John Waite performs Friday, Aug. 5, 2011, at Brixton South Bay. (Gery Gittelson/Special to the Daily News)
REDONDO BEACH — The British rock star is going to be 60 years old next summer, having enjoyed success beyond his wildest dreams through the years — scoring No. 1 singles, playing arena tours, being a member of Ringo Starr's All-Star band — yet it has taken until now for John Waite to finally find some real peace.
It's late Friday, and he is sitting backstage after a sold-out club show at Brixton South Bay, sweaty and comtemplative, and for the first time in a career that has spanned four decades, first with the Babys, then as a solo artist, then with Bad English, then back to being solo — Waite is doing things exactly as he wants.
They say artists live by different rules, and John Waite has never liked to compromise, even back when he was on MTV every day and remembers cashing royalty checks for as much as $500,000.
"This band, this tour, this is the way I probably envisioned things when I was 17," Waite said. "No keys, guitar-driven. Kind of country and blues and English rock, but more sophisticated. I guess I've finally returned to what I really love."
Waite has always had a unique, special voice — the kind of voice that makes girls' hearts melt and guys' fingers reach for the rewind button — and when he is at his best, Waite is among rock's most compelling figures, a gifted songwriter and a terrific performer, helped along by a rock-star image in the vein of Rod Stewart.
At Brixton, Waite treated everyone to a set focused heavily on material from his beloved stint with the Babys, including "Back on My Feet Again," "Isn't it Time," "Head First," "Midnight Rendezvous" and "Everytime I Think of You," in addition to selections from his early solo success like the No. 1 "Missing You" and "Change."
He also performed several songs from his new CD, "Rough & Tumble," but Waite did not choose anything from his former band, Bad English, notably "When I See You Smile," a former No. 1 single that took some guts not to include in his concert set.
Bad English, featuring current Journey members Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon and current Styx member Ricky Phillips, was a successful though short-lived "supergroup," and Waite left in 1991 after three unhappy years.
"That band was like a cartoon," he said. "The moment you stop becoming an artist, you kind of trade it all in. But I wish all of those guys the best."
Things have scaled down considerably since the July day in 1980 when Waite performed with the Babys in front of 90,000 at a rock festival at the L.A. Coliseum with Cheap Trick and others. On Friday, he was more about sincerity than stardom — admitting that for all his chart success and huge concert tours through the years, he is "not a millionaire" and has to work for a living just like the rest of us — yet even though it's 2011, there were still trays of liquor shots being passed around, plus a line of groupies waiting at the backstage door and even a member of Kiss who wanted to pop in and say hello.
On this night, Waite was perfectly happy to spend an hour talking to a rock journalist with whom he'd done many interviews over the years. The former Grammy nominee was an honest as he could be.
"I don't even have any of my gold records on my walls at home. They're all in storage," Waite said of his Santa Monica condominium. "The only thing about rock 'n' roll in my house is a couple of paintings of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan — and they were expensive, too."
He once wrote a great song with the Babys entitled "Jesus, Are You There?" But today, Waite admitted he was never religious and the song was more about cynicism than Catholicism.
Most important of all, John Waite has no problem staying in Motel 6's instead of mansions. He just returned from a European tour, and he plans to keep playing forever. Yes, Waite has had his ups and downs, but when he looks back now, his regrets have less to do with music than real life — He's been divorced for a long time and is sad that he has never had a chance to experience being a father. But the bottom line is Waite is still more successful than 99.9 percent of those who've ever signed a major record contract.
That's worth celebrating on any night of the year.
He has sung a lot of special songs that have a lot of special meaning for a lot of people, and no one can ever take that away from John Waite. And the one thing he knows for sure is he is going to keep on keeping on, but on his own terms.
"I guess the whole point now is there is no gloss," he said.
