions of the band, time ultimately healed wounds and Wakeling and Ranking Roger shared the stage once again despite living on separate continents.
Ranking Roger passed away in early 2019. Dave Wakeling has continued to tour, with the band’s recent full length release, “Here We Go Love,” carrying on with the singer’s lyrical introspection.
The band has worked stops in Reno into their schedule, with two previous sold out appearances over the past couple years. With the band’s upcoming show, we thought it was a good occasion to run our conversation with Dave Wakeling, which took place last year…
Focus on optimism
“We’re like angels trapped in mammals’ bodies,” Dave Wakeling says. “I try to focus on that optimism. If there’s any chance for decency or survival, it’s based on keeping optimistic.”
As songwriter and vocalist for his band, The English Beat, and later with General Public, Dave Wakeling fused lyrics panning the undercurrents of human interaction with ’80s pop and ska, creating an upbeat sound bordering on the ecstatic. The results being a navigation of often the darker side of human relationships and actions packaged into radio friendly songs such as “I Confess” and “Tenderness.”
Along with his ambitious tour schedule, Wakeling and the English Beat recently released the record “Here We Go Love,” their first proper new album in 35 years. Over that time, Wakeling has maintained his recurring voice of an outsider looking in.
“I was a different person by the time I had finished the album than when I had started. I don’t drink, but I’ve also stopped smoking (tobacco). It was caffeine to lunchtime, wine in the afternoon, and cigarettes from morning until night. I smoked them for nearly 50 years. But for the record, I thought ‘you might as well be focused for it.’ I used the record, and I ended up feeling and looking much healthier than when I had started.”
The slow intellectualizing and processing, the thoughtfulness of a perspective outside of a given scenario coming to inform an autopsy of a series of events, this has been a consistent quality of Wakeling’s lyrics. When I ask him if there is anything he tried on this new recording that he had previously sworn he would never do, that thoughtful air fell over the phone for a second, and then he broke his silence…
“No. But then again, I’m struggling to think of anything I said I would never do. That’s the problem, you’ve got to be careful about trusting your own point of view.”
He acknowledges how — over the years that have passed since those early English Beat and General Public albums — that age has changed a bit of his perspective.
“Just because you believe something strongly, it doesn’t mean you’ll believe the same thing in 10 years. Look at photographs of yourself from 10, 15 years ago: at the time you thought you looked fantastic and not like everyone else. You look at those photos now and you think, what on Earth was I thinking?” he laughs. “And if we can’t trust ourselves with something like our appearance, how do we trust ourselves with religion and politics?”
And thus, he brings it back full circle, to revealing where that sense of fragile optimism underlying his music comes from, and how he can make sense of these themes and perform them in a way that communicates optimism.
“With music, you have to remember it’s a stage, not a soapbox. The ultimate prize is if someone comes up to you and says that that song or that lyric meant the world to them. Or that they played it in the birthing room or the hospice or the wedding.
“That your words connect with others’ suffering or joy or subconscious, that’s the aim really. If you can learn about your own dilemmas, and take frustration and fear and turn it into commentary and mass consciousness and it flashes over the room like wildfire. After 40 years, I may be finally getting the hang of it.”
Dave Wakeling and The English Beat will be playing at Midtown Reno’s The Saint on Oct. 25. This show is all ages, and each of their past appearances has sold out in advance, so don’t wait on tickets.
Tickets available at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-english-beat-tickets-74335779317
