I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love Cheap Trick! For a band that celebrates it’s 50th year next year you’d find it hard to name a band of a similar age that manages to still sound so fresh and who is still producing some great new music whilst others sit on their back catalogues. Down here in Australia we’ve been starved of international music for the last few years and now it’s back! Under the Southern Stars brings together a formidable line-up and we will be catching up with many of them them in the lead up to the March shows. First of course it had to be Rick Nielsen – the man with the guitars and creator of some of my favourite tunes!
Rick: Hello Mark!
Mark: Hey Rick, how’s things?
Rick: Good, how you doing?
Mark: Very good thank you, it’s an absolutely pleasure to talk to you today I’ve loved Cheap Trick for many years and it’s great to see you coming back over to Australia.
Rick: Even though it’s like 7.30 in the morning?
Mark: No I’m calling from Perth in the West of Australia, so it’s 4.30am over here (laughs)
Rick: (laughs) Oh that’s OK then, that’s usually the time I go to bed…
Mark: (laughs) coincidentally it’s the time I go to bed as well, so it’s worked out nicely!
Rick: (laughs)
Mark: One of my favourite memories of seeing Cheap Trick, who I’ve seen many times over the years, is once when you played Perth a few years back supporting another band, and for some crazy reason I was the only person in the first ten rows dancing!
Rick: When was that?
Mark: 2008, you were supporting Def Leppard.
Rick: Oh Yeah!
Mark: So there I was dancing away to ‘I Want You to Want Me’ and I was a good 15 yards away from the stage and you flicked a pick and it hit me right in the middle of the forehead!
Rick: Yes!!! Yes!!!
Mark: (laughs)
Rick: So wait…. am I doing this so you can sue me? A lawsuit?
Mark: (Laughs) Not at all, though now that you mention it. No it was more that I was so impressed by the accuracy, with the wind in an outdoor situation. very impressed!
Rick: I have been known to have been fairly good at it! (laughs)
Mark: (Laughs) It’s a great skill to have, I know you have a lot.
Rick: (Laughs) That’s about my only skill!
Mark: (Laughs)
Rick: Now that I’m getting older I gotta work on it more.
Mark: I know you order a lot of picks and I remember at the end of the show there were loads being thrown out into the crowd. But I still have the stage played one!
Rick: You still have the mark on your head! Look at you! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) I do, I’ll get my people to talk to your people later about that.
Rick: Yes please do… Barristers.
Mark: One of teh most memorable shows I saw you play was in Las Vegas when you did the Sgt. Pepper – I couldn’t think of a better band to do that album. Have you ever wanted to do anything else off the wall like that?
Rick: Well, um no, (laughs) I don’t even think we wanted to do that to tell you the truth but we got asked to by the Hollywood Bowl and the L.A. Philharmonic. They were looking for someone to do the 40th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper and we’d done a couple of songs like ‘Day Tripper’, but Robin has such a good voice, like a real voice that could do McCartney and Lennon. So even though I knew that music in my head I still had never tried to put it together, and because we’re not real ‘session guys’ we didn’t want to do it exactly like the record, but on the other hand you don’t want to start jamming on it, not on a Beatles song! Everybody knows how this stuff goes so I had to play this stuff and learn this stuff. And after we did the first two shows – I think we had 18,000 people at the first two at Hollywood Bowl. Then we got asked to do more and more and more and more of it. So we did it, but we also added our own stuff in there too. But it was fun to do – I like the Beatles but I don’t like (sings) ‘Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da’, ‘Lady Madonna’, ‘When I’m 64’ – I kinda like from ‘I am the Walrus’ on (laughs).
Mark: I’m with you on that, it was a wonderful night know when I saw it and I can’t think of another band who could pull that off so well.
Rick: Yeah it was fun!
Mark: And I have seen you many other times over the years, and now you’re back for ‘Under the Southern Stars’ as one of our first International visitors in two years, apart from for us poor guys in the West we are still locked out!
Rick: So you guys are locked out?
Mark: Yeah we’re still separated from the rest of the country at the moment!
Rick: Well you always were though! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) You’re right Rick, and you’ve been here a few times so I can take that comment!
Rick: Yeah.
Mark: Things must have changed at lot since 1978 I think the first time you came over?
Rick: Yeah, let’s see. We went to New Zealand at the same time, so we got to see cars as old as they have in Cuba!
Mark: (Laughs)
Rick: A friend of mine was actually ambassador to New Zealand till like last year – Scott Brown – I sent him my racing bike which he used for triathlons and Christchurch has had another Earthquake. And I remember paying back in Australia – we had the number one song here at the time I remember.
Mark: I have to ask you this question – not only as a guitar collector but also as a guitar lover because not all collectors get to play with their guitars. What was the first custom guitar you had made?
