When an artist has a hit as huge as "Jessie's Girl," from 1981's Working Class Dog, they can become immortalized in pop culture memory and maybe even frozen in time. They can get flattened, too. But we all know that there's much more to a career artist than the big hit, and there's more to a person than what they do for a living. Rick Springfield has released 16 albums since Working Class Dog, including his latest, a blues rock-inspired record called The Snake King that gets frank about God, depression and demons.
When Springfield was a teen, he attempted suicide. Surviving that led the artist to believe that he was destined to make music. He did just that. Shortly afterwards, Springfield spent six months entertaining troops in Vietnam and in his early band Zoot. Thanks to "Jessie's Girl," he became Rick Springfield the rock star. This was right around the time he became Rick Springfield the soap opera star thanks to his role of Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital in the 1980s.
We speak about some of those storied periods in his life and Springfield performs live music from The Snake King. Hear it all in the player above.
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