Chris Isaak Walks A Lonely Road

The Roy Orbison of the '90s talks about losing the love of his life, why he won't ever commit suicide, the government's plot to censor the Internet and other cheery topics.

Addicted to Noise
August 1995
By Michael Goldberg

San Francisco

Chris Isaak has just removed a painting from a shipping crate. "Gene Autry sent me this," he says, clearly excited at the gift from one of his country-western heroes. A few boxes of Pecos Bill cowboy boots sit on a table. Guitars��acoustic and electric�� are lying about, on the floor, on the couch. We're in the living room of Isaak's Sunset District two-story house in San Francisco.

Isaak is in great spirits. You can't turn on MTV without seeing the moody video for "Somebody's Crying," and the song is a hit with radio too. His latest album, Forever Blue is sitting comfortably in the Top 40. Success is sweet.

But I'm not here talking to Isaak because he's got another hit. Isaak's music has touched me as deeply as any rock 'n' roll. I first heard a few of his songs��"Blue Hotel" for one, in the early '80s, on the college radio station KUSF. They were playing a demo tape back then. This was some years before he'd be signed to Warner Bros. (He's now on Warner Bros.' sister label, Reprise Records).

Isaak's band, Silvertone, played the San Francisco and East Bay punk clubs��Mabuhay Gardens and Berkeley Square in those days. I remember the first show I saw. It was at the Berkeley Square. I stood next to Isaak's producer, the famous and brilliant Erik Jacobsen (who produced a string of amazing Top 10 hits for the Lovin' Spoonful in the mid-'60s). Jacobsen had spent two years looking for an artist to produce that he could really believe in. He had finally found him in Chris Isaak.

That night, so long ago, Isaak and guitarist James Calvin Wilsey wore plaid flannel shirts (this was way, way before flannel became grunge fashion) and at times, with both singing, sounded like a punk Everly Brothers. More typically, Isaak sang in a voice full of heartache while Wilsey delivered James Bond theme music-meets-Duane Eddy guitar fills that made me a fan forever. After that show, backstage, the guys were cool and calm in the graffiti-covered dressing room. Happy to meet a journalist, glad for the press in the local daily paper that I was going to give them.

Isaak and I struck up a casual friendship, as I did with Wilsey and, a few years later, with the great drummer Kenny Dale Johnson when he joined the band. We were all hangin' around the same scene back then, and we all had in common a love of real, honest rock 'n' roll. We hoped that the music that was relegated to the small dark clubs would break into the Top 10, that the world would change, that great rock 'n' roll would once again rule.

Everything changes, nothing changes. In the intervening years, Isaak has made what I consider to be four classic albums: His first three, and his most recent. He took a wrong turn with San Francisco Days, which came in the wake of his first Top 10 hit, "Wicked Game." But with Forever Blue he delivered some of the best songs yet. And even though guitarist Jimmy Wilsey is gone, Jacobsen's production is as sure-handed and inspired as ever. Forever Blue is simply a great album.

And so I'm here, as much to hang with an old friend as to conduct an interview. At one point Isaak takes me on a tour of the place. We head downstairs to the "rec room," which is actually a wood-paneled music room filled with guitars, amps, a piano, a drum kit and even a bed, so that when night turns to morning, Isaak can lay his guitar down and pass out in the music room without having to climb the stairs to his bedroom.

Back in the living room, I settle into a couch, Isaak grabs a chair, and we start talking.

Addicted To Noise: You've said that your new album, Forever Blue, is about a relationship that didn't work out for you. "Somebody's Crying," the first hit off the album, is clearly about that relationship. How'd you write that song?
Chris Isaak: I wrote it at a party. I borrowed a guitar instead of mixing in, getting out of my rut, getting happy, whatever. I said, hey, there's an old Silvertone guitar. I went back where everybody had their coats laying on a bed. I went back there, started playing the guitar, and wrote "Somebody's Crying."

