SPORTS & MUSIC (S&M)

by Shelly Harris


“If you just let the world come at you, without dodging or moving or ducking
or whatever... You’re going to get run over!  It’s a very Zen thing, isn’t
it? Like Zen and Judo... It’s how you move through these things, and you can
coexist with these things and they don’t affect you...”
                                                 – Life according to John
Waite


    “This is really great!  It’s a great motif for the interview, isn’t
it?,” laughs an animated John Waite, as he looks around the surroundings from
our booth somewhere in the far reaches of west suburban Chicago, where he’d
just played on a date for his stunning new solo CD, Figure In A Landscape
(see CD Spins).  “Just like a...deserted Chinese restaurant!” he adds with
an impish grin, “Ummm, Chung Fow!” 

     Now, I must say that I actually first saw Waite and became intrigued by
his music in the process of doing a long-lost rookie concert review way back
in ‘79 at the Aragon “Brawlroom” in Chicago.  The Babys were in the middle
of mismatched bill that included (what he calls) “full-on country and
western, southern rock” bands Molly Hatchet and 38 Special, and it was also a
show where – as Waite himself hilariously recollects – “Oh God! I threatened
to fight the audience... Yeah! I did!” 


    But, though he was certainly already the consummate charismatic (if
volatile) rock frontman and highly distinctive vocalist even in those days,
I’d somehow never interviewed Waite in all the ensuing 22 years. 


    Well, good things do come to those who ‘Waite’ because, so relaxed,
candid, funny, and, well...familiar is Lancaster, England’s best known
redhead, that it almost feels like you have known him 22 years.  But really,
anyone who has paid close attention to his lyrics during his many musical
cat’s lives (from The Babys (“Head First” and “Isn’t It Time?”) to his
mid-‘80s solo tour de force which spawned mega-hits like “Change” and
“Missing You,” to his two album stint with the Neal Schon guitar-powered
“supergroup” Bad English, and on through to his second “solo” phase which
has produced three albums thus far, including Figure In A Landscape) would
“know” Waite in some respects, since – ever evolving as the ultimate type of
“confessional” singer/songwriter – he’s pretty much laid himself bare over
the years with progressively more incisive, cut-to-the-bone, “tell it like it
is” simple poetic eloquence.
  
    On the other hand, although on record and live he’s always been
remarkably and authentically stylistically diverse and versatile (often
segueing from the plaintive power ballads, to R&B/gospel-laced numbers, to
the “melodic hard rock” tunes, to bluesy barn-burners, and even to
Appalachian/Americana blue-eyed soul ones), that still doesn’t quite prepare
you for the many dimensions of Waite that you are apt to experience -- all at
one sitting.  Indeed, there’s nearly as many sides to the “real,” in-person
John Waite as there are on his CDs. 

      First, there’s the good-time, cutup, live-in-the-now Waite who cracks
you up by doing things like making funny noises in your tape-recorder, but
there’s also the super polite, old-school-gentlemen that speaks to the waiter
for you, “fetches” your stuff, sends shrimp home for your cat, and who goes
around thanking all the wait staff individually before departing.  Moreover,
there’s the very direct straight-shooter who says flat out you need a new
tape recorder just as much as he does, and who off-the-cuff instructs,
“Don’t be self-conscious! Just whip out your notes if your want.”  And then
there’s the decidedly wistful and adventurous Waite (“I have that spirit in
me that would probably just like to set off right to the South Seas and have
a look!...Oh, and explore the China coast or something like that...”), along
side the one who still shows signs of the feistiness he had at the
“Brawlroom” so many years past, especially when the topic turns to the
mega-corporation record label “accountant” run machines and usual hypocrisy
that comes with that territory (“I have no tolerance at all for being
dominated by some corporate entity; I have nothing to say to them – nothing
whatsoever”). 

     But, mostly, there’s the soft-spoken, deeply reflective and
philosophical John Waite who at times is self-effacing (“Disillusioned? Me,
disillusioned?!”), and at other times just as scathingly honest as he is on
record (see “Masterpiece of Loneliness” on the current CD), especially when
you get him going about the record company disasters that occurred with his
previous two albums, both of which he clearly adored.

    His then-record label went bankrupt right after Temple Bar was released,
and, as he notes, “My single was number two on AC radio when that happened,
and I had a song in a Tarantino movie.  I was all set to go, I think, and the
response was real strong, and the next thing I knew, they were out of
business. Then I went to Mercury and put that sort of country album out [When
You Were Mine], and it was like, ‘So what?’  They didn’t care. But I’m glad
I made the record; it was a beautiful record. But it was rough when that last
one went down.”   

