John Waite still writes new music as if he’s a scrappy twenty-something searching for his big break in the music business.
The 73-year-old artist toiled for a year on a new album. He penned lyrics while taking an Uber to a California recording studio, inspired by turbulent times in the country and world. And he woke early to capture vocals in studio with an edge.
“I’m maybe making up for lost time,” he said.
“I wanted to leave something of a testimony,” Waite said. “I really did want to go out with a bang and there is no choice. If you’re in the game of the music business, that’s one thing, and if you’re looking at it like it’s art, that’s quite another, and they really are separate. Very few artists can manage both things.”
Waite applies the same tenacity and ethos to performing live and touring, including when he makes a stop April 25 at Lions Lincoln Theatre in downtown Massillon as the headliner for Canton-based radio station Sunny 101.7’s spring break concert.
Tickets for the Stark County show can be purchased at sunny1017.iheart.com. A limited number of seats are still available.
“I just enjoy making music, but I like taking it out there to people,” Waite said during a recent phone interview from Santa Monica, where he lives. “It matters − it matters in my life. I just spent the last year making a new record, which is like nothing I’ve made before.”
‘I am thinking of disappearing.’
To call Waite a music veteran is an understatement. Breaking onto the scene in the 1970s as the lead singer of the British rock band The Babys, he launched a solo career that caught fire in the 1980s with the hit song “Change” and the Billboard chart topper “Missing You.”
He’s also toured with the legendary Ringo Starr. And he’s worked with acclaimed musicians like Alison Krauss.
A documentary about Waite’s career and personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, “The Hard Way,” was released in 2022 and is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Waite, however, sounded far from content during a 25-minute conversation. Passion brimmed on every subject − songwriting, performing live, his musical past, and future plans.
“But I am thinking of disappearing,” he mused. “I am thinking about buying a one-way ticket somewhere, I certainly am. I’d be insane not to. I think at one point the story is complete. It is really a story, it really is. Your life is your own story and you’re the hero of it, and I think to finish well is like to write the best novel you could ever write or make the best album you could ever make and step away − that’s the secret, really.”
Waite’s new album: ‘The best thing I’ve done in my life.’
Waite plans to release his new album in about six weeks.
“We mastered it last week with Tom Weir, who’s like the best in the business, and it sounds really pretty epic,” he said. “It’s got some acoustic to huge sounding music, but it’s got a twist on it, the whole thing.”
Lyrics explore new depths with reflections and observations on what’s happening in the world.
“I think being 73, the record is almost political,” Waite said. “It’s a departure from just bringing it. There’s a social kind of consciousness to it. I mean, in these times, music does tend to become more intense, and people step away from the spotlight to make records they really feel they have to make, which is what I’ve done, and I’m very proud of it. I think it’s the best thing I’ve done in my life.”
“There’s a lot of things that are out of kilter at the moment, and I’m not going to sing about my relationships,” he said. “This is something else; these are times when everyone has to come out and stand up and say what their point of view is. There’s a song called, ‘Zero’ that goes straight to it, and the other things recognize how difficult life is now.
“… There’s three world wars going on at the moment and humanity seems to be falling apart. I mean, how can you write about, ‘I miss you baby,’ when you’re looking at Armageddon. It’s an existential panic, really. It’s like, ‘What’s going on?'”
Wait also plans to release a live album this year.
Waite still sounds great
Whether it’s heavy metal, pop or another genre, father time and the rigors of constant touring and singing have taken a toll on many a singer.
But live performance proves Waite hasn’t lost the warmth and soulfulness of his voice. The range and versatility are fully intact, too.
Scott Davidson, of Sunny 101.7, said Waite defies time.
“His voice is unmistakable and sounds just like it did through the ’70s and ’80s,” he said.
Davidson has seen Waite in concert in recent years.
“There is one cover in the show that I’ll keep as a surprise,” he said. “It’s a classic that’s not easy to sing, but John nails it.”
Waite drew a near blank when asked for his secret to maintaining his strong singing voice.
“I don’t even warm up, and I still smoke a couple of cigarettes a day,” he said.
Scoring a Billboard smash
Waite climbed the Mount Everest of pop music when he scored the No. 1 spot on Billboard with “Missing You” in 1984.
“It was made up in like 10 minutes, the whole thing,” he said with a sense of bemusement. “I was singing it over somebody else’s chord changes. We had gone into the studio and couldn’t find the original tape we were working on. So, the guy was looking through his tape machine and stopping the tape and playing it and it just came up, this backing track.”
