Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Kevin Cronin

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Kevin Cronin · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsets podcast. My
0:13
Speaker 1: guest today is Kevin Cronin of Rio Speedwagon. Kevin, you're
0:19
Speaker 1: in a hotel room. Where are you, Bob? I am
0:23
Speaker 1: in the you know, here's what we do on show days,
0:27
Speaker 1: when it's just a day room. We'll stay at the
0:30
Speaker 1: you know, Hilton Townsend family in right and just for
0:35
Speaker 1: a day room. And then on our days off we splurge.
0:39
Speaker 1: So we are in the lovely Ritz Carlton and Georgetown today,
0:44
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite places. And why is
0:46
Speaker 1: it so great?
0:48
Speaker 2: Well, the area is great. You can from here, I can,
0:54
Speaker 2: and I do this every time. I can't help myself.
0:57
Speaker 2: I walk into d C. And actually the when we
1:05
Speaker 2: stayed here in I think February of twenty twenty, like
1:12
Speaker 2: soon after the you know, the June, the July, pardon me,
1:18
Speaker 2: the January sixth insurrection. So I walked from here down
1:22
Speaker 2: to the White House. And then I walked the path
1:28
Speaker 2: that the that those people walked from the from the
1:31
Speaker 2: reflection Pond, you know, down to the Capitol. And it's
1:36
Speaker 2: it's a long walk. It's about a it's a good
1:38
Speaker 2: half an hour. So what what it made me realize
1:42
Speaker 2: is those people had plenty of time to go, wait
1:46
Speaker 2: a minute, what am I doing here? I mean they
1:49
Speaker 2: had half an hour to contemplate what they were about
1:53
Speaker 2: to do. So but yeah, when we're here, I'll do
1:56
Speaker 2: it again. You know, today I'll walk to the White House.
2:00
Speaker 2: Else I'll you know, see the Washington Monument. I just
2:03
Speaker 2: can't get enough of it. I I love seeing the
2:05
Speaker 2: government buildings like the you know, the the Department of State,
2:10
Speaker 2: you know, the Treasury Building. It's just I don't know,
2:13
Speaker 2: I just I can't get enough of it. I just
2:15
Speaker 2: feel uh patriotic, and I feel like, you know, with
2:21
Speaker 2: all these symbols of America, you know, it's time to
2:25
Speaker 2: get back to the America. That not getting back to
2:31
Speaker 2: that other America, but just getting back to normalcy in America.
2:35
Speaker 2: And I'm I'm I'm hopeful that that the steps that
2:38
Speaker 2: are being taken now will uh will get us there
2:42
Speaker 2: and get us back to where we can have a
2:45
Speaker 2: healthy discourse between you know, the conservative point of view
2:50
Speaker 2: and the liberal point of view. And because I like that,
2:54
Speaker 2: you know, that's what America is all about. It's you know,
2:56
Speaker 2: we we talk things over and we we listen to
3:00
Speaker 2: the other side, and they listen to us and we
3:02
Speaker 2: come to conclusions that are better than if we hadn't
3:07
Speaker 2: listened to one another. So anyway, that's where I am.
3:11
Speaker 1: Okay, So just to be clear, that's February of twenty
3:14
Speaker 1: twenty one. But moving on, moving on. You know, you're
3:18
Speaker 1: what they used to refer to as a Heartland rock act.
3:23
Speaker 1: And one of the things that came with that is
3:25
Speaker 1: you have an audience that today we would say is
3:27
Speaker 1: both blue and red. Do you intentionally shy away from
3:33
Speaker 1: making political statements that might appeal to one or the other?
3:37
Speaker 1: Is that something that goes through your brain?
3:40
Speaker 2: You know what? I You know, we have a song
3:45
Speaker 2: that we put back in the set list after the pandemic.
3:49
Speaker 2: It's a song called Building the Bridge, and it was
3:52
Speaker 2: never a hit. It was on a record that we made,
3:56
Speaker 2: the only record we made off of Epic Records, and
4:00
Speaker 2: it was never really released, but it's it's one of
4:05
Speaker 2: my one of the songs I'm the most proud of
4:08
Speaker 2: that that we play and it it uh It says
4:15
Speaker 2: we're building the bridge, one small stone at a time,
4:18
Speaker 2: with a lot of love and some help from above,
4:20
Speaker 2: from your heart to mine and there's another part. There's
4:23
Speaker 2: another lyric where it says, uh, looking for the common
4:27
Speaker 2: ground and every human heart. So it's all about, you know,
4:32
Speaker 2: people coming together and people accepting one another, and people
4:37
Speaker 2: kind of listening to one another. And it's it was
4:41
Speaker 2: actually we actually sent the demo to somehow it miraculously
4:46
Speaker 2: got into the White House and and Bill Clinton heard it,
4:50
Speaker 2: and it became his re election campaign, building the bridge
4:55
Speaker 2: to the twenty first century. And I ended up doing
4:59
Speaker 2: some uh campaign events with him. But to answer your question,
5:04
Speaker 2: which I didn't do, uh, I I don't. I don't.
5:11
Speaker 2: I don't shy away from making statements. But I also
5:15
Speaker 2: am cognizant of the fact that, uh, that this country
5:19
Speaker 2: is so divided right now that I mean I I
5:22
Speaker 2: made a statement a few years back when they uh,
5:27
Speaker 2: when the whole when when the big trip was, you know, bathrooms,
5:32
Speaker 2: who could use which bathrooms? You know, should trans people
5:37
Speaker 2: use the bathroom of their birth gender or And you
5:42
Speaker 2: know my thing was man if if a if a person,
5:47
Speaker 2: you know, a male, a born male, walks into the
5:51
Speaker 2: men's room and looks like a woman. To me, that's
5:56
Speaker 2: that's more of a of a distraction than if that
6:01
Speaker 2: person walked into the women's room, you know. So it's
6:03
Speaker 2: like I think people can kind of have an idea
6:08
Speaker 2: of which bathroom would be the most comfortable for them. Well,
6:12
Speaker 2: you know, I reacted to the governor of North Carolina.
6:18
Speaker 2: And what happened was Bruce Springsteen canceled his show in Greenville,
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Speaker 2: North Carolina, to protest the governor passing a law against
6:30
Speaker 2: against trans people being able to use the bathroom of
6:33
Speaker 2: their choice. And we had a show. We were on
6:38
Speaker 2: tour with def Leppard at the time, and they chose
6:42
Speaker 2: to play the gig. And so I was sitting there going, well,
6:46
Speaker 2: wait a second. If you know, Bruce is in a
6:50
Speaker 2: position to cancel his show in protest, so if if
6:55
Speaker 2: we play our show, then that almost could be construed
7:00
Speaker 2: it is tacit uh, you know, agreement. And so I
7:04
Speaker 2: felt like I had to make a comment to to
7:07
Speaker 2: to give Bruce props for for what he did and
7:11
Speaker 2: also explain that everyone's not in that position that you know,
7:17
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're gonna play the show. But I support
7:20
Speaker 2: Bruce's position, you know, about the bathroom situation. And I
7:27
Speaker 2: got hate mail. I mean, you know, you know, you
7:30
Speaker 2: know how it is if you look at the comments
7:32
Speaker 2: on your feed, and I'm sure you get them every
7:36
Speaker 2: day because you're you're not one who shies away from
7:40
Speaker 2: from expressing your opinions.
7:43
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back one chapter. You're on the road now,
7:48
Speaker 1: it looks from the outside without studying it, you're on
7:51
Speaker 1: the road every year.
7:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. We've since. You know, I joined the
7:56
Speaker 2: band in seventy two, and other than the pandemic, we yeah,
8:03
Speaker 2: I think we toured. We might have taken a year
8:06
Speaker 2: off in uh in nineteen eighty three. That was just uh,
8:11
Speaker 2: you know, we had to kind of recalibrate at that time.
8:15
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're you know, the thing is, we've got
8:17
Speaker 2: a touring family. You know, we've got our crew. Guys
8:20
Speaker 2: have been with us forever, and you know, it's a
8:23
Speaker 2: it's a large uh, it's a large organization. And you know,
8:28
Speaker 2: in order to keep everybody working and keep everybody together,
8:33
Speaker 2: you know, we you know, sometimes we'll go out and
8:36
Speaker 2: do a tour, like just to pay the crew, you know,
8:38
Speaker 2: I mean, just so so you know, we realized that
8:43
Speaker 2: you know, the band gets all the gets all the glory,
8:47
Speaker 2: but without a great crew that sets it up and
8:52
Speaker 2: deals with everything every day. I mean, our crew is
8:56
Speaker 2: an amazing group. So yeah, we we pretty much tour
8:59
Speaker 2: every year.
9:00
Speaker 1: And are you into it?
9:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm actually I'm actually more into it right
9:08
Speaker 2: now than I have been in years. We you know,
9:11
Speaker 2: our original keyboard player, Neil Dowdy, after fifty five years
9:17
Speaker 2: on the road, decided that it was time for him
9:20
Speaker 2: to start enjoying the fruits of his of his labor,
9:24
Speaker 2: so he he retired back in back last December and
9:31
Speaker 2: he's living comfortably up in Minneapolis. We love him, we
9:35
Speaker 2: support him, we're happy for him, but we had to
9:39
Speaker 2: replace him. So when you bring a new person into
9:44
Speaker 2: a band, it it just well obviously you have to
9:48
Speaker 2: work them into all the catalog songs, and so it
9:52
Speaker 2: makes everyone take another look at what we've been you know,
9:56
Speaker 2: what you've been playing for the past fifty years, you know,
9:59
Speaker 2: And and you know I'm always tinkering with the arrangements
10:03
Speaker 2: at sound check. I mean, I drive the guys crazy.
10:05
Speaker 2: There's you know, I always want to My feeling is
10:09
Speaker 2: that songs are never really completely written. You know, the
10:14
Speaker 2: record comes out when you just wrote the song, so
10:18
Speaker 2: you barely even know it yourself. So over the years,
10:22
Speaker 2: you you have a chance to just you know, finish it,
10:26
Speaker 2: and so I'm never satisfied, so I'm always working on
10:30
Speaker 2: things like that. But I also started working with a
10:34
Speaker 2: vocal coach during the pandemic and it has changed my life, Bob.
10:40
Speaker 2: I enjoy performing so much better now because I actually,
10:46
Speaker 2: for finally, after fifty years, kind of know what I'm
10:49
Speaker 2: doing as a singer. So it's a so, you know,
10:53
Speaker 2: between that and and the the infusion of new energy
10:57
Speaker 2: from from Derek Hill and the keyboard player that joined
11:03
Speaker 2: us just got everybody. We're working on our vocal arrangements more.
11:08
Speaker 2: We're just really yeah, we're just improving as a band.
11:12
Speaker 1: So what motivated you to get vocal help?
11:16
Speaker 2: What did you.
11:16
Speaker 1: Learn and was that done via zoom?
11:20
Speaker 2: Well? Yes, as a matter of fact, my son Shane,
11:24
Speaker 2: he and his twin brother Josh have a band called
11:27
Speaker 2: Sir Please, and they were both just graduated from college
11:33
Speaker 2: and Shane was a vocal music major and about during
11:41
Speaker 2: his sophomore year he was like, Dad, you got to
11:46
Speaker 2: work with my professor Jeffrey Allen. He'll change your life.
11:51
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, right, you know, I'm seven, I'm
11:54
Speaker 2: sixty nine years old and he's going to change my life.
11:57
Speaker 2: And every few months, you know, I would see Shaney like, Dad,
12:01
Speaker 2: have you called Jeffrey? And I'm like, no, I haven't.
12:04
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just thinking I can't drive all the
12:05
Speaker 2: way into LA for a vocal lesson, you know, every week.
12:09
Speaker 2: Then I saw Shane during the pandemic, singing into his
12:12
Speaker 2: laptop and I'm like, all right, well there goes the
12:15
Speaker 2: long commute excuse, you know. But here's what happened, Bob,
12:19
Speaker 2: And this was I love telling this story because as
12:23
Speaker 2: a parent, you are always telling your kids things that
12:29
Speaker 2: they don't necessarily understand, that they don't necessarily agree with,
12:34
Speaker 2: but you tell them I love you, I have your
12:38
Speaker 2: best interests at heart, and even if you don't understand this,
12:42
Speaker 2: at least give it a listen, give it a try.
12:45
Speaker 2: And then here I am. Now my son is saying
12:50
Speaker 2: that to me. So and it's my opportunity to show
12:53
Speaker 2: him the same kind of respect as I was hoping
12:56
Speaker 2: for him to show me. And he did a number
12:59
Speaker 2: of times. And so I started working with Jeffrey via
13:04
Speaker 2: zoom and I will tell you that it's been two
13:09
Speaker 2: and a half years, and this past weekend, I had
13:14
Speaker 2: a breakthrough and and all this for the past four
13:19
Speaker 2: shows we've done have been the best vocal performances of
13:26
Speaker 2: my career. And all of a sudden, you know, it's
13:29
Speaker 2: like if you're taking golf lessons and you know, nothing
13:32
Speaker 2: makes sense for a while, and then all of a sudden,
13:35
Speaker 2: you smack a ball and you hear that pop off
13:38
Speaker 2: the club. And so all these all these lessons, and
13:44
Speaker 2: I've been taking at least two or three lessons a
13:47
Speaker 2: week with Jeffrey, and it something just clicked, and I
13:52
Speaker 2: just like, I can't wait for the next show, just
13:54
Speaker 2: because I'm having so much fun. So you know, I
13:59
Speaker 2: don't like being away from home, I'll be honest with you.
14:01
Speaker 2: But for those you know, two hours that I'm on
14:05
Speaker 2: stage I'm doing I'm having more fun than ever.
14:10
Speaker 1: So you say, driving into LA, So where do you live?
14:13
Speaker 1: I live in a thousand oaks, Okay, So for those
14:18
Speaker 1: people don't know, LA is a morphous like a giant suburb.
14:22
Speaker 1: So it's still kind of part of LA. But because
14:24
Speaker 1: of the because of the traffic, et cetera, it would
14:27
Speaker 1: take forever to get to where you might be going.
14:29
Speaker 1: And since you mentioned your kids, how many times you've
14:32
Speaker 1: been married, and how many kids do you have?
14:34
Speaker 2: Well, I was married, I've been married twice. I have
14:40
Speaker 2: a son, Paris from my first marriage and a step son,
14:46
Speaker 2: Chris from that marriage. And then I met We got
14:52
Speaker 2: divorced in eighty seven. And in eighty nine I met
14:58
Speaker 2: a young music publisher from Geff and Music. Actually she
15:04
Speaker 2: Our office was right upstairs from hers, and so, you know,
15:09
Speaker 2: John Barrick and Tom Consolo were up there cranking cranking
15:13
Speaker 2: out the latest composition by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg,
15:18
Speaker 2: who were managed out of our office. And here comes
15:22
Speaker 2: this pretty young music publisher upstairs saying, guys, I'm trying
15:26
Speaker 2: to listen to demos downstairs. Can you turn the music
15:29
Speaker 2: down a little bit? And one thing led to another,
15:32
Speaker 2: and now she's my wife. And so I met Lisa
15:37
Speaker 2: back in eighty nine. We got married in ninety two,
15:40
Speaker 2: and we have three children, Holly and who is twenty six,
15:46
Speaker 2: and the twins Josh and Shane, twenty three.
15:49
Speaker 1: And being a working musician, how do you sustain a relationship.
15:54
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been in the game a long time,
15:55
Speaker 1: You've seen everything.
15:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have, you know, and it's it's it's a
16:00
Speaker 2: challenge and and you know, at Lisa and I've been
16:03
Speaker 2: together now for thirty four years, and you know, we've
16:09
Speaker 2: we we figured it out and and it wasn't easy.
16:13
Speaker 2: We we went through some rough patches and but you know,
16:17
Speaker 2: love carried us through and uh and now we're we're
16:23
Speaker 2: in a we're in a great place. And I'm I'm
16:26
Speaker 2: so I feel so fortunate because a lot of marriages
16:30
Speaker 2: do bite the dust because of because of touring. And
16:34
Speaker 2: you know, there's just so much temptation on the road,
16:37
Speaker 2: and you know, so much opportunity for uh, for bad behavior,
16:42
Speaker 2: and you know, you just got to get to a
16:45
Speaker 2: point where you can, uh, you know, exert self control
16:50
Speaker 2: and uh discipline yourself and you know, yeah, so you know,
16:58
Speaker 2: I'm i'm out here in the road that you know,
17:00
Speaker 2: we also changed our touring modus operandi or whatever the
17:07
Speaker 2: word is. You're an attorney, what wait, what is motus operandia?
17:10
Speaker 1: That works? That works?
17:11
Speaker 2: As that works? Okay? Good U. But uh so we
17:15
Speaker 2: try not to be out on the road for you know,
17:18
Speaker 2: we try to do a weekend, the weekend between the
17:21
Speaker 2: middle weekend, the weekend between and the third weekend, so
17:24
Speaker 2: we're it's a little less than three weeks, and then
17:27
Speaker 2: we take a couple of weeks, at least a couple
17:29
Speaker 2: of weeks off after that. Sometimes we just go out
17:31
Speaker 2: for ten days. You know, we just don't go out
17:33
Speaker 2: for you know, six months of touring, because that that
17:38
Speaker 2: just you that's you can't sustain relationship if you're away
17:43
Speaker 2: that long. It just doesn't work.
