Various Magazine/Online Articles about the Chris Isaak Show
"The Chris Isaak Show"
Release Date: March 12, 2001- Showtime network premiere
Shooting Locations: San Francisco, California & Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Bad Bad Chris
Chris Isaak brings his music and irreverent style
to series television
Interview with Chris Isaak from www.sho.com (Redzone Magazine)
Just try and get a straight
answer out of musician-turned-actor Chris Isaak. He'll hook you
in, make you believe he's being serious, and then BAM, he hits
you with the shtick. Fortunately for Isaak, who has had several
successful albums, sold-out concert tours and two very famous
steamy videos (one with model Helena Christensen and one for Eyes
Wide Shut, "Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing"), his dry humor
is so amusing that he has parlayed it into a new SHOWTIME series
-- named for him. Loosely based on his life and the life of his
band, The Chris Isaak Show is certain to reveal a whole new side
to this sexy rocker.
RedZone: So are you having fun with this whole TV thing or is it
harder than you thought it would be?
Chris Isaak: Fun isn't the word. It's like building something and
standing back and looking at it -- a tremendous amount of stuff
coming at you at one time. I'd have to say people haven't worked
this much since the turn of the century! You do 14-hour days and
when you're done and go home, that's when you catch up on your
work. I'm hoping it's worth it because I've heard we may be
replaced with a hand puppet show.
RZ: From what we've seen of the dailies thus far it looks like
your character is the butt of many jokes. Do you find yourself an
easy target in real life as well?
CI: In real life I would fire anybody who even looks at me the
wrong way. Actually, I've been with the same guys (the band) for
so long that everybody teases everybody; it's just our way of
being friends. When people come back stage and hear us talking
they probably think "these guys are pretty mean spirited."
But we all know that they're just jokes. I have told the writers,
however, to write more scenes where I'm a loving, caring guy --
scenes with me picking up and cuddling small animals.
My real life is filled with Twin Peaks moments
RZ: I think this is the first time we've ever seen you with bed
hair. Are you cool with television audiences seeing you au
naturel?
CI: You know, I actually wake up and my hair is perfect, it
actually grows that way. It has to be styled to look messed up.
As long as people know that, I'm fine with it.
RZ: How important is it to you that your music is well-represented
on the show?
CI: Baby, we're just trying to get through the day! We're just
trying to make the deadline and hoping someone doesn't say,
"We're cutting all these scenes, you're out of time!"
With the series, I'm not worried that it is a perfect
representation of the music-- that's for the recording studio.
What I hope comes across is some of the fun and the rough edges.
We play live which is less perfect than a playback (lip synching).
If I make a TV show and it's all lip synched, what's the point? I
can just buy the record. To see the guys sing and play the
guitar, it's kind of fun, like watching band practice or
something. We (the band) can throw some things together rather
quickly -- improvise music on our own because we've been together
so long. Thank God we had 16 years to practice because now all
we've got is 16 minutes to get it right.
RZ: Did you get some script ideas from your guest spots on Twin
Peaks?
CI: I didn't need to, my real life is filled with Twin Peaks
moments: For instance, there's this episode about an experience I
had with my production secretary. I worked with her during the
day on this film, and then at night she went back to this hotel
room across from mine and she would open her blinds (she was 15
feet across this air shaft) and dance naked in front of the
window for an hour. I know she knew I could see. I'd leave my
lights on and the TV on loud, so she'd know I was there, but it
didn't matter. The next day it would be like, "Hello Mr.
Isaak, here's your paper," and not a word about the night
before. She never brought it up. I could never figure it out. The
actress who was hired to play the part was like "this
couldn't happen." But it did happen! As my drummer would
say, "She's a crazy!"
RZ: One storyline has you freaking out about a tabloid story in
which a well known actress reveals insecurities you have about
your butt. In your real life, how would you react to a
supermarket tabloid that made up something about your personal
life?
CI: I would just hope there is some way I could sue. I can see a
nice pickup truck coming out of it somehow. People have made up
stuff about me. One thing that did happen that kind of pissed me
off was when I was in England. This tabloid said I was dating
this girl, she was 18 and it said I was dating her for the past 8
years. I was like wait a minute, that would mean I was dating a
10-year-old. I didn't want to sue, because it was so laughable --
no one's gonna buy this, you'd have to be an idiot.
RZ: You got Jay Leno to do a spot on the show. Any other guest
stars on your wish list?
CI: I've got to write Jay a thank you because we didn't do any
kind of arm twisting. We asked him to do it. He did it. He's
totally busy, with a million obligations and he's got a pretty
good viewership on his own. It was just a nice favor. It's funny,
my list wouldn't have the obvious choices, like I would probably
have Dom DeLuise over Tom Cruise.
RZ: But you've worked with Tom before?
CI: Yeah, and he is pretty funny too. I met him a couple of times
when we were doing publicity for Eyes Wide Shut and just off the
bat I didn't like him (before I met him), because I have a rule
of thumb, I don't like people who are better looking and richer
than me! And he's both. But when I met him I was disgruntled,
because I walked away thinking he's a very nice guy. He was nice,
funny and a total gentleman.
