Paul Natkin, Getty Images<\/span><\/p> And I go, \u201cWell, fuck it; let\u2019s play it. Let me hear what you\u2019ve got.\u201d He put on this demo, and I\u2019m a big proponent that the opening line of a song, of a book, of a movie script, is pretty important, you know? And when I heard, \u201cHeard it from a friend\/ Who heard it from a friend\/ Who heard it from another you\u2019ve been messin\u2019 around<\/em>,\u201d I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t need to hear anything else \u2013 this fucking song, people are going to [love this].\u201d It just had me. It was kind of one of those \u201cYou had me at hello\u201d moments. I just thought, \u201cThat\u2019s just the greatest [beginning].\u201d To me, that\u2019s up there with \u201cNorwegian Wood”: \u201cI once had a girl\/ Or should I say, she once had me.<\/em>\u201d It was just one of those lines that it was just like, \u201cOkay, you\u2019ve got me. Now, you\u2019ve just got to deliver the rest of the thing. But I\u2019m already in love here.\u201d But the chorus to it didn\u2019t pay off, because the song was titled \u201cDon\u2019t Let Me Down\u201d and it was just like, \u201cOkay, that kind of makes sense with what the song is talking about,\u201d but it just didn\u2019t connect with me.<\/p>\n So I was listening to it and the opening line of the chorus was, \u201cTake it on the run, baby<\/em>,\u201d and I was like, \u201cGary, I think the title to this song is \u2018Take It on the Run,\u2019 I\u2019ve just gotta be honest with you\u201d and he was like, \u201cOh, really?\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah.” So I just added to the end of the chorus, \u201cYou\u2019re under the gun\/ So you take it on the run<\/em>,\u201d which either makes sense or it doesn\u2019t, but it sure sung well and it sure rhymed, and it was a spur-of-the-moment thing that when I heard the rest of the song, that\u2019s what I felt. So we went with that. And just a little sidebar to that, when \u201cKeep on Loving You\u201d went to No.1 …\u00a0I had to beg the A&R department at Epic Records to put \u201cKeep on Loving You\u201d on the album. They didn\u2019t think it was good enough. When they heard that, they were like, \u201cGo back and keep writing; we don\u2019t really hear that.\u201d I had to literally fight with the record company to get that song included. This is the kind of shit that we went through with the record companies, you know? But after \u201cKeep on Loving You\u201d went to No. 1, the next thought is, \u201cWell, what\u2019s the follow-up single going to be?\u201d And of course the guys at the record company thought \u201cIn Your Letter,\u201d because it was poppy and it sounded like a hit song. It had a big hook with the \u201cIn your letter, oooh, in your letter<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n And I was like, \u201cAbsolutely fucking not.\u201d Luckily, our managers, John [Baruck] and Tom [Consolo] are our good friends. They\u2019ve been with us since the beginning, so they were very protective. If the band felt something really strongly and it was at odds with what the record company felt, John and Tom would always go to bat for us and push it through. So I was like, \u201cThere is no fucking way that you\u2019re going to follow \u2018Keep on Loving You\u2019 with \u2018In Your Letter.\u2019 The second single is \u2018Take It on the Run.\u2019\u201d There was no question in my mind, you know?\u00a0It helps when you write a No. 1 song. It gives you a little bit of clout with the record company, so they finally put their trust in me. And sure enough, \u201cTake It on the Run\u201d became the two of the one-two punch that sent that record into the stratosphere. \u201cIn Your Letter,\u201d in my opinion, would not have had that same effect.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Top 10 REO Speedwagon Songs<\/a><\/p>\n That was an important song to me, and it still is. That song has found its way back into our set list. It disappeared for a long time. I\u2019m not exactly sure why, but it\u2019s back. It was a pretty vulnerable statement. It was a reaction to having been bullied when I was a kid. So it came from a very, very vulnerable place. I don\u2019t know if you were ever bullied, but especially, because I grew up in the \u201850s and \u201860s, there wasn\u2019t the kind of consciousness as there is today, about bullying. Now there is zero tolerance for bullying, which is frikkin\u2019 great. No kid should have to endure some of the shit that I endured myself, and I saw other kids who got way worse than me. Let\u2019s face it, someone that\u2019s bullying someone, they\u2019re just kids too. They don\u2019t know any better. It\u2019s probably a learned behavior from their home life. They\u2019re probably the same kids whose parents are beating on them at home and they come out and act it out on some other vulnerable kid. It\u2019s something that there\u2019s a lot of shame involved in it, so when I wrote that song, I think it was slightly veiled, I guess, but I think that anyone, maybe, anyone who has been bullied, would hear that song and it would touch a chord in them.