“WITH A HYBRID AUDIENCE of young and old rockers, Cheap Trick’s longevity seems assured.” That declaration—made in the January 1980 issue of Trouser Press—turned out to be quite prophetic. But the writer couldn’t have possibly imagined we’d still be talking about Cheap Trick 36 years later.
Yet here we are. And more than four decades later, here’s the band, still putting out records and still touring almost as relentlessly as they did back in 1980. Maybe this can be attributed to Cheap Trick’s humble, hard-working Midwest beginning, which has, for the most part, kept the members grounded. It’s more likely because Cheap Trick wrote perfect, weirdo rock songs that came close to punk rock, but were never too deeply entrenched in any one style.
“We were always wise-asses ourselves, but we never thought we were punk. We were musicians,” says guitarist Rick Nielsen on the phone from his home in Rockford, Illinois, the town that birthed Cheap Trick. “We just did what we did. Some songs were heavy metal. Some songs were punk. Some songs were beautifully written. It was never the same thing over and over and over again. That’s the way we still are.”