← The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
Kevin Cronin | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
01:47:43
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- [00:01]
Kevin Cronin
I'll never forget. I stood up at the piano and I looked at him and we looked at each other and it was like we kind of knew.
- [00:07]
Billy
I think you. I think you have something that's super rare, which is this earnest quality. I believe what you're singing.
- [00:13]
Kevin Cronin
Well, I mean, you know, some people would say I was fired. Other people would say that we had create that creative differences in. Rolling.
- [00:20]
Billy
Okay, you tell me. You were in the room.
- [00:22]
Kevin Cronin
I was fired. The plane was found with no seats full of Preludes, Pile Hot and guns. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [00:36]
Billy
I. I heard them all, but that's a new one. Kevin Cronin, thank you so much. I'm so honored to talk to you today. I've literally been listening to you my. Almost my entire life. So you couldn't. You were from Chicago, in Chicago. We'll talk about that, but I want to start here. Born in Evanston, Illinois. Is that accurate? So I was born in Chicago, in the lake. So essentially we were born about 20 miles apart. And although we're a slightly different generation, we grew up in the same world, Catholic world of Chicago. And. And back then Chicago was heavily Catholic, heavily working class. It's changed a bit. So I feel like there's an understanding there where maybe people outside of the Midwest maybe wouldn't understand what made your band, REO Speedwagon, important, what you guys were talking about. Important. It certainly resonated with the world that I grew up in. So let's sort of start there. If you want to talk about sort of your upbringing and kind of. Because I found. And I don't know if you found this through the years, you know, American culture is so dominated by New York and Los Angeles, but they oftentimes overlook how valuable artists from other parts of the country are in contributing to the greater conversation of what we experience.
- [01:52]
Kevin Cronin
I agree.
- [01:53]
Billy
Whether it's, you know, artists that came up out of the bayou singing those types of songs with a little bit of French flavor and of course, the Midwest. We grew up, you know, in the shadow of the great blues artists.
- [02:04]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [02:04]
Billy
You can't not grow up in Chicago and not be affected by the blues. So if you can kind of start there, please.
- [02:09]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, Well, I mean, I grew up in Chicago in the. We. I was born in Evanston, but we moved to a. All Catholic, all Caucasian suburb. And I grew up thinking that there were Catholics and non Catholics and, you know, where all the non Catholics go at the end of the road, you know, so. But it was weird. And I remember, you know, getting to be about, you know, into my teen years, and I'm like, I'm not buying this. You know, this doesn't feel right to me. You know, there's. There's other people in the world and. But. But I'm not living amongst them. Yeah. So when I graduated high school, man, I hightailed it up to the north side and went to Loyola for a couple years, played in local bands around Chicago. And. And you and I share something because I did a little homework and I was looking for. When I went to the north side, I was looking for a guitar player and a bass player from my band. So I called the Chicago Sun Times and I said I needed to place a want ad for guitar player and bass player wanted for original music band. Gotta be the right. And said, no, you have to get. You have to take out two on ads, one for each instrument.
- [03:32]
Billy
Oh, my goodness.
- [03:33]
Kevin Cronin
I'm like, where am I going to get 30 bucks? So I. Long story short, I start something called the Musicians Referral Service. I'm running it out of my second story walk up, just off in Rogers park, near Loyola University. I get a call from a guy who says, I'm in a band. We have one record out. We're signed to Epic Records. And you know the old saying, you have your whole life to write your first album and a year to write your second. So long story short, that was Gary Richrath, who. If you know anything about REO Speedwagon, Gary Rich Rath is. He's the. He's the reason that REO Speedwagon got onto the map.
- [04:19]
Billy
Is it because. I was gonna ask you this, but we're here now is Ario's Gary's band. And it's like, does it make sense? You know, there's always gotta be somebody who's like, this is really kind of my band.
- [04:32]
Kevin Cronin
Well, it certainly was. And then after the first album, he realized he needed some. He didn't want to do it all himself.
- [04:40]
Billy
Sure.
- [04:41]
Kevin Cronin
So he saw my Wanted hanging in the Chicago Guitar Gallery, a little flyer. And so we started out, and of course, he was my big brother. I looked up to him because he was just.
- [04:54]
Billy
What was the age difference?
- [04:55]
Kevin Cronin
Two years.
- [04:55]
Billy
Okay, but which. When you're young, that seems like a lot.
- [04:58]
Kevin Cronin
I was. I was 21. He was 23. That's the.
- [05:01]
Billy
And he'd already been touring nationally. Well, kind of regionally, but still signed Epic. No small thing.
- [05:06]
Kevin Cronin
Exactly. And the first album sold about 200,000 or so copies. Yeah. Yeah. Irving Azoff was the manager, which didn't
- [05:13]
Billy
Hurt a fellow Illinois.
- [05:15]
Kevin Cronin
Fellow Illinois. And Danville, Illinois. And so Gary met me. I played a song, the first real song I ever wrote. I played it for him on my guild acoustic 12 string. And then I did one song that I used to play in the folk clubs around Chicago that I thought no one knew of. It's the second cut on side two of Mad Men across the Water. The first cut on side two of Mad Men across the Water is this long opus that Elton and Burney wrote about Native Americans. And it's kind of a cool thing, but I think it lost a lot of people. Second cut is a song called Holiday Inn.
- [05:51]
Billy
Okay.
- [05:52]
Kevin Cronin
I thought, sure. I was the only one in the world who ever heard it. And Gary felt the same way. So I just. Of all the songs.
- [05:58]
Billy
Oh, my goodness.
- [05:59]
Kevin Cronin
Of all the songs in the world that I could have picked to play so that it was like, boom. It was like it was meant to be. And so. So, yeah, but it was his. It was. He was the. He. He's the guy who Irving saw and said, you know, because they were playing fraternity parties and stuff like that, but when Gary came, Irving saw it and went, boom.
- [06:20]
Billy
That's interesting, talking about a little about your background, because I think these things are so valuable as a fellow songwriter. Dad, World War II.
- [06:31]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [06:32]
Billy
What branch of the service was your dad in?
- [06:33]
Kevin Cronin
He was in the Army. They plucked him out of Loyola University Business School, and he ended up in Germany. He was there right at the end of the war.
- [06:43]
Billy
Okay, so did he see combat or.
- [06:46]
Kevin Cronin
He saw some combat, and then he
- [06:48]
Billy
saw the aftermath of the Nazis out of power.
- [06:51]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [06:51]
Billy
Did he talk about that stuff at home or.
- [06:53]
Kevin Cronin
Well, he never did until he got to be about, like, into his 80s, into his late 80s. And I was taking him to the VA because I'm like, dad. Well, first of all, my dad sent me a clipping from the Chicago Tribune that said that basically got me out of going to Vietnam. If I wouldn't have seen this little article in. Because the draft numbers had happened. So.
- [07:26]
Billy
And they were doing the lottery.
- [07:27]
Kevin Cronin
It was like a lottery. And if you got a low number. See you later. I got number like 86. So I'm like, I'm screwed. What am I going to do? Do I go to Canada? I'm not going to go to Vietnam. Like, my dad sends me a clipping of. From the Chicago. From the Metro section of the. Of the. Of the Chicago Tribune. This big saying. Young men born between October 1 and December 31 of 1951 are exempt from. From the draft, I would have never seen that. I would have gone to Canada.
- [08:03]
Billy
Was there a reason for that with.
- [08:05]
Kevin Cronin
You know, I might. My guess is that maybe they had enough guys already through the lottery. Billy. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. My dad's. My dad's theory was there were some Chicago politicians who had kids.
- [08:21]
Billy
You know, that does sound about right. Like, let's just make something up.
- [08:25]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [08:25]
Billy
Right. And it's got to be broad enough that you can't pinpoint him. That sounds very Chicago.
- [08:29]
Kevin Cronin
You know, Very Chicago.
- [08:31]
Billy
But back to your daddy for a second.
- [08:33]
Kevin Cronin
Sure.
- [08:33]
Billy
When he did talk about his experiences, what did. What did he relay, if you don't mind sharing that.
- [08:37]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, no, I. My dad was always very reserved, and. And as a result, he was. And he was. He was. He's a good guy, you know, but I never got to know him that well until late in his life, and he. When he started opening up about World War II, the one story that blew my mind is that he. Well, there was two. He said they were. They were rolling through the Black Forest and. And Hitler had surrendered. Had surrendered. But there were still. It wasn't like all the Nazis said, we're not going to be Nazis anymore.
- [09:12]
Billy
I mean, yeah, war doesn't tend to end on a single day like it does in the movies.
- [09:15]
Kevin Cronin
Right. They were. So. They were. They had a bunch of troop carriers going through the Black Forest, and Russian soldiers were coming out and turning themselves in because they chose to be captured by the Americans rather than be captured by the Germans.
- [09:33]
Billy
Sure.
- [09:36]
Kevin Cronin
But there were still snipers. My dad was sitting on a troop carrier, just hanging out. All of a sudden, you hear. And the guy next to him dropped off, off the troop carrier. So he was, you know, one guy away from, you know, so. But the thing was, he. What he told me is that they were instructed by their superior officers to not speak of what they were seeing in Germany because, you know, back back home, everyone was like, yeah, usa, let's go. We're patriotic. The women are, you know, in a factory making bullets and, you know, whatever. But it wasn't a movie, as you say it was. There were. It was horrifying what was going on over there. And they didn't want. My dad wasn't allowed to write a letter home that. That. To share his feelings about what was going on over there. So he became, I think, very, very closed off emotionally.
- [10:32]
Billy
Yeah. Do you agree with me? I mean. I mean, because I grew up, you know, I'm a little bit younger than You. But I grew up, you know, with this kind of closed down war generation. A lot of drinking, a lot of kind of like we don't talk about the war type of stuff. And I think the explosion of a lot of artistic voices in, in the late 60s was because it was like, I've. I can't live like this. This kind of. Does that, does that resonate with your experience?
- [10:59]
Kevin Cronin
Totally. You're, you're right on the money. I mean, you know, my generation, I mean, I was 12 years old when the Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan show, you know, so. And then the, the liberation that was, it was boiling under, as you say, from, from, from all the repressed feelings. But the Beatles freaking blew the lid off.
- [11:20]
Billy
Did you see that one that first time? It's amazing how many artists they inspired. Right?
- [11:25]
Kevin Cronin
It's.
- [11:26]
Billy
It's mind boggling. An artist of every stripe, right? Not just rock and roll. I mean, people you would never imagine who went on to be very successful. Mom was a social worker.
- [11:36]
Kevin Cronin
She was a social worker? Yes, she was. For Catholic Charities, it was called. She was a caseworker. And to her credit, I mean, she was an amazing woman. She graduated from Mundelein University. So to be her age, female, and have a college degree, that was some
- [11:53]
Billy
serious, fairly unusual careers.
- [11:54]
Kevin Cronin
It really was. It really was. And so she would go into prospective adoptive homes unannounced to, kind of. Because everybody puts their best foot forward when they want to adopt a kid. But she was, she was a surprise attack person. So she would see what was really going on.
- [12:10]
Billy
Yeah, I was struck by this and correct me if it's wrong, but when you were about seven, they adopted. Your parents adopted three kids? Yes, That's a guy. Even if you liked them, that had to be a big shift. What was the inner thinking for your parents to bring three kids into your home?
- [12:28]
Kevin Cronin
You know, I.
- [12:29]
Billy
Did they. Did you get an explanation?
- [12:31]
Kevin Cronin
Well, the explanation I got was that because normally your mother gets pregnant and I was the first child, only child for seven years. Apple of mom's eye, Right. Normally you get a little preview of coming attraction and so there's something to talk about before the baby arrives. For me, it was just like one day my parents came in and told me that God had brought this baby to them and that even though it didn't come out of mommy's tummy, I need to love it this baby the same as if it had, because that's what God wanted. Okay, so that's great. That's a nice explanation. Very, very clean and Neat. But the problem was that inside that didn't coincide with what my feelings were because my feelings were. Do we swear on this show or
- [13:30]
Billy
say whatever you like.
- [13:31]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. I was like I had this whole thing to myself and now here's this intruder coming into the home and everyone's making a fuss over her. It's like I didn't consciously think that.
- [13:45]
Billy
Yeah. Seven years old intellectually process that, but that's when.
- [13:51]
Kevin Cronin
And then they adopted three kids in a row over a five year period. And normally you couldn't do that. The only reason we could was because my mom was, was a caseworker and knew that the head of it. But it was. If I trace back my maybe my artistic bent or whatever, I think that it kind of goes to there because my feelings were. I wasn't allowed to feel what I was really feeling because I was told what to feel.
