December 18, 2024 • 49 mins
This week, it's Huey Lewis! S.E. grew up listening to Huey Lewis and the News and now she gets the chance to ask him all the things — from Huey's early days busking with his harmonica in Morocco to the surprising impact 80s punk had on him starting his own band. Huey also shares some fun stories about his segue into the movies — with songs in Back to the Future and American Psycho — and then acting. SE also asks how his diagnosis with Meniere's Disease - a chronic inner ear disorder - has affected his life, his relationship with music, and his mental health. And in the lightning round, SE finds out that she and Huey share a funny and familiar connection.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I sat everybody down. I said, guys, just so you
know this right now is about as good as it gets,
because if everything goes according to plan, a year from now,
we're going to have to headline these shows, which means
the critics are going to be after us. You only
go from nowhere to number one once.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So in the early eighties, I was a little kid
living in Scottsdale, Arizona, with my mom.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
My parents had just gotten divorced.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
We left California, where I was born to be closer
to family, and even though it was a tough time,
some of the best memories I have from childhood are
writing around in my mom's VW Rabbit convertible listening to
her favorite music, and it was a lot of Phil
Collins and Billy Joel and Elton John and Dire Straits,
but it was mostly Huey Lewis in the news. When
(00:51):
I tell you that his is basically the soundtrack of
my childhood, I am not joking. And as you'll learn,
our path would sort of cross over the ensuing years.
He doesn't know this, but we'll get into it. But
all this time later, Huey Lewis is still one of
the most beloved singer songwriters in American history, and I
think for good reason. I'm so pleased to welcome Huey
(01:13):
Lewis to the pod. Welcome to Off the Cup.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Thank you very much, very sweet. And doesn't your mother
have good musical taste?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
She really does.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And we're going to talk about my mom a little later,
but she had the best musical taste.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
And I remember when I was sixteen, I was an
old soul.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I loved the Beatles and she gave me all of
her Beatles albums when I was sixteen for my birthday
and a record player to play them on. So she,
I mean, she's the best musical taste and she passed
it on to me. My first question to you is
why do you think you are so beloved?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I can't find a person who doesn't like you.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
There's some out there, I guarantee you, I can't find one.
Let's see. Is it my golden pure voice? Probably not.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Probably everyone loves your voice. I think that's part of it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Uh No, I have no idea. I have no idea
why that is. That's a wonderful thing to say. I'm
not sure it's completely true, but.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I'd rather you're the Henry Winkler of music.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Everyone loves you, and can I venture a guess. I
think it's because there is something about your music and
you that feels timeless.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's interesting, you know. Uh, that's very very interesting because
you know, we started my band and I before MTV,
like just crushed a year or two before MTV. Yeah,
I mean I have no tattoos. Had I had I
started four years later, I'd be tattooed head to foot
if I thought, if I thought, that's what it took.
(02:46):
You know, my dad was a jazzer, and so I
always would taught the songs I were always timeless. You
never wrote you never, they were never were time sensitive,
right Chuck Chuck Berry wrote Roke rock and Roll for kids,
and there's no question about that. I pointed it right
at kids. But I was always taught through jazz that
you want songs that are sort of timeless and not trending.
(03:09):
And interestingly, a lot of our stuff because of that,
ends up being more appropriate for somebody of an older
age than twenty nine years old when I wrote the thing.
You know. So it's kind of interesting, but I think
it comes from my dad and jazz and standards that was.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Where Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And to me, I'm sure you've talked about this, and
you know I'm not inventing anything here, but your songs
don't really to me fit neatly into a simple single genre.
You know, you've got pop, you've got rock, R and B,
do wop. I even hear a little prog rock from
time to time. Who were your biggest influences?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, starting out, I was a rhythm blue snob, black
music snob that played blues art, Little Walter Sonny Boy,
Johnny Taylor, you know otis reading. Oh yeah, well, I
mean Ray Charles. But when I joined my first college band,
you know, we played fraternity parties and we had to
(04:10):
learn top forty songs and stuff. And at that point
I became less of a snob because I found that
although I preferred listening to certain types of music, all
music was fun to play. Yeah, And so at that
point I became less of a snob. And now I
truly believe like Duke Kellington always said, there's only two
kinds of music, good and bad.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yes, And you went to college where I went to Cornell?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So did I?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Did you? Really? Well? You probably went there a little
longer than I did.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Actually you left in junior year, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well I went for five minutes over a two year period.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, I don't know how it was when you were there,
but there was always a great.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Music scene in Ithaca. Did you know a place called
the Haunt?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Sure you did, No that I know of it. It
wasn't there when.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I was there, Okay, okay, I didn't know how long
it had been there.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We had Maury's. You remember Maury's.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Is that still there?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I don't know if it's still there in the North
forty No, I don't know that one.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
How about the Warehouse?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
The Warehouse, Yes, I know that.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That was a gig.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
That was a gig and then yeah, right, it was
a great music scene.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The station. Remember the station? Is there an old railroad
car where they get stakes and a restaurant. Yes, that's
Victoria Station before Victoria Station. Oh, that guy went to
Cornell and and founded Victoria Station based on that idea.
That's that's all. How amazing idea. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I did Joe Bonamaso's podcast and he was nice. His
first gig was at the Haunt in Ithaca.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
No kidding?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Is he from upstate?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I guess he might be.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think he might be because he was playing when
he was like thirteen.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
He was doing gigs at like thirteen. Yeah, he's great,
very smart, very nice. I want to into your career.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And that Cornell connection was the first time.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Our paths would would sort of align.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
We weren't there together, but but yeah, common.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
By a long shot. In fact, I'm not sure you
were actually born yet when I was at Cornell.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
What kind of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Well, I was, I was athletic, but I skipped second grade, right,
and so then suddenly I was like after a little
league and all that. I was like a year younger
than everybody. And then and that's where music came in.
I think that's how I sort of pursued music. My
dad was was a doctor, but he also played drums
(06:44):
and piano, and there was a set of drums always
set up in the house, and so music was a
part of me growing up. But I was more interested
in sports early. But right, I remember when I skipped
second grade and then I suddenly was and you know,
I don't know, music sort of appeared a wait it
for me to show up.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, you were smart, you were a smart kid, right.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, yeah, I mean I had good I got you know,
nice test scores. Does that make me a smart kid?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Do you want to tell us what your SAT math
test score was? Huey, You know there's a word for it.
It's perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Only my math, my math. I got eight hundreds on
my math boards, both level one and level two. But
my verbal wasn't very good. I can't even remember if
it was, you know, six hundred or something.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, Well, we can't all be good at everything.
How do you you learn to play harmonica?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Where? Well, my when I was in still in prep school,
my parents got divorced before I went to prep school,
and my mother was a hippie. She was one of
the very first hippies in San Francisco. And she rented
a room out to a folk singer named Billy Roberts
who was a w wrote Hey Joe, and he was
(08:01):
a focusinger and he played harmonica with one of those
braces on and so, and he had a room and
he gave me all his old harmonicas. So I was
probably I went away. I was a year young. So
I went away at thirty four, so I was like
fourteen years older. Yeah, and that's how I started playing,
but I only just played a little bit. And then
(08:22):
when I graduated from prep school, my father who suggested
that I go to prep school on the other side
of the country. I mean I was in California and
prep school is in New Jersey. He required me to
not go to Cornell yet, to take a year off
and bum around Europe.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yes, so great, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well it made all the difference for me. He felt
that a lot of people don't know what they want
to do that early in life, and they studied to
do and then they're stuck in that profession when they
would rather be a harmonica player.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Let's right.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So I toured the country the world, really I'm not
the world, the Western world, let's say, yeah, in Europe
and North Africa, and played harmonica for a year, and
then I went back to Cornell. I took a year
of laps leave of absence, went back to Cornell, and
on my first day, I remember walking into the engineering quad.
I was an electrical engineer, and I looked around and
(09:18):
I thought, you know, this doesn't look as much fun
as I've been having for the last year.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
This is not Spain.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I don't think I'm gonna do this. But I had it.
I'd had it all before because I advanced placement in
prep school.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Right, so I didn't even in a class and you
got good grades for a couple of years. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Well, so what was what was busking like?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Busking was great, I mean it was well, you know,
it was Well, example, I'm in North Africa, you know,
in Morocco and Marrakesh, and the square in Marrakesh is
just amazing square. Right, there's snake charmers and acrobats and
guys on bicycles and just crazy clowns. So I just
(10:05):
set up my hat and start playing harmonica. And I
had a little pig nose amplifier that I wear around
my neck so I could amplify, and you know, I'd
make like three direhams in an hour, and the youth
hostel where I was staying was one direham and all
you could eat at one of the kiosk was half
a dereham, and I was like a dearham to the plus,
(10:27):
you know. And so actually that's when a bell went off.
