Rick Springfield: The Interview
How a top TV Series almost ruined his career

By Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn
April 1983

At first glance, one might think it easy being Rick Springfield. He has fame, money, a vintage Buick 6, and half the female population of the United States in lust with him.

There is just one problem, and it makes life very difficult for Mr. Springfield. He is a serious musician and wants to be accepted as such.

Since his youth, spent as an Army brat in Australia, he wanted to play guitar. Following a tour of Vietnam as a USO musician, he invested his goals and ambitions in a music career and came to America to pursue it in the early 70's.

In 1976, that career bottomed out. Chelsea records, who had just released his fourth album Wait For Night, had folded, leaving him broke. Rather than become a waiter, he took advantage of his boyish good looks and began acting. This led to the role of Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital. Soon after, RCA records agreed to release Working Class Dog, his fifth LP. Now he could afford groceries, but "hip" FM radio stations started pulling the song, "Jessie's Girl" off their playlists. Soap actors were just not cool.

The radio programmers mirrored the publics skepticism of Springfield's musical efforts. From the Monkees and the Partridges to Shaun Cassidy and Anson Williams, one equation always held: TV stars + records = hype.

So Springfield decided to follow his dreams and to leave the popular series (though he still owes them some episodes). Nowadays, he sits in front of a 24-track recording console, impatiently waiting for his musical muse. He is supremely confident that his new album, Living in Oz, will be his best yet. And from what we heard of it he may be right. There are deeper textures and better production values than his previous efforts. He seems to have come of age as a songwriter as well.

Not that his earlier works have been dismissed entirely. Last year he picked up a Grammy award for best male rock performance for "Jessie's Girl," beating out artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart. This year he's been nominated for two more Grammys (for "Don't Talk To Strangers" and "I Get Excited"), he tied John Cougar for favorite male vocalist in the American Music Awards.

It is with a renewed sense of vigor and direction that he embarks into the world of rock 'n' roll. Though he is no stranger, he hopes to join the club that was denied him while he slicked his hair back to play Dr. Drake.

What follows is a frank discussion with what may be a new Rick Springfield, at least for those who do not know him personally.


ROCK: Let's begin with the album you're working on. Are you covering any new ground?
Rick: Yeah, I think it's the best I've ever written. I'm trying different things, and going for a lot of different sounds. Plus, I'm producing this one myself with Bill Drescher, the guy that co-produced [Working Class Dog].

ROCK: Is there any new wave influence on it?
Rick: I've been listening to a lot of English stuff. I'm a big fan of Peter Gabriel. I really like the dynamics of his music.

I want to go further with the dynamics in my album this time. My writing has gotten a lot better - both lyrically and musically. I'm especially happy with the lyrics, I think I've gone a lot deeper.

Before, when I was writing, I was always on the road/off the road, and I found myself saying, "Oh God, I've got to get these songs together." This time, when I came off the road on September 20, I didn't have a thing, but I had a lot of ideas going around in my head. I wrote the whole album in about a month, which for me is really fast. Generally, I take about a year, and even then, I'm writing right up until the end. But this happened really fast, I was inspired.

ROCK: Is there a theme to the album?
Rick: Well, the basic theme is in the title song, "Living in Oz." It started out to be a song about life in Australia because "Oz" is the Australian name for Australia. From that, it evolved into "Oz" meaning your dream state, your ideal state.

All my life I've wanted to be a successful musician. For me, having successful records is like "living in Oz." When I started my album, I had one song called "Souls," which is basically about me coming from Australia and meeting someone here. It's about my goals and my dreams, and about finding somebody so special that when you meet them, you know there's something there.

ROCK: What was your inspiration?
Rick: My journey. Much of what I've been doing for the last 15 or 16 years is getting from Australia to here. I always knew that I wanted to come here to pursue my career and my various other loves. Although there is no one specific thematic reference throughout the album, all of the songs mean something to me. If I could, I would date all of them, so that people would realize that they are the story of my journey.

ROCK: Can you be a little bit more specific on the individual songs and what part of your life they came from?
Rick: Well, there's a song called "Alyson" which is about my life just before I came to America. Alyson was a married woman, and I had to decide whether to leave Australia or not. I finally realized that it was a dead end situation with her. I knew if I didn't leave her, I would never make it to America.

The next song, "Souls," speaks of my belief that we are all part of one spirit, and that we all go back to one spirit. I firmly believe that we have several shots at perfecting or letting perfection come through on our life, and to whatever extent we don't let this perfection happen, it doesn't happen.

