Rick Springfield: Success Hasn't Spoiled Him Yet?

Rick Springfield is one of the world’s most popular teen idols – and one of the oldest.

And Rick, who has lived in America for the past 10 years, is acutely aware of the age difference between him and his fans.

“I’ve seen myself in some of those teen magazines and that’s a laugh – I’m 34,” Rick said recently.

“You know I read these letters from 12 year olds that say, ‘You know, I’m only 22 years younger than you and that’s not much!”

“I do like the letters and I do appreciate anyone that likes my music because really, that’s why I do it. But I think I’ll have a whole new group of fans on this tour, though,” Rick said.

Rick’s new album is titled Living in Oz, a rather strange name for someone who has rarely visited his home country during the past decade.

But, as some sort of gesture, Rick is returning to Australia this month for a limited number of concerts.

It’ll probably be all his young fans that’ll fit the concert halls wherever he goes but whether Rick’s happy about that is rather a contentious issue.

We conducted some research info into Rick’s career and came up with some interesting information on the 34-year-old, teen idol who was born in the outer Sydney suburb of Guildford on August 23^rd, 1949.

Apparently Rick’s interest in pop music developed when he was nine years old and living in London with his family.

At that stage The Shadows were very big in England and Rick used to stand in front of the French windows at his parents’ home, looking at his reflection in the glass, strumming a tennis racket (his imaginary guitar) and mime The Shadows’ records.

Rick’s big break came on his 14^th birthday, a month after he and his family had returned to Australia and taken up residency in Brisbane , when his parents gave him an acoustic guitar.

Throughout his teenage years Rick played in bands with names like the Moppa Blues (his first band), X-Group, the Daniel James Ensemble, Rockhouse and MPD Ltd.

With Rockhouse, Rick went to Vietnam to entertain the troops during the war.

“Rockhouse was a Fifties revival band,” Rick said. “The lead singer did Elvis impersonations and other stuff like that.

“We’d dress up and play Big Bopper and Chuck Berry. We were touring Vietnam and performing for troops. It was rather intense. We were there for three-and-a-half months. We got shot at and into a lot of dangerous situations.

“When I came back from Vietnam the band split up, because one of the band members caught a terminal lung disease and died half a year later,” Rick said.

“I formed a short-lived band in the interim to make some money. It was called Whakedy Whak and we were basically a show band. The band used to dress up in silly clothes. It was basically a Top 40 band.

“That was when I first started recording. I was lead vocalist and we recorded a record but it never got released because the band split up. There was quite a bit of internal jealousy.”

Not long after Rick was telephoned and asked if he’d like to join Zoot, a band that also featured Darryl Cotton, and future members of LRB and The Ferrets.

After leaving Zoot, Rick recorded a solo single, “Speak To The Sky”, which went to number 1 in Australia and later to number 15 on the American charts. Then Rick made the decision to try his luck in America .

“ America was always the place for me to be,” Rick said recently.

“ Australia was a real small scene. You knew everybody. To a certain extent, it was like putting on a show for your parents. Going to America was sort of like a natural progression.”

When he arrived in America , Rick ran into trouble. His management wanted to market him as the next David Cassidy while Rick wanted to be more rock ‘n’ roll orientated. Legal battles stopped him recording for three years and he went through a series of different record companies.

Rick decided to pursue an acting career and rented a tiny theatre in Hollywood to present a play for friends, relatives and anyone else who was interested. Rick designed all the costumes, sets and lighting.

Among those who attended was a representative from the Universal company who signed Rick to a two-year contract for guest appearances on shows like Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files and General Hospital .

“The acting came as a way to keep creativity going inside me because I ran into so many roadblocks musically,” Rick said.

“I couldn’t just be an actor, it’s such a nebulous thing. As a musician, you can sit down, alone in your room, pick up an instrument and create something right there.

“A lot of my truths come to me when I’m alone. But as an actor, you’re not going to do a scene; it’s like sitting alone and pretending that you’re a lemon.”

Some people have suggested that acting has hindered Rick’s musical career but he disagrees.

“Occasionally I start to feel like I’m not giving 100 per cent and that pisses me off but I handle it pretty well most of the time,” Rick said.

“Music’s number on e and always will be. I’d quite acting if there had to be a choice made.

“Acting has helped me a bit onstage because it’s made me a lot more loose.

“When I’m singing a song, I’m now aware that there’s a story to it and try to put myself back to where I was when I wrote the song, which I never use to do before.”

It was in 1980 that things really started to go right for Rick’s career. He signed with Wizard Records and the following year his album, Working Class Dog, achieved platinum status and the single, “Jessie’s Girl”, won him a coveted Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Performance.

