Rock Hall: What was the song "Wicked Game" about?
Chris Isaak: It's about four in the morning, and somebody calling and saying I'm coming over to your house and I thought right after I said okay, I thought I should have never allowed this person to come over to my house. I know what's going to happen.
And I wrote the song between the time I got off the phone and the person came over to visit. It was just about what happens when you have a strong attraction to people that aren't necessarily good for you.
I think it hit a nerve because I think a lot of us have a strong attraction to people that aren't necessarily good for us.
RH: Did Ritts' preferred setting – beach with ocean backdrop – present any challenges?
CI: It looks romantic in the video, but in real life, we're on a beach… if you look at [Christensen's] body, it has goosebumps on it. They were throwing buckets of cold sea water on us to keep us wet. And there was a little bit of wind, and she was freezing, I mean she was just shivering. When I'm holding her close to me, a lot of times I was just holding her feeling like, "you poor thing, hold on to me – you'd be warm at least."
RH: What was your reaction when you first saw the finished video?
CI: We shot the whole video and afterwards, I remember they showed me the rushes and stuff, and they said we want your comments on the editing and everything. And I had the stupidest comment. People laugh at it, but it's actually my comment. I said, "I love it, I don't think they're going to play it." and [Ritts] said, "why?" I said, "I just don't think it's going to be sexy enough for them to play this."
Now people have said it's a sexy video later, but you got to remember: I'm in it. So every time I was in it, and they were showing me, I was thinking "that's just boring and bad." I said, "can't you cut more of the girl in it, and get rid of me more?" And [Ritts] goes, "You have to sing the song!" … Luckily, it was Herb Ritts that I listened to instead of my own fears, and it came out good.
