Speaker 1: Hello, Shirley fans, We're going back to nineteen eighty one
the band Ario Speedwagon, the album High in Fidelity Without
further ado. Here are your hosts, Jason Covin, d Graves
and my good friend Doug Gray.
Speaker 2: Let's get some Okay, here's the problem, doctor. We have
this new season of the Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcast,
and we're starting off with Ario Speedwagon. I dreamed up
a perfect guest host to come on the show, but
it's not real. I just made him up. Can you
help me?
Speaker 3: No problem, D, because I have Doug Gray here to
guest host on the Ario Speedwagon episode with us. That
was a nice Kevin Cronin invitation you had right there.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I was inspired. Guys. Welcome back
to season seven seven Lucky seven. Hello everybody. Gosh, I
can't believe it's been We're embarking on our seventh year
of doing this really amazing. Yeah. Started in We actually
started in twenty nineteen, recorded a bunch, released our first
episode January of twenty twenty. For when we're recording now,
it will be exactly six years ago.
Speaker 3: We spent like five hours recording a three parter on
Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Stark
and when we got done, we're like, this sucks. Delete
start over. We've come along the way as I think,
I hope we have.
Speaker 2: We have, we have, and as one of the things
that comes along with, you know, a longevity and continued
success is advertisements. And we've had advertisements in our podcast episodes,
and guys, we think that you're cool with that since
that's one of the very few ways that we can
make money as podcasters. But if you're not, we have
another way that we can make money as podcasters that
we will tempt you with. If it's worth five bucks
to you, you can skip out on all the ads,
just go join our Patreon page. The same time that
we drop the episode, we will drop an ad free
version of the episode on our Patreon page and you
can listen to ad free and in addition to that
for that same time bucks or if you want to
go up you can you will get all of our
one hit Wonder episodes, which we've got like forty or
fifty of those right now. They're stacking up, and there's
some of our best stuff. You get involved with all
of our behind the scenes stuff where we talk to
our fans, do polls, do questionnaires, do silly stuff. So
go to patreon dot com, slash surely podcasts and you
can join up with that. And then you had something
else that we needed to talk about.
Speaker 3: I mean the merch store. Man, when do we give
this merch store?
Speaker 2: So go to shopify. There should be Jason is putting
links in the show notes to our merch store. You
can get a surely you can't be serious t shirt hat,
no bikini bikini, that was it. It was a big sweatshirt.
All kinds of stuff. Yes, so check that out. You
get you can even get little stickers for your car,
your computer or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good. Well, today, d we have our good
friend who we've known for I've known him for decades.
You've known him for probably a decade.
Speaker 2: Or maybe probably yeah, probably.
Speaker 3: More, mister Doug Gray.
Speaker 4: Thanks Scott.
Speaker 2: Not longtime listener, first time.
Speaker 4: Get That's exactly what I was just say, longtime listener,
first time caller. Glad to be on the air with you, guys.
Jason and I have talked about albums. He's been wrong
most of the time, whether we talk about Michael Jackson
or Bon Jovi or whoever def Leppard. Yeah, but yeah,
I've been listening since the first season, been a Patreon
member for a little while and really enjoy it. But
Jason mentioned that you're going to talk about one of
my favorite bands, a band I've seen in concert many times,
and so looking forward to jumping into that.
Speaker 2: Very good.
Speaker 3: Actually, Doug was one of the first guys way back
when he and I would kick around whether Thriller or
Bad or pyromani or Hysteria was better.
Speaker 4: And yeah, Jason couldn't have been more wrong. He could
have tried, but he would not have succeeded.
Speaker 2: Jason would routinely send me texts where Doug was singing
my praises, like Jason has got this wrong and you've
got it right, And.
Speaker 3: I was like, I know, I stand by my judgment.
By the way, we've got this right. Here. This is
what we're talking about today. This is the best selling
album of nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: This is Ario Speedwagon High Infidelity.
Speaker 2: Best selling album forty five years ago this year.
Speaker 3: That's right, crazy, forty five years ago. Ten times Platinum
Diamond is the certification it got awesome. And I've got
a little note here. It says it's spent fifteen weeks
at the number one album like the top of the
Billboard two hundred non consecutive, was broken up a little
bit by Styx's Paradise Theater, which you'll probably remember best
of Times and some good songs on that one. But
it's one of only twenty seven albums and seven rock
acts to do that. One of the other rock acts
to have over fifteen weeks at the number one Billboard
two hundred is Fleetwood Max Rumors album, which we are
going to be covering this season in just a few
short weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, matching it up with Eagles Hotel California. Come, I mean,
come on, that's a matchup made in heaven right there,
That's what that is. I'm gonna have a hard time
on that one.
Speaker 3: It's going to be amazing. That mean, it's two of
the greatest albums I've ever made.
Speaker 2: Right well, speaking of greatest albums ever made, this is
the album. Hey, eleventh time is the charm. This band
had been around forever, and eleventh album it really was
kind of the well, guys, this is our last swing
at the bat, right It's going to be this or nothing,
And it was.
Speaker 3: This epic was about to kick them off, so you
get out of here. Get out of here, kid, you
got no future. But I've got a quick cover story
for you. I want to tell you before we dive
into the album.
Speaker 2: Okay, by the way, just for those of you who
are watching on video, I just can notice this and
I want to just kind of do.
Speaker 1: Go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a nice belly you got right there, there
we go. Yeah, it's looking good. So obviously Kevin Cronin
was involved in every aspect of this album. So he
was the only one of the band who was there
the day they shot the album cover.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So there's this model she's putting on lips and they
had this guy in the background who was putting the
record on the record player, and Kevin's like, I'm no actor,
but I know how to put a record on a
record player. So he's like, hey, guys, how would you
feel if I just jumped in and did that? And
they said, well, I mean I guess, so that's.
