Chris Isaak

Current Biography
May 1993

b. 1956 - Singer; songwriter; musician.

Address:
c/o Reprise/Warner Brothers
75 Rockefeller Plaza, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10019

In 1991, after recording three albums and performing for over a decade, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Chris Isaak was rewarded with commercial success for the first time when significant numbers of rock'-n-'roll enthusiasts finally began to appreciate what the critics had been loudly proclaiming since the beginning of his recording career--namely, his extraordinary talent for "reassembling the disparate images, sounds, styles, and artifacts of pop-culture history into one persona," as Michael Goldberg commented in a profile for "Rolling Stone" (May 21, 1987). No one who has attended a Chris Isaak show or heard one of his albums has failed to notice his physical resemblance to Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson or, more important, his vocal evocaton of Roy Orbison's aching ballads. "It's flattering but unrealistic," Isaak said of such comparisons, in another interview with Goldberg for "Rolling Stone" (April 18, 1991). "Elvis was an original. In a league of his own. When people compare me to Elvis or Orbison, there's no way I'm not going to fall short. But when you actually listen to my songs, there's not much that's similar." According to Goldberg, Isaak's music inhabits "a dark, lonely world where love never lasts, where intoxicating, romantic memories from the past overshadow the present, where, as Isaak sings in 'Wicked Game,' 'nobody loves no one.' "

Chris Isaak was born in the summer of 1956 in Stockton, California, the youngest of the three sons of Joe Isaak (one source says Clarence is his given name), who drove a forklift for the Stockton Box Company, and Dorothy Isaak, who worked at a potato-chip factory until 1983, when she began studying for a doctorate in psychology. Chris and his brothers, Nick and Jeff, often sang with the family, and Chris learned how to play the guitar by watching Nick. "If not for my brother, I wouldn't be a musician," Isaak told a reporter for "People" (May 13,1991). He has attributed his lifelong sense of being an outsider to, among other factors, the flat, isolated geography of Stockton, where nothing worthy of comment in the news ever seemed to happen. "You got the definite feeling that you were listening in but it wasn't intended for you," he told Chris Willman in a "Los Angeles Times" syndicated article that appeared in the "Chicago Tribune" (May 19,1991).

While attending the University of Pacific, in Stockton, Isaak found himself preoccupied not so much with music as with boxing, as he recalled to Chris Willman: "I'd drive across town over to the old Santa Fe Depot on the south side of Stockton and box all day, and it was all blacks and Mexicans and a couple of white-trash guys like myself, and then I'd go across town to this university and it was all these upper crusty guys with that Poupon kind of mustard. I didn't really fit in with either side." His wardrobe, a mishmash of 1940s-style suits, Hawaiian shirts, and pointy-toed or square-toed shoes culled from local thrift shops, ensured that he would stand out among his classmates. "The first few days of class I'd show up looking like the other kids," Isaak recalled to Michael Goldberg. "I always did that to establish to everybody that I was normal...Then after a couple of days I was in these crazy clothes, wearing what I wanted to wear, and they could never figure it out."

The delight Isaak took in shocking people with his sartorial flair extended to a college filmmaking course, for which he wrote, directed, financed, photographed, and starred in an 8-mm science fiction film called "Forced Journey" that comprised footage of old westerns and pornographic movies. At the faculty screening of the film, Isaak found himself in hysterics, thinking. "This is the end of my college career." While the episode may have portended that Isaak would make his mark in a profession other than filmmaking, it did not signal the termination of his education. he graduated from the University of Pacific in 1980 with a B.A. degree in English and communications.

The year before, while Isaak was an exchange student in Japan, he had had an experience that changed the direction his life would take: he heard a reissue of Elvis Presley's 1954 recording "The Sun Sessions." "Hearing that record was a turning point," Isaak told Goldberg. "That body of work is probably the Rosetta stone of rock-'n'-roll. All of a sudden it clicked: 'This is what I want to do.' " One Presley song in particular, "I'll Never Let You Go," resonated powerfully with Isaak's sensibilities. "I liked it so much I sang it and sang it," he recalled to Joe Sasfy in the "Washington Post" (August 15, 1985). "One day, the Japanese lady that lived downstairs from me started singing it too. She couldn't speak English. She had learned it phonetically from hearing me. That's when I decided to give singing a try."