I went, I'm going to do this is good work.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, So then you come back, you quit Cornell, You
go back to California. What's the plan when you go
back to California?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, I wanted to be part of what was happening
at California blew up in you know, summer love, and
I graduated sixty seven, okay, and so that was boom,
and now San Francisco was on fire musically, and now
I was playing harmonica. So I went back and I
joined a bluegrass band called the Herford Heartstringers, who is
(11:00):
a Betty I'd known from before. And we were a
busking band. We're like an eight piece bluegrass band and
we go to Fisherman's Wharf and busk. And three of
those members were in a band called Clover, and they
recruited me for Clover, and me and our stand up
bass player who else by piano, Sean Hopper, and he
(11:21):
and I joined Clover in probably seventy four, I'll say
something like that. Seventy Actually, no, no, no, seventy two,
seventy two.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
How do you get to play harmonica for one of
my all time favorite bands, Finn Lizzie.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Wow, they were so great.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
They were so great, and Philip was my.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Mentor, you know, and he was like he just he
took me under his wing. He dressed me out of
his closet. He was It was a crash course in
rock star. You know, Philip was the best rock star
ever and he loved being a rock star and he
and he was just so wonderful about it. He was
(12:04):
so sweet to everybody. He signed autograph and talked to
the fans, and he taught me everything about how to
be a ruckst, how to treat the fans, how to
treat the band, how to treat the promoter, how to
what to do with critics, how to do everything but
the music, which which you know, I came to on
my own. But he was amazing. And so the way
(12:26):
that happened is Clover was signed to Photogram Records in
London and for our first tour we were going to
open for Thin Lizzie and I remember the first gig
was in Oxford in north of London, and and they
told us you're not going to get a soundcheck because
that's just the way it is. And these British we
(12:46):
don't do you know, three three after three gigs, maybe
you'll get a sound check. That's just tough shit, that's
just the way it is. Oops, pardon my friends, so
now we don't get a soundcheck and there's a curtain down,
and so we get on stage and out through the curtain,
we're trying to get our amps on and trying to
get making sure I got tone and all that, and
(13:08):
outside you could hear right, I mean, these kids are
nuts for Finn Lizzie and so no, I'll never forget
my Uh, we needed some We suddenly figured out we
need somebody to introduce us, right, say, here's Clover right
because on the on the billing outside it says Finn
(13:29):
Lizzie plus support. Your name's not even on the marquet, right,
So we needed somebody to So we go to the
road manager Frank. Frank introduced the band, and Frank goes
and he doesn't he'd never done it before. It so
he comes out and the and the curtain goes up
and we're standing there and he walks out and the
(13:50):
place is going wow, like did he goes? Hey everybody,
he says, and they're going letzie and he goes, yeah, yeah,
Finn Lizzie will be right out. Whoa They go crazy.
But but first here's Clover there go and so we
(14:13):
got I mean, we learned to play take no time
between songs, because otherwise we'd get boot off the stage.
People are throwing us up. But if the first gig,
we come off the stage, and we played all the
songs and got through it somehow. And standing in the
wings is Philip and he's right there. He says, she
you mind, have you go a minute? Yeah, let me
(14:34):
have a wear? Will we have aware? Do we? Yeah?
Bo we go and he starts. He sets me down.
He tells me about his audience and how boom and
he had notes on our set and you out of that.
That's a good one. Do this and he was just wonderful.
I'm dying, by the way, the best hard rock band ever,
(14:54):
Sinn Lizzie.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You don't have to tell you're preaching of the choir.
He was so talented, His voice was so uniqu their
songwriting was so great.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That double guitar. I mean, you talked to guitarists and
they're like, he was the inspiration.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And he and he was so he's Irish and he's
so sweet, you know, just big irish heart. Was total lover.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Great guy, gone too soon.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, and I was producing him when that happened. He
said one of the worst things that ever happened. He
came to London. I mean he came to Marin County.
We happened, and we were happening, and then his management
Chris and Chris came to me and said, you know,
would you mind producing something on Philip And I went no,
(15:37):
of course, but you know he's got to be clean
and they said, oh, yeah, no problem, he's clean. Said
I said, well, k well, you know I didn't want
any drugs, so no drugs. Fine, So we got him.
He came to California and he was good. He was
but he hadn't sung up in his range for a
long time. And we cut three songs and he sang
and he was. We were really close. We only had
(15:58):
one week and we didn't really get everything. We got
got three songs cut and I needed to get vocals
on it, but he had his visa was only for
a week.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And so he went back to London. He was going
to come back. And that's that's you know, that's that's
what he he's he copped and no deed. Yeah, which
is what happens to these kids today, you know, with
with with with that is they is they don't they
they get they get a little habit going, and then
they quit. Yeah, and if they quit, then they when
(16:30):
they fall off the wagon, boom. That's that's that's when.
That's what happens. Horrible.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Well, that's a tragic, tragic death. But I'm so glad
you got to work with him. That's an amazing that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
He was the greatest, the greatest. You might want to
edit all that stuff out. I don't know why. Okay, whatever,
it's just hardcore stuff, you.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Know, wonderful story. Listen, we we get into hardcore stuff here.
We talk about all kinds of stuff here, So you know, those.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Are those are those days.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
So you're coming into the eighties. How does Huey Lewis
and the News come together?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, when Clover broke up. First of all, we were
managed by Jake Rivia and Dave Robinson, two great guys.
They also managed Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the Damned. They
created Stiff Records together, but before any of that, they
went partners on Clover and because they thought the next
(17:39):
big thing would be country rock might be well it wasn't.
It was punk and we were and you know, so
we we our office, our management was right there. The
office of all the great punk bands. So I love
the punks. I didn't like the music, but I love
the fact that they were thumbing their nose at the
at the music business, yeah, and saying, you know, we
(18:00):
don't care, we're not going to try and make it. Well,
it's not about making it. It's about playing our own songs,
their own quirky way and screw you, you know. And
I thought, wow, how liberating. If Clover ever breaks up,
I'm going to go home to my club, my local club,
and start a band with my favorite people and do
it like on a Monday night for nothing, and just
(18:23):
play for the hell of it. And that's exactly what
I did, and it really caught on. I went to
our local club and said, give me your worst night.
It was Monday night, and within two or three weeks
the lines around the block, and you know, we did
all on originals and then I started writing some things
and that's how it grew.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And do you believe in Love is your first big hit?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah? It was the first top ten hit yep.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And what was that like to suddenly have the entire
country obsessed with your song?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, it was strange in that we'd produced that record
on our own and mixed it and agonized over it
for so long, you know. Then we released it as
a single, and we heard that kf RC, which was
our big parallel one station in San Francisco, was going
to add the record and that so that was a
(19:16):
big deal and they were going to play that new
ads on Tuesday. And I remember, so I called all
the boys in the band. We all went came to
my place and we sat there and watched the radio
like it used to do in the thirties, you know.
And I'm watching the radio and now they say, Okay,
here's a new band from Marin County and blah blah blah.
Do you believe lovers? Here? Me lewis the news and
(19:36):
they play the record, and I could. I thought two
things and I'll never forget it. One, I thought, Wow,
it's going to be a hit. And number two, I thought,
but it doesn't sound anything like us. It sounded like
a whole different band almost really, And I think it
was the compressors in the in the radio station that
(19:56):
made it, that made it jump out of those speakers,
you know. And I mean, of course it sounded like
us a little bit, but having you know, recorded and
rehearsed that and played it and produced it. I just
didn't I almost didn't recognize it.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Do you think you were ready for fame at that
time in your life?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Uh? Yeah, I do, and I'll tell you why. Because
I was no Spring Chicken. I was twenty nine years old.
I've been playing a band for ten years. I saw
Philip Lennett, he was my teacher. I saw how he
handled everything, and I can honestly say that we and
I told the boys. I remember we had a little
meeting and I because we could when our sports record
came out, boom and it just started to take off. Yeah,
(20:38):
and we were still opening for different bands, only that
people are now coming to see us, and clearly we
were going to have to headline these places. And I
sat everybody down, I said, guys, just so you know,
this right now is about as good as it gets,
because if everything goes according to plan, a year from now,
we're going to have to headline these shows, which means
(21:00):
the critics are going to be after us. We're gonna
have to worry about all the equipment, all the lights,
all the We're going to take fifty people on the road,
and it's going to be you know, right now. We
just show up, eat the crew, meal, play forty five
minutes and we're done, you know. And so we honestly
as much as you can. And I explained to them,
(21:21):
you only go from nowhere to number one. Once you
can go, you go back to number one, I guess.
But that that rocket ship ride from obscurity to to
there to you know, top five is it needs to
be enjoyed and savored. And we did, I think as
best we could.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, because you'll never be nowhere again.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
That's it. That's exactly right. It's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So Sports Sports is such a good album.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Obviously, what was the concept there, Well, there wasn't one.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I mean, you know, if you listen to it, it's
it's all they're all different. I mean, it's such a
different collection. Yes, and that was that was you know,
anathema back in those days. You didn't want to do that.
But we produced the record ourselves and they all meant
something to me. And so that's kind of And honestly,
(22:13):
if you imagine this is nineteen we made the record
came out in eighty three, so you know, January of
eighty three, so we were recording that at eighty two.
In eighty two, there was only one format CHR contemporary
hit radio, which was top forty FM. Radio didn't matter.
MTV had come along. It was all about hit records.
(22:34):
You needed a top ten hit record period. So we
aimed every produced the record ourselves, and we aimed every
track right at radio. One's kind of a blues ethay,
one's a hard rocker, one's kind of a ballad. And
so we knew we needed to hit record is our
third album. If we didn't, if we didn't have a
hit where the record, it would beat over. And we
(22:56):
knew we needed to hit right. We didn't know we
were gonna have you know, five others did, but we
needed one.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And did you think when you were writing the songs
on sports did you think about the music videos that
you would have to do?
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Not at all, not a little bit. But that became
a parent and so and there's another funny story actually there.
I've told it before, but I'll tell it again. Why
not the video for do You Believe in Love? With
Chrislas Records, we had made a couple of videos ourselves
(23:34):
to sell the band. I had made these two videos
with an outfit called Video West in San Francisco. This
is like nineteen seventy seven. Video tape was brand new,
the cable TV was brand new. Nobody had ever seen
cable or video. There were no cell phone nothing, no computers. Yeah,
and so this CaAl. Kim Dempster from Video West said, look,
(23:58):
if you let us video you doing a song, will
and play it on our show at two o'clock in
the morning, our Video West Pop show, We'll give you
the video. I said, fine. So I thought of these ideas.
