It’s No Trick--Cheap Trick Is Back

When the word comeback came up, Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen cracked up.

The people at the only other occupied table in the small dining room of a West Hollywood hotel peered quizzically at the lanky, laughing man in the kooky cap and the kind of well-worn, ragtag outfit that most stars wouldn’t dare wear in public. But Nielsen isn’t the sort that frets about wardrobe.

Discussing the band’s comeback, which most artists would have done soberly and solemnly, was for Nielsen an occasion for whimsy. “It’s the longest comeback in history,” he said, the words trickling out between bursts of impish giggling. “We’ve spent more time coming back than we did on top.”

Nielsen, 39 is the kind of guy who would chuckle his way through any calamity. Defeatism and depression? “Don’t know the meaning of the words,” he said.

Nielsen is big on positive thinking. He had to be a master of it to survive what Cheap Trick has been through in the ‘80s. True, the band is sizzling now, with a recent No. 1 pop single, “The Flame,” that’s been followed by another potential hit, an updated version of Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel.”

Both singles are from “Lap of Luxury,” which has sold more than 700,000 copies. It’s Cheap Trick’s biggest album of the ‘80s. It’s also the band’s only hit album this decade.

After peaking in 1979, Cheap Trick tumbled into oblivion in the next two years and spent the rest of the ‘80s launching comeback after comeback. “We knew something had to work sometime if we just kept at it,” Nielsen said. As the failures piled up, their audience continued to dwindle.

“We couldn’t figure out what was going on,” he continued. “Our records weren’t catching on. It was like Cheap Trick had the plague or something. We were setting records for making records that people didn’t seem to want to hear. But we thought we were making good records.”

Cheap Trick was riding high in the late ‘70s with the live album “Cheap Trick at Budokan,” which dazzled fans with its energy, humor and cleverness. Cheap Trick was an early pop-metal band. Their trademark was giddy, Beatlesque pop with metal underpinnings. Musically, Cheap Trick was the kind of band offering a sturdy marriage between pop and metal that Kiss always aspired to be.

But Cheap Trick blew it with back-to-back bad albums--”Dream Police” in late 1979 and “All Shook up” a year later. Fans deserted the band in droves. Radio treated Cheap Trick like a dreaded disease.

“The time wasn’t right for our kind of music,” Nielsen said. “I still say we were making good records. But radio wouldn’t play them. What can you do? Much of what happened wasn’t our fault.”

Cheap Trick was one of those big arena bands that got trampled in the punk revolution of the early ‘80s. When punk finally fizzled, Cheap Trick was still around. But the damage had been done. By then Cheap Trick was considered a has-been.

Cheap Trick’s perseverance proved to be its salvation. Through the down years, the band never gave up. “There were always places to play,” Nielsen said. “We had built enough of a following all over the world that we could still make a living. Some bands, when they’re not selling records, just give up or drift apart. But we loved to play music. We know you can’t always be on top. We figured if we just didn’t give up, something might happen.”

One thing that happened was heavy-metal grinding into one of its up cycles. Even bands like Cheap Trick that are only part metal are cashing in.

Cheap Trick’s “The Flame,” the band’s first No. 1 single, is one of those schmaltzy power-rock ballads that radio favors now. With Robin Zander’s melodious vocals, the band is well suited to this kind of song. Though it doesn’t rank with Cheap Trick’s best, it’s the right song for now.

With classic-rock radio all the rage now, the band’s current single, Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel,” is another wise choice.

Also, at least partly due to classic-rock radio, it’s helped Cheap Trick that there’s a resurgence of interest in many of the metal and hard-rock veterans who influenced the new generation of stars.

“I laugh when I hear musicians from new bands say they were practicing to our old records in garages when they were getting started,” Nielsen said. “It feels like it was just yesterday that we were practicing in a garage.”

Actually it was more like 20 years ago. Neilsen, who is from Rockford, Ill., and bassist Tom Petersson originated a band in Milwaukee. By the mid-’70s, that band, by then known as Cheap Trick and headquartered in Chicago, was a Midwestern favorite. Epic Records, which is still its label, signed the band and released its first album in February, 1977.

It didn’t matter that the nation was disco happy then. Cheap Trick, similar in spirit to another band that was popular at the time--the Electric Light Orchestra--managed to flourish anyway. Fans stopped dancing long enough to savor Cheap Trick’s Beatlesque harmonies--also an ELO trademark.

In Cheap Trick’s heyday, the lineup consisted of Nielsen, Zander, Petersson and drummer Bun E. Carlos. It was a strange pairing--two hunks (Zander and Petersson) and two hicks (Nielsen and Carlos). “We didn’t look like we belonged together,” Nielsen said. “That contrast was part of our appeal. It was a magical mix.”

Maybe one reason the brew turned sour in the ‘80s was the absence of Petersson, who bailed out of the band in August, 1980. “He wanted to work on his own,” Nielsen said. “But he never did much as a solo artist.”

Cheap Trick didn’t do much without him either. A succession of bassists like Pete Comita and Jon Brant never provided that missing element. “This band is really best with the four original members,” Nielsen insisted.

The band’s manager undoubtedly figured that out too. That’s why he coordinated Petersson’s re-entry into Cheap Trick. “It’s hard to explain what Tom brings to the band, but look at the results,” Nielsen said.

It’s not a coincidence that Petersson’s first album with the band after a seven-year absence is the band’s first hit since he left. “It’s hard to say that what was wrong had to do with Tom being gone,” Nielsen said. “But maybe his return was the shot in the arm or the kick in the butt that we needed.

“Maybe it’s all in the chemistry. Maybe there’s some mysterious creative mix we have when Tom’s here. Maybe it took another new element--a new producer (Richie Zito)--to bring out chemistry that was created when Tom came back.”

Nielsen threw up his hands in exasperation. “Who knows?” he asked. “It’s gets too complicated when you start speculating about it all. There’s no real answer. We’re never sure what we’re doing. If we knew what we were doing, do you think Cheap Trick would have been floundering for so long?”