17:45
Speaker 1: So, once again, since you've been on the road so
17:47
Speaker 1: many times, to what degree did Temptation get to you?
17:51
Speaker 1: Both in terms of sex, drugs, rock and roll?
17:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of the above, you know, and uh, you know,
18:03
Speaker 2: especially when you're coming up and you're you're you're playing
18:06
Speaker 2: the bars and you're starting to get a little bit
18:09
Speaker 2: of a you know, maybe your first or second record
18:12
Speaker 2: comes out, you've got you know, uh, you know, a
18:15
Speaker 2: local kind of following, and uh, you know, you're young
18:19
Speaker 2: and you're single, and and uh you know it's uh
18:23
Speaker 2: so that's so that's just kind of good, clean fun
18:26
Speaker 2: and hopefully you get that out of your system. And uh,
18:30
Speaker 2: but then you know, a band like us who started
18:34
Speaker 2: out as a bar band and then suddenly just you know,
18:38
Speaker 2: kind of hit the jackpot, and then you know, now
18:43
Speaker 2: Temptation is really everywhere, and you know, uh, you know,
18:48
Speaker 2: I'm uh, I don't regret necessarily. Well, I regret some
18:53
Speaker 2: of the things I did, but mostly I uh, well
18:57
Speaker 2: you know it cost me my first marriage, I'll put
18:59
Speaker 2: it that way. So you know it's uh, I got
19:07
Speaker 2: it out of my system, is all I can tell you.
19:09
Speaker 2: And and I'm you know, I'm I'm, I'm a I'm
19:12
Speaker 2: a true blue husband out here and and I'm happier
19:18
Speaker 2: than ever.
19:19
Speaker 1: Okay, just going a little bit deeper.
19:22
Speaker 2: What's it? You know?
19:24
Speaker 1: I say, tell the story all the time because it
19:26
Speaker 1: really stuck with me. A friend of mine was the
19:28
Speaker 1: agent for Oprah who was playing Arenas. This is after
19:31
Speaker 1: she retired, and you will everyone would ask, well, why
19:35
Speaker 1: does Oprah need to go on the road. She's got
19:38
Speaker 1: all the money, as David Letterman needs to say, there's
19:41
Speaker 1: nowhere else she can get that hit. You get on stage,
19:45
Speaker 1: you get that love, et cetera. So what's it like
19:50
Speaker 1: and you meet people in the audience, whether it be
19:55
Speaker 1: friends want to be friends, whether it be women who
19:58
Speaker 1: are interested in you. What's it like being on stage?
20:01
Speaker 1: Do these people really want to know you? They just
20:03
Speaker 1: want to touch fame? What's the experience.
20:07
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I can tell you that that that
20:11
Speaker 2: for me. Uh, you know, especially as a songwriter. You know,
20:16
Speaker 2: I I remember every song I've written. I remember where
20:21
Speaker 2: I was. I remember you know, that that holy moment
20:25
Speaker 2: of inspiration where there was nothing and then all all
20:29
Speaker 2: of a sudden, there was something and and uh and
20:33
Speaker 2: so you know when I when I'm on stage and
20:38
Speaker 2: I sing those songs, uh, it's it's it's just an
20:42
Speaker 2: amazing experience, says because I know that song from when
20:46
Speaker 2: it was nothing and now I walk out and I
20:49
Speaker 2: play the opening chords and everybody stands up. You know,
20:53
Speaker 2: I sing the song, everybody's singing it back to me.
20:57
Speaker 2: It's a it's an amazing experience. It's uh, it's something
21:01
Speaker 2: that's that unless you're standing there at that lead vocal
21:06
Speaker 2: mic stage center. Uh, it's impossible to understand as far
21:12
Speaker 2: as what the audience is expecting of me. I think
21:17
Speaker 2: I think every audience member probably would answer that question differently. Uh.
21:23
Speaker 2: You know, we do present uh you know, I mean
21:29
Speaker 2: there are bands who you know, like Kiss or something
21:32
Speaker 2: like that, who who totally present a character on stage
21:35
Speaker 2: and that's their thing, and you know, no one does
21:38
Speaker 2: it better than them. For for us, you know, we're
21:41
Speaker 2: more the Midwest boys next door, and you know that's
21:45
Speaker 2: kind of our image, but it's kind of who we
21:48
Speaker 2: are too. So you know, when I'm up there on stage, yeah,
21:50
Speaker 2: I'm an exaggerated version of myself, but there's a lot
21:55
Speaker 2: of my real kind of self up there too, And
21:59
Speaker 2: so I think people probably feel like they people in
22:04
Speaker 2: the audience probably feel like they know me better than
22:09
Speaker 2: they do because you know, uh, you know, I'm not
22:13
Speaker 2: I'm not showing the necessarily the the the brutes and
22:19
Speaker 2: not the bruises, but you know, uh uh, you know,
22:22
Speaker 2: I'm presenting the best possible version of myself up there,
22:26
Speaker 2: and and I want to. I want to. I want
22:29
Speaker 2: to inspire other people in the crowd too to be
22:33
Speaker 2: their best self. You know, we've all got our problems,
22:37
Speaker 2: We've all got our faults, we've all got the issues
22:40
Speaker 2: that we're working on in our relationships and in our
22:42
Speaker 2: in our own personalities. But you know, so uh yeah,
22:48
Speaker 2: so you know, I I go out there and yeah,
22:50
Speaker 2: do I do? I do people think that that's who
22:55
Speaker 2: I really am and that my wife is so lucky
22:58
Speaker 2: to have me as her husban been. I think they do.
23:03
Speaker 2: But you know, if you talk to Lisa, you know
23:07
Speaker 2: she would tell you the other side of the story.
23:10
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, my theory is that every every
23:13
Speaker 2: good trait has the flip side of the coin, the
23:17
Speaker 2: opposite of that good trait. And so it's all of
23:20
Speaker 2: our jobs too, you know, to understand that that opposite trait.
23:26
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, I call it the flip side
23:29
Speaker 2: trait and uh, you know you gotta you gotta know
23:31
Speaker 2: how to harness that and uh and uh, you know,
23:35
Speaker 2: life is all about changing and uh and learning and
23:39
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm still a work in progress.
23:48
Speaker 1: Okay. Now, people were not on this side of the
23:53
Speaker 1: footlights don't understand what a grind it is. A lot
23:58
Speaker 1: of people have what are called find to five jobs.
24:01
Speaker 1: They come home, maybe they get high, watch TV.
24:03
Speaker 2: They do it again.
24:04
Speaker 1: But there's an incredible adrenaline hit in performing and it
24:10
Speaker 1: takes hours to come down, and certainly the longer the
24:14
Speaker 1: day the sun comes up, it's hard. And therefore a
24:17
Speaker 1: lot of people cope with drugs. Now people say, oh,
24:20
Speaker 1: it's about experimentation. A lot of times just coping. Did
24:23
Speaker 1: you have that period in your road or you're more
24:26
Speaker 1: of a Midwestern guy.
24:29
Speaker 2: No, No, I definitely, I definitely had that period. I'm
24:32
Speaker 2: I'm very fortunate Bob that that for whatever reason, you know,
24:37
Speaker 2: the the drugs that I did, they never they never
24:44
Speaker 2: got me. They never they never took control of me.
24:47
Speaker 2: And you know, and I tell my kids that, you know,
24:51
Speaker 2: you don't know, but by the time you know whether
24:55
Speaker 2: drugs are going to get a hold of you, they've
24:57
Speaker 2: got a hold of you. And now you've got an
25:00
Speaker 2: addiction issue to deal with, you know. And somehow I
25:04
Speaker 2: think that I always kind of had a fear. I've
25:08
Speaker 2: always had a fear of addiction. So I've I've you know,
25:12
Speaker 2: I've just managed to limit my intake. Uh. You know,
25:17
Speaker 2: but uh, drugs were definitely a coping method. You know.
25:24
Speaker 2: Meeting girls was a coping method. You know, it just
25:27
Speaker 2: it just was a way to to to to cope
25:30
Speaker 2: with the loneliness and uh and you know, the combination
25:34
Speaker 2: of of of of willing girls and drugs was it
25:39
Speaker 2: was just a way of life. Uh and and uh,
25:44
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't even realize how weird it was
25:48
Speaker 2: until I kind of you know, I I actually, I
25:51
Speaker 2: will tell you, and I'm not ashamed to say it.
25:54
Speaker 2: I went to rehab and it wasn't for drugs, and
25:57
Speaker 2: it wasn't for alcohol. It was for or just I
26:02
Speaker 2: you know, I needed to to straighten out my head
26:05
Speaker 2: and and uh and it really helped. I spent I
26:09
Speaker 2: spent a month at Sierra Tucson, and it was it
26:13
Speaker 2: was a life changer for me. It uh uh you know,
26:17
Speaker 2: uh and and I would uh you know, I'm so
26:21
Speaker 2: happy that that it that that it ended up that
26:24
Speaker 2: way because it really really helped me. And you know,
26:27
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not sober, you know. I I respect
26:31
Speaker 2: people that that are, but you know, I you know,
26:34
Speaker 2: I like to have you know, I like wine, and
26:37
Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you and and uh you know,
26:40
Speaker 2: and I like weed once in a while. So so yeah, yeah,
26:45
Speaker 2: the hardest part of being on the road is is
26:48
Speaker 2: coping with the the time that you're alone. And and
26:54
Speaker 2: so I think that not being alone was was a
26:58
Speaker 2: big part of of what are. Not being able to
27:03
Speaker 2: be alone was what got me into a lot of situations,
27:07
Speaker 2: you know. And uh, but I'm I'm okay being alone now.
27:11
Speaker 2: I'm I'm writing a book. I've been writing a book
27:13
Speaker 2: for six and a half years. Now and and that
27:17
Speaker 2: kind of you know. So so I'm when when I'm alone,
27:20
Speaker 2: I just you know, I've worked on the book. I
27:24
Speaker 2: tinker with it and uh you know, I've got a
27:26
Speaker 2: little practice guitar with me, and uh you know, I'm
27:31
Speaker 2: I'm more okay with with with being alone than ever,
27:35
Speaker 2: So that helps.
27:38
Speaker 1: Okay, going to rehab, most people are not eager to go,
27:43
Speaker 1: usually the environing people where I said, well maybe you
27:45
Speaker 1: should do this. How long ago did you go, what
27:49
Speaker 1: motivated you to go? And what was the experienced? Like
27:52
Speaker 1: you know, we said it was life changing? You know
27:53
Speaker 1: what about it? What did you actually learn there?
27:56
Speaker 2: Oh? Man? I I you know I used to to
28:01
Speaker 2: cope by Uh well I learned at a young age too,
28:07
Speaker 2: you know, if what if I was misbehaving, Uh you know,
28:12
Speaker 2: my parents method of discipline was go up to your
28:16
Speaker 2: room and don't come back until you have a smile
28:19
Speaker 2: on your face. So I learned that. Okay, so no
28:24
Speaker 2: matter what I'm feeling, I should come down with a
28:28
Speaker 2: smile on my face. And I took that into adulthood.
28:32
Speaker 2: Uh and so I just you know, Hey, the my
28:37
Speaker 2: most famous song ever is called Can't Fight This Feeling? Uh,
28:43
Speaker 2: and and uh. You know I always had just feelings
28:47
Speaker 2: that I would just stuff, and you know, you stuff
28:49
Speaker 2: the feelings down and and but but feelings are like water.
28:54
Speaker 2: They have to find their way out. It doesn't work.
28:57
Speaker 2: Anyone who thinks that if you just wait long enough,
29:01
Speaker 2: the feeling of you know, of anger, of unfulfillment of
29:09
Speaker 2: or whatever it happens to be, it's it doesn't go away.
29:13
Speaker 2: It finds its way out in you know, passive aggressive
29:16
Speaker 2: behavior in code dependency. I mean, I didn't know what
29:21
Speaker 2: code dependency was. And the second day that I was
29:26
Speaker 2: at Sierra Tucson, they had they sent you you get
29:30
Speaker 2: a you get a schedule every morning, and that they
29:32
Speaker 2: sent me to a codependence anonymous meeting. I'm like, what, what,
29:37
Speaker 2: What's this? What am I doing? But I went there
29:40
Speaker 2: and I walked into the room and there was about
29:43
Speaker 2: twenty five people in in chairs around a circle. And
29:47
Speaker 2: the group leader stood up and I guess this is
29:51
Speaker 2: what happens at the beginning of every meeting. She read
29:55
Speaker 2: all she read like twenty five personality traits that are
30:01
Speaker 2: indicative of codependency. Right, And I'm sitting there and not
30:05
Speaker 2: knowing what I'm doing. There I'm like, all of a sudden,
30:07
Speaker 2: I'm like check, check check. I mean, it was like
30:12
Speaker 2: all it was, it was a description of me, you know,
30:15
Speaker 2: and I always thought that that was just me and
30:20
Speaker 2: that I had this crazy part of me that I
30:23
Speaker 2: didn't understand that I was trying to hide. And suddenly
30:26
Speaker 2: I'm in a room of thirty people who all share
30:30
Speaker 2: that same whatever personality defect will fault to whatever you
30:36
Speaker 2: want to call it. And I just at that moment,
30:39
Speaker 2: I had this feeling like, wow, I'm not alone. Other
30:44
Speaker 2: people feel these things, and that just that was It
30:50
Speaker 2: just made me feel like this relief, like I could exhale.
30:55
Speaker 2: And then, you know, I spent the next month just
30:59
Speaker 2: you know, get into it and seeing you know, some
31:03
Speaker 2: alternative coping methods and uh so, you know, and when
31:10
Speaker 2: you're when you're in rehabits, it's just this weird thing
31:13
Speaker 2: that first of all, everybody is nobody's any and no,
31:18
Speaker 2: there's no celebrities, you know, even though there were celebrities there,
31:22
Speaker 2: but everybody's just on the same level and everyone's free
31:27
Speaker 2: to talk and you can, uh you know, you don't
31:31
Speaker 2: have to hide things, you don't have to be you
31:34
Speaker 2: don't have to be anything except who you are in
31:37
Speaker 2: that moment, and uh, and it felt really good to me,
31:42
Speaker 2: and so I kind of brought some of that.
31:45
Speaker 1: You know.
31:45
Speaker 2: The hard part is when you leave rehab that now
31:47
Speaker 2: you've got to come in back into the real world
31:50
Speaker 2: and see if those same coping methods work. And uh,
31:54
Speaker 2: but yeah, it was. It was a great experience. And
31:59
Speaker 2: you know, there were people there who were trying to
32:02
Speaker 2: uh stop drinking, stop using drugs, uh, stop smoking. There
32:06
Speaker 2: was an eating disorder. A lot of people were in
32:09
Speaker 2: the eating disorder tract, and but all of us were
32:13
Speaker 2: together in the you know, in the common areas, and
32:17
Speaker 2: you just met people and people were free, and people
32:21
Speaker 2: were just talking about their their stuff, and uh, you know,
32:25
Speaker 2: I I came out of there a lot more open
32:29
Speaker 2: I think as a as a person and and and
32:33
Speaker 2: a lot less. I don't tolerate dishonesty in myself. I
32:38
Speaker 2: don't uh you know, I don't hold things in because
32:43
Speaker 2: I know what will happen if I do. And uh
32:46
Speaker 2: uh and uh and I understand the difference between uh
32:51
Speaker 2: friendship and codependency. So I learned a lot of things
32:57
Speaker 2: in there, and and uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm
33:01
Speaker 2: I'm really happy that I went. When I went in,
33:05
Speaker 2: I was just like, what am I doing this for?
33:07
Speaker 2: I'm not you know, I'm not addicted to anything. But
33:11
Speaker 2: sure enough, when I got there, I realized, Wow, codependency
33:15
Speaker 2: who knew and changed my life?
33:18
Speaker 1: In how long ago? And what was the motivation to
33:21
Speaker 1: actually go in?
33:23
Speaker 2: Uh? It was about ten years ago? And uh, you know,
33:27
Speaker 2: the motivation to go in was just that I had
33:32
Speaker 2: set myself up, you know, at a young age to
33:36
Speaker 2: think that if I could just become successful and my
33:43
Speaker 2: music to you know, if I could just have hit
33:45
Speaker 2: songs and people would would be able to see, you know,
33:51
Speaker 2: my what I'm capable of doing, and and and I
33:55
Speaker 2: could share these these songs with I just had it
33:58
Speaker 2: set up that that would be that would solve all
34:02
Speaker 2: my problems, you know, and and and that motivated me
34:07
Speaker 2: for years. And you know, then all of a sudden,
34:11
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one comes along and we've got the biggest
34:14
Speaker 2: album of the year, where the most popular band in
34:16
Speaker 2: the world. There was nobody more more successful in nineteen
34:22
Speaker 2: eighty one than Ario Speedwagon. And guess what, Rather than
34:27
Speaker 2: solve my problems, it it magnified them. Began. It also
34:32
Speaker 2: a new problem showed up, which is, oh, being successful
34:36
Speaker 2: isn't going to solve all my problems? So what is uh?
