Chris Isaak: Quirky, and a fan of Pat Boone

Lansing State Journal
Feb. 8, 1999
By Jeff Spevak
Gannett News Service

Chris Isaak knows entertainment. "I love the circus," he says. "The most important part of it is, its entertainment with a capital sparkle. They have cannons, they blow flames in air, it's not highbrow. You've got a whole crowd eating cotton candy and watching fire. If you can clutch a stick, if you've got an opposable thumb, you're gonna love this."

It's a great big world of primates out there, waiting for amusement - and Isaak knows how to deliver it.

His formula is pretty simple. He's a good-looking guy who boxed in college.

He says he's never smoked pot and is a fancier of unique lamps. He sits around his San Francisco beach house, playing guitar, until the surf comes up. Then he grabs his board and runs to the beach.

His voice is haunted, like Roy Orbison's. "I'll take that," says Isaak graciously. You know that voice from "Wicked Game," his biggest hit. It's one of those voices that gives you a chill.

Movie-star looks? Oh, yeah. Directors sometimes see him as a law-enforcement type. He was a detective in David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and a cop in "Silence of the Lambs."

He writes heartbreaker songs and once said, "As emotional as I am, I should have been gay." Isaak guesses he might have said that after a photographer came to his house and took notice of one peculiar aspect of Isaak's interior decorating. "I collect really old lamps," he says. "Cheap, gaudy things made out of sea shells. The kind of precious thing you would see gay guys collect."

These lamps have nothing, nothing, to do with the fact that Isaak is a big Connie Francis fan, and Francis has always had a big gay following. Like Isaak, whose female relationships have been difficult, "She really strikes the center of a lot of emotion, and a lot of suffering," he says, nominating Francis for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Furthermore, Isaak insists that Pat Boone should also be in the Hall of Fame.

"It's just political correctness," Isaak says. "When Pat Boone put out that metal album, that worsened his chances. But in their era, those people were a big part of it all."

Isaak is also extraordinarily funny, and when a story needs five minutes for him to reach the full comedic effect, he takes it.

Like his tale of driving down the highway at 2 a.m. It's cold out, so he slips on a surfing helmet to keep his head warm. He's had it on for a while, doing 50 in a 55 zone, when a cop pulls him over.

"I have a '64 Chevy," says Isaak. "Which means I could be either a low rider or white trash, which signals ready trouble to police." The cop starts quizzing Isaak, his intuition set off by a guy driving slow with a helmet strapped on. "And all the time," says Isaak, "I know he's thinking, 'You're a freak, I know there's a body in your trunk.'

"He asks me if I was drinking. 'I don't drink.' He asks me if I smoked any grass. 'That's illegal.' He makes me touch my nose. I do it. All the time, he's got the flashlight shining in the car, looking for body parts. Finally he gives up, and on his way to his car, all the way he's backing away with his hand on his gun. All that time, he never asked the question I know he was dying to ask: 'Why are you wearing a helmet?' "

Maybe he knew the answer. It's because Chris Isaak keeps telling people Pat Boone Should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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