World Party’s Karl Wallinger: He’s the One (Part 2)

Continued from Part One…

Bill Kopp: I’ve been a fan and follower of World Party ever since the 1986 release of Private Revolution, but the album I return to the most is Egyptology. I saw World Party on that tour. From what I gathered at the time, the entity that supported the release – I don’t even know if it was a record label per se – was The Enclave…

Karl Wallinger: It was a label that was formed out of EMI in New York, by Tom Zutat, the guy who signed Guns N’ Roses. It was his label, but it folded a year, maybe two years, after it started.

BK: Right, and that was very shortly after Egyptology came out, leading to the album getting less of a promotional push, and less distribution, than it otherwise would have. Can you tell me more about that?

KW: It was already starting to unwind, the whole relationship with EMI. A lot of things were going on that I didn’t really know much about; it was between management and the label in England. So we got quietly done in by the stupidity around the place.

That’s what happened. But that’s your life, you know? You have to deal with it; you just get on with it. I was lucky enough to get everything back in the end. And it was mainly because of the way they treated that album. It had some good songs on it; it had “She’s the One” on it. It was a good album, and it shouldn’t have just faded away. But that enabled me to go along and say, “Well, you fucked that up, and I’ve got an album to do, but I don’t want to do it with you. And you haven’t got a say on whether I do it or not, so give me my catalog and scrap the debt. See you later; I’ll walk, and give me control of my catalog.”

I got [the rights to] all my records back after that. Everything that’s bad doesn’t have to have a bad ending. It was actually very fortuitous that they fucked up like that. Because now I own my catalog.

BK: You hold the guitar left-handed – as do I – but you play a guitar that’s strung right-handed…

KW: I play it upside down, but I play it strung right-handed. I didn’t know any difference when I was a kid. I just thought, “I’ll use my right hand to make the shapes, because it’s easier.”

BK: So…you’re right handed?

KW: Yeah. I just flipped it over and started playing it upside down.

BK: Do you think that having the low strings on the bottom affects your overall sound?

KW: Oh, yeah. It’s strange, but I’m sort of into it. And it’s too late now! I can’t just switch over like Jimi Hendrix. I mean, he could play with his feet, couldn’t he? I can’t do anything like that; I just bang out some chords. I’m not really…I just sort of mess about on guitar.

BK: In the cases I’ve read wherein someone suffers a stroke or a similar medical calamity, I’ve often read of the idea that they have to “learn how to do certain things all over again.” After you recovered from your 2001 brain aneurysm, did you find yourself in a situation like that?

KW: Yeah, in some ways. There were things like, where you look when you’re playing the piano. Because I’ve been left with no right-hand vision in both eyes. So it’s a sort of strange, 3-D vision. It’s only from the center to the left.

Looking at the piano, I always used to look at my right hand, and be aware of the shapes it’s making. And it’s weird now because I can’t see it, even though it’s right in front of me. Stuff like that just makes you have to play and play, and get used to it.

The same with guitar: I can’t see my hand on the neck. I can’t see which fret it’s on, so I started playing a lot of jazz! A lot of very, uh, abstract sort of jazz chords. A semitone down. But eventually I got the hang of it, and I don’t really think about it now.

BK: Not counting the Arkeology spiral-bound set in 2012, the last album of new material from World Party was the first issue of Dumbing Up in 2000. What can you tell me about the new album?

KW: Hopefully we’ll be putting a new album out in March [2016]. And it’ll be great to do that. Who knows what it will be like? It’s been fourteen years. So who knows how mad I’m gonna get?

I’m feeling really into being in the studio again; I kind of wanted to wait. After I left Seaview [studio] three or four years ago, I’ve been on the road and playing, or sitting at home playing guitar and not really recording it. So I’m really, really itching to get into the studio again. I’ve got to sort all my stuff out first; I’ve got lots of stuff in storage: [recording] desks and tape recorders and grand pianos and all that stuff.

BK: I saw you in Asheville last year in a trio format: you on guitar and keys, plus a guitarist and fiddle player. [Tour manager] Michael tells me that you’ve recently added back in two players long associated with World Party. How did that come about?

KW: Just on the phone. The idea was to bring Dave Catlin-Birch in on bass, and Chris Sharrock on drums. But then Chris wouldn’t fly, for some unknown reason. His arms were very tired. So he basically bailed.

I called an old friend, Brian McLeod, who’s a very good drummer in L.A. He’s on loads of stuff that you’d have heard; he was in Wire Train. We played together years ago, on the Goodbye Jumbo tour. And it was great.

And then Dave got held up with a visa thing. But we got Brian anyway, and we did a three-piece plus drummer in Napa and San Francisco, and then in San Juan Capistrano we basically did a three-piece gig. Because we weren’t going to do it any more without the bass.

And then I saw a bit of film that a friend of mine shot in San Francisco, with the drummer, and it was really great. And tonight we’re a three-piece again. And then across the middle [of the USA], we’re two pieces. So that’ll be interesting.

BK: By the time you get to Asheville (July 6), what’s it going to be then?

KW: Who knows? We’ll see what happens.

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