I had a funny idea from you know, watching Hullabaloo.
I used to watch James Brown before your Time, But
they used to have these shows where bands would come
(24:19):
on and lip sync and like they'd have James Brown
set up at the beach. You know, he looked, like,
what's James Brown doing in a full maroon suit at
the beach? You know what I mean? But it was fantastic.
So that's what I did. I juxtaposed all that stuff.
We played this song on a little sewage peer out
on the beach, and so I had these cool videos
(24:40):
and so the record company loved that. That's one of
the reasons we got signed. But now they said, we
need a professional video. Now we're gonna do a real
big one. So for do You Believe in Love? It's
gonna be a hit. So they hired an advertising guy
who is a glamour guy sort of, and he had
us all in makeup and pastel backsets and everything, and
we cut the video all day long. This is the
(25:01):
video where we're all in bed with a girl and singing,
doing all that said. And so now now we go away,
and a week later we come back to wrect company
to see the rough cut, and we're all there and
it's it's the record company. There's four or five of them,
four or five of the video people, all of us,
but there's probably you know, thirty people in this room.
(25:23):
And the guy gets up and he says, now, look,
it's not colorized yet. It's not colorized yet, but it's
gonna look way better than this. But this is the
rough cut. And then he turns the lights off and
he plays the video and my heart sank. It was
the worst thing I'd ever seen. There was no direction.
The guy was like the lead singer, you know, the
hue he was he did, but he's singing off to space. Well,
(25:46):
I mean, it was the craziest thing I'd ever seen.
I thought it was horrible. And then when it ends,
they put the lights back on and everybody stands up
and gives us a standing ovation. No no, And I
remember my thought exactly was, Wow, anybody can do this.
There's no art to this at all. Nobody knows what's
(26:06):
going on here. We're writing our own records, we're producing
our own music. We need to do our own videos.
That's all there is to it. Yeah, And so from
that moment on we did all those videos ourselves, and
the idea being that do them outside in San Francisco.
Let the seagulls and the ocean and the bay be
(26:27):
the production, let them chew the scenery and just goof
and be funny and avoid a literal translation of the
song at all possible. Yeah, and that's what we did.
Just have fun.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Okay, back to the future.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
How does how does this opportunity, this iconic opportunity come
to you?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Spielberg Zamechis, Bob Gail and Neil Canton asked to have
a meeting with my manager and I at ambling newly
formed Amblin Entertainment. It's like the week they opened and
we sat down and and Zameca said, we've just written
this film and our lead character is a guy called
Marty McFly and his favorite band would be Huey Lewis
(27:11):
of the News. So we thought, how about writing a
song for the film? And I thought, I told him
I was flattered, didn't know how to write for film necessarily,
and I didn't quite fancy writing a song called back
to the Future. And they said, oh no, no, whatever,
you call it, whatever you want, We just want one
of your songs. I said, all right, I'll send you
the next thing we work on. And Chris and I
(27:33):
had already started Power Love sort of, and so we
just finished it up and send it down to him.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I didn't. I didn't think it was going to work,
because there's no real love object, you know, in the
film other than and so they just used it for
a chase scene. But it works so well. And you know,
I think there's a lesson there for songs from movies,
and that is that it's it's it's better when they
only tangentially apply. In other word, if you just write
(28:01):
the story into the song, you're just retelling the.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Story, right right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So Power Love really didn't have anything to do with
Back to the Future, but it ended up being this
other leg. Yeah, that film can stand on.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, it was sort of the anthem of the movie.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
That's power.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Oh so good.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
What was it like to be referenced the way you
were in a movie like American Psycho, You.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Like Huey Lewis on the news?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Their early work was a little too.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
A wave for my taste. When Sports came out at
eighty three, I think that really came into their own
commercially and artistically.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
That was interesting.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Well we had read read the book right and clearly
uh Brett Ellis was a fan. Ye yeah, and not
just you know eighties fan Hnney Houston, Phil Collins like that.
You know, it's that thing. And he and his little
review or you know, of three is little synopsis is
(29:18):
pretty right on. It was. It was pretty amazing. I'm
reading this guy pretty much gets it, you know. And
then so now comes the film and they say they
want to use hip to be square and I said yeah,
and they said it's a very violent scene. I said,
I don't it's but we're going to pay you boom,
you know. And so I said fine, and William Dafoe.
(29:39):
So I knew he was an art I knew he
was an artistic film. You know, I'm fine. Three weeks
maybe before the release of the movie, my manager calls
me up and says, hey, they want to do a soundtrack.
I said, really, well, what what what would be on
that soundtrack? He said, well, uh, your song on Eric
Clapton song I think was it a Phil Collins do
(30:01):
one or the other and source music basically just to
I said, well, that's not right, is it. I mean,
our fans have to buy this whole record for one song.
He says yeah. I said, do we have to do
He said no, no, it's not part of the deal.
I said, well, can we respectfully decline? Sure? Yeah, okay, no,
thank you. All right now, the day before the premiere,
(30:22):
they release a press release to everybody to you know,
USA Today New York Times that said that the movie's
premiering tomorrow and it's so violent that Huey Lewis has
pulled his song from the soundtrack album, which which is
all trying to gin up publicity, and and so I boycotted.
(30:45):
And I've never seen the film. You haven't seen it,
never seen it, But but I did lampoon the scene
with funny or Die, and that was that was kind
of fun. Do you like American Psycho? It's okay.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Although originally polarizing to audiences and critics alike, it developed
a much deserved cult following when released on digital video
disc or DVD. There it found a second life and
really came into its own commercially and artistically.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, I mean, that's your decision. That's your decision not
to watch it. But it's it's a great film, and
that scene is great.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
I'll tell you what else is? Yeah. I saw the
scene a lot because we were president, and the funny
thing is doing the scene which is supposed to be funny.
I mean, I found out comedy is hard, right, all
these guys doing it, nobody's nobody laughed or smiled all
day long we shot that thing. I was cracking up
and I'm the only guy laughing. Yeah. I'll tell you
what else was good? Is the Broadway show? The Broadway
(31:46):
show American Psycho really good? And Duncan Chet wrote all
the all the other music. Ohoh, and it's really it was.
I mean, how do you make a musical out of
truly American? Well? They did, and it was really good.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I thought, well, I'm a fan of musicals as well.
And let me tell you, they made a musical about Jonestown,
so they can pretty much make a musical.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
About anything about who Jonestown. Oh yeah, true.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Okay, I want to talk about another one of my
favorite movies, Duets. It's so good, it's so fun, it's
got so much heart, and most importantly to me, it
has so much singing.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
How does that role come to you?
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Uh? Wow, I guess my agent called me and I
just read for it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Did you audition for it?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It feels like they wrote it for you, But maybe
that's just because I can't imagine anyone else doing it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
In the script, the guy gets up and at the
karaoke bar, my character and you know, pretends to be
hammered and then gets up and brings the house down
by tearing off his shirt and kind of like disrobing.
And I said, you know, if you're in a karaoke
(32:59):
bar and you just tear off your shirt, they're just
going to say this guy's an idiot.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I said, well, do you have to do it? You
need to sell the song. I said, I'll sell the song.
Don't worry, you know, just give me the song and
I'll sell it. And I think he liked that. So
that's how I got the part.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Oh my gosh, who was the best singer among the actors?
I mean and Maria Bello, Gwyneth, Paul Giamatti, Andre Brower,
Gwyneth really.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh, Gwyneth is a really good singer. And not only
just sing good singers. She's a good she's very musical,
sings harmony. She's really good. Blithe Dan, her mother told
me during the shoot that she always wanted that. I
think I think her her brother is. Oh, no, Blithe's
sister is an opera singer. Her b brother is, and
(33:45):
she and Gwyneth always blithe wanted Gwyneth to be a singer.
And uh, but she's a great singer. And it was,
you know, we had it was a nerve wrecking time
because well.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
That's what I wanted to ask.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Were you nervous for that role acting alongside all these
incredible actors or did you feel like the veteran vocalist
surrounded by novices?
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, you know, I had. I did a I did
a film called Shortcuts with with Bob Altman, with Robert
Altman and we it was shot on location in Bakersfield,
uh and for three days, and we had we all
had to drive. The whole company had to go from
LA to Bakersfield. He said, come with me, you drive
(34:30):
with me. So I went with Bob to It was
like a three hour drive. And by the time we
got to the location, and it was a tutorial on
film acting and he and I asked questions and he
explained to me. You know, he said a lot of
really cool stuff. Number One is read the script every
day till you know it cold and acting is reacting right.
(34:53):
You need to In other words, it's easy to deliver lines.
It's another thing to react to something that you you
know they're going to say, but you have to pretend
that you're just hearing it, like your mother just died,
you know. So you need to practice that stuff and
work on that. And so you need to know everybody's part.
So you need to do all the parts and rehearse
(35:14):
all your reactions, he said, and get a backstory together
till you know this character. You know what he had
for breakfast, you know what and he says, and you know,
take all kinds of suggestions the directory to it is
till you really know this guy. When you know this guy,
then don't listen to anybody. And and so that's kind
of what I did in in that party in duets,
(35:38):
I kind of I created a backstory that Ricky Dean
was a real singer with a band and he hated karaoke.
It was just like, these guys are just joke. These
guys are joked. They don't know any They're not real singers.
There's karaoke singers. I had a real band and all that,
(35:59):
but falling on harder times, I'm older and stuff, and
so this is just a way to make a living
is to hustle these people in the state, because other way,
you know, I couldn't find I don't even know if
there are already karaoke hustlers, do you know what I mean?
I mean, I don't know if it exists. So I
had to create a scenario whereby Ricky Dean would want
(36:20):
to be a I want to hustle these kids and
make my way. So so in a way, you're quite corrected.
