Microsoft Music Central Interview
It's a wicked game, trying to get a bead on Chris Isaak. Known for innumerable ballads of melancholy and despair (especially his 1995 album, Forever Blue, which Music Central's Sam Sutherland calls "the Sgt. Pepper of heartbreak"), he stages rowdy, raucous live shows and displays a deadly deadpan sense of humor in both his stage patter and, as you'll see below, interviews.
Deftly managing to sidestep almost any mention of his most recent recordings, Isaak spoke with Amy Linden in New York about why he's not really a '50s fanatic, the lameness of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the dichotomy between his music and his stage persona, his virtually pure white musical influences, and two of his musical idols, Connie Francis and Pat Boone.
[Question] I've read lots and lots of interviews with you, and...
[Answer] That must have been a fun weekend.
[Question] It was. I listened to the new Prince record, and read your interviews. It took up all my entire weekend.
[Answer] I'll read his damn interview, but I'm not listening to the record, man.
[Question] Yeah, I've read your interviews over the years, and it seems to me that critics have always kind of dug you. I mean, they've always liked your...
[Answer] If you buy one record, only one record this year, let it be Monkey Beat, Ronnie Dawson. I'm sorry. My record, yeah. Have you heard Monkey Beat by Ronnie Dawson?
(Long discussion touching on Billy Mure, John Muir, Chet Baker, thrift-store album purchases, album cover art, and elevator music vs. exotica ensues.)
[Answer] Hawaiian music is some of the most beautiful. Hawaiian and music out of Mexico. It's so pretty. In the past month I met two people that I always had wanted to meet. I met Connie Francis and I met Pat Boone.
[Question] I was once at the San Generro Festival and she was singing there, and at some point I said something like, "Oh, my God, this is so great: the world's corniest singer at the world's stupidest festival."
[Answer] Corny? You called Connie Francis corny? I think this interview is just about done, OK? She is one of the best singers I ever heard.
[Question] Is she still performing?
[Answer] Yes. She's still performing, and I've heard things that people said to me, "Oh, well, I don't know if she's still got her voice," and for a while they said that she couldn't sing. She can sing. She sang great. It's funny because when I went to her show, it was a huge gay audience - 60 percent gay or something. And I'm going, "Oh, gee, I think people think I'm gay." I'm in San Francisco, I'm single, I've never really been linked with any woman. I've never lived with a woman. And I've always said, "Connie Francis is my idol." And I thought, "You know, if I put this all together, I guess somebody would probably think..." I had no idea she was...
[Question] ...a gay icon? She's tragic, that's why.
[Answer] Maybe it is. Maybe it's a lot of pain. It's rough being gay because people don't dig it. You're the butt of the joke. Maybe that's going to change. When gays get accepted, though, then what? It won't be tragic anymore. Is it going to lose its flavor? It's not forbidden; it's not tragic. All it is is just a different sexual mode. Then people are going to go do something else.
[Question] Now I've read the press on Baja Sessions and your thing about Pat Boone . I believe you that you really do like Pat Boone, but part of me just goes, "Come on. That's almost pushing it."
[Answer] What - that I like him?
[Question] Yeah.
[Answer] No, I love him...
[Question] He doesn't disturb you in any sort of way?
[Answer] No, in no way.
[Question] Is he in your shopping bag?
[Answer] Come out, Pat. I'm just trying to see what I've got with me.
[Question] Tell me what you like about Pat Boone.
[Answer] The guy has a great voice.
[Question] A lot of people have great voices.
[Answer] It's not just a real plain white-bread voice. People always talk about him as though he's generic. He's not generic. Pat Boone sings in a very different style. You don't hear other people. Here's what I've got with me (pulls CDs out of bag). Pat Boone, Pat Boone, Pat Boone ... I loaded up. And Eydie Gorme and Los Panchos, of course. And look! Cyril Pahinui. It's Gabby Pahinui's son. He's a really good player. The Mavericks. Of course Dean Martin. Pat Boone, it's not a joke. It's not just something I was just trying to be hip or tongue-in-cheek, or...
