Never let it be said Dave Wakeling's lost his passion to
 right a world skewed wrong. Never you done that, no, never
 you done that. It's been nearly 30 years since the Beat
 broke the music scene with heavy social commentaries about
 dethroning then-PM Margaret Thatcher (Stand Down Margaret)
 and seeing in oneself the same National Front violence being
 rallied against (Two Swords). It's now 2008, and Dave's
 still got a strong moral compass that yet infuses itself
 into his music and his concert performances. And, as it
 happens, this interview as well.
 
 As impressive as Dave's musical career has charted, with
 top 40 hits on all sides of the Atlantic, it's equally
 impressive just how intelligent and thoughtful the man is.
 It's hard not to be impressed by a musician who has lent
 his time and talent to charitable causes since Day One. In
 fact, Dave is literally one to put his money where his mouth
 is. If you've taken in an English Beat gig in the last few
 years, you'll know a current flame he's championing is
 "The Smile Train," a charity seeking to give
 facially disfigured children in lesser developed nations a
 chance at a normal life for just $250 a smile.
 
 For all there is in the popstar public persona of Dave
 Wakeling, there is just as much to the humanistic
 "average man" side of Dave Wakeling. Adept at
 fingering a fretboard, Dave is just as proficient with his
 ever-present iPhone. The first few minutes of our
 conversation, resting on the surprisingly comfortable foam
 rubber-filled couches/beds of Dave's tour bus stateroom,
 were spent admiring his "Electrogizmo Big Boy's
 Toy." He was even messaging me from the iPhone while he
 was supposed to be in soundcheck, prior to the interview,
 the sign of a true technophile/technoslave. And if you're
 a Myspace compadre of Dave's, don't ever think he's
 playing you aside. Before we could start he had to check his
 profile mail and send off a few bulletins and blogs. 
 
 
 
 Here's a peek through the window of Dave Wakeling sans
 guitar, mike, and stage. 
 
 
Concerning his iPhone:
 
 Dave Wakeling : It's nice, you don't have a typewriter
 all the time just when you need it (yes, he said typewriter,
 as he shows me the graphic touchscreen keyboard on the
 display). It comes up...
 
Steve Bringe: How touchy is it, though?
 
 DW: Once you get the hang of it, it's great, but I got
 little fat thumbs, you know?
 
SB: Yeah, I was wondering how you reach all the frets.
 
DW: (Completely preoccupied with his iPhone). Yeah.
 
DW: I'm watching the politics religiously.
 
SB: You were around when Margaret Thatcher was around.
 
DW: Of course... (goes back to his iPhone, ignoring the TV
 - so much for watching religiously)
 
 
Concerning moving up and down the California Coast:
 
DW: So we ended up living in Malibu, but basically we were
 just sleeping in Malibu transporting the kids to and from
 play dates [and] sleepovers. We spent most of our time in
 Pacific Palisades and just crept back to Malibu to sleep. It
 was a year's experiment and we didn't like it so we
 moved out of there.
 
SB: The traffic's horrible up there, too. 
 
DW: Ah, yeah. The wife got it worse than I did.
 
SB: Were you there for the fires?
 
DW: Well, that's what finally finished it. I was doing
 shows and came back at 7 am to find they'd been evacuated,
 and the flames came within 400 yards twice.
 
SB: Crap. Yeah, that'll move you.
 
DW: So then, there's an ambulance depot down at the
 bottom of the road, and you hear the sirens pretty often,
 and my daughter, every time she'd hear the sirens, she
 thought it was a fire, and she'd start running around
 trying to grab her… I'd tell her it's not a fire.
 
 
Concerning his consummate professionalism, adhering to the
 adage "The Show Must Go On":
 
DW: I'm afraid I'm suffering from the "Tour
 Cold." Sucking Cold Eeze seems to work pretty good. And
 the Rapid Tabs.
 
SB: Yeah. Any good?
 