Speaker 2: What you know.
Speaker 3: We've got an actor. And he's like, no, no, no,
that's fine, I can do it. And his rule in
the band was, look, I was the only one there.
If you don't like that I'm on the cover. You
got to be there to complain.
Speaker 2: So it's it's interesting and we'll get into this later.
But here's the guy who has obviously kind of manhandled
the whole situation with this album with the album cover,
who wasn't an original member of the band right, who
got fired after the first album that he did with them.
But then and even in the last year, he bolted.
He was like, I'm not going to be Ario Speedwagon anymore.
It's going to be the Kevin Cronin band or project
or whatever. It is, still playing the Ario Speedwagon stuff,
but just couldn't seem to get along with the other
guys in the band to make it a joint venture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct, Doug. You've got a story on the
tie this album for us.
Speaker 4: So for the story that with this album with other albums,
Kevin Cronin talks about how they like to come up
with something quirky. You know you've got He refers to
it as tuna. But you can tune a piano, which
can't tune a fish. He's got good trouble. They like
to use puns and so with this one with high infidelity,
you know, he tells the story that you know, they're
all going through various different difficult things, but it was
rock and roll. It was the early eighties. A lot
of the band they were high a lot, and they
were not faithful to their significant others, and so he thought,
why not high infidelity. It's kind of a play on
high fidelity with the sound of music. But yeah, it's
pretty straightforward, you know. It's it's a time where they're
they're living the rock and roll lifestyle.
Speaker 3: By the way, this album's released November twenty first, nineteen eighty.
I just want to bring this up. This is the
time of pac Man and Rubik's Cube and Mount Saint
Helens and the Empire strikes back, just to kind of
get us where we are in the timeline forty five
years ago. Like you said, all right, were ready to
dive in the first song.
Speaker 2: Let's go, I'm gonna look at the album here. First
song on the album is called Don't Let Him Go.
Speaker 5: So you think your.
Speaker 2: Out? Okay, So we're starting off with and I don't
know how many times this beat has come up, but
this is the bo Diddley beat. It's don't boom, don't boom,
don't don't don't, don't, don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's Bo Didly beat. And you know, Kevin
talks about how when he was writing this song, it
was always on his bucket list to write a song
with the Bo Diddley beat. But you know, you can't
just steal everything, right, So he said, essentially what he
did was he moved an eighth note around somewhere. That
means absolutely nothing to somebody like me. He said. You know,
the casual listener will notice that it's a little bit different.
I don't, but he said that was always something he
wanted to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's unmistakable, and yeah, I can hear that,
I can hear the slight variation.
Speaker 3: But this seems like a great concert starter to me.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. They've got the kind of feedback on the guitar
going with a nice swell in the volume. Great, great
concert a.
Speaker 4: Well, and then come in hard with the drums before
you lead in.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Great, And this is a banger man. This is a
great kickoff to the album. I love this song. I
think it's awesome. It's radio friendly, it's great for concerts.
This was the third single released June of nineteen eighty one,
which I have Willey said to be the greatest month
in the eighties for movies.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: I've said that this peaked at number twenty four on
Augus Tust first of nineteen eighty one. Okay, does that
date stand out to you guys for any particular reason?
Speaker 2: August first, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: Dan At that is the beginning of MTV.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: Now, then, I just want to give you the top five.
Keep in mind, this is the day that this peaks
at number twenty four on the charts. That's also the
day that MTV debuts. This is your top five for
August first, nineteen eighty one. Number five, You've got Elvira
by Olkrage Boys, number fourple Mile. Number four is I
Don't Need You by Kenny Rogers.
Speaker 4: Okay, I don't know that one.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Number three is the theme for the Greatest American Hero.
Speaker 2: Go back to our Greatest TV Themes of All Time.
Speaker 3: Episode Number two is the One that You Love by
Air Supply.
Speaker 2: Just covered them last season.
Speaker 3: Go back to Got our Display episode and number one
is Jesse's Girl by Rick Springfield.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a icon.
Speaker 4: So with this song, it's really interesting because you know,
Cronin is the one who wrote the song, gets gets
credit for that. And he talks about how most of
the songs that he wrote they were really about personal
experience thing these things that he was going through personally,
but this is one of the few songs that's an
exception to that. He created what he refers to as
a hero for the song, and this hero is an
amalgam of the band, he said, not so much him,
but Rich Wrath, with Bruce Hall, with Alan. He said,
it's all a little bit of what's going on with
all of them, and it's the idea that they needed
people to hang with them. You know, just like you
talked about with the label losing confidence in the band.
You know, there's there's significant others were also losing a
little confidence in the relationship with them, and it's like, hey,
don't give up on us. We're still growing. Give them
a chance to grow and we'll come through this, okay
in the end.
Speaker 2: I love it. Perfect beginning for the album.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we read for song number two.
Speaker 2: Here we go, song number two, Keep on Loving You.
Speaker 6: You should have seen body looking mad mad there.
Speaker 5: Was something missing.
Speaker 6: You should have known by the tone of my voice made.
Speaker 5: I should didn't listen.
Speaker 1: You made, but you never.
Speaker 5: Lived INSTEADY lived still in the grass.
Speaker 2: Sid wo Man, this is such a banger. This is
number two on the whole album for me. Wooh, this
is my second pavorite song on the whole album.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll be interested to see what you number one is,
but I mean, okay, yeah, I can see it coming,
but this is my number one. This is the best
song on the album to me.