[Question] Or counter.
[Answer] Yeah. Oh, everybody else likes this? I like Pat Boone. I really play him a lot. I really listen to him a lot.
[Question] You know that people see Pat Boone as being this white antichrist to "real rock 'n' roll."
[Answer] Pat Boone's more real rock 'n' roll than a lot of the people who are "real rock 'n' roll." He's made his living doing music for 40-some years. And he got into rock 'n' roll when it wasn't a guaranteed. When he got into rock 'n' roll, there was no Hall of Fame, right?
[Question] Right.
[Answer] I have more respect for people who did it when it was "I'm going to do this career, but I don't really know if it's going to be a career." I mean, it might last five years. Now people look at it and go, "It's an industry." There's a record industry. There's a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. People make records now looking at the future and saying, "Well, someday it will be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." When they put me in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's, like, drive a little nail into me too and see if I'm still alive, or something's taken over my body. I don't worry about that kind of stuff, but I think other people do. I don't worry about it - not because I'm above it, but if they said, "Chris, we want to put you in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," of course I'd jump on it because that helps you sell records...
[Question] I would imagine they have a really good gift shop, too.
[Answer] The reality of it is I know I'm not going to be in there. I really feel for sure that my work is not going to get me into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because it's peripheral kind of work that I do. I'm off in some backwater. Pat Boone and Connie Francis - neither one is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Number one: Who made these people in charge of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I didn't vote for them, so screw them. It's not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; it's their little Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Number two: Who put this place on the map? The way I've got it figured it's some hotel conventioneers' angle to fill their hotel, and they said let's build it in this town, and people will come, and we'll put up a few things, and we'll sell the rooms in our hotel. It was probably the same kind of mentality of people who would have said, "Keep Elvis out of our town" - totally the same kind of people. It's got to be run by people in a suit with an appointment calendar and a secretary. It's squaresville, man. It's, like, nowhere. And these fucking squares have got the gall to say, "Oh, Pat Boone isn't rock 'n' roll." What would they know about rock 'n' roll? Pat Boone's been in more clubs and in more bars and nightclubs, and on the road in a bus.
[Question] And his piety doesn't bother you?
[Answer] He's not pious. The guy can take a joke and tell a joke. I know the image. The image is it's going to be Church Lady or something. But he's a real guy, very easygoing, easy to talk to. We talked about music and stuff, and he hung out backstage in L.A. when we were doing a gig. You know who else was there? Rick James. [Question] No way.
[Answer] Not hanging with Pat. It's, like, Pat Boone is there, and Rick James is there. That was so cool. But Pat Boone was not unctuous and "thou must not." There wasn't any of that. I like the guy. I like the fact that he's been married to the same woman. Look, I certainly don't feel like I want to be a poster boy for the "good guys," because I do stuff that I don't want them to print in the paper. But if you had to put me on one side or the other, then I guess I am on the good guys' side. Sorry if I'm not hip, but I haven't done any crack. I don't do heroin. I never smoked a marijuana cigarette in my life. I never smoked a cigarette in my life. I don't drink, and I spend all my time doing other sins. And I look at Pat Boone and I think, "You know, if you had to emulate somebody..." To some people he's square, but I don't think he's a bad guy. He's a nice guy. He sings great. The guy can sing better than anybody you've got going now. I mean, he has a big, beautiful voice and he can really deliver every time - not like today where people go, "Give me 10 takes, and I'll get you..."
[Question] Part of your public persona-type, it's almost like you're a white Lenny Kravitz. That you live in this sort of self-created nostalgic world.
[Answer] Notice you'll never see Lenny Kravitz and I in the same place together. We could be the same person. By day, the white-bread Chris Isaak; by night, the swinging Lenny Kravitz.