- [14:22]
Billy
Yeah.
- [14:23]
Kevin Cronin
And, and that's tough on a kid. And he lot of weird happens to kids in the, in the, in the spectrum of things that can happen to you when you're a kid. This was pretty, I, I'm pretty lucky that, that, that that's what.
- [14:38]
Billy
Yeah. But still it was consistent. It struck me as a very intense thing, you know?
- [14:42]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [14:42]
Billy
You know, almost all artists, not all, but, but almost all that I've met seem to have some particular moment in their life that sort of shifts.
- [14:52]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [14:52]
Billy
Puts them in a spot where they have to go inward to figure something out that it becomes part of the faculty that they later discover to communicate.
- [14:59]
Kevin Cronin
Right. So if you wouldn't have, if you wouldn't have found the guitar, if the guitar wouldn't have found you, where do you think you would be right now?
- [15:07]
Billy
That's an interesting question. I had a chance to have a career in academia because I was a good student, but it wasn't. I didn't feel passionate about it. I love learning, like even talking to you. I love doing the research and I love all that. But I could see that in you. Yeah. Bless you. A life in the arts is really a priest calling or something. It has a divine aspect, it has a non divine aspect. But it's an incredible responsibility to say, hey, I'm going to try to sum something up that I feel and understand. And then hopefully in your case, millions of people around the world sort of go, I understand what you're saying. It's so humbling and it's an intense experience. So you know, the beauty of great teachers is that they, they, they can inspire people. But you know, we don't Always see the fruits of their labors.
- [15:57]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, you know, I. There was a. I had an English teacher. I went to Brother Rice High School in Southside. All boys high school. Crazy scene. If you weren't on the football team, you basically didn't exist, you know, And. And being playing guitar was not exactly cool.
- [16:15]
Billy
That's where I was gonna go. So put those two together. Like when you started playing guitar and getting into music.
- [16:21]
Kevin Cronin
Well, you know, I had been taking guitar. I wanted to play drums. My parents wanted me to play piano. So we settled on the guitar. And my dad, in his inimitable way, said, guitar, you can take it with you anywhere you go. If you get invited to a party, you can bring your guitar. And I was like, I knew of Elvis a little bit. He was a little old for me, but I knew he played the guitar, and he was kind of. The girls liked him. And so I was playing guitar, playing songs like down in the Valley and oh, Susanna, you know, my Little book and learning chords. And then the Beatles came out. And overnight, all the girls that liked the guys who used to chase me through the neighborhood to kick my ass because I was on my way to my guitar lesson. Those same guys, of course, wanted to be in a band with me because I was the only kid in the neighborhood who played guitar. So the Beatles changed my life in so many ways. Suddenly, the guitar, the fact that I had been playing for a couple years was cool. But check this out. So when the Beatles first came out, they were signed in England, but Capitol Records in the United States were like, that's right. Who are these?
- [17:29]
Billy
They came out of VJ Chicago.
- [17:31]
Kevin Cronin
Bill Trout, who was my first manager.
- [17:33]
Billy
Oh, my goodness.
- [17:34]
Kevin Cronin
With Nickel Records.
- [17:35]
Billy
Yeah. Wow.
- [17:35]
Kevin Cronin
But. So it was kind of a mess there with VJ and Capital. And a lot of times I would hang out at the music store where I took lessons, and there was a rack with sheet music. And so, of course, I want to hold you'd hand came in, bought the sheet music immediately. It's hanging on my wall right now in a plexiglass case. But Please, Please Me came out. I saw the sheet music, but the record hadn't been played yet.
- [18:02]
Billy
Wow.
- [18:02]
Kevin Cronin
So I. I grabbed the sheet music, snuck back into one of the lesson rooms, and, you know, they had the chords, and I knew some of the chords and I could kind of read music and the lyrics were there. And I figured out Please, Please Me. So. But about a week later, and I was into it. About a week later, Please, Please Me came out on wls and Dick Biondi. Yeah, probably Larry Lujak.
- [18:27]
Billy
Gosh, those are names, right? God bless him.
- [18:30]
Kevin Cronin
What was he called? The President in charge of looking out the window. But so Please, Please Me comes on. And I will beg your forgiveness for the, for what I'm about to say, but I liked my version of Please Please Me better.
- [18:48]
Billy
That's the proclivity of a songwriter. You knew what you were doing.
- [18:51]
Kevin Cronin
Well, no, what it is was that the Beatles inspired me. Because what I thought at that moment was, maybe I can write my own songs.
- [19:00]
Billy
Okay?
- [19:00]
Kevin Cronin
So I owe it all to them.
- [19:03]
Billy
How different was your version?
- [19:05]
Kevin Cronin
You know, I wish.
- [19:06]
Billy
Please, please, please. Like last night I teed.
- [19:12]
Kevin Cronin
And the sheet music, I, I couldn't read that I, I couldn't hear that.
- [19:16]
Billy
Was yours more validy?
- [19:18]
Kevin Cronin
You know, Billy, you know, I, I, I, I don't know. I wish, I wish I had it. There was no.
- [19:25]
Billy
Don't you wish you had a recording of that somewhere?
- [19:27]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, I was like 13, you know,
- [19:29]
Billy
so we don't have to belabor too much. But I, I, this jumped out to me. You had a, a teenage band. I guess this would be your Prague rock phase. Fuchsia.
- [19:41]
Kevin Cronin
Fuchsia. Yes.
- [19:42]
Billy
Covers. Like, were you playing Cream or like.
- [19:44]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, oh, yeah, we're playing Cream. We're playing Buffalo Springfield. A lot of Buffalo Springfield. Moby Grape.
- [19:49]
Billy
Oh, wow.
- [19:50]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [19:50]
Billy
Okay.
- [19:51]
Kevin Cronin
Are you familiar with that first Moby Grape album? Yeah, the great band. They released every song on that record as a single simultaneously. You know, it was crazy, but. And then, and then we, we sneak in the occasional original in between these kind of.
- [20:07]
Billy
So were you writing then?
- [20:08]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, I was writing some.
- [20:10]
Billy
What kind of like give me the vibe of the. I'll get it if you just give me the vibe.
- [20:15]
Kevin Cronin
Kind of, kind of a Buffalo Springfield thing. I was very into Stephen Stills, Crosby Stills and Nas came out when I was a senior.
- [20:24]
Billy
7. 68.
- [20:25]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. 60. Yeah. I was a junior senior in high school and that I bought that record. I was waiting for that record. I went, I used to, my band used to make demos on my Tak4 track.
- [20:37]
Billy
Okay.
- [20:38]
Kevin Cronin
And I was convinced that the only machine that, that our music sounded good on was that exact particular TEAC4 track. So I went down to a creative artists agency, which became caa, but it was. They had an office in Chicago and somehow I figured out where it was and I called and they set up a meeting with me. So here I am about 16, 17 years old. I go walking into the CA office holding a giant Tac 4 track tape machine. These guys must have looked at me like, this kid is out of his fricking mind. But on that four track was a. On that demo, we played a song called Bluebird by Buffalo Springfield, which Stills wrote. Stills wrote. And this guy heard it and he goes, I'm going to give you an inside scoop. There's a band that's being formed right now with a guy from Buffalo Springfield, a guy from the Birds, and a guy from the High.
- [21:36]
Billy
He must have flipped out. Yeah.
- [21:37]
Kevin Cronin
And I'm like, Those are my three favorite freaking bands ever.
- [21:41]
Billy
Yeah.
- [21:41]
Kevin Cronin
Those first four Birds albums, I mean, I had a Rickenbacker 12, I had an ES335, my first real guitar, and I tr. When I heard Mr. Tambourine Man. Dude, you traded. I traded it for a Rickenbacker 12, which I still have.
- [21:54]
Billy
And your 335 is probably worth more now than you.
- [21:57]
Kevin Cronin
I wish I had that. That's the only guitar that I've ever owned that I don't have.
- [22:03]
Billy
Yeah.
- [22:03]
Kevin Cronin
Still.
- [22:04]
Billy
But it still hurts me. The ones I sold them. Yeah, I sell that one.
- [22:09]
Kevin Cronin
But that was the vibe of my demos. Yeah.
- [22:11]
Billy
So you were definitely attracted, like, let's call it the singer songwritery.
- [22:15]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [22:16]
Billy
I mean, that shows up in your music. So it. It makes sense to me.
- [22:19]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. Folk rock was kind of, you know, electric folk kind of thing.
- [22:23]
Billy
So at this point, you're still, you know, mid to late teens. Do you have professional ambitions? Are you. Is you going to make a life of this? What are your parents saying? Just give me that kind of read.
- [22:34]
Kevin Cronin
Well, our. Our band decided that we were going to join Local 10, 208, the Chicago Musicians.
- [22:41]
Billy
Because you had to be in the union back then, because my daddy played in Chicago was the same thing. You don't have a union card. You can't play.
- [22:46]
Kevin Cronin
Can't play. So we went down there, We. We had a. I'll never Forget, it cost $148, which might have. Must have been a. It might have been a million.
- [22:55]
Billy
How much money have you made since? And you still remember, right? Like, somebody will say, I saw you at this gig, and I'm like, I made 60 bucks at the gig. It's like 34 years later, they're like, how do you remember that? I'm like, trust me, you don't forget that.
- [23:08]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. And.
- [23:10]
Billy
Sorry, I interrupted.
- [23:11]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. No, no, no.
- [23:11]
Billy
$148. Yeah.
- [23:13]
Kevin Cronin
$148 at Chicago Musicians Union. And I forgot the question.
- [23:18]
Billy
I was just trying.
- [23:19]
Kevin Cronin
Why was I talking about the Chicago musicians?
- [23:20]
Billy
I was just trying to get a sense on you. You know, are you going to your parents? Like, hey, I want to be a professional musician. This is what I'm going to do.
- [23:27]
Kevin Cronin
Right. You know? Let me ask you a question. Were you ever an altar boy?
- [23:33]
Billy
No.
- [23:33]
Kevin Cronin
Okay.
- [23:34]
Billy
I was raised Catholic, but I wasn't baptized.
- [23:37]
Kevin Cronin
Aha.
- [23:38]
Billy
So I was not allowed.
- [23:39]
Kevin Cronin
So you're sorry, buddy. No heaven for you.
- [23:42]
Billy
That's why I'm here. I'm trying to redeem myself.
- [23:45]
Kevin Cronin
But, yeah, so our band was. We were pretty good, or at least we thought we were. And my parents were. My mom was extremely supportive. She was a very. She was the kind of woman that would walk into this. This wonderful facility here and know everyone by name immediately. Probably have sung a couple of Broadway show tunes to. To the. To whoever was paying attention. She was a. A big personality.
- [24:15]
Billy
Did she have a good voice?
- [24:16]
Kevin Cronin
She had a decent voice, but who had.
- [24:18]
Billy
Who had the voice in your family? Must have got it from somebody.
- [24:21]
Kevin Cronin
My dad was always a choir singer.
- [24:23]
Billy
Okay.
- [24:24]
Kevin Cronin
You know, I. I don't con. I consider myself a guy who luckily wrote some songs and, you know, with an acoustic guitar and singing, and as a result, I get to sing those songs. That's what. As far as. You know, I always think, like, Becca Bramlett sang one of my songs once on a demo that I had recorded. And I don't know if you know Becca, but Becca's parents were Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett.
- [24:55]
Billy
When you said Bramlett, that's who I thought you were talking about. Yeah.
- [24:57]
Kevin Cronin
So Becca's their daughter, and she is fantastic. You know what?
- [25:02]
Billy
In fact, somebody recently sent me a recording with Becca Bramlett singing. I said, I know exactly who you're talking about.
- [25:06]
Kevin Cronin
Yes. And she's.
- [25:07]
Billy
Great voice.
- [25:07]
Kevin Cronin
Great voice. Soulful.
- [25:09]
Billy
Yeah.
- [25:09]
Kevin Cronin
Oh, my God.
- [25:10]
Billy
Well, Bonnie Bramlett had an amazing voice.
- [25:12]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. Becca's just, you know, beautiful tone and vibe, and her energy is kind of her own worst enemy sometimes. But I loved her, and I had her sing this song of mine, and I went, oh. You know, because I would. And this was so dumb. And I finally figured it out. But I used to think that I put so much of myself and so much of my emotion into the writing the lyrics to my songs, and I. I slaved over them to try to mold them to. To. To express what I was feeling, but as I said earlier, to kind of shield myself a little bit in the. In the. In the process, but. And I think that I thought to myself that I put so much emotion into that side of it that all I had to do is go in the studio and try to be on pitch and on time, and that was about it. I didn't think of the fact of an evocative vocal performance. Just never really occurred to me.