After graduating from college Isaak moved to San Francisco, where he began performing rockabilly-influenced music in coffee houses and nightclubs. With the help of Mark E. Plummer, who became his manager for his first two albums, Isaak, who plays rhythm guitar, put together a band with lead guitarist James Calvin Wilsey, a former "soundman" at the Mabuhay Gardens, San Francisco's premier punk club. (Punk clubs in the early 1980s often served as neorockabilly venues as well, because the fast pace of rockabilly revivalists appealed to the same crowd that enjoyed high-energy punk and new-wave music.) Calling themselves Silvertone, after the brand name of one of Isaak's guitars, Isaak and Wilsey were later joined by Kenney Dale Johnson, on drums, and Rowland Salley, on bass guitar. Isaak's music was inspired by rockabilly because "that's what white-trash people were listening to in Stockton," as he told Stephen Holden of the New York Times (April 17, 1991). When he was growing up, Isaak had bought many old records second-hand, based on their covers rather than any knowledge of the music therein; later, however, he acquired a taste for the songs themselves, including those by the country singers Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, and Slim Whitman as well as by crooners like Bing Crosby, Connie Francis, Pat Boone, Dean Martin, and Gene Vincent.

Drawing a distinction between his own music and that of true revivalists like the Stray Cats, Isaak told Mark Coleman for "New York Newsday" (July 16, 1989), "Look, we're not retro-rockers. It's easy to make records that sound old, but we've used synthesizers, harmonizers and everything else." He elaborated on the subject in an interview with Roy Trakin for "Request" (June 1991). "It's like night and day...," he said, invoking a particularly apt metaphor for the emotional as well as stylistic differences between his music and the songs about pink Cadillacs or stuff that's old- fashioned. I just write about things that are happening in my life. I think the reason why people relate my stuff to that era is because my vocals are on top of the mix, and there's a real clear sound to Jimmy's guitar. If you're going to be influenced, you might as well be influenced by the best."

The cosmopolitan ambience of San Francisco came as something of a shock to Isaak when he moved there in 1980 at the age of twenty-three. "I was pathetic," he confessed to Geoffrey Himes of the "Washington Post" (May 12, 1987). "I had this bright lime green suit with black velvet buttons. I thought that was how musicians dress; I didn't really know." (His mother made his outfits out of upholstery material.) He was equally unfamiliar with nightclubs. "I remember looking down and seeing guys in the front row shooting up," he recalled to the reporter for "People." "It was all hookers and deadbeats and a couple of sailors. I was terrified." Isaak had been playing for less than a year when he met Erik Jacobsen, the producer of the Lovin' Spoonful's hits of the 1960s. "I was most impressed by his charisma and the audacity of what he was trying to do with his voice musically," Jacobsen told Michael Goldberg. "He took a lot of chances." Before long Isaak had secured a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records and had begun working on what would become his first album.

Released in 1985, Silvertone, featuring a cover photograph of Isaak that mimics a famous portrait of Elvis Presley, was a critical smash. "Silverton is not only one of the most striking debut albums of the year, it is also one of the few albums of the eighties offering a thoroughly contemporary rock sound fashioned from America's musical roots," Joe Sasfy declared. With such melancholy titles as "The Lonely Ones," "Unhappiness," "Tears," and "Funeral in the Rain," the songs on "Silvertone" presaged all of Isaak's music to date in their focus on the tragic undercurrents of love. "I'd like to write real happy, upbeat stuff," Isaak told Geoffrey Himes, "and I probably will someday. But, to be honest, I think people have had more unsuccessful love affairs than successful ones. For most people most of the time, they're not going to have a relationship that lasts forever, and it's especially tough the first couple of times when you think it may last forever...(But) even though people don't stick together, I believe that love itself will last." Like Orbison's, Isaak's songs are haunting but not depressing, as Isaak explained to Himes: "Roy Orbison wrote some very dark songs, but his voice was always strong behind them; it was never whimpering...Nobody wants to hear anyone else whimpering; no one wants to hear me whimpering. I don't like it if someone sounds as if they're giving up. If you want to give up, you don't have to sing about it."

"Silverton" sold only 14,000 copies in the United States and 75,000 abroad. Lenny Waronker, the president of Warner Brothers Records, attributed those dismal figures to the reluctance of radio programmers to take risks. "It was somebody who was doing something different," he told Goldberg, "and there wasn't a lot of opportunity for airplay." Others have criticized the label's failure to promote the album aggressively. Still others have speculated that Isaak's priorities--his emphasis on making good music rather than pursuing fame at all costs--might have been partly responsible for the album's poor performance. "I'm just trying to avoid being fired right now," Isaak admitted to Sasfy. "I don't want to be dropped by my label. I want to sell enough records to make another record. I also want to make records that please me. If I can do those things, it'll be hip."

