Romantic ballads, not scandal, pay off for Air Supply

“We did our share of everything in the day,” says singer-songwriter Russell Hitchcock.

“But we were never part of the hip crowd. We didn’t go to the right parties. We didn’t have the right PR person. We didn’t have a drug problem. We didn’t have a major alcohol problem.”

Not everyone in the rock business is so normal or nice, obviously.

“I’ve been with acts on the same bill and you’re not allowed to look at them — ‘Don’t make eye contact with this person.’ ‘Don’t go into that room.’ ‘He won’t get out of his car until everybody’s out of sight.’ ”

Hitchcock won’t name these divas. He’ll say only that they are “very famous people.”

In the 1980s, after Air Supply notched many hits, a certain singer opened for them. This singer was never as famous. She had a few minor hits.

Anyway, before she opened for them on tour, Hitchcock walked up to her at a communal backstage meal and reached out his hand for a shake.

“Hi, I’m Russell Hitchcock. I sing with Air Supply. It’s really nice to be on the same bill with you,” he told her.

“She just looked at my hand, and then looked me up and down, from toe to head, and didn’t say a word.”

Hitchcock was taken aback by this one- or two-hit wonder.

“I said, ‘You know what? (Expletive) you. I hope you have a great show.’

“That was just the height of rudeness,” he says. “Life’s too short to be a (expletive) to everybody. You end up being alone and nobody likes you, so what’s the point?”

Hitchcock has never forgotten the working-class code his family instilled, he says.

“My dad was one to say: ‘It doesn’t cost you anything to be nice to everybody. And you can learn something from everybody you meet.’ ”

Hitchcock says waiters and bartenders at his favorite Korean restaurant in Orange County, Calif., (where he lives) tell him, “I can’t believe how normal you are.”

“I say, ‘There’s no reason not to be normal,’ ” he says.

“People that are in the headlines and do dumb things — they’re either trying to be like that, or they’re wired wrong.”

on the road

Since Air Supply has toured the globe since the 1970s, they are travel experts. They still play 130 shows a year around the world.

Hitchcock advises you check out his favorite destinations: his hometown Sydney, Australia; nearby Melbourne; Hong Kong; Paris; Buenos Aires; and Tokyo.

Sydney: “It’s just so beautiful. It’s all on the water. There are so many bays and harbors. It’s got world landmarks, like the Opera House and the (Sydney Harbour) Bridge. The food’s great. The people are great. There’s nothing not to like about the place.”

Paris: “It’s romantic. It sounds cliche to walk down the Champs-Elysees and sit at a table and have a glass of wine with bread and cheese, but it’s incredible.”

Buenos Aires: “The architecture there is fantastic, and it’s just got a great spirit of life that everyone has. People usually go out and start their evening at 9 or 10 o’clock at night and get home at 6 in the morning. They go dancing. … There’s a great zest for life there. I love it.”

Hong Kong: “It’s a very modern city, relatively now, since the last 20 years. Huge skyscrapers. The harbor’s beautiful. The food’s great. And there’s such an intense number of people in a small area, it’s really bustling. It’s got the greatest electronics in the universe, and I’m a gadget pervert, so that’s good to me.”

Tokyo: “Such polite people. There’s nothing I can say bad about it. Plus, they have the bullet train, which is quite nice to ride on.”

THE SONGS

Air Supply’s greatest hits were huge ones — “Lost in Love,” “Every Woman in the World,” “All Out of Love,” “The One That You Love,” “Here I Am” and quite a few others.

But the title of “Even The Nights Are Better” doesn’t totally make sense. If you start a relationship, and the nights aren’t better — isn’t that trouble?

“We’ve had that comment so many times: ‘Why wouldn’t the nights be better than the days?’ ” Hitchcock says.

Air Supply didn’t write “Even The Nights Are Better.” It was pitched to them by producer Clive Davis.

“The first time we heard it, we said to Clive, ‘It sounds a little bit like ‘Arthur’ ” — the Christopher Cross hit.

“But you know, you can’t knock success, and that was another song that was very successful for us.”

Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.