- [26:12]
Billy
But when I think of you as a singer, your voice is so expressive.
- [26:15]
Kevin Cronin
You think so?
- [26:17]
Billy
I think you have something that's super rare, which is an earnest quality, I believe. What you're singing.
- [26:22]
Kevin Cronin
Huh? Well, I mean, it is mostly things that either I wrote or Gary Richrath
- [26:29]
Billy
wrote, But even when. Because there's. I know you guys had one big song that Gary wrote, and I just. I always feel you're an authentic voice.
- [26:39]
Kevin Cronin
Oh, thank you.
- [26:39]
Billy
Which I think is rare because, you know, rock is performative. You know, not every heavy metal singer believes they're going to hell. You know what I mean? But there's an earnestness in your musical life.
- [26:50]
Kevin Cronin
I feel the same way about yourself.
- [26:51]
Billy
Thank you.
- [26:52]
Kevin Cronin
I really do.
- [26:52]
Billy
Well, I grew up with. You know, look, growing up in Chicago in the 1970s and listening to that radio, it provided a very high watermark when the bands that were successful from the Chicago area, yourselves, Styx, Cheap Trick, you know, it's hard to explain to people who don't understand, but there was an earnest quality to Midwestern music. Baby was born of the system at the time where. And I want to talk about it, like, how you guys would have to go on the road and kind of make your name in clubs just because you had a record deal. That was just the beginning of the hassle. You had to really go out and beat your brains out on those road circuits. And something about those albums really resonated with the working class ethos of the time. There was no shame of being earnest and hardworking. And if it meant you put in a good week's work and on Friday night, you're gonna go out and have a good time and still fall in love. It really resonated with the world that I grew up in. And what was crazy to me about that is I believed in that. Like, it was a simple fact. Like, music that I grew up with, including yours, was like, there was no shame in being straightforward about what working people go through and what the dreams of. You know, Bruce Springsteen is probably the greatest American songwriter to encapsulate the working class ethos converted into aspiration. Yeah, I'm working on my car and I got the girl on the corner But I still want to get out of here.
- [28:14]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [28:15]
Billy
You know, there's something about that that's very. To me, it's Midwestern, but maybe it's Just working class. But. And there's the American, the Midwestern version. But what was strange to me is then when we first went to the coast, we were made fun of for that.
- [28:29]
Kevin Cronin
Like you guys were.
- [28:30]
Billy
Oh, yeah, you're too.
- [28:31]
Kevin Cronin
I mean, we were, but I didn't really.
- [28:33]
Billy
You're too into it. You're like, what do you mean? Hard work.
- [28:37]
Kevin Cronin
Interesting.
- [28:38]
Billy
Like you were supposed to pretend that you didn't care that you didn't want to be successful.
- [28:44]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, kind of. I mean, that was.
- [28:46]
Billy
But it was weird. We were like, huh? Like, like, we love Chicago but we want to get the out of here. You know what I mean?
- [28:53]
Kevin Cronin
And who doesn't want to be successful? I mean, if, if you don't want to be successful, then, well, don't, then don't get a record deal.
- [28:59]
Billy
And this is, this, this, this is my own harp. And I'm going to be quick about it because I really want to talk to you about your life. But it's remarkable to me that most of the critical intelligentsia that I encountered in the late 80s, going into the 90s, into the 2000s, almost all of them were from upper middle class homes and had been to college. And I'm talking about names we recognize, not Mundelein, you know what I mean? The point is they grew up in places where it's like you get to have those opinions. We didn't grow up in a world where we had the luxury of the first world complaint of, well, you're not wearing the right T shirt. So the identity of the Midwestern bands, particularly in Chicago 70s going to the 80s, including also the great band Chicago, that is so dear to me. Even when I didn't like what you guys were doing musically, I understood where it came from because we went to those same. I didn't go to Catholic school, but I grew up. Everybody around me was Catholic or went to this school and the nuns beat him over here. And we all shared that common experience of parents who'd been in the war, dad or mom or grandpa broke their back in some factory and if they were lucky they got to retire. And of course Bruce Springsteen kind of captured, let's call it the east coast version of that. But the Chicago version was oftentimes overlooked because of the nature of the New York and LA media. Anyway, that's a long discourse to talk about your experience.
- [30:25]
Kevin Cronin
But I think that the Midwest bands also, to your point, had a tendency to. I mean, we were very. There was a lot of positive. Like even the, the Darkest song would have a happy Ending, and I think that's very Midwest.
- [30:44]
Billy
And so you gotta believe in something.
- [30:46]
Kevin Cronin
Well, yeah, so. But I think we also. Not you. I think. I think your generation kind of blew the lid off. Lit off of it to another degree. We kind of, like I say, kind of shielded ourselves a little bit. We told stories, but we didn't really let our guts out. You, you know, you let your guts out, and that's. That's. That. That was kind of. To me, that was kind of rebellious against the Midwest thing. Even though you were a Midwest guy.
- [31:17]
Billy
Thank you. It was. At least for me personally, it was. I refused to accept the story, you know, because just like yourself, I sat at tables with people who'd been in the war. And you were told, don't bring it up. So you're standing there or sitting there watching somebody that you love drink themselves to death. You know, they've been through something traumatic. And you're a kid, so your version of it is what you saw in a John Wayne movie. There's a cognitive dissonance that went on there. And it went on about. About abuse in the church, it went on there. About child abuse in the home, it went on with people's secret drinking, drug use.
- [31:56]
Kevin Cronin
Yep.
- [31:56]
Billy
You know, we all grew up in the generation.
- [31:58]
Kevin Cronin
I mean, homosexuality was. When I was. When I was a kid, there was no such thing there just. It didn't exist. I mean, outwardly. I mean, it was. It was clandestine. I feel so bad for these. These people.
- [32:09]
Billy
I look. I look back at people in my own family and of course, people in our orbit who are obviously now, in hindsight, were obviously, you know, lgbtq, whatever term you want to. And nobody, but nobody would talk about it. And all you ever got was, like, a joke. Like, can you imagine, though, Sally's a tomboy or, you know, Freddie sure walks funny. And now we look back in empathy and we realize they were probably really suffering because for people like us that were just so. Let's call it dealing with our heightened emotions, grappling with post war America, baby boomer world and all that type of stuff, I can't imagine what people in those circumstances went through. Must have really, really difficult.
- [32:53]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, I mean, because they were still dealing with all that stuff.
- [32:56]
Billy
And then that's what I'm.
- [32:57]
Kevin Cronin
They were.
- [32:58]
Billy
You're picking up what I'm putting down. That's exactly what I'm saying. They were going through the same stuff we were going through, and then they weren't even allowed to be themselves. It was bad enough we couldn't Be ourselves. Just being weirdos. Right. Or sensitive. Right. I'm sure you heard that. Why are you so sensitive?
- [33:13]
Kevin Cronin
I still do, believe me.
- [33:14]
Billy
So. So just before we talk about you joining REO for the first time, just give me your kind of musical landscape. Are you down on Wells playing gigs down there, Rush Street? Like, what's your. What's your musical life like just before you join reo?
- [33:31]
Kevin Cronin
I was. I was on. I played the Earl of Old Town a few times, which was amazing for me. I was just a kid. But, you know, John Prine had played there. Steve Goodman had played there. All the Bonnie.
- [33:43]
Billy
And you. And you love those writers and those artists, right?
- [33:45]
Kevin Cronin
I did.
- [33:46]
Billy
I think you had a soft spot, best I can tell.
- [33:47]
Kevin Cronin
I did.
- [33:48]
Billy
And James Taylor by Shakespeare.
- [33:50]
Kevin Cronin
James Taylor, Jackson Brown, Danny Fogelber, Illinois boy.
- [33:54]
Billy
Great.
- [33:55]
Kevin Cronin
That first album that he made. I mean, My alarm on my phone. Oh, I should probably turn my phone. My alarm on my Phone is to the morning to the opening cut on Fogelberg's album. And I was down there when he made it. Nashville. But.
- [34:09]
Billy
So just like, musical landscape you were in?
- [34:13]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, I. I was. You know, I played clubs kind of up on Lincoln Avenue. There used to be the Orphans was a. Was an original music club. The BUL was kind of a basement, more of a jazz club, but they had. They had singer songwriters. I played there every Sunday. I had a regular gig every Sunday. Four sets a night. Do you know that? So I played four sets a night and I strummed. I always strummed pretty hard, but I used to use a medium pick. Back in those days, I had a Guild 12 string. And I would always break at least one string. So between every set, I would totally change the strings on my 12 string.
- [34:55]
Billy
All of them.
- [34:56]
Kevin Cronin
Which. Yeah. Which took the entire.
- [34:58]
Billy
I was gonna say that's like. That's a 30 minute endeavor at least.
- [35:01]
Kevin Cronin
And then no tuner, so it's like, oh, my goodness, we didn't have tuners, so.
- [35:06]
Billy
That's true. I forget about that.
- [35:08]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, you can imagine what I saw. I mean, it had to have been horrible. But I was, you know, I was doing my thing. But we had a little rock band, Fuchsia, and then we had a duo called the Late, Late show, the.
- [35:21]
Billy
That.
- [35:21]
Kevin Cronin
That did Simon and Garfunkel covers, acoustic versions of Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape, and the occasional original. And, you know.
- [35:32]
Billy
Did you think you had a talent for songwriting?
- [35:35]
Kevin Cronin
I. I don't know if I thought I did. I. I was writing songs and I was. I. I loved the I love songs. I just always loved songs. And, you know, and a. And. And a good song is just. It's such a. If. If you're lucky enough to write one, it's just such a gift that you're. That you're offering to, you know, and. And for me, it was a way to connect with people.
- [36:03]
Billy
Okay.
- [36:04]
Kevin Cronin
Songwriting was a way that. Because I. I had. I didn't have much luck connecting like you and I, like, you know, just in real life. So songs were a way of sharing, and some. I think that was my motivation. I was looking for something. Yeah. You know, it wasn't going to be sports. I learned and. But when I was about 13, I had a guitar teacher named Jim Nance, and he had a. I'll never forget it. Gretsch, Tennessee. And an orange one with.
- [36:37]
Billy
Those are cool guitars.
- [36:38]
Kevin Cronin
Golden knobs and the leather pad on the back.
- [36:41]
Billy
And that's what Crosby played.
- [36:42]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [36:43]
Billy
The Tennesseean.
- [36:44]
Kevin Cronin
Did he play Tennessee? Yes, he did. You're right. And he was just my hero.
- [36:50]
Billy
And.
- [36:50]
Kevin Cronin
And he. And one day he told me I had natural rhythm.
- [36:57]
Billy
Okay.
- [36:58]
Kevin Cronin
And I was like. Because my dad a couple years earlier had told me that I wasn't a natural athlete, which was like, it. He didn't.
- [37:08]
Billy
He didn't.
- [37:08]
Kevin Cronin
He wasn't trying to be mean. But to me, at 11 years old, I was crushed by that. And then a few years later, for my guitar teacher to say natural rhythm, I'm like, well, might not be a natural athlete, but I got natural rhythm. I never forgotten that. And as a result, that's all.
- [37:25]
Billy
Yeah.
- [37:26]
Kevin Cronin
All I play is rhythm guitar.
- [37:29]
Billy
So you get the call from Gary, Rick Rath, and now you're in this band. Did you feel at home? Did you feel this is the break I've been waiting for? Like, just put me in the room the first time you walk in and you're like, okay, because this is a band that's already running. This is not like a new band. And you're hoping to have a dream. They're already in the dream.
- [37:49]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [37:49]
Billy
And you're dropping in the middle of this thing.
- [37:51]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. It was interesting because Rich Rath didn't tell anyone in the band what he was doing. None of the guys. Irving didn't know. No one knew.
- [38:03]
Billy
Oh, so you got that.
