The Daily Swarm

Rick Nielsen is Cheap Trick’s lead guitarist, principal songwriter and comic relief. Cheap Trick’s latest album, “The Latest,” is their 16th studio album.

The new Cheap Trick album has a song called “Sick Man of Europe,” which was the name of one of the many early manifestations of the band…

So the world’s worst band name is now the world’s worst song name!

But Sick Man was really the band where what we now know as the classic Cheap Trick lineup really began to crystallize in the early 70s. What’s the relationship of the song to the band?

Well, not that many people saw that band so this is giving honor to the nine people that did see the original band. It’s a pretty fun song for people who missed all of that fun in ’72 and ’73.

It’s one of the more stripped-down garage rock songs on the album.

Well we actually were stripped and in a garage. But [Sick Man] was the jumping off point, the core of this band, three of the four.

And before that you were in a lot of garage bands in and around Rockford (Illinois) and some with future members of Cheap Trick who kind of came and went.

Well I’ve been working with Tom [Petersson, Cheap Trick bassist] since the 60s.

When was the first time you worked with him?

We had a band called the Grim Reapers and then we changed our name to Fuse and put a record out on Epic and that was in like ‘68/’69.

So around that time you had some pretty legendary 60s Chicago garage bands in your backyard: Shadows of Knight, New Colony Six, The Cryan’ Shames. Would you consider the Grim Reapers to be a peer to those bands?

We knew those bands and had opened for them but we were always thinking we were somehow different.

(The Grim Reapers, 1967. Nielsen, far left)

How were you different?

Well, we knew that we weren’t from England, even though we wanted to be. And they acted like they were from England but they were from the suburbs. Those bands didn’t have any influence on us at all.

But you all shared an influence with the Invasion bands.

Oh yeah, sure. But by the time that Cheap Trick started we’d already been invaded and we went back and invaded them. This is metaphorical kinda stuff here. But I wouldn’t compare any New Colony Six album to any Cheap Trick album, I’ll put it that way.

One of your first breaks was being asked to do keyboards for the Yardbirds on the “Little Games” album. How did that come about?

Well I was one of the lucky ones who went to the thirty minute concerts that everybody had at the Arie Crown theater in Chicago and Rock River Roller Rink to see the Yardbirds and the Norse Chalet to see all these English bands that would come in and do an afternoon show in the Rockford area before they’d go do their other show at night in Chicago.

Those were the days, they started doing two shows a day but in different cities because they only had to play like 25 minutes and didn’t need a big PA or whatever. Then in ’68 I bought a Mellotron in England from Cliff Cooper at Orange Music, before Orange amps were made. It was the dual keyboard Mellotron, the kind that Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues had. It weighed a ton, I got a used one and it was a mechanical behemoth. And I had it shipped back from England and Fuse used it on that record and on the next record that never came out and then we got asked by people at Chess Records to bring the Mellotron to the studio for sessions because where else were you going to find a Mellotron in the United States? There weren’t any, so then from there I got asked to play on different things done by different producers, at the time sometimes I didn’t even know who I was working for.

How did you get access to it? Was it easier because of your family business? [Nielsen’s father owned a music store in Rockford].

No, it took money. Nobody knew who I was in England. I pooled my money, sold guitars. I honestly don’t even remember how I did it because getting that and getting it shipped to the United States, I mean this is a massive undertaking. It would be a massive undertaking today let alone when I was just barely out of high school. But I was an ambitious little shit.

So when did you hook up with Jeff Beck?

The first time I hooked up with him was right around that era because I sold him the second Les Paul he ever owned. I sold it to him for about $350, it was a Les Paul Standard. Today that guitar is like a $400,000 guitar. We met because I went to a show in Chicago at the Kinetic Playground and his roadie dropped his guitar and broke the head off it and I went upstairs and told his manager that I’d just seen his guitar get broken and if you’re looking for something similar I was a guitar geek and could get something. I got a phone call about a month later and somebody said, “Hold the line, Jeff Beck wants to talk to you” and he said, “Hey Rick, you still got those guitars? Well bring a few to the show, here’s my manager, work out the details.” The manager said, “we’re in Philadelphia,” so they flew me and my friend because I couldn’t carry them all, because I took six of them with me and I played all night long with him at the Holiday Inn at 15th and Broad Street.

(Jeff Beck plays a Les Paul Standard)

So was that your first brush with greatness in the studio?

Oh yeah in the studio for sure. But I wasn’t looking for a job, the jobs always found me. I wasn’t looking to sell guitars but I saw the best guitarist I’d ever seen get his instrument broken and he didn’t and I offered my services and it went from there and before you know it I’m at Chess Studios in Chicago, home of lots of hits by the Stones, you know, anybody that was everybody. It’s like going to Sun Records in Memphis, I just happened to be there.

(Howlin’ Wolf at Chess Studios)

So how did it feel to be on vinyl with the Yardbirds?

