Q 6

PLAYBOY: You're an A-level star now. What have been the pluses of this success?

Huey Lewis: It certainly has improved the hotel rooms. [Laughs, looking around his messy, standard single room] The best part is that I've gotten to meet Ray Charles and Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner and that sort of stuff. To have Quincy Jones say "I love your stuff" is too much. Meeting sports stars, too, which is really something for me. Dwight Clark and I have played golf twice. It's like a mutual-admiration society. We spend time gushing over each other. He wants to talk about the videos, and I want to talk about the Super Bowl. Also, Dylan sent me a tune. You know what I'm saying? "Here's a song I thought you might like. Take care. Good luck. Bob." I'm speechless. And it's a good song.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Who is the coolest person you have ever met--someone who had you shaking in your boots before meeting?

Huey Lewis: I met a lot of them at the We Are the World session. Dylan is really cool, and Lionel Richie was fantastic at the USA for Africa session. Quincy Jones above all. And Ray Charles, whom I never actually met. I mean, there he was, but I was so embarrassed, so in awe of him that I couldn't go up and say, "Hi, Ray. Nice to meet you." I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The best thing about it was that nobody was allowed in the room except the artists themselves. So we had breaks every two hours or so, and there I was talking to Dylan and Willie Nelson, both of whom I've idolized for years. We had that Sixties feel. There was Waylon Jennings talking to Smokey Robinson. There were Kenny Rogers and me and James Ingram having a rap. The best line came from a pop star who shall remain nameless: "If they dropped a bomb on this session, John Denver would be back on top."

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Has success changed what you have in your pockets? Come clean.

Huey Lewis: What? I mean, I've been asked some weird things. [Reaching into his pockets] Oh, yes. [Removing his wallet, opening it, grabbing some snapshot, handing them to us] Want to see my daughter? She's almost three. Here she is with her old man. The worst part of being on the road now is the family. I really miss my daughter. I can talk to my wife on the phone, but my daughter doesn't do that yet. It certainly has increased the telephone bill. It's rough. Here are some more pictures. Her birthday is March ninth. Cracks me up, I really miss her, and the pictures make it worse. You pick up the pictures and you linger. I do this nightly. [His mind wanders.]

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Hello? We all loved your Grammys take-off--the Spammies. Are you going to hold them again?

Huey Lewis: I'm not sure. Organizationally, it's tough. I don't think we can get all of us into Uncle Charlie's night club anymore, let alone let any people in. [Handing over another photo of his daughter] Here she is with her mom. Don Nagle is really the brains behind them, if you can call it that. It was really just an excuse for some poor jokes. There were awards for all kinds of things: Uncle Charlie's got the award for Best Night Club in a Shopping Center Overlooking a Major Federal Penitentiary. Winners got cans of Spam. We never won, but a local band called The Edge won the award for the Best Band Named After a Shaving Cream.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: How do you and the News keep from going crazy on the road, with more than 300 dates in the past three years?

Huey Lewis: We've taken up golf, which has really been a savior. There's nothing to do on the road in mid-America, unless you're into golf. And there are some of the best golf courses in the world in Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and places like that. So we go out in the day and whack away. We're pretty serious about it--seriously bad. My handicap mirrors my ability in general. I shoot mid-90s, low 90s. I can't consistently get in the 80s, which is my goal. It's a way to kill time and not to watch television. In bad weather, it's trouble. You read. A good book is essential. I've been reading Ken Follett for a while now. I've also been reading scripts, believe it or not, which has nothing to do with reading good books. It's a good laugh.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: So are you going to----

Huey Lewis: Be a movie star? Yeah, that's it; I'm going to be a movie star. No, I'm not going to be a movie star. I'm going to be a singer, still. I've been offered some stuff, which is flattering. I don't know how to act. I was a tree in seventh grade, and that's the extent of it. I could probably screw up a perfectly good music career with a bad movie. I'm reading the scripts because I may try acting one day, and I want to figure out what a good and a bad script is. Some scripts I think are awful; then I go to see the movie six months later, and the one I thought was awful is a better movie than the script I thought was pretty good. Actors must be kicking themselves. After studying for years, they can't get a part because the producers want to give it to me. It's silly, but that's showbiz.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Why was the album called Sports?

Huey Lewis: Because we couldn't spell weather. I can't believe I said that. I don't know; it just seemed like a good idea at the time. For 17 reasons, none of which is really valid enough on its own, it makes sense. We are a team. Music is a team sport. We hang out in a lot of coliseums and take a lot of showers.