- [38:04]
Kevin Cronin
So I got that going in. But I had Gary on my team, and Irving loved Gary. I mean, you had to have seen us back at the. At. You know, in the heyday. Gary was just the first time I met him. He walks into my apartment, he's got a brown suede fringed jacket on, you know, this hair, this ringlet hair. He's chiseled, he's like this sinewy dude. He's got this hot chick on his arm and I'm just like, you know, I'm late for poetry class. You know what I mean? I'm like. I was just. The fact that he, he had to have seen something in me that I hadn't quite seen in myself yet because I certainly, it wasn't like two equals meeting. He was definitely, you know, I definitely had a lot to learn when I met him and he, he must have somehow sensed that. It's. I don't know. But yeah, I, I was dropped in. Irving was not happy at all because the first album sold over 200,000 copies. Irving's like, what are we doing? What are you doing? Why are you replacing the guy? You know? And Terry Luttrell, the original singer was a good, he had a good bluesy, kind of a gravelly voice and he didn't play an instrument but he had the mic stand moves and you know, the cool hair and you know. But I guess he wasn't a writer. And, and, and the first album is all credited to. To written by Ariel Speedwagon. But you know, the truth is I think most of the songs, I think Gary came in with most of the songs and then the band added like some prog rock, you know, side sections. But then it always came back to the song song. So. But I didn't know that. You know, I thought Ariel Speedwagon was about prog rock and just hard rock and riff type stuff. And so I wasn't sure what to expect. But then I would come to learn that Gary was, was taught guitar by his uncle Leroy who was a country guy. So Gary's Gary in his soul was country. He just looked like Jim Morrison, you
- [40:17]
Billy
know, listen, going back and listening to some of your guys music for the first time in a, in a hot minute, I was struck there was more country influence there than I remembered. Yeah, because I always remember it as being a hard charging band that kind of had the ballad side right. And it was like the two sides of REO and it was. Had been kind of in my mind as a kid. It had been hardened by all the road work and hence the live albums did well in Chicago and stuff like that. So. But listening today I was like, wow, there's a lot more country in here than I remember. I don't remember that influence at all. But when you say it, I'm like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [40:53]
Kevin Cronin
No, Total country influence.
- [40:55]
Billy
Go, please.
- [40:56]
Kevin Cronin
No, no, go ahead.
- [40:57]
Billy
So you're dropped into this thing and are you guys doing that thing where it's like you go out for three weeks and you're opening for so and so and is it. What are you doing that? I don't, I don't know what they're. In my mind, they call them package tours, but because I've talked to like, Getty Lee from Rush, you know, it'd be like they would get a call, they would go to sit in a town for somewhere and sit for a week and they'd be at a holiday and they get a call. Okay, now you're going on tour with Blue Oyster Cult. And so, and so. And you just jump in. The next thing you know, you're on a tour for three weeks and that tour ends.
- [41:23]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [41:24]
Billy
So you're doing that thing.
- [41:24]
Kevin Cronin
That's how it was. I mean, there were, there were regional bands and we all knew who each other was. You know, Midwest was us, you know, Texas was ZZ Top.
- [41:33]
Billy
Give me some, can you give me some of the bands that you're sort of in that, that, in that loop?
- [41:37]
Kevin Cronin
Well, yeah, Leonard Skinner down in, you know, the Southeast. But bands would come through the Midwest on a tour.
- [41:45]
Billy
Oh, you guys would be picked.
- [41:46]
Kevin Cronin
Oh, and they'd dump us on the tour to open for, you know, Grand Funk Railroad. We, Our first real tour was Black Oak, Arkansas.
- [41:57]
Billy
Wow.
- [41:57]
Kevin Cronin
And they were, they were amazing. I mean. Jim Dandy. Yeah, Jim Dandy kind of took me under his wing and he was like my, you know, kind of my father figure. Tommy Aldridge DRUMS Amazing drummer. I used to. Every night of that tour, I sat behind with little David, who was his, his drum tech giant guy. And, and I would watch Tommy Aldridge from. I'd watch Black Oak from behind.
- [42:21]
Billy
From behind.
- [42:22]
Kevin Cronin
Tommy had, was, you know, twirling his sticks, you know, double bass drum. I mean, he was unbelievable.
- [42:28]
Billy
One of the hardest hitters probably in the history of rock.
- [42:31]
Kevin Cronin
And Chris Jim Dandy was, you know, David Lee Roth when was in high school, you know. But so I learned I, I, I, I just soake. I soaked it all up.
- [42:41]
Billy
That's fantastic.
- [42:42]
Kevin Cronin
Every band we played with.
- [42:44]
Billy
So, because there's so much to cover, I hate to skip past things, but, you know, unfortunately, this part of your life ends poorly because you end up getting fired by the band. Can you just kind of walk me?
- [42:55]
Kevin Cronin
Well, I mean, you know, some people would say I was fired. Other people would say that we had that creative Differences arose.
- [43:01]
Billy
Okay, you tell me. Because you were in the room.
- [43:03]
Kevin Cronin
I was fired, though. What happened is I, well, they made a big mistake.
- [43:09]
Billy
Let's start there because they, they needed you and that's that. We'll get to that too.
- [43:13]
Kevin Cronin
Well, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't. There was nothing malicious about it. I just had never sung so long and so loud and so hard. And there was no in ear monitors. It was wedges. And, and normally the tours we went on, unfortunately the headline acts wouldn't let you use the wedges because they wanted you to sound bad to make them sound better. And so I, I just blew my, blew my voice out. And I went to a doctor in Champaign, Illinois, and he said I should not sing for six weeks and not talk for three weeks. And meanwhile, we're rehearsing for the third album and I'm like, oh, and plus, I'm the new guy. I've only been in the band for about a year. So in typical Irish Catholic, Midwest fashion, I keep all the, all, keep it all to myself. And I'm trying to like, not talk very much and not sing at rehearsals and only sing for the gig. I'm thinking every note I don't sing now is a song I'll. Is a note I'll be able to sing in the studio. It was, it was crazy time in my head and, and what they thought is that I was just being an, that, you know, they thought I was being the cocky, didn't want to sing, didn't want to hang out. Out. So eventually it just came to a head and, but, but I never told them what.
- [44:38]
Billy
Wow.
- [44:39]
Kevin Cronin
I never told them what, what happened later. I did, of course, but, you know, I was like, I think if I just would have been out with it, you know, I, I mean, I ended up getting fired anyway, so, you know, at least I would. But I, I didn't know yet that you're supposed to express your feelings not
- [44:57]
Billy
having been in a room with you singing. I mean, because, you know, sometimes the microphone is deceiving. But I mean, I always got the feeling you sang very loud.
- [45:05]
Kevin Cronin
I, I think I did, I think I, I, I did.
- [45:08]
Billy
I mean, I think of your bigger rock songs. I mean, it sounds like you're really. Yeah, it's not straining, it's a, you know what I'm saying? It's a, that's all I knew. There's a, but there's a power. You sang powerfully well, so I can imagine. Because if you didn't have particular training because I went through the same thing. It's like you start blowing your voice out.
- [45:25]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [45:25]
Billy
And you know how bands are. They're. They, They're. They're off chasing whatever they're chasing. They don't care that you can't talk much as sing.
- [45:33]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [45:34]
Billy
They look at you like you're weak and you're like, that's squeak coming out.
- [45:38]
Kevin Cronin
Yes, exactly. I just. Within the past, going on five years now, I started working with a vocal coach. Changed my life. We can talk off camera, but he's a local guy, Jeffrey Allen, who's a professor at usc, who was my son's vocal. My son went for the vocal, the pop vocal program at sc, and just. That's a whole other story. But.
- [46:06]
Billy
But has your son got the pipes, too?
- [46:08]
Kevin Cronin
Billy. I should be so lucky to be able to sing. I mean, he has his mother's good looks, my father.
- [46:15]
Billy
Well, you married well.
- [46:16]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, yeah, I did. I married up for sure. My father's blue eyes and his voice is. It's. It's got a quality that's just so unique. It's like, you know how Sting's voice, it's just rich. It's just unique. But totally on pitch. Totally. You know. And, you know, Shane has got that.
- [46:35]
Billy
How old's your son?
- [46:36]
Kevin Cronin
He is 26.
- [46:37]
Billy
Okay.
- [46:37]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. So he's working on it. Yeah.
- [46:40]
Billy
I had this note here. Where is it? Oh, I was struck. And I know, I know you've been fired from the band, but there was a song on that album that you did with them where you say, I think. Pretty sure it's your song. Can't you see I'll always be a music man.
- [46:53]
Kevin Cronin
Aha.
- [46:54]
Billy
And I thought, well, that's fairly prophetic.
- [46:56]
Kevin Cronin
You know, that actually was the song that I played for Rich Rat in my apartment. I played two songs, Holiday Inn by Elton John and Music man, which I had literally just written. And it was the most kind of rock and roll song I'd ever. I'd ever kind of done. It was actually my first kind of. I consider it my first real song.
- [47:17]
Billy
Yeah, I get that.
- [47:18]
Kevin Cronin
You have three verses, you know, all telling a story, and. Yeah, I guess it was prophetic. And it was actually. There was a little manifestation in there, too, because in the. I was just singing it the other day, and the third verse, I actually sing as if I had already attained some sort of fame, even though I hadn't. So
- [47:47]
Billy
I'm on the top of the mountain. I'm looking down now.
- [47:49]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, exactly.
- [47:50]
Billy
That's beautiful. So it doesn't give anything away. But you're. You're out of the band for four years, if that's my understanding.
- [47:59]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, more like three, I think about.
- [48:02]
Billy
So that's a long time to kind of. You come off the adrenaline of a tour. You know, you're hanging out with, you know, Jim Dandy.
- [48:10]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [48:11]
Billy
You know, Mark Twitter.
- [48:12]
Kevin Cronin
I mean, come on.
- [48:13]
Billy
Amazing, right? So, okay, now you're back in Chicago. You're back on well, street or wherever you are.
- [48:19]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [48:20]
Billy
Now what's the plan? Is there a plan?
- [48:22]
Kevin Cronin
Well, the plan was I was going to come home. My. My first producer was the guy who sang lead on Bend Me Shake Me, a guy named Gary Loiso from Chicago.
- [48:33]
Billy
American.
- [48:33]
Kevin Cronin
Familiar with. With Gary at all? No. I don't know.
- [48:35]
Billy
But yeah, he.
- [48:36]
Kevin Cronin
He went on to produce Sticks and be Sticks's house sound man studio called Pumpkin Studios down on the south side.
- [48:44]
Billy
What? I never heard of Pumpkin Studio.
- [48:46]
Kevin Cronin
Ah. He was an amazing. Gary was an amazing singer. But I came home, I contacted Gary, Bill Trout from Nickel Records, VJ originally, and another Gary, Gary Zullo, who worked for Triangle Productions, the original concert promoter in Chicago. And the plan was I was going to get a solo record deal.
- [49:08]
Billy
Okay.
- [49:09]
Kevin Cronin
And long story short, it never happened
- [49:13]
Billy
with people not interested in you or what was the sort of general vibe.
- [49:16]
Kevin Cronin
It just. Guess it just wasn't right. And, and, and looking back, it wasn't right. I, I understand why that didn't happen. I. I wasn't ready for it.
- [49:26]
Billy
If it, if life had turned out differently, which it didn't. What in your mind would have been the. You turn into James Taylor, you know, Dan Fogelberg, like, who are you? Who. It's just. Because it's always interesting me because you went on to so much success with the band, but like the kind of the what could have been version. So at that point in your life, what would have been the, like success in your mind?
- [49:48]
Kevin Cronin
I mean, my band would have sounded a lot more like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
- [49:53]
Billy
Okay. Than almost more American Americana, more jangly,
- [49:57]
Kevin Cronin
you know, like post birds. Yes. 12, you know, Rickenbacker, 12 vulture harmonies. I. I was never the lead singer in any of my younger bands. I was always part of a. Of a harmony sure. Of a trio of guys that sang and we, you know, each guy would sing lead on. On a few songs. But the, the big part was the three part.
- [50:17]
Billy
But what's funny about that is by about 77, 76, maybe even power pop, which Cheap Trick became associated kind of. So that would. If you'd Actually gone down that lane. You might have had success in that because it actually became a thing, and particularly in the Midwest.
- [50:33]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, true. I mean, Cheap Trick. I mean, I heard Cheap Trick in
- [50:36]
Billy
your, like, 75, 76, somewhere around there. Right.
- [50:41]
Kevin Cronin
We've done more shows over the years with Cheap Trick. Maybe Sticks and Cheap Trick are tied, but I love those guys.
- [50:51]
Billy
I've known those guys fairly well through the years, and out of them, I'm closest with Rick. And I've been to Rick's house in Rockford a few times. And it's like, as you know, because you know Rick, it's like you're in Rick's house and you're like, wow, does he ever turn it off? I'm like, you're like this at home. You go to Rick's wife is like, does he ever turn it off? She's like, no. Oh, He's Rick Nielsen 24 hours a day. Wow.
- [51:14]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. That's funny because Dave Amato, who plays, who joined REO, been with us for 35 years. He was Gary. He took over for Gary. He played with Ted Nugent for five years.
- [51:29]
Billy
Okay. That's probably where I know his name. Yeah.
