Having enjoyed numerous waves of success through the decades with a number of differing hard rock guises from The Babys in the seventies to the demise of Bad English at the start of the nineties via the mega huge worldwide smash ‘Missing You’ that was the peak of solo success in the eighties John Waite has consistently stepped up to any challenge before him. Recently revitalised yet again with his 2011 studio album ‘Rough & Tumble’ doing good business and with renewed interest on the live front thanks to the storming new ‘Live All Access’ album from earlier this year we thought it was about time Uber Rock caught up with him for a chat.

 

John, thanks for talking with us at Uber Rock today during what’s turning out to be quite a busy time for you. Interest in the new live album is really picking up. How did the original idea for doing the new album, ‘Live All Access’, come about in the first place?

 

Well the band was playing really well. We had a new guitar player, Keri Kelli, and everything was working really well, I was singing better and we were having a ball. I just decided to record it, it came out of nowhere really.

 

How did you go about choosing which shows to record?

 

I was really excited about what was going on so we just decided to take a shot. We got several songs from the first couple of shows then I gave it about six weeks and tried it again with a run of gigs we had in the north east. We were up in New Hampshire at a beautiful old theatre and got an entire show really. It came out of nowhere. We put the two shows together and picked the best songs, the freshest sounding songs.

 

Yeah, it does have a real “live” feel to the album with no overdubs like so many other bands rely on.

 

Yeah, we didn’t want any overdubs. There’s enough of that going on. It’s on stage and people playing live. A lot of people play along to tapes now but it doesn’t sound right. I know it’s much more of a business out there now but rock ‘n’ roll should be live, played by people. What you hear is what you get.

 

How did you get to working with Keri Kelli originally?

 

Well we have a friend in Philly, a lot of the roots of the band are from Philly and he’s part of WMMR, a big radio station down there and I think he knew Keri, he moves in that world. He’s good friends with our bass player and I think Keri got in touch with him or he got in touch with Keri and afterwards Keri just drove up the bass player’s house and we just jammed. He was a great guy and we got on real well. He seemed very genuine, very excited to play and we just spoke about music. And he can play, you know? I mean he wasn’t getting the songs exactly right but he was just playing, playing along. So I gave him a list of songs, about fifteen songs and said learn these songs and we’ll see you in Detroit in three weeks. He went away and learnt the songs came back and we played a great gig. It was a trial by fire really. But he did really really well and it just got better from there.

 

Yeah, I think the album ‘Live All Access’ gives a real clear snapshot of where the band is right now.

 

Yeah yeah, I think there’s definitely more to come, lots more to come. I just wanted to get that out there so people can get the band at this stage.

 

I did hear talk that there may be a volume two to follow it up?

 

Oh I hope so. We were thinking that if we can get one out every eight, nine, ten months then it would be a beautiful thing because the band’s just going from strength to strength. But there’s so many songs, so many songs. I mean we play for ninety minutes when we’re on stage and still you get someone complaining we didn’t play this or that so I think it would be fun to have a series of live albums. I think it would be a great representation, that’s who I am and that’s what I do.

 

With so many songs to choose from how difficult was it to choose just eight tracks for ‘Live All Access’?

 

Well those were just the best tracks. I didn’t want to put in any filler on it or bonus tracks or any major major major hits. That isn’t the point, it’s already been done. This is something new and fresh. I didn’t want to compromise on anything. These are just great songs that all fit together. The album’s about thirty five minutes plus, just over and most albums last that long it’s just there’s eight tracks and people play longer during the songs and there’s guitar solos that last longer. And I just like the fact there’s only eight songs, it reminds me of the early seventies when bands made albums that had that many. I mean Golden Earring had ‘Moontan’ and that I think that had just seven songs on it or something. It’s about the quality.

 

Exactly, but some people who may not know you for your complete body of work and only the big hits would look at it and say “Oh ‘Missing You’ ain’t on there?”

 

Yeah, well ‘If You Ever Get Lonely’ was so beautiful and so great and came out so well, and ‘In Dreams’ too. They’re both kind of quiet songs so there was no room for ‘Missing You’.

 

I was just going to move onto that track, ‘If You Ever Get Lonely’. I think that, as well as ‘Evil’, are my two favourite tracks off the album. I think they really define what ‘Live All Access’ is about.

 

Yeah, they’re my favourites too. I think ‘Evil’ is slamming, I mean completely slamming. We’re jamming like hell on top of that. And ‘If You Ever Get Lonely’ is really kinda tender but it gets quite tough. They’re the ones that turned out best in the end. I like all of it actually but I’m really glad we caught those two.

 

And with a tune like ‘If You Ever Get Lonely’ it’s a song that a lot of people can connect to and it’s got great potential to be huge.

 

Well there’s a band in Nashville called Love & Theft and they’ve covered it. It’s gone top twenty on Great American Country. That band had a number one last year so they might have a Country hit with ‘If You Get Lonely’ and the same time as we have a bit of a hit with the live album.

 

Well that would be pretty cool.

 

It would be yeah but it’s not unusual though. We had a number one single in America at Classic Rock with ‘Rough & Tumble’ but we had to go on the road for like eight months to get it in there. We played every club we could get into, every theatre, big street things and festivals as well as getting up at six every morning to do radio. We played so much that it caught fire and we had a number one single but you have these massive moments of success then you’re back on the road again. I would be very pleased if they had a number one with it though. I’ve always loved Country and it’s always nice to be recognised too.

