Gary Lewis shows no signs of stopping

Gary Lewis was in school wondering what he should do when he heard The Beatles. That did it.

“I was going to a theater arts college in Pasadena, and I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he said. “The first time I heard about them was early 1963 and my first thoughts were ‘Oh my gosh! this is great!”

Gary Lewis and the Playboys will perform Saturday at Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella with including The Turtles, The Buckinghams, and The Grass Roots as part of the Happy Together 2016 tour.

“I did the Happy Together tour in 1985 and did it again in 2013,” he said. “I’ve done it off and on and sometimes on these single pop-up dates and this is a duplication of that 1985 tour.”

Lewis, the son of famed comedian and actor Jerry Lewis, started to play the drums when he was 5. He formed The Playboys from classmates at school. Fortunately, his mother helped finance the recordings and such because he did not want his dad to know.

Their first single in 1964, “This Diamond Ring” went to Number One on the Billboard charts and was followed by hits such as “Count Me In” and “Save Your Heart for Me?”

“Even though I was into show business, it was at the other end of it, so it was cool because no one could say by getting into the business was just nepotism,” he said. “My dad actually didn’t know I had a band until ‘This Diamond Ring.’ Mom financed everything for us but she said we couldn’t tell my dad because if it fails then we’d have to come up with an excuse. She financed it for a year, and she was like our manager and she did it out of love. Mom was great.”

Once “This Diamond Ring,” was a smash, he was free to tell his father.

“He was shooting a movie on the Paramount lot, and I walked in with my first gold record of it and he was cool that way,” he said. “Any time any of his sons came to see him on the set he would shut down everything and devote his time to us. And I brought it to him and gave it to him. He was surprised. He asked ‘When did this happen’ so I told him the story.”

Of course, he was riding high but he was given a little bit of caution by his producer, Snuff Garrett.

“He didn’t want us to get too excited because there were so many one-hit artists,” he said. “He said we have to concentrate on number 2, and if we get that one then we are good to go. As it turned out, our first seven singles all went Top Ten.”

As it turned out, those seven Top Ten hits was a record.

“One time Kasey Kasem told me, ‘Do you realize that the Beatles didn’t have their first seven go Top Ten,” he said.

Granted, the band wasn’t expecting that kind of success.

“We were so new to the whole thing,” he said. “We didn’t have any idea of what to expect or what would happen. I just knew my producer took me around the U.S. to visit the distribution houses and all this PR stuff. I knew nothing and he said that’s just fine just and trust me. Well, he’d never had a failure so we did.”
Of course, then Lewis got drafted.

“My first thought was I’d do what Elvis did and keep having hits, but that’s not how it worked,” he said.

Granted, one of the highlights of his career was actually meeting The Beatles.

“I met them two different times, and the first was when they were playing the Hollywood Bowl,” he said. “I went to that show, and somehow they got wind that I was there. I had ‘This Diamond Ring’ out so they asked me to come back stage and meet them. I felt like a giddy teen-ager. I was so overwhelmed with how cool they were. John was walking around pouring champagne, and when he got to me, he looked up and said ‘Hey man. Nice suit.’ It was the same type that he always wore, and I almost got it framed.”

That’s a part of the ‘60s that is engrained in his memory.

“I was so blessed to be listening to and making music in the ‘60s,” he said. “It was just such a terrific time. It wasn’t just years but it was an event.”

And that’s what he looks for when he gets on stage.

“It’s still just a good time to be out there,” he said.