- [51:31]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. So Dave was kind of the Derek St. Holmes replacement. And he tells a story about how he, he lived with Ted when he first joined the band. And he said when he was alone with Ted, they'd wake up in the morning, go down the kitchen. Ted had fresh eggs, you know, they'd make eggs, they'd cook breakfast. Just. Just talking about whatever, you know, and. And it was just normal. Dave said when one person, one other person entered the room, all bets were off. Ted turned into terrible Ted, the Motor City madman, you know, at home. But if that person left, if. So it was basically, if you were one on one with him, Ted kind of dropped the facade.
- [52:17]
Billy
Interesting.
- [52:18]
Kevin Cronin
But the minute there were two people, now it's an audience.
- [52:21]
Billy
I love that. So when Gary, I could say, I can never say the kids, we call him Rick Rath.
- [52:29]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, Rich Rat.
- [52:29]
Billy
Rich Rat. Sorry. Yeah, Rich Rat. He calls you, hey, come back. What's your first reaction? You must be thinking, ah,
- [52:39]
Kevin Cronin
I remember what I said. My. My response was, it's about time you called. Because by that time.
- [52:47]
Billy
That's amazing.
- [52:47]
Kevin Cronin
But by that time, REO had made a couple albums with Mike Murphy, singing. Yeah, Murphy, extremely talented dude.
- [52:54]
Billy
But he was more of like a singer songwriter guy.
- [52:56]
Kevin Cronin
Right? He was more of a blue eyed soul guy.
- [52:58]
Billy
Okay.
- [52:59]
Kevin Cronin
He was all. All about R B. And he played great piano, great guitar, sang, had a really unique voice.
- [53:05]
Billy
Good looking guy too, right?
- [53:06]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, I guess. Yeah.
- [53:08]
Billy
Maybe not your type.
- [53:09]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, but he was. Irving had Gary and Irving's partner down in Champaign had Murph. So when I joined the band, the expectation was. I think the word was out that Ariel was maybe gonna make a change at lead singer, but the expectation was it was gonna be Murphy. Richrath came and found me and so when I left, Murphy was the obvious replacement. So. So that they made a couple of albums with Murph and it. It never really gelled musically. Murphy's, you know, like I say, extremely gifted, but, you know, Gary's more country, Murph was more R B and it just never felt interesting. It never felt. Never felt right to me.
- [53:54]
Billy
Yeah.
- [53:54]
Kevin Cronin
You know, so.
- [53:56]
Billy
Because I'm. You don't strike me as a bitter person, but did. What'd you think of their musical output in the time that you were to going gone?
- [54:03]
Kevin Cronin
There was no bitterness about it. I knew that. That I cooked my own goose as far as that was concerned. Yeah. I didn't hold it against them for firing me, but I wasn't a huge fan of those records. There was one song called Lost in a Dream that Murphy wrote with Bruce hall who ended up joining reo. That was. I. I really dug that song. That was the title song of the Middle album that they made, Lost in a Dream. But the next album, you know, I listened to it. Of course, I was curious and. And I was also. I. I went through a pretty dark period when my solo career didn't take off. And that lasted for, you know, good nine months of kind of isolation. Had an apartment up on Marine Drive in Chicago, little studio place that wasn't really seeing too many people. I'd stopped going down to the wood nickel office because what am I doing down there? But I met a few people and I finally started playing again. I started going back to the clubs, playing solo and I had a new kind of energy or something. Something was different. My voice was. I'd healed my voice and I was just. And I started writing again. I wrote a song called Keep Pushing. I was walking down the street in downtown Chicago and it just came to me, the cadence I was walking with. And that song was kind of like. I made a demo of it, made a demo with it with some great Chicago players. But I thought I could hear Ario doing this song.
- [55:47]
Billy
Interesting. Yeah.
- [55:48]
Kevin Cronin
And that demo got back to the band somehow because Irving's partner is a guy named John Barrick who's also always. I was always closest to him. In the man with the management. So I think I must have sent that demo to John. John got it to the band and they were, you know, they were smart to do that. Well, they, they liked what they heard and, and it. That was the song, I think that got me the gig back. Keep it.
- [56:16]
Billy
Awesome. The album that you were on before you got fired. Two reo two. You know, you certainly hear the successful. It's almost like. It's hard to put it this way, but let's call it the successful REO Rock architecture with you singing. Like, I can hear that then. But then when you come back and just keep on pushing, it's like, that's the band that I heard growing up.
- [56:41]
Kevin Cronin
Okay.
- [56:42]
Billy
Like, it's like all of a sudden it just all snaps into place. Did you feel that?
- [56:46]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. Yeah. It was a big change. And I think for. I think the biggest thing for me was I wasn't the new guy anymore. I knew that if I. Because they flew me out to la because that's where they were living. And I knew that the only way it was going to work is if I were treated as an equal.
- [57:07]
Billy
Okay.
- [57:07]
Kevin Cronin
Because I never was.
- [57:09]
Billy
Did you negotiate anything coming? I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about just, I'm back and let's just move on.
- [57:14]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. It was in the back of my mind that I wasn't going to be. When I first joined the band, Rich Rath would have his microphone right downstage at the far lip of the stage, but my microphone couldn't be that far up, so I'd be singing lead.
- [57:31]
Billy
I love how bands, somehow bands are the weirdest. If people really knew how bands really are.
- [57:38]
Kevin Cronin
Do you know that back in those days, Gary, every night after the show, he would. The audience would leave. And of course the ground is littered with beer bottles and trash and stuff. Gary would come around to the front of the stage. And that was back in the day of flash cubes. Every camera had a little flash cube
- [57:59]
Billy
with four and it would rotate afterwards.
- [58:01]
Kevin Cronin
And after your fourth picture, you took it out and discarded it. He would come and look at the front of the stage at each mic position because he wanted to make sure that there were the most flash cubes in front of him.
- [58:13]
Billy
Him.
- [58:15]
Kevin Cronin
And, and he.
- [58:16]
Billy
And they're always, that's a new one. I, I heard them all, but that's a new one.
- [58:20]
Kevin Cronin
And there always were. And I knew it. But I was determined that I was gonna, you know.
- [58:27]
Billy
You showed him.
- [58:28]
Kevin Cronin
Well, no, I, I, it's not that I showed him It's a. I know
- [58:31]
Billy
I'm just being stupid, but you know what I'm saying?
- [58:33]
Kevin Cronin
All I. I didn't want to. I didn't want to be more than him because I knew that I wasn't. I just wanted to be equal with him.
- [58:39]
Billy
Okay.
- [58:40]
Kevin Cronin
And I think when he heard Keep Pushing, I think that was a signal to him that I had kind of arrived at a new place.
- [58:48]
Billy
Sure.
- [58:49]
Kevin Cronin
And I think he respected it. He liked that song. And that was the beginning of, you know. You know, bands have an arc, and Gary and I. Our arc. Our arc kind of met right. Right after this. This period we're talking about now.
- [59:11]
Billy
Yeah. I love this quote. And if. Tell me if it's not accurate, because sometimes I tell people quotes that I find they're like, I didn't say that we play for free, but we get paid for traveling.
- [59:23]
Kevin Cronin
You know, that. That was actually. I can't take credit for that. That was our keyboard player, Neil Doughty. But. But I've.
- [59:28]
Billy
It's certainly true.
- [59:29]
Kevin Cronin
I've adapted it and I've used it, for sure.
- [59:35]
Billy
Had anything shifted in the culture? Because, you know, this is. And this is where the story gets really easy to tell. This is where you guys start to really take off. But did you feel that internally?
- [59:46]
Kevin Cronin
Well, we.
- [59:46]
Billy
I mean, could you see it coming? Does it make sense? Did you. Did you start to see more people? Did something click this way? We.
- [59:54]
Kevin Cronin
We kind of felt like. Like when I came out to LA and we. We rehearsed for the first time every. We started with Keep Pushing, and then we started playing some of the songs off reo 2, the album I was on. And they. They sounded different. They sounded better. They started. The band sounded tighter. I was singing with more confidence. I think I felt more confident, and I think that equality of spirit kind of just manifested itself there. And. And we felt like we. Like. I don't know. We just. I don't know. It wasn't anything outside of it.
- [60:38]
Billy
No, I did.
- [60:39]
Kevin Cronin
It was inside.
- [60:39]
Billy
I totally understand what you're saying.
- [60:40]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. But the one thing we knew we needed was, up until then, Epic had chosen the producer. And the producer were always, like, highly pedigreed guys. Bill Halverson from Crosby, Stills and Networks. Oh, yeah. You know. Know Simic. Bill Simic, Eagles.
- [61:03]
Billy
I mean, huge resume. Yeah.
- [61:04]
Kevin Cronin
Big. Big names. But for whatever reason, it just never quite. Just never quite worked with us. Maybe. Maybe we were a little slower than these guys wanted. I don't know what it was, but we just. Gary and I made up our Minds that. That we were going to produce the album.
- [61:21]
Billy
Interesting.
- [61:22]
Kevin Cronin
And. And because we just figured nobody knew. Nobody knows this band better than us. And every producer we had, we would go in with songs and then we. But by the time the album was. Was done, it was like, that's not what we want the song to sound like, you know.
- [61:38]
Billy
Yeah. Was there push back from the label on that?
- [61:41]
Kevin Cronin
Well there. By the time we finally got to that point, it was. It was a lot. It was a live album. Peter Frampton had come out with his live album and suddenly you love the music business.
- [61:54]
Billy
It's like you got. Now you got to do a live album.
- [61:56]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, well, no, the. The live album was always just like an excuse. What in like a. Not a bookmark the whole time while you finish writing some songs. But suddenly Peter Frampton is on top of the world.
- [62:09]
Billy
We sell 20 million albums or whatever
- [62:11]
Kevin Cronin
the heck same songs that no one heard on his studio albums. The live bands people liked. So that's. So we kind of. They kind of paved the way for us. So. But we. But Gary produced that one. I wasn't a producer on that, but I kind of was. But I.
- [62:27]
Billy
You're talking about the live record.
- [62:28]
Kevin Cronin
The live record.
- [62:29]
Billy
Yeah.
- [62:29]
Kevin Cronin
And I didn't get. Get billing as a producer and I was fine with that, but I realized that I kind of was being a co producer.
- [62:37]
Billy
And.
- [62:38]
Kevin Cronin
And so the next album.
- [62:40]
Billy
I want to talk about the live album because that's. That's. That's where I really have strong memories. They played you guys at that point in Chicago. Like, I felt like I heard you every hour for a long time.
- [62:54]
Kevin Cronin
I mean, that was the first album that got played in Chicago. Okay.
- [62:57]
Billy
I didn't sat on. Didn't know that we were much more
- [63:00]
Kevin Cronin
popular in St. Louis, Indianapolis.
- [63:02]
Billy
Was there a reason that Chicago stations were resistant to play a hometown band?
- [63:06]
Kevin Cronin
Well, we weren't a hometown band. See, we were. We were a downstate band.
- [63:10]
Billy
I know, but that's so silly.
- [63:11]
Kevin Cronin
I know, but. But there was a distinction because even
- [63:13]
Billy
I. I'm going to say this because even when Cheap Trick got popular, like, well, they're from. They're from Rockford. Rockford, which is like 60 miles away.
- [63:20]
Kevin Cronin
I know, but Chicago was pretty.
- [63:23]
Billy
Think about that. Here we're in Los Angeles. It'd be like saying. Saying you're from the Inland Empire, not from Los Angeles. That's how silly that is. But it was. It was how it was.
- [63:31]
Kevin Cronin
There was a little Chicago, you know, saw itself as a little.
- [63:37]
Billy
A little Notchabox, even Some one. At some point, I referred to Sticks as a, as a Chicago band. And somebody goes, no, they're from dalton. It's like 20 miles away from Chicago. Dalton.
- [63:48]
Kevin Cronin
I was like, I call Sticks in Chicago.
- [63:51]
Billy
But I'm saying it's like, no, no, they're from Dalton.
- [63:54]
Kevin Cronin
What's Dalton?
- [63:54]
Billy
Who cares? They're from Dalton. It's like, it's suburb. It's like such a strange thing.
- [63:59]
Kevin Cronin
No, dude, we. When, when I was a kid, when I was in high school, our band Fuston, got involved in a battle of bands at Brother Rice High School. My high school. And the band that we, we thought we got this in the bag because only one band got paid at the battle of Bands. Then we heard who our, who our opponents were, and they were from about 10 miles east of Brother Rice, south side, near the lake, kind of a little rougher area. They were called the TW4.
- [64:28]
Billy
Okay.