 

Keeping with the Country theme for a minute you also did a Country version of ‘Missing You’ with Alison Krauss a few years ago. How did that collaboration come about?

 

Well I was in HMV in Lancaster and they didn’t have any John Waite records… So I went back to America and I made an album of greatest hits. Re-recorded a lot of the hits just to send for distribution in Europe in the beginning, just so people would remember me and we might get asked to come and play. So I recorded this album ‘Downtown’ that had a lot of my favourite songs on. We tried to re-work the songs a little different, there’s an acoustic version of ‘When I See you Smile’ on there, but when it came to ‘Missing You’ I couldn’t think of anything to do with it but a duet and my favourite singer is Alison so I called her up. She said yes! I was in Nashville at the time so she just came down one afternoon and away we went, we got it in an afternoon. I went and sang on her record after that and then I played the Opry which was a very big deal for me. Just to play the Opry! So I have very strong Country roots, I was raised on that kind of music. I would have made a Country record this year but everybody seems to have gone Country so I thought I’d do a Rock record instead (laughs).

 

There does seem to be a growing bond between Country and Rock at the moment.

 

Yeah, I don’t know. I think a lot of people are just going Country because it’s popular. But I don’t really differentiate between Country and Rock, Jazz or Blues or anything. I think that good music is good music and then there’s “product”, that’s the difference.

 

Well you’ve certainly made a lot of music, with The Babys in the seventies, Bad English in the late eighties, your solo stuff stitched throughout. It’s difficult enough to break through to success once in this business let alone have it in several different decades with different projects. What would you say is the secret to your continuing success?

 

Being stubborn! Also I just love what I do, I really take it seriously and I’m not doing it for the money. So when there was big success it was great and when there was no success it was still great because I have the music. It’s the poetry and the essence of what it takes to make it. Nobody gave me anything, it’s all been hard fought for. So there was never really a choice but I must be good at something because every couple of years I have big hit. I’m not very concerned with the music “business”, I’m more concerned with the art of making music. I’m quite happy to be outside of it. I don’t hanker to get my picture taken, I don’t want to stand around with a bunch of strangers having cocktails. I don’t give a shit about that stuff. I care about playing live and I care about writing great songs and just trying to raise the bar.

 

You mention not being “in it for the money” there but so many seem to be these days, totally the wrong reason to be making music. I was wondering what your opinion was on platforms like iTunes or Spotify where a growing number of artists are coming out complaining about getting minimal payments. I’m no musician so can’t really comment but the way I see it is that it’s still exposure for your songs, exposure you wouldn’t get otherwise.

 

Yes, I say the same thing as you. You can’t capture it like a bird, it’s everywhere. You write a song and you try to speak to people, it’s a very beautiful thing. It sounds corny. But from the hardest rock of The Who to Lemmy and Motörhead to the most beautiful Country ballads of Alison Krauss it’s all music and it should be free but if somebody pays you, say a percentage then that’s a good thing, it’s not bad. Then you get paid to play live. But it’s a philosophical question whether you should charge people for music. I mean the record companies used to just rip you off completely, you wouldn’t get paid at all. These days everyone’s got a lawyer so they are making money, it’s just how much money. I make a pretty decent living from playing live and that’s enough for me. I know where the money is coming from, I don’t have to trust a record company. I licence my records out to different labels and I keep control of what I do. I recommend everybody does that.

 

That’s definitely a sentiment I agree with. I think the more people you get hearing your music the better, then you can capitalise on playing live and hopefully have a bigger audience.

 

Yes, that’s what I think. It’s like this new live album, I was so proud of it I just though fuckin’ hell I’ve got to get this to people even if it’s the last thing I do. Like I said I didn’t want to stick on “bonus tracks” or extraneous junk just to make more money or whatever. This is the best of the best and I’m very very proud of this record and if only a few people hear this record then it’s still OK as long as those people who heard it “got it”, you know? It might sound philosophical but most things in life are.

 

 

And with modern technology you can connect directly with your fans much more easily.

 

Exactly right. I mean I’m not trying to sell you a t-shirt, I’m not in business. Well I am because I you have to make a living to get by but you have to be careful because there’s a lot of people out there who would take you to the cleaners but it’s the music that always comes first. If something’s not right I walk away from it, it doesn’t matter about the money. But these days there are people who work in sales and promote bands that play on a circuit that is owned by the same company. They sell a certain amount of tickets, the rest go to free give-aways, it’s called papering a gig. And once they’ve got all those people there they can charge them for parking, sell them expensive beer, t-shirts. The gig makes money, the band makes money, the management makes money. But it’s like the tail wagging the dog and it’s really fucking horrendous how it’s done, but most big bands do that. The arena rock bands are all doing that, it’s how they make money. It’s bullshit really.

 

Well there’s no substitute for a little live band in a club though is there?

 

No, not at all. I was very lucky at an early age to get to go and see The Who play and Free and Humble Pie and some of the great openers. To see those people, the real article when they were top of their game, it’s stayed with me. I just want to get through this life by writing and playing music and not selling out. That must surely be the whole point.

 

‘Live All Access’ is out now, check out http://www.johnwaitethesinger.com/ for further details.

 

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