Speaker 4: I think you're right. And you know this song is
the first release off of this album, right, And I'm
sure Jason you'll talk more about that, but it's a
very different sound than anything that they had put out
to this point. To talk a little bit about how
how they came to this song, you know, there was
a lot going on we talked about in their personal
lives and rocky relationships. It wasn't just the band maybe
that had some high end fidelity, some high in fidelity
by some of the spouses as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, let's talk about it. This is Kevin Cronin's
girlfriend who's cheating.
Speaker 4: On him, right, and you know he's gotten wind of this.
It's not sitting well. And he tells the story that
in the middle of the night he wakes up three
o'clock in the morning or whatever. And he said he
had learned over the years, when inspiration strikes, you go
with it when you're writing songs. So he goes downstairs,
sits down at this little piano that he has and
just starts banging out the chords and has a little
bit of the song, and so goes into the studio.
The process for writing songs for this band, they'd go in.
If somebody had an idea, they'd start playing it. And
if the other guys liked it, you know, maybe they'd
pick up their instruments they'd start playing along. If they didn't,
they just go out in a lot and shoot baskets.
And he said at one point, about two or three
minutes in, he said he was in the studio by
himself on this song. So the other guys did not
like it at all. It was just this soft, syrupy
thing that he was playing on a piano. And then
finally he said, I think just to get me to
stop playing it, rich Rath picks up his guitar, plugs
it into a stack of amps, and just starts playing
just the loudest guitar riffs that he can play, and
Kevin said, he stopped and he looked at him, and
he goes, that is exactly what this song needs, and
essentially said, you've brought the power to the.
Speaker 2: Ballad he brought you take out. No, it's not the
same song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a folk song.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 3: It's a folk song. Rich Rath adds the power guitar
and it makes it a power ballad.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Kevin Cronan brought this to the band and they're like,
we don't like it. He's like, well, what do you
mean you don't like it. They're like, well, it's not
Rio Speedwagon. He's like, well, Kevin said, I am the
main songwriter for Rio Speedwagon. So when I write a song,
it's your job to make it an Ario Speedwagon song.
Speaker 2: So let's go.
Speaker 3: And so they're like, okay, and now you have a
number one smash.
Speaker 2: First number one, first number one, first time they cracked
the top fifty. Right, and this band formed nineteen sixty six.
Eight years before that. August of nineteen fifty eight, Billboard
started the hot one hundred chart. Do it man, no,
do it? You got it? You set me up for this.
You gave me this information. You were you asked me
the trivia question and I was like, I don't know.
You know, because you said, what was the five hundredth
song to reach number one? And I was like, when
did it start? You said August fourth, nineteen fifty eight.
I'm like, okay, so we didn't we have one a week, right,
so you you know, some stay a little bit longer,
Some thinking okay, if I just double the time, if
I double it, so that puts this around the seventies.
And I'm thinking, okay, I know a number one song
from the euro was born. It was seventy five. It's Fame.
I said, Fame. You're like, no, not good guess though, okay,
good guess not it. And then I'm like, oh wait,
we're about to do Ario Speedwagon. It's got to be
can't fight this feeling. You're like almost almost close. So
it's keep on loving you. There you go.
Speaker 3: This is the five hundredth number one on the history
of the Billboard chart, which I think is a really
cool It's good to little nugget there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: In the late nineteen seventies, they had they had some
really good songs. They had riding the storm out, they
had roll with the changes, and then maybe one of
my all time favorite Ario Speedwagon songs, Time for Me
to Fly, Time for me.
Speaker 5: Myself. I know it went to say, good fight, it's
time for me.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So as a up and coming Supaulpa High School chieftain
basketball player in high school, I would have my cassette
Walkman in the locker room, and the last song I
would listen to before we went on the floor to
warm up was Time for Me To.
Speaker 1: Yet.
Speaker 4: And just for your benefit, you know, as we go
on road trips, I would listen to the Outfields play Deep,
which you've covered.
Speaker 3: But check us out on Patreon. We covered Your Love
on Patreon.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 4: So anyway, you know, you've got these great songs that
never cracked the top fifty, and so in nineteen eighty
one they release Keep On Loving You, and it cracks
the top forty all right, all the way to number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredible, all the way open. Do you want
to hear the top five from March? I mean, why
wouldn't we was this March twenty first, nineteen eighty one. Okayyep,
keep in mind this is still pre EMTV and you
can tell by who's they're not running around on the
top ten here, okay, so here you go. Number ten.
I ain't gonna stand for it by Stevie Wonder. You
know what a Stevie Wonder fan I am? Number nine.
I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbit.
Speaker 4: I loved that song.
Speaker 3: Winner Takes All by Abba, Hello Again by Neil Diamond,
Rapture by Blondie. That's a good one, Crying by Don McClain,
nine to five by Dolly Parton, Iconic Now, that's a
great song. Best of Times by Styx, That's a great
song Woman by John Lennon, and then keep on Living.
Speaker 2: So I'm just gonna because we do have the nitpickers
out here, I'm gonna have to correct you. Oh, Stevie
Wonder was in the number eleventh spot, Thank you. Ten
spot was taken by Barbara Streisan and Barry Gibb with
what kind of fool?
Speaker 3: I don't know who I hate more, Barbara streisand or
Stevie Wonder. But I'm glad you're corrected me on that.
Speaker 4: I thought you were gonna say Barry Gibb.
Speaker 3: I love Barry Gibb. By the way, this song was
featured in the nineteen eighty two Last American version, which
I don't know if you've ever seen that. It is
like one of the very earliest pre Breakfast Club teen movies.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: It features Diane Franklin who is in Bill and Ted's
and Better Off Dead and maybe one of the biggest
heartbreaking moments at the very end of that movie. If
you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.
Before we move on, we have to talk about the
music video for this song.
Speaker 2: Okay, just real quick before we get to the music video. Yeah,
this was first single to hit the break the top fifty. Yes,
hit the number one spot.
