Thicke: this is the sound of next generation soul

Thicke is a true son of Hollywood. His parents are both popular actors-Alan Thicke (star of the '80s TV hit Growing Pains) and Gloria Loring (Days of Our Lives)-but unlike a lot of Tinseltown kids, Thicke's talent has nothing to do with his folk's accomplishments. On his ambitious debut album Cherry Blue Skies (NuAmerica), due out this month, the 25-year-old groove prodigy rewrites the soul rule book to create one of the more invigorating twists on the genre-imagine Radiohead backing up Marvin Gaye.

On the disc-the first on NuAmerica, a joint venture between Andre Harrell and Babyface-Thicke moves effortlessly from the haunting "Oh Shooter" (written about a true incident where Thicke found himself caught in a bank+ a party track based on a discofied slice of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, "I work between the gaps," says Thicke, who's also written songs for Christina Aguilera, Marc Anthony, Pink and Mya. "My favorite artists-be they the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Prince, or the Stones-told all kinds of stories, played all kinds of characters. I don't have any rules, so it all makes sense to me."

MATT DIEHL: You grew up in Hollywood where your parents, in addition to acting, also wrote and sang music professionally.

THICKE: My mom had a hit in the '80s called "Friends and Lovers" that went to number one. And she sang the theme song for The Facts of Life. My dad wrote that song. He wrote jingles; he wrote the theme to Joker's Wild and Diff'rent Strokes, which he also sang. Growing up in the industry made me approach my career with caution. But I never looked at it as a business, just as what I was going to do no matter what-I didn't have a choice. I have no backup plan.

Did their experiences affect how you approach your career?

MD: Your music is truly individual. Have you had to pay a price for that over the years?

T: Definitely. When you're supposedly a talented vacalist, sometimes they [record label exces] don't want you to be smart, or to go your own way; they just want you be an entertainer. They're like, "You can sign good, you can move good. We'll write songs for you about stars, moons, love and high school, and then we'll go from there." That just wasn't me.

MD: How did people try to change you?

MD: I can't see you in the push-up bra for some reason.

T: Most of the time, they just wanted me to write more accessible, commercial, pop-friendly songs than I wanted to write. When I write songs, I don't think about formats, and the end result isn't grungy enough to fit in with today's rock 'n' roll, and it's also obviously not Jay-Z and Ja Rule, so where does it lit in? I just couldn't worry about that, but that's what they worry about. When I started, they wanted to mold me into a male Mariah Carey.

T: That and posing seductively over the hoods of cars in a wet T-shirt and Daisy Dukes. I didn't think that was going to work for me. [laughs] When I was signed at Sony, they wanted me to cut my hair, shave the facial hair, and make the music a little more.., what would the word be? Plausible? Playable? It wasn't until I met Andre Harrell that I found somebody who completely and fully shared my vision.

MD: What did Andre, who helped create the whole "ghetto fabulous" vibe with people like Puff Daddy and Mary J. Blige, see in you that others hadn't seen?

T: He didn't see the Mariah Carey or the rock 'n' roller in me, he just saw me for everything that I was. He knew that I had a soulful side, that I had a rock 'n' roll side, that I had a dark side and a party side; he just knew that you've got to use all your sides. In the new generation of culture that I've grown up in, Andre sees people who listen to Biggie, Radiohead and Jimi Hendrix. I think that there area lot of us out there.

MD: Many of the great artists throughout history were multifaceted. Take Elvis Presley: He danced black, sang black, but he was white and it wasn't just "black music." It was Elvis music. And then somebody like Tupac [Shakur) could be a street thug, he could be a ladies' man, he could be radical like the Black Panthers but still go to number one.

T: Right. And he was a sex symbol, too, which really made it so powerful.

MD: You have a bit of a sex symbol thing going on, too. Speaking of which, what's going on in your song "Stupid Things"?

T: That's actually a very true song about me not being very good to my woman, whether that means skipping out on breakfast to be with the guys, or flirting with the wrong girls and making her feel bad.

MD: This is the woman you're going to marry?

T: Yeah. Sometimes us guys do some really stupid shit, because we're guys. But you can pretty much sing that song to a girl, and get yourself off a little cleaner. [both laugh] It's really just the best "I'm sorry" that I think I've ever written.

MD: So you were writing a Get Out of Jail Free card.

T: Oh yeah, it is definitely a Get Out of Jail Free card for the men of America. Just use this song at any time and say, "This is what I feel, baby." [both laugh]