ROCK: So we are in control or our own destiny.
Rick: Yes, I believe so. It has happened to me many, many times. I've wanted something so much that I've actually made it happen. Drummer Mike Barry, who's a great sessionist in Los Angeles, has this saying that "you've got to want it." Although it's trite, it's true.

ROCK: Are there any particular schools of thought that you follow?
Rick: No, but I've read just about everything there is on the subject. I'm always searching, and things just evolve. Eastern thinking stands out as being the most influential to me.

ROCK: Have you ever gone to any workshops?
Rick: Yeah, I did a couple of awareness workshops, but they're based on one thing as far as I'm concerned, which is faith of knowing that it will happen. Whether that is being a great writer, getting married or whatever.

ROCK: How about the next cut on the album?
Rick: "Me and Johnny" is about this guy I grew up with back in Australia. We would take off school and play the guitar together in a band called the Aussie Blues, the first band I was ever in. The song is about the dreams that we had and might never be, at least for him. One line from it sums up the basic attitude of the song: "Live for girls, guitars and glory, one day they'd write our story."

We both had this dream of going to England at the time - he eventually got married, and I chased after what I wanted. And, he's very happy now, he has a couple of kids and leads a quiet life. The song is really about how fast the time goes, even when you're young.

Another song, "The Great Lost Art of Conversation" is about getting to know a person so well that you don't talk anymore. Sometimes when I argue I get an actual verbal block where I can't talk or think of anything to say. I know I'm doing it to myself so I'll force an argument or whatever out of my head so I won't have to face it. I have this horrible habit of cutting off my emotions when I argue with someone that I love, and just don't remember what's going on or what I'm arguing about. It's frustrating to the other person when I just flip out and go somewhere - the walls just come down...

ROCK: It stops you from being hurt...
Rick: Oh yeah. It's an absolute protection.

ROCK: It sounds like your songs are a spiritual step. It's as if you have a situation or emotion that you want to get past, so you write a song about it.
Rick: That's true, it's a very cleansing thing for me to write a song about whatever I need to clear up, I've always felt that was so. The song about my dad from the last album nailed the experience for myself. When my dad died, I couldn't let him go properly until I'd done something like that.

There's another song from "Oz" which says everybody has to fight their demons, writing songs is my way of getting them out.

ROCK: Any other songs that stick out?
Rick: Yeah, "Human Touch" - that's more like the way the world is now. I play a lot of video games, and I've become aware that when you start to focus in on the machine, you can lose your ability to relate to people. Kids just lock in on the machine, and play them hour after hour. There's been some concern about that. From video games and computers to bands using drum machines and other electronics, it's getting out of hand. So I have a song called "The Human Touch," pleading with people not to lose it.

ROCK: In your youth you were an "Army Brat." What was that like?
Rick: The only thing I remember really is that I moved constantly and that I was meeting new friends all the time. Every two or three years I had to go into school, and go through the whole shit of being the "new kid," and go through all the fights and all that, and then finally, after you get in with the clique, you have to move again. That was very difficult for me, and I'm sure it set up a lot of patterns in my.

ROCK: How did it manifest itself later on?
Rick: I think it was responsible for a lot of the walls that I've put up. I was hurt many times as a kid. We moved to England when I was about nine years old, and I was a lot younger than the other nine year olds in England because I'd grown up mostly in the country in Australia. I was suddenly thrust into the city in London among these kids where the schooling was a year and a half ahead of Australian schooling.

I was a lot more immature and because I was a foreigner, because I was Australian, I was beat up many times. That was my first real experience with bigotry. At the time, the Australian's were kicking England's ass in cricket, which wasn't a good thing for me. They called me an "Australian pig," they beat me up, and that kind of stuff. England was a very painful experience for me.

ROCK: How long were you there?
Rick: About three years. If I hadn't gone, I'd probably still be in Australia. Because of London I became aware of music and fashion when I was 12, even before the Beatles. I took this newfound knowledge back to Australia which is really when all of the trouble started.

ROCK: How old were you then?
Rick: I was 13 years old, and that's when I got my first guitar. Than at 16, I joined the Jordy Boys, the first band I was in that actually played clubs.

ROCK: What happened in between?
Rick: I just started learning to play my guitar with my friend John. That was when the Beatles had just come out so everyone wanted to play a guitar, and it was the greatest time of my life so far.

ROCK: Did the Jordy Boys gain national attention?
Rick: No, we were just a local band, the other members were all like 25, 26 years old. They were pretty rough. My mom was pretty concerned at the time because a couple of them had been in jail, and it was a very rough area. But they were real protective of me 'cause I was so young.

ROCK: I heard they threatened to break your legs when you left the group.
Rick: No, that was mainly their followers. I was always a little scared about that but they didn't. Each band was like a step. I joined another one and then we went to Vietnam for about three months [to play for the G.I.s].

