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The incarnation of The English Beat playing at the 9:30 Club on Saturday isn't exactly the same as the two-tone ska pioneers of the late '70s. Lead singer and founding member Dave Wakeling has an interesting situation going on with his former bandmates.
After a 20-year hiatus, The English Beat reunited for a successful one-off show in 2003. Although the band wanted to reunite for good in 2005, Wakeling ran into difficulties.
"I was living in California with two young kids, while [vocalist] Ranking Roger was still in the U.K.," Wakeling said. "We decided to separate. He is 'The Beat' in the U.K., and we're 'The English Beat' in the U.S. It would be terribly expensive and convoluted for us to get back together full time. [Roger and I] have an agreement to be friends, and if it works out, if he's in the U.S. or I'm in the U.K., we can work together.
"Right now, we have no great plans to work together. We both play songs I wrote, but I think mine are the best, of course."
And while neither band has put out a new studio album since 1982, both are now recording new material - albeit, separately.
"We've been in the studio recording backing tracks," he said. "We're probably going to release a series of two or three seven-track EPs."
After achieving transatlantic success with singles such as "Mirror in the Bathroom" and "Hands Off She's Mine," The Beat broke up and Wakeling formed General Public. The band, which exhibited much more of an '80s-pop sound, released three albums and scored a top-40 hit with "Tenderness."
"Tenderness" has proved to stand the test of time, appearing in Clueless in 1995. Party Ben recently mashed up the song with Rihanna's "Umbrella" to form "Tender Umbrella." Wakeling called the mash-up "fantastic." Party Ben wrote on his website that the best thing about the mash-up was "rediscovering the greatness of 'Tenderness.'"
After General Public broke up, Wakeling worked for Greenpeace between 1990 and 1995, something that had "always been a dream" of his, he said. After living the rock star-daddy lifestyle for a few years, which featured "coaching soccer and pretending to help with math homework," he began to yearn for the road. Wakeling soon began playing shows on weekends near his home in California.
Now, after several years of playing English Beat songs without the official title, Wakeling has reclaimed the band he formed in 1978, and for him, anything goes.
"We play both Beat songs and General Public songs, as well as some new ones," he said.
And as the band grows older and more socially conscious, Wakeling said, he also wants to find ways to give back to the community. The band supports The Smile Train - a charity that provides cleft palate surgery to children in developing nations.
"When I saw this charity, it just struck my heart," he said. "I heard that $250 could pay for one of these surgeries, and I thought, 'My heavens, that's like a sushi lunch in the music business.' So during 'Tenderness,' we ask the crowd to throw money at us on stage. It's a nice visual and most nights we raise $250, sometimes much more. So far we've raised $30,000. It's a cheap and cheerful way of reminding people we can make a difference."
Through the years, Wakeling's songs have taken on a life of their own.
"With the new lineup, I made them play the songs exactly like the record to start," Wakeling said. "Then, I told them they can change it however they like it. A lot of the songs are more soulful now."
But even though the songs are old, Wakeling said they still have relevance.
"People come up to me and tell me how the lyrics are still pertinent," he said. "The second half of this decade is similar to the second half of the '70s. The looks of fear on people's faces, nuclear expansion and the interest in indie records."
And perhaps people have noticed. Wakeling said he's seen a growth in the band's popularity over the past year or so.
"At our shows, there's a lot of people celebrating their college years from the '70s and '80s," he said. "But there's also a lot of current college kids who've become interested with [two-tone revival] bands like The Aggrolites and Westbound Train. We're getting a bigger and bigger audience, and people from 16-60 are dancing together in one crowd."
The English Beat performs at the 9:30 Club in Washington tomorrow night. Kinky and RX Bandits open the show. Doors open at 7:30 and tickets cost $25.
agrro@umd.edu
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