DW: Yes, they are. I only got them yesterday at the Walmart
 and I feel noticeably better. The smell, my nose was
 blocked. It's the hardest thing to sing... (pinches nose
 and sings what I believe was Mirror in the Bathroom).
 
SB: I don't know if you get allergies, but the juniper
 count is through the roof right now.
 
DW: Well, that's often how it started, and it never
 really ever... I used to get allergies bad in England but
 not when I moved to California. And we'd go all through
 the weeks of shows, you know, Denver, Salt Lake, Cincinnati,
 Cleveland, and all the way over to Boston, New York. It was
 snowing like crazy, everyone staying healthy. Amazing. Got
 on the bus in Boston, woke up the next day in Chapel Hill,
 walked off the bus and it was springtime. I was sneezing so
 hard my stomach was hurting. That went on for about two
 days, at Chapel Hill and Charlotte. And then we headed down
 to Florida and by that time it had turned into a real cold.
 (He still did the gigs)
 
This interview was conducted under the guise of a project
 for Madness Central, centered on Dave's association with
 Madness and the 2 Tone movement to which he and his
 songwriting was so integral. So quickly, through Dave's
 disarming nature, it became an unfiltered white light
 illuminating the man and musician.
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
The Beginnings of 2 Tone and an Endorsement for a Better
 Tomorrow
 
Steve Bringe: This is Dave Wakeling…
 
Dave Wakeling: Welcome to Albuquerque!
 
SB: Right, welcome to Albuquerque.
 
DW: Thanks very much, it's a pleasure to be here.
 
SB: Yeah, thank you. Alright, here we go. It's 1978 in
 Birmingham. What was it like finding that other bands, like
 Madness, were championing the same musical stylings as the
 English Beat?
 
DW: To start with, it was a huge disappointment, I'll be
 honest. We saw a double-page spread in the Melody Maker, the
 Specials, and the bass player, David (Steele), brought the
 paper in and threw it on the floor and said, "Fuck,
 it's too late! Somebody else is doing it!"
 
But as it turned out, everybody had got a slightly
 different angle on it anyway. You know, we were trying to
 mix the energy of punk with the hypnotic vibe of reggae into
 the same three minute song. We wanted to get one sound
 going, which took us a long time.
 
And Madness had got, like, more of a mixing of ska with a
 pop kind of edge on it. Classic 60's pop is always what I
 think of for them. And the Specials had some of the punk
 side and a reggae side that lent to each a bit of flavour,
 but the songs were quite different from each other.
 
We were trying to get the Velvet Underground meets Toots
 & the Maytals with the blues down. That was the aim.
 
SB: It came out okay. You sold a few records.
 
DW: Sold a few records. Not too bad.
 
SB: Okay, here's another one. With the passing of legends
 like Desmond Dekker, it kind of hits home that the first
 generation of ska is passing from the contemporary to the
 historic. Any thoughts?
 
DW: It makes us the next ones on the conveyor belt,
 doesn't it? I suppose now we can walk around and call
 ourselves "The Kings of Ska," or the
 "Ska'dfather" as I personally prefer.
 
It's always sad when you hear of an artist that you
 really loved has died. Then again there's something of
 them that remains there forever. The records, the memories
 and stuff, and so, in a way, being a recording artist kind
 of makes you immortal. Like having a Desmond Dekker record
 on, he's right in the room with me, even though he's not
 on the earth anymore. So I hope people feel the same way
 about us one day.
 
SB: Let's not talk about that just yet. You've got
 quite a few years yet.
 
DW: I'm probably immortal anyway. I'm still not
 convinced I'm going to die.
 
SB: Is that the Buddhist in you, or…?
 
DW: I don't know. It's a sense of denial, I think.
 
SB: Alright. Geez. I wrote a paragraph here. So let's
 see. Now there's been a third wave of ska, with so many of
 these bands that cite you as a major influence in their
 sound; Save Ferris, Reel Big Fish, No Doubt, and even
 non-ska bands like the Killers give you props. Seeing as you
 were in the US and privy to what was mainly a
 California-based ska revival, what did you think of the
 up-and-comers? How did they compare to what you accomplished
 in the 70's and 80's?
 
