I'm a chameleon. That's my personality in the band.

I think all of our records are a progression of some sort.

I'm not a guitar collector. I own some guitars because I play.

I could do James Taylor, Neil Young, and sound just like them.

Country music is worldwide - it's not just Nashville and Texas.

We're from Rockford, Illinois, but we've always thought international.

I'm a casual F1 racing fan. I'm probably more of a stock car, NASCAR guy.

Some people ask why we bother to make new music, but we still love doing it.

Nobody forced me to look any way. I just exaggerated what was already there.

It's rare that anybody gets in the Hall of Fame, and to be nominated is good enough for me.

I've completely embraced life in Florida after growing up in the Midwest. This is home for me.

We keep some distance between ourselves when we're not working. I think that's a really good thing.

Each record is sort of like a brand new baby, where it's your favorite thing at that moment in time.

'Dream Police' was in the can and ready to go when 'Budokan' started taking off worldwide, sales-wise.

I think we've got three that we have to play, and that would be 'Surrender,' 'Dream Police' and 'I Want You to Want Me.'

I used to collect comic books. I had a substantial collection. I collect records also, but those have gone the way of the world.

I remember Robert Plant coming backstage after the first show saying, 'Hey, boys, I should be opening for you.' That felt pretty good.

As far as Cheap Trick albums, I like the Red Ant record, which is just called 'Cheap Trick,' from 1997; that's my second-favorite album.

I think maybe we were just a little bit overdone. It was saturated. People may have gotten tired of us. We were everywhere, all the time.

I was a young boy. A stock car guy used to live across the street from us. He'd work on his car, and both of my older brothers became gearheads.

The biggest culprits in the housing fiasco came from the private sector, and more specifically from a mortgage industry that was out of control.

To me, it's like, what's good for me is good for Cheap Trick... and what's good for Rick is good for Cheap Trick, and so on... and that's the thing.

I hope the best for anybody in this business. It's hard enough as it is, and of course you don't get much respect from anybody, but when you do, you should appreciate it.

After all these years, I still get nervous in front of people. I can't help it. I just, you know, I want it to be a good show, and I want people to get their money's worth.

We've been around, and we've stayed around, and we go out, and people still enjoy listening to us, and we still sell a lot of tickets, so what do I got to complain about? Nothing.

Early on, I was into David Bowie. Then someone in the band suggested I try a Bryan Ferry type of thing. That's when I started wearing three-piece suits. It wasn't unnatural for me.

I'd say it's harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you.

My father was indeed a musician, but he was a weekend warrior. He was a welder, actually, and worked all his life at the Ironworks in Beloit Wisconsin, and he played in a swing band on weekends.

We've always been kind of an underground band in a way that had the respect of our peers on the road. I like to say we're the world's most famous opening act because we've opened for every huge band on the planet.

Opening for certain acts after so many years of headlining obviously made us resentful. It was kind of hard watching all these bands, who I really believed didn't deserve to be on top musically, going ahead and pushing us out.

Bun E.'s a member of the band, but he's not touring, and he's not recording... We've had our differences, but we're all settled up now, and hopefully we can forget about that era. These decisions that Cheap Trick makes, Bun E. is part of.

I think Badfinger was the epitome of that type of music before the power pop term was coined. 'No Matter What" is always gonna be a great song on the radio. There?s probably two or three others off their records that are as cool like 'Day After Day'.

I'd say it's harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you. After all these years, I still get nervous in front of people. I can't help it.

Share This Page