Huey Lewis Talks Punk, Eighties Hits With the Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin on Apple Music Show

Huey Lewis will interview fellow Eighties legend Jane Wiedlin on the next episode of his Apple Music Hits show, ‘80s Radio with Huey Lewis, airing Saturday, October 3rd, at 11 a.m. ET..

Lewis’ conversation with Wiedlin — which is available to hear in part before the full episode premieres — covers an array of topics, starting with the influence that punk had on both the Go-Go’s and Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis noted that his first band, a country-rock outfit called Clover, was managed by Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera, who went on to found Stiff Records, and he recalled the years the band spent in the U.K. working with Mutt Lange, getting booed off stage constantly, but ultimately learning a lot.

Wiedlin recounted a similar experience with the Go-Go’s when they were able to make the trek to London in the late Seventies. “It was a super budget kind of situation,” she recalled. “It was a really, really hard time because we were opening for Madness and the Specials, who were a ska band, so they had all these skinhead followers who hated us because we weren’t ska, we weren’t British and, we were girls. That didn’t help for some reason. But when you’re playing for that tough of a crowd, you really toughen up. So when we came back, we were so much better and I think it was a huge part of us moving forward as far as getting successful.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the pair discuss what exactly made the Eighties a special decade for music, while Weidlin also touches on the new Go-Go’s documentary and the band’s first new song in 19 years, “Club Zero.” Throughout the episode, Wiedlin will also share some of her favorite Eighties songs.

Huey Lewis and the News released their most recent album, Weather — their first in 19 years — in February.