DW: Well, now there's a fourth wave of ska as well,
 isn't there, that goes back more to the first wave, the
 original roots, things like the Aggrolites, Westbound Train,
 or in England the Dualers, or something like that…
 Pressure Cooker out of Boston, and they remind me more of
 like Hepcat, where they've got a real feel of the original
 first wave, almost… you know, somewhere between Trojan
 dirty reggae and that slightly jazz-style of the session
 guys who used to play on the ska records.
 
So now, there's a fourth wave ska, and each one of the
 waves is almost identical in as much as the ones who got the
 songs that really connect… last in people's hearts for a
 long time… and the ones that have just adopted the stance
 of ska. I mean, there was quite a lot in Orange County
 (California) during that third wave period that were bands
 that had been a heavy metal band three weeks before and now
 seen No Doubt flying and suddenly become ska bands. It's
 down to the songs. If you have a song that connects, that
 resonates with somebody's heart, then things will go well.
 If it's just ska for ska's sake, pickit-a pickit-a
 pickit-a, and nothing else about it, then it tends to just
 come and go with the passing fashion wave or the clothing.
 
There were differences. I didn't find third wave ska to
 be as overtly political as second wave ska. You know, the
 Specials and the Beat had big mouths and a lot to say
 politically, but that might have been the times. It's a
 little harder sometimes, I think, to be political and be an
 artist in America because you might lose your career
 opportunities.
 
SB: Look at the Dixie Chicks.
 
DW: Yeah, people can get real riled up about it, can't
 they? For me at the time, it seemed, how could you live in
 England in the late 70's and bring out 12 songs and not
 have politics in them? Seeing that was what everybody was
 talking about at each bus stop, everybody was talking about
 in each bar. And so to get on stage and sing a load of songs
 that didn't reflect the society you lived in seemed to me
 more a political act than just calmly mentioning what was
 going on in your own backyard.
 
Now I'm not as overtly political but I still sing about
 social politics, perhaps. Up until recently I've kept
 myself out of party politics in America, but I have to say
 that I'm so impressed with Barack Obama that I've lent
 my voice a couple of times to that. Only in as much as…
 it's interesting going back to England, depending on whom
 the president is in America, and either America is very
 cool, which it was in the last decade, or America is like
 the Great Satan, which unfortunately it seems to have become
 in English minds.
 
So I go back home now, and people say… go back home. I go
 to England. California's home… I go back to England and
 people say, "But how can you live amongst them,
 Dave?" And I'm like, "No, they're not like
 that, honestly." I think it's incredibly sad that,
 having traveled every state more times than most Americans
 in the last 30 years, I've always been touched by the
 kindness and the tolerance in American people. Like they
 live with all sorts of mixtures in their own communities and
 cultures, and yeah, we have our violent moments, but in the
 main part everybody coexists, everybody gets on pretty well.
 And it's a shame that we end up getting such a terrible
 reputation internationally, and I don't think it reflects
 the kindness of the American people, really. 
 
So I got the feeling that with Barack Obama as the
 president, America would start to be respected for the good
 things that it had done, and we'd be able to be a light,
 not a hammer. You get a reputation to be the inspiration of
 the world, and not just the bogeyman. Should be ashamed, you
 know. I was thinking about it last week, and it's like,
 most of the world looks up to America, so it's a shame
 that we keep spitting in their eye. We're better than
 that. I think Barack Obama would give us a better face
 internationally. He could show that we'd crossed a line in
 our own evolution, that people would feel much more secure
 with us around, the rest of the world.
 
SB: He's got heart.
 
DW: He certainly does, and I mean, he's got heart and he
 was the editor of the Harvard Review which meant he was the
 best lawyer at Harvard that year, so he's pretty smart,
 too. It's a nice combination.
 
