The Ska’s the Limit : Ex-English Beat Singer David Wakeling Puts Conviction Into Work and Weekly O.C. Shows

You won’t hear the kind of griping about Southern California from British singer David Wakeling that you get from a lot of homesick transplants.

“It’s a lot better than in England, where it rains every day,” said Wakeling, the former English Beat and General Public lead singer who moved in 1989 from the United Kingdom to the Southland. “You wake up (here), the sunshine’s coming through the windows, and for the first five minutes at least you feel like you’re on holiday.”

After those first five minutes, though, Wakeling heads off most days for his desk job at Greenpeace in Los Angeles, where he is constantly reminded of the various environmental threats the planet is facing.

The Greenpeace position is not a surprising line of work for the co-founder of the ‘80s ska groups the English Beat and General Public (a revamped version of the Beat with only a different name to separate the two). Both bands combined lyrics about British unemployment, Thatcherism and the dole with an upbeat blend of rock, ska and reggae rhythms.

Since General Public’s retirement in 1987, Wakeling has made appearances occasionally with the Special Beat (a reunion of members from the English Beat and the Specials).

Wakeling, 35, devotes most of his time and attention these days to Greenpeace rather than music, but has been flexing his musical muscles one night a week with a low-profile engagement at Club NYC in Costa Mesa.

An invitation last month to jam at the club with his friends in the Laguna Beach-based cover band Gnarley Braus has turned into a moonlighting gig every Wednesday night for Wakeling.

He first met Braus guitarist and vocalist Philip Gough several years ago during Gough’s stint in the Los Angeles-based Bonedaddys. About the same time, Wakeling was admiring the playing of Trinidad-born keyboardist Jelani Jones, who was with another local outfit, Planet 10.

Then two years ago, Gough called on Jones and a few other musician friends to get together to jam at a local beach bar. Without any serious practice, the Gnarley Braus were born.

The band takes covers from the last three decades--from the blues and rock standard “Hey Joe” to Jane’s Addiction’s “Jane Says”--and twists them into a California brand of world beat music. The band also performs its own material, which in the future could lead to collaborations between it and Wakeling.

What does his label, I.R.S. Records, think of his new band?

“New band? You can ask anyone at I.R.S., I don’t have a new band and there are no new songs,” Wakeling responded coyly, during a recent interview in Costa Mesa.

“We’re hoping in the future there will be, of course,” he said, turning serious for a moment. “But for the moment, we’re having a laugh and a bit of fun with some of the old songs. The more we play, the more ideas for new songs are going to develop. But as for a new band, well . . . “

The band’s weekly dose of socially conscious songs and the lively beat are providing an alternative at the Costa Mesa nightclub, which is notorious for its restrictive dress code and nightly postmodern industrial music.

The dress code is loosened on Wednesdays for what organizers call “The Tiki Room.” According to the nightclub’s recorded telephone message, surfwear is encouraged, and it’s probably the only night of the week when Birkenstock sandals are tolerated.

“The response is lovely,” Wakeling said. “Escaping my daily work once a week to do this--well, I could do it indefinitely.”

That daily work with Greenpeace is not all that attracted Wakeling from his native Birmingham to sunny California to a job as special projects director--a liaison position between the group and the music industry. (Marriage also seems to have influenced Wakeling’s decision to move. “I’d met my wife in Los Angeles, and she was excited to get back here. She was sick of fish and chips and the rain,” he said, laughing.)

“I’d always liked Greenpeace. I’ve done benefit shows for them off and on the last seven years. But it’s not just because they’re environmentalists,” he said. “There’s lots of groups that do good work, but I just like the way they get to the heart of the matter and make an image that moves people. I like their marketing.”

Image entails part--if not all--of his duties. He works with bands interested in doing benefits for the organization, which can be a matter of “sorting the wheat from the chaff,” as he put it.

“You get a lot of people phoning up Greenpeace and saying, ‘Oh, I’d really love to do a benefit for you guys,’ ” he said. “That is great, but what many of them are really looking for is an opportunity for themselves that they think they can do under the guise of charity for the environment.”

Recently, he has been focusing on record projects that donate proceeds to Greenpeace, such as a compilation album of Japan’s up-and-coming bands, recorded for a Japanese label.

There is a compilation of alternative-rock music in the works for a live album called “Alternative Energy,” the recording of which will be powered by a solar generator Greenpeace plans to build in Los Angeles, he said. Wakeling expects the album to be ready for release by next year.

He also talked enthusiastically about Greenpeace’s recent acquisition of rights for sale in the Soviet Union of the B-52’s “Cosmic Thing” album, which was never released there.

That, however, was before this week’s dramatic ouster of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the fallout from which figures to put all previously arranged business dealings in limbo for months or years to come. The B-52’s album had been scheduled to hit Soviet record stores in January, with all profits going to Children of Chernobyl, a diagnostic clinic that will test children affected by the 1986 nuclear-plant disaster.