Denver Post Work Ethic Ingrained In Chris Isaak [Rockies Edition]
December 4, 1998
By G. Brown, Denver Post Special Writer
Chris Isaak has made a career out of his vintage crooning and ballads of loneliness and heartbreak, yet anybody who's ever seen him in concert is familiar with his lighthearted sense of humor. Making music is something he really enjoys, as long as he and his longtime band, Silvertone, can stay on the road.
But Isaak feels he has to work just as hard for success as he did when he was just starting out in San Francisco 13 years ago.
"If I had another life to do over again, like most people, I'd just want to be born rich - screw all this work stuff," Isaak said with a laugh recently. He'll perform a sold-out show at the Paramount Theatre tonight.
"We all realize that there are a lot of good musicians out there. I'd much rather make sure I do my job as best I can and keep it. Otherwise, you can go put tar paper on roofs.
"I've been very lucky. But if you look at my career, there isn't a four-year span where they go, 'That's where he was in rehab, and he didn't record anything because he was high.' I just continue making records, and I've never missed a gig, not one. You hire me, I'll be there.
"Why? Hunger - you get hungry, you've got to work. That should be the new government incentive program."
Isaak's career got a big boost in 1991 when the moody "Wicked Game" (from his third album, 1989's "Heart Shaped World") unexpectedly became a huge hit. He's since released more albums full of beautiful, yearning love songs.
On the new "Speak of the Devil," Isaak's deep, inflamed singing is recognizable enough, but the sound is lively and jangly. The single "Please" rocks with an aggressive, edgy sensibility.
Isaak described his previous release, "The Baja Sessions," as "probably the quietest record we've done. I purposely wanted the whole album to be similar instruments and sounds so that it wasn't jarring. When you put it on, and it goes from one song to the next, it's an acoustic guitar and voice - you don't all of a sudden go, 'Here comes that tympani drum ...'
"Coming off that record, this one is much more like a live show - more energy, more upbeat, more rock 'n' roll, and also more variety of arrangements. There's a touch of Phil Spector - we didn't go crazy and bring a handgun into the studio, but it's the 'half-wall of sound.'"
Isaak has no interest in revisiting territory he's already covered.
"There are so many things that are interesting to me. I'd love to work with a vocal or choral group, like Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians or the Mills Brothers' type of sound. I'd like to do another record like 'Baja Sessions,' even more abstract, very acoustic and out- there.
"Music is a great big old playground. I feel like I've been in here for five minutes and only begun to touch on some things."
Isaak has drawn more comparisons to artists of the '50s than those of his own era - he openly admires vocalists like Roy Orbison, and he's been likened to Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson. But he has other reference points.
"When they let Pat Boone and Connie Francis in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they'll balance it a lot more," Isaak said. " They're looking for the obscure, black, blues side of rock 'n' roll, and that should get mentioned.
"But does that mean Connie Francis shouldn't be in there? Hell, I make the argument that she's the best female vocalist to ever come out of America. I don't think there's anybody who can whup her. She can just flat-out sing. Sure, you can like somebody else's style, but she's got chops for days. "Nobody takes Pat Boone seriously now because he did that heavy metal thing last year. But it's sad. He's not 'street' - nobody wants to take a big bite out of that and say, 'Well, yeah, his work is valid.'
"They have the rights to the footage of him doing 'Tutti Frutti," so every time they do the inevitable 'white-artists-were-cove ring- black-artists-in-the-'50s,' they show that.
"Hell, that's an invalid comparison, because that wasn't his hit. There's a lesson. You hope to God that, 30 years from now, the footage that remains of you is good, because that's what people think of you."
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