{"id":36647,"date":"2018-12-20T14:18:13","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T03:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=36647"},"modified":"2018-12-20T14:48:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T03:48:26","slug":"rick-springfield-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2018\/12\/rick-springfield-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Springfield"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201c\u2026the industry has always confused me I feel like I\u2019ve always been in the opposite corner of the business, I\u2019ve always just done what I felt was right and what I felt was good even when I came over here\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From Release: 50 years after their formation, Australian supergroup\u00a0Zoot\u00a0<\/strong>is proud to unveil career retrospective \u2018Archaeology\u2019\u00a0<\/strong>including new song\u00a0\u2018Life In A Northern Town\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0and to announce that their catalogue is now available on streaming services worldwide. 1970\u2019s album \u2018Just Zoot\u2019 and \u20181971\u2019s \u2018Zoot Out\u2019 are now available to download and stream\u00a0alongside \u2018Archaeology\u2019. Coinciding with these releases, the Zoot website\u00a0www.Zootband.com.au<\/a>\u00a0has been relaunched and is now streaming a newly created video for the \u2018new\u2019 Zoot track \u2018Life In A Northern Town\u2019.\u00a0One of Australia\u2019s biggest bands of the late \u201960s and early \u201970s, Zoot is celebrating its 50th anniversary by returning to where their recording career began – with EMI Music. After Zoot Rick Springfield<\/strong>\u00a0relocated to America, where he has had 17 Top 40 hits, including the chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning \u2018Jessie\u2019s Girl\u2019.<\/p>\n

While at the Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica as his house almost burnt down in the fires, thankfully everything is OK and we got the chance to speak to Rick Springfield. We chatted about the new Zoot \u2018Archaeology\u2019 release, how Zoot shaped his music, his current solo career, the future, touring Australia, and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

Here we are talking about it being fifty years since Zoot was formed and the amazing \u2018Archaeology\u2019 release, so looking back, what was it like listening back to this old material to put this release together?<\/strong>
\nSome of it was amazing, some of it was embarrassing, most of it was like wow! There\u2019s a couple of live tracks that haven\u2019t been released before along the lines of where we were taking a well-known song and making it heavier with riffs and stuff with \u2018Shilo\u2019 and \u2018I\u2019m Only Sleeping\u2019 and there\u2019s a live version of \u2018Eleanor Rigby\u2019 we did forty years later that sounds amazing, I\u2019m very proud of it, and we were actually really good players, we never really got the kind of respect that we should\u2019ve had but honestly we deserved it having dressed in pink from the beginning *laughs* so I get it.<\/p>\n

I was introduced to Zoot via your version of \u2018Eleanor Rigby\u2019 and for years actually thought that was your song, how important was that track in the career of the band?<\/strong>
\nOh it was the major release and it\u2019s a shame that we didn\u2019t stay together much longer after that, it weird, it was the biggest hit we ever had, it was career changing, it was a musical direction change and now I don\u2019t even know how a band would go about something like that, as radio as so controlled that back then it was radio picked it up and it was just a song that we arranged that we thought would be good live and four and a half minutes long no one ever thought it would be recorded or be played on the radio and it was a big surprise. It was great, it was really what Zoot was about that, the whole Think Pink thing was forced on us and we thought we were more like The Who than The Monkees *laughs*.<\/p>\n

Other than wearing pink, what is your best memory of being in Zoot?<\/strong>
\nI think the camaraderie was great and their encouragement of me who came in later after their initial big pink success with \u2018One Times Two Times\u2019 and \u2018Monty And Me\u2019 and they\u2019d really kind of peaked with the Zoot thing and the pink thing and they were very welcoming and I just started really writing songs and they said \u2018well let\u2019s record that\u2019 and I went \u2018wow, really?\u2019 *laughs*. Darryl especially encouraged my song writing and that\u2019s really the gold that I think I took out of Zoot was that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was such a short timer together but in the two years you were in Zoot what did it teach you about the industry that allowed you to branch out as the solo artist you became?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know, the industry has always confused me I feel like I\u2019ve always been in the opposite corner of the business, I\u2019ve always just done what I felt was right and what I felt was good even when I came over here, I was picked up by all the teen magazines, anyone with a mildly cute face they stuck in the frickin\u2019 teen magazines and I started getting all these things of oh he\u2019s the next David Cassidy and I was writing my first album and had songs about a guy committing suicide, a woman trying to figure out if she should leave her husband because he\u2019s cheating on her, and songs like this *laughs* and all the teen magazines are saying wow we\u2019re giving him all this press and where\u2019s \u2018Cherish\u2019 Where\u2019s \u2018Doesn\u2019t Somebody Want To Be Wanted\u2019 and he\u2019s writing all these dark songs. So I didn\u2019t bow to that and although I didn\u2019t get the teen success and I think that would\u2019ve been very short lived and I think I would\u2019ve been picking up trash in\u00a0 an orange vest from the side of the freeway by now.<\/p>\n

How if in any way did or does Zoot still shape the music you make today, is it still an influence?<\/strong>
\nI think Zoot gave me confidence, I think what I took out of Zoot was confidence in myself, I\u2019d never been particularly sure about my abilities and I think it was the first real nationwide acceptance and encouraged by Darryl and Beeb and Rick that maybe I\u2019m more than just the jerk I think I am *laughs*, I\u2019ve always been in a battle with depression and was never the guy that said \u201chey I\u2019m pretty frickin\u2019 awesome\u201d I was always the other direction. So they gave me a confidence and certainly a track record so I could look back when I was over here and I was starving I could go , well I\u2019ve done this, I\u2019ve shown myself that it\u2019s possible. So that was a big help for me when things went dark over here.<\/p>\n