Speaker 4: Yes, the record label did not want them to release
They absolutely did not.
Speaker 3: That just proves that nobody knows what the heck they're doing.
Speaker 2: He knows anything.
Speaker 4: And it's not going to be the first time or
the last time on this album that they disagreed about
what song should be released next.
Speaker 2: Yep, Okay, let's talk about the music video, all right.
Speaker 3: So the music video again. I heard Kevin Crona talk
about this. He's like, you know, we're making music videos
because we're supposed to make music videos, but there's no
real format for music videos.
Speaker 2: It's like, what are we doing?
Speaker 3: He said, you would make multiple music videos on an afternoon.
And so when you watch this video and one we're
getting ready to talk about here in a minute, you've
got this ridiculous opening scene where Kevin Cronin is on
the couch talking to a beautiful psychiatrist.
Speaker 2: I made her up.
Speaker 3: She's so beautiful. I can't get her out of my head,
and he does all this ridiculous thing.
Speaker 7: Here's the problem, doctor, it's this new album. I wrote
a song about a girl.
Speaker 2: I made her up.
Speaker 7: It was only a song, but I can't get her
out of my mind. And every time I think of her,
I picture her with the other guys, never with me.
She's driving nuts, but she's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: Then they play this live song which is kind of
in his mind, which, by the way, Kevin Cronin never
breaks eye contact with the.
Speaker 2: Camera through the so disturbing.
Speaker 3: He's gonna keep on love and all of us, apparently,
and then at the very end he's like, okay, doctor,
who who could this woman be? And of course it's
the psychiatrist.
Speaker 2: It's not just that, it's that she takes off the glasses,
she lets down her hair. She looks right at the camera.
I had no idea.
Speaker 4: Yes, this was actually the seventeenth video ever shown on MTV.
Speaker 2: Love it nice?
Speaker 4: Can I mention one last thing on this song? So
one of the CDs that I would listen to in college.
I think it came out in the early nineties, was
called the Second Decade of Rock and Roll nineteen eighty
one to nineteen ninety one. It was the second greatest
Hits album. And on that there's a song. It's a
remake of Keep On Loving You. It's called Keep On
Loving You eighty nine and it's in a reggae version.
If you haven't checked that out, we got to listen
to this, but.
Speaker 5: You did that this sun but INSTEADY said.
Speaker 4: Keep in mind Gary rich Rath left the band in
nineteen eighty eight. Yeah, this version was made in nineteen
eighty nine and probably was not rich Rat approved.
Speaker 3: I dig it, man, I like it.
Speaker 2: I think that rich Rath is probably cringing in his
grave right now.
Speaker 4: That's fair.
Speaker 6: Hey.
Speaker 3: By the way, before we leave the song, I sent
you guys a video clip of Kevin Cronin and his
daughter playing this song with like her high school vocal
group it's touching to me to see it. You know,
father and her his daughter or whatever at high school.
But you're just looking at these high school sophomores who
are like, who's your dad again?
Speaker 4: Like well, and if you watch the video long enough,
you're wondering how long is Kevin Cronin going to go
before he just has to jump in And it's not
very long.
Speaker 3: That's not long at all.
Speaker 2: Okay. Song number three, this one is called follow my Heart.
Speaker 6: I saw you and midnight in there you stood there
and you seem so same end of this shot, just
see a hun is driving me?
Speaker 5: Man, shut up.
Speaker 3: So far we're three for three. I think you got
Gary rich Rath really making his presence known.
Speaker 2: On this song. He's announcing his presence with authority.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: Sure. They brought you know, Tom Kelly, who's somebody that
they wrote with, you know, from from time to time
when they were struggling with what they were going to
put on the record. You know, they bring him in
and he this is consistent with a lot of the
songs that he helped them write. It's good. It's not
one of my favorites, you know. Off all my head,
off all my Heart, I mean, we all have to
make those decisions, but it gets pretty repetitive.
Speaker 2: That's what I do to the repetitive. It kind of
went on and on with that a little bit for me.
So it's it's not on my skipper yet. It's still
a banger, but it's not going to be one that
I put in my top tier.
Speaker 3: Yep, man, I love this song. So you've got Alan
Gratzer who plays drums. You got Neil Doty who plays keys.
Speaker 2: Well, those two guys, I mean we need to say
those are the guys that founded the band. They right,
like nineteen sixty six. They're both going to University of Illinois.
Alan Is has been playing drums for a while. Dody
is just really just learning how to play some Beatles
songs on the on the piano, and he's like, I
need a band, and so that's that's how it begins.
And then do you guys know where the name comes from?
Speaker 4: I actually do.
Speaker 2: It's college class.
Speaker 4: Right, History of transportation, right, And Dody walks into his
history of transportation class and see Rio speed Wagon up
on the board real and trying to figure out what
that is, which it basically goes back to a truck
that was produced by Ransom e Olds R EO. That's
that's the father of the Oldsmobile. Yeah, nice probably heard
of it.
Speaker 2: And the speed Wagon is the grandfather of the pick up.
That's right.
Speaker 4: That's right, And I mean was one. It was kind
of a sporty truck for back in the day. You know,
it would pick up about thirty five forty miles an hour.
Speaker 2: It's it was produced from nineteen fifteen to about nineteen
fifty three. Just that random piece of knowledge there.
Speaker 3: Here you go, folks, it's fantastic you R EO speed.
