AMERICAN chart-topper Richard Marx will return to Newcastle in March for the first time since 2006.
The Hazard, Now and Forever and Right Here Waiting singer-songwriter will perform at NEX on March 1 as part of his 12-date Songwriter Tour of Australia and New Zealand.
Marx first performed at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre in 1992 following his hit third album Rush Street during what he describes as his "hair days".
The soft-rock balladeer played the Civic Theatre in 2006 and returned to the nearby Hunter Valley to support John Farnham at Bimbadgen in 2018.
"My wife Daisy [Fuentes] had never been to Australia until we got married [in 2015] and now she's been there three times and she's already packing for the next trip," Marx told the Newcastle Herald over Zoom while on tour in Brussels, Belgium.
"I'm lucky to have quite a few friends in Australia and we're always out exploring and it'll be a nice time of year.
"The shows are the focus, but I just love being in Australia so much, so it's like a vacation where I get to sing at night."
The majority of Marx's 30 million album sales occurred during his late '80s early '90s prime, when he was a poster boy for MTV and commercial radio.
However, Marx has continued to release new music and write hits for other artists such as Aussie country star Keith Urban, US boy band NSYNC and late soul-pop singer Luther Vandross.
The latter collaboration won Marx a Grammy for song of the year in 2003 for the track Dance With My Father.
Marx's latest tour is supporting the 59-year-old's 13th studio album Songwriter, released on Friday.
The album is essentially four EPs, each exploring a different musical genre in pop, rock, country and ballads.
"I don't know of any artist who's done that before," he said. "As long as my voice is the common thread, as long as I believe the songwriting maintains as extreme a quality as possible, then why not do that?
"I don't feel I need to adhere to any rules anymore. I'm a guy who puts out records 35 years later."
One of the biggest surprises on Songwriter is the rock track Shame On You, which features one of the last recorded performances by Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
The song was recorded a month prior to Hawkins' shock death on March 25 aged 50 while on tour with The Foo Fighters in Colombia.
"We were just becoming pals," Marx said. "We'd known each other for a while, but we were getting closer and talking more and more and we were neighbours.
"We had a lot of plans to have barbecues together."
Marx is proud of Shame On You, which expresses his disgust at former US president Donald Trump's divisive politics, but his feelings about the song have significantly changed.
"Working with him was great," he said.
"Now when I hear it it's bittersweet because I'm so excited that Taylor is playing on a track on my new album, but the circumstances make it sad at the same time obviously," he said.
Richard Marx plays Newcastle NEX on March 1. Frontier pre-sale begins 1pm Tuesday, before general sale from 12pm Thursday.
