Huey Lewis is giving fans an update on his life. During an appearance on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast, the former Huey Lewis and the News frontman revealed that music is no longer a part of his life following a Ménière’s disease diagnosis.
Lewis’ hearing woes started 35 years ago when he went deaf in his right ear. He was able to exist “basically one ear for 25 years,” but then his “left ear bailed,” Lewis said.
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“Now, I’m deaf, basically, without the technology involved,” he said. “I have a cochlear implant on one side, and a regular old hearing aid in the other one. They’re compatible and they stream to the computer and they stream to the phone, but I’m basically deaf.”
The hearing in Lewis’ second year started to dissipate just over eight years ago, and “the worst six months ever” followed for the singer.
“I just pretty much stayed in bed. Tried all kinds of stuff from herbal medicines, to Western medicines, to Canadian compounded drugs, to no drugs, to fasting, to no meat, to no salt. Nothing worked. It just kept getting worse and worse,” he recalled. “At a certain point, you got to face the music.”
Huey Lewis Reveals How His Life Has Changed Since His Hearing Loss
Since doing just that, Lewis said that his “life has changed immeasurably.”
“I can’t hear music. Music is not part of my life anymore, which is a hard pill to swallow,” he said. “I can’t find pitch in the music. The technology that I use on my cochlear implant, it breaks everything down into digital bits. Speech is easier to listen to than music.”
“The cochlear… distorts the music a little bit, in the same way it distorts people’s voices,” Lewis added. “You sound a little like Mickey Mouse. People sound like they took a hit of helium… It colors the pitch. It makes pitch impossible to hear, but I can hear conversation.”
Lewis said that he largely tries to “divorce” the fact that music is no longer a part of his life from his mind, though “there are pangs” of sadness over that fact.
“I can’t enjoy music. When I cook or I have people over for dinner, I always used to play them music. I have a great collection of old big band stuff and old New Orleans jazz, and I don’t play it at all anymore,” he lamented. “Sometimes I still play it because I know it so well. It’s weird. I can hear the beat, so I know what’s going on, but I can’t enjoy it.”
While he could try some workarounds to hear music better, Lewis noted, “Music used to be so much fun… [now] it just ends up being frustrating for me when I can’t enjoy it.”
Though music has faded into the past for Lewis, the singer said that he’s found some solace in fishing.
“If I had hearing, I’d still be on the road probably 75 to 100 shows. And I don’t miss that. I miss a show once in a while. I miss the camaraderie of of the fellas and the circus like thing that it is,” he said. “But man, I’ve fished so many great places, and had so many great experiences, and met all kinds of different people that I wouldn’t have met, so I’ve got to kind of look in the positive.”
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