RZ: I understand you like to have your name monogrammed onto your
things. When did that start?
CI: I used to think it was cool but now I realize everyone's just
laughing at me. I put it on my guitar, guitar strap, on my suits,
on my boots, belts, etc. When I grew up, people I admired did it,
like Roy Rogers had a cowboy boot with his name on it. I thought,
"Wow, that's big time to have your name on it and it's just
yours." The first three suits I had made had Roy's name on
them and then I realized I should probably have my own name.
RZ: Your image up till now has been that of a sexy, brooding
rocker. You know people are going to have this whole new
perception of you once they see you on this series.
CI: I know people aren't going to take me seriously. The only
thing I ever ask people to take me seriously about is my music.
Me personally, I don't think anyone should ever take me too
seriously.
From sho.com Redzone Magazine
"It's Cable-TV
Showtime for Chris Isaak"
by John Carman, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 July 2000
Pasadena — Visiting critics get hungry, you know, so
comes a dinner invitation from HBO.
The site of the meal, it said, is "less than one block from
the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Buses will leave the hotel beginning at 6:45
p.m."
Less than a block. We could have crawled.
So it's another TV press tour — cable sector at the moment
— and while the food came from HBO, the first giggles were
provided by Showtime.
From Chris Isaak, specifically. The San Francisco rocker has
committed himself to 17 episodes of a Showtime series described
as "an irreverent look at the sexy, outrageous world of rock
music."
"The Chris Isaak Show" probably will premiere in
December. He'll play a scripted semblance of himself — at
home, on the road, goofing with his band mates and having a
meaningful impact on his female fans.
Isaak joined us in a cosmological sort of way, via satellite from
water's edge somewhere in Seattle, and the thing he refused to
commit himself to was a serious answer to any question.
Which was an immense relief. There is an overrepresentation of
serious answers on press tours, many of them shameless lies.
"It's very much like real life," Isaak said of the
Showtime series. "It's 100 percent bullshit."
"They're going to script it so that for the first time I
will be leading a normal life. And, hopefully, this will be Step
1 of me leading a productive and useful life in the community.
Kind of making up for those pet deaths and the fires."
Isaak was particularly adroit on the subject of the mental
deficiencies of his fellow musicians. He'd been asked how the
"musical community" might react to a weekly show about
the life of a real rock star.
"The musical community doesn't get cable," Isaak shot
back. "And I'm not telling them. They're musicians, you know.
"They'll see it and they'll go, 'How are you here? I saw you
on TV.' They'll be lucky if they don't take a little hammer and
break it open, and try to take us out of the set. They're
musicians."
For the record, the show will be filmed mainly in Vancouver,
which will stand in yet again for the costlier San Francisco.
Isaak's Sunset district house might even be re-created up north,
as well as musical venues such as Bimbo's.
Isaak will be joined by three of his real band members (Kenney
Dale Johnson, Hershel Yatovitz and Rowland Salley) as well as a
fictional band member, a keyboard player. The role of Isaak's
manager, a woman yet to be cast, is another fictional fillip.
Perry Simon, the president of Viacom productions and a native San
Franciscan, said there will be at least one musical performance
in each hourlong episode.
The blend of fiction and real people seemingly suggests that
"The Chris Isaak Show" will be a derivative of another
cable series, the late, great "Larry Sanders Show" on
HBO.
But Simon said Isaak's show will tilt more toward whimsy than
barbed satire. The executive producers and writers are Diane
Frolov and Andrew Schneider of "Northern Exposure," a
program that managed to agitate its absurdist material with a
feather duster rather than a sharp stick.
Isaak was having none of this. He variously described the show as
"like 'The Monkees,' only filthy," as a continuing
dialogue between himself and a lovable hand puppet named Skylar
and as a long-awaited remake of "My Mother the Car."
"For legal reasons," he said, "this year for the
first time a lot of the old episodes of 'My Mother the Car'
became public domain. We've taken those scripts and written
ourselves into them. It's going to be big."
Maybe not all that big. Showtime reaches 11 million homes
nationally.
A critic wondered why fictional characters were necessary. Aren't
the lives of real-life rockers sufficiently diverting without
invention?
"Yeah," said Isaak, "but we wanted to have people
that we can kill off every week."
Isaak accomplished one thing. His banter with the press left
Simon and the producers wondering if wall-to-wall scripts would
be required.
"We left that press conference thinking maybe we ought to
let the camera just roll a bit," Simon said later on the
telephone.
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle
(I am not associated in any way with the San Francisco Chronicle. If the copyright owner wants me to take this story down, e mail me at JBoze3131@hotmail.com and I will do so immediately. Thanks)
More articles
Matt Roush (TV Guide) Review here.
A second TV Guide review (by Ray Stackhouse) here.
Gist TV (website) interview here.
A Billboard.com article on the show here.
even more articles coming soon.
Cast & Characters -- Episode Guide
Sounds -- Articles -- Links -- News
Page Created On: March 11, 2001
Page Last Updated On: December 25, 2001 @ 3:00 P.M. CT.
E Mail the webmaster (Joshua Taj Bozeman) at JBoze3131@hotmail.com
