Max Magazine Interview

Kinda Blue. Looks like a matinee idol. Croons like a legend. What else do you say about Chris Isaak….? Bastard.

Max Magazine (Australian)
November, 1998
By Stuart Hitchings

A decade’s worth of fine albums - his latest is Speak of the Devil - and an expanding resume as an actor mark Chris Isaak out as much more than just a pretty face. But the man’s sex appeal would also seem to be a big part of his charisma, if this interview was anything to go by.

Normally the Telstra operators who hook you up for interview calls are terse and businesslike. But not this one.

"I have to tell you, after seeing who you’re interviewing I wish we could swap places," she murmurs before connecting us, her voice sounding decidedly fruity. "He’s soooo gorgeous." Down, girl!

SH: Mr Isaak, how are you?
CI: Swingin’.

SH: And where are you?
CI: I’m in Utah making an independent film with a first time director about some kids who kill somebody. But they’re not really bad kids. They’re basically good kids who do something bad. And I’m the sheriff.

SH: What made you decide to do it?
CI: Nice script. And the director let me carry a gun.

SH: You live in America. You do that anyway?
CI: True. And I have a bunch of guns. But you know something? All the guns at my house have been taken apart and all the pieces are stored separately and all the bullets are locked in a drawer because I have an eight-year old niece and my older brother would kill me if anything happened to her.

SH: Your new record rocks a bit harder than usual.
CI: Yeah, I think it represents what I do live more accurately than my previous albums. People are always telling me they’re surprised how much rock we play.

SH: People do tend to associate you with ballads.
CI: True. And I do love to sing them, but a whole evening of ballads? One or two people maybe could pull it off. I saw Roy Orbison and I could have listened to him sing just pretty stuff all night, but he’s one in a million. For me it’s important to mix up the tempo.

SH: How long have you and your band, Silvertone, been together?
CI: Coming up on 14 years. And it’s still fun. I can still hang out with those guys. I can’t imagine what it must be like in bands where everybody hates each other, or bands where one guy has just hired everybody else and doesn’t know them.

SH: These days do you think of yourself primarily as a musician or as an actor?
CI: As a musician. I spend a lot more time doing that and I have a lot more control over it, though it might be different if you’re a big name actor and you can choose your projects. I can choose my projects, but I choose from a lot smaller menu. If anything comes to me you can pretty much bet that it’s been passed up by a lot of people. [laughs] But with music I can write it, play it, arrange it, record it….do everything.

SH: How do you feel about "Wicked Game" these days?
CI: I’m glad that it was many people’s introduction to me because it’s representative of what I do. The other night I was working on the set and some people came up wanting an autograph and a woman was telling me how much that song meant to her. I had an acoustic guitar in my trailer so I got it out and played it for her. Afterwards I thought, "Damn, it still feels nice to sing that song."

SH: You’ve never got sick of it?
CI: No. I think that happens when you write a song you really don’t feel too good about, and then it becomes a hit. I think that happened to Los Lobos, a band I really like. "La Bamba" was a real big hit for them, and they did a real great version, but it gave some people this false impression of them.

SH: "Wicked Game" was powerful for people because they first heard it watching "Wild at Heart’, and it was such a stunning scene.
CI: We have a lot to thank David Lynch for. If it wasn’t for him we probably wouldn’t have had a chance to make the video, which was another big factor in that song’s success. David Lynch did a video for us before we did the Herb Ritts video that everyone saw. That whole film generally was like our big break.

SH: And then you repaid the favour by acting in Fire Walk with me.
CI: That was fun. Again, I was playing a cop. Why do people keep casting me as cops? I think it’s because I’m a white guy who kinda fits the uniform. I’ve just got that look, I guess.

SH: Do you find acting difficult?
CI: Depends. In this film there’s a scene where they wanted me to smoke a cigarette. Now it’s not that I’m opposed on moral grounds to smoking, though I kinda feel that given a choice I don’t want to smoke in a film. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. So I sat in my trailer and practiced smoking, and I have to tell you that it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world you can do. Eventually they decided to give me a beer instead. Only problem there is, I don’t drink either. So in the end I had a beer bottle filled with cream soda. I don’t drink beer and smoke with my buddies but I’ve got plenty of buddies. But in the end my feeling is, "If I’m pretending to drink, so what? I’m pretending to be a policeman."

SH: You never had a joint when you were younger?
CI: Not once. Not even had one in my hand.

SH: Not even one you didn’t inhale?
CI: [Laughing] I tell you what, I don’t believe Bill Clinton’s story for a moment.

SH: About the marijuana he never smoked or the sex he never had?
CI: [Laughing] Both. I wonder what the rest of the world thinks about our President.

SH: The feeling here seems to be that he’s a man who has a great difficulty keeping it in his pants, but that it’s Hillary’s problem.
CI: I don’t know if Americans are as forgiving, I didn’t know this until recently, and I was really surprised, but Americans go to church more regularly and in greater numbers than any other people in the world.

SH: And we go the least. Australia is the most atheistic country on Earth.
CI: Really. That’s very interesting given how much alike our two countries are and how similar our histories are in many ways. Can you believe that our countries consist largely of people who were thrown out?

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