During the following year he turned down film roles in David Lynch's cult masterpiece "Blue Velvet" (1986) and Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" (1986) to complete his second album. He did have a small part in Jonathan Demme's "Married to the Mob." When a reporter for "Esquire" (March 1989) asked Isaak about his qualifications for the role, the singer replied, "Hell, I'm an American. I've watched a lot of TV. It's the American birthright to be in a movie." He later made a cameo appearance, as the commander of a SWAT team, in Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), and he had a small part in Lynch's movie "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" (1992). Most recently, Isaak had a major role in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Little Buddha," which was scheduled for release in December 1993.

According to the prevailing critical opinion, Isaak was right in postponing his film career to complete "Chris Isaak" (1987), which Goldberg described as sounding "like an eerie, stylized eighties version of 'Meet the Beatles'--only with all the songs in minor keys, sung by a vocalist who conjures up Elvis, Roy Orbison, and Marty Robbins. Isaak crafts dreamy, slightly surreal tales of lost love, heartbreak, and the ultimate loneliness of one's existence in this world. His lyrics are as simple and yet as layered with meaning as haiku." Lenny Waronker said "Chris Isaak" was "exactly what (he) wanted." (The album's cover, another brooding portrait of Isaak, was shot gratis by the fashion photographer Bruce Weber, who also that year filmed Isaak in a recording session with the pop-jazz artist Chet Baker for a documentary film on Baker called "Let's Get Lost.")

Isaak was judged to be just as thrilling onstage as he was on disc. Reviewing a show at the Bottom Line in New York City for "New York Newsday" (May 14,1987), Wayne Robbins wrote, "It's exceedingly rare to find a 1980s rock-'n'-roll artist working in a classic 1950s form without sounding like either a clone or a cartoon...The perfect emotional pitch of his music and the unexpected charisma of his performance sent a chill down the collective spine of the audience...One left Isaak's show awed not by his movie-star features or those well-crafted, passionately played songs. What was most impressive was being singed by that fire that seemed to burn within." Despite widespread critical acclaim, which was accompanied by predictions of stardom by such fans as the musician John Fogerty, who told Michael Goldberg that, in his view, Isaak was "already like a skyscraper against the landscape," "Chris Isaak" got little airplay and sold only about 200,000 copies.

Released in April 1989, "Heart Shaped World," Isaak's third album, spent ten weeks on "Billboard's" pop chart, rising to number 149 before dropping out of sight. The following year, the director David Lynch, who had used two of Isaak's songs in "Blue Velvet," requested a few more for his movie "Wild at Heart," which was released in the summer of 1990. "We have similar interests and tastes," Isaak said of Lynch in his interview with Roy Trakin. "In a strange way, we share a kind of disillusionment. I look at how he used two of my most romantic songs (in 'Wild at Heart'). He put (an instrumental version of 'Wicked Game') underneath a car accident and ('Blue Spanish Sky') accompanying a virtual rape (of Laura Dern's character by Willem Dafoe's). They really work as counterpoint to what's going on."

Lee Chestnut, the programming director of WAPW, a Top Forty radio station in Atlanta, became fixated on the haunting melodies of "Wicked Game" while watching "Wild at Heart." After discovering Isaak's vocal version of the song on the movie's sound track, Chestnut played "Wicked Game" for two weeks in October 1990. An overwhelmingly enthusiastic response by his listening audience led to airplay on other stations, and "Wicked Game" was released as a single the following month; by March 1991, assisted by two videos--one directed by David Lynch and a seond, more popular one directed by Herb Ritts that featured Isaak frolicking on a beach with Helena Christensen--the song had reached number five on the "Billboard" singles chart, carrying "Heart Shaped World" to number fourteen on the album chart.

Isaak had begun writing "Wicked Game" after receiving a telephone call from a woman he had been seeing; he had finished it by the time she reached his apartment. "I went through a pretty tough time," Isaak told Chris Willman, referring to his love life, "and I can see it in a lot of the lyrics of my last album. A lot of times it's just stuff that I can't say to anybody. Those ideas get stuck in my head and the only way I can say 'em is in music. The way I write, I sit down with a guitar, and usually it's in the dark, and I just start singing like I'm talking to myself. It all comes out at one time, the melody and the words." Displaying his quirky sense of humor in an interview with Joe Rhodes for "Entertainment Weekly" (March 8,1991), Isaak commented on the irony that "Wicked Game," one of his most unearthly songs, became the hit that put him over the top. "I'm just glad it's a song I like," Isaak added. "What if I would've made some disco-boogie song and THAT would have been the hit? I would have been on talk shows the rest of my life going, 'Look, I don't do the disco boogie anymore. Please don't ask me.' " Later that spring, sales of the album, which eventually reached at least as high as number seven on the "Billboard" chart, were climbing toward 1.5 million copies, and Isaak released a second single, "Don't Make Me Dream About You."