ATN: What were you thinking about when you wrote that?
Isaak: If you were looking at my life at the time, it looked like everything was okay. That I was having a good time. But in actuality, I was missing her more than ever. I like the first lines of the song: "I know somebody/ And they cry for you/ They lie awake at night." Not only are you saying that this is happening, but it's kind of in a secret way. It's like a little kid's way of saying things. Most of us are as terrified of love as little kids are terrified of the world. Little kids come up to you and say, "I know someone who loves you" or "I know someone who likes you." They say it like, I'm not going to really come out and say it. And for adults, it's probably the same way. They never really get beyond that fear.

ATN: It's also a more poetic way of communicating. What made you think to write that way?
Isaak: That's the way I feel. Still afraid to talk to her. You break up with somebody and that's the one person you'd like to talk to, but the one person I won't allow myself to talk to. I know her number. I haven't forgotten. That's not the reason. I still know how to dial a phone. I have phone service right at my house. [smiles wryly] I have the desire, the phone, everything is all there. Just something stops me.

THE END OF EVERYTHING

ATN: Why did you choose to let the world know that a lot of these songs were about a real relationship that ended?
Isaak: I think it's helpful that people know what you're trying to say. I used say the music speaks for itself. I no longer feel that way. Call me jaded, but I think the more you can tell people exactly what was going on, the more details you can fill them in with, the more background and color you can give it, the better. It helps them to know where you're coming from. Less and less do I care about embarrassment. Old people do more scandalous things than any rebel you want to name. Because they don't give a damn. They could give a rat's ass what you think. They're 80 years old. They're leaving soon, you know what I mean? I start looking at the world and I know I'm not going to be here forever. I'll try to be a little more honest every year. This record's pretty honest. It's confused. Sometimes you paint yourself a lighter stroke, a better tint, you know. Whether you want to or not, you tell the story from your perspective and it makes you better than you may really be. So I tell people, it's as honest as I can be and still have me be the good guy. But I try to be conscious of not making her into a villain. She's not a villain. Life tears people apart. I love that line. Anthony Quinn said it.

ATN: That relationship had gone on for three years?
Isaak: Yes. You don't know how much you're going to miss somebody until they're gone. Then you find out. I'm happy the record is proof to her that she created a big impression on me. Despite all the confusion and anger and frustration and whatever the hell we've gone through. I don't know how she feels about me now. She may be disgusted. But whatever she thinks, she doesn't realize that here's somebody who thinks about her. and who's impressed by her.

ATN: Impressed?
Isaak: Yeah, she made an impression. She was a smart cookie.

ATN: "Changed Your Mind" is a beautiful song moody, sad.
Isaak: That's a way out-there song. I don't expect anybody to get it but a lot of people seem to. It's so far out and so dark. I had a lot of fun at the end when it goes: "I want your love/ I need your love/ Too late/ You changed your mind." "Changed your mind" is such a little expression that people use to cover massive things. It's like, "I'm going to love you forever and ever, we're going to always be together and have kids and live in a house and it's going to be beautiful and I'll always take care of you." Then, "I changed my mind." Oh, okay. Then they redefine things. "I'm not in love with you, but I love you." What the hell does that mean? I always picture like a real dark sky, almost tropical setting ... It's funny how when things change so differently, a couple of years can seem like a million years. When things change like that, when you stop going out with somebody, you stop going to the same diner, you don't ride in their car anymore, they don't call you. You don't see the same people. That circle is broken. We used to always go down to this diner and she'd always get a Dr. Pepper and then we'd go over here and take a walk, but I haven't done that now in three years. That's all over.

ATN: It becomes a real demarcation point.
Isaak: There was a real clear demarcation point on this thing. I guess a lot of things in life kind of fade. But this was on October 26, 1993. Click. Somebody turned off a light. That direct. But I guess a lot of people go through things similar. You want to be dramatic and say this was a big thing and it only happened to me. But I see people everywhere I go that say, "I listened to your record and I relate because I went through this with my girlfriend or boyfriend."

ATN: I think people listen to sad music in a way to connect, to feel like there's someone else that has felt the way they feel right now.
Isaak: I listened to the Mavericks over and over because they had a song, and it was like wow, this is my story.

