Watching one of your favorite bands suffer the unjust slings and arrows hurled in their direction by one-time supporters is one thing, but watching a great band continually shoot themselves in the foot is a whole other story. Sadly, both factors attributed to Cheap Trick's most tumultuous, yet ultimately most commercially rewarding decade.
It all began promisingly enough with the announcement in late '79 that the band would team up with Beatles producer George Martin for the follow-up to Dream Police. Since most fans recognized the band's penchant for Beatle-esque melodies and shared Trick's love for the Fab Four, the pairing with Martin seemed an obvious slam dunk.
The first fruit of this marriage made in rock & roll heaven was "Everything Works If You Let It", the lead-off single from the highly-anticipated, but ultimately disappointing movie "Roadie".
A few months later, what greeted fans who flocked to record stores to grab a copy of the band's highly-anticipated new album All Shook Up, was an ambitious-to-a-fault visual and musical hodge-podge that was ultimately short on material, resulting in the inclusion of "Who D'King", an ill-advised drum experiment that may have been a hoot to record in the exotic West Indies location of Montserrat, but should never have made the final cut.
Despite such filler, there are at least three stone-cold gems on the album ("Stop This Game", "Just Got Back", and "World's Greatest Lover") that could and should have been smashes at rock radio, but, instead, barely charted at all, leaving fans to wonder if the powers-that-be at Epic Records had it in for the band.
If a lack of support at their label was adding to the pressure the band was feeling to repeat the success of At Budokan, the sudden departure of bassist Tom Petersson just prior to the release of All Shook Up did not help matters. Petersson, whose relationship with Nielsen had reportedly soured, caught a bad case of "Ego flu" and departed the band to record his first solo album for Epic Records.
Petersson was also recruited by Mick Jagger to lend his supreme 12-string bass skills to Jagger's solo debut, She's The Boss, but none of Petersson's tracks made the final album. If that wasn't deflating enough, the completed solo album he turned into Epic was rejected by the label.
On the plus side, all worries that Petersson would be hard to replace were cast aside once fans caught new bassist Pete Comita in action during the band's regionally-televised performance at Chicagofest.
Comita, who was a lead guitarist by trade, brought a workmanlike intensity to the 12-string bass, which Petersson had not only invented, but had made the foundation of his live rig. Comita had never played the 12-string bass, but was a fast learner and wound up breathed new fire into the band's live performances.
Sadly, Comita's desire to write more material for the band than Nielsen was comfortable with led to his hasty exit after his song "Reach Out", from the "Heavy Metal" soundtrack became a fan favorite and was chosen over Nielsen's "I Must Be Dreaming" for release as a single by Elektra/Full Moon Records.
None of this was announced to the press, however, so when the band's 1982 album One On One showed up in stores, there was an unfamiliar face on the cover; that of new bass player John Brant.
Thankfully, or so we thought, at least the band had stuck with Roy Thomas Baker. Upon listening to the album, though, very few of RTB's hallmark production flourishes were utilized by the band and the resulting album lacked the clarity and punch of previous RTB projects by Queen and The Cars.
While "If You Want My Love" remains one of the best tracks the band has ever recorded, a majority of the material strays into faux-metal and disco (!) territory as the band achieves mixed results with yet another legendary producer.
Catch Part 2 later this week!
Tags:
'80s ups n downs