- [64:29]
Kevin Cronin
Heard that they had a keyboard player, lead singer who was pretty talented, pretty cocky. And so they came into my high school and we either heard the rumor or started the rumor that their girlfriends, who are a little older, they were a couple years old, a little hotter, went up to the guys and talked them out of their ticket stub, which was the ballot. And these girls, as I have been known to say, stuffed more than their bras because we lost the battle of bands. And it turned out that that was Dennis De and the Panazo Brothers and John Cruz. They were called the TW4.
- [65:06]
Billy
Amazing.
- [65:08]
Kevin Cronin
And so we go back a long way with them.
- [65:09]
Billy
That's amazing.
- [65:10]
Kevin Cronin
So I know where they're from. They're from 10 miles down 95th street, baby. I love it.
- [65:17]
Billy
So am I wrong in remembering that Riding the Storm out was sort of the breakout song from that live record?
- [65:25]
Kevin Cronin
Yes, it was.
- [65:27]
Billy
And again, correct me, but you had not sung the original, right?
- [65:31]
Kevin Cronin
Well, I sang the original in that I, I, all my vocals are on the third album. In fact, my picture was on the album cover.
- [65:39]
Billy
Are there tapes of you singing Riding the Storm out from the third album sessions?
- [65:42]
Kevin Cronin
I think there probably are.
- [65:43]
Billy
Have they ever come out? I, I, that's an interesting. I got, I got a good dig around on that.
- [65:49]
Kevin Cronin
I don't think they.
- [65:49]
Billy
Anyway, because I, because I was looking, I was like. Because I. My memory is, of course, you singing Riding the song Storm Out. So when I went to look in the albums, I was like, well, he's out of the band here. So I was so surprised by that. So I thought you were maybe singing somebody else's song.
- [66:02]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. No, they released it with Murphy singing lead, and it did. Okay. But the version on the live album. The live album was my savior because up until then, there had been three different lead singers in the band. So we'd be pulling into town to play a gig. We had the local rock station on, and I would hear the. The radio spot for the concert, and it would be riding the storm up with the wrong guy singing.
- [66:28]
Billy
Yeah.
- [66:28]
Kevin Cronin
And it was so deflating, it would be like everyone in this town is hearing that. That version now. I gotta go hard enough as it was. But when the live album came out that now my voice was on all their best songs. It was kind of a best of album cuts, you know. So that was. That was the album that really. That helped me out big time.
- [66:51]
Billy
So if you don't mind indulging me for a second, I have a beautiful memory.
- [66:54]
Kevin Cronin
Okay.
- [66:55]
Billy
My step grandparents lived in Schaumburg, and I was out riding my bike one day and I had a boombox in the. Like, the basket of the bike. And it was one of those Chicago days where a storm was coming in. You know, you can see, you know, about 10 miles out. Here comes the storm. The winds are picking up, and I'm listening to the radio, and the guy goes, ghosts, you better get home. Or something like that. And he plays Riding the Storm out. And you do the introduction, you know, riding the storm out people, or whatever you say at the beginning. And I had this incredible memory of listening to you sing as I'm trying to race the actual storm. That's catching up to me on my bike. It's like somebody got a wizard out. The winds are coming up. It started to drizzle a little bit. And you're singing. And I timed it where I got home exactly at the end of the song. I can't make this up. And now I'm sitting with you. So it's a fantastic memory. You're a forever in my heart because it's like. I remember that. That moment like it was yesterday.
- [67:53]
Kevin Cronin
I love that. And, you know, it's so weird. And I'm sure you've. You've experienced this. I have songs and that. That have. That represent a certain moment to me. But to hear that someone else has one of my songs, that. That's that moment for them. It's. It. It kind of blows my mind a little bit. It's like the ultimate.
- [68:13]
Billy
It's. I think. I'm sorry. It's like, for me, it's the ultimate compliment.
- [68:16]
Kevin Cronin
It is the ultimate compliment.
- [68:17]
Billy
That's what I was like, wow, it's so cool. Right? So there I was in Schaumburg listening to you, whatever that year was. So. So, yeah. So in Chicago. And I didn't know that you guys had. That was your first kind of breakthrough. I just remember in Chicago was just like. Like, they. When they got on you guys, they went hard and you guys just went like this. Straight up.
- [68:38]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, we played Soldier Field that year.
- [68:40]
Billy
Wow. And did you headline that?
- [68:42]
Kevin Cronin
We. I think we were second on the bill.
- [68:44]
Billy
Who was the headliner?
- [68:46]
Kevin Cronin
I know you know, Bob Seeger.
- [68:48]
Billy
Wow. Okay. Not bad.
- [68:49]
Kevin Cronin
He was ahead of us. He. A little ahead of us, for sure.
- [68:54]
Billy
So the breakthrough moment comes with the next album. Can't tune a fish, but you can tune a piano is a.
- [68:59]
Kevin Cronin
You can tune a piano, but you can't tune.
- [69:01]
Billy
Which Pitchfork named one of the worst album covers ever. I saw that.
- [69:04]
Kevin Cronin
Did they really? Well, that's. That's interesting. I.
- [69:07]
Billy
You know, it's like I'm digging around. I've had my battles with Pitchfork, you know, and I thought it's like, who does a. Who does a list of the worst album covers of all time? Because we, you know, Chicago, we thought it was funny, the fish and the.
- [69:20]
Kevin Cronin
And there was no Photoshop back in those days. So we.
- [69:23]
Billy
Our God, you had the fish, went
- [69:25]
Kevin Cronin
down to Long beach harbor, picked out the fish, drove it out to Joshua Tree. We were out there on that little lake freezing our asses off, held the fish up, stuck the tuning fork in, got the right angle of the. I mean, there was a lot that went into that album cover.
- [69:43]
Billy
Okay. Because this is where you start to come. And heavy roll with the changes.
- [69:46]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [69:47]
Billy
Great song. Time For Me To Fly.
- [69:49]
Kevin Cronin
Thank you.
- [69:52]
Billy
Time for Me to Fly is where sort of like, let's call it the true appearance of like, you know, the ballad side of the band. Is that fair? I'm not saying you guys didn't play ballads, but that's like. That becomes the REO signature ballad. Like the beginning of that. That run. Was that you asserting more presence in the. In the song picking and the. Because it seems to me that's where it starts to become more and more your band. Is that a fair. Fair way to put it?
- [70:17]
Kevin Cronin
I would say that's where Gary.
- [70:19]
Billy
That's not to take away anything from Gary.
- [70:21]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [70:21]
Billy
You know, but at some point, you. You search yourself maybe or something.
- [70:24]
Kevin Cronin
I. I was, you know, those songs. Both those two songs you mentioned were definite, Definite confident, confidence builders. For Me, Time for Me to Fly. I brought in on the album with Keep Pushing. And the producer, of course, turned it down because. Because it only had three chords.
- [70:43]
Billy
What?
- [70:44]
Kevin Cronin
I'm like, who cares how many?
- [70:46]
Billy
Have you listened to the Beatles? Yeah, exactly.
- [70:48]
Kevin Cronin
Have you heard Tom Petty? But. So that was part of why I wanted to be part of the production team, because I didn't want any producer to take. I had rolled the changes in time for the Fly. I'm like, please don't give these to a producer who's going to perhaps potentially ruin them or spoil them. And so when Gary and I went to New York, we went and took to the. To the president of the label and
- [71:16]
Billy
we're like, who was the president at the time?
- [71:18]
Kevin Cronin
Ronald Luxembourg at the time at Epic. And. And there was a guy sitting in the back of the office. So. So we walk in and we're talking to Alex.
- [71:26]
Billy
The guy.
- [71:27]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. And here's the guy sitting back there. We didn't know who he was. And we're like, you know, if we don't produce this album, we're not going to record. You know, this is. We're. This is us coming in, you know, And Aluxenberg looks. Usually he goes, it's fine if you guys produce the album. I just ask one thing. And we're like, first of all, we. About ourselves. He goes, see that guy back there reading the book? It'd make me feel more comfortable if he were in the control room with you as you're co producing the album. His name is John Boylan. He just produced the Boston album, the debut album, the one that went 14
- [72:05]
Billy
million copies or whatever. Great sound too.
- [72:08]
Kevin Cronin
Yes, that was the Rockman sound, the Tom Schultz sound, but. And the engineer is a guy named Paul Grupp. Passed away recently. I loved Paul, but we're like, sure, John Boylan. And so he. So John came in and I loved it because it. It gave Gary and I the total freedom to mold the music and to, you know, to choose what we were going to do. And John was sitting back there and if we ever had a question or if we ever had a, you know, ran into a, you know, a blind canyon, we could always ask him. And he was always there. About a month into the album, I was listening to some playbacks and I'm like, this is not right. This is not right. We need to go back into rehearsal.
- [72:55]
Billy
Do you remember what was not right about it?
- [72:57]
Kevin Cronin
I don't remember what was not right about it, but it just wasn't feeling right. It was feeling.
- [73:01]
Billy
You just know.
- [73:01]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, you just know. So I went to John Boylan. I took him aside, and we had become friendly over the past month, and I said, john, how crazy would have it be if I asked you if we could start this, if we could leave the studio? We were at Sound City. Leave the studio. Come. Go. Go back into rehearsal. Come back and start over again. And he looked at me and he said, do it.
- [73:24]
Billy
Wow.
- [73:24]
Kevin Cronin
And that. I mean, you have no idea how that. How good that made me feel, because I was afraid to say that, you know, to anybody. But. But when I had his imprimatur on it, I was like, okay. He must have been hearing the same thing. So we went out, went back into rehearsal for about three and a half weeks and worked on the arrangements, and we set up in Gary's living room. He was the only one who had a big enough house that we could. And we turned his house into our clubhouse, and we just got into it, and, you know, there were people there and there was parties going on. It was a whole kind of a. Almost like a communal atmosphere. We worked up the songs. We started from scratch, came back to Sound City, and. And then got into it and.
- [74:10]
Billy
Wow.
- [74:10]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty. It's fun to think back to those times because you take them for granted when you're going through them. But when you ask me the question,
- [74:18]
Billy
I go, oh, yeah, no, it's. It's. It. I certainly think times where it's magical, but you don't know it's magic.
- [74:24]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [74:24]
Billy
Because you're just so, like, tunnel vision.
- [74:27]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [74:30]
Billy
Have you reached a point in your musical journey where you're like, okay, I'm living the rock and roll dream. This is worse working. You know what I mean?
- [74:37]
Kevin Cronin
Yes, totally. Totally. We, at one point, Led Zeppelin had had an old airplane that they used the Doobies, had the Doobie liner, and we thought.
- [74:46]
Billy
The Doobie liner.
- [74:47]
Kevin Cronin
The Doobie liner. So we thought, we're on the road all the time. Yeah, we need an airplane. So. So Irving's like, okay, I'll find you an airplane. So we show up at Santa Monica Airport. Here's. Here's this tail dragger, old World War II plane. It was called a Lockheed Lodestar, okay? But the REO wing logo there painted on the. On the nose. And so we're now fly. We had no. We couldn't afford it. There's no way we could afford it. But we didn't want to ask any questions. We did notice guys in the airports a lot of times kind of surreptitiously taking photos. We just thought, well, Maybe these are our fans, you know. So fast forward. The pilot who had become the sixth member of the band says, we need to go meet the owner of the airplane. So he goes, we had a day off, took off out of Fort Smith, Arkansas. He goes, it's about an hour and a half to where the owner of the airplane is. So we're flying. We land in the middle of nowhere at this airstrip, like in the middle of the desert. And here comes this guy walking and he looked like the bad guy in a western, you know, his face was just like a thousand miles of bad roads. Gets on the plane and we're always, you know, throwing around laughing. We're, you know, you're young. We're young and we're fine. We're having a great time. He gets on the plane and my seat was right in front of the door and it was a tail dragger. So he gets in the plane and it was silence. His vibe was so scary. He walks up to the front row, sits down, puts his tray table down. I couldn't see what he was doing, but I heard the sound of this snorting sound that you. That was just like. And normally a brother would share. No, no, no. So now we take off, we're flying, and I'm looking out the window. And normally after 10 minutes, we're up at, you know, 10,000ft. I'm noticing we're like, we're still like right above the ground. We're like 500ft, maybe 750ft. Now we're 15 minutes into the flight and I'm like, what is going on? All of a sudden this guy gets up, walks down the aisle, goes back into the back compartment. And I hear what sounds like, like giant wrenches. I thought, I'm like, what's going on? Next thing I hear is the back door. The door of the airplane opens and the wind starts rushing in. Now I'm like, okay, I was afraid to look around. I look over my shoulder, swear to God, he's sitting on the floor. His feet are like this up against either side of the door. He's got a weapon. And from my seat I could see the cows. I could see the markings on the cows. That's how close we were. He takes this thing and it's was like an Uzi or an a. Whatever it was, it was a combat level machine gun. And he's like having target practice. And I'm like, I can't even believe this. All of a sudden, door closes, gets up, clank, clank, clank. Goes Back to his seat. We never met him. No one ever introduced us. He never said a word. So fast forward, it's. We're in our hotel in Washington, D.C. knock, knock, knock. I look through the peephole. There's a group of young fans, and they've got a book that looked like a high school yearbook, but it said Department of Drugs, Alcohol and Firearms or something. It was a department of the US Government. Open the page. The page. The photo is from the perspective of an unmarked vehicle with agents with their DEA windbreakers on, drawn down in the distance. There's the airplane with the REO Speedwagon logo painted on the. On the nose. Turned out they had. During our days off, they had been taking that plane. We were their cover, basically. And they were running guns from Mexico. The plane was found with no seats, full of Quaaludes, pot and guns. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [79:03]
Billy
Irving.
