A One-Hit Wonder Returns With a Varied Vengeance

There’s a bit of a sneer on Matthew Wilder’s face as he looks at a blow-up of the cover of his album “Bouncin’ Off the Wall,” hung in the recording studio behind his home in Van Nuys.

“That’s a leftover from the ‘80s,” he says, disdainfully dismissing the striking, Cocteau-like surreal image on the cover.

Of course, Wilder knows that most pop fans who remember his name dismiss him as a leftover. He was a classic one-hit wonder who made his mark when his bouncy single “Break My Stride,” from his debut album in 1983, went to No. 5.

But then his follow-up album bombed, and he vanished from the public consciousness along with Men Without Hats, Taco and other flashes-in-the-pan from that era.

“That was my five minutes in the sun,” he says.

Until now.

Wilder, who turns 44 on Jan. 24, is back--not as a pop star, but at the center of a remarkably varied series of projects that already has taken him, as a producer, to the top of the pop album charts and may soon, as a composer, take him to the London stage and the corner multiplex.

Wilder produced No Doubt’s 5-million-selling album “Tragic Kingdom”; is composing the song and score music for Disney’s animated musical “Mulan--Legend of a Warrior,” planned for 1998; and has adapted the Anne Rice novel “Cry to Heaven”--set among 18th century Italian castrati--into a full-scale stage musical being produced by English mogul Robert Stigwood, with a London opening set for November and Broadway on their minds.

Who would believe that the man behind the pleasant but lightweight pop appeal of that ‘80s single would be able to make the amazing leap as a composer into territory normally associated with the Andrew Lloyd Webbers and Elton Johns of the world?

Wilder “is just a very musical guy, not a one-trick pony in that he can do only one style,” says Paul Palmer, co-president of Trauma Records, which released “Tragic Kingdom” through Interscope. “I saw it very much in dealing with him in making the record.”

Still, the journey from one-hit wonder to his current success was no small thing.

“That’s a long road back,” says Wilder, who already had struggled for years--first in his native New York, then in New England and in L.A.--by the time of his hit. “I was a new father [when “Bouncin’ Off the Wall” flopped] and it was necessary to reinvent myself. You have to eat. So I spent the late ‘80s and early ‘90s writing songs for others and picking up production jobs.”

His big break came when Interscope A&R; executive Tony Ferguson asked him to work with No Doubt. The band from Anaheim’s ska-inflected debut album for Interscope in 1992 had been ignored roundly and the band’s status at the label was in jeopardy.

Wilder saw it as a great opportunity. “It was a chance to prove I could do something besides ‘Break My Stride.’ They were young, struggling artists--some in school, some in jobs, hanging by a financial thread. It was a grueling year and a half on that album . . . constantly redefining and redirecting--very painful labor. The band was so concerned about its audience and credibility. The point Tony Ferguson and I tried to drive home is that there’s a bigger world out there.”

Wilder’s own broader horizon took in the world of musical theater, where his father was a Broadway advertising agent. Regular attendance at original cast productions of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Loewe shows forged a love for the form, which Wilder rarely explored before starting work on “Cry to Heaven” a decade ago with librettist David Gilmour (not the Pink Floyd member).

While Wilder first was developing the musical, his father (who died two years ago) introduced him to theater impresario James Nederlander, who acquired the rights to the book on Wilder’s behalf.

But the project languished until two years ago, when Wilder happened to hear that Stigwood--whose list of huge successes includes the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, “Saturday Night Fever” and the original stage production of “Evita”--was looking for a project about the castrati. Stigwood heard Wilder’s demo tape and agreed to stage the show.

It wasn’t long after the Stigwood deal that the “Cry” demo tape found its way to Disney feature animation executive Chris Montan, who shared it with others in charge of finding a composer for “Mulan” to pair with lyricist David Zippel (“City of Angels” and Disney’s upcoming “Hercules”).

For all this, does Wilder still wish for another shot at his own stardom? Not a chance.

“This way I don’t have to be a recording artist and act 16 at 44,” says Wilder, now a father of two sons, who lives with his wife, Tamara. “I don’t have to feel I’ll fall off the bandwagon and have to go after a job doing something I don’t want to do.

“ ‘Break My Stride’ had me typed as one thing. I needed to put my talents to a test--had to diversify and be a moving target. It makes me harder to hit.”