34:41
Speaker 2: And so it finally got to the point in right
34:46
Speaker 2: right around two thousand and twenty ten where I still
34:51
Speaker 2: was just I just didn't feel right and and and
34:56
Speaker 2: I and uh and and you know, success wasn't wasn't
35:01
Speaker 2: filling the hole. And uh so, uh, you know, my
35:06
Speaker 2: wife and I talked it over and and uh we
35:09
Speaker 2: decided that, uh that I needed to to you know,
35:15
Speaker 2: go in there and get some help. And I think it,
35:18
Speaker 2: Uh it went a long way to uh to strengthen
35:22
Speaker 2: my marriage for sure, my relationship with my children, uh,
35:28
Speaker 2: my all my relationships, you know, and you know some
35:31
Speaker 2: relationships uh uh you know kind of didn't work anymore
35:36
Speaker 2: because they were based on on you know, codependency or whatever.
35:41
Speaker 2: You know. So yeah, so there you go.
35:46
Speaker 1: That's uh okay. So you talked about getting out. You're
35:49
Speaker 1: in this environment. Everybody's equal, You're surrounded by people. You
35:52
Speaker 1: referenced loneliness earlier, and you talked and I give you
35:56
Speaker 1: credit because most people have no idea how difficult it is.
35:59
Speaker 1: You know, I read about people they went to rehab
36:02
Speaker 1: for a week and then they go back on the road.
36:04
Speaker 1: That you know, I don't know how they can do that.
36:06
Speaker 1: So in terms of maintaining did you go to see
36:10
Speaker 1: a therapist? Were you on your own? What's been happening
36:13
Speaker 1: in these last ten years to keep you steady?
36:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, you know, I was in therapy, you know,
36:20
Speaker 2: for on and off, you know, during the eighties and nineties,
36:24
Speaker 2: and uh, and I had some really I worked with
36:27
Speaker 2: some really good people and uh and after heire Tucson,
36:33
Speaker 2: I stayed in therapy for a while. I actually haven't
36:37
Speaker 2: been in therapy for for the for about I don't know,
36:40
Speaker 2: three or four years now, which is kind of strange. Uh,
36:45
Speaker 2: it's uh, it's the that's the longest time since the
36:50
Speaker 2: eighties for me. But uh, you know, so yeah, so
36:57
Speaker 2: uh I think that uh for some reason, I'm just
37:04
Speaker 2: a little I'm just not quite as uncomfortable being by
37:07
Speaker 2: myself as I used to be. And so uh, I mean,
37:11
Speaker 2: you know, that's the hardest part of of being on tour,
37:15
Speaker 2: you know.
37:16
Speaker 1: Uh.
37:16
Speaker 2: Neil used to always say, you know, I do the
37:19
Speaker 2: shows for free. I get paid to get there. Uh,
37:23
Speaker 2: and I think that's a pretty common uh thread, you know,
37:27
Speaker 2: and uh you know, and and you know, the the
37:30
Speaker 2: years of partying that that that was that was really
37:33
Speaker 2: a way of coping. And let's face it, if you're
37:37
Speaker 2: in a rock band and you got hit records, it
37:40
Speaker 2: gives you a license to uh you know, for debauchery
37:44
Speaker 2: and and uh uh and it's a but it's a
37:48
Speaker 2: fake license. And you know people people use sex and
37:52
Speaker 2: drugs to get close to the band because they want
37:55
Speaker 2: to be because they want to you know, people want
37:57
Speaker 2: to understand it. It's like, what's it like to being
38:00
Speaker 2: a big time rock band? You know? And uh so yeah,
38:05
Speaker 2: you know these days, you know, our our audiences are
38:09
Speaker 2: I mean, we played this Monday and Tuesday. Who who
38:14
Speaker 2: who goes to a rock show on a Monday or
38:16
Speaker 2: a Tuesday? When we had we had two sold out
38:19
Speaker 2: shows in Augusta, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. People were
38:24
Speaker 2: on their feet, uh for the singing along, just having
38:28
Speaker 2: a great time. And you know, and that's enough for me.
38:32
Speaker 2: That that that love is enough for me. You know,
38:36
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not looking for for extra curricular love. I
38:40
Speaker 2: I got I got love at home. Uh, I got
38:43
Speaker 2: an honest relationship with my wife and my kids and
38:47
Speaker 2: and not. I'll tell you one of the you know,
38:50
Speaker 2: if you want to know, one of the one of
38:52
Speaker 2: the greatest things that that about rehab is is I
38:56
Speaker 2: came out of there, Uh, like I said, with zero
39:00
Speaker 2: tolerance for bullshit and and the fact that I could,
39:05
Speaker 2: uh that I could just since I'm not hiding anything,
39:10
Speaker 2: since I'm not, you know, engaged in any behavior that
39:13
Speaker 2: I'm ashamed of. Uh, it's just it's like a it's
39:18
Speaker 2: like a weight off my shoulders. It's like I can
39:21
Speaker 2: be totally honest all the time. I'm not hiding anything,
39:25
Speaker 2: you know, and it's just a it's a real freeing feeling.
39:29
Speaker 2: And it's just made me closer to everyone in my life,
39:34
Speaker 2: from my wife, to my friends, to my kids.
39:37
Speaker 1: Uh.
39:37
Speaker 2: It just just feels good to be done with the
39:41
Speaker 2: what what I used to call the road guy home
39:44
Speaker 2: guy syndrome. You know, you can only be one guy,
39:48
Speaker 2: you know, if you're if you're being two guys, it's
39:51
Speaker 2: it doesn't work, you know, because you're always you're always
39:54
Speaker 2: hiding guy too when when when your guy won? And uh,
39:58
Speaker 2: it's a it's a it's a miserable way to live
40:02
Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you. So now I'm it's it's
40:05
Speaker 2: all guy one and and I'm proud to say it,
40:09
Speaker 2: and I'm at peace with it. Okay.
40:13
Speaker 1: You talked about Augusta, Georgia and this rousing crowd. Generally speaking,
40:18
Speaker 1: who comes to see Ario Speedwagon. Is it fans from
40:23
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties? Is it people who are younger?
40:26
Speaker 1: Is it very young people? And with that, it's one
40:30
Speaker 1: thing when you're headlining. You talked about being out with
40:33
Speaker 1: def Leppard. You've been on a number of package tours.
40:36
Speaker 1: What's it like when you play one of those gigs
40:39
Speaker 1: where the people in the audience might not have bought
40:41
Speaker 1: a ticket specifically to see you.
40:45
Speaker 2: You know, I take that as a it's a challenge,
40:51
Speaker 2: It's it's an adventure because it's a it's an opportunity
40:55
Speaker 2: to play for people, like you say, who didn't exactly
40:59
Speaker 2: buy the ticket to see you, So you have an
41:02
Speaker 2: opportunity to to spend you know, seventy five minutes with them,
41:06
Speaker 2: playing you know, your best songs and and and putting
41:11
Speaker 2: on you know, a seventy five minute show man. It's
41:13
Speaker 2: just compact. It's just like powerful, It's it never lets
41:17
Speaker 2: up and uh. And I think we've won over a
41:22
Speaker 2: lot of fans through the package tours that we've done. Uh.
41:27
Speaker 2: But when you know, when you but these shows, like
41:30
Speaker 2: I say, in Augusta and Charleston, just for an example,
41:34
Speaker 2: they were I think, you know, maybe four thousand seeds
41:39
Speaker 2: and I think Charleston was a little bit smaller. And
41:43
Speaker 2: then you walk out on stage and it's like, wait,
41:47
Speaker 2: everybody here bought a ticket to see us, you know,
41:52
Speaker 2: and uh and so it's like it's it's it's like
41:57
Speaker 2: hanging out with old friends, you know. And uh So, Uh,
42:02
Speaker 2: you know, Bob, I'll be honest with you, I like
42:05
Speaker 2: to play. I just like I just love doing it.
42:09
Speaker 2: I mean I'm doing a gig in I did one
42:14
Speaker 2: uh in Vegas a couple of months ago. My friend
42:18
Speaker 2: Kenny Aronoff, the great, the great drummer, Kenny r. They're
42:21
Speaker 2: one of the great drummers of all time. He he
42:24
Speaker 2: he is involved in this uh, this band. It's a
42:28
Speaker 2: long story. I won't go into it, but I ended up.
42:31
Speaker 2: Uh so I did this one show with them. They
42:34
Speaker 2: they've got a solid band and then they bring in
42:38
Speaker 2: uh this thing in Vegas, Billy Gibbons Vince Gill, Steven
42:44
Speaker 2: Stills and myself and each of us do four or
42:47
Speaker 2: five of our songs with this great band. And it's
42:49
Speaker 2: Jim Orsay, the guy who owns the Indianapolis Colts, has
42:53
Speaker 2: this amazing collection of memorabilia, and so he does these
42:57
Speaker 2: free shows. So I'm doing another one in Boss And
43:01
Speaker 2: in that show in Vegas, I got to sing a
43:04
Speaker 2: duet and almost cut my hair. This was a few
43:08
Speaker 2: weeks after David's passing. With Stephen Stills, who is I mean,
43:14
Speaker 2: anybody who reads my book, if I ever finish it,
43:18
Speaker 2: will will see my just my lifelong reverence and respect
43:25
Speaker 2: and admiration for Stephen Stills. He's just He's my hero,
43:29
Speaker 2: is all I can tell you. And so to be
43:31
Speaker 2: able to just to sing almost cut my hair with
43:37
Speaker 2: Stephen was just I was like I had to pinch myself.
43:41
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it was actually happening.
43:51
Speaker 1: Okay, so at this point in time, and of course
43:54
Speaker 1: everything's a little screwed up because of the pandemic, But
43:57
Speaker 1: before then and after then, reo speed right yourself. How
44:01
Speaker 1: many dates a year do you work?
44:04
Speaker 2: We do? You know? Uh, somewhere probably around eighty five
44:10
Speaker 2: ish you know, if we're doing a big package tour,
44:14
Speaker 2: sometimes you have to play a little more because the
44:17
Speaker 2: you're carrying, you know, all the extra trucks and buses
44:21
Speaker 2: and you know, tech crew guys and everything. But uh
44:24
Speaker 2: but you know, I, you know, my wife and I
44:27
Speaker 2: kind of made a deal that I wouldn't be on
44:30
Speaker 2: the road more than I'm home. Uh and and uh
44:34
Speaker 2: and so we try to keep it, you know. Uh,
44:37
Speaker 2: we try to keep that. We do. We've been consistent
44:41
Speaker 2: with that for a long time now. So, but but
44:44
Speaker 2: we also like to spread it out over the whole year,
44:47
Speaker 2: so that so we keep the crew and and and
44:50
Speaker 2: uh so we keep the organism. We kind of keep
44:53
Speaker 2: the store opens as we say.
44:55
Speaker 1: So.
44:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so we can make it happen, you know,
44:59
Speaker 2: with you know, a eighty five shows a year. Everybody
45:02
Speaker 2: does great, you know, we can, we can pay the crew,
45:06
Speaker 2: everybody's everybody's happy, and we're not away from home too
45:12
Speaker 2: extremely much. So it's been working out well. Okay.
45:17
Speaker 1: In terms of transportation, in the sixties, bands went in
45:20
Speaker 1: station wagons. Then they win and win a bagos. Then
45:25
Speaker 1: the real goal was to fly commercial, which got you
45:29
Speaker 1: there faster, but eats up a lot of time. Then
45:31
Speaker 1: we have the era. Well I want to be big
45:33
Speaker 1: enough to have our own jet, and of course superstars
45:37
Speaker 1: at this point. You know, what people don't realize is
45:39
Speaker 1: they'll base themselves in one location and they'll fly out
45:43
Speaker 1: to different locations. But those are people who you know,
45:47
Speaker 1: were you know, there's a very thin layer of the axe.
45:50
Speaker 1: And yet there are household names who were traveling by bus.
45:55
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of people who don't understand
45:59
Speaker 1: that the bus is the period because you get off
46:01
Speaker 1: the road and there it is. You don't have to wait,
46:03
Speaker 1: you don't have to go anywhere. So how do you
46:06
Speaker 1: guys do it? And what's your experience been over history?
46:10
Speaker 2: Oh man, Well, you know the Ario has a rich
46:14
Speaker 2: history of aviation related high jinks and near missus and
46:23
Speaker 2: uh uh it's it's uh we we we started chartering
46:29
Speaker 2: a plane long before we could afford it. And uh
46:33
Speaker 2: and our mutual friend, uh Irving as off of course
46:36
Speaker 2: who was uh we were his first management client, as
46:41
Speaker 2: you know, and uh and so so Irving made a
46:45
Speaker 2: deal for for an airplane and and I remember thinking,
46:50
Speaker 2: and I didn't ask. I'm like, I'm not going to
46:51
Speaker 2: ask any questions, I don't know how we're affording this,
46:54
Speaker 2: but uh but but hey, we're on an airplane, and
46:57
Speaker 2: uh so, uh uh that ended up being that we'll
47:05
Speaker 2: put it this way. The in about three years after
47:10
Speaker 2: we uh left that airplane in an on an airstrip
47:15
Speaker 2: in Arkansas, the plane had lost its brakes and and
47:20
Speaker 2: our and our pilot had a gun one of the
47:23
Speaker 2: engines put the other engine in reverse and and put
47:27
Speaker 2: it into a forced tailspin. And of course I always
47:30
Speaker 2: used to like to sit in the rear portion of
47:33
Speaker 2: the plane. And on that particular day, we had a
47:36
Speaker 2: rolling stone reported by the name of John Swinson on
47:40
Speaker 2: the plane with us, and John and I got the
47:43
Speaker 2: right of our lights. The plane did did three full
47:47
Speaker 2: uh full spins on the in the in the grass.
47:52
Speaker 2: But uh so. Years later, I'm in a hotel actually
47:56
Speaker 2: here in Washington, d C. And some people knocked on
48:00
Speaker 2: my door. I don't know how they found my room,
48:02
Speaker 2: but there was a group outside. I looked at the people,
48:04
Speaker 2: and someone's holding up the book looked like an Encyclopedia
48:13
Speaker 2: school yearbook size book, and it said Department of Our
48:17
Speaker 2: Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms nineteen eighty two yearbook,
48:23
Speaker 2: and so I'm like, what's this? So I opened the door.
48:26
Speaker 2: They had opened to a page of a point of
48:30
Speaker 2: view from behind a squad car with agent atf agent's
48:35
Speaker 2: guns drawn aimed at in the distance, an airplane with
48:41
Speaker 2: the Areo speedwagon logo paines on the side. So, long
48:46
Speaker 2: story a little shorter. On our days off on the road,
48:52
Speaker 2: our plane was being used to do all kinds of
48:57
Speaker 2: things that we were not aware of, and so we
49:00
Speaker 2: we were the We were basically a cover for much
49:06
Speaker 2: illegal activity. So that's how we afforded the plane. I
49:11
Speaker 2: guess we didn't partake in any of the illegalities, but
49:15
Speaker 2: are we were a cover for it? I guess.
49:18
Speaker 1: Okay, So at this point in time, you know, it's
49:21
Speaker 1: not like you go, as you said, go on the
49:22
Speaker 1: road for sixty days straight, although sometimes you do a
49:25
Speaker 1: package tour. So are you traveling by bus to these gigs?
49:29
Speaker 1: Are you flying in and flying back to la? How
49:31
Speaker 1: does it work?
49:32
Speaker 2: Now? We fly into a to a major hub that
49:36
Speaker 2: the tour buses meet us there and and honestly, you know,
49:43
Speaker 2: you know, my friend Sammy Hagar's got a beautiful airplane
49:46
Speaker 2: and he always and that's just his thing, and he's
49:49
Speaker 2: in a position to be able to afford it, and
49:52
Speaker 2: and it's great, but the problem is you spend your
49:57
Speaker 2: whole day driving to the airport getting on the airplane,
50:01
Speaker 2: you know. So the beauty of tour buses, which is
50:05
Speaker 2: how we travel, is, you know, the gig's over, you
50:08
Speaker 2: get on the bus, watch a little TV. You know,
50:11
Speaker 2: there's cables, there's satellite TV and the bus. Then you
50:14
Speaker 2: go into your bunk, you know, read a little bit,
50:17
Speaker 2: listen to a Bob Lefts it's podcast, and and uh
50:22
Speaker 2: and uh and you uh and you get to sleep
50:25
Speaker 2: and then when you wake up, you're in the next
50:28
Speaker 2: city and you can do things you can you know,
50:32
Speaker 2: go to the gym, take a walk, you know. I
50:34
Speaker 2: always like to walk around whatever city we're playing on
50:39
Speaker 2: the afternoon before the show. I just kind of soak
50:42
Speaker 2: up some of the vibe of what's going on in
50:45
Speaker 2: that city. And uh. And then you know, I bring
50:50
Speaker 2: that with me on stage and I just feel a
50:52
Speaker 2: little bit closer to the audience that way. So I'm
50:55
Speaker 2: I'm cool traveling by by tour bus. But I do
50:58
Speaker 2: like the nights that we get to sleep in a
51:01
Speaker 2: real bed, So I will enjoy my evening tonight.
