Mysterious Chris Isaak Speaks of the Devil he knows best - Himself

Guitar World Acoustic
?? 1999
By Isaiah Trost

Chris Isaak is a mix of opposites. Take his music, which is as likely to reference the moody roots-rock melancholy of Roy Orbison as the animated British Invasion/surf music of the early Sixties. Or consider his looks, a combination of fashion-model handsome and wrong-side-of-the-tracks tough. Isaak has even negotiated a kind of duality in his career, releasing well-received albums every couple of years while taking roles in Hollywood films like "Married to the Mob", "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Little Buddha".

Isaak has worked his image as a man of mystery ever since he hit the big time in 1989, with his sexy and ominous Top Ten single, "Wicked Game" (also featured in the David Lynch film "Blue Velvet"). Lately, though, that image has started to change, as a somewhat less-forbidding tone has come to characterise Isaak�s more recent albums, like the sunny "San Francisco Days" and the good-spirited "Baja Sessions".

Isaak continues that mood with his latest, and sixth, album, "Speak of the Devil" (Reprise). But the new album still has much more in common with Tom Waits than it does James Taylor. While the arrangements feature a kind of playfulness - growing, perhaps, out of Isaak�s often-stated admiration for the Beatles - the old themes of desperation, danger, loneliness and passion are still present in his lyrics.

His age notwithstanding - he�s 42 - Isaak is nothing more than the grown-up version of a music-mad teen from a poor North California town. Despite the time he spends working out marketing ideas, appearing on TV talk shows and taking part in spectacles like the VH-1 Fashion Awards (where he was headed the day of our interview), Isaak still puts the music first. Ambitious, media-savvy and surprisingly frank, he takes pride in the fact that his hard-won success is the result of his music rather than any public relations-enhanced image. He speaks with great self-awareness of the unlikely road he took to become a musician and songwriter, sounding both cynical and vulnerable as he does so. For all his apparent dualities, Chris Isaak is cool but not cold, hip but not effete, and very much his own music man.

GUITAR WORLD ACOUSTIC: How would you characterise what is new about "Speak of the Devil" compared to, say, what you did on "The Baja Sessions"?

CHRIS ISAAK: If my last album was a massage - a very acoustic, laid-back, sound-of-the-waves sort of affair - then this new one was a "lock the door, turn off the lights, and turn up the sound" party. Much more of a big production, with a rockin� band.

GWA: What influenced your decision to go in this direction?

ISAAK: Well, the last one, as I said, was so quiet and mellow, that I think my natural reaction was not to do the same thing again. Having done a one-man show in which I played Abe Lincoln, I decided to go for the full Broadway musical.

GW: Since you started recording close to 15 years ago, you�ve worked with the producer, Erik Jacobsen, who was responsible for some of the great mid-Sixties pop acts, producing the Lovin� Spoonful on the East Coast and the Charlatans [one of the earliest exponents of the San Francisco sound - GWA Ed.] in California. Does he retain some of the elements from his old approach in his work with you, particularly on "The Baja Sessions"?

ISAAK: Erik is really totally up-to-date. I think what keeps him fresh is a classic approach to producing. He doesn�t put "the Erik Jacobsen Sound" on you. He�s a great editor and a great worker. He says, "Get it right, get it in pitch and on time. Make it swing. Is that verse too long, is that a good lyric?" - the real fundamentals of producing. If he was a football coach, he�d be about blocking and tackling. He may not be as shiny and shimmery as some producers, who put a big reverb on everything. But over the long term, he�s a guy who listens to each record and makes it work.

GWA: There�s a mystique about you that seems to be almost as important as your music. How do you relate to that aspect of what you do?

ISAAK: The marketing and the imagery is stuff that I�m aware of and take part in, but it also drives me insane. I�m trying to sell records and pay a band. Living in the real world and being of the flesh, you�ve got to pay for your orange juice - you gotta sell records. My hands are on the whole process: Most of the time it�s me laying out the album art. Having said that, it doesn�t mean it�s something I want to do all that much. To me, the most enjoyable thing is going in the studio and making a record.

GWA: How did you become interested in music?

ISAAK: I just liked music a lot. I guess it�s a little too obvious to say this, but I was really a big fan. Say I�d be at a party where somebody had a good record collection. If someone would come over and say, "That girl is hitting on you! Why don�t you go hang with her?" I�d say, "Yeah, yeah, but would you look at this guy�s records!"