You’ve been making music constantly and your current releases are just spectacular. After five decades making music, what keeps you inspired?<\/strong>
\nWow, things I\u2019m interested in. Right now I\u2019m terrified for the world, I wonder where God is, I see evil everywhere, that\u2019s what \u2018The Snake King\u2019 is about, my last record like where\u2019s God? I can recognise the devil everywhere but I\u2019m wondering\u2026 and we\u2019re trashing the Earth, and \u2018Working Class Dog\u2019 is all about sex and I\u2019m almost seventy now so sex is still in there but not as much *laughs* so I\u2019m starting to broaden my view, there\u2019s a lot to look at and to me the world is just bad leaders, bad corporations, everyone in it for the wrong reasons and the ones that have a mind to do something wonderful don\u2019t seem to have the power. Someone like Bill Gates, he\u2019s got a tonne of power and he\u2019s wonderful and every rich person and everyone with a lot of money could follow Bill Gates\u2019 path we\u2019d be in a way better position, but most of them are concerned about getting the best looking hooker and how much money they can win in Vegas.<\/p>\n

I must say I did love \u2018Santa is an anagram\u2019, very clever\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* I always wondered about that, that was just too close, it had to be something more than that it had to be more than coincidence, right?<\/p>\n

\u2018The Snake King\u2019 was a very bluesy record, much different to \u2018Rocket Science\u2019 and those before, what\u2019s next for you, are you looking at different genres or just what feels right at the time?<\/strong>
\nYeah I mean it\u2019s just what I feel, I had a lot to say that I wanted to say how I felt about our beautiful planet and the blues kind of medium, well blues rock seemed appropriate medium for that and it just kind of came on. I wrote it very quickly it was written in like two weeks and it\u2019s just stuff I\u2019d been thinking about so much it just fell out, it just poured out, there\u2019s like a twelve minute song on there and I said dud I\u2019ve gotta stop writing at some point this is gonna end up thirty minutes long So it was a lot to say and it just felt like the appropriate music style so I don\u2019t know what\u2019s next right now. I\u2019m actually finishing up a novel that I\u2019m writing and seeing how that\u2019s gonna go, so I switch back and forward.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask what you were up to outside of music, so obviously a novel in the works, is this another bio?<\/strong>
\nNo, no, my autobiography was my start getting back into prose, I originally thought as a kid I was going to be a writer, song writing took over when the guitar did but I wanted to get back to prose writing, and my publisher said I like your voice so you should start writing novels, so I wrote one and it was actually a New York Times best seller, and very encouraging and blah blah blah but it\u2019s like anything you\u2019ve gotta keep doing it until it\u2019s right, like the first book I wrote I did in three months and this one I\u2019ve been on it for like three years *laughs* so it\u2019s a little longer.<\/p>\n

When can we expect that?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s getting very close, I think I\u2019m on fourth revision, so you never know. The great Bob Dylan said \u201cIf it comes, it comes, if it don\u2019t, it don\u2019t\u201d *laughs* and that\u2019s basically the truth.<\/p>\n

You know I have to ask, when will we finally get to see you tour here?!<\/strong>
\nOh dude, I\u2019d do it for free, I\u2019d love to tour Australia, I had something booked and then something came up, I got a movie that came up, but it\u2019s just none of the promoters there, I\u2019ve never played there solo, I did that Countdown thing but it was like ten minutes on stage, it wasn\u2019t what my live show is all about. Promoters don\u2019t know what I\u2019m worth there number wise so it\u2019s kind of been hard to get someone to stand up and say \u201cI\u2019ll take the chance on this guy\u201d. So it\u2019s a long way and I certainly wouldn\u2019t do it for the money, it\u2019s my home and I\u2019d love to tour there and I have an amazing band, I\u2019ve got the best band I\u2019ve ever played with, it will freak people out when they see this band. I mean it\u2019s just making it work. Time is marching on, let\u2019s make it happen.<\/p>\n

You’ve been in the business a long time, and over time obviously things change but what would you say is the one thing that’s stayed the same in your time making music?<\/strong>
\nThe love of it. I always say to everybody I play for free but I charge to travel, I love it, I love playing and the ninety minutes or two hours on stage it makes the ten hour flight to Boise, Idaho worth it *laughs* and I love it, I love playing live and I will do it until I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Lastly let’s look ahead to the future, finish this sentence for me, in 2019 Rick Springfield will…<\/strong>
\nWow\u2026 not be in prison *laughs* have his new novel out and be on a TV series, I want to get a TV series over here so I can be close, I want to be home more but there\u2019s the perfect thing for me would be a TV series here and when on hiatus go on the road and then write in between all that.<\/p>\n

And hopefully some new music along the way<\/strong>
\nOh I\u2019ll always write music.<\/p>\n

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Essential Information<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong>\u00a0Australia<\/p>\n

Zoot Band Members:<\/strong>\u00a0Darryl Cotton \u2013 lead vocals, Beeb Birtles \u2013 bass\/vocals, Rick Brewer \u2013 drums\/percussion, Rick Springfield \u2013 guitar\/vocals.<\/p>\n

Website: <\/strong>http:\/\/www.rickspringfield.com<\/a> and\u00a0http:\/\/www.zootband.com.au<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Latest Releases:<\/strong>\u00a0Zoot \u2013 Archaeology (Out Now \u2013 EMI Music Australia)<\/p>\n

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Rick Springfield \u2013 The Snake King (Out Now – Frontiers Music)<\/p>\n

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