<\/p>\n This is the first time I\u2019m really talking about it in these terms. But that\u2019s where the song came from. It was an expression of a lot of repressed feelings from junior high school and high school, which were difficult periods in my life. And so I was able to express it, and I just like that song. I like the chord structure.\u00a0Every time we play it live, after the guitar solo, there\u2019s a couple of verses, and then right before the tag, we do a repeat chorus, and there\u2019s a transition between the first of the repeat choruses and the second repeat chorus where there\u2019s a minor chord that goes there and it\u2019s one of those things as a songwriter that every once in a while, you fall on a chord change. I\u2019m a lover of songs that don\u2019t have a lot of fancy chords, but just have simple chords arranged in a cool way. And that was one of my favorite chord changes of my songwriting career. Some of the best at that are guys like Tom Petty<\/a>. It\u2019s not about how many chords you have and how fancy they are, it\u2019s how you kind of string \u2018em together and the rhythm of them and how they work. That little part of \u201cTough Guys\u201d is probably my favorite [moment]. I look forward to it every night. It\u2019s just one of those things.<\/p>\n We had written all of the songs that we were going to write pretty much for that record, and some of the songs that we tried didn\u2019t pan out and we were still a couple of songs shy of how much material we wanted for the record. And that was when we called Tom [Kelly]. He worked with Gary a little bit and he worked with me a little bit. \u201cOut of Season,\u201d I had written the verses already and Tom had written the chorus already. Tom didn\u2019t have verses for his chorus and I didn\u2019t have a chorus for my verses, and we were just fuckin\u2019 around, basically just playing some music. \u201cHey, what have you got?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know, what have you got?\u201d And we kind of went, \u201cWait a minute!\u201d I think how it happened is that I played those verses, and Tom was like, \u201cWait a minute, I think I\u2019ve got something.\u201d He went through his notebooks and it was just kind of a marriage where it was just like click, click, connect it, and boom! We\u2019re off to the races. Song done! You can kind of hear it. If you listen to the song, you kind of hear the verses and then all of the sudden, the transition between the verse and the chorus, it\u2019s pretty sharp. It\u2019s pretty abrupt. [Laughs]<\/em> But it worked. I really do like that song.<\/p>\n But of all of the songs on the record,.there was a little manufacturing done in that song, There are a lot of songs through the history of pop music that are what I call a manufactured song as opposed to a created song. They\u2019re created, but it\u2019s a different thing. It\u2019s not like a \u201cKeep on Loving You,\u201d which was a burst of creativity in the middle of the night, or I was just feeling what I was feeling so strongly that it just erupted like a broken water main, [where] there was no stopping the energy of that song. \u201cOut of Season\u201d was more like we were digging for it and we found it and we put it together and it worked.<\/p>\n \u201cShakin\u2019 It Loose\u201d was late in the process. It was a song that Gary came in with, and I remember I wasn\u2019t a huge fan of it when Gary first brought it in. I didn\u2019t feel like I knew what he was writing about. I was like, \u201cWhat are we talking about here?\u201d I didn\u2019t really get it. But the title was kind of cool. Most of the songs on that record are pretty heavy, pretty weighty. \u201cKeep on Loving You,\u201d \u201cTake It on the Run\u201d \u2013 they\u2019re about heartbreak and loss and loneliness and desperation. You know, a lot of heady stuff. \u201cShakin\u2019 It Loose\u201d was just like almost a little breather. I think it\u2019s like two minutes and 45 seconds or something. So it\u2019s just a little breath of just \u201cFuck it, let\u2019s party\u201d in the middle of all of this craziness. So on that level, I think it works on the record.