One Man’s (and Rock Star’s) Everyday World Gets Surreal

Chris Isaak is both rock star and regular guy. The rock star gets to roll around in the sand with a half-naked supermodel during a video shoot. The regular guy shops at Safeway and weeds his San Francisco garden.

The rocker sells television executives on “The Chris Isaak Show,” a “quirky behind-the-scenes look at the life of an everyday guy with the not-so-everyday job of rock star.” The regular guy worries about it. “I had a dream where the review was, ‘Woefully miscast as himself, Isaak mugs his way through a one-hour episode,’ ” Isaak said, displaying the self-deprecating wit at the heart of his fact-meets-fiction series, which debuts on Showtime tonight.

Created and produced by Isaak and Emmy-winning writers Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov (“Northern Exposure” and “Dangerous Minds”), the 17-episode series chronicles the fictional exploits of a singer named Chris Isaak, his band, Silvertone, and their neurotic manager.

Isaak and most of his real band--drummer Kenney Dale Johnson, bassist Rowland Salley and guitarist Hershel Yatovitz--play fictional versions of themselves. Actor Jed Rees (“Galaxy Quest”) plays a bad-boy keyboard player.

A veteran musician best known for his hits “Wicked Game” and “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing,” Isaak has extensive acting credits that include “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” “Little Buddha,” HBO’s “From the Earth to the Moon” miniseries and “Friends.” He’s famous for his sharp wit. Even suffering from a cold, as he was during a recent telephone interview, the charismatic rockabilly crooner rolls out the one-liners nonstop.

Question: How did you end up on a TV series?

Answer: Are you talking about the “Cops” episode? [Switching to a Southern drawl] My ex-wife’s sister-in-law told me that she was gonna git me that TV and I come over here a-fixin’ to get it. And that’s when y’all showed up. [Back to normal] Like every American, I think it’s my birthright to be on TV. I got a chance to go to Hollywood and meet some of these TV moguls and they’d say, “Chris, would you like to go to lunch?” I’d say, “Sure.” I’d order lobster and say, “You should do a TV show with my band.” And they’d go, “Damn, he ordered lobster.” Eventually one of them bought. And I felt like the dog that caught the car--now what do I do? I’ve got to do a TV show.

Q: How much of the show is based on things that really happen to you?

A: It’s like any of your presidential candidates when they give a speech. It contains elements of truth with huge, huge sections of fiction. It’s funny to me that the reality a lot of times is what people have a hard time buying. There’s a scene where a woman asks me to play guitar while we make love. Somebody said, “Well, that’s kind of farfetched.” That really happened. Or there’s a woman who’s stripping across from my hotel room. And she just continues every night. Every day we work together. And every night she strips and never says anything about it. That really happened. We’re just mixing it in.

Q: In one episode, everyone jokes that you are cheap. Are you?

A: No. I think people are surprised because my lifestyle is pretty laid-back. The car in the show is the same kind of car I drive. It’s a ’64 Chevy. I don’t have a Maserati or something. My house is like the house on the TV show, only smaller and more poorly furnished. Maybe what people call cheap is the fact I’m too lazy to upgrade my lifestyle. I was broke so long I have cheap, beer-budget tastes.

Q: Why did you insist on shooting the musical sections of the series live?

A: I hate lip-syncing and there’s more energy when you play live. That’s the advantage of us. If we were gonna lip-sync we should have hired four guys who look like Michael J. Fox and we would have been a cute teenage band lip-syncing. If you look like us, you better do something for real.

Q: Will you use the show to debut new music or stick to the classics?

A: We’ll keep playing the same old things until people get so sick of it they turn us off. Oh, maybe that’s not a good plan. Wait. [Laughs] OK, we’ll try new music occasionally. I think we’ll be mixing it up.

Q: What do you watch on TV?

A: I just switch around until I get something in black and white, usually. I like to watch really old movies. “The Honeymooners” is hilarious. And “The Simpsons.” Garry Shandling’s show “Larry Sanders,” I think that’s hilarious. There are a lot of good shows. Now that I’m doing a show, I just have more and more respect for them.

Q: People describe your show as “The Larry Sanders Show” set in the music world. What do you think of that comparison?

A: I don’t know, that’s high praise. His show really nailed exactly where they were trying to go. We’re fledgling. I would say that there’s a piece of that in us, and there’s a piece of Ricky Ricardo in “I Love Lucy”--just that you’re a bandleader and you also have a regular life. I always liked that Ricky knew Humphrey Bogart was going to bring him home for dinner, but he also had to worry about how much Lucy spent on the vacuum. Sometimes people think that everybody in rock ‘n’ roll is living in L.A. in a mansion and that’s it. And all their friends are supermodels. My friends are my next-door neighbors and my surfing buddies in San Francisco and my band. I keep trying to date supermodels. They just won’t.

Q: Celebrities like Minnie Driver, Joe Walsh, Jay Leno and Junior Brown make guest appearances on your show. Are they friends or were they invited by Showtime?

A: I met Minnie. And I’ve spent time in the Texas honky-tonks dancing to Junior Brown. I’m a fan of his. There are other people on the show I haven’t crossed paths with before. Bret Michaels [the lead singer of Poison] came on and did a fantastic job. He was hilarious. That’s one of the fun things to do is to try to get the singers to act and the actors to sing. To mix it up.

Q: Actors like Russell Crowe, Keanu Reeves and Kevin Bacon all have bands. And musicians like you are acting. Is this a case of the-grass-is-greener syndrome?

A: I think it goes way back. Entertainers are entertainers. I think probably the only surprise is more people don’t eat fire and juggle. You’ve got to remember: Sinatra, great actor. Bing Crosby, great actor and singer. Dean Martin, great actor and singer. Sammy Davis. A lot of people traditionally have done it.

Q: This isn’t your first acting role, but is it harder to play yourself?

A: If they didn’t give you a script, then you’re playing yourself. When they give you a script, you’re doing a scene and you’re trying to find out what the reason is for doing it and all of a sudden you’re an actor.

Q: On the show, you turn to a surreal nude model to answer life’s big questions. Who is your oracle in real life?

A: The drummer has the wisdom. The bass player has the answers. The guitar player usually knows what key we’re in. And then, past that, I go to my doctor. He’s got something for my rash.

* “The Chris Isaak Show” premieres tonight at 10 on Showtime.