30 Apr Interview: Rick Springfield On His New Album, The State Of Pop Music And His College-Age Fans

Power-pop 80’s artist Rick Springfield took the world by storm 35 years ago with his single, “Jessie’s Girl.” Since then, his career hasn’t slowed down in the slightest with almost 20 studio albums, TV appearances on shows like “General Hospital” and “Californication,” and even movie roles like his latest, playing Greg alongside Meryl Streep in “Ricki and the Flash.”

At the beginning of 2016, Springfield released a new record called “Rocket Science.” Within a week, the 14-track album gained the No. 4 spot on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums list as well as No. 69 on the Billboard 200.

The rocker is set to perform at SunFest this Saturday, but we had a chance to catch up with him first:

Your new album, “Rocket Science” came out in February. It has a more noticeable southern flair than your last few releases. What inspired that?

I wanted to try something different. I’ve been listening to a lot of country because that’s where pop music has gone as far as real bands and real players — it’s a very pop-rock feel. Some of those guys grew up listening to me, like I wrote with Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts who grew up listening to me. It’s just their turn. I wanted to experiment with it and do something different because I don’t have any agenda with albums other than putting out what I like now, now that the record industry has changed so drastically.

You’ve just recently started touring in promotion of “Rocket Science.” How has that been for you so far?

Rocket Science actually has charted higher than any other record I’ve had since 1985. It got good reception and we’ve been relearning the songs to play them live. We’re doing a bunch of songs from that and a lot of the old hits and some surprises as well.

Speaking of surprises, you’ve done some fun covers before like Katy Perry’s “Roar.” Can we expect anything like that during your set?

Yes, we picked a new one. We’re trying to punch up some of these awesome girl songs. I’m a writer so I love great songs and there are some great songs out there. I think honestly the girls are holding up the lines here of great pop music that’s on the radio. And a lot of it’s done with computers and computer drums, I just love the feel of a real band. So what we did with “Roar” was just pump it up and put in some big guitars. And now this song that we’re doing, [Ed. note: We’re not going to be the ones to spoil the surprise, so we’ve removed the name of the song Springfield will cover] we play it up. It’s a little camp because I’m a guy, but we do it with some real power and it goes over really well.

What’s your favorite song off the new album and why?

Probably “Best Damn Thing” because it’s about my wife. A lot of my earlier songs are about my girlfriend who became my wife and she’s still creating stuff to write about. For me, I love that.

“Jessie’s Girl” was released 35 years ago. Do you still feel like you gain new fans from that song?

Yeah definitely. I played a college of like 20-something-year olds and a couple of years ago, my goddaughter was going to this college in L.A. so we did a backyard barbecue kind of thing for her and all of these kids started singing “Jessie’s Girl,” like verse, chorus, everything. It’s pretty wild to see. I think doing TV shows like “True Detective and “Californication” brings new fans too … You get the old fans from way back but you’re definitely seeing a different group from who came to see me in like 1982.

You played SunFest before in 2014, what’re you looking forward to?

When I get there, I’ll go ‘aw yeah, I remember this place,’ and it’ll all come back. Doing as many shows as we do, I’ve only just now started recognizing airports. I remember places by the audiences really. Buildings are buildings, but it’s really the audience that stands out to me.

Anything else you want to say?

Come to SunFest and we will send you away hot and sweaty.

SEE HIM LIVE:

Catch Rick Springfield — and find out what pop song he’s going to cover — on Saturday, April 30 on the Tire Kingdom Stage at 3:30 p.m.