51:04
Speaker 1: Okay, so we started that earlier. You talked about a
51:07
Speaker 1: day room and then you talked about being in this
51:09
Speaker 1: great hotel. Do you essentially get a hotel every day? Yeah,
51:13
Speaker 1: we get a hotel every day. Some I mean sometimes
51:16
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I'm I'm a.
51:19
Speaker 2: Late sleeper, and so I by the time I get
51:24
Speaker 2: off the bus, I'm in the room for maybe four
51:29
Speaker 2: hours and then I got to you know, check out again.
51:32
Speaker 2: So so that becomes a little bit of a burn
51:34
Speaker 2: because you got to bring out, you know, you got
51:36
Speaker 2: to open up all your luggage. I mean, it takes
51:38
Speaker 2: me from the time I walk into my hotel room
51:41
Speaker 2: until the time it's all set up to my specifications.
51:46
Speaker 2: You know, it's a good half hour process. Just like
51:50
Speaker 2: you know, put your suitcase here, you put your computers there,
51:53
Speaker 2: your toiletries are in the bathroom. You know, I just
51:55
Speaker 2: like to make make my environment feel somewhat familiar. But
52:03
Speaker 2: on those day room days, yeah, well you know, they're
52:05
Speaker 2: three or four hours and then we're off to the gig.
52:07
Speaker 2: But then on the days off, you know, we get
52:10
Speaker 2: to have a nice day and and uh, you know,
52:13
Speaker 2: nice dinner in a restaurant somewhere or whatever. And so
52:17
Speaker 2: that that's what that's what today will be.
52:21
Speaker 1: And to what degreed? Can you travel freely? Or you recognized?
52:26
Speaker 1: You know what?
52:27
Speaker 2: Uh I'm I'm recognized on a pretty regular basis, but normally,
52:34
Speaker 2: you know, if it's just on the street or you know,
52:38
Speaker 2: there's hey, everybody's different, you know, every person has a different, uh,
52:45
Speaker 2: you know, way of of approaching you know you and
52:49
Speaker 2: and you know as a uh you know, I'm I'm
52:52
Speaker 2: I'm so lucky that I that my music uh affects
52:58
Speaker 2: people in such a way that they want to they
53:03
Speaker 2: just want to. I don't quite understand it, but that's
53:06
Speaker 2: how I felt about Steven Stills. I just I just
53:09
Speaker 2: wanted to meet him because I love his music so
53:11
Speaker 2: much that that I feel like that's a connection between
53:16
Speaker 2: between him and me, even though you know, he didn't
53:19
Speaker 2: know who I was. You know, I was, I was
53:21
Speaker 2: a kid and uh so, so I I understand that feeling,
53:26
Speaker 2: and and so I try to be as as accommodating
53:31
Speaker 2: as possible. The things that I don't tolerate is when
53:35
Speaker 2: someone is drunk and they and they and now they
53:39
Speaker 2: want to come up to me and it's just that
53:42
Speaker 2: doesn't work, you know. But if but if if people
53:46
Speaker 2: are are and usually people are usually people are really cool,
53:51
Speaker 2: just really respectful. Just want to say, you know what, man,
53:55
Speaker 2: you know, your your music means a lot to me.
53:58
Speaker 2: And and and we played your song at our wedding
54:01
Speaker 2: and thanks, you know, and I'm like, you're welcome. That's awesome,
54:05
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, who doesn't want to hear that?
54:07
Speaker 2: You know?
54:09
Speaker 1: Okay, So to what degree does Rio Speedwagon mean anything
54:15
Speaker 1: outside the United States? And to what degree have you
54:18
Speaker 1: toured outside the United States?
54:20
Speaker 2: Well, we you know, well I will tell you this.
54:23
Speaker 2: We we did a really made a really dumb decision.
54:27
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty one, we were offered a huge European tour.
54:33
Speaker 2: We had toured the States, you know, sold out stadiums.
54:37
Speaker 2: We went to Japan, you know, did multiple nights at
54:41
Speaker 2: Budu Khan and toured the country. And by late nineteen
54:46
Speaker 2: eighty one, that was when the European leg of the
54:49
Speaker 2: tour was supposed to happen, and we just didn't do it.
54:56
Speaker 2: And it was looking back that that was a dumb thing,
55:01
Speaker 2: because you know what I've come to understand about uh,
55:06
Speaker 2: European music fans an. You know, this is a generalization,
55:10
Speaker 2: of course, but that if you if American bands come
55:14
Speaker 2: there when they're at their peak and tour, those bands
55:19
Speaker 2: can come back to Europe forever and and people will.
55:25
Speaker 2: People are loyal, the fans in your European fans are
55:29
Speaker 2: just loyal. If you don't come there at your peak,
55:35
Speaker 2: and now you're not at your peak anymore, and now
55:37
Speaker 2: you want to go over to Europe and play, it's
55:40
Speaker 2: a it's a it's a tougher hill to climb, I'll
55:43
Speaker 2: tell you. But but but but we you know, we
55:47
Speaker 2: you know, luckily, we we did go back there after
55:50
Speaker 2: the wheels are turning tour. We toured Europe and so
55:54
Speaker 2: you know, we go back there every few years. We've
55:57
Speaker 2: you know, we've been to Japan a few times. We
56:00
Speaker 2: did a little tour of New Zealand right before the
56:03
Speaker 2: pandemic with Huey Lewis and Melissa Etheridge. We just played
56:08
Speaker 2: a few festivals in New Zealand and it was awesome.
56:11
Speaker 2: I mean it was just a great experience. And uh so, yeah,
56:16
Speaker 2: you know, I like to see new places. You know,
56:18
Speaker 2: we're we're we're tossing around an Australian tour, which we've
56:23
Speaker 2: never done. So but there's also something nice about being
56:29
Speaker 2: home too, you know, being not having to show a
56:32
Speaker 2: passport and and just knowing that there's a little safety
56:37
Speaker 2: and you know, I feel more connected to home, you know,
56:41
Speaker 2: and and for me it's really important to feel connected
56:46
Speaker 2: to home. Lisa bought me up a little a little
56:53
Speaker 2: pendant right before I left, and and it's uh and
56:57
Speaker 2: I love it. It's just a little shame. Well, I
57:00
Speaker 2: guess people can't see it, but there's an anchor at
57:03
Speaker 2: the end of it, and it's like, and I never
57:06
Speaker 2: tell well, this is my New Zealand. The thing that
57:11
Speaker 2: I wear constantly given to us by a maori u,
57:15
Speaker 2: a spiritual guy. I don't know. I guess it was
57:19
Speaker 2: a priest, a Maui priest. And then this little anchor,
57:22
Speaker 2: and so it's like, that's my anchor. You know, home
57:24
Speaker 2: is my anchor.
57:26
Speaker 1: Okay, since you've been on the road for decades, what's
57:31
Speaker 1: the best hotel you were ever at? What's not? If
57:34
Speaker 1: I said you we get to go to one, what
57:35
Speaker 1: would that be?
57:37
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you what. This one right here would
57:40
Speaker 2: be high on my list for sure. The you know,
57:44
Speaker 2: there's there's the Townsend in Birmingham, Michigan, outside of Detroit.
57:48
Speaker 2: That's in a great spot. I'm trying to think of
57:51
Speaker 2: like a someplace. Oh man, I can't there's there. I'm not.
58:02
Speaker 1: I'm not.
58:02
Speaker 2: I'm not thinking of like one. If you asked me
58:05
Speaker 2: for a venue, you know, I would, you know, it's like.
58:08
Speaker 1: Okay, agree, that's that's interesting to switch it to a venue.
58:13
Speaker 1: If I if I say there are three venues you
58:15
Speaker 1: can play, what are those?
58:16
Speaker 2: Well, the first one is Red Rocks without even without
58:20
Speaker 2: even having to think twice, Red Rocks is just just
58:24
Speaker 2: from uh well, first of all, I have a picture
58:28
Speaker 2: of it. It's one of my first memories of life
58:31
Speaker 2: of my mom and I. My dad took the picture
58:34
Speaker 2: up at the top of the you know, with with
58:37
Speaker 2: the Amphitheater of Red Rocks in the in the background,
58:40
Speaker 2: when I was two and a half years old. And
58:43
Speaker 2: you know who who would have thunk that that my
58:45
Speaker 2: history with Red Rocks would be? I think we I
58:48
Speaker 2: think we've played there seven times and and uh the
58:53
Speaker 2: place has been sold out everyone. And what's great about
58:56
Speaker 2: red Rocks is not only the natural amphitheater and the
59:00
Speaker 2: beauty of the of the area that you're in, but
59:03
Speaker 2: in the dressing room area, there's a they have a
59:08
Speaker 2: mural of every everyone that's ever played there, starting in
59:13
Speaker 2: I think it opened in the early nineteen hundreds, and
59:16
Speaker 2: so you can look at this at this thing and
59:19
Speaker 2: it's like a history of music, you know, from from classical,
59:24
Speaker 2: you know, through the you know, the big band era
59:27
Speaker 2: and the frank Sinatra area, and then all of a sudden,
59:30
Speaker 2: the British invasion happens and you know could and yeah,
59:34
Speaker 2: there was like a Beach Boys Frankie Valley in the
59:37
Speaker 2: Four Seasons period. So you can really just document how
59:41
Speaker 2: music has changed over the years. It's really it's a
59:44
Speaker 2: beautiful venue that that's my favorite. Everybody should at some
59:51
Speaker 2: at some point in their life when when your favorite
59:54
Speaker 2: band plays Red Rocks, fly to Denver and go see them,
1:00:00
Speaker 2: because to see your favorite band at Red Rocks, that's
1:00:03
Speaker 2: that's a that's a bucket list for everybody.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: I would say, let's go back a chapter. You talk
1:00:09
Speaker 1: about believing that if you had hit records, your life
1:00:14
Speaker 1: would work, which raises the question to what degree were
1:00:18
Speaker 1: you driven. What people don't understand is how impossibly hard
1:00:23
Speaker 1: it is to make it. I mean it's just you know,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: athletes you can kind of say, well they have this
1:00:30
Speaker 1: skill or whatever, whereas in musicians it's not even like
1:00:33
Speaker 1: there's a roadmap. How driven were you to be successful?
1:00:39
Speaker 2: And how successful, well, you know I was. I was
1:00:43
Speaker 2: highly motivated, I would say. And then when I met
1:00:48
Speaker 2: Gary Richrath, the late great Gary Richrath, who, by the way,
1:00:53
Speaker 2: if I if I might, if I might, if I
1:00:55
Speaker 2: made divert for a moment, Gary Richrath belongs in the
1:01:02
Speaker 2: conversation of the great rock guitarists of all time, and
1:01:07
Speaker 2: he's never mentioned in that conversation. And it's I feel
1:01:12
Speaker 2: like it's a it's a uh, it's just not right. Gary. Uh.
1:01:18
Speaker 2: Gary was a stone cold rock star. He the way
1:01:23
Speaker 2: he played the guitar. I mean, I wouldn't call him
1:01:26
Speaker 2: a virtuoso. I'm the guitar. There's no one Anario Speedwagon
1:01:30
Speaker 2: who's a virtuoso. That's not what we do. I'll leave
1:01:34
Speaker 2: that for for for Lucather, you know, and and and
1:01:38
Speaker 2: you know Luke is just you know, one of my favorites.
1:01:41
Speaker 2: But anyway, but Gary, man, if you think back the
1:01:45
Speaker 2: way he held that those less Pauls. He just he
1:01:49
Speaker 2: caressed them, he danced with them. He that he became
1:01:54
Speaker 2: one with that instrument. Uh And and his stage presence
1:01:58
Speaker 2: was so magnetic that he could literally stand on stage
1:02:03
Speaker 2: and with he wasn't a singer, he didn't even have
1:02:07
Speaker 2: a vocal mic. He just stood on stage. We all
1:02:09
Speaker 2: went back to the dressing room and you know, had
1:02:12
Speaker 2: a snack, and he stood out there in front of
1:02:15
Speaker 2: twenty thousand and fifty thousand people and held them transfixed
1:02:20
Speaker 2: for like a ten minute instrumental solo electric guitar with
1:02:26
Speaker 2: a Les paul a coil cord plugged directly into a
1:02:30
Speaker 2: Marshall stack and a wah wah pedal in between, and
1:02:34
Speaker 2: that's it. And this guy, man, he was amazing. But
1:02:39
Speaker 2: when I met him in nineteen seventy two, I found
1:02:45
Speaker 2: someone who was equally as driven as I was, which
1:02:50
Speaker 2: I'd never experienced before. And you know, and together, I
1:02:56
Speaker 2: mean we were you know, we were chalk and cheese
1:02:59
Speaker 2: and so many but but together when you know, when
1:03:05
Speaker 2: when we finally kind of figured it out and it
1:03:09
Speaker 2: didn't last long, it was you know, it was two
1:03:12
Speaker 2: you know, kind of two ships passing in the night
1:03:15
Speaker 2: ish but for those few years between seventy eight and
1:03:20
Speaker 2: you know, eighty two. Man, we were just firing on
1:03:25
Speaker 2: all cylinders. It was just working. And and I'm I'm
1:03:31
Speaker 2: so thankful, so grateful that my life that I just
1:03:36
Speaker 2: it was so lucky. The way I met rich Rath
1:03:38
Speaker 2: was it was just so lucky. It it it came
1:03:44
Speaker 2: from my drive, I will say that. But still, you know,
1:03:47
Speaker 2: having drive is important. You also got to get lucky.
1:03:50
Speaker 2: And you know, I've had so many instances, and you know,
1:03:56
Speaker 2: when you write a book, you kind of relive your
1:03:59
Speaker 2: life life, and you know, you go, you know, when
1:04:03
Speaker 2: something happens, you don't know the you know, the significance
1:04:07
Speaker 2: that it might have. You know, when you're when you
1:04:10
Speaker 2: look at your life in retrospect and I go, there's
1:04:14
Speaker 2: just too many times where I just happen to be
1:04:18
Speaker 2: in the talk about it, in the right place, at
1:04:20
Speaker 2: the right time, and I'm just I'm just so thankful
1:04:25
Speaker 2: for that. I'm just so so grateful for it. And
1:04:27
Speaker 2: you know, then of course you got to be ready
1:04:29
Speaker 2: for the luck when it hits, you know, And I
1:04:31
Speaker 2: guess I got to take credit for that side of it,
1:04:34
Speaker 2: because you know, I'm Bob, I there's a lot of
1:04:39
Speaker 2: people who want to be in rock bands, a lot
1:04:42
Speaker 2: of people who want to be famous, a lot of
1:04:44
Speaker 2: people who you know, want to be a star. And
1:04:47
Speaker 2: then there are those of us who need it. It's
1:04:53
Speaker 2: like it's like survival. It's like, I don't know what
1:04:57
Speaker 2: would have happened to me if, if, if, if, if
1:05:01
Speaker 2: my life hadn't worked out the way it did. I I,
1:05:06
Speaker 2: you know, I have nightmares about, you know, what would
1:05:09
Speaker 2: have happened. And uh so I'm thankful every day every
1:05:15
Speaker 2: time I walk out on stage. I I just have this,
1:05:20
Speaker 2: uh this feeling that I'm going to give this audience
1:05:24
Speaker 2: every freaking ounce of my energy tonight. And and because
1:05:28
Speaker 2: I'm so lucky that people are willing to spend their
1:05:33
Speaker 2: hard earned money to come and and and hear our
1:05:37
Speaker 2: songs and hear us perform them. You know, I never
1:05:40
Speaker 2: take that for granted.
1:05:48
Speaker 1: Rich Rath was in the band, he's unfortunately no longer
1:05:50
Speaker 1: with us, but then he was out of the band.
1:05:53
Speaker 1: What happened there, well, that's you know, that's a.
1:05:59
Speaker 2: Lot of what my book because about. Honestly, that about
1:06:01
Speaker 2: the relationship between Gary and I, because it was it
1:06:04
Speaker 2: was it was definitely Uh, you know, as Ash as
1:06:09
Speaker 2: Keith Richards famously said, a love hate relationship, Uh he
1:06:14
Speaker 2: loves me, I hate him. And you know, and Gary
1:06:20
Speaker 2: and I were we were you know, you hear the
1:06:23
Speaker 2: stories of the lead singer, lead guitar player things, you know,
1:06:28
Speaker 2: from from Tyler and Perry to Page and Plant. And
1:06:31
Speaker 2: not that I'm comparing Gary and I to either of
1:06:34
Speaker 2: those those amazing duos, but inasmuch as we were, we
1:06:40
Speaker 2: loved each other like brothers, and we fought like brothers,
1:06:43
Speaker 2: and we both wanted what was best for the band.
1:06:48
Speaker 2: We just didn't always agree on what that was. But
1:06:52
Speaker 2: like I say, for those for that for that period,
1:06:55
Speaker 2: there those few years where it was just really firing
1:06:58
Speaker 2: on all cylinders. Uh, that was that was something special.
