Songwriting does the (Cheap) Trick
Plugging away at its sturdy pop rock, the band has some new tunes for a local show
Now that live music is back, with it comes a string of Cheap Trick concerts.
It's something the veteran act has been doing consistently since forming in Rockford, Illinois, in 1973. The nearly two years in which touring came to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic didn't mean founding member Rick Nielsen sat back twiddling his thumbs. An everrestless sort, Nielsen found plenty to do in trying to avoid being idle.
“I've never been home that much, ever,” he said with a laugh during a recent phone interview. The band is out on the road, and though it had to originally postpone its stop at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio on Nov. 19, it was able to reschedule for Dec. 10.
“It wasn't inspiring, but it was interesting,” he continued. “Everybody was in the same boat — me the same as you and the next guy. I have other things I do — organizing things, working on my guitar collection — stuff I can't do from the road so well. I try to create jobs for other people and that's what I did. There's a spirits business that I've been involved in. I worked on two pilots for TV; just lots of stuff. I can't hold it in my hand here and show you.”
One of the things the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer can show fans is “In Another World,” Cheap Trick's 20th studio album. While its official release date was April 2021, a couple of singles were leaked out dating back to 2018, including the opening cut, “The Summer Looks Good on You,” a gem chock-full of layered harmonies and irresistible guitar riffs that conjure up images of the beach, warm weather and carefree vibes.
Other highlights include “Here's Looking at You,” a co-write with hit songwriter Linda Perry that finds both artists digging into a deep power pop vein erupting with an urgent torrent of melodic hooks. Elsewhere, veteran harmonica player
Cheap Trick, shown in 2021, put out its 20th studio album that year, “In Another World.” Expect some selections from it when the band does a gig at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio on Dec. 10.
Jimmy Hall is tapped to play blistering harp on the sinewy blues of “Final Day.”
“We've known Jimmy Hall through the years with Wet Willie, and we had a part where Robin [Zander, Cheap Trick's singer] plays harmonica, and while he's really good, Jimmy Hall is way better,” Nielsen said. “We've worked with wellknown players before and it didn't turn out the way we wanted. With Jimmy, he just fit right in. As for Linda, we've known her for a while. She played us part of this tune and we fleshed it out. We've done three or four things with Linda and she's just a terrific writer.”
Wrapping up this baker's dozen worth of songs is a reading of John Lennon's “Gimme Some Truth” featuring friend and ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones on guitar. While fans might scratch
When: 8 p.m. Dec. 10
Where: Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84-245Indio Springs Parkway, Indio
$49-$69at fantasyspringsresort.com their heads over the decision for the apolitical Cheap Trick to cut one of Lennon's more overtly political songs, it made perfect sense to Nielsen and his bandmates.
“We're not a political band, but we talk about politics amongst ourselves,” he explained. “These are songs that we'd written over a period of time, including during the last four years of the last administration — it's about how to be optimistic in a pessimistic world. We decided to do [`Gimme Some Truth'] so John Lennon could get all the credit and all the criticism. It seemed an apropos song.”
Dependably consistent
might be the best way to describe Cheap Trick. For Nielsen, his musical path started out being the son of opera singers, who moved the family from the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, Illinois, to Rockford, where they opened a music store. By the time he was 13, Nielsen was a drummer in The Phaetons, his first school band. Tired of having to get up from behind his kit to teach his group's guitarists the proper chords for the Stones and Beatles covers his group was performing, he eventually switched to guitar.
“I didn't know how to play, but I knew a right note from a wrong note,”
he quipped.
And while Nielsen's love of the instrument has led to his amassing an impressive guitar collection that includes a five-neck ax, he's modest about his playing ability.
“I was self-taught and I still think of myself more as a songwriter than a guitar player,” he said. “There are all these guitar whizzes around — I'm not one of them.”
Those compositional chops have roots in both the British Invasion sensibilities of groups like the Fab Four, Stones, Yardbirds, Who and The Move, and the rich trove of blues legends plying their trade in Nielsen's childhood Chicago backyard. And while The Phaetons morphed into The Grim Reapers (where Nielsen first met future bass-playing bandmate
Tom Petersson), the guitarist's trip to Cheap Trick included a brief stint replacing Todd Rundgren in Nazz and in the short-lived band Sick Man of Europe. His current group eventually got off the ground fronted by former singer Randy “Xeno” Hogan, who left the band shortly after its formation. It was then that Nielsen extended an invitation to Zander to join Cheap Trick.
“Robin is the singer I've always looked for to sing my songs,” Nielsen recalled. “All the other singers we had were capable, but they weren't the interpreters that Robin was. He's a real vocalist; he's not a shouter or a copycat singer. I didn't know him, but he was the one.”
In the nearly five decades since its start, Cheap Trick has relied on a disciplined work ethic that Nielsen acknowledges has earned it a reputation for being a rocksolid live act to this day.
“Wham, bam, thank you ma'am,” he said. “We get up there and play. We're fortunate that we have so much different material to pick from.”
And while the fickle tastes of the music industry and fair-weather fans have ebbed and flowed, Nielsen and company have established a solid canon of music and become a much-loved cult act whose hard work landed them in the Rock Hall in 2016. For Nielsen, Cheap Trick's longevity can be attributed to staying true to its roots as a rock 'n' roll band with an ear for pop.
“I say this as kind of a joke — we've never progressed,” he said.
“We didn't try to be something we weren't. We started off pretty good, but to never progress means we didn't want to be a jazz group or a metal act. We're just trying to be what we did. To this day, we've never had fire pots or explosions. We're Cheap Trick. The playing and our music set us apart. We didn't have any dance steps worked out. We've never worried about changing for the sake of change.”
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