Tom Petersson talks cheap trick

Hello ladies and gentlemen.

Hello ladies and gentlemen.

are you ready to rock?

Are you ready or not?

The Midwest band Cheap Trick started rocking out in the 1970s and hasn’t stopped since. They left Illinois, had their big break in Wisconsin, and are now permanently embedded in Cleveland in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tom Petersson, who is not only an original member of the band, but is the “man behind the 12-string bass,” sat down to talk about Cheap Trick, his roots in the Midwest and his favorite places to hit when they are. on tour.

MF: Congratulations on the Hall of Fame!

TP: I’ve been hearing that a lot lately! It’s the only thing everyone has heard of. All the teachers at (the children’s school), all at the pharmacy, who normally don’t speak to us. It’s one of those things that resonates, ‘Oh hi, great!

MF: Did you expect it this year?

TP: No, we weren’t expecting it at all. All people say ‘a long time ago’ but we didn’t think we were getting there (laughs). So it seems like, ‘wow, we got there pretty quickly.’

It’s not something we grew up with. There was no Hall of Fame when we started. * I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing someone would go into music for specifically for inspiration. It’s nothing you have control over.

MF: What did you contribute to the Cleveland Hall of Fame display?

TP: I have a 12-string base there, one of my original 4-string Gibson Thunderbirds, I think I have a leather jacket, the coat that I was wearing in the Dream Police video and on the album, on the inner sleeve.

MF: How does it feel to come back to the Midwest to introduce yourself?

TP: It seems like we are always in the Midwest. I think I live in the south now, south of the Mason-Dixon line (Nashville), but we are always in the Midwest.

MF: Do you still have family here?

TP: Yes, my mother and sister still live in Rockford, Illinois, with their children and her husband, my nieces.

MF: What are your favorite places in the Midwest ?

TP: One of my all-time favorite restaurants is Karl Ratzsch from Milwaukee. It is a German restaurant and I love that place. There are very few real German restaurants in the United States, it is amazing. It seems to me that it’s… it’s kind of like the home grandmother, where everything more or less originated. You just don’t see German restaurants, you see places that have sausages and things like that, authentic authentic with sledding and sauerbraten and all that.

MF: And, the giant pretzel. I had a few when I was at Summerfest last year.

TP: Yeah, they also have Mader, which is really good. Two in the same city within walking distance. I like the brat stop at Kenosha.

In Chicago, I like Twin Anchors in Old Town. I haven’t been there for years. I always go to Hugo’s Frog Bar in town. It’s down at Rush and Oak. Carmine I go to Italian a lot. Garrett’s popcorn, of course.

I love Mickey’s Diner in St. Paul. It’s excellent. I love Angel Food Bakery in Minneapolis. That’s great. They have great things

MF: How about Chicago pizza?

TP: I like Pete’s pizza. That is a good one.

MF: Let’s go back to Cheap Trick… a long time ago. When did you know it was time to hit the world and leave the Midwest ?

TP: You had to get a record deal. The major deals were closed from New York City or Los Angeles so we eventually had to go and somehow figure out how to build a following and it never really happened. We played and we played, then we saved our money and we drove to LA and we did some shows at the Starwood in LA and we tried to get people to come see us when no one had ever heard of us.

Honestly, nothing came of it. We didn’t have a deal when we were playing at the Sunset Bowl in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It was a bowling alley during Christmas time. Producer Jack Douglas, who ended up producing our first album, he was the biggest rock producer at the time, he had done Aerosmith and all kinds of people, he was huge, his in-laws lived there and he was there for Christmas. He came to see us at the bowling alley and signed on as our producer.

He said, ‘When you guys secure a record deal, I’m your boy. I will make your registration.

The moment the record label heard that, it got into a bidding war. Until then, we were non-gratuitous people, but overnight we were brilliant (laughs).

MF: You left the band right after that (80-87). What brought you back?

TP: I came back in ’87 and we did the Lap of Luxury record and we got our first and only number one single, ‘The Flame’. That was a good moment (laughs). Really (that song) had nothing to do with me specifically, but it was good luck.

Cheap Trick is like family to me. Rick, Rick Nielson and I have worked together since ’68. We went to London together in 1968 and started a band in ’69. We started doing all the original material from that moment on.

If we were going to get anywhere except as a cover band, we had to do original material, which meant we wouldn’t get a lot of work. All they wanted was people to cover songs that would make it to the top 40. So anyone who made money had to do that, make disco songs or whatever was on the radio: Abba, or whatever.

We did not do that. We just made our way and moved on and eventually built a huge following in the Midwest. Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison were really great for us, but they still didn’t help us land a record deal. Luckily we were playing in Wisconsin.

MF: One of the reasons for its unusual sound was the 12-string bass, that you are the ‘man behind’. How did that come about?

TP: In the beginning, all I had was a Gibson Thunderbird from the early ’60s. It really was an extension of that sound. I got my first 12-string bass in 1977, when I finally convinced a new guitar company, Hamer Guitars (from Wilmette, Illinois) to make one for me. That’s when it started.

We were on tour with Kiss, and they came out on bass in the middle of the tour. I plugged it in, loved it, and never went back.

The idea was to have an instrument that had a huge sound: 12 strings. It filled up the sound and made us sound much bigger than it would have been with just four people playing. It’s an orchestrated thing and it just suits my style. Since then, that’s really all I use live.

I love guitars and I also love looking for old instruments in the Midwest.

MF: What is your favorite Cheap Trick song?

TP: Well that’s like saying, ‘What is your favorite song of all time?’ Usually it’s something we just did. Whatever is the newest we also gravitate, not because it is the best, but because it is the newest. Who can say what is the best song of all time?

I love the new single, ‘When I wake up tomorrow’, on our new album, Bang Zoom, Crazy Hello. It’s cool because it’s Cheap Trick, but it has this Bowie thing going on. It really is a coincidence: he died after we recorded this song. I think it’s great.

MF: Tell me a little about Rock Your Speech?

TP: Rock Your Speech is a musical project that my wife and I started. Our son, who is now nine years old, Liam, is autistic. We wanted to put together music that had simple lyrical content but phrases that you could use. Parents could use it as speech therapy. It’s not like children’s music, like “Wheels on the Bus.” It is music that anyone can listen to and like, including myself. I can play it for my teammates.

We are putting together a complete musical program for voice sounds based on melodies and different words. We are making a lyrical video, something like karaoke, so that the lyrics come out in real time. You see the person in the song singing. Everything is literal. If you say that the sky is blue, you will see the person singing with blue sky. (Learn more at RockYourSpeech.com).

* The first members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were in 1986.

Cheap Trick Midwest concert schedule

09 de junio Hilde Performance Center en Plymouth, MN

June 11 America’s River Festival in Dubuque, IA

June 17 Grange Grove at University of Illinois Memorial Stadium in Champaign, IL

18th June Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Sioux City, IA

July 07 Summerfest in Milwaukee, WI

July 8 National Cherry Festival (July 2-9) in Traverse City, MI

13 de julio Soaring Eagle Casino en Mount Pleasant, MI

July 14 DTE Energy Music Theater in Clarkston, MI

July 16 Hollywood Casino Amphitheater in St. Louis

17 de julio Klipsch Music Center and Noblesville, IN

July 19 FirstMerit Bank Pavilion on Northerly Island in Chicago, IL

July 22 Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati, OH

August 4 Wisconsin Valley Fair in Wausau, WI

August 15 Starlight Theater in Kansas City, MO

August 16 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, IA

Sep 04 Fulton County Fairgrounds in Wauseon, OH