1:07:04
Speaker 2: And I mean, how can I how can I how
1:07:09
Speaker 2: can I say? How can I answer your question in
1:07:12
Speaker 2: a with with without a book? I guess you know,
1:07:16
Speaker 2: if you look at at artists or as lead singer
1:07:20
Speaker 2: guitarist combos, as they're each a piece of sand paper
1:07:27
Speaker 2: and and and there. So there's the there's this friction
1:07:30
Speaker 2: that happens when when they come together, and those sparks
1:07:35
Speaker 2: are something that would not happen without each other, and
1:07:40
Speaker 2: and and uh, you know, my songs definitely needed a
1:07:45
Speaker 2: shot of Rich Rath rock and roll energy, and his
1:07:49
Speaker 2: songs needed a shot of my singer songwriter uh, you know,
1:07:54
Speaker 2: kind of folk singer energy. And at some point, uh,
1:07:59
Speaker 2: the s and paper wasn't the sparks weren't flying anymore,
1:08:05
Speaker 2: and I and I saw it happen, and I I
1:08:13
Speaker 2: tried my best. I probably could have tried harder in retrospect,
1:08:19
Speaker 2: but I finally just got to the point where I
1:08:27
Speaker 2: had a conversation with Gary, who had been my musical
1:08:31
Speaker 2: partner for this was nineteen eighty nine, so since nineteen
1:08:35
Speaker 2: on and off since nineteen seventy two, and I just
1:08:40
Speaker 2: told him that I couldn't do it anymore. And and
1:08:47
Speaker 2: I couldn't you know that there was a there was
1:08:49
Speaker 2: an Rio album on the horizon, and I, you know,
1:08:54
Speaker 2: this is after I had met Stephen Stills and we'd
1:08:57
Speaker 2: written a song together, and I had this side project,
1:09:00
Speaker 2: you know, a ten piece band with horns and background singers,
1:09:04
Speaker 2: you know, called the Strolling Dudes, that that played out
1:09:07
Speaker 2: of trencas and played little bars around l A and
1:09:12
Speaker 2: and but with amazing musicians. I mean Graham Lear on drums,
1:09:17
Speaker 2: Ricky brown On on trumpet, Steve Grove on sacks, got
1:09:21
Speaker 2: guys that, uh, you know that were just just amazing musicians,
1:09:27
Speaker 2: including Bruce Hall, the bass player from Ario. He was
1:09:30
Speaker 2: a member of the Dudes too. Uh. And so then
1:09:34
Speaker 2: the thought I was having so much fun just being
1:09:38
Speaker 2: free and playing you know, different, I wrote different types
1:09:43
Speaker 2: of songs and and I just felt like, uh, and
1:09:47
Speaker 2: then the thought of going back in the studio for
1:09:50
Speaker 2: another Ario Speedwagon record just felt like, oh boy, okay,
1:09:55
Speaker 2: here we go. It just it just I wasn't excited
1:09:58
Speaker 2: about it. I wasn't in spa aired about it, and
1:10:01
Speaker 2: and and part of it was that, you know, the
1:10:06
Speaker 2: partnership between Gary and I just wasn't wasn't it wasn't
1:10:10
Speaker 2: firing on all cylinders, and it was it was actually
1:10:13
Speaker 2: a little bit of a drag. And so that's what happened. Honestly,
1:10:22
Speaker 2: I never thought that that Gary's hiatus Fromario Speedwagon would
1:10:28
Speaker 2: be permanent. I thought it would be like mine, you know,
1:10:31
Speaker 2: you know, I got kicked out of the band in
1:10:34
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three. Took a couple of years to figure
1:10:39
Speaker 2: out some things that I needed to figure out about
1:10:43
Speaker 2: myself and when I got back in the band, it
1:10:47
Speaker 2: was better than ever. So that's kind of what I
1:10:50
Speaker 2: thought would happen with Gary, but it never did. And
1:10:56
Speaker 2: you know, God, you know, I uh, you know, I
1:11:02
Speaker 2: look back and I go, man, you know, could I
1:11:04
Speaker 2: have tried harder? Could I have What is there more
1:11:08
Speaker 2: that I that I could have done to help the situation?
1:11:12
Speaker 2: And you know, you always look at things that way
1:11:18
Speaker 2: in the rear view mirror. But at the time, Uh,
1:11:22
Speaker 2: I was just I was just out of gas, man,
1:11:25
Speaker 2: I just I just couldn't do it anymore.
1:11:29
Speaker 1: And to what degree was he resentful? And to what
1:11:32
Speaker 1: degree did you have any contact for the ensuing decades?
1:11:35
Speaker 1: Ultimately you played a couple of you know times on
1:11:38
Speaker 1: stage with you long after this incident, But was it
1:11:42
Speaker 1: pretty much final and you had no contact? And was
1:11:45
Speaker 1: he pissed off?
1:11:48
Speaker 2: You know, that's a good question, Bob. We we had,
1:11:51
Speaker 2: we had occasional contact, and uh, you know, Gary came
1:11:56
Speaker 2: out to some shows when we played the old Universal
1:12:00
Speaker 2: Amphitheater in LA and just sat in on a couple
1:12:03
Speaker 2: of songs. And you know, the way Ario Speedwagon has
1:12:08
Speaker 2: always worked is that you know, there have been a
1:12:11
Speaker 2: number of people in the band. You know, I'm one
1:12:15
Speaker 2: of three lead singers, you know, and even crew guys,
1:12:22
Speaker 2: and anyone who's ever been in the band is always welcome.
1:12:24
Speaker 2: It's like, oh yeah, well yeah he was. He was
1:12:27
Speaker 2: my guitar tech and you know, nineteen seventy seven. Yeah,
1:12:30
Speaker 2: give him a pass, get him in here, you know.
1:12:33
Speaker 2: So so there was there was that Gary and I
1:12:39
Speaker 2: had a couple of soulful conversations over those years. Uh
1:12:44
Speaker 2: and and they always kind of ended in the same
1:12:48
Speaker 2: way where uh, you know, I would I would just
1:12:54
Speaker 2: try to motivate him and and and inspire him in
1:13:00
Speaker 2: some way. Uh and in it Uh, it just never
1:13:04
Speaker 2: never quite happened. But he was never he never expressed.
1:13:11
Speaker 2: I mean, the last time that I saw him was
1:13:15
Speaker 2: at a benefit show that we did in Illinois for
1:13:18
Speaker 2: for that horrible uh tornado that that came through Washington,
1:13:22
Speaker 2: Illinois and just decimated the town. It was right near
1:13:26
Speaker 2: where Gary grew up, and uh, and he had moved
1:13:29
Speaker 2: back there. He had moved back to Peoria, which I
1:13:32
Speaker 2: thought was gonna be great for him, you know, get
1:13:34
Speaker 2: out of la get out of the shadow of Ario speedwagon,
1:13:38
Speaker 2: you know, come back to the Midwest where everybody loves
1:13:40
Speaker 2: you and knows you. And so he came out to
1:13:45
Speaker 2: to to that show and and we were able to
1:13:51
Speaker 2: we just had a moment and and I didn't sense
1:13:56
Speaker 2: I didn't sense any anger. I sensed I sent some sadness.
1:14:01
Speaker 2: You know. We looked into each other's eyes right before
1:14:06
Speaker 2: we went on stage, and there was a there was
1:14:10
Speaker 2: definitely a certain sadness there. I felt it too, and
1:14:13
Speaker 2: I know he did. And uh, you know, the thing
1:14:16
Speaker 2: is that the band has had such a resurgence over
1:14:20
Speaker 2: the past I don't know, fifteen twenty years that and
1:14:28
Speaker 2: none of this would have happened without Gary. You know,
1:14:30
Speaker 2: he was he was the guy that got Ario Speedwagon signed.
1:14:34
Speaker 2: You know, Irving Irving saw Gary Richrath and and he
1:14:39
Speaker 2: was like he knew Irving knows a star when he
1:14:43
Speaker 2: sees one. And and and so you know, I just
1:14:49
Speaker 2: it's a bummer that Gary is not here, that hasn't
1:14:54
Speaker 2: been here for the past twenty years of the of
1:14:57
Speaker 2: this resurgence of the band. Now, maybe the band wouldn't
1:15:02
Speaker 2: have had a resurgence if Gary was there, But I
1:15:05
Speaker 2: always hoped that getting away from it for a while,
1:15:08
Speaker 2: maybe he'd you know, as I did when I was
1:15:11
Speaker 2: out of the band, bottom out and realized that, you know,
1:15:16
Speaker 2: you want your gig back, you know, That's what happened
1:15:18
Speaker 2: to me. I went and saw him. There was a
1:15:21
Speaker 2: show in West Palm Beach now just happened to be
1:15:23
Speaker 2: in town, and I showed up the dressing room, and
1:15:26
Speaker 2: you know, hadn't seen the guys in a couple of years,
1:15:29
Speaker 2: and it was like old times. And I watched the
1:15:33
Speaker 2: show from the stage right wing. And the guy who
1:15:38
Speaker 2: replaced me, Mike Murphy, champagne guy, extremely talented, like great
1:15:46
Speaker 2: blues and R and B singer played, played a good guitar,
1:15:50
Speaker 2: good piano. But I watched it, man, and I'm like,
1:15:56
Speaker 2: it didn't seem like a Reo speedwagon, you know, with
1:15:59
Speaker 2: Murphy's as good as he is, you know, it was
1:16:02
Speaker 2: just such a stylistic mismatch. And I was like, wait
1:16:07
Speaker 2: a minute, that was my gig and I let it
1:16:10
Speaker 2: slip away, and I want it back, and I'm gonna,
1:16:14
Speaker 2: I'm gonna. I don't know how it's gonna happen, but
1:16:17
Speaker 2: uh it did. And uh so that's what I thought
1:16:20
Speaker 2: would happened with Gary, and it just didn't happen.
1:16:25
Speaker 1: And yeah, okay, tell us a little bit more about
1:16:29
Speaker 1: how you got kicked out and how you got back in.
1:16:32
Speaker 2: I knew when I said kicked out that that you would.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: I never knew you were kicked out. I thought you left.
1:16:37
Speaker 1: But now since you brought it.
1:16:38
Speaker 2: Up, well, you know, yeah, I always kind of described
1:16:44
Speaker 2: it as, uh as that we had the creative differences
1:16:47
Speaker 2: arose during the during the recording of the Ride and
1:16:50
Speaker 2: the Starmut album, uh, which led to me leaving the band.
1:16:56
Speaker 2: That's not false, but uh, but really what happened was,
1:17:03
Speaker 2: you know, I you know, I had always played in
1:17:08
Speaker 2: the bands before Ario Speedwagon that I played in, you know,
1:17:11
Speaker 2: like my band in like high school and early college.
1:17:14
Speaker 2: We we had way more in common with Buffalo Springfield
1:17:18
Speaker 2: than we did with Deep Purple, you know. And so
1:17:21
Speaker 2: when I joined and I was never a lead singer.
1:17:24
Speaker 2: I was always just one of the I you know,
1:17:27
Speaker 2: I'd sing lead on some songs, but we all my
1:17:29
Speaker 2: band always had three singers with three part harmony, and
1:17:33
Speaker 2: so that's what I was used to. So when when, uh,
1:17:38
Speaker 2: when I went out and saw Ario Speedwagon after I
1:17:41
Speaker 2: met Gary, uh, I was like, wow, I got to
1:17:45
Speaker 2: sing every song? How's that going to And they were loud, man,
1:17:48
Speaker 2: these guys played loud. So I ended up having vocal
1:17:53
Speaker 2: problems and uh uh you know, I went to a
1:17:58
Speaker 2: doctor and Champagne kind of on the sly and he
1:18:02
Speaker 2: he diagnosed a nodule on my left vocal cord and
1:18:06
Speaker 2: said that the only way to cure it was to
1:18:11
Speaker 2: not uh not talk for three weeks and not sing
1:18:16
Speaker 2: for six weeks. And here I am, I've been in
1:18:18
Speaker 2: the band for a year that were headed out to
1:18:21
Speaker 2: California to make an album. How how's this going to work?
1:18:25
Speaker 2: And of course, my stupid coping mechanism was to stuff it,
1:18:30
Speaker 2: you know, not tell anybody, uh you know, keep it
1:18:32
Speaker 2: a secret. And and so I started not singing at rehearsals,
1:18:38
Speaker 2: you know, only you know, kind of isolating so I
1:18:41
Speaker 2: wouldn't have to talk. So everyone in the band just
1:18:43
Speaker 2: thought I was being a dick, but really I was
1:18:46
Speaker 2: just trying to save my voice. And but they had
1:18:49
Speaker 2: no idea that I was trying to save my voice
1:18:51
Speaker 2: because I was afraid if I told him that they
1:18:53
Speaker 2: kicked me out of the band. So you know, uh,
1:18:57
Speaker 2: you know that it caught up to me and uh
1:19:00
Speaker 2: and uh uh and so so Murphy came in and
1:19:05
Speaker 2: took over. But yeah, I you know, I can't say
1:19:08
Speaker 2: that it was a mutual decision, but I will say
1:19:11
Speaker 2: that I was in no position to argue the point.
1:19:15
Speaker 2: You know, I knew that I didn't write my best
1:19:18
Speaker 2: songs for the Ride in the Stormont album, and I
1:19:22
Speaker 2: couldn't sing. So how do you how do you keep
1:19:24
Speaker 2: a gig as a lead singer when your vocal cords
1:19:27
Speaker 2: are are compromised? You know?
1:19:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, so what did you do in the ensuing
1:19:33
Speaker 1: two years? And how did you literally get back in.
1:19:36
Speaker 2: Well, for for about for about a year. Yeah, I
1:19:41
Speaker 2: went to Colorado. I lived in up in Evergreen for
1:19:44
Speaker 2: a couple of months, didn't sing at all. And then
1:19:49
Speaker 2: it occurred to me, you know, up in the in
1:19:52
Speaker 2: the fresh air of Evergreen, Colorado, that I had gotten
1:19:56
Speaker 2: one opinion on my vocal cords, and and that caused
1:20:01
Speaker 2: me caused my life to change in a way that
1:20:04
Speaker 2: that was devastating. I'm like, well, maybe I should get
1:20:08
Speaker 2: another opinion, and so I went to went into Denver.
1:20:12
Speaker 2: I made a couple of appointments. When into Denver, saw
1:20:15
Speaker 2: two voice specialists and They're like, I don't know what
1:20:18
Speaker 2: you're talking about. There's you. There's no vocal nods nodules now,
1:20:23
Speaker 2: nor is there any evidence that there ever was. I'm like,
1:20:28
Speaker 2: then this is two different guys. I'm like, oh, great,
1:20:31
Speaker 2: now you tell me right. So, yeah, I went back
1:20:35
Speaker 2: to Chicago, tried to tried for a career as a
1:20:40
Speaker 2: solo artist. I was working with Bill Trout. Do you
1:20:45
Speaker 2: remember Bill Trout? He was the president of Wooden Nickel
1:20:48
Speaker 2: Records in Chicago. Yeah, you know, and Bill was he
1:20:51
Speaker 2: was a character. He was. He was part of the
1:20:53
Speaker 2: company that released the first Beatles album on VJA Records
1:20:57
Speaker 2: out of Chicago, and he parlayed into a deal with
1:21:01
Speaker 2: I think r c A what Wooden Nickel was a
1:21:03
Speaker 2: boutique label in RCA signed Sticks and and then so
1:21:09
Speaker 2: he acted as my attorney and uh, the late great
1:21:12
Speaker 2: Gary Luaiso from the from the American Breed, the other
1:21:15
Speaker 2: guy that sang Bend Me, Shape Me and produced a
1:21:19
Speaker 2: bunch of Sticks Records. I was his first production client
1:21:23
Speaker 2: in his garage in UH in Oaklhom, Illinois. And UH,
1:21:27
Speaker 2: and so we went about the UH tried to get
1:21:31
Speaker 2: me a solo deal and it just it didn't happen,
1:21:35
Speaker 2: and that was devastating because I thought, you know, when
1:21:41
Speaker 2: when I got away from Rio, I was like, this
1:21:44
Speaker 2: is the best thing that ever happened to me. I've
1:21:47
Speaker 2: I'm kind of well known. Now I had a couple
1:21:50
Speaker 2: of songs that did decent on the Rio. Well, now
1:21:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to be able to do what I really
1:21:55
Speaker 2: want to do, which is play you know, folk rock
1:21:58
Speaker 2: in harmony and you know, you know, more of a
1:22:01
Speaker 2: Stephen Stills type character. You know that that was my
1:22:05
Speaker 2: fantasy of myself and it just didn't work. Uh uh
1:22:10
Speaker 2: you know, you know I I uh so that was
1:22:14
Speaker 2: devastating and that sent me definitely into a funk. And
1:22:20
Speaker 2: uh and I spent almost a year just you know,
1:22:25
Speaker 2: going down to Bill Trout's office waiting for the phone
1:22:28
Speaker 2: to ring, uh you know, and uh you know, and
1:22:32
Speaker 2: then going back to my apartment up on the north
1:22:35
Speaker 2: side of I was living alone, and uh, you know,
1:22:39
Speaker 2: I started isolating and it was just not a good thing.