And the acting and all that was was not that
big of a problem for me. The one was was
the song because in the in the script The song
was song for You, the Leon Russells song, and they said, well,
Gwyneth will be picking this song. I said, yeah, I
get that. So Gwyneth chose this one, Cursy Cruising, and
(36:45):
they called me and said Gwyneth's chosen a smokey Robinson tune.
I said, oh, great, which one cruising cruising? Shoot? I
never I couldn't recognize it. And then I said, well,
just send it to me. They send it to me
and I said, oh, yeah, I get it. Okay, it'll
be good. Yeah, well, well we need to get around
the piano and pick a key and oh no, no,
we've already cut it. I said, well, what what key?
(37:06):
Did you cut it? Original key? And then I thought
I went back to listening Togain. I realized it's in
her key. He's really smoky, you know, it's in her key.
So I figured this other part out and then then
I hoped would work? No idea, And now I show
up at the studio to cut it, and I said, yeah,
now that we already cut it, and we want you
(37:27):
to come down second with her on Wednesday, you know, okay, Wednesday,
I show Hope and there's like thirty people there there's
people from the film, and there's other cameras, and there's
her mother and Bubba, and now we go in the
studio where, well, what do you got, Hue. You know, well,
here's what I got, you know, And it worked out.
But I was nervous. I was nervous, and you know,
(37:49):
you know, you know, it was great Maya Rudolph, who's
really good friends with Gwyneth. Yeah, and her father was
the musical director of the film, and so she was
hanging out and she really was helpful in everything. I
could always go to her and say, Maya, make sure
I hit this note and not that one. You know,
no problem.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
That looked like it was a really fun movie.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh yeah, it was really you know. Bruce wasn't well,
you know, Unfortunately we never got to rehearse. We had
to rehearse on camera. And then I think Steve Ross
got I think they had gotten some kind of an
argument and he had to recut the film and they
cut a whole bunch of stuff out of our part.
Oh no, they had to cut the film down from
(38:34):
two fifty to two hours and ten minutes. And yeah,
Gwynnis and my stuff, we got like three full scenes
cut which is too bad. Oh, actually our best scenes
were cut. No, yeah, it happens, I guess.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
I mean, you know, that's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But she was, she was wonderful, she's she's a total
pro and yeah, yeah, you know, and it was really sweet.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's a great film switching gears. What happens leading up
to your diagnosis with many years, what's happening to you
that you end up there?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Uh well, I lost my right ear like thirty five
years ago and I was completely flipped out, and I
went to an e NT guy. My father was a
doctor and he recommended this famous bestie ant guy in
San Francisco in the West. And the guy looks at me.
He says, well, get used to it. I said, what
he says, get used to it. He says, it happens
(39:38):
sudden hearing losses. We don't know. I said, what causes?
Says we don't know. I said, you're kidding me. I said,
but I'm a musician. I'm a singer. I need to
He goes, Hey, you only need one went I'm a musician.
He says, Hey, Jimmy Hendricks had one ear, Brian Wilson
had one ear. I have one ear and I'm in
a barbershop quartet. I said, really, yeah, So then I've
(40:01):
went okay. And then I put my ears in for
my next gig. Worried. Worried, But your brain moves that
voice right to the middle of your head. That was fine.
I existed on one ear for like thirty five thirty
years or so, and then twenty eighteen, in January twenty seven,
(40:23):
a day who will live in my infamy? I just
my right ear went too and now I couldn't hear anything.
It was before a gig. I went down to the gig,
I put my ear. It was cacophony for me, horrible.
And it's been pretty much like that ever since. It's
actually going down, actually deteriorating. I like to pretend I'm not,
(40:46):
but I think I am. And I'm probably headed for
a cochlear implant, which is not a pleasant thing by
any means, but might be necessary.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Did this at all?
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I talk a lot about mental health on this podcast
because I struggle with my mental health. Did this impact
you your mental health at all?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yep? It's changed me, has made me a different person.
You know. I was a very social guy, and when
you're at a noisy rim man, you can't hear anything.
I retreat to my my womb, like my little cocoon. Yeah,
and it's and I can't hear music at all. And
(41:27):
I mean it's it's one thing not to be able
to perform and sing, but I can't even enjoy it, right,
And that's that's that's really the hard part for me.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
That must be devastating.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, I mean it's like my uh, like my pal
Tico Taurus drummer for bun Jovi's Jersey guy. I told
him about my story to tell me I don't we
when we see each other about every year at golf
terms we both play golf and we're we jam with
a band at the end, we fell in love musically.
(41:57):
I mean, he's a wonderful drummer and a wonderful guy.
I see him after a year and I go and
he goes, yeh, yeah you doing. I said, not good, teak,
I can't hear that, you know, can't perform, can't sing.
And he goes, what are you gonna do? So that's
my mantra, what do what you gotta do?
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, yeah, yuwie, what are you gonna do? Ye?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
So Jersey, how does the Broadway show come about.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Well, my neighbor's son in law comes to me at
a birthday dinner of mine given by my neighbor and says,
how about a musical based on your music? I said, well,
you know, welcome to the club I've had. You know,
twenty people said that before the proofs in the pudding.
You gotta have a script. Yeah. He says, all right, right,
(42:50):
well can I trust yeah? Of course. Go. He went away.
He came back with his pal John Abrams, who's a
feature writer, with a very good first draft, and years
later we got it to Broadway.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Its long.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Wow, and it's not the story is not your story.
It's a different story set to your music.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
It's an original story based on our music. Yeah, but
there are some parallels. It's interesting. When I first saw
the first twenty nine hour reading, it's fascinating seeing how
all these songs rearranged sung by ladies like yeah, sometimes
(43:32):
juxtapose different rhythms, rearrangeal And then the whole body of
work displayed all of our songs. And as I listened
to it, when I went through, I went, wow, and
there really is. I don't see it. I never did before,
But there's a thread that goes through through our stuff,
and it's clearly our personality, you know, that's it. It's
just certain things are certain things, aren't you know, it's
(43:54):
all like anything, like anything, sovi So that was really
so gratifying. I watched the to watch these songs live
this other life?
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, so cool. Who came up with whatever happened to
Huey Lewis? That show? Idea?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Uh me?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
And that was that took a long time too.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Yeah, yeah, I've been I had it in the back
of my mind forever. Yeah, and we've you know, now
we're we're we're actually working on it, and it's kind
of fun. I mean, it's uh mind you it's early
days yet.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
So you know, did you did you watch a lot
of Curb or Larry Sanders show.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah? I love the I love the Larry Sanders too.
It's really good. But I think that's good. That's and
we're we're we're stealing all kinds of stuff from those things.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Yeah, oh well, I can't wait to watch that.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Okay, we're going to do a lightning round.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Okay, which decade produced the best music?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
I'm gonna say, what can only one it's either of
the thirties or the forties. Oh, absolutely, no question. There
was no television, Yeah yeah, radio was king it was.
That's how that songs defined what the fashion was, what
the people wore, how they acted, well they how they spoke.
(45:20):
That was all determined by these songs in the thirties
and forties.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Which decade produced the worst music.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Well, I think we're working on that right now. Actually,
I agree, it kind of gets kind of keeps getting
worse for me, I agree, mind you, I can't hear anymore,
so I have a good excuse you too.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Marine or Montana?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Oh well, Montana for me now, although I'm a marine
boy for sure. Yeah. But Montana more cheese, less rats.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Perfect. And did I hear that you fish?
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I do on the fly fishing fanatic.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Well that's the place to be then, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I love their love.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
And the reason I love it, yeah, is not in
the catching of the fish necessarily. It's the communing with
mother nature, you know. That's and and when you train
out smart one of one of her wild animals, you
really gotta get it. You really got to get in there.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
It's a great pastime. It's a great pastime.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, Okay, you can say no to this. But does
the name Danny Zalisko mean anything to you?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Sure? I know Danny Lesko. He's a promoter, crazy promoter
from your your neck of the woods in Arizona.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Yes. So here's the story.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
My mom, who had great taste in music, worked for
a company that was doing a fan promotion in Phoenix
in nineteen eighty three. And she worked with Danny on
this on this promotion, and he had stray Cats giveaway
tickets as part of this promotion. And you are playing
a show in Phoenix and Danny says to my mom,
(47:00):
I'm at the arena for Huey's show.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Come to the arena. You can pick up the tickets
at the arena. So she does.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
She's talking to Danny when you come over, and to
this day says you were the best looking man she
had ever seen. Danny says, stay for the concert.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
She does.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
I think she went to an after party after the
concert and it was like a It was a big
highlight for Patty Cup.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
I heard this story growing up a lot.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
So you're validating it for me.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Where's mom now?
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Mom lives in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Now, oh, Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, we all moved out to Massachusetts when I was
like six, so we weren't in Arizona long.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
But that's that was That's a big story for my mom.
That's a big one.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
That's great, that's sweet. It's very sweet. And your mom.
Your mother has excellent taste, not just musical taste in
all things.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
She really does. She's a good one.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Okay, the last question, it's very wortant to me personally, culturally, spiritually.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
When is iced coffee season?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Iced coffee season? Really?
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:12):
I think it's all year long.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
A you are correct, sir, That is the correct answer,
Huey Lewis. I can't tell you how wonderful this was,
and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Oh you're sweet, Thank you, Essie. I knew it was
going to be fun.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Next week On Off the Cup, it's my friend Thomas Sadoski.