     Did he think it was his best? “Well, I think the singing’s the
best...up until that point. I think Temple Bar was the beginning of this
hugely more focused, confessional, singer/songwriter, very truthful...I mean,
‘Downtown’ – it doesn’t get more real than that! I was living that during
the day, and singing about it during the night. So, it was really kind of an
edgy life.”

    But Waite, whose bohemian life in New York City during part of the ‘80s
and most of the ‘90s was – and still is – reflected in the consciousness of
many of his songs, and who professes to dislike L.A. (“I absolutely don’t
fit into that city”) has now reluctantly just bought a “2000 square foot
loft” type abode in Santa Monica where his new record label, Gold Circle is
located.  But he also readily admits his life has changed in other important
ways since the Temple Bar (an actual watering hole in NYC) days as well: “I
don’t even drink! And everything is in focus now, so it’s a lot more fun.
And I can remember what I did when I wake up in the morning – I’m not sort
of like with...a hangover.  It got to the point, honestly, where...and I
wouldn’t mind being...Well, I was married for a long time, and I’m divorced
now, right? And at some point I just saw myself clearly as some guy who was
just on his way to being drunk, or with a hangover – and who could fall in
love with that? And at some point I was pretty truthful. I looked in the
mirror – I must have been shaving one morning and going, ‘How the Hell did I
get here!?’   And the only way I knew was to just stop drinking, so I
stopped.”

     But there has been another positive influence on Waite’s life in recent
years, too, which has helped to stabilize a bit of that artistic/poetic angst
even if that sort of aching torment has provided some of the most compelling
fodder for many of his best songs (see the gripping “Thinking About You” on
the new CD). That influence has been his deeper pursuit of his longtime
interest in Zen Buddhism, an introspective, non-materialistic, humanistic, l
ive-in-the-now spiritual philosophy which has also subtly influenced many
of his lyrical themes in recent years (and which also provides the tie-in
here for the Midwest Beat’s S&M series, since Zen is the “discipline of
awareness and detachment” and “repose and renunciation” and is the age-old
Bride – and the real secret partner/power – behind all the authentic Martial
Arts).  

   As Waite notes, when referencing moving forward through making better
“choices” and also making peace with past disappointments/disillusionments:
“I did get run over a few times... But if you just let the world come at you,
without dodging or moving or ducking or whatever... You’re going to get run
over!  It’s a very Zen thing, isn’t it?  Like Zen and Judo... It’s how you
move through these things, and you can coexist with these things and they
don’t affect you. And you can’t let it get you angry. People are people;
they’re all wonderful things. They’re all separate, and they’re all
different.”  (Side note: When we crack open our fortune cookies and read them
out loud, he insists mine is the “really good one.”  It read:  Don’t Let
Doubt and Suspicion Bar Your Progress.)

    Still, as Waite insightfully adds between his bites of Sweet and Sour
Shrimp, “I’ve always been very, uncomfortable with very, very successful,
nouveau rich people. Honestly, even with the early Babys, I never wanted to
make a billion dollars and give it away to the waiter.  I can’t understand
that crap; I’m from a working class family.  So, when I was down on my luck,
running out of money and stuff, the world was almost a better place to me,
because I knew what I was dealing with...I wasn’t like somebody who had a
million dollars and lost it; I’ve never had a million dollars.  So fine for
me, really. It made me spiritually aware. It opened doors for me spiritually,
where I really did start to investigate Zen Buddhism...and do some actual in
depth study -- reading and going to lectures and stuff. I travel with a book
at the moment...It gives you a sense of value when you live in this
society...It’s fantastic stuff!  ‘Godhead’ [the double-entendred, full-on
scorching blues rocker on the new album] is about that!”

    Not surprisingly, Waite insists that he has “absolutely no choice” in
continuing to sustain his prolific, 25 year-plus musical career, because it
is actually a product of his never-ending artistic compulsion (in his youth
he also spent four years in art school, and that visual arts background is
reflected on Figure In A Landscape).  But, though he also allows that he’s
been “the long way around” in his life, he makes it clear that it’s not
necessarily a bad thing when things don’t always fall the easy way -- because
the real joy of it all is often in the “journey” itself, and not the
ultimate destination: 

       “I feel very justified in my career, and I’m just thrilled to be
working, you know? And it’s just a wonderful thing!  I mean, it’s almost
better to go the long way around...You know, the times I’ve had that were at
the very, very top, with everything going right, were good fun, but also the
opposite of those times have been just as much fun, it truly has. I’ve
enjoyed it enormously.”


Check www.pollstar.com to catch John Waite on a nationwide solo tour this
fall in support of Figure In A Landscape. He expects to hit Chicago sometime
in October or early November