Huey Lewis almost passed on going ‘Back to the Future’
Movies and their soundtracks don’t always make for memorable bedfellows. But 30 years on, Back
to the Future and its two defining Huey Lewis and the News songs continue to make perfect music together, with the toe-tapping latter inextricably linked to the eyecatching former.
But the marriage almost didn’t happen. When director Robert Zemeckis initially contacted Bay Area-based Lewis, the roots-rock singer was inclined to take a pass.
“I had a meeting with Bob Gale (writer of the BTTF trilogy) and (producer) Steven Spielberg, and Zemeckis says, ‘We’ve just written this movie, and the lead character Marty McFly’s favorite band would be Huey Lewis and the News. Would you write a song for the film?’ And I said, ‘I’m flattered, but I don’t know how to write for film.’ Plus, I didn’t fancy writing a song called Back to the Future.”
Zemeckis assured Lewis, whose 1983 smash album Sports was hot and on its way to eventual sales of 10 million copies, that he could come up with any song title he wanted. Lewis changed his tune.
“I told Bob (Zemeckis) that the next thing I wrote, I’d send to him,” recalls Lewis, 65, calling
from his ranch in Montana, where he often fly-fishes with neighbor Tom Brokaw. “So we wrote Power of Love. I had not read the script or seen the film. And they used it perfectly. I didn’t even think it was going to work, so to their credit, it did.”
The Power of Love, whose anthemic beat captured the movie’s energy as well as the romance between the protagonist (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend, gave the band its first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earned an Academy Award nomination. Lewis also gave in to the director’s request for a second soundtrack tune, providing Back
in Time. Both songs are included in a vinyl picture disc reissue of the 1985 soundtrack out to mark the anniversary.
“It turns out it’s pretty easy to write for film, on one level,” Lewis says. “All writing is difficult. But writing for a movie can be inspirational somehow. And it’s almost liberating because you’re not writing for yourself.” Eagle-eyed fans of the first
Back to the Future movie know, of course, that Lewis appears in the film. He plays a nerdy, hornrimmed-glasses-wearing school administrator who stands up as Fox’s McFly and his on-screen band The Pinheads launch into a screeching version of Power of
Love. Lewis barks into a megaphone, “Thank you, fellas ... I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud.”
The idea was the director’s, Lewis says: “He thought it would be cool. He said, ‘If we had any (guts) we’d put you in.’ I resisted it, but agreed if I was uncredited and disguised. It was more of an in-joke.”
Having two songs anchor a hit movie changed the nature of the band’s fan base almost overnight.
“We had a lot of hits before that, but Power of Love was our first international hit,” he says. “The song was No. 1 when the movie came out, which means that we probably put it out there (about a month) before that, because in those days it took that long to really break a new song. It was big for us. We started to tour Asia, Europe and all that.”
Huey Lewis and the News remain an active touring band nearly 40 years after breaking out of the Bay Area in the late ’70s. Fans at the band’s concerts bring their children, who in turn mention
Back to the Future. But the movie connection “isn’t a big element for the crowd we draw.”
While the band’s blues-rooted rock shows hue closely to its big hits — The Heart of Rock & Roll,
Heart and Soul, I Want a New
Drug — there may be new songs to add to the canon soon. Lewis says the band is hard at work on what is likely to be an EP released around April.
“It’s our best work ever. We’re working on it and are newly committed. Our kids are now adults, gone, so there’s plenty of time to work,” he says, laughing. “We have five things that are good. Do you make it 10? I don’t know, what’s the point?”
As for the style of the new tracks, don’t expect anything new. “There’s no departure. They’re Huey Lewis songs, and that’s a very difficult thing to do,” he says. “We have a certain point of view. If you’re an old white male singer, you have to be country, it seems. But that’s not interesting to me. I love country, but I like the real roots stuff, early Merle Haggard.”
Lewis is also a die-hard Bob Dylan and jazz fan and, broadly speaking, a generous and informed conversationalist. The discussion ping-pongs between Dylan’s rambling and poignant MusiCares Person of the Year speech (“That man is a writing genius”) and the precocious prowess of 12-year-old jazz pianist Joey Alexander (“My hair stands up when I put him on”).
He’s also blunt on why he continues to perform, whether it’s revisiting classics such as Back to
the Future’s Power of Love or working out brand-new tunes.
“When it sounds good and your chops are good and you’re in good voice, man, the song sings itself,” he says.
“It’s a wave you ride, and it’s the best feeling in the world. You look around and it’s effortless. That’s what it’s about.”
“All writing is difficult. But writing for a movie can be inspirational ... almost liberating because you’re not writing for yourself.”
Huey Lewis