News to Him

Kirk Baird

Friday, Dec. 28, 2001 | 3:19 a.m.

When it came to popular music in the early to mid-'80s, new-wave bands tended to garner most of the attention.

Which is unfortunate for such bands as Huey Lewis & the News, whose pop hits -- "The Heart of Rock & Roll," "If This is It," "The Power of Love" and "Stuck With You" -- dominated FM radio and the early years of MTV.

It's been a fairly charmed and successful life for the group throughout its 20-year history. These days Huey Lewis and the News perform about 80 shows a year, usually at smaller venues, casinos and private functions nationwide. The group performs today and Monday at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Perhaps the only real bump in the road for the group occurred in 1984, when Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. over the singer's hit "Ghostbusters," which Lewis claimed was an infringement on his song, "I Want a New Drug."

The suit was settled out of court 11 years later and both parties signed a confidentiality agreement. In a recent VH1 "Behind the Music" episode about Huey Lewis & the News, however, Lewis addressed the matter, which drew the ire of Parker, who then sued Lewis for breaking their nondisclosure agreement.

When asked about the song, Lewis said, "I can't say a word about it. I tried to say a word about it on VH1 and I got sued. So, no comment."

In a recent phone interview from his home in San Francisco, 51-year-old Lewis talked with the Sun about his career in music, his SAT score and acting opposite an Oscar winner:

Las Vegas Sun: In the '80s Huey Lewis & the News toured quite frequently. How has the slower-paced concert scheduling affected the group?

Huey Lewis: The thing is when you have huge offers they're really hard to say no to because it's a lot of money. The numbers aren't as big anymore, and in a way that's welcome because we're no spring chickens and it's nicer to spend time at home with the family and tour less, to be honest. But playing live is really what we're all about. Unfortunately, one needs to travel to go to where the audience is. That's one reason Vegas is so much fun ... the audience is different every night, much more so than any other place.

Sun: Not counting the recent addition of a three-piece horn section, three of the five members of the News are originals. If everyone left the band, would you continue on, say, as Huey Lewis and the New News?

HL: I doubt that. The News has its own identity.

Sun: I read you got a perfect score in high school on the math portion of the SAT.

HL: That's because my verbal wasn't very good.

Sun: You were going to Cornell University to be an electrical engineer?

HL: I went to prep school and then I was admitted to Cornell. I was a year younger because I skipped second grade, and my father suggested I take a year off (before college) and bum around Europe. At that point I wanted to go to college, but he insisted that I take a year off ... with the idea that you look at life and the world a little bit different, and then you look at college with a new perspective.

Sun: Is that when you became interested in music?

HL: My mother was dating a guy named Billy Roberts, who wrote "Hey Joe" and was a guitar player and harmonica player. She gave me a Bob Dylan record and said, "Check this out, the poets really love this guy," and (Roberts) gave me three harmonicas. So I hitchhiked across the country and found my way to Europe -- actually stowed away on a plane -- and hitchhiked around Europe for a year and played harmonica until my lips bled.

When I went back to engineering school at Cornell, I was able to get good grades because I'd had it all before in prep school. So I didn't really need to go to class too much, which was good because I was playing in bands. But after a year and a half it began catching up to me, and I made the decision that I wanted to be a harmonica player.

Sun: If your dad hadn't encouraged you to go to Europe, would you have become a musician?

HL: I think I would probably be an electrical engineer for somebody, working for G.E., and a huge music fan wishing I'd done it. My father's point is one that see you a lot: If you don't take time off in those formative years, you end up at 32 years old in a job you don't like, wishing you'd done something else.

Sun: Do you ever have those moments?

HL: No. There were moments ... I turned 30 years old with $300 to my name and I'd been playing in clubs for 10 years. But we had just released our second album and "Do You Believe in Love" was a picked to be a hit on my 30th birthday. And I remember thinking, "This is going to be a hit and at least I won't be 31 like this." There was some anxiety there in my late 20s when I thought I don't know if this is going to work or not. For the first eight years I was just happy to be playing in a band and doing what I loved to do. But at a certain point I sort of woke up and realized, "Gee, I'm going to have to make a living here somehow."

Sun: Last year you appeared in the movie "Duets" as Gwyneth Paltrow's dad. Was it intimidating working with an Oscar winner?

HL: It is, but you can't afford to be intimidated. When you act, the most important thing, as they say, is "to be in the moment," which basically means you're not thinking about anything. But you become the character (and) when you become the character, you relate to her character as character to character -- it doesn't matter who she is.