1:22:46
Speaker 2: And then I, uh I met my first wife and
1:22:51
Speaker 2: and she was she was a musician, and she really
1:22:56
Speaker 2: uh uh just kind of said you you got to
1:23:01
Speaker 2: start working again. You you know, you know that this
1:23:05
Speaker 2: is enough enough already of sitting around, you know, feeling
1:23:09
Speaker 2: sorry for yourself. And so I started singing, Uh, started
1:23:14
Speaker 2: playing solo acoustic gigs around Chicago and really working at it, man,
1:23:20
Speaker 2: And and I learned a lot. I you know, I
1:23:23
Speaker 2: opened for for some some really good The thing about
1:23:27
Speaker 2: being a playing folk clubs is you've got to learn
1:23:30
Speaker 2: how to talk to an audience. You know, it's you
1:23:34
Speaker 2: know it. Playing the songs is important, but getting a
1:23:38
Speaker 2: few laughs in between, and and kind of you know, uh,
1:23:42
Speaker 2: getting the audience, uh invested in a song that they
1:23:47
Speaker 2: have never heard before, so so that they're more willing
1:23:50
Speaker 2: to listen to it just by a little story or
1:23:52
Speaker 2: whatever of how the song was written or what the
1:23:55
Speaker 2: song's about. Uh. And I really learned a lot about that.
1:24:00
Speaker 2: I opened for a bit a man who you remember,
1:24:03
Speaker 2: maybe maybe not too many of your listeners would called
1:24:06
Speaker 2: Mason Prophet. Of course they had a song, yeah two
1:24:09
Speaker 2: hangman and Terry Talbot was a master of work in
1:24:15
Speaker 2: an audience. And I would just sit back and watch
1:24:17
Speaker 2: him do it, man, and just soak it up. And
1:24:21
Speaker 2: so that show in West Palm Beach that I talked
1:24:25
Speaker 2: about where I saw the band Neil Dowdy shared something
1:24:31
Speaker 2: with me in the dressing room. He's like, we just
1:24:33
Speaker 2: got a a what do you call that? When a
1:24:38
Speaker 2: petition that started out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. This is
1:24:45
Speaker 2: before the Internet or iPhones or anything like that. It
1:24:49
Speaker 2: was actually on paper and there was like I thought,
1:24:53
Speaker 2: I thought he said fifteen thousand names, but that sounds
1:24:57
Speaker 2: that's got to be too many. But it was a
1:25:00
Speaker 2: large number of names who signed a petition for Ario
1:25:04
Speaker 2: Speedwagon to get back to the Rio two lineup, which
1:25:08
Speaker 2: was that that was the album I made with the band.
1:25:12
Speaker 2: And uh So when he told me that, I was like,
1:25:16
Speaker 2: that's interesting. I wonder why he's sharing that with me.
1:25:19
Speaker 2: And uh, a few months later I got the phone
1:25:22
Speaker 2: call and uh and it was kind of perfect timing because, uh,
1:25:28
Speaker 2: you know, my ego was knocked down to size by
1:25:32
Speaker 2: not getting the solo deal, but I learned so much
1:25:35
Speaker 2: from playing as a solo artist, and I brought that
1:25:39
Speaker 2: energy back into the into the band. Uh. And there
1:25:42
Speaker 2: was a and and their egos came down a notch
1:25:46
Speaker 2: because they thought they were gonna be that it didn't
1:25:49
Speaker 2: matter who the singer was, you know, Uh, that they
1:25:51
Speaker 2: were gonna but but that two album did way better
1:25:56
Speaker 2: than the than the album's subsequent albums. That with with
1:25:59
Speaker 2: Murphy singing, it just didn't it as great of a
1:26:03
Speaker 2: musician as he is, It just didn't. It didn't sound
1:26:07
Speaker 2: like Ario Speedwagon at all. And uh so I was
1:26:12
Speaker 2: ready when when the call came, the guys were ready
1:26:15
Speaker 2: and there was a there was a new you know.
1:26:17
Speaker 2: Gary Neal used to joke that they, you know, they
1:26:21
Speaker 2: picked me up out of the gutter and made me
1:26:22
Speaker 2: a star, and there was some truth to it. But
1:26:26
Speaker 2: but when I came back to the band, I knew
1:26:28
Speaker 2: it had to be on equal terms. It had to
1:26:30
Speaker 2: be you know, there there There couldn't be you know,
1:26:33
Speaker 2: there was no more on the new guy. So I
1:26:35
Speaker 2: don't get a say in what happened. You know, I
1:26:38
Speaker 2: needed to be an equal member of the band, and
1:26:42
Speaker 2: uh and I was and and it worked.
1:26:51
Speaker 1: Okay. From the outside, Ario Speedwagon was around forever perceived
1:26:57
Speaker 1: as a regional thing, but on a majorly epic and
1:27:01
Speaker 1: then roll with the changes happened with the can't tuna piano?
1:27:06
Speaker 1: You can tune a piano, we can tuna fish. That
1:27:08
Speaker 1: seemed to be a line of demarcation from the outside,
1:27:11
Speaker 1: what was going on on the inside.
1:27:14
Speaker 2: Well, the the that was the the Tuna album was
1:27:19
Speaker 2: was the first album that was self produced. We we
1:27:23
Speaker 2: had had a number of uh successful well known I
1:27:29
Speaker 2: mean Bill Halverson, Bill Simsic, John Stronik. I mean those
1:27:35
Speaker 2: three producers right there probably are you know between Eagles
1:27:38
Speaker 2: Hotel California and Joe Walsh. So what uh you know
1:27:43
Speaker 2: the first two Crosby, Stills and Nash albums. I mean,
1:27:45
Speaker 2: these guys obviously know what they're doing, but somehow it
1:27:50
Speaker 2: didn't work for us, And so we had Uh I've
1:27:56
Speaker 2: been back in the band for about two years. I
1:27:59
Speaker 2: had written rolled the changes. Time for me to fly
1:28:03
Speaker 2: blazing your own trail again. Gary had sing to me,
1:28:08
Speaker 2: uh say you love me, you r say good night.
1:28:10
Speaker 2: We had we had some We had some pretty We
1:28:13
Speaker 2: had a pretty strong group of songs that we were
1:28:15
Speaker 2: ready to record. And our fear was that if Epic
1:28:21
Speaker 2: assigned a producer to us, that the that that those goods,
1:28:26
Speaker 2: that those songs would get spoiled, and we didn't want
1:28:29
Speaker 2: to take any chances. So so Gary and I march
1:28:33
Speaker 2: into Ronald Luxembourg's office. He was the president of Epic
1:28:36
Speaker 2: at the time and lay down the law that that
1:28:39
Speaker 2: either we produced the next studio album or we refused
1:28:42
Speaker 2: to record. We never even got that far. We were
1:28:46
Speaker 2: sitting in a meeting with Ronald Luxembourg and and John
1:28:49
Speaker 2: Boylan was in the in the meeting, and Aluxembourg is like, hey,
1:28:54
Speaker 2: I think it's a great idea for you two to
1:28:56
Speaker 2: produce this record, but I just want John to be
1:29:00
Speaker 2: in the room with you. And you know, John had
1:29:02
Speaker 2: just come off Boston's debut album. And uh so to me,
1:29:07
Speaker 2: I was like, this is perfect. We're we have the
1:29:11
Speaker 2: freedom to to produce the album how we want to,
1:29:14
Speaker 2: and if we have problems, we got John Boylen's in
1:29:17
Speaker 2: the room with us. So it was really an ideal
1:29:20
Speaker 2: situation in many ways. And uh but yeah, so, uh
1:29:26
Speaker 2: so we were co producing and and I think that
1:29:30
Speaker 2: was the beginning of of Ario Speedwagon changing from you know,
1:29:35
Speaker 2: before I joined the band, they were straight ahead rock band. Man,
1:29:39
Speaker 2: they were just a solid you know. Original singer Terry
1:29:43
Speaker 2: Latreuell was a you know, had the mic stand moves
1:29:46
Speaker 2: and the raspy voice and the and the whole thing,
1:29:48
Speaker 2: you know, and and uh but you know, I knew
1:29:52
Speaker 2: that if if the band was going to survive with
1:29:54
Speaker 2: me in it, it would take some it would be uh,
1:29:58
Speaker 2: some give and take on both. And I think role
1:30:02
Speaker 2: with the Changes was the first the first hint of
1:30:07
Speaker 2: what Ario Speedwagon could become if if there was equal
1:30:12
Speaker 2: parts Gary's guitar power and the power of that rhythm
1:30:17
Speaker 2: section and a respect for me as a songwriter and
1:30:21
Speaker 2: the more melodic uh you know, paying attention to the
1:30:26
Speaker 2: lyrics a little bit more side of things. And that
1:30:29
Speaker 2: was when we first kind of the balance first started
1:30:33
Speaker 2: being found and roll with the changes? Was it.
1:30:38
Speaker 1: Okay? So you have this unbelievable success with high end fidelity,
1:30:43
Speaker 1: which you also referenced earlier. Few questions to amplify the question, Hey,
1:30:50
Speaker 1: seems like you're driven. You want to get to a goal.
1:30:52
Speaker 1: From anybody in the outside that's ringing the bell, there's
1:30:55
Speaker 1: nowhere really higher you can go. How did it affect
1:30:59
Speaker 1: you going forward? You have the moment of success?
1:31:02
Speaker 2: Uh is it? Then? Well?
1:31:04
Speaker 1: How am I going to maintain this?
1:31:06
Speaker 2: You know?
1:31:07
Speaker 1: How does it affect your mentality going forward to have
1:31:09
Speaker 1: that unbelievable success?
1:31:13
Speaker 2: Well, it was, uh, you know, it was a shocker
1:31:16
Speaker 2: to me because, like I said, I thought that was
1:31:19
Speaker 2: going to be the magic wand that that suddenly that
1:31:22
Speaker 2: that all of my problems were a result of not
1:31:27
Speaker 2: being successful in music and not being recognized as an artist,
1:31:31
Speaker 2: all that, all that good stuff. Uh and what what really, well,
1:31:38
Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you, what really uh kind of
1:31:41
Speaker 2: did me in? Was we we thought sure that Heine
1:31:46
Speaker 2: Fidelity was a shoe in for at least the Best
1:31:51
Speaker 2: Album nomination, if not, if not, you know, a Grammy
1:31:56
Speaker 2: for Best Album or you know, keep on loving you
1:32:00
Speaker 2: long of the Year, you know. We we we had
1:32:02
Speaker 2: pretty high hopes. And when the Grammy nominations came out
1:32:07
Speaker 2: and we were nominated as for Best Rock Performance by
1:32:14
Speaker 2: a Duo or Group, and that was it. And that
1:32:21
Speaker 2: just sent me, uh into a bad place.
1:32:27
Speaker 1: Uh.
1:32:28
Speaker 2: And uh it was it was just like the ultimate
1:32:32
Speaker 2: you know that that that recognition, uh huh, that peer recognition,
1:32:39
Speaker 2: recognition that the Grammys represents was something that I had
1:32:43
Speaker 2: been craving since I was a little kid, you know,
1:32:46
Speaker 2: And so all the success in the world was, uh,
1:32:52
Speaker 2: it didn't make any difference because I just that the
1:32:56
Speaker 2: the Grammy snub just it just destroyed me. It was
1:33:00
Speaker 2: just so hard on me, and uh, and so so
1:33:06
Speaker 2: so when the when the band, when there was a
1:33:09
Speaker 2: band meeting in early nineteen eighty two, and uh and
1:33:15
Speaker 2: and everyone wanted to make a new record. I was like,
1:33:20
Speaker 2: make a new record? Are you kidding? First of all,
1:33:22
Speaker 2: High in Fidelity was still on the charts, and and
1:33:25
Speaker 2: and I didn't have I didn't you know, I like
1:33:29
Speaker 2: to have a bunch of songs written before before we
1:33:31
Speaker 2: win the studio. But there was this energy man that
1:33:35
Speaker 2: from you know, we had the high the high profile
1:33:38
Speaker 2: uh business managers. We hired Fleetwood Max business managers because
1:33:43
Speaker 2: we thought, well, you know, this is High in Fidelity
1:33:46
Speaker 2: had rumors like success, so let's let's go with their
1:33:49
Speaker 2: uh the business managers. We had the record label, you know,
1:33:55
Speaker 2: and and everyone else in the band honestly, you know,
1:34:01
Speaker 2: management everybody was like, okay, you know, this is what
1:34:05
Speaker 2: we do. We make a record every year. And I'm
1:34:08
Speaker 2: sitting there and I go, guys, are you out of
1:34:12
Speaker 2: your fricking minds? I don't have any songs. I'm still
1:34:17
Speaker 2: trying to find my balance, you know. After High in Fidelity,
1:34:22
Speaker 2: I just felt like, guys, let's just this is a
1:34:26
Speaker 2: once in a lifetime opportunity whatever, whatever, you do as
1:34:30
Speaker 2: the follow up to High Infidelity is going to be
1:34:34
Speaker 2: immediately played on the radio. It's going to be immediately accepted.
1:34:40
Speaker 2: Unless it doesn't live up to the promise of high
1:34:43
Speaker 2: in Fidelity, then it's going to be derided. And and
1:34:47
Speaker 2: I kind of had a sense of that, and but
1:34:51
Speaker 2: nobody wanted to pay attention that. Everyone was so you know,
1:34:57
Speaker 2: drunk on success that everybody, you know, let's just keep
1:35:01
Speaker 2: feeding the machine. And I'm like, wait, guys, you know,
1:35:05
Speaker 2: you know, uh, that's not how it works for me.
1:35:09
Speaker 1: But I folded.
1:35:11
Speaker 2: I ended up folding like a cheap suit and went
1:35:14
Speaker 2: into the studio and uh made the Good Trouble record
1:35:18
Speaker 2: and uh uh and uh, you know it was it
1:35:22
Speaker 2: wasn't that was the Good Trouble Tour was the the
1:35:28
Speaker 2: the peak of the Ario Speedwagon partying arc. It was,
1:35:33
Speaker 2: you know, it was just it was the first time
1:35:36
Speaker 2: that the you know what, We've always been a band
1:35:38
Speaker 2: that has a good time, but that tour was the
1:35:41
Speaker 2: first time where I saw that the after party was
1:35:45
Speaker 2: becoming the priority and the gig was just a way
1:35:48
Speaker 2: to get to the after party. And I was like,
1:35:51
Speaker 2: I don't like this, but I don't not like it
1:35:54
Speaker 2: enough to stop doing it and so, uh you know,
1:35:58
Speaker 2: so hey there you know are the Ario Speedwagon. Uh,
1:36:04
Speaker 2: career arc is not an arc at all. It's a
1:36:08
Speaker 2: it's a roller coaster, is what it is. And uh,
1:36:11
Speaker 2: that was that was that was a tough period for sure.
1:36:15
Speaker 1: Okay, the next album you come back with a monster song.
1:36:18
Speaker 1: Can't fight this feeling. Everybody, and I mean everybody reaches
1:36:23
Speaker 1: the point when they no longer have the peak of
1:36:27
Speaker 1: success they once have. Usually you're putting out records that
1:36:31
Speaker 1: don't for some reason get accepted. Then the sound sort
1:36:36
Speaker 1: of changes. How have you coped with that or how
1:36:40
Speaker 1: did you cope when you were experiencing it?
1:36:43
Speaker 2: Well? I mean uh, uh you see, I always feel
1:36:48
Speaker 2: like like the songs are the everything grows from the songs.
1:36:53
Speaker 2: And if you've uh you know, a good song is
1:36:58
Speaker 2: always a good song. You know, it doesn't ever get
1:37:03
Speaker 2: bad no matter how long it's around. So if you
1:37:07
Speaker 2: got if you got enough songs that that that people
1:37:12
Speaker 2: took into their DNA, uh, then uh you know, that's
1:37:19
Speaker 2: that's what sustains you, even if the records aren't selling
1:37:22
Speaker 2: like like they used to. You know, as long as
1:37:26
Speaker 2: you can continue to perform at a high level and
1:37:31
Speaker 2: and bring it every night, and and bring that energy
1:37:34
Speaker 2: every night. And you got those songs. Uh, then you know,
1:37:39
Speaker 2: I mean that's you know, there's no secret to success.
1:37:41
Speaker 2: That that's what it is and and that's that's what
1:37:44
Speaker 2: we do. And uh, that's enabled us to to continue
1:37:49
Speaker 2: all these years.
1:37:51
Speaker 1: Did you own your own songs? Then your own publishing,
1:37:55
Speaker 1: and do you own them now?
1:37:57
Speaker 2: I did own my publishing then, and it was Trout
1:38:00
Speaker 2: who told me never sell your publishing. And then right
1:38:06
Speaker 2: around nineteen ninety one when Kurt Cobain and his cohorts
1:38:14
Speaker 2: invaded from Seattle and took took over music, which, by
1:38:18
Speaker 2: the way, I thought was awesome because my kids had
1:38:22
Speaker 2: bon Jovi posters on their walls, you know, and I'm like,
1:38:26
Speaker 2: bon Jovi is not that different than Ario Speedwagon. It's
1:38:30
Speaker 2: the kind of the same thing, you know. And I'm like,
1:38:33
Speaker 2: so my kids don't have their own music, you know.
