Cast your mind back to a universe far away, The Beat having disbanded not so long after the Special Beat Service touched down, David Steele and Andy Cox deciding to take some time out, going their own way on an adventure which eventually led to mega commercial success with Fine Young Cannibals.

Meanwhile, the senior partners, sax legend Saxa and drummer Everett Morton, formed The International Beat, and co-frontmen Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger also regrouped, joining forces with Specials bass player Horace Panter and Dexys Midnight Runners keyboard player Mickey Billingham and drummer Andy ‘Stoker’ Growcott to form General Public. And they even had Clash legend Mick Jones on board for a while.

I suggested to Dave Wakeling in an interview earlier this summer that it was a brave move for all concerned. But he didn’t see it that way.

“At the time, there wasn’t much of an alternative. It wasn’t such great bravery. A couple of the other lads wanted two years off, and were quite adamant about it, and we were trying to do a record deal with Virgin, who became aware of this. And they {bass player David Steele and guitarist Andy Cox} had good reason, they said it was ‘more planes than buses’ and just wanted to go shopping, not be recognised, buy some food, cook it and go back to bed, live a real life. They were worried we’d start writing songs about being on Rock ‘n’ Roll Boulevard, believing the lifestyle to the point it would become our reality and we’d be singing songs about it.

“But me and Roger had just started having babies and the money up to that point had been split equally amongst the band, so everybody had done okay but nobody had really got enough to not do anything for a couple of years… so we didn’t really have much option. It had been dying on the vine. You couldn’t get anything done. What had been spontaneous and enthusiastic was now torturous and hard to do.”

I think it’s fair to say The Beat ended it at the right time, the original adventure over barely three years beyond the arrival of the perennially fresh I Just Can’t Stop It, the songwriting maturity there from day one and moving on with each release, their third long player including timeless 45s ‘I Confess’ and ‘Save it for Later’… which I suppose they did in the long haul, new versions of the band re-emerging in time.

When we last spoke, Dave revealed to me the nuts and bolts of that regeneration of sorts, the vocalist/guitarist keen to keep the ball rolling and retain the interest of Virgin Records (at home) and the I.R.S. label (in America) after Cox and Steele departed. And perhaps more than with the other offshoot outfits, General Public carried on where The Beat left off, albeit with far less success on home territory.

Dave suggested, “I went down in history as the executioner of The Beat – I gave birth to it and killed it. But it wasn’t really that simple. I was more like the undertaker who had to come in and clean up the mess! The Beat had been dead on its feet for a while. We weren’t going anywhere, we weren’t doing anything. We thought it was just to do with exhaustion and musical issues, but looking back over the decades, parts of each of us got tired of parts of the others.

“We found ourselves in this situation, and thought, ‘What should we do? We should get a group,’ then all of a sudden, we were in a different position, and our friend from The Specials who played the bass was looking for a gig, and our friend who played the drums in Dexy’s was looking for a gig, as was his mate, the piano player. It went from, ‘Let’s look around locally for musicians,’ to creating a new wave Humble Pie, a sort of blue ribbon, transatlantic rock, the Blind Faith of the ‘80s.”

Mick Jones played guitar on a number of songs on the first General Public album, All the Rage (‘on loan from Real Westway,’ the credits read), but quit before the LP was finished, Kevin White taking his place. And now, almost 40 years after work started on that record, BMG has reissued that and 1986 follow-up, Hand to Mouth, on vinyl for the first time since the initial releases.

As it was, America proved more open to their overtures, All the Rage spending 39 weeks on the US Billboard 200, reaching the top 30, and while self-titled debut single ‘General Public’ and their finest moment, follow-up ‘Tenderness’ never properly troubled the UK charts, the latter reached the US top-30 and would feature in John Hughes films Sixteen Candles (1984) and Weird Science (1985).

Listening back now, debut album opener ‘Hot You’re Cool’ seems of its time, not least its keyboard flourishes. But how great it is to hear Saxa blow in on saxophone before the LP’s a minute in, while ‘Tenderness’ (with added vocals from Justine Carpenter, as on ‘Burning Bright’ and ‘General Public’) holds its pop power all these years on, and the bass and brass on ‘Anxious’ suggests a case of Dexys gone reggae in places (and only now am I reminded that it’s Aswad’s brass section guesting).

On an album produced by the band with Colin Fairley and Gavin MacKillop, we then return to tender pop with ‘Never You Done That’, reminding me that Dave and Roger guested on Madness’ Keep Moving that year, before ‘Burning Bright’ brings side one in, a real builder.