ATN: What was the song?
Isaak: "As shadows fall/ I'm falling too/ Ain't had nobody since I lost you/ Friends come around/ But that won't do/ Don't want nobody since I lost you." When you first break up, it really hits home. I wonder what the hell my ex listens to. I wonder if she has any songs that make her think about me, or is she over at her house listening to "Carwash/ Going to the carwash?" [as he does periodically during our interview, Isaak adopts a sarcastic tone] Now that I'm gone, who's washing your car now, baby? I guess I was good for something after all, huh? Yeah, sure, he's a better love-maker and he makes more money than I do and maybe he's better looking and younger but does he detail your car the way I did?

ATN: What happened after "Wicked Game" became a hit?
Heart Shaped World, the album that song is on, sold over four million albums in the U. S. How did that change things? Isaak: I don't think things changed much after "Wicked Game." People expected that I would have a different hairstyle, marry a super-model, live in a mansion . But I already did all that. No, I stayed in the same house, I have the same car. There's two places I go to. The beach and about once every two weeks I might go to Safeway. I don't really hang out with anybody unless they surf down here. [he points to the Pacific Ocean, which we can see through the living room window, less than a half mile away.] Past that, the band stayed basically the same.

ATN: Did it affect you on an emotional level?
Isaak: I was happy when it was a hit. I guess it was good that radio realized it could play my records and the stations wouldn't burn down. Before you have a major hit like that, radio's very apprehensive to play anything different or new. It's like a bunch of guys at a party. They hold out a tray in front of them and they keep looking at the other guy. Are you going to eat one of these? What is this? Nobody's the first.

ATN: Really, though, for much of your life, you wanted to be successful doing what you're doing now. You made sacrifices so that you could do it. The first time we ever talked��over ten years ago��you were living in that little garage apartment not far from here, a very small and funky situation, sleeping in the hall closet. You put up with a very bad situation because you wanted to be able to work on music. You didn't want to have to work a part-time job or anything. And with "Wicked Game," you finally achieved what you had spent so many years going for.
Isaak: But you never really achieve it. It's not like I want to be a writer and I write a book and it's a hit. There. I'm done. You immediately go, that's great, my next novel, for my next trick ... I want to be a musician and I want to be an artist and I want to keep doing this my whole life. I see it as a great thing, but what's next? That's immediately what comes to mind. And that's probably why now��this is a nice house and a nice view, but it's pretty average. I'm always surprised when I see other artists that are at my level in the business, and they've got mansions. They have these huge mansions, and I look and I think, how do you do that? Why do you do that? Because to me, as much as I could stay here and keep it simple, if I had to buy another house or look for another place, that's a month out of your life wasted. If I just live here, when I get off the road, I come back to work and I make my record and I have less things to worry about. I want to keep things as simple as I can so I can do the things I want to do. I think the biggest thing you have to do, so you get to do what you're doing for a long time, is not that you get an advance, but that you keep kissing up to the boss. I think it's very important to kiss up to the boss. And don't forget who the boss is. Look at your check, and the boss is the guy who's name is at the bottom. When I go out and do a gig, the boss is going to be there and the boss is sitting right in front. It's the audience, and if they don't like you, they'll fire you quicker than you think. If I started wearing some beat-up clothes and did a sloppy show and started having an attitude of it doesn't matter��it would be over. It would go from 1000 people to the next time, I guarantee you, 850. You do another sloppy show and there'll be 600 people. A couple more sloppy shows, you'll be opening on a Tuesday night for Flock of Seagulls.

ATN: You're going to do a duet with Gloria Estafan. Why are you choosing to do that?
Isaak: Gloria Estafan is having an AIDS benefit. She's kind of the host of it, as they explained it to me and they said, would you like to sing something on this benefit? And I said, well, we could do a song in Spanish. If she sings Spanish with me, maybe we could sing something together.

ATN: Do you know what song?
Isaak: "La Tumba Serra Final." Catholics can write such tear-jerking songs. Its got to be a Mexican guy who wrote that song. "I only love my mother more than you," which is a compliment. To an American, it would not be a good thing to say. But to a Mexican guy, that's a different attitude. I only love my mother more than you, which is understandable to him. Beautiful people. That's a great song.