- [79:04]
Kevin Cronin
Irving.
- [79:04]
Billy
That's all I got to say.
- [79:05]
Kevin Cronin
Irving. I love him.
- [79:06]
Billy
God bless Irving.
- [79:07]
Kevin Cronin
If he's on your side, you're. You're. You're in a good place. And Irving has always been on my side. He's even. Even after we're our. Our.
- [79:15]
Billy
Despite our. Despite our occasional battles, I think Irving still likes me. Somewhere in there.
- [79:20]
Kevin Cronin
Have you had your.
- [79:21]
Billy
I've had my. I've had my. I believe the last time Irving wrote me an email, he said I was destroying my life.
- [79:27]
Kevin Cronin
But what was the context? What were you doing?
- [79:31]
Billy
We had been. Irving had a management. I call it a pyramid structure. I don't mean that as a pejorative. Kind of like, you know, Irving sits at top. He kind of oversees all these junior managers. Was called Frontline at the time. I think it's very. I think it's been disbanded at some point. So we. We were. We were working with a couple managers under Irving's aegis.
- [79:51]
Kevin Cronin
Yes.
- [79:52]
Billy
And in the beginning, Irving was very invested. And as time went on and it didn't turn into the big reunion tour that everybody anticipated, Irving got less. Less and less interest. The managers and I, at some point, didn't see eye to eye, and I basically called the manager, said, I'm going to leave, but it was peaceful. I'm still. I would go out to lunch with either of the managers now. I still love Irving. And just as I was about to go out the door, I get a long email from Irving, basically saying, you're destroying your life. If I could put in a nutshell. And I don't think he was wrong in what he was suggesting, and I don't think he would be mad even with me sharing this. He basically was saying, every artist in your position at some point has to accept that it's more about the past than the future. And, you know, you face those challenges, I face those challenges. And maybe a fan wouldn't understand it. You know, we all start as young people with a dream, and at some point, if somebody kind of taps you on the shoulder, says, you know, it's really more about what's in the rearview mirror than what's in the front windshield, that's a hard day to kind of reconcile. Even if you disagree, agree. Because why are they tapping on the shoulder? They're trying to tell you something. So Irving, in his very Irving way. And again, I love Irving and have nothing but respect for him. I think he was trying to tell me, it's that moment in your life. And I wrote him back very nicely, and I said, irving, you don't know me. And here I am some 15 years later, and the band's bigger than ever. We're still releasing new music. I've just done an opera in Chicago, you know, that's focused on one of my past records, But I've completely reinterpreted it in a different way. So I don't think Irving saw that capability in me. And I don't mean this disrespectful to Irving. I just don't think Irving understands the psychological mentality of an alternative artist. And when I say alternative, I mean an artist who came up in the gen X, late 80s, early 90s generation. Because we came just like when you were inspired by those artists in the 60s who at the time, the Neil Youngs and the Stills, they were all counterculture artists.
- [81:52]
Kevin Cronin
Absolutely.
- [81:52]
Billy
Well, we were counterculture artists in a different generation. So just like those artists, you play by a different set of rules. You're never going to pull a Graham Nash or Stephen Stills or Neil Young or David Crosby and tell them that they have to play by the rules. No matter how many times you tell them, no matter how many times you tell them the music business is going to change. They're like, we changed the world, world. And. And you can't take that out of somebody's DNA if they're one of those types of artists. Yes. And we were absolute, total punks. We got away with murder with the stuff we did. So when somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, it's time to be an adult, you think, it's not really. It's not really my gig.
- [82:31]
Kevin Cronin
Well, you're more the. The exception than the Rule, too.
- [82:34]
Billy
Oh, absolutely.
- [82:35]
Kevin Cronin
And so from Irving's point of view, you can see why he would have said.
- [82:38]
Billy
That's why I said. I don't. I don't take it disrespectful.
- [82:41]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, yeah. But from your point of view, it makes perfect sense.
- [82:43]
Billy
I thought he was insane. Yeah, I thought he was insane because I'm like, I got plenty of years to mess things up.
- [82:48]
Kevin Cronin
Right.
- [82:49]
Billy
So thank you for listening. So let's just talk because, you know, there's only so many people who reach the top of that particular mountain. And the next record, the High Fidelity record.
- [83:01]
Kevin Cronin
High Infidelity.
- [83:02]
Billy
Yes, High Infidelity. Sorry. I mean, you guys hit the absolute top of that particular mountain for that particular time. Time.
- [83:10]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, we kind of. We kind of did. We kind of did.
- [83:12]
Billy
That was 10 million records. The record goes Diamond.
- [83:15]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [83:16]
Billy
And we share that in common. We both had Diamond Records.
- [83:18]
Kevin Cronin
I noticed that.
- [83:19]
Billy
That's a pretty exclusive club we're in, right?
- [83:21]
Kevin Cronin
It is.
- [83:22]
Billy
So you did it.
- [83:23]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah.
- [83:23]
Billy
And I. I mean, I know you've been asked about it a million times. Of course. You know, the great hit number one record. I mean, just. Just whatever you want to say about it, I'm happy to just, you know, because I. Because I'm. I. I like to not ask the question that everybody asks you. So you talk about whatever you want to talk about in that experience.
- [83:45]
Kevin Cronin
Well, I. I can say that that the. The experience of recording that album that. That went on to become High in Fidelity, you don't know what it's going to become. You're just writing songs. Yeah.
- [83:55]
Billy
It's just another record.
- [83:56]
Kevin Cronin
You're. You're going making demos. And so we made demos of. Of ten songs. Songs, and then we took a week off to listen to the demos.
- [84:07]
Billy
I think the demos are out, right. They're part of the deluxe package.
- [84:10]
Kevin Cronin
The album is at least 50%. Those demos.
- [84:13]
Billy
Oh, wow.
- [84:14]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. We couldn't beat them.
- [84:16]
Billy
You know what we call them? The biz Demoitis.
- [84:18]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. But in our case, you know, I was the only one who. I heard these demos and I listened to them over and over and over, driving around, you know, la, and. And I was like, I'm starting to fall in love with the way. Not just the songs. Normally I hear the demos, I go, oh, we got to put this here and move this. I'm listening. I'm going, this is. I don't. I. I don't see that much work that I have to do on this on the arrangement side or on the lyric side or it. It Sounded really good to me. Gary's had some guitar parts that were just like, how did he do that? You know, the. The feedback that opens the album. We could never duplicate that. And. But I had to convince the band.
- [85:03]
Billy
Really.
- [85:04]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah. And the engineer who, you know, it was just a rough demo, and I'm like, these are. So we went back to the studio, played Beat the demo, finally couldn't do it. And we ended up using the demos as the foundation and built the album on those tracks. So I just feel like. And then the album goes on to be one of the biggest albums there is. It just. I like the fact that it started so organically that there was no, you know, REO Speedwagon gets a rap for that. We somehow manufactured the power ballad and. And hey, of course we wanted our record to get played on the radio. Who doesn't? But Keep on loving you. I woke up in the middle of the night, Kind of felt my way down the hallway of my little house in Woodland Hills, sat at my little Wurlitzer red plastic piano that Gary Loiso had owned and played that little piano part of Keep On Loving and wrote those verses. And I know where it came from. You know, it just happened. And there it was and was. So I. And I went back to bed because it was. I was. I was too tired. Next day, I go into, sir, we're. We're rehearsing. And I immediately sat at the piano and started playing those verses over and over again. You can imagine the band is sitting there going, what the is this guy doing? When is he going to stop playing this stupid song?
- [86:38]
Billy
And you're in a rock and roll band.
- [86:39]
Kevin Cronin
I'm in a rock and roll band. And there's a certain type of song that's an Ario Speedwagon song. And some songs are not Ario Speedwagon songs. And I would contend that if a member of Speedwagon writes a song. So I'm sitting there playing this all of a sudden, and I didn't have a chorus, and I'm just playing along and it's kind of dark. And then this chorus came to me and it's like this hopeful chorus. And. And Richrath. I don't know. I don't. I don't exactly know what was in his head, but at some point he got a plug in his Les Paul with a. With a curly chord directly into a Marshall, which is how he used to play sometimes. He had a wawa pedal. That was it. And. And he started playing along with me. Or he might have just Been trying to drown me out so I would stop playing this stupid slow song. But at one point he, we, we. We kind of hit on something and I, I'll never forget, I stood up the piano and I looked at him and we looked at each other and it was like we kind of knew that something.
- [87:42]
Billy
Wow.
- [87:43]
Kevin Cronin
Something had some brain cells had, Something had spark.
- [87:47]
Billy
Yeah.
- [87:47]
Kevin Cronin
Like, oh, this is what we've been trying to do for the last four. Four years. Wow. Without thinking that we were trying to do this.
- [87:56]
Billy
But I get what you're saying. It's. It came from an organic place. It wasn't a, a record company thingamajiggy.
- [88:04]
Kevin Cronin
I think it became that.
- [88:06]
Billy
No, trust me, that's on the piece of paper next.
- [88:09]
Kevin Cronin
Okay, so yeah, yeah.
- [88:13]
Billy
So you guys end up having two number ones. That's one of them. And I think the next one is on the next record. You know, classics. I mean you can't. They're worldwide phenomenon songs, you know, once you have one of those songs. So as a guy who grew up listening to the rock side of the band, I didn't understand it. And I'm sure you got that from a lot of like fans, right? Like, what is this? Right? Is that REO Speedwagon? You know, the, the band I, the band I grew up with. So I don't, I don't need you to speak to it necessarily in the personal because I think it's more interesting to me that Chicago ended up doing it. You guys certainly lean into it. Why wouldn't you? Just had a massive record. But looking backwards, you know, it's the stuff of. Stuff of people getting married. But isn't it interesting? I don't know. You tell me. But that these road tested bands that really came out of rock, progressive rock, 60s music, it ended up turning this other thing, which some people kind of go, I don't, I don't know about all that. You know, a lot of DX7 all of a sudden, if you get the
- [89:23]
Kevin Cronin
joke,
- [89:25]
Billy
you know, even the doobies. Right. I mean, who were basically kind of almost like a bar band.
- [89:30]
Kevin Cronin
Jam band.
- [89:30]
Billy
Yeah, yeah. I mean they got Michael McDonald and they went down that. So it, as a fan of the time, it seemed like it suddenly was like somebody flipped a switch somewhere and suddenly everybody's doing ballads. And in the 80s, it was the same complaint with the hair metal bands that they all went ballad crazy too. So.
- [89:47]
Kevin Cronin
Well, that was the way to get your record on the radio. Sure. And, but, but for us, we were kind of like, time for me to fly you mentioned Time for Me to Fly. There was no piano in Time for Me to Fly. That was a acoustic, pure guitar song. It was a folk song. And, and so for us, it wasn't so much ballads. It was kind of hard rock with.
- [90:07]
Billy
Can I say it slightly differently, though?
- [90:09]
Kevin Cronin
Okay.
- [90:11]
Billy
I think you're a really strong rock singer. Some people, some people, like, you know, they're better at one thing or another, but you sing rock very, very well. And, and like I said, I always identified with you as a rock singer, so it wasn't like I couldn't identify you with it as a ballad singer, but something about the way you sang back ballads, it was like, oh, there's this other thing that you do. And maybe the definition of the time, the times, of course, is part of it, but you seem to step forward and sort of like, I don't know, it's like, I don't want to say it's the best you. That's the wrong way to put it. It's like all of a sudden there's this other version of you too. Like, it was one plus one equals seven or something. And that seemed to expand the vision of the band. I didn't understand as a fan at the time, but as a writer now I get it. Like, oh, okay, yeah. How could you not go there? Because you were really good at it. It's not like you were bad at it. It was obviously, the public agreed.
