Chris Isaak's Twin Peaks

The pop heartthrob takes two steps forward with a new album and movie

Rolling Stone
March 4, 1993
By David Wild

"Life is tough for me," says Chris Isaak, his tongue planted firmly in cheek. "Some people want me to be a rock star. Other people want me to be a movie star. I'm just a simple sex symbol who wants to be left alone so I can get my six or seven hours of brooding in each day."

Isaak, the thirty-six-year-old San Francisco resident whose romantic, Roy Orbison-influenced brand of melodramatic guitar rock--and highly photogenic metro-hunk good looks--led many to predict huge success for him throughout the latter part of the Eighties, finally popped big time with the late-breaking 1991 smash "Wicked Game." Today he's in Los Angeles to help kick off the release of his first album of new material since then--San Francisco Days, due out in April-- as well as chat about his starring role in the upcoming Bernardo Bertolocci film, tentatively titled Little Buddha, which also stars Keanu Reeves and Bridget Fonda.

"It's kind of like Bertolucci Makes a Disney Movie," says Isaak of the controversial Italian filmmaker's latest project. Though he's appeared in much smaller roles in Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Little Buddha marks Isaak's debut as a leading man, and the role has already taken him to Katmandu, Nepal, and, most recently, Seattle, where he managed to remain utterly untouched by the Seattle sound.

"I play the Fred MacMurray role--I'm the father of a ten-year-old boy and I'm an architect," explains Isaak. "They spent a lot of time asking me to wash the grease out of my hair. No matter what I did, I looked a little too rock & roll."

Being too rock & roll, of course, was no problem when it came to recording San Francisco Days. Working once again with longtime producer and former manager Erik Jacobsen, Isaak recorded some of the album at Dave Wellhausen Studios, in San Francisco. "The place doesn't have an ambience," says Isaak. "They can't afford one. It's a tiny former storefront next door to a barbershop and a driveway. They kept me nice and isolated--there weren't executives stopping by every day, checking if we had another 'Wicked Game.'"

Despite the extended delay in between albums, Isaak says that the new record came together relatively quickly, but that the success of "Wicked Game" set the schedule back. "We're actually getting more studio smarts," says Isaak, "but having a hit added an extra year to the touring process. But believe me, we spent our money and time on extra takes, not on putting hot tubs into the studio."

Though critics generally praised his first three albums--1985's Silvertone, 1987's Chris Isaak and 1989's Heart Shaped World--some have complained that Isaak doesn't stray far from the familiar. The first single from San Francisco Days, "Can't Do a Thing to Stop Me," isn't exactly worlds away from "Wicked Game," but the new album does mark something of a musical departure for Isaak.

"I kind of set out to make this one a little bit different," Isaak says. "People did say that the other albums were very similar. But I've always felt like I had something legitimate to say with that style. Otherwise it would be like a painter saying, 'I already used blue in my early paintings, so I'm not using it anymore.' Still, I always want to learn some new tricks."

Those new tricks include playing more lead guitar himself and bringing in outside musicians to augment his longtime backing band, Silvertone--bassist Rowland Salley, guitarist James Calvin Wilsey and drummer Kenney Dale Johnson. The album prominently features the likes of Robert Cray keyboardist Jimmy Pugh on B3 organ and guitarist Danny Gatton. Tom Brumley, the steel- guitar great behind Buck Owens and Rick Nelson, was brought in to play on Isaak's favorite track, "Except the New Girl." "If I broke four of Danny's fingers, he'd still be too good for me," says Isaak. "And Tom Brumley was so good he had grown men crying in the studio."

Another new trick evident on San Francisco Days is that a decidedly nonbrooding Chris Isaak is clearly smiling on the cover of the album. "I think that ought to make it a collector's item right there," he says, breaking into a grin.

Back to Articles