Rick: Well… First custom one?
Mark: Yeah, You’re well know for those wonderful creations you take on stage but I wondered where it all started?
Rick: Well the first kind of custom one I had. I would say would be my first Hamers that were made in ’74. And they developed into in ’77, ’78 when I had the chequerboard one made, and things like that. But since then there’s been all kinds of wacky stuff! I actually just did a photo session the last two days here with two guys from Canada doing some 3-D wacky stuff with ‘Uncle Dick’ (One of Rick’s most iconic double-necks) and the chequerboard Explorer.
Mark: I was watching a video on YouTube of you talking about your guitars in the mid 80’s – I think you had about 160 at that point.
Rick: I have 500 in my house right now (Laughs)
Mark: It’s increased a little then since then (laughs)
Rick: (laughs) Whoops! Yeah, you know it wasn’t like my career went straight up, but my collection sure did!
Mark: One of the things I most love about Cheap Trick is that after all the decades I’ve been listening to you – you’re still making some wonderful music – I loved the last record ‘In Another World’. It’s crazy you should be relaxing, sitting on the porch and playing the Blues now?
Rick: Yeah right! I’m relaxing and doing an interview at 4 in the morning with you! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Rick: And I’m admiring that guitar pick on your forehead there!
Mark: (laughs) There’s a John Lennon connection too on that album in a cover of ‘Gimme Some Truth’?
Rick: Yeah we needed that, we’ve needed that the past four years we’ve had.
Mark: Yes, absolutely.
Rick: We had that orange moron and then Covid. (Rick picks up his guitar and starts playing)
Mark: Are you going to give us a song? (Rick plays but it is going through his headphones) I think that’s going through your headphones Rick?
Rick: I know, it didn’t sound good either way! (laughs)
Mark: I heard that when you played sessions with John Lennon you gave him a guitar, but I always wondered what guitar you gave him?
Rick: I gave John Lennon my Telecaster Esquire with a string-bender on it. I didn’t give it to him though, loaned it to him. I also had a Hamer guitar made for him.
Mark: What did you play on the ‘Double Fantasy Sessions’?
Rick: I played ‘Give Me Some Truth’ – no – only joking! I played on ‘I’m Moving On’ and ‘I’m Losing You’ – I used a Les Paul and that Fender Esquire with the string-bender on it. John Lennon had never seen one of those and I said “Well I’m going to Japan tomorrow, I’ll get it back from you later” and I got it back three years after he was murdered from Yoko. Talking of guitar collections – have you seen ‘The Collection’ on Gibson TV with Rick Nielsen?
Mark: I loved that! We’ve only a few minutes left so I’d love to ask you a few questions we love to ask our first-timers!
Rick: I thought you already were! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any record in Rock and Roll history – what would you have loved to have seen being made?
Rick: Ummm. Well there are certain things I like, and this is sad as one of my favourites just died a couple of days ago – Gary Brooker from Procul Harum. I worked with him one time. Actually our first Tour in 1977 we were supposed to go out with Procul Harum, but then Kiss asked us to go out with them so we had to switch agencies to go with them so we never ended up touring with them, but later we ended up working with them. I loved his voice mainly – on ‘Salty Dog’ – I never knew what any of the songs meant but they were so cool. And I always loved the Small Faces with Steve Marriott.
Mark: My hero.
Rick: I did work with him, I recorded with him. I always got in trouble with Steve.
Mark: What did you do with Steve?
Rick: Well I was going to have this album. This is a true story. Although Robin is my favourite singer I asked Bon Scott, I asked Steve Marriott, I asked Roger Chapman (of Family) to see if those guys would work doing some songs I had written, I even tailored some of the songs I wrote to their voices. But it just didn’t happen. Most of them I asked they just died. “Would you like to work on my record?”
Mark: I’ve never heard that story before.
Rick: Well I’ve never told that story before. But it’s true.
Mark: Well I hope I get to hear those songs one day. And now a nice easy one to go out with Rick “What is the meaning of life?”
Rick: Ummmm…. I’m really good at this usually. I want to say ‘The Life of Brian’.
Mark: (laughs) You’ve got your Pythons twisted?
Rick: Or Spam? I figure that when I find what the meaning of life is then my life will be over.
Mark: That’s right, as soon as you find out it’s curtains!
Rick: That’s why I don’t want to find out!
Mark: Thank you so much Sir, it’s been as much fun as I hoped for!
Rick: (laughs) See you in Australia!
Mark: Take care mate.
Rick: A pleasure Mark. And keep the pick, it suits you!
Mark: (laughs) Stay safe and enjoy the dates in Vegas before you come and see us!
Rick: I hope so!
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