EXCERPT FROM A NEW INTERVIEW COMING IN JAN 2007

Here is an excerpt from a great interview coming in January 2007, from our dear friend Nathalie Baret.

This is a very elequent interview with John. You are going to enjoy it. I will have more info on it as the date closes in. Thanks--Crissy


How did you and Alison Krauss hook up for the duet on “Missing You” and whose idea was that?

“I’ve been sort of spending a lot of time in Nashville for the last 12 years and recording and writing down there. And a lot of my roots are in acoustic music: folk, blues and country. The British era was very close to country. I’ve always admired enormously the sentiment and poetry in country music. Hank Williams is up there with Jimi Hendrix to me. So it was a natural extension just to work there, and my manager Linda and I had been talking about doing a duet for the last three years. I personally had been trying to do a duet maybe for the last 15 years. But it just hadn’t come about. And she said ‘who’s your favorite singer’ and I said Alison Krauss. She made that phone call and Alison said yes.”

How did the recording session go – what was that like?

“It was wonderful. And Alison is exactly how you think she would be. She couldn’t be a sweeter person, funny and generous. She’s a hoot. And she’s very, very dry. She’ll say something and it takes about three seconds to sit in. We’ve been pretty good friends ever since the duet.”

Musically, with all the different genres out there, what are you sticking with on this album -- what musical approach is working for you?

“Well I think it’s the sound of the band as it is now, which is probably more live sounding. But some of it has been finessed. When I got to New York I thought that the tracks I cut in New York would be completely over-the-top ‘live’ New York tracks. And we did this song called “St. Patrick’s Day” which is probably the most produced thing I’ve done in maybe 20 years. So you just can’t tell. The songs kind of show you what they want. The songs tell you like children. They just say ‘I want this’ and if you don’t do it in a certain way, it kind of falls apart you know.”

So what kind of flavor is it?
“Well it’s John Waite, whatever that is. It’s the eternal question of am I rock n’ roll, am I a ballad singer, am I country, and I a blues singer. I’m still working on it. It’s a very broad record. It’s got some tracks from the “Hard Way” album that were hits, so in my abstract way, it’s a greatest hits record but there’s also new songs on it, plus the duet.”

What’s your take on ‘today’s music?’

“I feel that music today seems to have lost its base. A lot of bands you hear nowadays, you can’t really tell where they’re coming from. It’s so modern or rather so ephemeral. It’s just for now. It’s just to get in the charts. Where as 10 years ago, at least you could hear some blues, country or jazz in the music. You know there was a certain kind of music. Look at Dylan. Dylan’s influences are protestant hymns, blues and country – and you can hear that. I just don’t understand how bands can suddenly take on a fashion for a year and then become something else. You turn on MTV or VH1 and you just kind of ask yourself ‘What happened. How did we lose the thread like that.’ If you watch like American Idol, I mean ‘how the hell did we get to that.’ And, that’s why I like Nashville. Everything has stayed pretty classical there even though it’s gone pop. If you go looking for some really great songwriting, there are people down there that have that key.”

Any talk of a reunion to get back with your former groups?

“No, I just wouldn’t do it. When the Baby’s finished, that was it for me. I couldn’t have given anymore to it. And with Bad English, there was no reason to stay. I went back to writing more acoustic music after that. At least it showed me a new way. But we tried very hard and a lot of it was great fun. Some of it wasn’t, like it always is with bands. And I can’t personalize winning and losing because it’s just a way of life. But I’m glad I went through that because it brought me to a place where I made different music. But with Bad English, I can’t see a reason to do it. And when we got off that tour we kind of looked at each other like ‘what are we doing. The Journey guys are the Journey guys’ and god bless them but I’m going somewhere else.”

How was the experience playing with Ringo Starr, playing with such a legend.

“It was unbelievable. Half the time it was a surreal. You know you’d be looking at him and thinking ‘Jesus Christ, that’s Ringo!’ And he’d be asking you something like where the men’s room were. And you would just burst out laughing because he’s a very natural, down to earth guy.”

More To Come