Chris Whitten
Platinum Member
I posted this on my instagram account his morning:
It’s 7am on another gloomy, damp and dreary UK morning and Karl Wallinger isn’t here to see it. I always assumed as long as I was here, so Karl would be too.
Karl and I go back to 1981, but had drifted apart over the last 20 years. As it happens we FacetTimed just before Christmas, chatting about old times. I was also trying to persuade him to stop worrying about matching his best songs of the 1990’s and just write a new song every week, from the germ of an idea to finished, mixed. He’d been going over and over 20 years worth of unfinished ideas, unable to finish any of them, arguably as a result of his 2001 aneurysm. We signed off with him promising to send over a newer song so I could record drums on it. I said “sure’, but it never arrived.
I can’t remember how I first met Karl. I was bumming around London, desperately trying to manufacture an in to the legitimate music industry. I know I used to answer ads in the music press and go to auditions for bands. Some of those bands were signed to a label, but many were scuffling about penniless just like me. So I found myself in a band called ‘Invisible Body Club’.
I was fascinated by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Japan, and The Comsat Angels at the time, with their the angular drumming styles. IBC inhabited a similar ‘Goth’ type vibe, although at the time we all just thought of it as ‘indie’ or post punk. Karl was the keyboardist. We financed our own 45, but nothing came of it. We mostly rehearsed and played the odd gig.
I became good friends with Karl. He was renting a fantastic flat on the top floor of a mansion block, just off the main downtown shopping area in London. He’d quite recently finished a long stint as the musical director for the hit West End theatre production of The Rocky Horror Show. He was already writing songs, home recording on a basic 4 or 8 track tape machine. I used to go over and play drums for him. We spent hours together most days. One night a week Karl had a residency at a wine bar. London was so different back then. It was dark and drab, the 80’s had yet to really kick off with Yuppies, city boys in Porsches and the blitz kids. The owner of the bar was obviously a Francophile and wine bars were pretty unique in the UK. A group of us used to go every week, buy a cheap bottle of wine, a block of cheese and listen to Karl play songs from Rocky Horror, or his heroes John Lennon, David Bowie and Lou Reed.
I answered another ad in Melody Maker and found myself in an unsigned but very hip funk band called ‘Out’. We played pubs and clubs and every gig some powerful music executive would be in the audience. We were never quite good enough to land that deal. We had one lead singer and no keyboards, so I asked Karl if he would come along and help us out. He added a lot with background vocals and synth. I didn’t know he could do ‘funk’ but in fact we were both already very into Prince.
At the same time as trying to get a break into pro music I was living a double life in Italy. Another story, but every few months I was flying off to make records with some of Italy’s biggest names.
This work was feeding me and paying my rent in London.
The record company in Rome thought I was cool, and started asking if I could bring a rhythm section of my choice with me. So I got Karl roped into recording a Mia Martini album in 1982. The studio we were working in was in an old castle outside Milan. Karl hated the music, didn’t really like any of the people. I tried to tell him we were making good money, the weather was fantastic, the food was amazing, but I think he was already frustrated he wasn’t the artist and we weren’t recording his record. I remember one magical weekend when we weren’t recording but binge watched the whole of the BBC’s Brideshead Revisited on VHS, drank wine and ate incredible champagne risotto. Simmons drums were the hip thing at the time. I spent a fortune buying a kit, which sounded terrible. I took a picture of Karl at the castle studio playing them.
Karl got a chance to make his own record through a completely unrelated Italian connection. We set up at Trident Studios. He was almost immediately at odds with the two producers the Italian record company had sent over. In the end it was a false start. Then out of the blue he told me he was joining The Waterboys, a completely cool and critically acclaimed band. I was more gutted than pleased. Karl had exited the unknown, unsigned scene we’d been living through and I might be left behind forever. However, about a year later he called me saying The Waterboys urgently needed a drummer and was I interested. We had a couple of rehearsals and the first gig was a charity night at Goldsmith’s College in support of the striking mineworkers. One of the big left versus right schisms that characterised the early 1980’s in Britain. I felt like I was finally on my way, thanks in no small part to Karl.
He and Mike Scott were fast friends. Mike was now hanging out a lot with Karl at his flat, using his gear and skill set to demo songs, Karl helped with ideas, arrangements, production ideas. My high point with The Waterboys was tracking The Whole Of The Moon, a 3 hour session at Amazon Studios in Liverpool. On it’s release the single started selling big and shooting up the pop charts. The Waterboys were invited to appear on Top Of The Pops, which was the most important promotional outlet for any band with a hit single. Mike turned it down. Since that time he’s told some story about conflicting diaries, but I remember sitting on a tour bus while Mike explained The Clash had never done Top Of The Pops etc. In fact I got asked to play drums behind Don Henley on Top Of The Pops to promote ‘Boys Of Summer’. I was interested to meet Henley, also legendary guitarist Danny Kortchmar who was accompanying Don on the show. Mike called me the night before pleading with me not to do it, because it was ‘uncool’.
