Don't play wicked games ladies, Chris Isaak is looking for true love

No sooner has Chris Isaak enveloped my hand in a bear-like shake than he’s grabbed his guitar and launched into a rendition of Willie Nelson’s Undo The Right (“If you don’t love me, darlin’, just leave me…”), his crooning baritone as muscular as ever.

Though I’ve been allocated only a brief interview slot with Chris it’s still a delight when the man behind the million-selling 1989 single Wicked Game then launches into Mr Lonely Man, a track from his haunting, country-influenced new album Mr Lucky.

“Hey Mr Lonely Man / I look in that mirror / You look so sad… / Since the girl left it’s all gone bad,” he sings and, later, he explains that all his songs are written from personal experience.

“My inspiration? My own troubled personal life,” he says. Chris has never found a woman to measure up to his high school sweetheart Carole Lowe who died of cancer in 1999.

“She was a damn good woman,” he says sadly, “but I was broke and she said: ‘What would we live on?’ I said: ‘If I had money, would it make a difference?’ And she said: ‘But you don’t.’ It was funny because we couldn’t see it [the situation] from that point where we were standing in life.

“She was such a nice woman. You know somebody’s nice when everyone likes them. She was a nurse for kids. She got cancer way too young but I got to see her and be in her life.”

None of his subsequent relationships quite measured up though he says he’s still close to his former girlfriends. “Bright girls, funny girls, gorgeous women, just some really awesome people,” he reflects. His love life wasn’t helped by the fact that he spends so much time on the road, something he describes as the biggest drawback of being a musician.

It’s ironic that Carole was the first person to pass Chris a guitar because, in hindsight, he wishes he’d sacrificed his fledgling career for her. “If I had a magic wand and I could go back in time I wouldn’t have been a musician if I could have married my first girlfriend,” he says resignedly. “I’d have done anything for her.

“Hopefully I’ll meet somebody out there at the right time when I’ve slowed down from this career.” That implies, though, that his career remains more important than wife-hunting. Still, he whets the appetite of any potential suitors by reeling off a list of reasons why he’s fantastic husband material.

“I’m willing to clean the lawns, wash the cars, I have a decent salary, I’ve saved my money, I live in a nice neighbourhood, I could provide. I’ll even shut up and listen in a conversation and I don’t watch sports!” There you are ladies, he’s ready and waiting.

That “decent” salary has been earned from film and TV parts as well as music (he has released 12 albums since his 1985 debut). He also has his own show in the US, The Chris Isaak Hour, in which he welcomes fellow musicians (including Cat Stevens, Glen Campbell and Smashing Pumpkins) for an affable chat and a jam. One guest, Stevie Nicks, is a good friend of 15 years and a former touring partner and Chris is clearly enormously fond of her.

“We visit wounded soldiers in a couple of hospitals,” he says. “I’ve gone along a bunch of times to play guitar but Stevie bought iPods for all these guys and she and her sisters were filling them up with music at home. It wasn’t in the press, it wasn’t a photo opportunity. She’s awesome.”

Still, his most memorable guests were, he thinks, Chicago, a band who have sold a phenomenal 120 million records. Talking about their own longevity, one of these seasoned rock stars burst into tears on air, saying: “I didn’t think we’d still be together after 40 years!”

“It was awesome,” says Chris. “He’s still moved that he’s still with his buddies and playing music.”

He is convincingly dismissive of his multi-faceted career, though. “All the films I did, I felt they could have replaced me with anybody else – easily.” Although, when pressed, he admits to some pride in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha in which this teetotaller found it “fun” to play an alcoholic.

The reason he doesn’t drink is in part because his father did. “My dad wasn’t too mean but he was a heavy drinker,” he says. “Also I really wanted to be a musician and I didn’t have any connections. If I’d been drunk and screwed up I wouldn’t have anybody to cover my ass, to bail me out!”

Chris, 53, was just 12 and growing up in California when he started writing songs, saving up to buy a tape recorder that sat on his bedside table. It wasn’t until he left college that he formed a three-piece band that played bars and clubs and “the opening of fairs and parking lots and shoe stores”.

So he worked his way up the hard way, as his small, sporadic gigs slowly grew into bigger, regular ones. Most artists view that kind of graft as a stepping stone to the big time but Chris has never lost his taste for grassroots performance. Fans might like to take a closer look if they happen to spot a busker in dark glasses and a cowboy hat playing country music.

“I still play on the street,” he says in a why-wouldn’t-I? tone. “It’s the only place my manager doesn’t get a cut. My brother and I will play outside the café until we have enough money for breakfast.”

Despite the disguise, he was recognised on one memorable occasion: “This guy was with his girlfriend and she said: ‘That’s Chris Isaak!’ And he says (and here Chris pauses for comic effect): ‘he used to be big.’ ”

He erupts with laughter. “It was great. I used to be big and now I’m reduced to playing on the street.”

Chris Isaak may, technically, be a busker but that’s unlikely to put off those prospective wives.

Mr Lucky by Chris Isaak is out now (Warners)