In the summer of 1991, after having performed publicly for ten years, Isaak embarked on his first major nationwide tour. Reviewing the singer's first appearance in New York City since "Wicked Game" cracked the Top Ten, Stephen Holden praised his "consummate showmanship" and "playful stage personality" in an assessment for the "New York Times" (May 19,1991). Describing Isaak's Elvis-inspired rendition of "That's My Desire," which had become a hit for Dion and the Belmonts in the 1960s, Holden wrote, "Like so much of what Mr. Isaak does, it was right on the edge of caricature and could be taken as both parody and tribute, with reverence winning by a hair."

In 1993 Isaak released his fourth album, "San Francisco Days," which featured eleven new songs. The singer directed the video for the record's first single, "Can't Do a Thing (to Stop Me)," which Peter Gilstrap of the "Washington Post" (July 31, 1993) described as "a lush plea with a marimba riff that calls up trade winds and tiki torches" and which reminded more than one reviewer of "The Wicked Game." Isaak's rendition of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" was labeled "definitive" by Melinda Newman of "Billboard" (April 3, 1993). Most of the offerings on "San Francisco Days," including the title song, are thematically consistent with his previous work but much more upbeat and seemingly carefree, even when the subject is unmitigated loneliness, as in "Lonely with a Broken Heart." One of his "characters"--the central figure in the Hawaiian- flavored "Except the New Girl," featuring the steel guitarist Tom Brumley--actually achieves lasting happiness in a romantic relationship, a first for any Isaak protagonist. Perhaps reflecting the new mood, Isaak is smiling in the cover photograph of "San Francisco Days." On the other hand, the singer's musical departures were not so drastic as to render his songs unrecognizable; indeed, a reviewer for "Entertainment Weekly" (April 16, 1993) complained that Isaak's music can be "stiflingly monotonous" despite its being "as well crafted as rich Corinthian leather." Produced by Erik Jacobsen, the album showcases the talents of Jimmy Pugh, on the B3 organ, the saxophonist Johnny Reno, and the guitarist Danny Gatton, in addition to Silvertone.

In his interview with Chris Willman, Isaak maintained that his success did not surprise him: "It reminds me of a statement I heard in an old movie (Francois Truffaut's "Jules and Jim"): 'Scum always rises to the top of the barrel.' So I knew my day was coming. I think it's gonna make me a less sarcastic and bitter person. Well, maybe less bitter." Other than that, it seemed that Isaak would remain unchanged by his new circumstances. he continued to drive his 1964 Chevy Nova, and he told Roy Trakin that he had "no desire for an expensive car or a fancy house or fancy clothes." "Call me naive," he said to Stephen Holden, "but life was pretty good before I quote- unquote made it...I can afford suede shoes and Chinese food three times a week. To me that's pretty good." But in his interview with Joe Rhodes, he admitted that he enjoyed all the attention he was getting: "Just imagine that somebody was knocking at your door every fifteen minutes all night long and they were bringing you birthday cakes stuffed with money...You just go 'For me? For ME?' Yeah, it's a lot of attention, but it's nice. It's really nice."

As of 1991, Isaak lived alone in an apartment in San Francisco. He had no time for personal relationships, whether of a romantic or platonic nature, and he counted his bandmates as his closest friends. Still tortured by the love affair that inspired so many of his songs, Isaak informed Joe Rhodes that he still thought about it "all the time," adding, "I sill have hope, though. I know there's somebody out there as crazy as I am, and, man, wait till we meet up. We're gonna set the woods on fire."

Standing six feet, two inches tall, Chris Isaak has "a trim but sturdy build, neatly cropped blond hair, and the sort of bottomless coral blue eyes that explain why some American Indians thought the first European settlers were emissaries of the devil," according to Mark Coleman. Modest almost to a fault, Isaak told Roy Trakin that he thought he looked "goofy," adding that "if you take your picture enough, you find something good...All I know is, when I used to walk down the street in Stockton, women used to lock their cars as I walked by." Committed above all else to his music, Isaak takes good care of his voice, as he explained to Coleman, by not doing anything that could harm it: "I don't sing goofy, I don't drink or smoke or do caffeine or citrus fruits or drugs or chocolate or sugar...Instead of getting drunk out of my mind, I'll run three miles, or box, or surf. Or talk to somebody for three hours on the telephone. So I've been able to untwist instead of twist up."

Selected Biographical References: Mademoiselle 97:74+ Je '91 por; NY Times C p12 Ap 17 '91 por; People 35:111+ My 13 '91 pors; Request p24+ Je '91 pors; Rolling Stone p55+ My 21 '87 pors, p29+ Ap 18 '91 pors; Washington Post D p1+ Jl 31 '93 pors

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