RICK SPRINGFIELD LOVE Is All That Matters

The musician and actor talks about his new album, tour and the long road he's traveled

- Lucille Barilla

In 1981, Rick Springfield pulled double duty as an actor on the wildly popular ABC soap opera General Hospital and as a rock and roll star. Riding high on the success of his breakthrough album Working Class Dog, Rick toured the country, living the fantasy he first dreamed of as a boy growing up in Sydney, Australia. “There was this core innocence about the whole thing,” Rick, 74, tells Closer. “It was all very exciting.” He followed up his early success with a string of popular LPs and other hits, including “Affair of the Heart,” “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “Love Somebody” and “Human Touch.”

The release of Automatic, Rick’s latest album, brings him full circle as a musician. He played all the guitars and keyboards on the album, and wrote some deeply personal songs he hopes will resonate with fans old and new.

You released your first solo album in the early 1970s. What do you remember most about that time?

I’ve always been very driven. I was actually surprised [success] took so long! Coming over here was incredibly exciting. For people living overseas, America was the golden country. Getting off the plane from Australia in Hawaii, seeing Pearl Harbor, getting to Hollywood and seeing the sign for the first time. I used to write to people in Australia I hardly knew just so that I could have the return address of “Hollywood, CA.”

So America was a dream of yours?

Sure. People who live here have no idea what that’s like coming from another country to suddenly be in America. Every song you grew up with is linked to America. There are all the movies. It just felt like coming to Disneyland for the first time for me. It was incredible, mind-blowing for a kid from Australia.