It’s still wonderful to this day. I never advertised it for sure I don’t know if it’s even a good footnote but it’s pretty darned interesting and not many people can say that.

(Rick Nielsen on keyboards)

I met a lot of people that way: Alice Cooper, Humble Pie. I asked Mike Harrison, the lead singer from Spooky Tooth, to be the singer in the band way before Stewkey [Fuse and Sick Man singer] or Robin [Zander, Cheap Trick’s singer] and nobody knows that. I was just always pushy and nuts enough to ask anybody anything. “Hey you wanna join a band and go to Rockford, Illinois?”

But ultimately you hired a guy who was playing in a folk duo in the Wisconsin Dells. When you first saw Robin Zander what grabbed you about him?

I said, “Well he doesn’t have much stage presence but god the guy can sing great.” And our manager at the time said, “Well, I don’t see it in that guy” and I said, “Not that guy, THAT guy.” He was looking at the wrong guy!

And when you offered Robin the gig what did he say?

He said, “Well, when I get done with this contract I’ll do it.” Because I guess he knew of me and he knew Bun E. [Carlos, Cheap Trick’s drummer]. I think he’d been working in the Dells for too long. That great offer of $150 a week or whatever it was something that he couldn’t turn down.

You can only see so much Tommy Bartlett Water Show.

Yes, you can only water ski so much.

So Cheap Trick is generally considered power pop.

I don’t mind that.

But we were talking about how you were drawing from harder Invasion bands.

Yeah, which was more like power punk rock.

Right, like the Kinks and the Move.

Cheap Trick really created that kind of harder pop in the U.S. Did you consider yourself a power pop band? Your Big Star cover [“In the Street,” theme song for “That 70s Show”], for example, is much harder than the original.

Yeah, well my definition of power pop and the journalists’ definition were always two different things. It was always easier to label somebody than it was to have the label actually mean something. You know, the American versions I always thought were weaker versions. Like Slade doing “Cum On Feel the Noize” versus Quiet Riot doing it. It was just heavier.

But if you’re using power pop as an umbrella term, the sonic difference between Cheap Trick and say, the Raspberries, is great.

Yeah, the Raspberries are great stuff but a much lighter touch. Way more background Phil Spector-ish kinda stuff and we were a more stripped-down version of any of that.

Cheap Trick made its early reputation on the road in the 70s playing support for bands like Queen and Journey but one of the big turning points was playing support on the “Destroyer” tour for Kiss. Was that because the band was learning how to fill out a stadium?

I don’t know, I think we were what we were. We’d worked playing six nights a week, four or five sets a night just honing our craft playing to people five feet away and we were always a bit over the top. But you didn’t have to hunt for the melody. You didn’t have to hunt for the guitar solo.

And Cheap Trick was probably doing stadium-sized shows in Beloit anyway.

Correct. And we might have been opening for somebody but we always thought we were as good as anybody. Like we didn’t try to outdo Kiss in any way, shape or form. We just tried to do what we do and certain things came out of necessity. We had our first album out and then our second album came out and we’re out on tour with Kiss and it’s like, what song do you start with? So I wrote a song, “Hello There.” It wasn’t a song that needed to be written for any album, it was a song that needed to be written to play live and because it was a great way to get a soundcheck. You know, one guy starts and the next guy starts and the next guy starts.

It’s quick, it’s fast, it’s a greeting and before you knew it it was an intro and an outro. Is it a song like “Surrender” where it’s got kind of a story? No, but it was written out of necessity because we didn’t know what to start with. And it stuck.

The physical sound of Cheap Trick records has varied a lot over the years. Do you feel like after this much time you finally have the balance right?

I’ve said it plenty of times before but I think the song dictates what you need. You can put the kitchen sink on something if you really want to but if the song wants it, the song deserves it. Or if the song deserves nothing, give it nothing. If one guitar sounds great, why have twelve?

So Cheap Trick is known for its setbacks as much as its victories…

Yay failure! Hey Hey! I don’t know that anything is a failure. We didn’t get the part in [Roger Corman’s 1979 B-movie] “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” the Ramones did. Well, we’re not great actors.

I thought you guys passed on it.

Well, we did pass. I don’t know what it was. Now that I look back I think we did the right thing. I don’t even know that I ever saw the movie.

It’s a great movie, but a better fit for the Ramones. So you know what I’m going to mention in your film canon.

My film who?

Your acting credits. I have to ask about your appearance in “Disorderilies.” How did you get together with the Fat Boys?

I don’t know, I think the director thought that I would be good but I think I still remember my one line, “but I was only going 30!”

Have you seen that movie?

Actually I did see it after it came out. There were other people in it. I think the Beach Boys were in it. Hall & Oates.

You’re a master of the Beatles cover. How would you rate the Fat Boys’ cover of “Baby You’re a Rich Man?”

I wouldn’t.

