Katrina and the Waves: how we made Walking on Sunshine

Katrina Leskanich, singer

I was in a band called Mama’s Cookin’, playing US airforce bases around Britain. It was a circuit I knew because my dad, who was in the US army, was stationed in Norfolk. I’d phone up and say, “I’m an American singer,” and that got us gigs. We’d play 45-minute sets to GIs shouting for Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. We played Heart and ZZ Top – anything they wanted. And, by day, I’d wash dishes in the canteens.

Alex Cooper, our drummer, had been in a band called the Waves, playing with a guitarist called Kimberley Rew. We got together and became Katrina and the Waves. I’d always been a covers singer, but Kim had different ideas. One day, he stood in the chapel where we rehearsed and presented Walking on Sunshine. I thought it wasn’t really us. Vince de la Cruz, our bass-player, thought it was irritating. I was going through a Velvet Underground and Nico phase – lots of black eyeliner – and here was a Motown-type fun song about sunshine. It proved to be a total dancefloor emptier. So we dropped it.

Then the Radio 1 DJ Richard Skinner heard our self-financed, 1,000-copies-only album at a party in Cambridge and played a track from it. Next, the Bangles got wind of us and had a hit covering Going Down to Liverpool. Soon Capitol signed us up.

By now we’d realised that, however annoying Walking on Sunshine was at first, it was impossible to get out of your head. As we were recording it, an arranger wandered in and said: “You should put horns on that.” And he hummed what became that pumping melody. But the horn section we got in whinged so much about how hard it was to play that we had to drop the key just for them.

It had a feelgood element that was perfect for radio. DJs loved it but they used to talk right over the bloody drum intro. “You’re listening to WKRP in Cincinnati,” they’d say and kick it in where I go: “Ow!” I’d been this sulky goth and suddenly I was “Chrissie Hynde with a smile” fronting “the new Monkees”. The song changed my life. I’ve ended up adoring it. It’s been used in films – from American Psycho to bloody Daddy Day Care – and it’s even been covered by Dolly Parton. People are always coming up to me and saying: “We played it at our wedding.” If I hand the mic over, they can sing the entire thing themselves.

Kimberley Rew, guitarist and songwriter

I’d love to say Walking on Sunshine relates to a significant event in my life, like walking out of my front door, seeing a comet and being inspired. But it’s just a piece of simple fun, an optimistic song, despite us not being outstandingly cheery people. We were a typical young band, insecure and pessimistic. We didn’t have big hair and didn’t look anything like a Motown-influenced group. We didn’t have any credibility or a fanbase in awe of our mystique. We were a second-on-the-bill-at-a-festival-in-Germany pop band. But we had this song.

There was an element of synchronicity to how it took off: it came out at the beginning of a very hot summer in 1985. We were on our first – and only – American club tour when it entered the charts. Suddenly, whenever we played it, everyone went nuts.

Before Katrina and the Waves, I wrote and played songs in Cambridge. And now I write and play songs in Cambridge. In between, I’ve had this global hit that’s made me very comfortable. My wife plays bass in our band. We don’t do Walking on Sunshine very often. But when we do, it goes down a storm – especially at Christmas.