Interview: Chris Isaak
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN was calling for tickets. So was Madonna. And Sean Penn. And Sylvester Stallone. And Laura Dern. And Rickie Lee Jones. And Mickey Rourke. And some of the cast from Twin Peaks. They all wanted to see one of the most compelling rock & roll acts to hit the Top Ten in years: Chris Isaak.
“Bruce called about tickets?” says Isaak, every inch the Fifties-style rocker in his tight black jeans, pointed shoes, white T-shirt and brown leather motorcycle jacket, as he looks up from his plate of noodles at a cheap Thai restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. In a few hours he will headline a sold-out show at the Wiltern Theater, in Hollywood.
Adopting the voice of a rube, Isaak, who grew up in Stockton, California, drawls: “They gonna give ’em free tickets? They git in for free?”
He’s grinning now. “Come on, Bruce,” he says. “You sittin’ on a big ol’ pile uh loot. Git up off it!”
Then, returning to his natural voice, Isaak says quietly: “If he comes, that’s pretty nice. Any time another artist shows up, it’s flattering.”
Isaak can afford to poke fun at the superstars who are interested in him; suddenly, he’s becoming one of them. His latest single, the dreamy “Wicked Game,” is an international hit; his album Heart Shaped World has sold about a million copies worldwide. He’s been on The Tonight Show recently and plays a cop in the Jonathan Demme film The Silence of the Lambs. The powerful entertainment agency CAA wants to handle his film career, and at least one executive from a major studio has been whispering sweet nothings about getting him up on the screen in a major role.
Chris Isaak has abruptly become a star. But he hasn’t forgotten that the last time he played Los Angeles, the club he was booked into wouldn’t give him a sound check. So even as Warner Bros. executives tell him that his album is the hottest in that company — yes, hotter than Madonna’s — Isaak wonders just how long it can last. Fingering a wooden tiki head that hangs around his neck for good luck, he says: “Five years from now, it could be like ‘Oh, man, him? Plays a guitar. Everybody else has got keyboards, he’s still got guitars.’ Or in ten years: ‘Oh, those guys still actually try to sing. It’s boring. They sing.’ You never know.”
Isaak adjusts a pair of wraparound shades that look like something Jean-Paul Belmondo wore in the Jean-Luc Godard classic Breathless. As if he were quoting from some official music-business rule book, he says, “Usually, right after you make it, you can count about seven years until people go, ‘How totally square.’ “
Interview: Chris Isaak, Page 1 of 5