Poplar Creek will open with `nice’ Howard Jones

By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
May 30, 1987

If you want to get on the bad side of British pop star Howard Jones, call him an entertainer.

“God, I hate that word,” Jones said. “It reminds me of one of those lounge lizards singing in Vegas.”

Jones will be the star attraction at 8 p.m. Thursday when the Poplar Creek Music Theater in northwest suburban Hoffman Estates opens its 1987 concert season. Frozen Ghost will open the show.

With his wholesome demeanor, fashionably baggy clothes and wild blond hair, Jones would find it hard to pass as a Las Vegas lounge act. Nor does the singer fit the sex-and-drugs image that many rock musicians have nurtured over the years.

Jones said he shuns tobacco, drugs and groupies. He’s a devout vegetarian who tours with his own cook. His idea of fun – when he’s not working on new songs in his portable studio — is adding to the sunglasses collection he started two years ago.

“I will admit that I can get drunk with the best of them,” Jones said, laughing. “That’s my vice. But I’m not too far off from the Mr. Nice Guy image I seem to have. I guess there are worse things to be called.”

Since his 1984 debut, “New Song,” Jones has had a string of Top 10 hit singles in the United States and Great Britain. His last two albums, “Human’s Lib” and “Dream Into Action,” sold more than 500,000 and 1 million copies respectively.

“I still don’t feel established,” Jones said. “I still think I’m building my reputation. I need to do at least two more albums that really go down well with people before I can even think of calling myself established. It takes a long time to really earn respect across the board.”

Although he said pleasing music critics isn’t high on his priority list, Jones admitted that it would be nice to be respected by them. Had he made a name for himself as a guitarist rather than a keyboard player, Jones said, he might have established a rapport with the pop-music press.

In the early 1980s, many critics equated synthesizers with talentless British pretty boys who couldn’t play “real instruments.” Jones, a classically trained pianist, found it insulting when people assumed he didn’t know anything about music.

“It’s not like (synthesizers) play themselves,” he said. “A person has to learn to play them, just like the guitar or drums or bass. I had a really difficult time understanding why people found the synthesizer such a taboo instrument for a musician to play in a band. Now, of course, it isn’t the big deal it was even a couple years ago.

“You can’t please everybody. I’ve felt like I’ve done the best I could with my efforts, and I’ve been happy with the results. And luckily for me, there are more record buyers out there who seem to agree with me than with the critics.”

His latest album, “One to One,” presents a darker side of Jones that has not surfaced in his earlier works. While his songs always have stressed the importance of individuality, he has stayed away from unpleasant subject matter, such as drug abuse. But in “A Little Bit of Snow” on the new LP, Jones sings about the plight of a heroin addict. Jones said an anti-heroin film he saw inspired him to write the song.

“It was only recently that I met people who got really seriously messed up from drugs,” Jones said. “It had never affected me or anyone I knew before. But when I was mixing the album in New York, I met a distant relative who had some problems. Then, too, there was that whole Boy George thing with heroin abuse. There’s no way you could stand the rigors of touring if you abused substances like that.”

Jones, who was born to Welsh parents on the southern coast of England, is used to moving around. During his childhood, his family lived in 18 different places, including Canada.

“It was really difficult keeping up with us Joneses,” he deadpanned. “But it prepared me well for touring. I call those my basic-training years.”

While his boyish good looks draw screaming teens to his concerts by the busload, Jones said one of the more amusing sights is watching the fathers who are chaperoning their daughters.

“It’s really interesting to see these middle-age men jumping up and down with their kids,” Jones said. “You wouldn’t think they would, but they do. Then they’ll go home and tell their wives how their daughters went hysterical.”

When his current tour ends, Jones said, he has some plans for himself and his wife, Jan. They’re going to learn to ski and sky-dive.

“I’ve never done either before, and they sound pretty exciting,” he said. “I guess I may be risking the safety of my legs for both sports, but I’ll have to take it as it comes. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”