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a huge Bruce Hall fan. I kind of take credit for getting Bruce in the band, and that\u2019s a statement that might be debated as well. [Laughs]<\/em> When I first joined REO Speedwagon in 1972, we used to go back to Alan [Gratzer]\u2019s apartment. He was kind of the maitre d’ of the band. We would go to the Red Lion, and either we\u2019d be playing there or our friends would be playing there and we\u2019d just be hanging out. But the after party was always at Alan\u2019s house and he had a piano. So it was a big music hang when anything was going on in Champaign. It was \u201871 and \u201872, so there\u2019s a lot of camaraderie among the musical community. I remember just sitting at the piano one night playing some Beatles songs. I used to know how to play \u201cMartha, My Dear\u201d on the piano. I just kind of figured it out for myself. The next thing I knew, there was this cat sitting next to me that I didn\u2019t really know, kind of singing harmonies along with me. And I was like, \u201cOh, dude! That\u2019s cool! I dig that!\u201d And it turned out it was Bruce.<\/p>\n Paul Natkin, Getty Images<\/span><\/p> Everybody in Champaign already knew him because he was the lead singer in a band that had gigged around town. He was born and raised in Champaign, so everybody knew Bruce in Champaign, but I didn\u2019t know him. I was the new kid in town. I remember when I saw him a few nights later playing bass and fronting this band at the Red Lion, our local club, I was like, \u201cDude, I\u2019d like that guy to be in our band. He\u2019s my bass player even though he doesn\u2019t know it yet.\u201d I just felt that really strongly\u00a0[even though] REO had a bass player. Bruce was singing \u201cBack on the Road Again\u201d with his band back in those days, so I knew that Bruce had songwriting chops. My thing is, the more people in the band there are writing, the better. I want to have some of my songs on the record, obviously, but not at the exclusion of other people\u2019s songs. But on the other hand, the song has to be worthy in some way.<\/p>\n \u201cBack on the Road Again\u201d was kind of unique for Bruce. Most of his songwriting sounds more like \u201cSomeone Tonight,\u201d it\u2019s more of almost like a Cheap Trick<\/a> kind of feel to it, kind of a power-pop kind of thing. If you\u2019re backstage at one of our shows, Bruce walks around playing acoustic guitar: He\u2019s a really tremendous finger picker and very melodic. He comes up with just these beautiful melodies and beautiful chord changes. But a lot of times, he doesn\u2019t finish them. One of the hardest parts of songwriting is to bring it home. \u201cSomeone Tonight\u201d was just kind of Bruce at his power pop best. The subject matter was kind of similar to \u201cBack on the Road Again,\u201d and I was encouraging Bruce to write, because I always felt like the more writers we have in the band, the better records we\u2019re going to make and the more records we\u2019re going to be able to make. It took a little pressure off of me to have to be the principal songwriter. It\u2019s nice to have other guys writing, because it takes a little bit of the pressure off.<\/p>\n “I Wish You Were There” But I think I just kind of felt that there was a spiritual feeling in the air. And this wasn\u2019t conscious, this was me looking in hindsight, but there was also a spiritual feeling to that song. It was kind of a gospel thing, which you would never expect to hear on an REO Speedwagon. But at that point, my feeling was \u201cHey, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d I had had the experience in the past with a producer of one of our records. I came in with \u201cTime\u00a0for Me\u00a0to Fly,\u201d and the producer who was working with us at the time \u2013 this was before the Tuna Fish<\/em> record \u2013 said, \u201cNo, we can\u2019t record that song. It\u2019s only got three chords. It\u2019s too simple.\u201d And I\u2019m sitting there going, \u201cWho the fuck cares? Who\u2019s counting how many chords this song has?\u201d This guy was a famous producer, who produced Joe Walsh\u2019s<\/a> records, so I had respect for him, but in my mind, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cWhat is wrong with you? Who cares how many chords the song has!\u201d So by the time we were making the Hi Infidelity<\/em> record, we were going to get dropped from the label. They were ready to let us go and pull the plug on us. My thought was just, \u201cLet\u2019s just put it all out there. We have nothing to lose here.\u201d My theory was always if a member of REO Speedwagon writes a song, then by definition, it\u2019s an REO Speedwagon song. You can\u2019t say that it\u2019s not an REO Speedwagon song. You know, who\u2019s to say what an REO Speedwagon song is?<\/p>\n To me, an REO Speedwagon song is a song that was written by one of the guys in REO Speedwagon. It would have to be really something that was way out there to go, \u201cWell, we probably we shouldn\u2019t record that.