The Catalyst interview: Rick Springfield

Be careful what you wish for. Australian singer/songwriter Rick Springfield desperately wanted a successful music career. At the same time, he dreamed of a day job – in his case, as an actor – that would allow him to pay the bills while he waited.

He got both, at exactly the same time.

The year was 1981, and just as his acting star began to rise, through a role on the hotter-than-July soap opera General Hospital (as sexy Dr. Noah Drake), his rocking single “Jessie’s Girl” raced up the charts to No. 1, selling over a million copies in the process.

Springfield, who headlines Wednesday’s I Want My ‘80s show at Ruth Eckerd Hall, scored four consecutive platinum albums, starred in a movie and squeaked out of his General Hospital gig after two years as one of daytime’s hottest hunks (he returned, many years later, in a recurring guest spot).

“Jessie’s Girl” has endured and is considered a classic of the era; it is the subject of several online memes and cartoons, too, which turns the title into a backyard barbecue appliance – Jessie’s Grill.

“I’ve seen that a few thousand times,” Springfield laughed during this Catalyst interview.

Wednesday’s concert also includes John Waite, Wang Chung and John Cafferty. Find details and tickets at this link.

St. Pete Catalyst: Did I read that you saw the Beatles live in Melbourne in 1964?

Rick Springfield: I was 14. I remembered they had a bunch of opening acts that were Australian. We were a long way from the rest of the world at that point – our singers still had the bouffant hair, the electric blue suits and black leather.

And then these guys walked onstage, with their hair, and these suits, and guitars that I’d never seen. I remember seeing the Cuban heel boots they were wearing … it looked like they came from Mars. Then they started to sing, and it was so beyond what we’d seen before. My mouth opened up and I started screaming like a little girl for twenty minutes. Couldn’t stop it.

What was rock ‘n’ roll like in Australia in those days?

It was great. The kids were great, it was just that the country itself was 15 years behind the rest of the western world, just because of the distance. They’ve caught up now, and it’s very amazingly cosmopolitan, and a melting pot. But back then it felt very isolated. Which was one of the reasons I came to America.

But it was a great music scene. It was small – you know, everybody knew everybody. I was in a band called Zoot, and Bon Scott was in a band called the Valentines. We were kind of competing bands. Beeb Birtles was in the band I was in; he went on to form Little River Band. There was a lot of talent there that wasn’t getting out. It was kind of like a mini-Liverpool to a degree, and then suddenly the floodgates burst. The Bee Gees, and AC/DC, and suddenly everybody had a shot at America.

I had to physically come here, because I couldn’t have made it from Australia back then.

Was that always the goal? ‘It’s great to be a big fish in a small pond, but America’s where it’s happening’?

Everybody moves to America, all the English bands … if you make it in America, you made it. There was a band I followed called the Shadows, when I lived in England as a kid [1958-63], and they were huge everywhere. Except America. And they never made it in America.

And I’m sure it was a sore point, but they were gigantic in Europe, gigantic in Australia, gigantic in South Africa. But never cracked it in America.

Hank Marvin, from the Shadows, was an early guitar hero …  

Yes he was, and the reason Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Brian May and Ritchie Blackmore picked up the guitar was because of Hank Marvin.

So when you came to the States, did you want to find a new band, or try it as a solo artist, or was the goal just to find work?

It was very hard to get in here. Everyone always went to England, because we (Australians) were part of the Commonwealth, and we could just get in. America was very restrictive. I actually hooked up with an Australian guy called Robie Porter, whose records I used to collect when I was a kid. He was a guitar player. And he had a partnership with Steve Binder over here in the States; Steve was the director of the Elvis Comeback Special [1968].

They heard my demos, and saw some photos, and said ‘Let’s bring him over.’ So that was how I got over here. This is 1971. I came over on a Capitol Records contract, went straight to England and recorded my first album at Trident Studios. And I was here from then on.

It was definitely an up-and-down battle until the ‘80s. But I stayed here and was determined to turn it around.

I remember “Speak to the Sky.” It got played on the radio around here.

It was the first hit I ever had in America, in 1972. That was it until ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ But it was my first solo hit in Australia, and that’s kind of what got me the deal over here, that song. It was very different from what I became known for playing – it was kind of a country, almost holy roller kind of song. It’s been in prayer books, and covered by quite a few artists. It was a good couple of hours, writing that song.

You started acting in the ‘70s. Was that something you’d done in Australia?

My brother had been an actor, when I was a kid. And that had always stuck in my mind that it was possible. And when I came over here, after ‘Speak to the Sky’ there was really nothing. There was kind of a dearth of record company interest.

I was looking to make some money. So naively I thought ‘I’ll become an actor!’ I started going to acting class, and actually started landing roles. I was one of the last contract players at Universal. Did a bunch of their shows, and eventually ended up landing General Hospital. But I was very naïve, because most of the kids in the acting class were waiting tables to become actors. But I lucked out and got enough parts, certainly, to pay the light bill.

Did you consider this back-burner stuff until your music career ignited?

I’m very into the acting, and always was. When I had a part, that was the only thing. But I was writing the whole time – that was my main focus. Because doing guests shots on TV shows is not a real way to do much. I was making some money, but I wasn’t really doing anything career-wise. It certainly wasn’t helping my music.

So I just kept looking to write the best stuff I could write. And hoped that the planets aligned and the gods smiled.

Which came first – the soap opera or your breakthrough album, Working Class Dog?

I had the album – I finally got a deal, with RCA, in 1979. And the only artist they really had was dead Elvis. They didn’t have anybody. So I was like a last-ditch signing – ‘Let’s try this guy.’ I wrote Working Class Dog for that label. And we recorded it, and I knew it was a good record. But RCA didn’t know what to do with it, because it was a guitar-based pop rock record. And there was nothing on the radio like it. It was still, you know, Barry Manilow ballads and disco. The only guitar rock was on KROC, or the alternative stations. As they’d become known.

They kept delaying the release, and delaying the release, and I though ‘Oh no, this is going to go the same way as the last three albums I did. Which is nowhere. They don’t know what they’re doing.’

‘General Hospital.’ Photo: ABC.

So the opportunity came up to read for this part. And I said ‘It’s a soap opera; it’s not going to have any effect on my music. It’s old blue-haired ladies ironing, watching this show.’ I wasn’t that into it. It was really the money that was the only attraction. It would be the first regular money I ever made, if I landed it.  

And I did land it. The record label didn’t know about it, but they released the album and the radio stations started playing ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ It was the DJs that picked ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ They didn’t release it as a single. And they started getting massive phones on it, and they released it as a single.

And gradually, the people that were watching General Hospital realized that this new character on the show was also the guy singing the song. And it added fuel to the rocket ride, basically, the two different media.

It was a double-edged sword, the soap opera thing. It became the show of the summer, and they canceled college classes when the show was on, because they knew students wouldn’t show up for classes while they were watching this soap opera.

I did enjoy the General Hospital thing very much, but it got old very quick, and I was working myself into the ground trying to do both. It was absolutely a 24/7 gig, doing music and this show. So I finally got off the show and started touring for real.