Songwriter Evolution

​Cris: How had you evolved as a songwriter from "Picture This" to "Sports"?

Johnny Colla of clients Huey Lewis & The News: I think during the preparation for ‘Picture This’ we (especially Chris Hayes and myself) were all feeding pretty heavily off each other in the songwriting department, and we all had an open mind during pre-production. In fact when I looked back at the song list recently, I thought I had written ‘Change of Heart’! That’s how intertwined we all were back then, and in fact my three contributions were heavily influenced by Chris musically.

By ‘Sports’ we were all getting a little more ‘publishing/royalty savvy’ and that ramped up the songwriting; lots of good – and bad – ideas coming in all the time. I remember having a discussion with Chris around ‘Heart of Rock & Roll’ and ‘New Drug.’ My contention was that his guitar part was so integral to ‘Heart,’ and my horn line was so integral to ‘Drug,’ maybe we should just share a part of the publishing to get both our names on both tunes. Chris politely declined, and I think I got the better end of the deal!