Anyway, after that WOTM incident Karl and I both agreed our time with The Waterboys was probably coming to an end.
Hanging out at his apartment studio over the years I had probably played on every song from Private Revolution in embryonic form, but I was playing with Julian Cope by then and wasn’t prepared to go back to an unsigned band situation with potentially no prospects. Karl invariably played all the instruments on his recordings, but he had also put together some great musicians, the album was released and was quite successful. Later he started to work on the second album ‘Goodbye Jumbo’. He had rented a large country house on the Woburn Estate. A recording engineer from Paisley Park (Joe Blaney) was being flown in and I was asked to go up for a week and play drums on as many songs as possible. By then (actually before) Karl had become nocturnal. Typically he would emerge about 5pm. Then there would be food preparation, lots of cigarette smoking, glasses of wine, chat. By 1am you might be about to do some work and we might have a backing track in the can by 5am and first light. Not my preferred way to work. I played on the songs, left after a week and when the album finally came out I featured on a single song ‘Ain’t Gonna Come’.
The album was a roaring success. Q Magazine album of the year.
But by now I was working 24/7, five days a week with Paul McCartney. So although on good terms, Karl and I once again drifted apart.
By the 1990’s I had my own high-tech home studio and was writing music for film and tv. I had met my Australian partner and she was anxious to return home. I felt burned out by central London and was stressed out working alone on film scores. So I said why not, a new beginning. I can write film music Down Under or record drums remotely - none of which actually worked out. We emigrated in 2005 and in 2006 Karl called me saying he had been offered an extensive headline tour of North America and would I play drums for him. I wasn’t working much in Australia and I hadn’t played in America since 1992, or played clubs in America since 1987. So I flew back to London. We had a week of rehearsals, but Karl wasn’t that interested in rehearsing. Again, struggling to rehearse by day with his penchant for nocturnal living. I had never played live with World Party and only vaguely knew some of the songs from the first two albums, nothing more recent than that. Luckily guitarist John Turnbull and keyboard player Amanda Kramer had been recent regulars in Karl’s band, so in the absence of the man himself they routined the rest of us and worked on the live arrangements.
Still, the first few shows in Canada and North West USA were chaotic which kind of made me furious. I had never done a bus tour before and couldn’t sleep. Karl and bassist Nathan were up all night, then sleeping all day until the soundcheck. I found it all a bit weird. Anyway, it was a genuinely interesting couple of months, seeing all parts of America again, and back to playing small sweaty clubs.
Then in 2007 Karl called again. He had been invited to support Steely Dan on their tour of Australia and New Zealand. Wow, I was already in Australia and the chance to share a stage with the legends that are Becker and Fagen? Fantastic. Again, the rehearsals, a couple of days in Perth before the first show, were slapdash. The Dan fans, who to be a little unfair were typically baby boomer hi-fi enthusiasts, didn’t get Karl and World Party. Although his songs were finely crafted, Karl still liked the energy and raucous unpredictability of the indie scene.
The end of that tour was the last time I saw Karl in person.
We decided to move back to the UK in 2015. We had decided to move to Somerset. I actually googled Karl to see what he was up to and saw an interview where he was planning to move out of London to The Cotswolds. I thought fantastic, about two hours drive from our place in Somerset, I might actually be able to see him regularly and maybe we can make music together again. But when I got settled I found out Karl had actually moved to Hastings, a rather tortuous drive across country from Somerset. Not even as handy as London. And to be honest I feared sitting around all day twiddling my thumbs, then trying to perform decent sounding drumming in the wee small hours of the morning.
About six months ago I started receiving frantic emails and DMs from Karl asking me to play drums on a new song. I gave him my phone number and said sure, send it over. But nothing ever arrived and I didn’t hear from him again. Then a week before Christmas he started messaging me. I re-sent all my contact details and one day out of the blue he FaceTimed me. We spoke for 2 1/2 hours. We talked about old times. He was full of life. Again he mentioned this new song he wanted me to play on. He tried to boot up his computer so he could play me the song, but couldn’t get into the software as he’d forgotten his password, which was unfortunately Karl post aneurysm.
He said he’d completely lost confidence in his writing. I suggested he just try and write a new song every week, finished, no matter how good or bad, rather than continually reworking music from 10 years ago, trying to match his best output from the early 90’s. But he didn’t seem keen on the idea. Then on Monday night I learned he had passed away.
It doesn’t seem real. I was only saying to some friends a few days ago - live for today as you don’t know what tomorrow might bring. My deepest condolences to Suzi and the family.