Now and again we get moments taking you back to a time and place labelled mid-‘80s, and side two opener ‘As a Matter of Fact’ carries commercial pop traces of Scritti Politti’s peerless Cupid & Psyche 85. As for ‘Are You Leading Me On?’, I’m getting General Public channelling Symarip, but maybe reimagined as ‘Skunkhead Moonstomp’ judging by Roger’s cover pic. Then, ‘Day-to-Day’ and ‘Where’s the Line?’ offer a bridge towards the finale, Steve Sidwell adding trumpet on the latter, ABC and a few crossover white soul bands of that era springing to mind. And then we’re away on ‘General Public’, the band manifesto unleashed, Fun Boy Three style, Gary Barnacle on sax this time.

On second album, Hand to Mouth, produced by Dave and Roger with David Leonard, Kevin and Stoker’s places were taken by brothers Gianni and Mario Minardi on guitar and drums respectively, and again there was little commercial success back home, while the LP peaked at No.83 on the US Billboard 200, the writing on the wall.

Listening back now, I see why attention slipped elsewhere, some of the more pleasing rougher edges polished off, in an ‘of its time’ drift towards synth pop, ‘Come Again’ setting the precedent and ‘Faults & All’ seemingly trying too hard on the ‘we need a hit’ front, pleasant enough but somewhat unremarkable.

But when they were on form, they pulled it off, the quality of the songwriting pulling them through. Dave’s anti-war anthem ‘Forward as One’, for example, is far more up my street, Saxa returning on something of a Madness meets UB40 hybrid number, Pato Banton also guesting on my highlight across these 10 tracks. But then ‘Murder’ takes us back to square one, Sister Sledge’s ‘Frankie’ brought to mind on a rather flimsy pop number.

Thankfully, side one closer ‘Cheque in the Post’ takes us up a level, but even then, the production smooths out the more promising, guitar-driven aspects, when it could have been ‘Twist and Crawl’, pt.2. Not that guitar fare is what is needed, particularly not in conjunction with overpowering synth, judging by side two opener ‘Too Much or Nothing’. All a little too MTV for my liking, the US market of the time seemingly the focus, the band arguably giving us their own take on Phil Collins’ ‘Sussudio’.

‘Love Without the Fun’ stands out for more positive reasons, Saxa back again on a Billingham/Wakeling pop ditty not too over-egged in the studio and as close as the band got to Dexys over these two records, Steve Brennan’s violin also a welcome addition (as is the case on ‘Never All There’).

Roger steps up on ‘In Conversation’, and this time the production seems more fitting, ‘Never All There’ then taking us towards the line… and I think there’s a good song in there too. But maybe Dave and Roger’s finale, ‘Cry on your Own Shoulder’ is more an indicator of where they were at, a song that would have struggled to get on Fine Young Cannibals’ self-titled debut LP a few months before. Harsh, maybe, but I reckon they were losing their way.

There was a return in 1994, the co-frontmen by then joined by Michael Railton (keyboards), Randy Jacobs (guitars), Wayne Lothian (bass), Thomas White (drums) and Norman Jones (percussion), landing another US hit with Staples Singers cover ‘I’ll Take You There’, used by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in successful presidential campaigns. That was followed by Epic Records LP, Rub It Better in 1995, Jerry Harrison (ex-Talking Heads) producing, Mick Jones, Saxa and Pato Banton guesting again, plus Chris Spedding, while co-founders Horace Panter and Stoker co-wrote one song apiece. But with Roger soon tired of travelling to America, they called it a day again.

Sadly, we lost Roger in March 2019, aged just 56, but US-based Dave remains a breath of fresh air and still tours with versions of both bands, The Beat putting on a 20-date Skavival UK tour this year, and General Public back on the road in the US recently as part of a Lost ‘80s Live tour. And Roger at least remains with us on record, with so many career highlights recorded across various projects, signing off in style on 2019’s afterword of sorts, The Beat Feat. Ranking Roger’s Public Confidential (his band including his son, Ranking Junior). What’s more, we now have those reissued mid-‘80s General Public LPs to pick over, an important part of the story, with links to 2023’s BMG repackaging of All the Rage and Hand to Mouth here.

For this website’s June 2023 feature/interview with Dave Wakeling, head here. And for WriteWyattUK‘s April 2018 feature/interview with Dave, head here. You can also follow Dave Wakeling on social media, via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.