But I was also at one point going to be Art Carney and Meatloaf was going to be Jackie Gleason for a new version of “The Honeymooners.” I finally have it down – if they want someone that’s no good I’m perfect, because I’m lousy in every one of them. But I’m consistently lousy. I’m just not good at being someone else.

So the accepted Cheap Trick album production story is that the sound on the early albums was thin and that the band didn’t really break until [1979’s] “At Budokan” because it was the first recording that captured what the band really sounded like. Is that fair?

Well, yeah, in a way. Because “Budokan” was like what everybody had seen, that band who opened for Kiss. Oh yeah, that was them. We were talking about ‘Hello There,” that opens the “Budokan” record. And that’s what reminded people of what they saw, not what they heard. I mean if you hear “I Want You To Want Me” on the studio version and then you hear it from live from “At Budokan” it’s like yeah it’s the same song, but it’s so much different.

We had gone from town to town to town opening for everyone that we could, that was the band that people saw and that’s Cheap Trick.

And the Budokan show was a thank you to the Japanese fans who had really been there from the beginning.

Yeah, with the stilted talking – “This…next…one…is…the…first…song…on…our…new…album.” We were told to talk slow and enunciate. You can already tell I’m a lousy actor.

When did you first become aware that your most active fan base was overseas?

Because we used to get fan mail from there. No one wrote to us in the United States except the musicians union wanting their dues.

What was the fan mail like from Japan?

You are the greatest. We love you. Come here. Let me be your special one.

What did it feel like getting off the plane in Tokyo in 1978?

Are you kidding? You get off the plane and people actually like you? It’s very good.

So “Budokan” was intended to be a Japanese release but there was great demand in the U.S. and it was finally released here and “I Want You To Want Me” broke the band at radio but the album almost didn’t get made because of the condition of the tapes when they came in for mixing, right?

You’ve done your homework. Yeah, like the bass drum was not there at all, there was a signal but it was recorded lousy. We almost had to re-record it. They had to find the sound from another area of the tape and transfer it over.

Were there studio overdubs on “Budokan?”

Only if something wasn’t loud enough to hear.

In a lot of live albums around that time, and Kiss has ‘fessed up to this for “Alive II,” the crowd noise was sweetened.

I think they took our crowd noise and turned it down because it was too loud. One night a girl jumps out of the balcony and runs on the stage at the beginning of “Ain’t That a Shame” and grabs me and then she’s whisked away. That intro is different than what’s on the “Budokan” record, a little bit of silly history. I don’t think she was aiming for me but she got me and that changed the intro of how that song went forever.

Let’s talk about “The Flame.” In the 80s the band went on a commercial slide until “The Flame” blew up at pop radio, which was not a Cheap Trick composition and didn’t entirely sound like one. Was it more troubling that it was a naked grab for a fluffy pop hit, or that it actually worked?

Well, some of each. You weren’t in the studio like I was. It was like the 15th or 20th song where they were like “this one, no this one, no you should do this one because this one’s great.” Well we heard that for songs one through nineteen, “this is great, this is great.” By the time we got there I hated everything. But we got it done and we’re Cheap Trick. Robin can sing the phone book and it sounds good.

But how does it feel to play it now?

Hey, I play it well. And it is a good song. It’s got good emotion. Why in the world would I make up this story where I’m defiant and didn’t like it? There’s more to it than just somebody else wrote it. Hell, we’ve done songs that somebody else wrote from the first album. It wasn’t that. We did an obscure Terry Reid song, “Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace.”

That was one of the first songs that ever got any radio airplay in the U.S. Fred “Sonic” Smith liked us doing that song, how cool is that?

You’ve done sessions with all kinds of artists but most famously you and Bun E. played on the “Double Fantasy” sessions with John Lennon in 1980. How did that come about and what do you remember about the sessions?

Well I remember a lot of it. It was August 12, 1980. [Producer] Jack Douglas wanted it to be heavier while he was doing the sessions and if you listen to our versions, which came out ten years after or whatever, and the ones that went on the “Double Fantasy” album they sound like a lounge act.

At the time they didn’t have the continuity with all the other songs so they took us off, so Earl Slick copied my guitar licks and Andy Newmark did what Bun E. had done. But there’s an interview that Yoko did where she said that we inspired John, actually, our versions of it.

But it’s been widely suggested that Yoko was complicit in you not being on the final album.

Well, coulda been, but just the fact that we got asked to do it at all. And had John Lennon not died there’s an article in “Record Collector” where Jack said that the next record was probably going to be done all with us. It’s one of those things, anyone can say that because he’s dead and there’s nothing you can do about it. But Lennon said to Bun E, “God I wish I would have had Rick on ‘Cold Turkey.’ Clapton choked up.”

It was the ultimate day for me of working with another artist. It was also the day that my son was born.

Your son was born the day you were doing the Lennon sessions?

Correct. The only time I wasn’t in at the hospital. I got a hall pass from my wife. If McCartney had asked I wouldn’t have done it.