You know, I'm curious with you.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I'm going to turn the tables on you now because
I feel like I've been talking about myself to much
and it makes.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Me really uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
This is an interview about you. Yeah, but I don't
care about that.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the recent Choice Network. I'm your HOSTI Cupp
editing and sound designed by Derek Clements.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Our executive producers are meek Sie Cup, Lauren ha and
Lindsay Hoffman. If you like Off the Cup, please rate
and review wherever you get your podcasts, follow, or subscribe
for new episodes every Wednesday.
I sat everybody down. I said, guys, just so you
know this right now is about as good as it gets,
because if everything goes according to plan, a year from now,
we're going to have to headline these shows, which means
the critics are going to be after us. You only
go from nowhere to number one once.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So in the early eighties, I was a little kid
living in Scottsdale, Arizona, with my mom.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
My parents had just gotten divorced.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
We left California, where I was born to be closer
to family, and even though it was a tough time,
some of the best memories I have from childhood are
writing around in my mom's VW Rabbit convertible listening to
her favorite music, and it was a lot of Phil
Collins and Billy Joel and Elton John and Dire Straits,
but it was mostly Huey Lewis in the news. When
(00:51):
I tell you that his is basically the soundtrack of
my childhood, I am not joking. And as you'll learn,
our path would sort of cross over the ensuing years.
He doesn't know this, but we'll get into it. But
all this time later, Huey Lewis is still one of
the most beloved singer songwriters in American history, and I
think for good reason. I'm so pleased to welcome Huey
(01:13):
Lewis to the pod. Welcome to Off the Cup.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Thank you very much, very sweet. And doesn't your mother
have good musical taste?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
She really does.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And we're going to talk about my mom a little later,
but she had the best musical taste.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
And I remember when I was sixteen, I was an
old soul.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I loved the Beatles and she gave me all of
her Beatles albums when I was sixteen for my birthday
and a record player to play them on. So she,
I mean, she's the best musical taste and she passed
it on to me. My first question to you is
why do you think you are so beloved?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I can't find a person who doesn't like you.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
There's some out there, I guarantee you, I can't find one.
Let's see. Is it my golden pure voice? Probably not.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Probably everyone loves your voice. I think that's part of it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Uh No, I have no idea. I have no idea
why that is. That's a wonderful thing to say. I'm
not sure it's completely true, but.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I'd rather you're the Henry Winkler of music.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Everyone loves you, and can I venture a guess. I
think it's because there is something about your music and
you that feels timeless.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's interesting, you know. Uh, that's very very interesting because
you know, we started my band and I before MTV,
like just crushed a year or two before MTV. Yeah,
I mean I have no tattoos. Had I had I
started four years later, I'd be tattooed head to foot
if I thought, if I thought, that's what it took.
(02:46):
You know, my dad was a jazzer, and so I
always would taught the songs I were always timeless. You
never wrote you never, they were never were time sensitive,
right Chuck Chuck Berry wrote Roke rock and Roll for kids,
and there's no question about that. I pointed it right
at kids. But I was always taught through jazz that
you want songs that are sort of timeless and not trending.
(03:09):
And interestingly, a lot of our stuff because of that,
ends up being more appropriate for somebody of an older
age than twenty nine years old when I wrote the thing.
You know. So it's kind of interesting, but I think
it comes from my dad and jazz and standards that was.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Where Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And to me, I'm sure you've talked about this, and
you know I'm not inventing anything here, but your songs
don't really to me fit neatly into a simple single genre.
You know, you've got pop, you've got rock, R and B,
do wop. I even hear a little prog rock from
time to time. Who were your biggest influences?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, starting out, I was a rhythm blue snob, black
music snob that played blues art, Little Walter Sonny Boy,
Johnny Taylor, you know otis reading. Oh yeah, well, I
mean Ray Charles. But when I joined my first college band,
you know, we played fraternity parties and we had to
(04:10):
learn top forty songs and stuff. And at that point
I became less of a snob because I found that
although I preferred listening to certain types of music, all
music was fun to play. Yeah, And so at that
point I became less of a snob. And now I
truly believe like Duke Kellington always said, there's only two
kinds of music, good and bad.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yes, And you went to college where I went to Cornell?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So did I?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Did you? Really? Well? You probably went there a little
longer than I did.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Actually you left in junior year, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well I went for five minutes over a two year period.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, I don't know how it was when you were there,
but there was always a great.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Music scene in Ithaca. Did you know a place called
the Haunt?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Sure you did, No that I know of it. It
wasn't there when.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I was there, Okay, okay, I didn't know how long
it had been there.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We had Maury's. You remember Maury's.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Is that still there?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I don't know if it's still there in the North
forty No, I don't know that one.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
How about the Warehouse?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
The Warehouse, Yes, I know that.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That was a gig.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
That was a gig and then yeah, right, it was
a great music scene.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The station. Remember the station? Is there an old railroad
car where they get stakes and a restaurant. Yes, that's
Victoria Station before Victoria Station. Oh, that guy went to
Cornell and and founded Victoria Station based on that idea.
That's that's all. How amazing idea. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I did Joe Bonamaso's podcast and he was nice. His
first gig was at the Haunt in Ithaca.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
No kidding?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Is he from upstate?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I guess he might be.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think he might be because he was playing when
he was like thirteen.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
He was doing gigs at like thirteen. Yeah, he's great,
very smart, very nice. I want to into your career.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And that Cornell connection was the first time.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Our paths would would sort of align.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
We weren't there together, but but yeah, common.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
By a long shot. In fact, I'm not sure you
were actually born yet when I was at Cornell.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
What kind of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Well, I was, I was athletic, but I skipped second grade, right,
and so then suddenly I was like after a little
league and all that. I was like a year younger
than everybody. And then and that's where music came in.
I think that's how I sort of pursued music. My
dad was was a doctor, but he also played drums
(06:44):
and piano, and there was a set of drums always
set up in the house, and so music was a
part of me growing up. But I was more interested
in sports early. But right, I remember when I skipped
second grade and then I suddenly was and you know,
I don't know, music sort of appeared a wait it
for me to show up.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, you were smart, you were a smart kid, right.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, yeah, I mean I had good I got you know,
nice test scores. Does that make me a smart kid?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Do you want to tell us what your SAT math
test score was? Huey, You know there's a word for it.
It's perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Only my math, my math. I got eight hundreds on
my math boards, both level one and level two. But
my verbal wasn't very good. I can't even remember if
it was, you know, six hundred or something.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, Well, we can't all be good at everything.
How do you you learn to play harmonica?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Where? Well, my when I was in still in prep school,
my parents got divorced before I went to prep school,
and my mother was a hippie. She was one of
the very first hippies in San Francisco. And she rented
a room out to a folk singer named Billy Roberts
who was a w wrote Hey Joe, and he was
(08:01):
a focusinger and he played harmonica with one of those
braces on and so, and he had a room and
he gave me all his old harmonicas. So I was
probably I went away. I was a year young. So
I went away at thirty four, so I was like
fourteen years older. Yeah, and that's how I started playing,
but I only just played a little bit. And then
(08:22):
when I graduated from prep school, my father who suggested
that I go to prep school on the other side
of the country. I mean I was in California and
prep school is in New Jersey. He required me to
not go to Cornell yet, to take a year off
and bum around Europe.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yes, so great, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well it made all the difference for me. He felt
that a lot of people don't know what they want
to do that early in life, and they studied to
do and then they're stuck in that profession when they
would rather be a harmonica player.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Let's right.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So I toured the country the world, really I'm not
the world, the Western world, let's say, yeah, in Europe
and North Africa, and played harmonica for a year, and
then I went back to Cornell. I took a year
of laps leave of absence, went back to Cornell, and
on my first day, I remember walking into the engineering quad.
I was an electrical engineer, and I looked around and
(09:18):
I thought, you know, this doesn't look as much fun
as I've been having for the last year.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
This is not Spain.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I don't think I'm gonna do this. But I had it.
I'd had it all before because I advanced placement in
prep school.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Right, so I didn't even in a class and you
got good grades for a couple of years. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Well, so what was what was busking like?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Busking was great, I mean it was well, you know,
it was Well, example, I'm in North Africa, you know,
in Morocco and Marrakesh, and the square in Marrakesh is
just amazing square. Right, there's snake charmers and acrobats and
guys on bicycles and just crazy clowns. So I just
(10:05):
set up my hat and start playing harmonica. And I
had a little pig nose amplifier that I wear around
my neck so I could amplify, and you know, I'd
make like three direhams in an hour, and the youth
hostel where I was staying was one direham and all
you could eat at one of the kiosk was half
a dereham, and I was like a dearham to the plus,
(10:27):
you know. And so actually that's when a bell went off.