 
SUGAR AND STRESS, FLIP EVERY PENNY AT LEAST TWICE
 
Going on the second 40 minutes of chatting with Dave
 Wakeling, a brief interlude interjected itself into the
 proceedings as a bikini-and-cape-clad buxom lass jetted
 across the football pitch (soccer field for the Yanks)
 during a US Soccer Team match on the muted TV.
 
Dave Wakeling: Oh, now that's better. They usually have
 naked guys running across the soccer field, but that's a
 lot better.
 
Steve Bringe: That's a vision.
 
DW: Now he's going to tackle her.
 
SB: I think that guy just found a date, didn't he?
 
DW: Yeah. So he's looking, he starts looking... no, I'm
 not looking. That's so great. Good girl. Now who won,
 though?
 
SB: Who cares?
 
DW: Oh, come on, it's America and a football. What kind
 of patriot are you?
 
SB: I'm looking at the girl, man.
 
DW: Oh, yeah. Right. Who are these guys running around?
 
What's the point of all that? The dichotomy, my friend.
 Dave Wakeling is a serious man, and Dave Wakeling is a
 naughty, filthy schoolboy. Using one of his favorite
 metaphors, it's two sides of the same penny. As the
 conversation with Dave drove on, it became increasingly
 apparent that he operated on many universal echelons
 simultaneously, that he could switch from talking on the
 beauty of musical inspiration to the innate ugliness of a
 divisive world culture just as quickly as you could flip
 said penny, not knowing which face would land upwards in his
 somehow racing but cohesive mind.
 
Let's start off this segment with a tale of Madness.
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
We'll Start at Victoria Gardens and End with a Rendez
 View
 
 
SB: Okay, next one here. I just need to put this one in
 here somewhere…
 
DW: Sure.
 
SB: 1983, there's this song called "Victoria
 Gardens" (on the Madness album Keep Moving)…
 
DW: Oh yeah.
 
SB: …and you guys came in there and lent your vocals. How
 did that come about?
 
DW: It was one of those nice accidents, that [Madness]
 happened to be recording in London at the same time as we
 were. And so, it was like, oh, we got this song, and
 somebody said, "Oh, it would sound great with those
 boys from the Beat on it, wouldn't it? Would you like to
 come down?" And so we did. It didn't take very long.
 I wish it'd took longer, as it was great fun.
 
I'd known Clive Langer before I was in a group, and
 before he'd started producing Madness. He was involved
 with a group from Liverpool, whose name bloody escapes me.
 But now if you're a Madness historian, you'll…
 
SB: Maybe the Boxes? Was that it? Or was that afterwards?
 
DW: No, it was a rock band out of Liverpool that he was
 connected to. And a friend of mine in Birmingham, Paul, used
 to work for him, so I'd met him. And so it was nice to see
 [Clive], and it was an honor, really, to be on a Madness
 song, because they really had the three minute pop single
 down, didn't they?
 
SB: Sure.
 
DW: Sometimes, coming from Birmingham, we didn't really
 understand what they were on about 'cause they're from
 London, so it all seemed like rhyming slang. It's like,
 "What's he on about? What's he on about? Well, it
 probably means something in London."
 
SB: Oh, that's just Lee Thompson. He's got bizarre
 lyrics. 
 
DW: Yeah.
 
SB: Alright, thanks. Let's see. Your current tour has you
 trekking from North Carolina, to Florida, to Texas, to New
 Mexico, and back to California. How does this compare to
 when you started out with 2 Tone? How does the touring
 compare to that now?
 
DW: Well, most of the time I'm sober enough to remember
 it nowadays. I don't remember much of the other one. So
 that would be a direct comparison there.
 
It doesn't have the furore of like when you have an album
 in the charts. But then, you got a lot of people at concert
 in those days that were there because their school friends
 were there. You buy the albums because the other kids in the
 class are buying the album. 
 