ATN: When the San Francisco Days album came out and "Can't Do A Thing" wasn't a hit, did you freak at all?
Isaak: Oh, I was crying and crying and crying. Couldn't leave my house. Didn't have the strength to get dressed. No. I was quite happy with it and it was no pain to me. I got a gold record off the album. I sold 500,000 of the thing. So, to me, that's a hit. I'm happy with it. It wasn't as big as "Wicked Game" but it's kind of like if you went fishing, and you caught a world trophy fish, and every other fish you threw back was not as big as the trophy.

"A PRETTY BAD PAIN"

ATN: What do you think about Nirvana?
Isaak: Nirvana was one of the really important bands to come out in the past several years at least. Kurt Cobain single-handedly got rid of the poodle haircut in rock 'n' roll, and I've played with a lot of those kinds of guys in bands. And he did it because he brought back, I think, some kind of melody, simplicity, honesty, credibility to the music. It was great. I can listen to Nirvana easily. When he said "nevermind," I was hooked. Nevermind. Whatever. The way he said it, it was very real and sounded like something that you hear people say so I believed it. It was believable and now that he's killed himself, everybody believes it, you know what I mean? It adds a lot of credibility when you kill yourself. More than I need, thanks. No, it's true. If I shot myself, people would probably say, "Oh, guess he was really sad."

ATN: Seems like people really can't deny the talent of Cobain and Nirvana.
Isaak: I liked him. He was real simple, real fresh. Melodically. There are about three things involved. What are the lyrics, what's the melody and how's the performance. I thought he had great melodies, he had nice lyrics and he had a good performance. The arrangements were there. He sang well. He doesn't look like me or dress like me. And he's a different singer about some slightly different things. Real talented guy. Real shame, real shame. A friend of mine killed himself. Shotgun. I guess guys do that. It's a guy thing, isn't it?

ATN: With a gun?
Isaak: Yeah. I don't hear about women doing that as much. Maybe I'm totally wrong here. This is not born of any statistic or fact. I'm just free-flying here now. I think women attempt suicide and guys commit suicide more. I think I've heard that. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't want to put that out as a fact. Have you ever heard anything like this?

ATN: I don't know the stats. You don't think of women using shotguns.
Isaak: The other thing I'd heard is when people try to kill themselves like in a real violent way like that, it's a bad sign. It means they're more serious. I can remember my friend who tried to kill himself with a knife. Later on he went back and did himself with a gun. If I had to kill myself, I'd want the painless pill. Then I realized, the reason you want it to be painless is you don't want to kill yourself. I'm not into it at all. I asked my buddy one time before he died, he'd taken a knife and stuck it in his guts and I said, I'm such a wimp, I couldn't take a knife and get blood out of my finger. That'd be hard for me to do let alone take a big kitchen knife and stick it in my guts. I said, how do you do that? And he goes, "Well, I was in such pain." And I went, aha, the light went on in my head. You may think you're in pain but you're not in real pain. My friend was in real pain. When he stuck a knife in his guts to alleviate the pain, that tells you how bad it was. When Kurt Cobain shot himself with a gun, it must have been a pretty bad pain he was in, bad place.

ATN: So you feel that the sadness of a relationship not working out is a far cry from that kind of pain?
Isaak: It's a really horrible pain, an intense pain, but I just try not to think of suicide as an option. I think you ought to take that off the board. Don't even consider it. People listen to my music when they're sad, and I hope what they'll get from it is the realization that other people go through the same thing. There's some kind of shared commiseration. Other people have been here and other people have gotten off this island. It is certainly not music made to sit in the house with the lights off and say, "Well, this is it. This is bad." If it's bringing you down, don't listen to it. The Beach Boys. Try them. Listen to the Sugar Cubes. That's real upbeat. It's crazy. Put something upbeat on if that's the case. Turn on all the lights. Get out of your house. Don't just sit and mope. Once in a while though, I like to put on that kind of music. It lets me know somebody else is out there.

