Chris Isaak

Interviews Web Exclusive Nov 2011

By Kerry DooleConsidering that his retro yet timeless style owes so much to the early rock'n'roll of the '50s and early '60s, it makes perfect sense that Chris Isaak would release an album that pays homage to that pivotal period. Beyond The Sun features Isaak's distinctive croon on classics of that time, tunes made famous by the likes of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. It pays special attention to songs cut at famed Sun Studio in Memphis under rock'n'roll visionary Sam Phillips. Released on Oct. 18 on his new label, Vanguard, and recorded at Sun, Beyond The Sun features one new original, first single "Live It Up," alongside 13 covers. A Deluxe Edition features another ten covers and one original, and a double album vinyl edition of the deluxe package comes out in November. Now a veteran at 55, he retains the good looks that make him a female fan favourite, while his reputation as one of the nicest guys in the biz was reconfirmed by our chat. He punctuated some of his answers by picking up his monogrammed guitar and singing, a cool touch.

We did this ritual once before, a phoner back at the time of "Wicked Game" [Isaak's hit 1991 single]. I see neither of us has a real job yet.
Thank God. We're hanging on to what's left of the record business. A lot of people I know in the business are out of the business, or they're marginal. You know the same people I do. It is strange. You talk to people I call civilians, people who have a steady job. You tell them a lot of people are out of the business, and they go "really." And you look at their record collection and half is stuff they've just ripped. It doesn't occur to them that there really is a guy out there someplace who actually wrote the songs. Me, I've got no complaints. I've done well. I've always had people willing to sign me to a record deal, and I've always toured and had an audience. I do movies and things. I've got work. But there are people who only had the $5,000 they made a year from their songwriting, and that was enough to keep them going. When you cut that out, they have to take a job at the dog grooming place.

Hopefully some writers will benefit from Beyond The Sun.
This album is a labour of love. It's one I've been wanting to do for a long time. I'd always say "How about I do an album of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and so on?" and they'd always go "You're a songwriter. Don't you have songs?"' And I'd go "Sure, I have a whole bunch. I'm always writing. I have songs for the next record already, but I want to record some of these too." It was really fun to make this record. I'm tooting my own horn here, but I'm so proud of my band. When you have a band and you record it with everybody playing in one room, playing together, no headphones, what you hear is one take. I'm singing, I'm playing and we go for it. That is what Sam Phillips did with those guys. Go in there, make it happen, and if it's magical, then we've got it. We don't have to go fix it later. We went in there after doing plenty of homework. We rehearsed, learned songs, worked on stuff. Everybody brings into the room 20 years of bar chops and gigging, but when you came into that room... I looked at the piano player and said "I know you've got a lot to play, but let me just tell you something. As long as you hear me singing good, that's the take."

I visited Sun over 20 years ago. Have they changed it much?
No. It is as it was and getting better, I would say. The people who run it are not only smart but they're cool. Sometimes you'll go to places and they'll have a corporate thing. Like "We can't allow you to use the name Sun without talking to our lawyers. We can't have you take a picture." If you look at the album cover, that's a picture of me standing outside the front door of Sun Studio. I asked if that was OK, and they said "Take pictures wherever you want and use them for anything you want." I was like "That's so damn cool of them." I can't thank them enough, but in a way it's nice that it's going to come back to them. People will hear this record and go "Hey, that's a good-sounding room. I should go record there." Or "I should go visit that room because Elvis and Jerry Lee recorded there."

I imagine you'd made a pilgrimage there earlier on?
I had. Pilgrimage is a good way of saying it. It's a holy land for rock'n'roll. I know they built a rock'n'roll museum in Cleveland, and I'm glad they did, but Cleveland wouldn't have been my first thought of where rock'n'roll started. That would have been in Memphis in Sun Studio. If you ask "Where's the beginning of rock'n'roll?" well, where did Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash all get their start? It was this one room. B.B. King played in that room. The list is endless, the talent that walked through that door. It is just a mind-blowing little room with a great big sound. Technically, as a musician, it's a great sounding room. There's a reason people want to go in there. Half the reason is it's a great-sounding room, the other half is that Sam Phillips was great in that he didn't have a clock going on the wall. Everyone else would go "a session is from 1 til 2." He'd go "It's til we find something fun."

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