Now, we play to people who have either been listening to
 the music for 25 years, and say the sweetest things before
 and after the shows about how much it means to them, how
 you've been a part of the soundtrack of their lives. Which
 is very touching, because there's a lot of exciting things
 about the pop trade, you know, there's a lot of benefits
 and bonuses: The fame, the money, the women, the fast cars,
 all of the usual clichéd things. But to have somebody say,
 "Your music has helped me through my life for the last
 25 years," is priceless, really. A bit like that Visa
 card advert, it's priceless, you can't buy that. 
 
And so because of that it actually means more than all the
 rest of it put together, really. Yeah, it's kind of an
 honor, you realize then, to be invited into somebody's
 life. They've used your lyrics and your songs to help them
 in certain situations. Were they depressed in college and
 thinking of killing themselves? Were they getting married
 and a little scared? Were they getting through a divorce and
 getting even more scared? Were they having a baby? All these
 things and the different songs they've used, and the
 lyrics they've told me that have helped them along the
 way. How fantastic is that?
 
SB: Yeah, I won't bother you with mine.
 
DW: Yeah, it's okay, go ahead…
 
SB: Yeah, you're part of the soundtrack.
 
DW: Well, it's my honor and my pleasure.
 
SB: It's my honor and pleasure to actually have had your
 music around all those years.
 
DW: Great.
 
SB: Your Teardrop Vox, it's in the Rock and Roll Hall of
 Fame now.
 
DW: How spooky is that? It's a bit like not doing your
 homework and still acing the quiz, you know. Because I'm
 not a shredder, I've never done a guitar solo in my life.
 But it was really a thrill to be asked. It was hard to give
 it up because I'd played that particular guitar every gig
 for 27 years straight. Maybe I'd missed one when it was
 being repaired or something, but whilst it was available and
 in action I used it every gig. And so it was a tearful
 parting that morning, and I played it for the last time and
 had a little cry. I polished the guitar with the tears, put
 it in the box and took it to the Hall of Fame.
 
Now it's sitting in between Kurt Cobain's guitar and
 Sterling Morrison's from the Velvet Underground, and the
 guy that runs the Hall of Fame did an interview with me in
 Ann Arbor, Michigan in the 80's where I'd told him what
 a big Velvet Underground fan I was, and so he put my guitar
 next to my hero from the Velvet Underground.
 
SB: How cool is that?
 
DW: Very cool.
 
SB: You miss her now, huh? You miss her.
 
DW: I went back to see her three weeks ago, in Cleveland we
 played, and I looked, and then I walked away. And then I had
 to go have another look. And then I found myself saying
 goodbye a couple times. And then I found myself tearing up a
 little bit. And then I found myself with one of the people
 who run the place looking at me like I was about to do
 something weird, so I had to get out of there quick.
 
SB: Years I saw you playing that thing.
 
DW: I've got some copies of it now. A fellow called Jack
 Charles who used to be the guitarist in Quarterflash bought
 the rights to those Teardrop guitars and makes the most
 perfect… I wouldn't say copies, because they're as
 good as, and in fact in some ways they're better, better
 finished… so I've got a direct rendition of the Brian
 Jones version of it, and a slightly more rocking version
 with a whammy bar and three pickups, and I might get a
 semi-acoustic one soon. But he makes great guitars, you
 should check him out. Phantom Guitars. 
 
The only thing I would say about those guitars is they're
 bloody useless for playing on your knee sitting down. It
 just falls off your knee all the time. If I'd have known.
 
SB: Your songwriting often harkens back to recurring themes
 like isolation and greed. Infidelity is another such theme
 with early hits like "I Confess" to your solo work
 of "One + One + One." What is it about cheating
 lovers that has you lyrically revisiting the topic, and do
 certain aspects of humanity interest you more than others?
 
DW: I suppose so. You try to think with your head, it just
 depends which one sometimes.
 
Interestingly, "I Confess" and "One + One +
 One" are from different sides of the same penny. So one
 would be the cheater and the other one would be cheated on.
 I actually think that human beings are polyamorous. I
 don't necessarily believe that monogamy is a natural
 state, and I think often people get caught between being
 faithful to an idea or another person, or being faithful to
 their own heart. And I think that can get you into troubled
 waters sometimes. Turbulent waters at least. 
 