I went, I'm going to do this is good work.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, So then you come back, you quit Cornell, You
go back to California. What's the plan when you go
back to California?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, I wanted to be part of what was happening
at California blew up in you know, summer love, and
I graduated sixty seven, okay, and so that was boom,
and now San Francisco was on fire musically, and now
I was playing harmonica. So I went back and I
joined a bluegrass band called the Herford Heartstringers, who is
(11:00):
a Betty I'd known from before. And we were a
busking band. We're like an eight piece bluegrass band and
we go to Fisherman's Wharf and busk. And three of
those members were in a band called Clover, and they
recruited me for Clover, and me and our stand up
bass player who else by piano, Sean Hopper, and he
(11:21):
and I joined Clover in probably seventy four, I'll say
something like that. Seventy Actually, no, no, no, seventy two,
seventy two.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
How do you get to play harmonica for one of
my all time favorite bands, Finn Lizzie.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Wow, they were so great.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
They were so great, and Philip was my.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Mentor, you know, and he was like he just he
took me under his wing. He dressed me out of
his closet. He was It was a crash course in
rock star. You know, Philip was the best rock star
ever and he loved being a rock star and he
and he was just so wonderful about it. He was
(12:04):
so sweet to everybody. He signed autograph and talked to
the fans, and he taught me everything about how to
be a ruckst, how to treat the fans, how to
treat the band, how to treat the promoter, how to
what to do with critics, how to do everything but
the music, which which you know, I came to on
my own. But he was amazing. And so the way
(12:26):
that happened is Clover was signed to Photogram Records in
London and for our first tour we were going to
open for Thin Lizzie and I remember the first gig
was in Oxford in north of London, and and they
told us you're not going to get a soundcheck because
that's just the way it is. And these British we
(12:46):
don't do you know, three three after three gigs, maybe
you'll get a sound check. That's just tough shit, that's
just the way it is. Oops, pardon my friends, so
now we don't get a soundcheck and there's a curtain down,
and so we get on stage and out through the curtain,
we're trying to get our amps on and trying to
get making sure I got tone and all that, and
(13:08):
outside you could hear right, I mean, these kids are
nuts for Finn Lizzie and so no, I'll never forget
my Uh, we needed some We suddenly figured out we
need somebody to introduce us, right, say, here's Clover right
because on the on the billing outside it says Finn
(13:29):
Lizzie plus support. Your name's not even on the marquet, right,
So we needed somebody to So we go to the
road manager Frank. Frank introduced the band, and Frank goes
and he doesn't he'd never done it before. It so
he comes out and the and the curtain goes up
and we're standing there and he walks out and the
(13:50):
place is going wow, like did he goes? Hey everybody,
he says, and they're going letzie and he goes, yeah, yeah,
Finn Lizzie will be right out. Whoa They go crazy.
But but first here's Clover there go and so we
(14:13):
got I mean, we learned to play take no time
between songs, because otherwise we'd get boot off the stage.
People are throwing us up. But if the first gig,
we come off the stage, and we played all the
songs and got through it somehow. And standing in the
wings is Philip and he's right there. He says, she
you mind, have you go a minute? Yeah, let me
(14:34):
have a wear? Will we have aware? Do we? Yeah?
Bo we go and he starts. He sets me down.
He tells me about his audience and how boom and
he had notes on our set and you out of that.
That's a good one. Do this and he was just wonderful.
I'm dying, by the way, the best hard rock band ever,
(14:54):
Sinn Lizzie.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You don't have to tell you're preaching of the choir.
He was so talented, His voice was so uniqu their
songwriting was so great.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That double guitar. I mean, you talked to guitarists and
they're like, he was the inspiration.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And he and he was so he's Irish and he's
so sweet, you know, just big irish heart. Was total lover.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Great guy, gone too soon.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, and I was producing him when that happened. He
said one of the worst things that ever happened. He
came to London. I mean he came to Marin County.
We happened, and we were happening, and then his management
Chris and Chris came to me and said, you know,
would you mind producing something on Philip And I went no,
(15:37):
of course, but you know he's got to be clean
and they said, oh, yeah, no problem, he's clean. Said
I said, well, k well, you know I didn't want
any drugs, so no drugs. Fine, So we got him.
He came to California and he was good. He was
but he hadn't sung up in his range for a
long time. And we cut three songs and he sang
and he was. We were really close. We only had
(15:58):
one week and we didn't really get everything. We got
got three songs cut and I needed to get vocals
on it, but he had his visa was only for
a week.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And so he went back to London. He was going
to come back. And that's that's you know, that's that's
what he he's he copped and no deed. Yeah, which
is what happens to these kids today, you know, with
with with with that is they is they don't they
they get they get a little habit going, and then
they quit. Yeah, and if they quit, then they when
(16:30):
they fall off the wagon, boom. That's that's that's when.
That's what happens. Horrible.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Well, that's a tragic, tragic death. But I'm so glad
you got to work with him. That's an amazing that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
He was the greatest, the greatest. You might want to
edit all that stuff out. I don't know why. Okay, whatever,
it's just hardcore stuff, you.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Know, wonderful story. Listen, we we get into hardcore stuff here.
We talk about all kinds of stuff here, So you know, those.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Are those are those days.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
So you're coming into the eighties. How does Huey Lewis
and the News come together?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, when Clover broke up. First of all, we were
managed by Jake Rivia and Dave Robinson, two great guys.
They also managed Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the Damned. They
created Stiff Records together, but before any of that, they
went partners on Clover and because they thought the next
(17:39):
big thing would be country rock might be well it wasn't.
It was punk and we were and you know, so
we we our office, our management was right there. The
office of all the great punk bands. So I love
the punks. I didn't like the music, but I love
the fact that they were thumbing their nose at the
at the music business, yeah, and saying, you know, we
(18:00):
don't care, we're not going to try and make it. Well,
it's not about making it. It's about playing our own songs,
their own quirky way and screw you, you know. And
I thought, wow, how liberating. If Clover ever breaks up,
I'm going to go home to my club, my local club,
and start a band with my favorite people and do
it like on a Monday night for nothing, and just
(18:23):
play for the hell of it. And that's exactly what
I did, and it really caught on. I went to
our local club and said, give me your worst night.
It was Monday night, and within two or three weeks
the lines around the block, and you know, we did
all on originals and then I started writing some things
and that's how it grew.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And do you believe in Love is your first big hit?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah? It was the first top ten hit yep.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And what was that like to suddenly have the entire
country obsessed with your song?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, it was strange in that we'd produced that record
on our own and mixed it and agonized over it
for so long, you know. Then we released it as
a single, and we heard that kf RC, which was
our big parallel one station in San Francisco, was going
to add the record and that so that was a
(19:16):
big deal and they were going to play that new
ads on Tuesday. And I remember, so I called all
the boys in the band. We all went came to
my place and we sat there and watched the radio
like it used to do in the thirties, you know.
And I'm watching the radio and now they say, Okay,
here's a new band from Marin County and blah blah blah.
Do you believe lovers? Here? Me lewis the news and
(19:36):
they play the record, and I could. I thought two
things and I'll never forget it. One, I thought, Wow,
it's going to be a hit. And number two, I thought,
but it doesn't sound anything like us. It sounded like
a whole different band almost really, And I think it
was the compressors in the in the radio station that
(19:56):
made it, that made it jump out of those speakers,
you know. And I mean, of course it sounded like
us a little bit, but having you know, recorded and
rehearsed that and played it and produced it. I just
didn't I almost didn't recognize it.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Do you think you were ready for fame at that
time in your life?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Uh? Yeah, I do, and I'll tell you why. Because
I was no Spring Chicken. I was twenty nine years old.
I've been playing a band for ten years. I saw
Philip Lennett, he was my teacher. I saw how he
handled everything, and I can honestly say that we and
I told the boys. I remember we had a little
meeting and I because we could when our sports record
came out, boom and it just started to take off. Yeah,
(20:38):
and we were still opening for different bands, only that
people are now coming to see us, and clearly we
were going to have to headline these places. And I
sat everybody down, I said, guys, just so you know,
this right now is about as good as it gets,
because if everything goes according to plan, a year from now,
we're going to have to headline these shows, which means
(21:00):
the critics are going to be after us. We're gonna
have to worry about all the equipment, all the lights,
all the We're going to take fifty people on the road,
and it's going to be you know, right now. We
just show up, eat the crew, meal, play forty five
minutes and we're done, you know. And so we honestly
as much as you can. And I explained to them,
(21:21):
you only go from nowhere to number one. Once you
can go, you go back to number one, I guess.
But that that rocket ship ride from obscurity to to
there to you know, top five is it needs to
be enjoyed and savored. And we did, I think as
best we could.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, because you'll never be nowhere again.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
That's it. That's exactly right. It's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So Sports Sports is such a good album.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Obviously, what was the concept there, Well, there wasn't one.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I mean, you know, if you listen to it, it's
it's all they're all different. I mean, it's such a
different collection. Yes, and that was that was you know,
anathema back in those days. You didn't want to do that.
But we produced the record ourselves and they all meant
something to me. And so that's kind of And honestly,
(22:13):
if you imagine this is nineteen we made the record
came out in eighty three, so you know, January of
eighty three, so we were recording that at eighty two.
In eighty two, there was only one format CHR contemporary
hit radio, which was top forty FM. Radio didn't matter.
MTV had come along. It was all about hit records.
(22:34):
You needed a top ten hit record period. So we
aimed every produced the record ourselves, and we aimed every
track right at radio. One's kind of a blues ethay,
one's a hard rocker, one's kind of a ballad. And
so we knew we needed to hit record is our
third album. If we didn't, if we didn't have a
hit where the record, it would beat over. And we
(22:56):
knew we needed to hit right. We didn't know we
were gonna have you know, five others did, but we
needed one.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
And did you think when you were writing the songs
on sports did you think about the music videos that
you would have to do?
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Not at all, not a little bit. But that became
a parent and so and there's another funny story actually there.
I've told it before, but I'll tell it again. Why
not the video for do You Believe in Love? With
Chrislas Records, we had made a couple of videos ourselves
(23:34):
to sell the band. I had made these two videos
with an outfit called Video West in San Francisco. This
is like nineteen seventy seven. Video tape was brand new,
the cable TV was brand new. Nobody had ever seen
cable or video. There were no cell phone nothing, no computers. Yeah,
and so this CaAl. Kim Dempster from Video West said, look,
(23:58):
if you let us video you doing a song, will
and play it on our show at two o'clock in
the morning, our Video West Pop show, We'll give you
the video. I said, fine. So I thought of these ideas.
I had a funny idea from you know, watching Hullabaloo.
I used to watch James Brown before your Time, But
they used to have these shows where bands would come
(24:19):
on and lip sync and like they'd have James Brown
set up at the beach. You know, he looked, like,
what's James Brown doing in a full maroon suit at
the beach? You know what I mean? But it was fantastic.
