Courtesy Huey Lewis & The NewsHuey Lews & the News release their new album, Weather, on Friday, the band’s first album of new material in almost 20 years.  To promote the project, Huey did a Q&A with his pal Jimmy Kimmel at the Grammy Museum in L.A. Wednesday, and in the process revealed his two biggest career regrets.

Billboard reports Huey’s first regret was turning down a boatload of cash from Coca-Cola, which the soft drink giant offered Huey and the band after Pepsi landed Michael Jackson for a commercial.

“Before that, no music stars did corporate tie-ins,” Huey said, according to Billboard. “Coca-Cola asked to have a meeting. We flew to Atlanta. They offered us millions of dollars [to use] ‘The Heart of Rock & Roll’ in a commercial. I said no.  Stupid.”

Also stupid?  Huey’s decision to turn down a song Bob Dylan sent him after they met during the recording of “We Are the World.”

“I should have cut it. I don’t know what I was thinking,” admitted Huey.

And while he was on the topic of “We Are The World,” Huey revealed that when Prince, who’d been invited to participate, didn’t show up, he ended up getting the late icon’s line.  He said producer Quincy Jones called him over, and then asked Michael to join them.

“Michael Jackson sang [Prince’s] line to me. I sang it back and that’s how I got the part,” recalled Huey.

That line, by the way, is, “But if you just believe/there’s no way we can fall.”  You also hear him sing the line “Stand together as one,” along with Cyndi Lauper and Kim Carnes.  Ah, the eighties.

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