Luckily, I'm not so driven by it nowadays. I have a
 chance to take a deep breath and remember that sadly it's
 easier to get into a woman than it is than to get out of
 one.
 
SB: Like Madness, you've dedicated your time and talent
 in support of organizations like Greenpeace and the Campaign
 for Nuclear Disarmament. What do you think is the greatest
 concern to our planet?
 
DW: I would say global warming is because it's going to
 have a lot of repercussions with everything else. You can
 wonder about population and overpopulation and resources and
 that, but with a good dose of the effects of climate change
 coming out of global warming, then whatever resources we do
 have are going to be stretched even further. And we may end
 up having to spend so much money on emergency fixes for the
 effects of global warming that we may not ever get ahead of
 the game enough to build an infrastructure that could
 perhaps curtail some of the gases we're pumping out and
 have some sort of remedial effect.
 
So I would say that that's probably the worst of it. Mind
 you, you never know when someone's going to loose off a
 nuclear bomb, really. That's always in the back of my
 mind. I'm just glad now, as I'm sure most Americans are,
 that we gave Pakistan a nuclear bomb. Good one! Nice move! 
 
SB: Yeah, right.
 
DW: That taught those Indians a lesson, eh?
 
SB: We'll see how long Kashmir lasts, huh?
 
DW: I know. That is a shame, isn't it? I don't know,
 that's why I think somebody like dear Obama could help
 out. I think he says more clearly than a lot of other
 politicians that we're all in the same boat here, and that
 we have to learn to compromise and get on with each other.
 This divided America and divided world is not responsible
 for our children. It's not good enough. It's not good
 enough to be squabbling and then leaving them with the pile
 rubbish to sort out. I think we have a greater
 responsibility, we've got to get this straight. We can't
keep acting like it's the 19th or the 20th century. It
 clearly is the 21st century.
 
And those divisions between all sorts of religious
 extremists. You could say anything fundamentalist tends to
 be fundamentality cruel in the end. Whether it's Muslim,
 Zionists, Christians, it's the same bloody God. It's
 well meant to be. Poor old God would be rolling in His grave
 if He was dead.
 
SB: Well, there's the quote I'm putting up. There's
 the quote I'm taking.
 
DW: Yeah, that's right.
 
SB: Speaking of your social awareness, you continue to
 include props for The Smile Train. What attracted you to
 this organization? (During the playing of
 "Tenderness" at English Beat concerts, Dave
 invites the audience to throw paper money on the stage in
 support of The Smile Train).
 
DW: I saw it by accident, really, just cruising on the
 internet. And I thought it was a nice name, "Smile
 Train." You can ask the blokes in Madness, because
 "the happy train" in England means that
 somebody's gone a bit crazy. Ah, he's on the happy
 train.
 
So I thought it was something to do with that and then I
 looked and it's this charity that fixes kids with cleft
 palates around the world, using local surgeons, training
 people, at 250 bucks. And I just thought that was
 revolutionary, at a time when the world seems ever more
 divided and arguing along political and religious lines, I
 thought, "Well, I bet there isn't anybody in the
 world who wouldn't think it was worth 250 bucks to fix a
 kid's face forever." 
 
You know, some of these kids are really looked down upon in
 their societies. Can't come out of their house, they're
 bad luck, and all of this. So at 250 bucks, give a kid a
 chance to speak, eat, drink, go to school, lead a normal
 life. And from a music business perspective, I mean, 250
 bucks is a sushi lunch for a few record company guys, and
 you don't even eat the wiggly bits.
 
So, I thought, "What a great thing that would be to be
 involved in." It seems to me that I'd done a lot of
 work with Greenpeace, Heal The Bay, nuclear disarmament
 issues, but the world seems so tight and fractured and
 divided now that as soon as you mention that you just get
 into an argument. 
 