His second album, Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet yielded the smash hit “Don’t Talk To Strangers.”

The “Success” album also went platinum and Rick won the American Music Awards’ Favorite Male Rock Vocalist for 1982.

Now that he’s established, Rick can look back on the eight-year period between 1972 and 1980 when nothing was happening with his rock ‘n’ roll career and see what suddenly went right for him.

“It’s just being in the right place at the right time and having something to give,” Rick said.

“I don’t think that I’m any more talented that anybody else.

“It’s about 80 per cent luck and timing. I thought it came down to getting a shot. Everybody will have their shot – their chance – if they stay around long enough. I’ve always believed that.

“I believed it back in 1972 and I kept on believing it until 1980. I knew that if I just stayed in there, kept true to my goals, kept writing and did my homework, eventually the timing would be right.”

Rick claimed that his sudden success hasn’t been difficult to cope with.

“It’s pretty much what I imagined it would be,” he said. “And I certainly had a long time to think about it and wonder what it would be like and how I’d handle it.

“I’ve certainly seen all the ways not to go from watching other people.

“Walking into a restaurant and having people turn around and look at you like you’re blue; having people scream about you or wanting you to kiss their baby or whatever, is not a very real feeling.”

According to Rick the songs on Living in Oz are a lot deeper than those he’s written in the past.

“I’m going deeper within myself and explaining my emotions better,” Rick said.

“I’ve had a lot of time off in the last year and now that the initial rush and the excitement of success has gone, I’ve had time to sit back and get on with my life.”

“You’ve got to make decisions and it’s all new. In the last year the novelty has worn off and I’ve been able to start living a proper life again.

“I’m starting to develop a little more insight into what my emotions are with relationships and whatever has gone down in the past year.”

If Rick’s so busy it’s hard to imagine him finding time for relationships, let alone the time to write songs about any of them!!

“I find time,” he laughed. “The new album is basically my trip from learning the guitar to where I am now and various highlights through it.

“It talks about the relationship and the strains that this unreal living puts on it. All the songs are basically about high points or low points through there.

“Oz is an Australian slang for Australia . It started out as that and it also ended up meaning living in our dream world, where you always wanted to be, which for me was wanting to be a successful musician.”

One of the album’s highlights is “Like Father, Like Son”, a song about Rick’s relationship with his own father.

“My relationship with my father was great,” Rick said. “I mean, to an extent, it’s everybody’s. It’s basically about the patterns a kid eventually falls into that he learns from his father.

“I’ve heard other people mention this and I’ve found that the older I get, the more I am like my father. And girls say that about their mothers. It’s basically about the patterns you learn.

“A couple of the songs on the album approach the trials and tribulations of my love life with less adolescence, I think, than the past two albums. Yet, I still love that adolescent spark.”

Recently there have been remours that Rick is soon to get married but Rick denies this firmly.

“I have a girlfriend but we’re not getting married,” he said.

“At times it’s been very hard to carry on a relationship through what’s been going on, just because I couldn’t have believed it would be this busy.

“The biggest shock to me was that suddenly there were not enough hours in the day to do anything so my relationships suffered.”

When Rick desires some privacy in his hectic life he retreats to his home.

“I consider my house to be where I go just to be me and not have people expect things from me,” Rick said.

“Every time I meet someone, I think ‘What do they expect from me?’. It’s hard not to do that because most of the time people do expect something from me.

“So home is where I feel like I can go and not have that. Still, probably the only real home I relax in is my mum’s back in Australia .”

Then Rick returned to his desire to be taken seriously, something that’s obviously very important to him. But what exactly does he mean by being taken seriously?

“The credibility thing, which is basically having the writers, the critics and your peers say, “Hey, he’s great’ – which is basically bullshit,” Rick said.

“During the past year, I’ve realized that, it’s not what I’m doing it for. I’m doing it for the people who enjoy it and for myself, to go as far as I can go in everything.

“And I don’t just mean music. With whatever notoriety I get from music or acting, I want to do something positive with that also.

“I mean to have a positive effect on our times, whichever way I can. That’s not pie-in-the-sky stuff or anything. I believe that.

“Music people are heroes to the kids and young adults and there’s something positive you can do with that.

“I don’t figure I’d change someone’s life but I’ve had letters from people saying that certain songs helped them through. I know there’s been stuff that helped me through.”

Well Rick may get carried away with appealing to “mature” audiences but his heart’s in the right place – so maybe success hasn’t spoiled him yet.