Rick Springfield hits with soap-rock formula

“He just kissed a girl,” gasps one of the hundreds of fresh-faced adolescents clustered around a flatbed truck parked on a Philadelphia main drag. Atop the truck is teen-idol-turned-rocker-turned-soap-opera-star Rick Springfield, whipping his Bic across scores of copies of his album, Working Class Dog. His Number One Single, “Jessie’s Girl,” wafts through the PA.

One glance at the covey of oak-tag signs suggests that this is not just a typical rock-star personal appearance. The signs sport frequent references to De. Noah Drake, the character whom Springfield portrays on the top-rated soap opera General Hospital. “Isn’t he the one who keeps asking Bobbie Spencer out?” asks one passer-by. Meanwhile, the first girl regains her nerve. “C’mon,” she barks to a gum-chewing confrere. “I’m gonna get a kiss from him.”

It’s not as though Rick Springfield doesn’t have considerable rock credentials under his belt. But he realizes that much of the success of his latest musical project has been due to the TV show and its attendant publicity. “I freely admit that a lot of my visibility is due to the show,” he says. “It’s captured a huge young audience. They have General Hospital updates on radio shows. I knew if they had it on the radio, it would be heard by the same audience that listens to records. And I want to get my music heard.”

Getting his music heard has mattered to Springfield ever since 1972, when, as a young Australian émigré, he had a Top Twenty single with “Speak to the Sky” and was touted in scores of teen mags as the new David Cassidy. “I thought I was getting publicity,” he recalls. “I’d sit down with these people and do in-depth interviews and say, ‘Yes, well, my influences musically are so-and-so, and this song is a true story about a woman whose husband is having an affair.’ Then I’d pick up the article, and it’d be, Rick Springfield: Is He Too Tall To Love?”

Springfield’s teen-idol image left him with problems that hounded him throughout the decade; a spate of other difficulties – visa problems, bad label deals, naïve management – didn’t help either. “I got into two years of litigation where I couldn’t do anything. I had no money,” he says. “That’s when I got into acting.” Cameo stints on Battlestar Galactica and Nancy Drew led to a permanent role on General Hosptial.

“It’s a new situation,” he says, trying to sum up his past year. “I could simmer down…” – he pauses for a moment – “…or I could go through the roof.”

Springfield’s smile gets tighter and he scrawls his signature faster and faster as the crowd surges around the truck. His limousine pulls up while dozens of young people are still straining for an autograph. It takes three cops to peel Springfield’s public off his windshield.

Away from the melee, a businessman studies the scene. “I know him,” he finally says. “He’s got a good voice. I’m trying to thing of his name…Bruce something.” The car drives away.