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WW: Did you always know that Animotion would return?
There was some kind of a sci-fi element to that band, right?
Such as?
Flashdance
This was around when?
You also had the label telling you what to do and write too. When I talked to you back in '86, the thing I remember most was that you said you were working on the track list for the second album, and you had a song on the lineup called, "Change the World"—and you said the record company stopped you right at the title, like, "No songs about changing the world on our pop band's album!" I thought, God, as far as they knew, the song was about changing the world so that multinational record companies ruled over everyone!
Did you know those guys in Missing Persons from L.A. back in the day?
I just saw a live video of them at the US Festival back in '83, I had forgotten how good they were.
Is it too much to say that it's kind of closed a chapter in your life, or that there were some resentments buried about how it all went down that have resolved themselves?
Were you the sole writer on [Animotion's debut single and top-40 hit] "Let Him Go"?
Was that true of most of the material on the first two albums?
At one point one of the big rock critics, Greil Marcus or Dave Marsh, one of those guys, put "Let Him Go" on a list of great singles that were coming out of that era. Do you remember that?
I think it was Dave Marsh in his "Rock 'n' Roll Confidential" industry rap sheet. I was, like, wow, because -- all due respect to Animotion -- they weren't the band you'd expect to see on critics' top ten lists
It's nice to grow up, sometimes.
There are five of six original members in the band now?
So you developed a live act before you were signed, you weren't just a studio band?
The material you're doing now, is it all from the first two albums? Do you do [post-Wadhams/Plame minor hit] "Room to Move" because people expect it?
Are they jointly written?
Forget the Fleetwood Mac of the '80s, you guys could be the Sonny and Cher of the 2000s!
Any talk about recording together again?
my
So you've gone from total disillusionment with the music business to a sort of rapprochement, to a certain extent. A couple questions about that: Is your other material with the Bill Wadhams Band, etc., on the back burner for now, while you see what's happening with this? Or are you pursuing that independently, too?
And my other question was actually about your son, Charlie [Wadhams, an L.A. singer-songwriter who had two songs featured in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story]. Because of that past disillusionment, were you one of those parents who warned him away from the music business, or just gave him lots of warnings about the pitfalls, or did you just sort of watch him go for it?
Walk Hard
So... do you still have the Roman helmet?
the
Well, maybe in Portland.
Links:
WWeek 2015