It’s 7am on another gloomy, damp and dreary UK morning and Karl Wallinger isn’t here to see it. I always assumed as long as I was here, so Karl would be too.
Karl and I go back to 1981, but had drifted apart over the last 20 years. As it happens we FacetTimed just before Christmas, chatting about old times. I was also trying to persuade him to stop worrying about matching his best songs of the 1990’s and just write a new song every week, from the germ of an idea to finished, mixed. He’d been going over and over 20 years worth of unfinished ideas, unable to finish any of them, arguably as a result of his 2001 aneurysm. We signed off with him promising to send over a newer song so I could record drums on it. I said “sure’, but it never arrived.
I can’t remember how I first met Karl. I was bumming around London, desperately trying to manufacture an in to the legitimate music industry. I know I used to answer ads in the music press and go to auditions for bands. Some of those bands were signed to a label, but many were scuffling about penniless just like me. So I found myself in a band called ‘Invisible Body Club’.
I was fascinated by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Japan, and The Comsat Angels at the time, with their the angular drumming styles. IBC inhabited a similar ‘Goth’ type vibe, although at the time we all just thought of it as ‘indie’ or post punk. Karl was the keyboardist. We financed our own 45, but nothing came of it. We mostly rehearsed and played the odd gig.
I became good friends with Karl. He was renting a fantastic flat on the top floor of a mansion block, just off the main downtown shopping area in London. He’d quite recently finished a long stint as the musical director for the hit West End theatre production of The Rocky Horror Show. He was already writing songs, home recording on a basic 4 or 8 track tape machine. I used to go over and play drums for him. We spent hours together most days. One night a week Karl had a residency at a wine bar. London was so different back then. It was dark and drab, the 80’s had yet to really kick off with Yuppies, city boys in Porsches and the blitz kids. The owner of the bar was obviously a Francophile and wine bars were pretty unique in the UK. A group of us used to go every week, buy a cheap bottle of wine, a block of cheese and listen to Karl play songs from Rocky Horror, or his heroes John Lennon, David Bowie and Lou Reed.
I answered another ad in Melody Maker and found myself in an unsigned but very hip funk band called ‘Out’. We played pubs and clubs and every gig some powerful music executive would be in the audience. We were never quite good enough to land that deal. We had one lead singer and no keyboards, so I asked Karl if he would come along and help us out. He added a lot with background vocals and synth. I didn’t know he could do ‘funk’ but in fact we were both already very into Prince.
At the same time as trying to get a break into pro music I was living a double life in Italy. Another story, but every few months I was flying off to make records with some of Italy’s biggest names.
This work was feeding me and paying my rent in London.
The record company in Rome thought I was cool, and started asking if I could bring a rhythm section of my choice with me. So I got Karl roped into recording a Mia Martini album in 1982. The studio we were working in was in an old castle outside Milan. Karl hated the music, didn’t really like any of the people. I tried to tell him we were making good money, the weather was fantastic, the food was amazing, but I think he was already frustrated he wasn’t the artist and we weren’t recording his record. I remember one magical weekend when we weren’t recording but binge watched the whole of the BBC’s Brideshead Revisited on VHS, drank wine and ate incredible champagne risotto. Simmons drums were the hip thing at the time. I spent a fortune buying a kit, which sounded terrible. I took a picture of Karl at the castle studio playing them.
Karl got a chance to make his own record through a completely unrelated Italian connection. We set up at Trident Studios. He was almost immediately at odds with the two producers the Italian record company had sent over. In the end it was a false start. Then out of the blue he told me he was joining The Waterboys, a completely cool and critically acclaimed band. I was more gutted than pleased. Karl had exited the unknown, unsigned scene we’d been living through and I might be left behind forever. However, about a year later he called me saying The Waterboys urgently needed a drummer and was I interested. We had a couple of rehearsals and the first gig was a charity night at Goldsmith’s College in support of the striking mineworkers. One of the big left versus right schisms that characterised the early 1980’s in Britain. I felt like I was finally on my way, thanks in no small part to Karl.
He and Mike Scott were fast friends. Mike was now hanging out a lot with Karl at his flat, using his gear and skill set to demo songs, Karl helped with ideas, arrangements, production ideas. My high point with The Waterboys was tracking The Whole Of The Moon, a 3 hour session at Amazon Studios in Liverpool. On it’s release the single started selling big and shooting up the pop charts. The Waterboys were invited to appear on Top Of The Pops, which was the most important promotional outlet for any band with a hit single. Mike turned it down. Since that time he’s told some story about conflicting diaries, but I remember sitting on a tour bus while Mike explained The Clash had never done Top Of The Pops etc. In fact I got asked to play drums behind Don Henley on Top Of The Pops to promote ‘Boys Of Summer’. I was interested to meet Henley, also legendary guitarist Danny Kortchmar who was accompanying Don on the show. Mike called me the night before pleading with me not to do it, because it was ‘uncool’.