- [91:04]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, I, I think I'm a better rock singer than I am a bad. I, I, I have to sing ballads because I write them sometimes. But, but yeah. And we did. We what? After Hein Fidelity, the record company definitely started. It's like, we want another one.
- [91:24]
Billy
Yeah, we have about seven more of those, if you can.
- [91:26]
Kevin Cronin
Yes. Could you, please? And, and everyone in the band was like, yeah, let's go back in the studio. And I'm sitting there going with what? I have unfinished songs. I'm not ready to go back in the studio. I still haven't digested what the phenomenon of what just happened to me, Billy. You know, it changes your life. Suddenly you're clawing to be recognized and you want to be famous.
- [91:53]
Billy
And now you can't sit down and have an Italian dinner with your family without somebody coming up and asking for a picture and all.
- [91:57]
Kevin Cronin
Autographer and, and even worse than that, it, it as a. I always thought that, that, that fame and fortune and, and hit records would, would cure everything. All the insecurity would go away. Everything. And so when you get to the top of the Mountain. And you're like, oh, not only is it not curing all this stuff, it's. It's exacerbating. It's. People are looking at you and you're hiding all this stuff, and now everyone's looking at you and makes it harder to hide when people are looking at you. So my mind was blown. I was like, oh, my God, this is crazy. Well, the rest of the guys in the band are like, let's go. And I'm like, you guys are out of your.
- [92:43]
Billy
Write another one of those, Kevin.
- [92:45]
Kevin Cronin
You're out of your mind.
- [92:49]
Billy
So I. I Googled or something. I. I asked, you know, whatever. One of these AI systems, how many records have you sold in your. In your musical life? Over 40 million.
- [93:02]
Kevin Cronin
Really?
- [93:02]
Billy
Yeah.
- [93:05]
Kevin Cronin
I should probably get a royalty check then at some point.
- [93:08]
Billy
Well, I can't speak. I can't speak to your deals.
- [93:11]
Kevin Cronin
Surely we've recouped by.
- [93:15]
Billy
Look, the band, at least from my perspective, is an institutional band. So as a way to kind of bring it to a restful thing, the most recent news. And I don't do clickbait, so I'm not asking you for the dirt on the kerfuffle with the band with the name and the thing and you on your own and all that, but I guess what I'm after is I just thought maybe the easiest thing to do is try to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. You've got huge songs that are crossover hits. You're singing ballads that are still being played in Thai cafes. Two things occur to me. Number one, you stay with the band. And you've stayed with the band up until really recently. You guys just toured last year as the time of us taping this. But secondarily, you resisted the temptation, because I'm sure somebody went to you and said, hey, you know, it might be time to jump off the ship if you want a lot more money. And it can be about you and da da, da, da, da. Because we've all been in that. So I guess what I'm saying in a very kind of amorphous way, is not, do you regret staying? Not do you had you wish you'd have a solo thing? It's like, where does that all land for you in 2025 at the time we're taping this? Are you cool with if the. If the. If you've reached the end of the road with the band, with that group of people? Like, how do you sit with all that? Because it seems to me, and this may be an unfair way to put it. And again, I'm putting myself in your shoes. If I'd stayed loyal to my band through the thick and thin, through the great gigs and the bad gigs and the county fairs and the fans wanting to hear keep on loving you for the 8,000 time and all of the, the stuff that only people like us kind of know what that feels like. It's not a bad thing. It's just a particular type of pressure. Where do you sit with all that? Are you at peace? You know, like. Because you don't strike me as somebody who's got any, you know, what's Ax to grind.
- [95:26]
Kevin Cronin
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Yeah. No, I really don't, Billy. I. During the Pandemic, I think people tend to downplay the impact that the Pandemic had on everyone. And it's really easy to look at the rearview mirror and say, ah, it was nothing. You know, people overreacted and. But I was one of the guys who would be washing down my groceries at home. So the Pandemic, it just shut everything down. You know, I was walking to soundcheck on Friday the 13th, Friday, March 13th, 2020, when, when, when the plug got pulled. But what, what happened is I was home for a year and a half and I really started to like it. I liked being, seeing, not just my, my kids, ball games and graduations.
- [96:17]
Billy
You have six, right?
- [96:18]
Kevin Cronin
No, No, I don't. That's somehow. I know. So I, I, I should have warned you about that.
- [96:23]
Billy
A touring musician.
- [96:24]
Kevin Cronin
Yes. Who knows? Maybe there are some that I don't know about. If you are.
- [96:28]
Billy
Hello, But I love you.
- [96:30]
Kevin Cronin
Yes, but, but that time really, really affected me and, and I started kind of reassessing some things and I, and, and I started wanting to reach further. I think Ariel Speedwagon had kind of, you know, with Gary's death, that was. Gary leaving the band was, was difficult. His death was, was difficult. And I think I was wanting a little more and not necessarily outside the band. I wanted to lift the band in some way. Tommy Shaw and I became friends in the year 2000, and he has a similar. Tommy shot from sticks. He has a similar idea as I do, and we kind of balance each other. And so I'm getting a little lost here. But, But I, I wanted to lift the band. I wanted to stay within the confines of REO Speedwagon, but I, I hired a vocal coach and I started working on my, so working on my singing, working to really get the most that I possibly can out of my voice to put the most emotion into the songs to really get that thing that Becca Bramlett showed me back in the day in Nashville. And so I really started working and I still. When I leave here, I'm going to my vocal coaches. He's. He's in the neighborhood. And so I really started putting in the. The 10,000 hours on my voice. So when. When the band got back together after the Pandemic, I was psyched and. And some of the guys in the band shared that. That excitement, and some of the guys didn't. And so it became a little bit of a. Like, wait a minute, what's going on here? You know, and so there was a little bit of a. Of a chasm opening within the band. And then. Then, you know, Bruce hurt himself. Our bass player, Bruce, who was my. My sidekick. Every. Every side project that I ever did, Bruce was always part of it. And we were just sympatical musically. He was a Beatles guy as. As I am, and. But Bruce hurt his back a long time ago. And I had been working on a presentation for the band for a Las Vegas residency, which has to be different than what you do on tour. So the idea was to perform the entire High Infidelity record all the way through with a massive audio visual presentation. Different, very theatrical in a way, but still rock and roll. But I put a lot of work into it with. With our content and lighting director, Paul Dexter. And when Bruce hurt himself, it was a week before we were supposed to open in Vegas, and I put a year of work into this. And people buy tickets from all over the world to come in for a residency. And so I didn't want to lose the residency. And I said, bruce, you gotta go home. Take care of yourself. And he did. And I just woke up, was, if there's a way to salvage this thing, I'm going to salvage it. And it just so happened that Elton John had retired and his bass player, who's a named Matt Bissonnette, Greg Bissonnet's brother, all friends of ours. And Matt came out, learned our entire set list overnight, came in with a stack of charts, read the charts for a couple of days, threw the charts away, and there's something happening happened in the band. And it had just. And I was trying to lift the band now. I felt the band lifting me, and I felt myself. And I was in the midst of taking these vocal lessons, and suddenly there was this new energy. Someone, one of the guys, Nelton's band, told me not long ago. He goes, matt Bissonnette's the kind of guy where any band he. He's in, the band gets better. And so it was just like unplanned, completely unplanned. Life just sometimes happens, and then what do you do?
- [101:00]
Billy
Right?
- [101:02]
Kevin Cronin
So that was kind of the scenario, because I think I love Bruce and I think he might feel like I was out to get him. I've heard that from people that. That there's a feeling there and it's just not the case at all. I. I hold. I. I hold no ill feelings toward him. It's just. It just became an impossible situation where it's always been my job. I felt, especially since Gary left, if I remember the day that. That it was. I was either going to go into a solo album or. Or stick with REO Speedwagon. I was standing with John Barrick and John said, well, if you're gonna. If you're gonna end the. Gotta empty the locker, sell the equipment. And it was like. It was like the ice water thing where they pour ice water in your head. I was just like, wait, what? That just blew my mind. And I thought at that moment, I haven't really given this my all yet, you know, because before it was Gary and I and then the band, of course, Alan and Neil and Bruce were all part of it, but Gary and I were sitting in the front seat of the roller coaster, you know, and so I felt it was my job to continue to. To keep REO Speedwagon moving forward. My relationship with Tommy Shaw and our relationship with Styx helped that, because Tommy felt the same way about Sticks. Tommy joined Sticks right about the same time I rejoined. And there was talk of Tommy and I being in a band together for a hot second. So there was never any preconceived notion on my part that I thought that Ariel Speedwagon would ride into the barn, we would all retire at the same time as friends, the crew would be with us.
- [102:55]
Billy
Life is funny that way, though, right?
- [102:56]
Kevin Cronin
I know. It just didn't work out that way. And it's been a year for me of kind of my mind being a little blown by that, because, like you said it, REO Speedwagon is an American institution of sorts. And so there's a lot of people that are disappointed by the fact that Ariel Speedwagon has put out a statement saying that we're not going to ever tour again.
- [103:22]
Billy
So.
- [103:24]
Kevin Cronin
But the good news is, is that we. The. The. For the last four months, where normally I'd be thinking about the. The 2026 tour. Yeah, I haven't Been thinking about that for the first time in 50 years. So it's a. So my. And, and my wife was out of town. My wife went down to Florida and reconnected with. She wanted to hang out with her sisters down there. She loves her family. She's a Wisconsin girl, beautiful. I love her to death. Without her, I'm not sitting here right now. But. So I'm home by myself, back from the road and not thinking about the next tour. It's like, who am I? What am I, what am I doing?
- [104:08]
Billy
I'm laughing because I know this feeling.
- [104:09]
Kevin Cronin
You know the feeling.
- [104:10]
Billy
Oh, absolute.
- [104:12]
Kevin Cronin
So it's like, what am I going to do? And what I found myself falling into is challenging myself when, you know, when you're on tour. I don't know if your tours were the same as this, but our tours were very male oriented. Everyone. We had one woman on the crew. Our, our band is all men. And, and I know you've had a female in the band before. I'm not sure how that works. But, but, you know, so your, your male friend group is pretty much spoken for. But, but I had a few male friends at home, you know, husbands of what, of, of my wife's friends who I've been, Been close to. But I'm like, I'm gonna. One, one of the neighbors is walking his dogs. Great guy named Michael Edell. Brilliant. I've always loved him, never really and hung out with him. So we, we went out and had sushi together, you know, and so I, I've been just like, you know, Pat Benatar and Brian Adams played the Forum. And Tommy, who you might have met, manages Pat and Spider and said what? Come down to the Forum, see the show. I'm like, I'm gonna sit in traffic for two hours to see someone else's show at the Forum. I'm like, okay, yes, I, yes, I am gonna do that. And I did. And Billy was just like this inspiring, like, mind expanding feelings that I had being there. So I'm just challenging myself and pushing myself. One of our neighbors up at the beach invited me to go out on a little boat ride with him out to the islands, out to the Channel Islands. I'm like, okay, let's go, go. You know, so that's kind of where my head is at now. I'm just like, I'm going to finish my book that I've been working on for nine years. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm not going to be living between tour legs for the first time in 50 years, and you know how that is.
- [106:19]
Billy
I understand this very deeply.
- [106:21]
Kevin Cronin
You're out. You're out for three weeks. You come home for 10 days. It takes you 10 days to catch up on everything you missed in the three weeks, and then you're to.
- [106:28]
Billy
Going.
- [106:28]
Kevin Cronin
Gone.
- [106:28]
Billy
How'd you go?
- [106:29]
Kevin Cronin
So, yeah. So here we are.
- [106:34]
Billy
Well, my last question I was going to ask you is to ask you to define happiness, but I think you just did.
- [106:40]
Kevin Cronin
Well, as a matter of fact, it's funny you should say that, because when my wife got back from Florida, we were. I was sharing some of this with her, and I said. I said, lisa, I feel like I'm fighting for my happiness. And. And she said, well, that sounds kind of negative, Fighting and happiness. And I said, well, I don't feel like it's negative. I feel like I'm fighting for it. Like I have to push myself. And she kind of helps push me, too. She always has. That's been kind of a piece of our relationship. She's a brilliant woman. Worked at. I met her. She worked for David Geffen. When. Back in the day. And you. Yeah, she. So she. She believes in me sometimes more than I believe in myself, and she pushes me to. When she hears me wanting to challenge myself, she's like, yeah, that sounds good. Do that.
- [107:34]
Billy
Yeah. Thank you. I love talking to you.
- [107:36]
Kevin Cronin
Thank you, Bill.
- [107:36]
Billy
Thank you so much.
- [107:37]
Kevin Cronin
What a pleasure.
- [107:38]
Billy
Thank you.