GWA: How�d you make the transition from fan to player?

ISAAK: Real gradually - it wasn�t like I dove in a pool so much as I walked in a long shallow pond, going deeper and deeper, until I was swimming. At 13, I rode my bike over to K-Mart and bought my first cassette recorder. As I was buying it, I remember thinking, "I can put songs on here." Why it occurred to me, I don�t know. My parents were working at a potato chip factory and my Dad was driving a fork lift, but I thought it would be fun to make up songs.

GWA: Were you already playing the guitar?

ISAAK: No, I was playing harmonica and just sang into the tape recorder. Later on, little by little, I learned the guitar by watching my older brother. My buddy gave me a Xeroxed sheet of guitar chords. He said, "Here�s a thing that shows you where to put your fingers." It had a hundred guitar chords on a long page. I said, "Wow! This is it - it�s all right here, everything I need to know." I took it, figured out three chords and thought, "I can play everything in the key of C!"

GWA: What guitar players have been important to you?

ISAAK: I love Carl Perkins, Scotty Moore and, as far as rhythm guitar, I liked Elvis� acoustic rhythm playing, which nobody ever seems to mention. And Cliff Gallup, from Gene Vincent�s group, was a killer. I got to play with Scotty Moore once, I�m not sure what kind of impression I made on him, but I was just giddy about having him play while I sang.

GWA: What kind of guitar are you using these days?

ISAAK: The new Gibson J-200�s a really good. I can�t think of anything better. I play mine in the studio all the time; it�s got a great sound. I�ve also got a Gibson Country Gentleman semi-hollowbody electric.

GWA: Would it be correct to say that, for you, songwriting takes precedence over playing and singing?

ISAAK: Songwriting is the thing I�m most proud of because that�s something I work at, and sometimes I feel okay about the songs I�ve written. I don�t think my playing is remarkable in any sense; I think it�s appropriate to what I write. My lead guitar player has to be a virtuoso, someone who plays better than me. The stuff I play as rhythm guitarist and the sounds I get are kind of funky, and I want that. It�s nice to have a couple of seeds floating around the orange juice just to let you know there was an orange involved.

GWA: Who inspired you to become a songwriter?

ISAAK: McCartney, Lennon, Randy Newman - I was real impressed by him. John Prine - he came at a time when no one was writing stories in lyrics and I thought he filled a gap, went totally against the grain. He still writes great stuff.

GWA: Do you ever feel like you are you�re own sub-genre?

ISSAK: All the time, and it�s frustrating. I�m not Madonna or Marilyn Manson. What I do is not a media-driven kind of thing, where everyone reads about the controversy and then buys the records. People buy my records, and, very often, it�s because they�ve heard it or a friend played it for them. It�s not so easy, but it�s not so hard for me as for some others. I�m sort of in the middle. There are tougher genres to get ahead in.

GWA: There�s a combination of darkness and longing in your music, particularly on the early albums. Where does this come from?

ISAAK: I think it comes from where I grew up, in Stockton, California. The records I�d listen to that reminded me of where I�m from are older, like Roy Orbison, who probably grew up in the same kind of area as I did - desolate open space. You feel kind of stuck there, and at the same time it�s like you never want to leave. As much as that stuff, I think the time you live in also helps define the music you make. Even now, the records I listen to relate to where I�m from. I listen to the Verve and Radiohead. They�re not from my place, but I can relate.

GWA: On your last few records, you�ve worked with a lead guitarist, Hershel Yatowitz. How does he differ from your former guitarist, James Wilsey?

ISAAK: They�re different people; it�s a whole apple and oranges thing. I�ve never said to my guitarist, "Sound like this guy," or "Do this." I�m really happy. Hershel is a nice guy, and we need one nice guy in the band - that�s new for us. He�s pretty heavy on guitar and can really throw down. It was [jazz guitarist] Charlie Hunter who turned us on to Hershel. I thought if Charlie�s recommending him, maybe he�s too hip or maybe this guy will have riffs for days. But like Goldilocks said, "This one�s just right."

GWA: One last thing: Have you always had such a way with words?

ISAAK: I try to put things in as picturesque a way as possible. I used to subscribe to "Reader�s Digest".

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