ROCK: You described Vietnam in another publication as being like cowboys and Indians.
Rick: yeah, it was so unreal, it was just very hard to relate to the fact that you were actually in a war.

ROCK: Did you see anyone killed? What did that do to you?
Rick: Yeah, it really scared me. I talked to some of the soldiers who had friends shot beside them, and the initial reaction was "Thank God that wasn't me." And that was my basic reaction. It was a very frightening experience for me.

ROCK: Were you anti-war before you went over to Vietnam?
Rick: I was very naïve when I went over, not familiar with the situation at all. I'd been playing my guitar for the last four years during the period when someone would normally become aware of what was going on in the world.

I hadn't really even read a newspaper at that point in my life. I was in shock when I got there and found out to what degree there was an actual war in progress. When I got off at the airport I was going, "What the fuck is this?" Bell and Cobra helicopters, loaded rockets and sandbags everywhere. Even the villa we stayed at was bullet-ridden and was surrounded by sandbags.

ROCK: When you got back, were you anti-war?
Rick: I was anti-me-go-to-war, that's for sure. I was still basically very frightened of the war. Sure as shit I wasn't going to pick up a gun and go out in the jungle and fight somebody. Awareness of whether the war's a positive or negative thing didn't really hit me at that time. I was about 17 or 18 when I went there, and the first thing that really entered my head was, "What am I doing here?"

I would go into the tents with some of the guys after the show, and they would show me pictures of their cars and stuff, and the reaction that everyone had was, "What am I doing here?" The soldiers would shelter themselves in music and drugs. I really don't blame them, when there's nothing else to do, or when you don't know if you're going to get shot the next morning or what. The fear factor is incredible, and I wasn't even out there shooting in the jungle with a gun. I just had my guitar.

ROCK: And you then came back to work with a heavy metal band.
Rick: Yeah, the Zoot, which began when Led Zepplin came out. We were kind of like the local Led Zep. Actually we copied the Who more than anybody. Only we couldn't afford to smash our guitars up.

ROCK: "Jessie's Girl" was my number one single for 1980, and held the same distinction with rock critic Greil Marcus. Yet most critics ignored it, possibly because of your image. You had just gotten the role of Dr. Noah Drake on the General Hospital series and that seemed to keep "Jessie's Girl" from getting the serious recognition that it deserved.
Rick: I tend to call it the "cool factor." There's a couple of radio stations in Los Angeles that jumped on "Jessie's Girl" when it came out, but dropped it when I landed the role on General Hospital. That show was a good and a bad thing, and mainly I think it was a good thing for me.

ROCK: Do you feel Noah Drake brought "Jessie's Girl" to number one?
Rick: No, what I think he did was make the record attain more visibility. I believe that it made it to number one on its own merit. I don't think that it could get to number one just on the strength of the TV show. You know there's a certain fan group from the show that probably did just go out and buy the record because of Dr. Noah Drake. But to sell as many as I did [over one million], I feel that there must be something in the music.

ROCK: Which came first, the song of the TV show?
Rick: Oh, I did the song first. The album was originally suppose to be out in October of 1980, and I didn't get the show 'til after that.

ROCK: It seems like you're constantly fighting this taint of television, and you look at yourself as a serious musician. Are you more comfortable in front of a 24-track recorder than a TV camera?
Rick: Oh yeah. People blew the acting all out of fucking proportion. I got into it purely as a way to make money while I wasn't recording. I just got lucky and I got a contract with Universal and started working. I just really wanted to make money on the side and luckily I did. I kept myself going by acting, but it was just to eat. Music is what I love to do.

I think there are some people that still think that I'm an airhead. And this airhead guy that's cute got to be on a TV show because he's cute, and then decided that he'd start to sing.

ROCK: The public has been burned by Anson Williams, Shaun Cassidy and others, so it's like "oh no, not another one."
Rick: My God, you know that's the general attitude of the people who have made up their minds. But I hope to change some attitudes with this album.

ROCK: Are there going to be changes in your overall image?
Rick: Yeah, I don't have to wear my hair slicked down as I did in the TV show. Well, the suits that I wore on stage initially were maybe a little too colorful, like a pink suit that I wore for awhile. For some reason it got an incredible amount of publicity. I think on anyone else it would have been a nice pink suit. But on me, you know, it was "Teen Time."

I've seen myself in some of these teen magazines, and that's a laugh - I'm 33.

You know, I read these letters from 12 year olds that say "You know, I'm 20 years younger than you, and that's not much!" I do like the letters and do appreciate anyone that likes my music, because really, that's why I do it. But I think I'll have a whole new group of fans on this tour, though. The fans who come just because of the TV show, won't show up on the next tour. I'll bet.

