Clang & Clatter

Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen was the main guest on the October 17 episode of That Metal Show. Jump to the 10:30 mark to hear him discuss touring with KISS and AC/DC, Cheap Trick’s classic album At Budokan, the band’s quirky sense of humor, and Bun E.’s status. Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Charlie Benante also pay a surprise visit during the “Stump the Trunk” segment.

Enjoy!

Arguably one of the original “Big in Japan” rock acts, Cheap Trick was once known as the “American Beatles” in that country because of their huge fan base, while here in the States the band struggled to gain mainstream success with its first three album releases. Then in late April 1978, Cheap Trick recorded two separate shows at the Budokan arena in Tokyo. Quickly mixed in only three days, the result was Cheap Trick at Budokan, originally intended as a promotional vehicle to capitalize on their growing popularity in Japan and never meant for U.S. release, but which ironically was the album that broke Cheap Trick in this country and launched the band into superstardom after promotional copies of selected tracks were circulated to radio stations as From Tokyo to You. The rest, as they say, is history.

Redbeard interviewed Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander in February 2009 for In The Studio on the 30th anniversary of At Budokan. Listen in as they discuss the band’s origins, their struggles in the U.S., and their meteoric rise to fame as a result of an album that was never meant to be.

Enjoy!

Here’s a horribly awkward and painful Cheap Trick interview from the late 1970s with Deirdre Wilson for the inaugural episode of a program called Rockola. You can tell the guys are terribly bored and that these types of questions irritate Rick three albums into the band’s career, so in typical fashion, he hams it up. I can’t tell if it’s funny or just plain sad that the deadpan Deirdre takes way too many of Rick’s answers seriously.

Enjoy!

It looks like Bun E. Carlos has been busy since vacating the throne behind the kit as Cheap Trick’s touring drummer—busy, as in busy collaborating on a second side project in addition to his involvement with Tinted Windows, for which he revealed last summer that he was in the process of new writing material. This time he teams up with Nicholas Tremulis on vocals, Wilco bassist and founding member John Stirratt, and guitarist/co-lead-vocalist Rick Rizzo to form Candy Golde.

The foursome celebrated its live debut at Club de Ville in Austin, TX as part of the SXSW music festival, and its five-song self-titled EP is set for a May 11 release on Ten O Nine Records. The tracks I have heard sport a raw, alt-country-ish Americana flair—with Tremulis sounding an awful lot like former Georgia Satellites frontman Dan Baird—that will probably go over well with Wilco followers but may not be appreciated as much by Cheap Trick fans. Here’s “Trouble’s Coming Down,” the first single off the EP:

Now, Bun E., let’s see about getting that new Tinted Windows album out, whaddya say?!

Cheap Trick performing “Dream Police,” “The House Is Rockin’,” “Gonna Raise Hell,” and “Surrender” on 1/29/2011

Here’s a montage of songs from the 1/29/2011 performance of the Dream Police Featuring Cheap Trick show at The Northern Lights Theater at Potawatomi Bingo Casino, Milwaukee, WI. The show is a 12-date engagement running from 1/20 to 2/26 where the band plays a selection of Dream Police songs along with a smattering of other hits, backed by The Bombastic Symphonic Philharmonic With The Rhythmic Noise Mind Choir.

Looks like a cool show. Enjoy!