Speaker 4: Talking about Gratzer and Dodi. You know, I don't think
they actually knew that the other ones were musicians. At
the beginning. They were running around and doing something, and
they tell a story. They kind of went down into
this building somewhere dark, inner recesses of a college building,
and there's a piano and Doty sits down and plays,
and Grasser's like, wait, you're a musician. And they start
playing songs and looking for some friends, and the band
had its birth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, interestingly, they didn't have Kevin Cronin, they didn't
have Gary Ritrath, and so how those guys come to
be in the band is another interesting story, but we
can we can tell that story a little bit later on.
Speaker 3: Okay, yep, sounds good. By the way, Doug, you ted
me up for something earlier. I just want to drop
this little nugget right when you have a band like
Rio Speedwagon who's literally been playing since nineteen what sixty
six you said sixty six, ye, and are still active
on the road today.
Speaker 4: Nope, not today, as of last year. As of last year,
they are no longer active.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, all right, Well, during that time, you're gonna
you're gonna co headline and open for and tour with
a bunch of different bands. So here's this list. Okay,
prepared to have your mind blown by the amount of
artists that they've played with. Okay, listen to this list. Aerosmith, Styx,
Ted Nugent, Kansas, Black Sabbath, zz Top, Foghead, Then Lizzie Journey, Foreigner,
Boston Hart, thirty Eight, Special, Cheap Trick, Survivor, The Cars, Chicago,
Mister Mister Night, Ranger, Toto, Asia, Brian Adams, Rick Springfield,
Lover Boy, Pat Benatar, Bad Company, Eddie Money, Steve Miller,
Don Felder, and Collective soul. Wow, that's a lot of names,
but that's also not a lot of bands we've covered.
Speaker 2: Baners yup.
Speaker 4: So in nineteen I think it was nineteen ninety four,
saw him with Cheap Trick at Mohawk Park. Great show.
I saw him at the Tulsa There was a floating
stage of river Theater amphitheater type thing, and I don't
think they even had anybody opening.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The one thing about this band, they they're a touring
band' That's what they did for ten years before they
ever had a hit. They just in the Midwest, built
this growing far Halloween, played anywhere with anybody that they
could do a show. In fact, they said in the
early days they could fill Bush Stadium with sixty five
thousand people as a headliner, and then two weeks later
they could go to Los Angeles and they couldn't fill
Whiskey a go go, you know. But as a as
a touring band, I think I saw him doing those shows.
Twenty fourteen, I saw a show with Chicago. I was
telling Jason that I went there really excited to see Chicago.
I'd never seen them before and was not my favorite.
I learned at that point that apparently with the Peter
Sata Chicago breakup Peter Satara, that got custody of the
greatest songs.
Speaker 3: You have a great nugget about another band that they
played with that we've covered.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, I'm holding on to
that one.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, Song number four in your Letter.
Speaker 4: I love this song. You know, so I grew up
listening to my mom play you know, music from the
nineteen fifties, doo wop style music. This is very much
along those lines, and so I think it's very catchy,
interesting story. You know that it's it's a Gary Richratht song,
but apparently it's from Neil Dodie. You know, they're coming
back from somewhere on tour and he finds a letter
from his wife sitting on the kitchen table or whatever,
just saying hey, by the way I'm going and so
out of that heartbreak and just you know, gut wrenching agony,
they come up with this peppy in your Letter song.
Speaker 2: It's very The tune seems very like del Shannon runaway
kind of sound to it, which again it's an interesting
connection since she obviously ran away.
Speaker 3: Yes, they all John Deere letter. Yeah, did you hear
who it was? So he comes home and he finds
this letter. Hey, I'm leaving you for this guy. And
the guy was somebody who was a drug dealer for
the band.
Speaker 4: Okay, they all knew him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is this guy who supplied him with you
know stuff. And his response was, man, I sure I'm
gonna miss that guy.
Speaker 2: That was hilarious. Man.
Speaker 4: So, you know, one of the things is interesting on
the on the the heels of Keep On Loving You,
the band was finding all the success and the record label,
you know, they decide, hey, we need to follow this
with a great rock song we want to release in
your Letter next, and Kevin tells the story that they
pushed back. They said, no, we are not releasing this
song next, and the band's like, I mean the record
label like, yeah you are, and he said, you know,
sometimes you just have to as a band stand up
for what you want. And in this case, we knew
this was not the second song to come off this album,
and fortunately they were right.
Speaker 3: They made the right call. Now, before we get to
that particular song you're talking about, this music video is
the one clearly filmed the same day that they did
keep on loving you. The psychiatrist is now a secretary.
Speaker 2: She's typing away, you're gonna have to do a costume
very verse.
Speaker 3: She still looks great. She's just a secretary.
Speaker 2: Great actress. Ye, a psychiatrist. She could do secretary. She
could do made up model, director's dream.
Speaker 4: No wardrone changes.
Speaker 3: So this is the fourth single released July of nineteen
eighty one. This reached number twenty on the High one hundred.
Speaker 2: This is a hit.
Speaker 3: It is okay, all right, let's get on to the
real bay one.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I told you what my number two was.
This one is my number one. This is take it
on the run and.
Speaker 5: Rooted from a friend you've been missing around.
Speaker 4: They say, you got a bode.
Speaker 3: That's what a freaking awesome song.
Speaker 2: He says, Oh, one of the best opening lines in
all the.
Speaker 4: Fucker n you know, great story about that. So, so
in the band's writing process, you know, Kevin talks about
how you know, Rich Rat at times would just kind
of go a wall for a week, ten days, two weeks, whatever,
and he would just hold up the house. He'd be
working on songs, writing stuff in notebooks, and and Kevin
would go over to his house and would just kind
of sit with them and go through the notebooks, and
and they're struggling. They just don't have anything. And rich
Rat tells him, well, I've got this thing I've kind
of been working on, and he just starts with heard
it from a friend. You heard it from a friend
who heard it from another You've been messing around, and
Kevin stops him right there, like, that is not just
the best opening line of any song we've ever written.