\u201d If someone wrote something in \u215e that had 5,000 chords that no one could play, there\u2019s certain limitations, I suppose. But in general, I just thought that there was a spiritual feeling going on between us, and that song had a spiritual, almost like a church-like feeling to it. So I played it for everybody, even though it wasn\u2019t finished in my mind, and Gary came up with that. When you listen to that song, the chorus is really that guitar part, that unison part where Gary would play a note on one string and then go to the next string and stretch it up to that note so it sounds like two guitars playing, but he was doing it both at the same time. It was just so melodic and so powerful that it was like, \u201cWow, I don\u2019t have to write words!\u201d Because the chorus to me usually [is where] you summarize what you\u2019ve said in the verses, and that guitar part did it. And I was like, \u201cAll right, fuckin\u2019 A, man. The song\u2019s done, let\u2019s go!\u201d<\/p>\n The Hi Infidelity<\/em> album was a clean slate. We had to create this album out of nothing. I think what was behind our ability to do that was the fact that really the four of us, Alan, Bruce, Gary and I \u2013 Neal to a lesser degree, because Neal was going through his own kind of trip. But the four of us, we were all kind of in the same boat, and we were all feeling our personal lives fracture, which kind of made the bond between us as band members really strong. We didn\u2019t sit down and say, \u201cLet\u2019s write a record about this.\u201d But there was a continuity between the songs that was just a result of the fact that the songwriters were kind of going through similar experiences. So it made us all relate to each other\u2019s songs just as much as we were relating to our own songs. There was a real cohesiveness to the whole process. There were some amazing moments in the studio and in the rehearsal hall when we were putting the thing together.<\/p>\n I would say that at least 50 percent of what you hear on the album was directly from the demo tapes that we made over a three-day period at a shithole studio called Crystal Sound in Hollywood. We just went in to cut some song demos. We booked three days of studio time, and at that point, we had the songs written and arranged to a certain degree and we are just going to go in and cut live demos and then take a couple of weeks to drive around in our cars. My job was to listen to the songs and retool the arrangements where they needed to, change something here, fix something there. What ended up happening is that I ended up driving around town listening to this demo for a couple of weeks and kind of falling in love with it. My position was, \u201cGuys, this album is pretty much done.\u201d And everyone, especially including the engineer, who was like, \u201cNo, this is horrible. These are just horrible songwriting demos!\u201d<\/p>\n My thing was that you can fix the sound of something in the studio. You can take a track and put an effect on it or whatever you need to do, but you can\u2019t fix emotion. And there was so much emotion in those demos. Some of the lead vocals and some of the guitar solos: Accidents happened in the studio, and we actually spent a couple of weeks trying to recreate [those moments]. I finally said, \u201cAll right, well, okay, if you guys all want to do this again, okay, we\u2019ll start over again, and I\u2019ll go in there wholeheartedly.\u201d Within about a week or two, I kind of won everyone over, because the tracks that we were trying to recut, just didn\u2019t have the magic of those demo tapes.<\/p>\n REO Speedwagon’s catalog and career have been marked by dizzying highs and big setbacks.\u00a0Here’s a ranked look back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“Tough Guys’<\/h3>\n
“Out of Season”<\/h3>\n
“Shakin It Loose”<\/h3>\n
“Someone Tonight”<\/h3>\n
Bruce Hall and Kevin Cronin<\/h3>\n
That was a song that I had written years before. I wrote that when I was living at home, still with my parents. I wrote it at the kitchen table. I\u2019ll never forget that. I never felt like it was finished. I always felt like it needed a chorus. I always felt like those were verses that were kind of in my mind, and I was just kind of waiting to finish it someday. I\u2019ve always got a spare-parts department in my brain of verses, lines of songs \u2013 just ideas, that they\u2019re in there and you kind of figure that, \u201cSomeday, this will find a home.\u201d For some reason, there was this vibe in the studio and this closeness that was happening between the band members. This sounds corny, but it was really almost like a spiritual connection that we all had. We\u00a0had known each other for a long time, but we learned things about one another during that record that it became a really strong bond between the band. And I\u2019m not talking about after it was successful. We didn\u2019t know what was going to happen, this was just this fuckin\u2019 demo tape we were making at Crystal Studios.<\/p>\nWhere Did We Rank ‘Hi Infidelity’ on Our List of REO Speedwagon Albums?<\/h2>\n