ATN: What do you think about the current American music scene?
Isaak: You get this very ethnocentric vision contemporary blinders on of music. It's pathetic. It's like asking, what great painters do you like? And you say, "Well I like Van Gogh or I like Rembrandt." And they go, "I don't know them. But what new ones do you like?" You go, "Well, some of the Dutch." "Well, no, the new ones from America, now." In music it's what's in America on the pop charts right now. That's it. People don't know a B side of a Rolling Stones' record. Just the hits. If I had a television show, if I had MTV, they would have opportunities to put wild, different things on. Somebody gave me a video of the Peanuts, this Japanese group from the '50s. Peanuts.

ATN: Just Peanuts?
Isaak: Yeah. The two of them, two Japanese girls. There's video footage of them from the '60s and it's hilarious, it's great, it's really cool and different. They have this old footage of them, it'd be so cool to have a special on them and see different things like that.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

ATN: Right now, MTV has this whole thing locked up. But in the next few years, you're going to be able to have real time video transmitted over the Internet for everybody. Then it'll be random access. For example, let's say someone put together a show on Japanese pop music from the '60s. That would then exist. Then people anywhere in the world could log in with their computer and check it out.
Isaak: Call me a cynic, but I can't believe that big corporations and big government are going to allow you to have a lot of access and a lot of freedom. Isn't it to the benefit of big corporations to limit things so that they can have their machinery focus on selling you t he new Michael Jackson?

ATN: Yes. But the way that the Internet was originally set up was so that it was to be used by the government, and so in case of crisis there was no way another country could cut off the communication. So if you cut off this link here, it redirects and the information gets to you via some other wires.
Isaak: I'm suspicious about the claim: "We're here to protect you from child pornography." When you say the word "child pornography," everybody raises their hands and says I'm against it. Everybody in the room. Then I think, be vigilant, be very, very careful about protecting your rights and freedoms. What exactly do you mean by pornography? What's child pornography? How are you going to cut it off? What's your next step? Obviously, they start with a thing that they're not going to get any argument about. Immediately, it's black and white. Nobody wants child pornography. Then pretty soon, I bet you can think of a couple of classical stories that have children and sex involved in the story and they say we're going to "x" those. And the next thing is, we're "x" -ing everything else those authors wrote because they're child pornographers and pretty soon we're watching every author because we have to be careful of what we allow. Now it gives them a right to supervise, to eavesdrop.

ATN: This is a really key issue right now for the future. What kind of control are governments going to actually be able to exert? And are corporations and the government going to be able to limit access?
Isaak: In real life, my viewing taste in what I watch and read is pretty tepid because I'm busy and I don't go out and watch the wild, cutting edge. But I would if I had time.

ATN: You want it to be able to exist.
Isaak: I want it to be able to exist. I don't like the idea of limiting. When they get rid of all the lunatics in the fringe, you're next, buddy. Because you're the farthest man out in the circle. Look, the guy with the tattooed face and the beret standing way out in front of you, he's your first defense against the think police because he's got some crazy ideas. And everybody agrees he's crazy and if they let him go, then you're safe. But once they get past him ....

ATN: Do you have any plans to get yourself a PowerBook or a computer and get onto the Internet?
Isaak: No. Not at all. I always found areas where everybody was competing and excelling and I avoided them. I went off and found my own little corner. When everybody else is making computers, I'll make candles. Whatever the hell it is. And what I do best is write and sing songs, and right now, most of that can be done on my acoustic guitar and a tiny little recorder. The less machinery I have is probably almost better for me at this point. But I don't know. There may come a time in my life when it'd be great to have something like that.

ATN: You got a couple of TV sets, you know.
Isaak: You know what's in front of the TV set? All my video rough cuts. Below that's a video disc player, which I use for editing ideas. For this last video, I used that. And all my records. The last thing I watched on this TV was a prizefight. And before that I had a tape of "Monster Surf at Mavericks," a huge surf tape somebody gave me. It's one of those tapes, you put it on when your girlfriend comes over and she goes, "I'm leaving." You go, "Wait, this is really good. He catches this wave. It's a 20-foot wave, watch, he takes off and..." "I'm leaving." "Honey. Wait, honey..."

Found at Addicted to Noise

Back to Articles