That's the best opening line of any song ever.
Speaker 2: I would not disagree that it might be. It might
be a fee best was anyone whatever? And then you
throw in talk is cheap when the story is good.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Kevin's quote on this. So Gary brought the
song to me. As soon as I heard it, I
knew it would be awesome. It really grabbed me by
the nuts.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad. I'm glad it touched him in a very.
Speaker 2: Meaningful way, in an intimate way, that's right.
Speaker 4: So yeah, he talks about how you know, I guess
he puts it right up there with Norwegian Wood. You know,
I once had a girl, or should I say she
once had me.
Speaker 3: This was originally titled Don't Let Me down When rich
Wreth brought it to him, Kevin said, listen, man, that
title has been used by the Beatles. I mean it's
been used by one hundred people were not using that title,
and so he's the one. He's like, look, I love
your song, but we're changing it to we're calling it
Taken It on the Run. Yeah, he said, even though
it should have been called Wives on the Run, right,
but it's Taken on the Run.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did take It on the Run have that meaning?
Or did they just apply these words and make it
mean that.
Speaker 3: I think this whole album's about infidelity.
Speaker 4: So Take It on the Run is something that you
hear with this band a lot, and in some interviews
I've heard them talk about this idea that, you know,
take It on the Run is kind of taking your
love on the run. You've heard that in some musical
lines in rock band history. But they would be going
from show to show to show, and it's this idea
that you're taking love wherever you can get it, and
you're taking it on the run.
Speaker 3: By the way, this is the ninth video played on MTV,
but due to technical difficulties, the video went black after
just twelve seconds, and it was never finished. That was
an omen for them on empty. I just think this
song is beautiful, it's catchy, it's a hit. This was
the second single at least March of eighty one. It's
a It's another great, great.
Speaker 4: A great example. You know, keep on Loving You. They
had to fight with Epic to even get it on
the record. With this one, they had to fight to
get it released. It was actually released. It debuted in
the charts on March twenty first, nineteen eighty one. So
what other significance is that date? March twenty first, nineteen
eighty one.
Speaker 3: That's the date that Keep On Loving You hit number one?
Speaker 2: There you go?
Speaker 3: How about that's good one?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Hit stop on your tape player, kick it out, flip
it over for side two.
Speaker 2: This one is called tough Guys, will.
Speaker 5: You swinging before?
Speaker 1: We have?
Speaker 5: Like Shonna.
Speaker 7: Say, Roleo, what about your promise to the Humane Woman
Hitters Club? I'm sorry, thanked.
Speaker 1: I had to my own mind.
Speaker 2: This is another throwback melody and rhythm. This is like
the sixties kind of beach rock sound. What do you
guys think about this one?
Speaker 4: I loved this song and always have. It caught me
with the little Rascals lead in, which I thought was
so cool. But this is a song that they've played
in concert since they released it. It's a great live song,
you know, kind of the idea of don't get pushed around,
don't get bullied. Kevin Cronin talks about how as junior
hig high school kid. You know, keep in mind this
guy is He's listed on some places as five to ten,
but there's no more than five to seven of Kevin Cronin,
maybe one hundred and thirty five pounds, so wet. You've
got rock stars like John bon Jovi and Brett Michaels
and and they're the ones that are the glam picks.
And then you've got Kevin Cronin, who is not what
you want as a poster child for eighties rock stars.
So I'm guessing he got picked on a lot, and
this song was his way of kind of saying I'm
getting the girls in the end. Guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the song grabs me by the nuts.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, I'll just tell you this is right
up there with one of my favorite songs on the album.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great one. This was never released as
a single, and do you know why no, because it
had the infamous sh word that's right in the lyrics. Yes,
and that was not about to clear Top forty radio
or MTV at that time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Tipper Gore probably wasn't a big fan at this
and you know, I guess we had to wait for
Pink before we could just bleep things out on the radio.
Speaker 2: I do think it is cool.
Speaker 3: You get the audio clip from our gang right little Rascals,
and that short was called Hearts Are Thumps from nineteen
thirty seven.
Speaker 2: All right. Second song on side to this one is
called out of Season.
Speaker 3: I love this song too, man, this is a great one.
Speaker 4: I do too. It's very hooky when you get into
the chorus of courses hooky. It is very reminiscent of
the nineteen seventies reo Speedwagon sound. I think this is
one they brought Kelly in to work with Kevin Crodon
to write, and one of them worked on one part,
one of them worked on the other. You crammed it together.
They worked it out, you know, work some of those things.
I'm like, yeah, they they just kind of forced it.
You've got season, reason? What other words can we come up?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 4: Reason?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: So I've heard Kevin Croton say that that, you know,
some songs are inspirational and some are just created, and
this is one that's created. It's a fun song, probably
fun in concert. Maybe not one of my favorites on
the album.
Speaker 2: Again, so what strikes I agree with you. The body
of the song is not super impressive. I really like
the intro riff that Gary Richrath is doing there. It's
kind of to me him showing off a little bit.
And you, guys, do you know who the original singer
for Rspedwaing was?
Speaker 4: It was Terry Latrell right right, and he was on
their first first album, my first instance. It was through
nineteen seventy two, so the first five years, however, many albums.
Speaker 2: That was okay. They got Gary along the way there.
Gary had seen them perform live and he was just
this young kid who liked to play guitar and wanted
a band. He pursued them lived literally like ran down
the road with his guitar case after their show, going
hey guys, wait, wait, wait, guys, wait wait. And he
was so you know, kind of adamant about being He's like,
you guys, gotta let me do the band. They're like well,
let's see, let's see what he can do.
Speaker 4: Give him a shot.
