KATRINA & THE WAVES DOING SWIMMINGLY

KATRINA & THE WAVES DOING SWIMMINGLY

FEATURES

by

Iman Lababedi

One of the real pleasures in chronicling the popular music business is in watching the heady excess of overnight stardom. For instance, in the Christmas of 1983 I spent a day with a pleasant young singer, driving down to New Jersey with her for a spot on the Uncle Floyd Show, discussing feminism, lesbianism, rebellion. A thoroughly enjoyable time. The young singer was Cyndi Lauper.

I’ll admit to arriving to Katrina & The Waves late, hearing “Walking On Sunshine” on the radio— along with, rather than ahead of, the pack. That allowed, I caught on quickly.

Sitting with Katrina & The Waves at Capitol-EMI Records HQ in Manhattan, I feel that usual vicarious thrill. Perhaps more so than the main participants. “The most exciting thing for me was that first day; getting a call telling me ‘Walking On Sunshine’ was at number 82 in the American charts,” lead singer and rhythm guitarist Katrina Leskanich recollects. “I phoned all my relatives and told them. But now, now comes the hard work.

“We won’t see any money until it’s sold 140,000 copies!”

But Katrina’s overnight success hardly happened overnight. She was born in Kansas, moving to Europe when her father—a captain in the Air Force—was transferred. After several years of flitting hither and thither, she settled in a base in England.

“I want to show that a woman can be herself on the level she chooses to work in."

It was there, at choir practice, Katrina met Vince de la Cruz. Vince’s father taught Spanish to the people stationed at the base, and Vince spent his time listening to Metal/Art monstrosities like Rush. In fact, it was due to his love of that type of band that the earliest version of Katrina & The Waves was formed. The local English cover bands playing around American bases were not attuned to the hip easy-listening the younger generation were “grooving” to.

Oddly, none of that early influence is discernible in Katrina & The Waves’ music today. “Punk passed me by at that time,” admits bass player, sometime songwriter Vince. “It was a very closed community.”

“I wasn’t a big fan of pop music at all,” adds Katrina, “it was Kimberley Rew— who has a fantastic record collection— who turned me on to all that.”

Which leads us to the English half of the band. Lead guitarist/main songwriter Kimberley Rew and drummer Alex Cooper met at Cambridge University; in its own way, as closed a community as the Air Force base. “I got into punk on a musical level rather than political; all that stuff meant nothing to me. I mean, I vote Labour and everything but it doesn’t interest me.” Kimberley formed a group called the Waves with Alex and left to join the Soft Boys. The Soft Boys were the late ’70s’ ultimate cult band: quasi-psychedelia with a nudge in the direction of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd. “But it was really Robyn Hitchcock’s business; it was his songs we were playing. I went through that pop star bit—drugs and groupies, it wasn’t much fun.”

When the Soft Boys broke up, Kimberley got in touch with Alex, who’d remained with the Waves. They cut a single—“Hey! War Pig”—and became friends with Vince and Katrina; Vince and Katrina could get the Waves gigs, so they joined the band. It was “a little disconcerting, moving from the Soft Boys to playing covers in an Air Force bases. But nearly from the start we’d be throwing in my originals.”

That’s right: Kimberley Rew had grown into a first-rate songwriter, albeit a very different one to his mentor, Robyn. Kimberley could spin a yarn with hooks aplenty, a touch of the ’60s, and, of course, Katrina Leskanich’s voice.

“It was listening to Kimberley’s collection that I began to realize what I could sound like. The first time I heard Aretha Franklin...it changed me!” Leskanich began to rehearse in earnest, developing her dusky, throaty voice; a noise that undercuts its histrionic Joplinesque excess through a directness and honesty that is purely uplifting. Particularly on Rew’s Top 10 hit “Walking On Sunshine.”

TURN TO PAGE 61

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

Katrina & The Waves recorded two albums for a small English indie, which were available only on Canadian import here. The cream of the crop was re-mixed by the great Scott Litt (who worked on the dB’s repercussion) after Katrina & The Waves signed to Capitol-EMI.

The eponymously named album is delightful, with Vince de la Cruz’s “Mexico” and especially “Do You Want Crying?” no less exulted then Rew’s superb—shoulda been a contender for the Bangles—“Going Down To Liverpool” and Hard Times’ “Red Wine And Whisky.”

‘“Do You Want Crying’ was Vince’s first song,” explains Katrina. “He played it with just acoustic guitar onto a tape recorder; then he was so nervous he ran away for three weeks. The first time I heard it, I had goose bumps.

“The difference between Kim and Vince is that Kim writes primarily personal stuff for himself and I’m a secondary consideration. Vince writes for me.”

There does seem to be some antagonism between the two halves of the band. Kimberley calls the relationship “professional. We don’t really pal around out of work.” Perhaps Katrina & The Waves’ originality comes from this antipathy and privacy. They live near each other in tiny villages in rural England. I have a copy of The Face with me and Katrina claims to have never heard of it before. None of them hang out at nightclubs or do drugs—they don’t even listen to modern pop music. If Katrina were smug or self-righteous, you’d swear she was a born-again Christian.

As is, she proudly points to the fact that she refuses to exploit herself onstage. “I wouldn’t embarrass my parents. I want to show that a woman can be herself on the level she chooses to work in.” A sweet, if slightly sheltered girl. Some of which will rub off after the current tour, headlining and supporting former Eagle Don Henley. A pleasant young pop group, if rather dry copy.

Oh well, at ieast Vince and Katrina are CREEM fans. “I love the way you insult all those bands,” sez Katrina. “I bet that’s what you’re going to do to us, rip us apart.” No I’m not, you know. Great pop music is a thrill and a buzz and at their best Katrina & The Waves are great pop musicians. “All right then, when are we going to have our photographs taken with Boy Howdy beer?” Pretty soon, that’s my guess.