Since Bret Easton Ellis made the protagonist of his 1991 novel American Psycho, Patrick Bateman, an investment banker serial killer with a fondness for Huey Lewis and the News, the association has taken on a life of its own. The 2000 film adaptation of the book, which was directed and co-written by Mary Harron and emphasized the black comic elements of the novel, immortalized the connection in an unhinged -- and now classic -- scene in which Bateman, played by Christian Bale, delivers a soliloquy on Lewis' music (which appeared in a different part of Ellis' book) shortly before dispatching a character played by Jared Leto with an ax while "Hip to Be Square" plays on the stereo. And last year, Lewis took things to a whole new level when he and Weird Al Yankovic shot a brilliant note-perfect parody of the scene for Funny or Die.
Thirty years after Lewis' Sports hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (on the week of June 30, 1984), Billboard spoke with Ellis about Bateman's Lewis love and the author admitted a tinge of regret that he linked Lewis to Bateman, who, after all symbolized, not the heart of rock'n'roll, but heartless capitalism.