Rick Springfield’s most recent record, 2023’s Automatic, was his first album of all-new studio material in five years. Fans won’t have to wait nearly as long for the next chapter.
The singer-songwriter recently released a new single, “Lose Myself,” and is already hard at work on another album, though he hasn’t determined a release date. “I think it’s going to be a little different,” he revealed in a new interview for the UCR Podcast. “It’s going to be a little heavier. There’s an approach I’m trying, that I don’t know if it will work or not, but we’ll see.”
“Lose Myself” appears on Big Hits: Rick Springfield’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, a collection which puts the spotlight on the albums he released over the past 25 years, starting with 1999’s Karma. It’s a period of his career that he is very proud of. “I’ve always felt the stuff I did, from Karma on, was better than anything I did in the ’80s that I’m known for,” he says. “I’ve been very diligent and I consider myself a songwriter before anything. It’s something I love to do and I’ll just continue to do it and do my best. I think the albums show a progression in my writing, which I’m happy about.”
Watch Rick Springfield’s ‘Lose Myself’ Video
“Jeff Moskow [who helped curate the new compilation] has said that except for Working Class Dog and Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet, every album has been different,” he continues. “A different approach, a different writing style [with] different subjects. So this next one I’m working on is going to be different again.
READ MORE: How Rick Springfield Broke Through With ‘Working Class Dog’
Springfield says the heavier tone of the material he’s working on now is simply driven by his love of guitars. “But I love ballads too,” he adds. “I always thought I’d be known as a ballad writer, because in the early ’70s, the songs people picked off my albums were all of the ballads. I had this soft, weepy kind of voice and I concentrated on the ballads. So I was very pleased when my first hit was a guitar-oriented, basic pop/rock song. I’ve always been guitar-based, but with the sense that you can make it a lot bigger and a lot deeper.”
“But this stuff will be a mix of big guitars and also the synth stuff I love,” he details. “You know, there are no rules. No one’s out there going, ‘You should do another Working Class Dog‘ and I wouldn’t anyway. I was 29 or 30 when I wrote that. Your brain changes, your attitude changes, your likes change and different ideas come into your head. You have to go with that. You can’t try and rewrite [your biggest hits]. I remember Ray Davies rewrote a ‘You Really Got Me’ type of song for the Give The People What They Want album. It was good, but it wasn’t “You Really Got Me.’ So, you can’t go back and pick the bones of your past hits, really.”
He’ll kick off the I Want My ’80s tour with John Waite and others beginning May 28 in St. Petersburg. The trek is currently set to conclude Aug. 10 in Henderson, Nevada.
Listen to Rick Springfield on the ‘UCR Podcast’
LOOK: 35 Vintage Cereals That Perfectly Captured Pop Culture Moments
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Gallery Credit: Rob Carroll