1:38:36
Speaker 2: And and then suddenly, you know, Nirvana came along, and
1:38:42
Speaker 2: boy John bon Jovi came off the wall and Kurt
1:38:45
Speaker 2: Cobain came up overnight, and so it was great for
1:38:49
Speaker 2: my kids. But but if you were a member of
1:38:52
Speaker 2: a classic rock band. It was. It was it was
1:38:55
Speaker 2: pretty bleak. I mean, a lot of bands just broke
1:38:58
Speaker 2: up or stopped to ring. You know. We we continued touring.
1:39:04
Speaker 2: But uh, but but my friend Tom Kelly, who's also
1:39:08
Speaker 2: another Champagne boy, another Irving as Off client or John
1:39:12
Speaker 2: Barrett client. He uh, it was his voice. He was
1:39:17
Speaker 2: a high voice on all the big Rio hits. He
1:39:19
Speaker 2: was a great singer. But then he became he also
1:39:22
Speaker 2: became a great songwrite, a great songwriting team with Billy Steinberg.
1:39:26
Speaker 2: Uh and Tom and Billy made a publishing deal. Uh
1:39:32
Speaker 2: right then in the early nineties. And the way publishing
1:39:34
Speaker 2: deals work is they the publishing company looks back three years.
1:39:40
Speaker 2: They take the past three years, and that becomes the
1:39:44
Speaker 2: value of your of your songs. And I was looking
1:39:49
Speaker 2: at it, and I'm going, well, wait a minute. Every
1:39:52
Speaker 2: you know, Couk, we thought it was all over and
1:39:54
Speaker 2: we we we we really thought that you know that,
1:39:57
Speaker 2: you know, it was a low point. And so I
1:40:01
Speaker 2: figured every year that I didn't make a publishing deal,
1:40:04
Speaker 2: that was one of the years that we sold a
1:40:07
Speaker 2: lot of records, that would wouldn't be one of the
1:40:09
Speaker 2: past three years. You know what I'm saying, so I
1:40:14
Speaker 2: made I got a great offer, and I sold my publishing.
1:40:17
Speaker 2: But the good news is that that was in nineteen
1:40:20
Speaker 2: ninety two. And I think Don Henley was the guy
1:40:24
Speaker 2: who really spearheaded the energy that has said that thirty
1:40:33
Speaker 2: five years after you sell your publishing, you get it back.
1:40:37
Speaker 2: So that means in a couple of years, I'll be
1:40:40
Speaker 2: getting it back. So that'll be uh, that'll be nice.
1:40:46
Speaker 2: And and of course, you know, there have been some
1:40:49
Speaker 2: pretty lucrative publishing deals made over the past few years.
1:40:53
Speaker 2: You know, had I kept my publishing, put it this way,
1:40:57
Speaker 2: the publishing company that bought my catalog made a great deal.
1:41:03
Speaker 2: I will leave it at that.
1:41:05
Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear for the uninitiated, they're essentially
1:41:09
Speaker 1: two halves in the publishing dollar. There's the ownership of
1:41:12
Speaker 1: the song and the writer of the song. Did you
1:41:15
Speaker 1: sell one hundred percent or just fifty?
1:41:18
Speaker 2: I sold fifty percent. And they were a Nashville company
1:41:24
Speaker 2: with that that was an old school you know. Bob
1:41:28
Speaker 2: Beckham was the guy.
1:41:30
Speaker 1: Who he.
1:41:33
Speaker 2: Even just an iconic Nashville publisher and I just hit
1:41:38
Speaker 2: it off with him right away. And even though they
1:41:42
Speaker 2: didn't need my permission to exploit the songs. They respected
1:41:48
Speaker 2: me enough that they never that they never put the
1:41:55
Speaker 2: song in a movie that I didn't you know, you
1:41:58
Speaker 2: know that I thought it would be you. I mean
1:42:00
Speaker 2: they there was offers from cigarette companies. It's like, nope,
1:42:06
Speaker 2: you know, sorry, And so I've all I've been lucky
1:42:10
Speaker 2: that they've been respectful. And now my publishing is owned
1:42:15
Speaker 2: by Mark Freed and Mojo Music, who bought that my
1:42:22
Speaker 2: catalog from the original company. And Mark is just a
1:42:26
Speaker 2: wonderful He's a guy that's in it for the right
1:42:30
Speaker 2: reasons because he loves music and he loves songs. And hey,
1:42:34
Speaker 2: he got keep on Love with You in a Shaquille
1:42:37
Speaker 2: O'Neal commercial, So come on, that's it. You know, it
1:42:40
Speaker 2: didn't get any better than that.
1:42:41
Speaker 1: Okay, So needless to say, you've essentially gotten fifty percent
1:42:45
Speaker 1: of the revenue on your songs over these thirty years.
1:42:50
Speaker 1: If you never work, if you didn't tour, would that
1:42:53
Speaker 1: be enough money for you to pay your bills?
1:42:56
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that I think that touring
1:43:00
Speaker 2: is a way that that that leads to the value
1:43:06
Speaker 2: of the of the copyrights and the songs. Uh. I
1:43:10
Speaker 2: think I think I think they are two parts of
1:43:12
Speaker 2: the same machine. So, uh, you know, if we stop touring,
1:43:18
Speaker 2: it would be a I think a mistake to think
1:43:22
Speaker 2: that the that the that the income from the from
1:43:25
Speaker 2: the songs would would maintain at the same level. I
1:43:28
Speaker 2: think they kind of go hand in hand.
1:43:30
Speaker 1: Well, let me put it this way. Ed Sheeran goes
1:43:33
Speaker 1: out without a band and play stadiums. You know, there
1:43:38
Speaker 1: aren't twenty trucks, there aren't all these people, et cetera.
1:43:42
Speaker 1: It's like being a comedian. Comtian goes on the road
1:43:44
Speaker 1: with a microphone, maybe a road manager, and now comedians
1:43:49
Speaker 1: play arenas. Where's the band? There are multiple members? Okay,
1:43:55
Speaker 1: So in the heyday of Rio Speedwagon, the Steps in
1:44:00
Speaker 1: the eighties, was there enough money or were you just
1:44:04
Speaker 1: like a working guy, middle class guy and this is
1:44:06
Speaker 1: your gig?
1:44:08
Speaker 2: Well I will tell you that that. Uh when how
1:44:15
Speaker 2: can I how can I say the there was what?
1:44:20
Speaker 2: When you're a musician, you always you never turned down
1:44:25
Speaker 2: a gig because because you always think that if you
1:44:28
Speaker 2: turn down a gig, whoever it is that takes that
1:44:31
Speaker 2: gig might take the next gig too. It's just it comes.
1:44:35
Speaker 2: It goes back to being in a high school band.
1:44:38
Speaker 2: So it's uh, it's you know, whether you need the
1:44:41
Speaker 2: money or not, it's just it's just it's baked into
1:44:46
Speaker 2: my DNA that it's it's really hard to to think
1:44:52
Speaker 2: about turning down gigs, you know, and we do turn
1:44:55
Speaker 2: down gigs, but I'm talking about to the point that
1:44:57
Speaker 2: you stop touring for a certain amount of time. Just uh,
1:45:01
Speaker 2: it just seems it's it'll probably happen at some point
1:45:06
Speaker 2: in my life. But you know, as it is, man,
1:45:09
Speaker 2: I'm uh, you know, I can still move pretty well
1:45:13
Speaker 2: and uh and uh and you know, got my vocal coach,
1:45:16
Speaker 2: so uh, you know, so I'm having fun singing. The
1:45:19
Speaker 2: band is great. We've got a great crew. People are Hey,
1:45:23
Speaker 2: we had to sold out James Brown Arena in Augusta,
1:45:27
Speaker 2: Georgia on a Monday night. You know, go figure, you know,
1:45:30
Speaker 2: so it's kind of hard to walk away from something
1:45:32
Speaker 2: like that.
1:45:33
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to the old days, Barrick told me
1:45:37
Speaker 1: a great story that Irving came out here with Dan Voegelberg,
1:45:42
Speaker 1: was here for a year and call up Barreck. Barrick said, Barrick,
1:45:48
Speaker 1: come out, we can take this town.
1:45:51
Speaker 2: I was I thought the original quip because you told
1:45:55
Speaker 2: me that quote when I when I called your radio show,
1:45:58
Speaker 2: and I think what I think what what you said was,
1:46:01
Speaker 2: and it always stuck with me. It's actually in my
1:46:03
Speaker 2: book that that Irving called Barrick and said, grab the
1:46:08
Speaker 2: Rio boys and get out here as soon as you can.
1:46:10
Speaker 2: We're going to own this town. Now, that right, right?
1:46:15
Speaker 1: But let me ask you, was that palpable on your end?
1:46:19
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a Chicago boy. You know, I never pictured
1:46:22
Speaker 2: myself living anywhere by Chicago. But when I in the
1:46:27
Speaker 2: time that I was away with the band, from the band,
1:46:29
Speaker 2: they moved to La So if I was going to
1:46:31
Speaker 2: rejoin I was going to have to move to l
1:46:33
Speaker 2: A too. But uh, you know, I'm a Midwest boy
1:46:38
Speaker 2: by uh you know, and uh so I kind of
1:46:41
Speaker 2: got the best of both worlds. I got the Midwest
1:46:44
Speaker 2: upbringing and now and now the southern California lifestyle. So
1:46:49
Speaker 2: you know, I'll take it okay.
1:46:53
Speaker 1: For me, certainly, in the early seasons, Ozark was one
1:46:57
Speaker 1: of the best shows on TV really all the seasons.
1:47:00
Speaker 1: And I'm watching They're opening a riverboat casino and suddenly
1:47:05
Speaker 1: there is Ario Speedwagon. How does that come to be?
1:47:09
Speaker 2: Bob? That's that that's a that's a million dollar question.
1:47:13
Speaker 2: I uh, I don't know what came first, the chicken
1:47:17
Speaker 2: or the egg. I don't know if the idea this
1:47:21
Speaker 2: is this is what I think the you know, the
1:47:23
Speaker 2: show is supposedly based in the Lake of the Ozarks,
1:47:27
Speaker 2: which is in the heart of Missouri. The two biggest
1:47:32
Speaker 2: markets for Ario Speedwagon were Saint Louis and Kansas City.
1:47:36
Speaker 2: We would headline the baseball stadiums in Saint Louis and
1:47:41
Speaker 2: Kansas City and then go out and play the Roxy
1:47:43
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles for five hundred people. So the Ozarks
1:47:47
Speaker 2: were that's the heart of Ario Speedwagon country. So maybe
1:47:51
Speaker 2: the producers were going for authenticity, you know, and because
1:47:56
Speaker 2: because that kind of made sense that that we would
1:47:59
Speaker 2: be the band. But but the also, you know, that
1:48:03
Speaker 2: episode was kind of built around the song Time for
1:48:06
Speaker 2: Me to Fly, So I don't know if that had
1:48:08
Speaker 2: it was you know, like most things in life, it's
1:48:11
Speaker 2: it's not one thing that makes something happen. But I
1:48:14
Speaker 2: will tell you that that I was the only guy
1:48:16
Speaker 2: that had any lines. So when we were on location,
1:48:21
Speaker 2: the writer gave me a little print out of the
1:48:24
Speaker 2: scene and they were just like three mimiographed type pages
1:48:30
Speaker 2: and I had like one line and then I asked
1:48:32
Speaker 2: him to change another line, and they said, yeah, sure,
1:48:35
Speaker 2: sit say whatever you want. But at the top of
1:48:38
Speaker 2: each page of the script it says Kevin Cronin was here.
1:48:42
Speaker 2: And I'm like, wow, man, these people they just made us,
1:48:46
Speaker 2: they had already made us feel totally at home. Jason
1:48:49
Speaker 2: Bateman got up in the middle of his lunch to
1:48:51
Speaker 2: come over and hang with us, and and I thought, wow,
1:48:55
Speaker 2: that's really They're really they really know how to make
1:48:57
Speaker 2: you feel welcome, you know. So I had no idea.
1:49:01
Speaker 2: I'm sitting with my wife and kids, you know, watch it,
1:49:05
Speaker 2: getting ready for season three to drop and watch it.
1:49:07
Speaker 2: And when the third episode came on and I saw
1:49:10
Speaker 2: the title of the episode, I was like, I was
1:49:13
Speaker 2: I was blown away.
1:49:14
Speaker 1: I mean that was that was.
1:49:15
Speaker 2: Pretty freaking cool for I will say this for about
1:49:21
Speaker 2: five minutes, well maybe less than, you know, optimistically five minutes,
1:49:26
Speaker 2: my kids actually thought I was cool.
1:49:28
Speaker 1: So, okay, Ozark Gigantic Show. You have a prominent part
1:49:36
Speaker 1: in the episode. Do you feel any bump in business
1:49:41
Speaker 1: recognition anything or is it just so that was nice?
1:49:45
Speaker 2: No? No, that I mean Ozark as you said that
1:49:48
Speaker 2: was one of the biggest streaming shows ever. And and
1:49:52
Speaker 2: of course season three dropped right in the beginning of
1:49:54
Speaker 2: the pandemic when when everyone really got in the habit
1:49:58
Speaker 2: of streaming shows, Ozark was the top of the heap. So, uh,
1:50:03
Speaker 2: there was a big I mean Time for Me to Fly,
1:50:06
Speaker 2: which was the song that they featured in the episode,
1:50:08
Speaker 2: shows up as number one catalog song in Billboard from nowhere. Uh,
1:50:15
Speaker 2: there were actually there were actually a couple of weeks
1:50:18
Speaker 2: where I was Uh, I was the top producer of
1:50:23
Speaker 2: the week, the top songwriter of the week. It's like, wait,
1:50:27
Speaker 2: how do you know? So yeah, so we we definitely
1:50:30
Speaker 2: got a little bump and uh we actually you know,
1:50:33
Speaker 2: Dolly Parton had had recorded Time for Me to Fly
1:50:37
Speaker 2: on her White Limousine album turned it into a hoedown.
1:50:40
Speaker 2: It was an awesome record, and so our manager, Tommy Consola,
1:50:45
Speaker 2: got the idea to go back in the studio on
1:50:49
Speaker 2: the strength of the Ozark episode and re record uh,
1:50:54
Speaker 2: Time for Me to Fly. He said, just go in
1:50:56
Speaker 2: and you know, just just do it a different way,
1:50:58
Speaker 2: and so I did. I went in and then he's
1:51:01
Speaker 2: he's friendly with with Dolly's manager, so he sends the
1:51:06
Speaker 2: demo uh to or actually the it wasn't even a
1:51:10
Speaker 2: demo but a rough mix to to Dolly and and
1:51:14
Speaker 2: she hears it and she likes it, and she sings
1:51:18
Speaker 2: a part on the song and turns it into a duet.
1:51:23
Speaker 2: And I will tell you something. And you I'm sure
1:51:25
Speaker 2: you've talked to Dolly and met her. She is, I
1:51:29
Speaker 2: mean what there was no movie score, there was no
1:51:33
Speaker 2: there was nothing. There was no album, there was no
1:51:36
Speaker 2: nothing was just here's the song, you know, do you
1:51:39
Speaker 2: want to sing on it? And she goes in the
1:51:41
Speaker 2: studio and and sings the song with me, and it
1:51:45
Speaker 2: was we still haven't done anything with.
1:51:46
Speaker 1: It, you know.
1:51:47
Speaker 2: So so I talk about a person who does it
1:51:51
Speaker 2: for the right reasons. You know, there was no there
1:51:54
Speaker 2: was no other reason for Dolly to sing that song
1:51:56
Speaker 2: except that she liked it and and she had on
1:52:00
Speaker 2: it before, and you know, and of course that led to, uh,
1:52:04
Speaker 2: you know, to me being asked to participate in Dolly's
1:52:09
Speaker 2: rock album. And so Dolly and I do a d
1:52:12
Speaker 2: wet on that one and keep on loving you on
1:52:15
Speaker 2: her upcoming rock star album. So I just I there's
1:52:21
Speaker 2: not enough good words to say for me about Dolly,
1:52:24
Speaker 2: I just she's she's just the best.
1:52:28
Speaker 1: Okay. So, as you've referenced, Reo Speedwagon is a long
1:52:34
Speaker 1: storied history with members, never mind other elements being up
1:52:39
Speaker 1: and down. At this late date, you are the sole
1:52:44
Speaker 1: surviving member. So is it really your band? And if
1:52:50
Speaker 1: it is, how long has it been your band? And
1:52:54
Speaker 1: to really you make the ultimate decisions?
1:52:58
Speaker 2: Well, you know it's uh to call it my band.
1:53:03
Speaker 2: You know that I don't know that just that kind
1:53:06
Speaker 2: of rubs me in in not the right way because
1:53:10
Speaker 2: uh but but to say that that that I'm the
1:53:13
Speaker 2: leader of the band, yeah, you know, ever since ever
1:53:17
Speaker 2: since the split between Gary and I, uh and and
1:53:21
Speaker 2: and Alan had our original drummer had left the band
1:53:24
Speaker 2: by then, uh you know, I have been the leader
1:53:27
Speaker 2: of the band. And it it took a few years
1:53:29
Speaker 2: and and uh in I'm trying to think of what
1:53:33
Speaker 2: year it was. It was a couple of years after
1:53:36
Speaker 2: Gary left and it was obvious that he wasn't coming back,
1:53:39
Speaker 2: and I thought about, uh, you know, I was working
1:53:43
Speaker 2: on a solo album. Uh and and I thought that
1:53:48
Speaker 2: that Ario Speedwagon had just uh you know, it was
1:53:51
Speaker 2: just it was just over and and I'll never forget.
