by Nikki M. MascaliWeekender Editor
Huey Lewis and the News has been around, for 30-plus years to be exact. It’s had catchy Top 10 hits and a string of funny videos for songs like “Stuck With You” that helped make its raspy-voiced singer a sex symbol. It’s also seen a lot of changes in the music industry, from the advent of MTV to the way its music was released: First on vinyl, then cassette tapes, CDs and now, downloadable files.
Though its last release was “Plan B” in 2001, Huey Lewis and the News hasn’t been idle. There was a co-headlining tour with Chicago in 2006, performing at A Capitol Fourth in Washington, D.C., last July, and recording the theme song to last year’s “Pineapple Express.”
Next Wednesday, June 24, Huey Lewis and the News will play Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe. Recently honored by the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society with other city-bred musicians like Booker T, Carlos Santana, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship, the affable Lewis caught up with the Weekender before a show at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.
Weekender: Are you planning any sort of celebration for the band’s 30th?
Lewis: We’re going to use it as a huge marketing ploy [laughs]. We’re actually going to record a new record this fall, so that will be kind of exciting. I even have a kind of a concept, but I can’t tell you because you can imagine the scoop that would be [laughs].
Weekender: What do you think the key to your longevity is?
Lewis: The fact that we were no spring chickens — that we’d done stuff before we had a hit. And we never tried to be trendy. Coupled with how we started prior to music television, we tried to write stuff that was sort of timeless. We never saw it as pop music.
After our first record, we decided to produce our records ourselves because if anyone was going to draw the line between commercial, bubblegum and what have you, we had to make those decisions. We’ve produced since then, and have tried to stay honest that way.
Weekender: Self-production wasn’t the norm back then. Did you hit any roadblocks?
Lewis: Our record label didn’t want us to do that, nobody did that in those days, but we’d been around a little bit and knew we could do it, and our manager really fought for us. We’d signed to Chrysalis Records, a small English label, and we were from San Francisco 6,000 miles away, so they weren’t near enough to control us [laughs].
Weekender: You’ve worked with bands from Thin Lizzy to Umphrey’s McGee. Any experiences stand out?
Lewis: They all stand out, they were all neat. Phil Lynott is probably the best performer I’ve ever seen, and Thin Lizzy is still one of the best hard rock bands ever. Umphrey’s McGee, they’re great musicians. It sort of all stands out.
Weekender: Anyone you wish to have played with?
Lewis: Ray Charles was always my guy. I’d only met him once when we did “We Are The World” [in 1985]. I was so nervous I didn’t say anything, I just shook his hand and stood there slack jaw, and thought back the next day about all the things I should have asked.
Weekender: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry?
Lewis: Technology changed everything. There’s drum machines on 50-80 percent of music, and with Auto-Tune and Pro Tools, anyone can do it these days. The value of a piece of recorded music is going rapidly to zero.
“American Idol” does a better job of finding the next Britney Spears, but record companies are going to find the next Stevie Wonder, aren’t they? Well, they’re not even looking because they’re looking for the next Britney Spears all the time!
Weekender: Your videos were always so fun to watch, who came up with them?
Lewis: The label wanted to do a video for “Do You Believe In Love,” so they hired this high-fashion guy. We acted out the song in wacky ways, he dressed the set in pastel colors, our cheeks were filled with rouge, and then we’re all in bed with the girl with rouge on our cheeks. I thought it was the silliest thing I’d ever seen. I vowed from then on to do our own. And we had fun with it and tried to avoid the literal translation of the song whenever possible.
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Huey Lewis and the News, Wednesday, June 24, 8 p.m., Penn’s Peak (325 Maury Road, Jim Thorpe.) Tickets $46-$56, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com, charge by phone, Penn’s Peak box office. Info: www.hueylewis.com,
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