“Every Time I Think of You,” a hit song from his days fronting The Babys, came to mind during the session and provided inspiration.
“And the moment I did that, everything fell in behind it,” he marveled. “It was an avalanche. And when I got to the part in the end of the song in the studio, I sang, ‘I could lie to myself,’ and I didn’t even expect to sing that. It’s almost like a trance when you’re in that kind of depth. You just take your hands off the wheel and go with it. It’s the best stuff.
“It’s a wonderful thing to have written something that’s going to have that effect on people and has had an effect.”
The song is timeless. Young fans cover it on YouTube. And the song was featured in the 2025 Netflix series, “Missing You,” adapted from a novel by Harlan Coben.
“I mean, how crazy is that,” Waite said. “You think this is really good, it couldn’t get any better, and that happens. … I’ve never really taken myself that seriously. I mean, I do, but I look around at the people that I admire and put myself into perspective, but to be given that type of recognition, maybe that helps with the new album, and maybe doing those major tours … maybe that propelled me into this new place.
“But I still can’t believe I’ve had the life that I’ve had. I look at it and go, ‘How did that happen?’ But it happened because I threw myself into it and had my own reasons for doing it.”
The wild ’80s
Waite reached his commercial zenith in the ’80s.
Long before the internet and social media, MTV helped make musical artists like Waite famous seemingly overnight. “Missing You,” a mid-tempo ballad about heartache and disillusionment, was a smash hit.
Waite said it’s apt to describe the era as a cartoon come to life.
“I remember it being one big party,” he said. “It was just the most funny, sexy, musical time, and some wonderful, wonderful bands came out in that period. Golden Earring were like slamming at that point, one of my favorite bands. And David Bowie, U2, Bruce Springsteen, me. It’s like everything was on 10 − eleven didn’t exist.”
“I was living in New York City when I made the first solo album … and all the (MTV) VJs had just moved to town. Nina Blackwood, she (grew up in) Ohio, and we were very good friends.
“The nightlife was insane,” Waite recounted. “You’d go see like Eric Clapton play at the Ritz and Keith Richards got up. I jammed with Pete Townshend in a small club on the west side and Steve Marriott in the same club about a month later.
“I can’t really describe it, but the world was smaller and things were more intense. You couldn’t go to the internet and live an alter life. You were in it and strong friendships were made, I think, because people were excited, because they were having a more personal experience − it was really wonderful.”
Waite said he took the Concorde, a supersonic passenger commercial airplane, to London for a photoshoot with famed photographer David Bailey for the album cover of “No Brakes.”
“Anything seemed possible, and I think with the internet now, everything is possible, but everyone is alone. It’s like the humanity of the day is different now because people are more content in their own lives.”
Waite’s success continued into the late ’80s and early ’90s as the vocalist for the pop rock supergroup Bad English, featuring Journey guitarist Neil Schon. They topped the Billboard charts with the power ballad, “When I See You Smile.”
In an era when Bon Jovi and Def Leppard were prominent on the mainstream music scene, hair bands were the trend. Waite aptly sported the unruliest locks of his career.
“I didn’t expect to keep going,” he said. “I really didn’t. I had made five solo albums, and I was out of gas. I thought, ‘What am I going to do now?’ And I thought I’d make one more album with a band and disappear, and it turned out being in (Bad English) ignited this kind of thing in me to go back to being solo. So it was kind of like a strange time. But that was like being No. 1, selling millions of records, going to Japan − it was a chapter in my life.”
Bucket list Bob
Waite seemed overwhelmed when asked to name a bucket list artist he would love to work with.
He paused. “That’s a lot of people,” he said. “I’m a fan as well.
“If Bob Dylan rung me up and said, ‘John, I have a song, you should sing this one,’ I think I would take that pretty seriously.
“… At the end of the day, there’s Dylan, and there’s everybody else, and the fact he’s still with us and still creating and releasing music, he always gets my attention. I mean, what do you say about Dylan, really?”
Reach Ed at 330-580-8315 and [email protected]. Follow on Instagram at ed_balint
If you go
Who: John Waite in concert, presented by Canton-based radio station Sunny 101.7
When: April 25. Doors open at 6 p.m.
Where: Lions Lincoln Theatre in downtown Massillon, 156 Lincoln Way E
Admission: Tickets can be purchased at https://sunny1017.iheart.com/ through Eventbrite.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cantonrep.com ’
