Huey Lewis On Marc Maron
Do you care?
If none of Lewis’s tracks had broken through you’d be raving about him, the infectiousness of “I Want A New Drug,” but he and his band screwed up, they had hits!
Very consciously.
The first album was a dud. The second was a minor success with a middling hit single. They wanted to keep their deal, so they wrote every tune thinking about the radio on their next album, “Sports,” which they self-produced.
Yes, do it long enough and you know your music best. But you can’t be immune to reality. If you want to win the game, you’ve got to play by the rules. As for writing new hits today? Lewis says he’s just not motivated, because he’s a pop writer and the pop market has fragmented. Sour grapes? You decide. But it does speak to motivation… We all need some.
But we also need something to say. That’s what Huey says. That’s when we’re interested. So you know how to play, you even wrote a song, that’s not enough! We need substance, a point of view. And true, you can say it with an instrumental, but keep that in mind. Then again, that’s hard in an era where people are concerned more about stardom than substance and the hits are all written by committee.
Oh, I know, you’re not like that. You’re a unique talent who just hasn’t been given your chance in the spotlight. Music not only saves your soul, but rocks your world, and you believe this inner belief means the rest of us are interested.
But we’re not.
Let’s talk about that riff in “I Want A New Drug”… It was so good, it was a hit twice, once for Huey Lewis and the News and another time for Ray Parker, Jr., with “Ghostbusters”!
And yes, Huey Lewis and the News were not hip, but if you think back to the middle eighties, nobody was. It was no longer the seventies, certainly not the sixties, where there was a strict dividing line between hip and mainstream, in the MTV era we were all in it together, what we listened to was on the channel.
Oh, that’s right, not you.
Then I guess you’re not interested in the VJs’ stories.
OF COURSE YOU ARE! You fantasized about Martha Quinn or Mark Goodman or maybe even both. They’ve got a new book. Unfortunately it’s one of those oral histories, but there are some gems in there, unfortunately thirty years too late. That’s popular culture, when it’s happening, nobody will talk, but when no one cares, everybody’s a chatterbox. Kind of like the King Biscuit Flower Hour… It was anathema to release the live tapes commercially back in the sixties and seventies, but now you can’t give them away. He who breaks the rules wins.
Oh, there you go Lefsetz, you’re contradicting yourself.
Are you really that thin-skinned, are you really unable to split hairs? The key is to give them what they want but twist it all up. The Beatles wrote hits but they were cheeky, they played the game with both a smile and a sense of humor, that’s why we loved them. Just because everybody says you can’t do something, you can’t act a certain way, that does not mean you’re restricted, unless, of course it’s the law!
But just like there’s no crying in baseball, there are no laws in music!
And Huey’s smart.
That’s the dirty little secret no one likes to admit as they sell you an American Dream that’s more achievable in Europe. Social mobility in the United States stinks, and if you think I’m being partisan, read the statistics in the “Wall Street Journal.”
Huey dropped out of college.
After attending Lawrenceville. After taking a year off before going to Cornell, to hitchhike through Europe.
That’s where Huey became who he was, playing harmonica to get by.
You see direction is about the rush. You can sit at home deciding to be this or that, but when you get up on stage and feel that rush, when you write a line of code that works, when you hit the ball over the net and wow your opponent in volleyball, that’s when you’ve found your calling.
Then again, no one does that anymore, they just chase the money.
So Huey ends up playing with Clover, the rest of the band backs up Elvis Costello on “My Aim Is True,” but then it breaks up.
Does Huey Lewis sit home and cry in his beer?
No, he organizes a jam session at the local club. He uses free studio time to cut “Exodisco,” and when he’s summoned to the U.K. to help Nick Lowe cut one of his songs, he makes a deal for the track. And if you think it happened that simply, you know nothing. You make your own luck. Performers are cunning chameleons who evidence charisma. Isn’t that how Madonna got everybody to work with her?
No different with Huey Lewis. No different with all the stars who last. Not only do you have to want it, you have to play the game. You’re better off sitting home watching “Survivor” than tweeting, because human nature and manipulation are keys to making it.
And that’s what Huey Lewis and the News did. Make it. And once you do, opportunities arise, whether it be to write a song for “Back To The Future” or appear in a Robert Altman pic or get your unit sucked by Sweet Sweet Connie, who declares you have the longest…
Yes, legends endure, they burnish the image of the players.
And I won’t say this podcast is as riveting as some, but that’s got more to do with Marc Maron’s unfamiliarity with the territory than Mr. Lewis’s performance.
He’s charming. Telling stories siphoning gas, sleeping on couches, you just want to hang out and listen all day long.
Check it out.
But skip to 10:10, when Huey starts to talk.
P.S. As for Maron, I think “Grantland” had it right, see the link below.
P.P.S. Although I have to fast-forward through Marc’s podcast intros, he did a great piece in the “New York Times” the other week about buying jeans and he was positively entrancing on Bill Maher.
P.P.P.S. Yes, Lewis is working it, he’s on a publicity campaign to sell concert tickets and the 30th anniversary edition of “Sports.” You can even read about his house in the “Wall Street Journal”! Maron’s on the same tour, in concert with the launch of his IFC show… This is old school publicity, which can still work, but the future is about being in the public eye constantly, because otherwise people forget about you, especially if what you’re hyping doesn’t hit.
P.P.P.P.S. You don’t know his name, but the reason you know Huey’s is because of his manager, Bob Brown, a force of nature who won’t take no for an answer.
“IFC’s Maron Doesn’t Quite Capture What’s Great About Marc Maron”
“My Desperate, Stupid, Emotional Hunt for the Perfect Pants”
“Huey Lewis at Home on the Ranch”