Anyway, after that WOTM incident Karl and I both agreed our time with The Waterboys was probably coming to an end.
Hanging out at his apartment studio over the years I had probably played on every song from Private Revolution in embryonic form, but I was playing with Julian Cope by then and wasn’t prepared to go back to an unsigned band situation with potentially no prospects. Karl invariably played all the instruments on his recordings, but he had also put together some great musicians, the album was released and was quite successful. Later he started to work on the second album ‘Goodbye Jumbo’. He had rented a large country house on the Woburn Estate. A recording engineer from Paisley Park (Joe Blaney) was being flown in and I was asked to go up for a week and play drums on as many songs as possible. By then (actually before) Karl had become nocturnal. Typically he would emerge about 5pm. Then there would be food preparation, lots of cigarette smoking, glasses of wine, chat. By 1am you might be about to do some work and we might have a backing track in the can by 5am and first light. Not my preferred way to work. I played on the songs, left after a week and when the album finally came out I featured on a single song ‘Ain’t Gonna Come’.
The album was a roaring success. Q Magazine album of the year.
But by now I was working 24/7, five days a week with Paul McCartney. So although on good terms, Karl and I once again drifted apart.
By the 1990’s I had my own high-tech home studio and was writing music for film and tv. I had met my Australian partner and she was anxious to return home. I felt burned out by central London and was stressed out working alone on film scores. So I said why not, a new beginning. I can write film music Down Under or record drums remotely - none of which actually worked out. We emigrated in 2005 and in 2006 Karl called me saying he had been offered an extensive headline tour of North America and would I play drums for him. I wasn’t working much in Australia and I hadn’t played in America since 1992, or played clubs in America since 1987. So I flew back to London. We had a week of rehearsals, but Karl wasn’t that interested in rehearsing. Again, struggling to rehearse by day with his penchant for nocturnal living. I had never played live with World Party and only vaguely knew some of the songs from the first two albums, nothing more recent than that. Luckily guitarist John Turnbull and keyboard player Amanda Kramer had been recent regulars in Karl’s band, so in the absence of the man himself they routined the rest of us and worked on the live arrangements.
Still, the first few shows in Canada and North West USA were chaotic which kind of made me furious. I had never done a bus tour before and couldn’t sleep. Karl and bassist Nathan were up all night, then sleeping all day until the soundcheck. I found it all a bit weird. Anyway, it was a genuinely interesting couple of months, seeing all parts of America again, and back to playing small sweaty clubs.
Then in 2007 Karl called again. He had been invited to support Steely Dan on their tour of Australia and New Zealand. Wow, I was already in Australia and the chance to share a stage with the legends that are Becker and Fagen? Fantastic. Again, the rehearsals, a couple of days in Perth before the first show, were slapdash. The Dan fans, who to be a little unfair were typically baby boomer hi-fi enthusiasts, didn’t get Karl and World Party. Although his songs were finely crafted, Karl still liked the energy and raucous unpredictability of the indie scene.
The end of that tour was the last time I saw Karl in person.
We decided to move back to the UK in 2015. We had decided to move to Somerset. I actually googled Karl to see what he was up to and saw an interview where he was planning to move out of London to The Cotswolds. I thought fantastic, about two hours drive from our place in Somerset, I might actually be able to see him regularly and maybe we can make music together again. But when I got settled I found out Karl had actually moved to Hastings, a rather tortuous drive across country from Somerset. Not even as handy as London. And to be honest I feared sitting around all day twiddling my thumbs, then trying to perform decent sounding drumming in the wee small hours of the morning.
About six months ago I started receiving frantic emails and DMs from Karl asking me to play drums on a new song. I gave him my phone number and said sure, send it over. But nothing ever arrived and I didn’t hear from him again. Then a week before Christmas he started messaging me. I re-sent all my contact details and one day out of the blue he FaceTimed me. We spoke for 2 1/2 hours. We talked about old times. He was full of life. Again he mentioned this new song he wanted me to play on. He tried to boot up his computer so he could play me the song, but couldn’t get into the software as he’d forgotten his password, which was unfortunately Karl post aneurysm.
He said he’d completely lost confidence in his writing. I suggested he just try and write a new song every week, finished, no matter how good or bad, rather than continually reworking music from 10 years ago, trying to match his best output from the early 90’s. But he didn’t seem keen on the idea. Then on Monday night I learned he had passed away.
It doesn’t seem real. I was only saying to some friends a few days ago - live for today as you don’t know what tomorrow might bring. My deepest condolences to Suzi and the family.
