Welcome back, Springfield

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, June 12, 1998 | 4:40 a.m.

It's probably not a good idea to get in line at an airport metal detector behind Rick Springfield -- you'll likely be there a while.

Credit any delay to a metal plate in the collarbone of the '80s rock heartthrob ("Jessie's Girl," "Don't Talk to Strangers"), which was shattered (as well as a few other bones broken) when he wiped out on his motorcycle in 1989.

"I got pretty badly banged up," Springfield, who performs at Sunset Station tonight, recalls. The collarbone injury was so severe, "I couldn't hang a guitar off it for about a year-and-a-half."

The timing couldn't have been worse: The accident put the brakes on a tour that was in the works, and also lengthened the self-imposed hiatus Springfield took following the birth of his first son in 1986. He hasn't been on the road since -- until now, that is.

Springfield, 48, is currently in the recording studio finishing up a forthcoming album -- his first offering in 10 years.

"People who have heard it say it sounds like my (previous) stuff, but it's more acoustic-driven, I think," he says. "It's not quite as heavy on the guitars as some of the earlier stuff.

"The songs are about just basically what's been going on with me the past couple of years. It's about family stuff and what's going on in my head. It's been a real charge, real cathartic."

While radio has been devoid of Australian-born Springfield for some time, television has not. Since starring in the early '80s as Dr. Noah Drake on daytime's "General Hospital," he has had parts in cable movies and on the short-lived series "Human Target." He recently completed three seasons on the syndicated series "High Tide."

Still, music remains closest to his heart. "Music I do all of the time because of (song) writing ... so I guess I think about that the most," he says. "When I'm acting, I'm only doing it when I'm actually doing it."

As he's finding out, not much has changed in the decade he's been out of the performance loop, except that now he's eager to get home to his wife and pre-teen sons between gigs. "We go out (on the road) and come back a lot," he explains, "where before I would go out and stay out."

He's still playing to largely the same, albeit older, faces of the formerly screaming teenage girls who comprised his audiences way back when. They continue to clamor for his signature song, "Jessie's Girl."

Luckily, Springfield doesn't mind playing the tune nearly two decades after it went platinum. "Occasionally I go, 'Oh, not that again,' " he says, "but most of the time, when you're playing live, the new audience makes everything fresh all of the time. That's really the charge.

"If I was standing in a room playing it day after day, it might get a bit old. I'm not just getting up there (on stage) to play it just because I want to play it again; it's there for a reason. There are a lot of things attached to a song when you play it for 20 years."

Tickets for Springfield's 8:30 performance are $15, $20, $25 and $30. Call the box office at 547-7777 for more information.