Steve Spears, host of the long-running pop culture podcast “Stuck in the ’80s,” has released a new book highlighting two decades of interviews with musicians and cultural figures from the decade.
“Stuck in the ’80s: 20 Years of Conversations with Pop Culture Icons Who Defined a Decade” went on sale earlier this month.
Part memoir and part oral history, the book draws on more than 750 episodes of Spears’ podcast and features interviews with artists and personalities associated with the 1980s. According to a news release, Spears combines excerpts from those conversations with reflections on nostalgia, fandom and the lives of the entertainers behind the music and television that shaped the era.
“The ’80s weren’t just a decade of great music and movies — they were a shared experience for millions of us growing up. This book is my way of preserving those conversations and celebrating the memories that still connect us,” Spears says. “It’s about much more than big hair and MTV. It’s about the way music becomes memory — and how the people who made it are still teaching us what it means, years later.”
The book includes interviews and stories involving a range of performers and media figures associated with the decade, including Brian Johnson of AC/DC; Steve Perry of Journey; Kenny Loggins; Martha Quinn, an original MTV deejay and host of “The Martha Quinn Morning Show” on iHeartMedia’s KOSF in San Francisco; John Oates of Hall & Oates; Rick Springfield; Don Barnes of .38 Special; Martin Fry of ABC; Jim Kerr of Simple Minds; and John Parr, known for the hit song “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion).”
Across the interviews, Spears explores how artists reflect on their careers after the height of their commercial success and how fans continue to connect with the music decades later.
The book has also drawn praise from several figures associated with 1980s media and music.
“For 20 totally awesome years, Steve Spears has been living, breathing, and celebrating the ’80s, and this book is as fun, heartfelt, and tubular as his legendary podcast,” Quinn says. “If you love the music, the memories, and the magic of the decade that changed everything, Stuck in the ’80s is, like, an absolute must.”
Spears launched the “Stuck in the ’80s” podcast in 2005 while working at the Tampa Bay Times, where he spent 17 years as a journalist. Originally assigned as an experiment in what was then a new digital format, the show grew into an internationally recognized podcast with a global audience.
The podcast focuses on interviews with musicians, actors and other figures from the decade while exploring themes of shared cultural memory, second acts in entertainment careers and the lasting emotional impact of music from the era.