So that's what I did. I juxtaposed all that stuff.
We played this song on a little sewage peer out
on the beach, and so I had these cool videos
(24:40):
and so the record company loved that. That's one of
the reasons we got signed. But now they said, we
need a professional video. Now we're gonna do a real
big one. So for do You Believe in Love? It's
gonna be a hit. So they hired an advertising guy
who is a glamour guy sort of, and he had
us all in makeup and pastel backsets and everything, and
we cut the video all day long. This is the
(25:01):
video where we're all in bed with a girl and singing,
doing all that said. And so now now we go away,
and a week later we come back to wrect company
to see the rough cut, and we're all there and
it's it's the record company. There's four or five of them,
four or five of the video people, all of us,
but there's probably you know, thirty people in this room.
(25:23):
And the guy gets up and he says, now, look,
it's not colorized yet. It's not colorized yet, but it's
gonna look way better than this. But this is the
rough cut. And then he turns the lights off and
he plays the video and my heart sank. It was
the worst thing I'd ever seen. There was no direction.
The guy was like the lead singer, you know, the
hue he was he did, but he's singing off to space. Well,
(25:46):
I mean, it was the craziest thing I'd ever seen.
I thought it was horrible. And then when it ends,
they put the lights back on and everybody stands up
and gives us a standing ovation. No no, And I
remember my thought exactly was, Wow, anybody can do this.
There's no art to this at all. Nobody knows what's
(26:06):
going on here. We're writing our own records, we're producing
our own music. We need to do our own videos.
That's all there is to it. Yeah, And so from
that moment on we did all those videos ourselves, and
the idea being that do them outside in San Francisco.
Let the seagulls and the ocean and the bay be
(26:27):
the production, let them chew the scenery and just goof
and be funny and avoid a literal translation of the
song at all possible. Yeah, and that's what we did.
Just have fun.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Okay, back to the future.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
How does how does this opportunity, this iconic opportunity come
to you?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Spielberg Zamechis, Bob Gail and Neil Canton asked to have
a meeting with my manager and I at ambling newly
formed Amblin Entertainment. It's like the week they opened and
we sat down and and Zameca said, we've just written
this film and our lead character is a guy called
Marty McFly and his favorite band would be Huey Lewis
(27:11):
of the News. So we thought, how about writing a
song for the film? And I thought, I told him
I was flattered, didn't know how to write for film necessarily,
and I didn't quite fancy writing a song called back
to the Future. And they said, oh no, no, whatever,
you call it, whatever you want, We just want one
of your songs. I said, all right, I'll send you
the next thing we work on. And Chris and I
(27:33):
had already started Power Love sort of, and so we
just finished it up and send it down to him.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I didn't. I didn't think it was going to work,
because there's no real love object, you know, in the
film other than and so they just used it for
a chase scene. But it works so well. And you know,
I think there's a lesson there for songs from movies,
and that is that it's it's it's better when they
only tangentially apply. In other word, if you just write
(28:01):
the story into the song, you're just retelling the.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Story, right right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So Power Love really didn't have anything to do with
Back to the Future, but it ended up being this
other leg. Yeah, that film can stand on.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, it was sort of the anthem of the movie.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
That's power.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Oh so good.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
What was it like to be referenced the way you
were in a movie like American Psycho, You.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Like Huey Lewis on the news?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Their early work was a little too.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
A wave for my taste. When Sports came out at
eighty three, I think that really came into their own
commercially and artistically.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
That was interesting.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Well we had read read the book right and clearly
uh Brett Ellis was a fan. Ye yeah, and not
just you know eighties fan Hnney Houston, Phil Collins like that.
You know, it's that thing. And he and his little
review or you know, of three is little synopsis is
(29:18):
pretty right on. It was. It was pretty amazing. I'm
reading this guy pretty much gets it, you know. And
then so now comes the film and they say they
want to use hip to be square and I said yeah,
and they said it's a very violent scene. I said,
I don't it's but we're going to pay you boom,
you know. And so I said fine, and William Dafoe.
(29:39):
So I knew he was an art I knew he
was an artistic film. You know, I'm fine. Three weeks
maybe before the release of the movie, my manager calls
me up and says, hey, they want to do a soundtrack.
I said, really, well, what what what would be on
that soundtrack? He said, well, uh, your song on Eric
Clapton song I think was it a Phil Collins do
(30:01):
one or the other and source music basically just to
I said, well, that's not right, is it. I mean,
our fans have to buy this whole record for one song.
He says yeah. I said, do we have to do
He said no, no, it's not part of the deal.
I said, well, can we respectfully decline? Sure? Yeah, okay, no,
thank you. All right now, the day before the premiere,
(30:22):
they release a press release to everybody to you know,
USA Today New York Times that said that the movie's
premiering tomorrow and it's so violent that Huey Lewis has
pulled his song from the soundtrack album, which which is
all trying to gin up publicity, and and so I boycotted.
(30:45):
And I've never seen the film. You haven't seen it,
never seen it, But but I did lampoon the scene
with funny or Die, and that was that was kind
of fun. Do you like American Psycho? It's okay.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Although originally polarizing to audiences and critics alike, it developed
a much deserved cult following when released on digital video
disc or DVD. There it found a second life and
really came into its own commercially and artistically.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, I mean, that's your decision. That's your decision not
to watch it. But it's it's a great film, and
that scene is great.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
I'll tell you what else is? Yeah. I saw the
scene a lot because we were president, and the funny
thing is doing the scene which is supposed to be funny.
I mean, I found out comedy is hard, right, all
these guys doing it, nobody's nobody laughed or smiled all
day long we shot that thing. I was cracking up
and I'm the only guy laughing. Yeah. I'll tell you
what else was good? Is the Broadway show? The Broadway
(31:46):
show American Psycho really good? And Duncan Chet wrote all
the all the other music. Ohoh, and it's really it was.
I mean, how do you make a musical out of
truly American? Well? They did, and it was really good.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I thought, well, I'm a fan of musicals as well.
And let me tell you, they made a musical about Jonestown,
so they can pretty much make a musical.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
About anything about who Jonestown. Oh yeah, true.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Okay, I want to talk about another one of my
favorite movies, Duets. It's so good, it's so fun, it's
got so much heart, and most importantly to me, it
has so much singing.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
How does that role come to you?
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Uh? Wow, I guess my agent called me and I
just read for it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Did you audition for it?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It feels like they wrote it for you, But maybe
that's just because I can't imagine anyone else doing it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
In the script, the guy gets up and at the
karaoke bar, my character and you know, pretends to be
hammered and then gets up and brings the house down
by tearing off his shirt and kind of like disrobing.
And I said, you know, if you're in a karaoke
(32:59):
bar and you just tear off your shirt, they're just
going to say this guy's an idiot.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I said, well, do you have to do it? You
need to sell the song. I said, I'll sell the song.
Don't worry, you know, just give me the song and
I'll sell it. And I think he liked that. So
that's how I got the part.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Oh my gosh, who was the best singer among the actors?
I mean and Maria Bello, Gwyneth, Paul Giamatti, Andre Brower,
Gwyneth really.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh, Gwyneth is a really good singer. And not only
just sing good singers. She's a good she's very musical,
sings harmony. She's really good. Blithe Dan, her mother told
me during the shoot that she always wanted that. I
think I think her her brother is. Oh, no, Blithe's
sister is an opera singer. Her b brother is, and
(33:45):
she and Gwyneth always blithe wanted Gwyneth to be a singer.
And uh, but she's a great singer. And it was,
you know, we had it was a nerve wrecking time
because well.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
That's what I wanted to ask.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Were you nervous for that role acting alongside all these
incredible actors or did you feel like the veteran vocalist
surrounded by novices?
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, you know, I had. I did a I did
a film called Shortcuts with with Bob Altman, with Robert
Altman and we it was shot on location in Bakersfield,
uh and for three days, and we had we all
had to drive. The whole company had to go from
LA to Bakersfield. He said, come with me, you drive
(34:30):
with me. So I went with Bob to It was
like a three hour drive. And by the time we
got to the location, and it was a tutorial on
film acting and he and I asked questions and he
explained to me. You know, he said a lot of
really cool stuff. Number One is read the script every
day till you know it cold and acting is reacting right.
(34:53):
You need to In other words, it's easy to deliver lines.
It's another thing to react to something that you you
know they're going to say, but you have to pretend
that you're just hearing it, like your mother just died,
you know. So you need to practice that stuff and
work on that. And so you need to know everybody's part.
So you need to do all the parts and rehearse
(35:14):
all your reactions, he said, and get a backstory together
till you know this character. You know what he had
for breakfast, you know what and he says, and you know,
take all kinds of suggestions the directory to it is
till you really know this guy. When you know this guy,
then don't listen to anybody. And and so that's kind
of what I did in in that party in duets,
(35:38):
I kind of I created a backstory that Ricky Dean
was a real singer with a band and he hated karaoke.
It was just like, these guys are just joke. These
guys are joked. They don't know any They're not real singers.
There's karaoke singers. I had a real band and all that,
(35:59):
but falling on harder times, I'm older and stuff, and
so this is just a way to make a living
is to hustle these people in the state, because other way,
you know, I couldn't find I don't even know if
there are already karaoke hustlers, do you know what I mean?
I mean, I don't know if it exists. So I
had to create a scenario whereby Ricky Dean would want
(36:20):
to be a I want to hustle these kids and
make my way. So so in a way, you're quite corrected.
And the acting and all that was was not that
big of a problem for me. The one was was
the song because in the in the script The song
was song for You, the Leon Russells song, and they said, well,
Gwyneth will be picking this song. I said, yeah, I
get that. So Gwyneth chose this one, Cursy Cruising, and
(36:45):
they called me and said Gwyneth's chosen a smokey Robinson tune.