Speaker 2: And it turns out he's Gary richrathth he's amazing. Turns
out he could play yeah, yeah, and he's so good
that within a very short amount of time, he's leading
the band. He's writing the songs, he's writing the music.
He is the man.
Speaker 4: Yep, you know. So the band's touring, they've lost Latrell,
they need a lead singer, and so where do you
go to find a lead singer? Well, you look for
a war posted in a store window. And Kevin Cronin
was a singer without a band. He had been a
folks singer through the late sixties early seventies, but needed
somebody to play with, and so he created this ruse.
He was a essentially like a placement agent yeh or Risian,
that's right, a singer broker. And so he created all
these flyers. He went around and put them up in
store windows in Champagne, Illinois, and the band called him
up his phone numbers on there. They said, we need
a lead singer. Is there somebody that you can can
help us find? Told him a little bit of that,
and he's like, yeah, I I think I might be
able to find somebody. And the minutes later it came
over and it was him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, genius, Yeah, make a flyer.
Speaker 3: Let's make a flyer and I'll create this fake company
that promotes myself prettyvious.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. Yeah, now you know that is I
think qualifying material for the Accidental Legends, no doubt.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Shout out to our new friends our podcast, Matthew and Dirk.
You guys should go check out Accidental Legends. But that's
right up the alley, like just no chance of making it.
Both of these guys, no chance of making it. And
then they become the leaders of.
Speaker 3: The primary songwriters for the band. Now, Gary Richrath ended up.
He died in twenty sixteen, but he got kicked out
of the band in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: His drug addiction was it was unbearable at that point. Yeah,
and they had all been through it. And Kevin Cronin
talks about this. At his wake up moment, his and
I say wake up. His wife woke him up and said, hey,
we're going to go to the beach with the kids,
and he's like, no, I'm not going to go without me,
and so she leaves, takes the kids to the beach
and it's ten am and he's opening the door to
the liquor cabinet, and it's just this realization of is
this who I am that at ten o'clock in the morning,
I'm choosing to drink instead of be at the beach
with my wife and children. And so at that point
he's like, I'm turning it off. I'm cleaning my life up.
He influenced the rest of the guys over a period
of time, and everybody had their own kind of struggles,
but Gary was the one who just he was like,
I don't understand this. We're rock and rollers. We're supposed
to live like this. What you guys are doing doesn't
make any sense, right. But then obviously that didn't work
out very well for him.
Speaker 4: No, And you know it's interesting because you know, then
they have to find a replacement guitarist, and David Motto
comes in as he's got chops of his own. That's
who I've only known when I've seen them live, and
he does a great job. But he said, you know,
when they first reach out to him to become the
lead guitarist, he thought, I'm looking at all these Richrath
songs and there's at least one, if not two guitar
solos in every one. So why wouldn't I want this gig?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah? I mean and rich Trath is really a
genius guitar player. He's really, really good.
Speaker 3: He's really good.
Speaker 2: It's just that his demon's got the worst of him
and he couldn't keep up the recording schedule.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've got a great Kevin Cronin Gary Richrath story. Okay,
so this is years after he had been kicked out
of the band. VH one had tried to kind of
get them together and try to finagle something where they're
in the same room, and it ended up blowing up
in their face, like they pushed back. I don't want
to see that guy and all that stuff. Well, some
years later, Kevin Cronin reaches out to Gary Richrath and says, hey, man,
let's go to lunch and I'll give you every opportunity
to lay into me and let's just get it all
out on the table. Let's see if we can't work
through this, and let by God speed bag guns. And
he knew that Gary Richrath was not doing well health wise.
I don't think he was doing well financial and Ario
Speedwagon had recovered by then and we're actually doing some things.
So they end up meeting. One of the things that
Gary Richrath would do while they were in the money,
Kevin Cronin said he would buy these these old Les
Paul guitars, and he was spending like five thousand dollars
on a guitar. And at the time, Kevin Cronin is like, dude,
you're nuts.
Speaker 2: What are you spending on your money.
Speaker 3: On these Well those guitars go on to be worth
like two hundred thousand dollars like they turned out to
be great investments. So Kevin was like, oh, man, what
did I know at the time. But Kevin Cronin had
acquired one of Gary Richrath's guitars, and he knew, you know,
it's one of those deals where Okay, I'm playing it
and then it gets put with my stuff and then
like over the years, it just kind of becomes part
of my stuff. So he had acquired this Martin D
twenty eight, nineteen forty three guitar, and it was this
acoustic guitar, and Kevin knew that it played so well
and it was really the only guitar that played like
the way he liked it.
Speaker 2: The Martin guitars are the top of the tier for
acoustic get okay.
Speaker 3: So during the lunch, Gary Richrath made it known that
I you know that guitar and want that guitar back.
Speaker 2: It's mine. I loaned it to you, right, I give
it to you right.
Speaker 3: And so, as Kevin said, he tried everything like, dude,
this guitar is it makes the sound I want and
it's the one that I use when I play take
it on the run, and I, you know, please anything.
But and it was one of those deals where I
was like, no, I kind of want that back. So
Kevin came up with a scheme. Back at his house,
he had a nineteen fifty one Fender telecaster.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: He said that it's actually the year before it became
like they officially made it's so it's not really a telecaster.
Guitar collectors know it as as a nocaster, so it's
like the year prior to it being a telecaster. And
he said it was awesome, It's beautiful. It's amazing. And
he's like, maybe if I show up at lunch, Gary
will say, Okay, where's my acoustic and Kevin's like, oh,
you know, I got this other one that maybe we
can you know, and he pulls it out and Gary's like,
that's mine too, Like crap he brought. He loses his
two guitar guitars in the same lunch.
Speaker 2: So fantastic. That's a good story, all right.