1:53:54
Speaker 2: I was at uh uh. I was at the ASCAP Awards,
1:53:57
Speaker 2: and after the ASCAP Awards, everyone goes to the the
1:54:01
Speaker 2: tiki bar and next door and and my wife introduced
1:54:06
Speaker 2: me to a guy that I never met, a producer
1:54:09
Speaker 2: named Rick Knowles, who Rick at You know, I didn't
1:54:12
Speaker 2: realize it at the time, but he was huge, hugely successful,
1:54:16
Speaker 2: mostly with female artists and so but we were just,
1:54:20
Speaker 2: you know, shooting the breeze and and and I kind
1:54:23
Speaker 2: of told him that, you know that my ties kind
1:54:26
Speaker 2: of loosened my lips a little bit, I guess. And
1:54:27
Speaker 2: I kind of told him I was working on a
1:54:30
Speaker 2: solo album and thinking about, you know, closing down the
1:54:33
Speaker 2: Ario Speedwagon. And he literally stopped me in my tracks,
1:54:38
Speaker 2: looked me right in the eye and said, dude, look
1:54:41
Speaker 2: around this room. There's not one person in this room
1:54:44
Speaker 2: who wouldn't kill to have a vehicle for their music
1:54:50
Speaker 2: like Ario Speedwagon. He's like, if you do that, you
1:54:53
Speaker 2: are out of your freaking mind. And I just met
1:54:57
Speaker 2: the guy, you know what I mean. But it kind
1:55:00
Speaker 2: of it kind of struck me that since Gary had left,
1:55:05
Speaker 2: I really hadn't given it my best shot. I was
1:55:09
Speaker 2: I think there was a part of me that was
1:55:11
Speaker 2: waiting for Gary to come back, and at that moment,
1:55:15
Speaker 2: I realized that he wasn't coming back, and I either
1:55:19
Speaker 2: had to do this, I had to be the sole
1:55:23
Speaker 2: leader of the band and the sole songwriter and et cetera,
1:55:28
Speaker 2: or else it was over and I wasn't about I
1:55:31
Speaker 2: just wasn't ready to let it go without a fight.
1:55:35
Speaker 2: And so at that point, yeah, I definitely took over
1:55:40
Speaker 2: the leadership of the band. And within a couple of years,
1:55:44
Speaker 2: you know, John Barrett came up with the idea of
1:55:47
Speaker 2: of of uh former arena headliners co headlining and having
1:55:54
Speaker 2: two headliners on the show, and and that was a
1:55:59
Speaker 2: way for or bands like ourselves to play the kind
1:56:03
Speaker 2: of buildings in front of the kind of crowds that
1:56:06
Speaker 2: we were used to playing. But you had to share
1:56:10
Speaker 2: the bill with another headliner, which meant you couldn't close
1:56:13
Speaker 2: every show. And that was a tough pill to swallow
1:56:17
Speaker 2: at first, but over the years it's become the paradigm
1:56:22
Speaker 2: and now it's like, oh, yeah, okay, so you guys
1:56:25
Speaker 2: close half the shows. You know, we're in the middle
1:56:27
Speaker 2: slot for half the shows. And at this point, Honestly,
1:56:32
Speaker 2: most of the bands that we work with would rather
1:56:35
Speaker 2: have the middle slot than the closing slot because because
1:56:42
Speaker 2: everyone's in their seats, because because you know, we always
1:56:45
Speaker 2: have a great opener, and no one's leaving early to
1:56:49
Speaker 2: beat traffic, So you're kind of in the sweet spot.
1:56:52
Speaker 2: You know. The good thing about the closing spot is
1:56:55
Speaker 2: that everyone thinks you're the headliner, but you know who cares?
1:56:59
Speaker 1: Okay, can you email me always reference that you're a
1:57:01
Speaker 1: bar band from the Midwest now, needless to say, especially
1:57:06
Speaker 1: when you look at it on paper or on a screen.
1:57:09
Speaker 1: You've had this unbelievable success with Rio Speedwagon, Yet you
1:57:13
Speaker 1: mentioned the Grammys where you thought you were dissed. At
1:57:17
Speaker 1: this point in time, do you still believe you and
1:57:21
Speaker 1: Rio having gotten the respect you deserve or do you
1:57:26
Speaker 1: feel comfortable? And then, of course there's a question of
1:57:30
Speaker 1: the rock and Roll Hall of thing, which is completely changed.
1:57:32
Speaker 1: Never mind, they're inducting acts that are not rock and roll,
1:57:37
Speaker 1: but acts that have petition to get their fans or
1:57:41
Speaker 1: their fans that petition to get the acts in it happened.
1:57:44
Speaker 1: So are you comfortable where Ario is in the landscape,
1:57:48
Speaker 1: and are you comfortable with the respect or you still
1:57:51
Speaker 1: want more recognition and respect.
1:57:54
Speaker 2: Well, I am comfortable. I'm very comfortable with where the
1:57:58
Speaker 2: band is at. And at the same time, I'm still driven.
1:58:04
Speaker 2: I'm not satisfied. So yes, of course, I always want
1:58:09
Speaker 2: to play a bigger gig or or uh you know,
1:58:14
Speaker 2: you know, just a couple of weeks ago, uh, American
1:58:17
Speaker 2: Idol called and wanted me to sing a song with
1:58:20
Speaker 2: one of their contestants, and I'm like, yeah, sure, that'll
1:58:23
Speaker 2: be fun. A lot of people, a lot of people
1:58:25
Speaker 2: will will see me. Who think who might think that
1:58:28
Speaker 2: I'm you know, long gone who knows, you know. But
1:58:32
Speaker 2: but but my uh, my goal is to be the
1:58:36
Speaker 2: Betty White of rock and roll, because Betty White hosted
1:58:42
Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live at the age of ninety and uh
1:58:45
Speaker 2: and did a great job. And so uh you know,
1:58:48
Speaker 2: Tommy Shaw and I laugh often about being being the
1:58:52
Speaker 2: the last two classic rockers standing and uh uh you know,
1:58:57
Speaker 2: I would be happy with that and and and and
1:59:00
Speaker 2: and that is a goal, man. I mean, I I
1:59:02
Speaker 2: still love to play. I I you know, I keep
1:59:06
Speaker 2: myself in decent shape and and I'm always always working
1:59:11
Speaker 2: to get better, always working to get better on the guitar,
1:59:14
Speaker 2: be a better singer, be a better front man. I
1:59:17
Speaker 2: I just always want to improve.
1:59:20
Speaker 1: And uh so.
1:59:23
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I'm I'm satisfied, but I still would
1:59:28
Speaker 2: like a little more, you know.
1:59:30
Speaker 1: So you're still driven at the end of the day.
1:59:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I still am. I still am. I still
1:59:36
Speaker 2: love it and and you know, and in order to
1:59:39
Speaker 2: keep doing it at the level that we are, you
1:59:42
Speaker 2: got to keep getting yourself out there, you know, you
1:59:44
Speaker 2: got to do you know, for me to do American Idol,
1:59:48
Speaker 2: I literally had a walk off stage. We had a charter,
1:59:51
Speaker 2: a jet I had to get. I got on the
1:59:54
Speaker 2: plane at one in the morning, flew to l A.
1:59:57
Speaker 2: Uh you know, Uh they change my my call time
2:00:01
Speaker 2: from eleven am to eight thirty am, which oh I'm
2:00:05
Speaker 2: not thrilled about that at all. Uh. And you know
2:00:08
Speaker 2: I had to sit there all day, you know, do
2:00:11
Speaker 2: a bunch of rehearsals, and then and then do the
2:00:13
Speaker 2: live show and uh but that's you know, that's and
2:00:17
Speaker 2: and then I had to get back on the plane
2:00:19
Speaker 2: and get back on the tour and play a show.
2:00:22
Speaker 2: So uh, you know, it's it's not always as luxurious
2:00:28
Speaker 2: as as people think. But but that's what you got
2:00:30
Speaker 2: to do. You know, you you're you got to you
2:00:33
Speaker 2: gotta keep you got to keep at it, you know,
2:00:36
Speaker 2: otherwise if you're not getting One of the things my
2:00:39
Speaker 2: dad said to me when he was alive that that
2:00:41
Speaker 2: has always stuck with me is you know, if you're
2:00:44
Speaker 2: going to do it, do it right the first time.
2:00:46
Speaker 2: And and so you know, I've always got that's always
2:00:49
Speaker 2: stuck with me. If you if you're going to be
2:00:51
Speaker 2: doing something, do the best you can.
2:00:54
Speaker 1: And you've done great here, Kevin. This has been wonderful.
2:00:57
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many loose threads I could ask
2:00:59
Speaker 1: questions about, you know, you're growing up and other details
2:01:02
Speaker 1: we didn't get into, but I think we've you know,
2:01:05
Speaker 1: covered it for now. So I want to thank you
2:01:07
Speaker 1: so much for taking this time to speak with my audience.
2:01:11
Speaker 2: Bob. It's a it's a pleasure. It's uh. I love
2:01:15
Speaker 2: the way we met, which was literally just me driving
2:01:18
Speaker 2: down the street in my car and hearing you come
2:01:21
Speaker 2: on Serious Exam and I'm like, wait a minute, I've
2:01:24
Speaker 2: got the I got the hotline number to Roger Coletti.
2:01:27
Speaker 2: I could actually call in. I think the show. I
2:01:30
Speaker 2: think you were talking about opening acts right, and Ario
2:01:34
Speaker 2: Speedwagon was I think you mentioned us as being one
2:01:37
Speaker 2: of the quintessential seventies opening acts. And I'm like, wait
2:01:42
Speaker 2: a minute, I got the phone number. I'm gonna call
2:01:44
Speaker 2: in because I you know, I got a good vibe
2:01:46
Speaker 2: from you just just on the radio, and so it's
2:01:49
Speaker 2: really a pleasure to be here. And yeah, I could
2:01:52
Speaker 2: talk to you for hours, and I know I kind
2:01:54
Speaker 2: of strayed off your questions and that's a bad habit
2:01:57
Speaker 2: of mine. But hopefully you can forgive me for that,
2:02:00
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe when the book comes out we'll
2:02:03
Speaker 2: talk again.
2:02:04
Speaker 1: Well I believe, and I say this all the time.
2:02:06
Speaker 1: Digression is the spice of life. That's where that's where
2:02:10
Speaker 1: all the details are. And I have to give you
2:02:12
Speaker 1: credit almost always. You brought it back to the original anyway,
2:02:17
Speaker 1: which is how I do it. I remember, you know,
2:02:19
Speaker 1: I was in a bad space and I went to
2:02:21
Speaker 1: see the psychiatrist and he said, well, well, you know,
2:02:24
Speaker 1: I thought you had a problem tracking, which is something
2:02:26
Speaker 1: they do, he says, but you bring it back to
2:02:28
Speaker 1: the original point. I just realized you were on this
2:02:30
Speaker 1: long journey and too many people, you know, they just
2:02:34
Speaker 1: give yes and no answers. Where it's the flavor. I
2:02:38
Speaker 1: think people have really gotten an idea of what it's
2:02:41
Speaker 1: like to be you and be in these experiences. And
2:02:45
Speaker 1: I certainly thank you for being so honest and open.
2:02:48
Speaker 2: Not everybody is, well, well, thank you, Bob. You you
2:02:52
Speaker 2: definitely bring you know I do. I've done a lot
2:02:55
Speaker 2: of interviews and I still do, and some of them
2:03:00
Speaker 2: are more fun than others. And I will say that
2:03:03
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed this time with you, and I look
2:03:05
Speaker 2: forward to doing it again.
2:03:07
Speaker 1: I do too. You've been everything I wanted and more.
2:03:11
Speaker 1: You were totally open, You were fantastic. I literally could
2:03:14
Speaker 1: talk to her a few more hours. I got so
2:03:15
Speaker 1: many questions about growing up, what your father did, what
2:03:18
Speaker 1: your mother did, with the record you listened to, because
2:03:21
Speaker 1: the other thing. Of course, you're my contemporary. I'm a
2:03:23
Speaker 1: couple of years younger, but we are the generation who
2:03:27
Speaker 1: saw the Beatles on TV and everybody got a guitar
2:03:31
Speaker 1: and everything, as opposed to the people born in the forties.
2:03:35
Speaker 2: Right. I mean, I often say that I feel like
2:03:38
Speaker 2: I was born at the exact right moment to do
2:03:44
Speaker 2: what I've ended up doing because I was twelve years old.
2:03:48
Speaker 2: I'm playing guitar. For about two years, nobody played guitar.
2:03:53
Speaker 2: Playing guitar was for sissies, and I used to get
2:03:56
Speaker 2: chased through the streets by dudes. Just I was walking
2:04:00
Speaker 2: along with a guitar case. And when the Beatles came out,
2:04:05
Speaker 2: I didn't even know why I was taking guitar lessons,
2:04:07
Speaker 2: but I just did. And when I saw the Beatles,
2:04:10
Speaker 2: it was like it was everything changed, Everything changed for me,
2:04:19
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, the same guys who had
2:04:22
Speaker 2: been chasing me through the streets wanted to kick my
2:04:24
Speaker 2: ass because I had a guitar. Now all the girls
2:04:27
Speaker 2: liked guitar players overnight, and they all wanted to be
2:04:30
Speaker 2: in a band with me. So I went from being
2:04:32
Speaker 2: the you know, the outcast of the neighborhood to suddenly
2:04:35
Speaker 2: the guy who everybody wanted to be in my band
2:04:38
Speaker 2: because I was the only one who knew how to
2:04:39
Speaker 2: play the guitar. So, you know, the Beatles, The Beatles
2:04:43
Speaker 2: were everything for me. And I was twelve years old
2:04:47
Speaker 2: when they hit right, that's right at the moment when
2:04:49
Speaker 2: you're looking for an identity, and I saw them, and
2:04:53
Speaker 2: I saw myself in them. I wanted to be I
2:04:56
Speaker 2: wanted to dress like them. I wanted to I wanted
2:04:59
Speaker 2: to be in a band like them. I wanted to
2:05:01
Speaker 2: have songs like them. And they were just they were
2:05:05
Speaker 2: just a huge inspiration. And man, you know, as you say,
2:05:10
Speaker 2: millions of people were tuned into that Ed Sullivan show
2:05:14
Speaker 2: that night. And you know, I'm just one of the
2:05:17
Speaker 2: lucky few who saw the Beatles and said that's what
2:05:22
Speaker 2: I want to do, and then we're lucky enough that
2:05:26
Speaker 2: it actually happened. I can tell you one last quick
2:05:29
Speaker 2: Beatles story. All right, So when the Beatles first came out,
2:05:33
Speaker 2: we talked about Bill Trout and VJ Records. So VJ
2:05:37
Speaker 2: Records is releasing Beatles songs. Then all of a sudden,
2:05:41
Speaker 2: Capitol realizes that they screwed up, so they start releasing
2:05:45
Speaker 2: Beatle records. Well, I'm in Chicago. WLS is the biggest
2:05:51
Speaker 2: radio station in the world. But I also am taking
2:05:54
Speaker 2: guitar lessons, and every lesson I would hang around and
2:05:59
Speaker 2: look at all the sheep muses, and I bought the
2:06:02
Speaker 2: sheep music for I Want to Hold Your Hand, which
2:06:04
Speaker 2: I still have framed above my desk, that exact piece
2:06:07
Speaker 2: of sheet music. But one day I saw a piece
2:06:10
Speaker 2: of sheet music, and you know, because it was such
2:06:13
Speaker 2: a such a feeding frenzy that sometimes the sheep music
2:06:17
Speaker 2: came in before the song was being played on the radio.
2:06:20
Speaker 2: So I got I saw the sheet music for this song.
2:06:22
Speaker 2: I said, please please me the Beatles, and I'm like,
2:06:25
Speaker 2: what's that. I've never heard this song. So I sneaked
2:06:29
Speaker 2: the sheet music back into one of the lesson rooms
2:06:32
Speaker 2: and I've got my little guitar and I opened the
2:06:35
Speaker 2: sheet music and I wasn't good enough to be able
2:06:38
Speaker 2: to play the song the there was. I knew some
2:06:42
Speaker 2: of the chords and the lyrics were there, so I
2:06:46
Speaker 2: just kind of faked it. And I so I had
2:06:50
Speaker 2: a version of please Please Me, which I thought I
2:06:53
Speaker 2: learned from the sheet music. Well, a couple of weeks later,
2:06:56
Speaker 2: the song comes on WLS and it bored no resemblance
2:07:01
Speaker 2: of all to my version. Right, And as blasphemous as
2:07:07
Speaker 2: this will sound, I kind of like my version better.
2:07:10
Speaker 2: And it gave me the thought, as a twelve or
2:07:14
Speaker 2: thirteen year old kid, that maybe I could write my
2:07:17
Speaker 2: own songs. So I even owe that to the Beatles.
2:07:20
Speaker 2: I mean, you know that I owe everything to them
2:07:23
Speaker 1: In any event, till next time, this is Bob left sets,