I said, oh, great, which one cruising cruising? Shoot? I
never I couldn't recognize it. And then I said, well,
just send it to me. They send it to me
and I said, oh, yeah, I get it. Okay, it'll
be good. Yeah, well, well we need to get around
the piano and pick a key and oh no, no,
we've already cut it. I said, well, what what key?
(37:06):
Did you cut it? Original key? And then I thought
I went back to listening Togain. I realized it's in
her key. He's really smoky, you know, it's in her key.
So I figured this other part out and then then
I hoped would work? No idea, And now I show
up at the studio to cut it, and I said, yeah,
now that we already cut it, and we want you
(37:27):
to come down second with her on Wednesday, you know, okay, Wednesday,
I show Hope and there's like thirty people there there's
people from the film, and there's other cameras, and there's
her mother and Bubba, and now we go in the
studio where, well, what do you got, Hue. You know, well,
here's what I got, you know, And it worked out.
But I was nervous. I was nervous, and you know,
(37:49):
you know, you know, it was great Maya Rudolph, who's
really good friends with Gwyneth. Yeah, and her father was
the musical director of the film, and so she was
hanging out and she really was helpful in everything. I
could always go to her and say, Maya, make sure
I hit this note and not that one. You know,
no problem.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
That looked like it was a really fun movie.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh yeah, it was really you know. Bruce wasn't well,
you know, Unfortunately we never got to rehearse. We had
to rehearse on camera. And then I think Steve Ross
got I think they had gotten some kind of an
argument and he had to recut the film and they
cut a whole bunch of stuff out of our part.
Oh no, they had to cut the film down from
(38:34):
two fifty to two hours and ten minutes. And yeah,
Gwynnis and my stuff, we got like three full scenes
cut which is too bad. Oh, actually our best scenes
were cut. No, yeah, it happens, I guess.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
I mean, you know, that's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But she was, she was wonderful, she's she's a total
pro and yeah, yeah, you know, and it was really sweet.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's a great film switching gears. What happens leading up
to your diagnosis with many years, what's happening to you
that you end up there?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Uh well, I lost my right ear like thirty five
years ago and I was completely flipped out, and I
went to an e NT guy. My father was a
doctor and he recommended this famous bestie ant guy in
San Francisco in the West. And the guy looks at me.
He says, well, get used to it. I said, what
he says, get used to it. He says, it happens
(39:38):
sudden hearing losses. We don't know. I said, what causes?
Says we don't know. I said, you're kidding me. I said,
but I'm a musician. I'm a singer. I need to
He goes, Hey, you only need one went I'm a musician.
He says, Hey, Jimmy Hendricks had one ear, Brian Wilson
had one ear. I have one ear and I'm in
a barbershop quartet. I said, really, yeah, So then I've
(40:01):
went okay. And then I put my ears in for
my next gig. Worried. Worried, But your brain moves that
voice right to the middle of your head. That was fine.
I existed on one ear for like thirty five thirty
years or so, and then twenty eighteen, in January twenty seven,
(40:23):
a day who will live in my infamy? I just
my right ear went too and now I couldn't hear anything.
It was before a gig. I went down to the gig,
I put my ear. It was cacophony for me, horrible.
And it's been pretty much like that ever since. It's
actually going down, actually deteriorating. I like to pretend I'm not,
(40:46):
but I think I am. And I'm probably headed for
a cochlear implant, which is not a pleasant thing by
any means, but might be necessary.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Did this at all?
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I talk a lot about mental health on this podcast
because I struggle with my mental health. Did this impact
you your mental health at all?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yep? It's changed me, has made me a different person.
You know. I was a very social guy, and when
you're at a noisy rim man, you can't hear anything.
I retreat to my my womb, like my little cocoon. Yeah,
and it's and I can't hear music at all. And
(41:27):
I mean it's it's one thing not to be able
to perform and sing, but I can't even enjoy it, right,
And that's that's that's really the hard part for me.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
That must be devastating.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, I mean it's like my uh, like my pal
Tico Taurus drummer for bun Jovi's Jersey guy. I told
him about my story to tell me I don't we
when we see each other about every year at golf
terms we both play golf and we're we jam with
a band at the end, we fell in love musically.
(41:57):
I mean, he's a wonderful drummer and a wonderful guy.
I see him after a year and I go and
he goes, yeh, yeah you doing. I said, not good, teak,
I can't hear that, you know, can't perform, can't sing.
And he goes, what are you gonna do? So that's
my mantra, what do what you gotta do?
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, yeah, yuwie, what are you gonna do? Ye?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
So Jersey, how does the Broadway show come about.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Well, my neighbor's son in law comes to me at
a birthday dinner of mine given by my neighbor and says,
how about a musical based on your music? I said, well,
you know, welcome to the club I've had. You know,
twenty people said that before the proofs in the pudding.
You gotta have a script. Yeah. He says, all right, right,
(42:50):
well can I trust yeah? Of course. Go. He went away.
He came back with his pal John Abrams, who's a
feature writer, with a very good first draft, and years
later we got it to Broadway.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Its long.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Wow, and it's not the story is not your story.
It's a different story set to your music.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
It's an original story based on our music. Yeah, but
there are some parallels. It's interesting. When I first saw
the first twenty nine hour reading, it's fascinating seeing how
all these songs rearranged sung by ladies like yeah, sometimes
(43:32):
juxtapose different rhythms, rearrangeal And then the whole body of
work displayed all of our songs. And as I listened
to it, when I went through, I went, wow, and
there really is. I don't see it. I never did before,
But there's a thread that goes through through our stuff,
and it's clearly our personality, you know, that's it. It's
just certain things are certain things, aren't you know, it's
(43:54):
all like anything, like anything, sovi So that was really
so gratifying. I watched the to watch these songs live
this other life?
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, so cool. Who came up with whatever happened to
Huey Lewis? That show? Idea?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Uh me?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
And that was that took a long time too.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Yeah, yeah, I've been I had it in the back
of my mind forever. Yeah, and we've you know, now
we're we're we're actually working on it, and it's kind
of fun. I mean, it's uh mind you it's early
days yet.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
So you know, did you did you watch a lot
of Curb or Larry Sanders show.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah? I love the I love the Larry Sanders too.
It's really good. But I think that's good. That's and
we're we're we're stealing all kinds of stuff from those things.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Yeah, oh well, I can't wait to watch that.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Okay, we're going to do a lightning round.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Okay, which decade produced the best music?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
I'm gonna say, what can only one it's either of
the thirties or the forties. Oh, absolutely, no question. There
was no television, Yeah yeah, radio was king it was.
That's how that songs defined what the fashion was, what
the people wore, how they acted, well they how they spoke.
(45:20):
That was all determined by these songs in the thirties
and forties.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Which decade produced the worst music.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Well, I think we're working on that right now. Actually,
I agree, it kind of gets kind of keeps getting
worse for me, I agree, mind you, I can't hear anymore,
so I have a good excuse you too.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Marine or Montana?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Oh well, Montana for me now, although I'm a marine
boy for sure. Yeah. But Montana more cheese, less rats.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Perfect. And did I hear that you fish?
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I do on the fly fishing fanatic.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Well that's the place to be then, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I love their love.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
And the reason I love it, yeah, is not in
the catching of the fish necessarily. It's the communing with
mother nature, you know. That's and and when you train
out smart one of one of her wild animals, you
really gotta get it. You really got to get in there.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
It's a great pastime. It's a great pastime.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, Okay, you can say no to this. But does
the name Danny Zalisko mean anything to you?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Sure? I know Danny Lesko. He's a promoter, crazy promoter
from your your neck of the woods in Arizona.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Yes. So here's the story.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
My mom, who had great taste in music, worked for
a company that was doing a fan promotion in Phoenix
in nineteen eighty three. And she worked with Danny on
this on this promotion, and he had stray Cats giveaway
tickets as part of this promotion. And you are playing
a show in Phoenix and Danny says to my mom,
(47:00):
I'm at the arena for Huey's show.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Come to the arena. You can pick up the tickets
at the arena. So she does.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
She's talking to Danny when you come over, and to
this day says you were the best looking man she
had ever seen. Danny says, stay for the concert.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
She does.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
I think she went to an after party after the
concert and it was like a It was a big
highlight for Patty Cup.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
I heard this story growing up a lot.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
So you're validating it for me.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Where's mom now?
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Mom lives in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Now, oh, Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, we all moved out to Massachusetts when I was
like six, so we weren't in Arizona long.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
But that's that was That's a big story for my mom.
That's a big one.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
That's great, that's sweet. It's very sweet. And your mom.
Your mother has excellent taste, not just musical taste in
all things.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
She really does. She's a good one.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Okay, the last question, it's very wortant to me personally, culturally, spiritually.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
When is iced coffee season?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Iced coffee season? Really?
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:12):
I think it's all year long.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
A you are correct, sir, That is the correct answer,
Huey Lewis. I can't tell you how wonderful this was,
and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Oh you're sweet, Thank you, Essie. I knew it was
going to be fun.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Next week On Off the Cup, it's my friend Thomas Sadoski.
You know, I'm curious with you.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I'm going to turn the tables on you now because
I feel like I've been talking about myself to much
and it makes.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Me really uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
This is an interview about you. Yeah, but I don't
care about that.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the recent Choice Network. I'm your HOSTI Cupp
editing and sound designed by Derek Clements.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Our executive producers are meek Sie Cup, Lauren ha and
Lindsay Hoffman. If you like Off the Cup, please rate
and review wherever you get your podcasts, follow, or subscribe
for new episodes every Wednesday.
Host
S.E. Cupp
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