Chris Isaak Has If All Backwards: This Ain't The Way Sinatra Did It

Chris Isaak Has If All Backwards: This Ain't The Way Sinatra Did It

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Bud Scoppa

Three teenagers stand by the backstage door of the Hollywood Palace. As the sun sets behind them, the kids—two girls and a boy—conduct a silent vigil, their eyes fixed on Vine Street. In their arms they clutch posters and album covers emblazoned with the puckishly handsome, fashionably photographed image of Chris Isaak—who has yet to show up for a soundcheck. Apparently, the talented and ambitious Isaak has once again overbooked himself, succumbing to an ever-growing flood of requests from rock journalists, photographers and film directors for a few minutes of his time. Be patient, kids. At this stage, the 30-year-old artist may have more fans in corporate offices than he has on the street.

Since being signed by Warner Brothers three years ago, Isaak has recorded a pair of stylish albums filled with somber yet invigorating rock ’n’ roll. As far as I’m concerned, the first one, Silvertone, was the best LP of 1985, and the current Chris Isaak is just as good. Additionally, he’s gallantly gone against convention by doing extended club engagements—up to a month at a time—rather than one-nighters, in an effort to increase his visibility while also honing the chops of his band, Silvertone.

"It’s a real unique idea for show business,’’ Isaak has said.' "Play a lot, show up on time, try to please the audience. No one has been usin’ this technique, and like they used to say on McHale's Navy, it just might be crazy enough to work."

Nevertheless, the media attention he’s received in recent months probably has more to do with his face than with his highquality music—the media is courting Isaak as if he were the second coming of James Dean. Meanwhile, his records have received precious little airplay outside his current home base in the Bay Area, his classy videos have been shunned by MTV, and sales have been modest. If it keeps going like this, Isaak will make the cover of Interview long before his mug graces the front of the mag you’re holding.

Despite its normally unerring ear for Next Big Things, CREEM has been scooped in this instance by just about every rock mag on the planet (even Vogue, Cosmo and Vanity Fair have run features on him). Happily, this apparent oversight (due wholly to the mag’s interminable lead time... hey, didja hear about Nixon resigning?) puts us in the perfect position to view this rather bassackwards scenario Isaak finds himself in. (C’mon, Bud! R 'n' R News Mentioned his birth last month.—Ed.)

I’ve thoughtfully brought, along a batch of fresh Isaak clippings for the artist’s perusal, figuring he may not have seen ’em all yet. When he finally appears—impeccably suited, as usual— we climb the stairs to an empty dressing room and I immediately hold up a magazine, opened to the latest Chris Isaak spread. But when he sees what I’m doing, Isaak reacts like Count Dracula when confronted with a clove of garlic—he raises his hand in abject horror.

“No, no, no!” he pleads. "I don’t wanna read it, I don’t wanna see it! Come on now, gimme a break!" I close the magazine. "Good,” he moans in relief. Holy duotones, Batman—the guy’s serious. So what gives, dude?

“The only way I know about the attention I’ve been getting is that I’ve been doing the interviews. I haven’t read any of them—it’d make me nervous. I’m serious. If somebody gives me a magazine, I put it in a box and I give it all to my mom— she loves it. But for me to read it all, number one, it takes time away from things I’d rather do—watch TV or surf—or... Anything’s more interesting than reading about yourself. Also, it’s weird, because to read about yourself can put you in a real strange kind of world: do you believe it or do you not believe it? I already told these lies—now I have to read ’em? It’s not tempting at all."

Fair enough. As soon as I remove the source of his anxiety, Isaak turns into Mr. Gregarious, revealing a sense of humor as dry as David Letterman’s and as loopy as Steve Martin’s—the guy is a scream. Before long, he’s doing celebrity impressions.

“Let’s get down to some show business dirt,” Isaak mocksnarls. “Who do I hate in this business? Goddamn Mel Torme! He told me I’d never make it, but I guess he was wrong. I can’t go against my own Rule of Show Business, and that is that anybody who sells more records than me, as usual, I don’t like— they lose their integrity. I’m tryin’ to become more like Frank Sinatra, and I notice when I get really tired, I’m starting to pull it off. Buddy Rich is gone, and that has left a kind of vacuum.

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“I heard a bootleg tape of Buddy Rich telling off his band: ‘You sonuvabitch! Two weeks severance pay?) I’ll give ya two weeks upside yuh head! Pull the bus over. Get outta the bus—right now. I could get a buncha kids out of a schoolyard that play 50 times better than you—50 times.’ He goes: ‘I don’t need this. I can go sit in Palm Beach on my ass the rest of my life! I don’t need to pay you and carry your ass, too! And I don’t wanna see that beard on your face anymore. This is the Buddy Rich Band, a band of young men, men with faces. Not beards. Faces. So lose it. Lose it.’

“You can just imagine the whole band sitting there cowering. But there’s one nut hunched over a tape recorder tapin’ the thing!’’ The thought of this act of heroism puts Isaak in stitches.

■ “Another thing is, in order to be an A-1 creep, you have to number things when you start tellin’ people off. People come backstage after a show, and they go, ‘Chris Isaak—what’s he gonna be like? Is he a prima donna?’ So they’ll come back, and on purpose, Aaron, one of my road guys, will bring me somethin’, and I’ll go: ‘WHAT IS THIS?) Number one, I never drink out of a plastic cup! Number two... ’ And you see these people watching and going like, ‘Oh man, he’s a real monster.' And we play it for all it’s worth.

“I love the tripped-out Sinatra attitude, pointing and giving big rules about show business: ‘Show business is giving, and you don’t know how to give, my friend. And until you learn how to give, please, don’t come around me.’ ”

Isaak may have Sinatra’s schtick down, and he’s even been on Carson (though not with Buddy Rich and Jerry Lewis, as he’d fantasized beforehand). But he isn’t quite ready for the jewel-encrusted big time yet. For starters, he’s gotta move up from that '64 Nova he owns—chauffeur-driven Chevys don’t make it. Maybe a juicy movie role would do the trick, but noooo—he’s already turned down several offers. Most important, though, Isaak is gonna have to start selling some records.

“I’d love to have a hit single,” he admits. "I think about it after the fact, when everything’s done. But when I’m writing the songs, I just write ’em one at a time and I think: ‘What makes this a good song? How can I get this to sound cool? Would this be a good story if it went like this?’ Maybe I’m setting my sights too low, but I wanna have a career, not necessarily a hit single. All the people I’ve really liked and followed over the years had good albums. My idea is to make a good album and do good live shows. And if I do those things, then gradually I’ll reach more and more people who like that kind of music. If I can sell like a hundred thousand every time I make a record—which I hope to be able to do eventually—then I’ll be able to keep makin’ records. Otherwise.. .look at A Flock Of Seagulls—where are they now?

“A ‘hit’ is when a certain number of people buy a record, or a certain number of people play it on the radio. That’s all a hit is— it’s not a certain kind of song; it’s no symbol of quality. I think it’s possible that some of the stuff I've done could be a ‘hit.’ I mean, I don’t have any hits, but there’s some stuff there that could be played on the radio, and people would listen to it and buy it.’’

How incredibly naive. What’s wrong with this guy? To be successsful you have to compromise; everyone knows that. Doesn’t Isaak realize that having integrity violates the First Rule of Show Business?