[Question] You know what I mean. Your references are definitely very - and this is not a bad thing - but they're particularly white.
[Answer] Well, I'm about as white as you can get. My musical influences are pretty white, and I realize that that makes me either adrift or going upstream. If I had to do anything to make my music more marketable, I would probably add a much bigger black influence to it. That's not who I am, though.
[Question] When you were growing up, obviously you must have heard Marvin Gaye, Motown, Otis Redding...
[Answer] No. I hadn't heard Otis Redding until much later in my life. I'd heard it, and I didn't get it. It just did not take.
[Question] Motown?
[Answer] And Motown was just zilch for me, except for Duane Eddy. Does that count? Nobody thinks of him as Motown. (For good reason; he wasn't - Finicky Categorical Ed.) It was only later on - like 1980s or something - that I went, "Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - yeah," bought it. Otis Redding, and then I listened to Steve Cropper, and I just went, "Oh my God, these are just fantastic, and I love this stuff," but it took me a long time to get it. And by that time it did influence my music also. Your voice or your instrument, whatever it is you play, kind of dictates kind of where you go.
[Question] You don't have an R&B voice.
[Answer] I can't sing R&B to save my soul. It doesn't mean white people can't sing it. If I listen to John Fogerty, he can scream, and it sounds really soulful and beautiful. I have to have a severe cold before I have any kind of raspiness to my throat. My voice is real clear. You remember Mark Dinning? "Teen Angel"? That's the kind of voice I always thought, "That's what you want to sing like." I wanted to sound like those real clear, pretty kind of voices. And they're very white-sounding to most people. When you sing, "Last night when I held you tight," it doesn't sound like a soul record. The media image is I'm a white guy, and if you're on TV, they give you two minutes. If you're in print, you've got 10. And most things on TV, they look at me, and they immediately go, square is on TV ... almost always. The people on TV are real square because they appeal to a real big mass audience, and they go right down the middle of mom and pop. They're not going to have an interview on TV with something that's way out there, so they get me on there, and they go, "So you remind me a little of Elvis. Did anyone ever tell you that?" To which, at this point, I'm, like, "You know, you remind me of my local newscaster - suit, Howdy Doody haircut, same goofy grin." The media stuff has a tendency to make a cartoon out of everything, and it's real easy for them to grab the stuff that's easiest. And they go, "Well, let's see. His hair looks like Elvis, so he must be like Elvis. He must love the '50s." I've had people who interview me and say, "What is it that you love so much about the '50s?" And I think, "Nothing." I don't hang out in the '50s shop. They expect that they're going to come into my house and Bowser's going to be there. Yeah, I'm going to have a kidney-shaped table, and it's going to be everything's from the '50s. My house is totally junk. It's decorated by what was cheapest to get. If you look at my house, all you find is wax and surfboards and guitars and junk, and clothes lying everywhere. And the clothes? (Grabs threads) New shoes, new pants, new shirt.
[Question] Did the huge success of "Wicked Game" put pressure on you?
[Answer] It's not really pressure. It's only pressure if you want that. Since I really don't care about that too much, it's not really pressure. What is pressure is being able to make records that are fun and make artwork that's different, and try and have new ideas and take new chances. I guess that sounds really trite. They have a show of beatnik art in San Francisco. I go to the museum and I look, trying to get inspired and have new ideas, and trying to think I have to do something different. I'm painting because I don't usually paint. I usually play my guitar. I've got to push into some other thing. I produced a couple songs on this last album. I'm trying to get something new going.
[Question] I was always very curious about the dichotomy to your stage patter and your songs. You're a crackup on stage...
[Answer] Well, there is a dichotomy, but it's me [realizing] there's a crowd out there, and I'm there to entertain them, and I want them to have a good time. And yet when I sing the songs, even live or on record, they're very serious, and I take the artwork serious, but I hope I don't take myself serious. The audience does not have to take me serious, but I try to make the music serious. I want to end up partly serious.
Back to Articles