ROCK: Because the album is harder rock?
Rick: Well no, because I won't be on the show anymore. As far as I'm concerned, that guy'll disappear, so if that's all they're coming for, they'll be disappointed.

ROCK: Are they going to kill off Noah Drake?
Rick: No, they're going to send him off to another hospital just in case I want to come back. I had a fear for a while that if I left the show, everything would fall apart. That's a gamble I'm willing to take though, because I want to go further in music and I feel that the show has been a hamper to my credibility. All that means to me is that some people aren't listening to the music. It's one thing if they listen to the music and don't like it for whatever reason, but I don't want something to stand in the way of people listening to it in the first place.

ROCK: How about causes? Do you do any benefits of any kind?
Rick: Anything I would do would probably have something to do with kids. I'm not interested in waving a banner or anything right now, but maybe in the future. I think it all starts with kids, and I'd like to help them with drugs, and that kind of thing. But I'd also like to work with kids who are just heading the wrong way. I think I'd have a lot to say to them.

ROCK: A lot of parents feel that rock stars might influence their children in a negative way. For example, I can't see parents really approving of the Clash, if they knew what the Clash was really about. Do you want to present a clean image to the public?
Rick: I am a human being, and I am who I am, and that's the image I've always tried to project. You know, in interviews, I've never said that I haven't taken drugs, or that I don't drink. I mean, I do drugs occasionally, although I haven't done any drugs in about a year. In Vietnam, that's all we did, I mean it was like we invented it.

But having done them, I have a pretty good handle on drugs and I could talk to kids about it. I would like it to be on a one-to-one basis. I wouldn't want it to be something like, "Rick Springfield says, 'Don't take drugs.'" My public image is myself.

ROCK: You seem to be really in touch with your songs, and you write very sensitive lyrics. Is there a feminine side to yourself?
Rick: Yes, I think there is. I'm very much aware that we are all made up of male and female. I think I have a very strong feminine side; maybe that's where my sensitivity comes from.

ROCK: What are your musical influences?
Rick: Well, you know, when I was a kid, we didn't have a TV set until I was about eight years old. Believe me, I've always thanked God for it. Anyway, because we didn't have a TV, we usually just sat around the piano and sang old show tunes like "Oklahoma" and "Carousel".

When we finally got a record player, the only record I owned was "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" by Charlie Drake, who was a comedian/singer in England. When I did start buying rock and roll records, I'd have to say that Cliff Richards was my favorite. Cliff was, in a way, our Elvis, and he covered a lot of Elvis' early tunes. His band, The Shadows, was like the Ventures in England. I think that's where my guitar worship came from. Then the Beatles came, and it was a whole British invasion.

ROCK: Now it seems that there's an Australian invasion with such diverse acts as Men at Work, AC/DC and Olivia Newton-John dominating the charts.
Rick: I have a view on that that I feel is accurate. Australia is a great melting pot for English and American music, I think we get the best from both. I think Australians tend to homogenize a nice mixture of the two.

That's what I was aware of when I was writing this album. I know I'm not just copying British licks; I'm changing them in my head because I've got an American influence. After all, I've been living in America for 10 years.

ROCK: You once recorded a song named "You Called Me Bruce." Did it ever get on an album?
Rick: No, but I thought of putting it on a live EP when we first started doing the show, because it got a great reaction. People are always confusing Bruce Springsteen with me, not really the face, but just the name. I'll come out of restaurants and people will start talking to me - they may even have gotten my name right - but they still think they're talking to Bruce Springsteen.

I guess he figured that since Bruce writes a lot of songs about cars and driving, that he would naturally own a car like this one. You know, I bet Bruce doesn't have people calling him Rick!

ROCK: Is a tour scheduled?
Rick: We're going to start a tour around the end of May.

ROCK: You're used to a grueling schedule, aren't you?
Rick: You better believe it. When I was doing Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet at the end of '81, I had never been more burned out. I was doing the album at night, doing the TV show during the day, and touring the country on the weekends. I flew a few fucking miles that year, let me tell you.

I'll never have to work that hard again, but at the same time, I wanted to work hard. I had to, to get everything done.

ROCK: Do you enjoy being famous?
Rick: What I like best about notoriety is the opportunity to meet people that you've always wanted to meet. For example, I'd love to meet Arthur C. Clark.

ROCK: Are there any musicians you'd like to meet?
Rick: I'd like to do something with Paul McCarthy and get him back screaming, when he used to wail…

ROCK: You'd probably have to be black to work with him these days...
Rick: Shit, I'll paint my face!