Rick Springfield: ‘It feels like I’m in my 20s’ as he turns 75 (exclusive)

Rick Springfield will always remain young at heart.

Ahead of his 75th birthday on August 23, the “Jessie’s Girl” singer told PEOPLE the milestone felt like a “bit of a shock.”

“It makes you realise how old you are,” he says. “I still feel like I’m in my twenties in my head, and then you see people dying of old age diseases and you think, ‘Wow‘I’m the same age as the old people.'”

For his big birthday, Springfield doesn’t want to blow out candles on a cake – he would rather have an apple pie.

“I don’t like birthday cakes,” he says. “I like apple pie, so my wife usually bakes apple pie and puts some candles on it. I don’t know how you get 75 candles on an apple pie, so maybe we’ll do the number 75.”

Springfield, who has been married to his wife Barbara Porter for 40 years, will celebrate his birthday on stage and enjoy his favorite dessert. That evening, he and Richard Marx will make a tour stop in Catoosa, Oklahoma.

“A couple thousand people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me is always fun,” he says. “I love what I do and I’m very grateful. I could play ‘Jessie’s Girl’ in a Holiday Inn and say, ‘Tip your waitresses, guys, I’ll be right back with another ’80s hit.’ So I’m very grateful and I’m grateful to the fans who are still interested and I’m doing my best. I think I have the best band I’ve ever had and I just want it to get even better. If it feels like I’m doing it, simply becausethen I won’t do it.”

Springfield still doesn’t get bored of playing his music on stage.

“I mean, traveling gets boring,” he says. “I get paid to travel. I don’t get paid to play. These people respond to the songs you’ve written, and it’s very meaningful for a songwriter to hear that response 40 years after you wrote the song. It’s pretty amazing. I’m very grateful. I’m very grateful for where I am.”

Springfield kicked off his birthday celebrations on August 17 in Las Vegas. At a pool party, he served his cocktail “Jessie’s Girl” made with his and Sammy Hagar’s Beach Bar Rum.

“He’s a great guy,” Springfield says of Hagar. “He’s just very down to earth, loves to have fun and has a great way of speaking. I always feel good when I’m around him. He didn’t fake anything, no bullshit. When you’ve been in the business as long as we have, I think you understand that you’re not special. You just went your own way and did your job.”

They may say that wisdom comes with age, but Springfield calls that bullshit.

“Wisdom comes from digging inside and looking at yourself,” he says. “It doesn’t come automatically.”

However, as he has grown older, Springfield says, he has increasingly learned the importance of making himself “vulnerable.”

“We don’t want to be seen as anything less than the perfect image that we think we’re projecting,” he says. “It’s very hard to break down that wall and make yourself vulnerable. We learned from the beginning that you have to protect yourself. The bully showed us that. The mean girl showed us that. The stupid boyfriend showed us that. The bad dad showed us that. You have to protect yourself. We live in that armor and it’s great to step out of it. And I find that it’s easier to step out of it the older I get, which I think is one of the positives of turning 75.”

At 75, Springfield still trains every day, although he has had to make some adjustments.

“Every time I play with my band, it’s a two-hour aerobic workout, so luckily I can do that,” he says. “I have friends who have replaced hips, knees and shoulders, and it’s actually amazing that that’s possible, but that’s what goes away when you train. I can’t run anymore. I used to run all the time. I used to love running, but I can’t run anymore because my knees can’t take it anymore. That’s the way it is.”

When asked what should be on his birthday wish list this year, Springfield, who plans to release a new song called “Lose Myself” in the fall, jokingly answers “eternal life” and, more seriously, “perfect health.”

“We’re all going, so enjoy it for the fuck’s sake,” he says. “It’s not going to last forever, although we all think that somehow we’ll be the ones to escape it. We won’t, so enjoy it now.”

Springfield has no plans to retire – “That’s in the hands of the gods,” he jokes – and is grateful to have so much to be proud of.

“I love my sons, that makes me very proud. I’m proud that I’ve released a few songs that mean something to people because I’m a songwriter,” he says. “I’m proud of some of the investments I’ve made. I’ve been smart and I’m proud of the woman I married. She’s incredible. I hope the birthdays don’t stop.”