The current edition of Karl Wallinger’s World Party will be performing at Johnny D’s this coming Saturday.

By Blake Maddux

In 1983, 25-year-old Welsh-born Karl Wallinger answered an ad seeking a guitarist who was “into Iggy Pop.” Wallinger passed the audition and became a member of the English folk-rock band The Waterboys, which Scottish-born singer-songwriter Mike Scott had formed in London the year before.

Although their collaboration was fruitful, the band was not big enough for two musicians of equally large talent and ambition. Therefore, Wallinger left after their second album—1985’s This Is the Sea—to form World Party. Just as The Waterboys was Scott’s band, World Party would belong completely to Wallinger.

World Party’s first single (Ship of Fools) and album (Private Revolution) reached number 27 and 39, respectively, in the United States. Three years would pass before Wallinger’s next album, 1990’s Goodbye Jumbo, was ranked the number 1 album of 1990 by the British magazine Q. The band subsequently appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, the MTV Music Video Awards and Saturday Night Live throughout the year in America.

New albums continued at an infrequent rate thereafter. Although 1993’s Bang! peaked at number 2 in the U.K. and the 1997 follow-up Egyptology climbed to 34, neither reached the top 100 in the U.S. Wallinger kept busy, but he suffered a brain aneurysm in early 2001. It took him several years to recover, during which time he collected royalties from the chart-topping cover of his song She’s the One by English pop star Robbie Williams.

Wallinger has toured sporadically since 2006, but has not released an album of new material since Dumbing Up in 2000. This year, however, he has approximately two dozen dates lined up in the United States, including one at Johnny D’s Saturday, May 24.

The Somerville Times spoke to Wallinger via Skype from his living room in the North London neighborhood of Crouch End.

Somerville Times: What path took you from being a royalties analyst clerk to becoming the musical director of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the West End of London?

Karl Wallinger: I came to London as an old teenager kind of thing and got a job in a publishing company because I just wanted to be in some sort of music company. It was just sort of like, “What can I do to keep myself alive while I am in town?” It just turned out that this company was in charge of the contract that looked after the Northern Songs [The Beatles’ publisher] catalog. So one of the things that I found myself doing was to go and get the checks signed and put them in an envelope and send them off not to [John] Lennon himself but to the business address.

Anyway, I played the piano in the lunch hour and got discovered by a producer guy who took me in the studio. They used to send you in and do three songs. I went and did these sessions, and after a couple of them I got a publishing deal. I still worked [at the company] as well, but I actually had a publishing deal with them, too.

One of the people in the company was a guy called Eric Hall, who’s quite more famous these days as a sports manager. He looks after footballers [soccer players] and things. He knew a guy called Peter Straker, and he had a piano player called Peter Brewis. He left the band, and Peter Straker was looking for a keyboard player, and I ended up doing some work with him. Peter Brewis went off to do Rocky Horror Show [sic], and when he was going to leave there, I was one of the first people to know. I went along and saw Robert Fox [an agent]. I said something crazy to him like, “Yeah, I can do this thing,” and I got the job as the musical director.

ST: Not all professional musicians are multi-instrumentalists who write and produce all of their own material. How did you become one who did?

KW: I’m not really a professional musician. I’m still a kid that loves these records that sounded for some reason like they were important. When you listen to them, you can’t stop listening to them. I’m just sort of permanently blown away by the whole concept. It’s like some crazy book, that someone’s thought of this crazy stuff that comes out of these crazy things called speakers. And it has these weird effects on people, you know. You sort of go, “No, that’s sci-fi.”

I was born with an ability of sort of mimicry. I’ve learned music and I’ve trained as a musician, and I’ve had thousands spent on my education, but in the end I play by ear, you know. I play by gut. I’ve got to get out of the way, and if I get out of the way and let something come out without trying to make a product, it seems to work. I think it’s about living and thinking and about the stuff that goes in, really, and music’s the stuff that comes out. It’s things about the human condition that are set with these harmonies and rhythms and patterns that are somehow coloring the world.

ST: Tell me about your contributions to the soundtracks of Reality Bites (1994) and Clueless (1995).

KW: There’s just one song in Clueless, All the Young Dudes. If you time it on the screen, it’s nine seconds. That was a great song to do, and I’ve always wanted to have a crack at that one.

Reality Bites was a strange one as well because someone—I don’t know who it was—had just turned down the soundtrack after they were gonna do it. I stepped in at the last minute and did the original score, which was really interesting as well. But it hasn’t led to a career of people sort of offering me scripts every year. It wasn’t the ideal time to be given it when it was two weeks away from being played to whoever it was who has to get it done. You’re getting 10 phone calls every day, and because you’re getting 10 phone calls every day, you can’t actually do the music. Those are pressure gigs, but in the end it was great.

ST: Many of your songs express support for proper stewardship of the planet. Do you consider yourself to be an environmentalist?

KW: Everybody should be an environmentalist, that’s the thing. They’re always like, “Save the world.” No, the world will still be here, it will just be a lot emptier. We probably won’t be in it anymore. It will just be these oceans swilling around for a bit and they’ll eventually evaporate and the sun will explode anyway, so whatever. But it would just be nice if we were here for longer.

So in that way I’m an environmentalist. I trust nature and I don’t trust capitalism. And it’s basically what the problem is, you know.

ST: When is the vinyl remastering of your back catalog happening? I promised a friend that I would ask you that.

KW: It’d be nice to do that for Christmas. I’m very fond of records myself. I don’t play them very often, but I’m very fond of that format. I think it’s a great format for popular music.

I’m a great believer in the start of side two. When you’re making an album, you sort of think, “What’s going to kick off side two?” Is it going to be something moody or is it going to be bang, straight in there, here’s another side for you?” On an album, it’s a great thing; it really is. It’s one of the fun things.

I would love there to be [digital remastering]. We’ll have to look at the books and see how well World Party is doing.

ST: When will there be new music from World Party?

KW: I’m hoping that we’ll make a record this year, and to promote that I think that we really need to get the band out and sort of start doing some stuff. This is definitely not something that’s going to be happening forever, but I think some new material has to happen. To get back on the road with a new album would be really great.

We’re doing this [tour] as a three-piece: myself on keyboards and acoustic [guitar], a fiddle player who plays mandolin, and an electric guitarist who plays loud distorted guitar. These two guys are amazing, the playing they do.

World Party with Gabriel Kelley. Saturday, May 24, at Johnny D’s. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20.