And so, seeing Smile Train, I thought, "Wow!"
 This could be something where I could get involved, it's a
 human-based charity, and people would be able to contribute.
 And after they've done it, they'd realize a number of
 things; one, we can all make quite a profound difference if
 we all move at the same time, in the same direction. Most
 nights, during the song "Tenderness", at least one
 and sometimes up to six kids get a new face in five minutes.
 And the audience remembers that after the show. "Wow!
 Well, we did make a big difference." And they remember,
 "Oh, so what, you mean we're all one?" It's
 like, Ha! Gotcha!
 
SB: That actually leads into the next question, with
 another Madness tie-in. You guys helped out on the
 "Starvation" single (in 1985, Dave and members of
 UB40, the Pioneers, and the Specials, amongst others,
 performed on this charity single for African famine relief,
 a collaboration organized by Madness and released on
 Madness' Zarjazz label). From famine to facial
 disfigurement, do you think the industrialized world, well,
 actually kind of ignores the developing world at times?
 
DW: Yes, we either ignore them or abuse them, don't we?
 Now we're sending them the worst of the factory jobs and
 having their kids do it for us. You know, so, it's never
 been too kind.
 
I think it's becoming more and more obvious, now that all
 the kids are on the internet, all the grown-ups now have
 flown a few places around the world, the world isn't such
 a huge place any more, and I think knowledge is becoming
 more easily shared. I think slowly but surely we're all
 starting to realize we're in the same boat, but whether
 we'll do it in time, I don't know. There's that
 balance of fear. You know, fear is a very powerful thing,
 and it can make people do more or less anything.
 
SB: So is hope.
 
DW: Yes, they're two sides of the same penny, really. And
 although I understand Barack [Obama]'s vision of hope...
 I've been in touch with their campaign since May of last
year and went to visit them in Chicago and offered my
 support and that… but I also have some fairly harsh things
 to say about hope. And [Obama's] actually sort of
 addressed it in his speeches, that it's not just
 pie-in-the-sky or in the future.
 
But in Buddhist terms fear and hope are more or less the
 same thing. It just puts you into the future, so that
 you're either excited with fear or excited with hope. But
 unfortunately the only thing that happens when you move into
 the future is it takes you out of the moment, and the moment
 is the only place you can ever make complete change. So,
 hope and fear, it's just like regret and sweet memories,
 it's either the future or the past, but change only ever
 happens in the moment.
 
And [Obama's] kind of addressed that now, that it's not
 just pie-in-the-sky hope, but it's hope plus action… we
 hope.
 
SB: You might want to forget about this, but a few years
 ago… Greg Proops… Rendez View… (Rendez View was an
 American TV dating show hosted by comedian Greg Proops and
 featuring guest "judges." Dave sat in on the panel
 during one episode)
 
DW: Oh, god… good god…
 
SB: Yeah. What was that about?
 
DW: Well, I had a manager at the time who felt that I was
 of… that I could do my celebrity a world of good by
 sitting in on various TV shows and getting my face about
 that way, because I'd always got plenty to say. So I did
 Rendez View and I did another talk show as well about
 relationships, based on those men are from Mars, women are
 from Venus… [some] famous actress that was the star of the
 show. So I did a few actually, I did a few of them. 
 
I don't think Rendez View ended up as bad as it could
 have done, really. There's something about that kind of
 reality-style TV that's a bit vicarious, isn't it?
 Laughing at other people for doing exactly the same as
 you'd do, so it's a bit superior sometimes. But they
 also said how fantastic I was and would phone me back and
 they never did, so that was the end of my job as a TV
 pundit.
 
SB: I got that on tape somewhere.
 
DW: Do you? Thanks a lot.
 
SB: It'll find its way up on Youtube one of these days.
 
DW: Yeah, I bless you for that.
 
 
HERE WE GO BATHING IN THE RED LIGHT
 
In the wrong hands, charm is a frightful thing.
 Broadcasting a Chicklet-tooth grin into blue-haired
 checkbooks every Sunday morning, the successful
 televangelist exploits charm like a dingo exploits a
 doggy-door to the maternity ward. Strip away the Aquanet
 helmet, immaculate threads, and Nutrasweet persona, and so
 often all you have left is a putrid excuse for a stump not
 even worth lifting an untied boot to rest upon.
 