Speaker 3: Next song on the album.
Speaker 2: Okay. This one's called Shaking It Loose Beyond Okay.
Speaker 3: So this is a guitar rocker, but this is also
a piano rocker. Man, you got the they got. They're
rolling their hands down the piano and it's making a
great song. I don't I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 2: I like this one. It's fine, it's fun. It's not
something that I'm gonna go pull and listen to.
Speaker 3: It's a step down it is.
Speaker 4: You know What's what's funny? You know when you get
into the chorus and you're gonna shake shake, shake it
it loose, and I I immediately start to picture like
sixteen Candles when they're at the dance and you've got
Joe Q sack and back brace and she's dancing. You know,
this is exactly the kind of song that you would
have in kind of the background of one of these
John Hughes High School.
Speaker 2: I could see the scenes. I could see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, Doug, I'm teeing you up because you
told me the most amazing story about Reo speed Wagon
in the later days before they had made their recovery, right, so.
Speaker 4: You know, we talked about you know, rich Rath was
asked or left the band however you want to look
at it. In the late nineteen eighties and they were
trying to get started again. They had put out an
album something about it. You know, it's like a man
Chicken and his Dog and a Chicken, you know, great
album titles. But they were basically kind of rock bottom
and we're trying to build their way back up.
Speaker 2: And so they were. They were sharing the stage in
Mexico with the Ventril.
Speaker 4: The ventrilo quist. That's in nineteen ninety three. So a
year before that, nineteen ninety two, they get booked to
do a gig in Colombia and they are the opening
act for Milli Vanilli. Now this isn't the produced Milli Vanilli.
This is after the scandal, after the Grammys are taken away,
and you're getting the real Milli Vanilli and you're the
opening act, so they literally were coming back from rock bottom.
Speaker 3: They were below somebody who is rock bottom?
Speaker 4: That's right. And you know what's interesting is by by
about nineteen ninety three, when they're sharing the stage with
the Ventriloquist, they finally said, you know, we're done, and
they announced we're gonna stop touring. And it's kind of
this final tour thing, and all of a sudden people
start showing up again, and it's like the band gets
their second wind and has been you know, they played
for twenty more years after Crazy.
Speaker 2: Next time the album, this one is called Someone Tonight.
You got it. This does not sound like Kevin Cronin to.
Speaker 4: Me, this is not This is Bruce Hall, which is
interesting because Kevin Cronin Rich Rath at this time they
were writing almost everything. They bring Kelly in a little bit.
But Kevin said they like to have a song for
Bruce on every album. You know, he felt like if
they had more songwriters, it made him a better band,
It made each of them better. But in my mind,
it's a lot like the Beatles. And you know, I
was listening to Apples and Oranges. Shout out to to
Deaf Day, Dave and they're talking about how the Beatles
used to always have a song for Ringo on the album,
and so to me, this is the Ario Speedwagon's similar situation,
a song for Ringo.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 2: Number one, Ringo songs were usually pretty dang good. Okay,
I've just got to say that Ringo songs were usually
some of the better songs. Number two, I like this song.
I didn't I do. I think this song is great.
And number three, even if I didn't like it, I
would lie about it because Bruce Hall is a sooner boomer,
super freaking sooner.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: No, but I'm not lying. I really, I really do
enjoy the song. This is not uh, I'm fine that
it's not Kevin singing. It's a it's a good beat.
It's a good I like it.
Speaker 4: I like it, I like I actually like Bruce Hall's voice.
It's a change of pace. Kevin Cronin has a very
unique voice. I was telling Jason, it reminds me a
lot for those who listen to contemporary Christian music in
the nineteen eighties and nineties, reminds me a lot of
Michael W. Smith with the nasal sound to it, the
same local range. Yeah, but It's nice to have a
change of pace here. I like the song. I'm not
gonna skip it. It's not my favorite, but I would.
Speaker 2: Call this an undiscovered gym on the album. I mean,
I don't think a lot of people know about this song,
and I think it's good enough to call it a gym.
All right, last one, here we go, all right, last
song on the album. This one is called I Wish
You Were There.
Speaker 4: Where You Can Go.
Speaker 2: I can see this being a closing song. This is
to me, this is like Take It to the Limit
from the Eagles. It's just got that kind of big
epic drive to it of we're finishing off, We've had
a great show. This is our farewell to you song.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, Kevin said he wrote this when he was
still living with his parents, and it was a song
that he had bits and pieces of, but he never
could get it to the finish line. And he said,
as they were making this album, they were coming together
in the studio, it was almost like it was a
spiritual experience for them, and that was kind of the
spiritual inspiration for him to finish. This song not one
that I think you're going to hear in a concert.
I agree I think it's a great way to close
the album, right before I fast forward on the tape
deck and go right back to the first song on.
Speaker 2: The other side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it too. It is a good closer.
It's a good closer to a great album.
Speaker 2: Well, guys, that's it for Ario Speedwagon. Come back for
us next week. We are going to be talking. We're
going to have two guest hosts on that episode.
Speaker 3: We are Tim ev and Brad Moore, both huge.
Speaker 2: Rush fans, and we're going to be talking about Rush's
moving pictures and at the end of that episode give
you our final judgment on bitch of these two albums. Doug,
thanks for being here, man.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thanks for the invitations. Great to see you. Love
talking about Oreo Speedwagon.
Speaker 2: All right, we will see you guys next week. Thanks guys,
you're the worst improv ever to one of my I
didn't know. I have no idea who you're talking about.
And Doug and raise his hand, you can say we
have the perfect like I've got nothing, all right, all right, right,
I wasn't sure what you my best delivery on the
first run and that's what you got. You're gonna I
don't know. I don't think right right right, Hang on