I've met my fair share of popstars, quite often folks
 I've gone through the rigors of adolescent hero worship
 with, and it's utterly heartbreaking when you see the
 singer doing lines of blow backstage in front of his
 then-teenage son or the bass player asking a roadie if there
 is any way he could get a quick fake I.D. for the nubile
 underage vixen he's lured back to the tour bus. In the
 wrong hands, charm is not only frightful, it's downright
 disgusting.
 
It might be cynical, but it's so much easier living by
 the adage, "With no expectations there are no
 disappointments." It's with this mindset that I go
 into interviews and reviews, and more often than not the
 musician turns out entirely personable. With Dave Wakeling,
 though, your first impression is just how charming he is. Uh
 oh. Better watch this guy closely.
 
Any trepidation you might have with Dave would be entirely
 misplaced. The charm is used for good, not evil. Engaging
 and charismatic, comfortable and caring, this is Dave
 Wakeling. The secondary impression is immediate: This guy is
 genuine. This guy is just plain likable. You are put so much
 at ease by his effortless banter that by the time you check
 your watch, a good hour and a half has evaporated and you
 suddenly feel like you've imposed far too long… which he
 dispels quickly enough by treating you to yet another
 anecdote and observation.
 
My son, Scott, was sitting in on the interview with us.
 Scott's usual stance with rock stars is a quiet
 distancing, taking on a third person approach to the entire
 escapade. You should have seen him this past week mustering
 up the courage to talk with Sam Endicott of The Bravery.
 With Dave, though, he was so comfortable he chimed in and
 asked if he could throw a question in the lot. Coach Dave
 was in attendance (read on for this bit), and Scott was
 completely at ease when he asked his question of Dave.
 
Scott Bringe: You play in front of big crowds, right? Did
 you ever, like, forget some lyrics or something?
 
Dave Wakeling: Yes. It's terrifying. It's about the
 most terrifying thing that can ever happen to you on stage.
 Sometimes you just draw a complete blank. Especially if
 something really great's happening in the song, then you
 forget, like, "Are we on the second verse or the third
 verse?" And the moment that indecision starts, then you
 can't remember any of it anyway.
 
So usually then I run to the bass player and say,
 "Wayne! What's the first line?" Sometimes he can
 remember, but sometimes me just interrupting with that
 question, now he's in the same state of panic and he
 can't… "I don't know! I don't know! Oh my
 god!" So I make the saxophone player keep playing and
 I'm like, "Come on, come on, come on, come
 on…" If it won't come then I'll just sing one of
 the verses that I can remember. 
 
Or then sometimes, if I'm feeling very brave, I'm like,
 "You know it's in there. Just go for it." And
 you get to the mike and I don't know, "bah nah
 nah…" And it comes out of your mouth, and wow! It was
 there!
 
It's the scariest thing, that is. Because all of a sudden
 all the sound disappears. It goes silent, you start sweating
 behind your ears, and you swear that everybody in the crowd
 is looking just at you going, "I think he's forgotten
 the lyrics. Yes, I bet he's forgotten the lyrics."
 Uh! I can't breathe! I can't think about it!
 
Steve Bringe: You should have heard Suggs a [short] while
 back. He totally botched some lyrics [in concert]…
 
DW: Really? Well, they got a lot of words in them songs and
 a lot of different people writing them. In the main part,
 I'm lucky because at least those lyrics came out of the
 mud of my subconscious. So I only have to go sifting through
 and they'll be there, apart from the cover versions.
 
You'd like Dave. Honestly. My kid did, and he's a tough
 sell. Anyhow, back to the grown-up talk, and quite grown-up
 it got, speaking on lyrics and lyrically speaking. There's
 no need to save it for later. Or shave it. Whatever and what
 have you.
 
_________________________________________________ 
Stay tuned for part Two next week!