I love to be the loudest thing in the room.
Rick Nielsen
I was always the wise guy class clown throughout my childhood.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - those guys were great.
I always thought of myself as more of a rhythm player than a big soloist.
We're Cheap Trick, and the majority of people know about three songs, and the real huge fans know about eight. There are 292 songs people have never heard.
Whenever we tell the truth, nobody believes us. We lie, and people take it as etched-in-stone fact.
I feel like such an idiot... you know, that our band didn't break up just so we can re-form and become more and more popular.
I started out as a drummer, and when I was 9, my drum teacher had an album out. He was the rudiment king! He signed it for me, 'Rudimentally yours, Frank Arsenault.' How cool is that?
We all record together. We do it live; then, after that, we do overdubs, if we need to, to repair stuff. Usually when we do stuff, we have to make sure we get the bass and drums down, and by doing it live, you're actually playing the song. You're not piecing together a song.
I didn't want to be one of the Beach Boys or one of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band. I mean, we appreciated that music. But I didn't want to grow a beard to look like Roy Wood just because I liked him.
My parents were opera singers. I didn't want to play opera because I wasn't good enough. I didn't want to play their music; I wanted to play the music that I wanted to play, and I'm so lucky that today I get to play that music, even though I don't like every song I write.
If you start having to tell people you're cool, you're not.
We toured with Deep Purple a number of times.
I don't know any American rock bands.
When I write songs, it's just me and a cassette player - or at least it used to be before smartphones - to quickly record a basic idea.
I could have moved anywhere I wanted to. But for family reasons, I stayed in the Midwest.
We've got the pretty-boy lead singer and the fat, dumpy drummer, and I'm the zany guitarist. Sure, we've played up the image at times. But it's the music that matters most.
There's no rush to ever put out a new Cheap Trick record. We put it out when we feel like it.
I'm a normal person. I don't see where people come off saying I'm crazy.
We're basically a rock band - guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But we take it further than that. We can be rotten, dirty, and heavy as anyone, but at the same time, we've got a lot of melody.
Look at Bob Dylan: his voice is not a great sound, but it gets the idea across... and that is what's really important.
I actually did try to emigrate to Australia a long time ago.
We played with Rush somewhere way early in our career.
You've got to work hard and have luck. Luck only enters in if you do work hard.
We played New Year's Eve in Los Angeles, maybe 1978, opening for Kansas or somebody. Driving to the hotel after the gig, we came on KLOS. It was like, 'All right! We're in L.A., we just played a big gig, and we're on the radio!' That was the start of something big.
The song 'Hello There' was written because we never got a soundcheck. 'Hello There' was our soundcheck.
I never went to any high school dances or proms unless I was playing in them.
Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That's one of those 'Wow!' moments, you know?
I never tried to emulate The Beatles, and I never really wanted to be like The Rolling Stones. I never really felt that I had the look or the demeanor of veteran musicians.
I got to meet Keith Moon!
Every other year, I spend Thanksgiving in England with Dave Clark from the Dave Clark Five and a bunch of other people.
I was three years old, and I walked onstage during a performance that my father was a tenor in 'The Barber of Seville.' I walked out onstage, and people started laughing and clapping, and that was it. That was all it took. Laughing and clapping, I still enjoy today.
If we waited for a hit record to tour, we would never have toured.
Basically, I try to let the song dictate what guitar I use. If it's a really loud, crazy song, I'll pull out the cheapest, oldest guitar I own, one that feeds back easily. But most of the time, I just use whatever's around.
I like the guys in Cheap Trick. I like playing in it and the music we do.
When we toured with AC/DC, we always had to bring our A game. They really felt like our equals.
Playing it safe isn't fun; you have to take a chance.
Some bands, they're too snooty, or they think they're too this or that and wouldn't talk to us. And some other bands are afraid to talk to us.
We do try to be entertainers, but we're musicians first, and we try to showcase the music.
I've seen bands come out and begin their concerts with these long, slow, boring songs. Are they kidding, or what?
I got to work with John Lennon. That was pretty cool.
I like Harvey Mandel.
I always hated watching bands: the guy would break a string or be out of tune, and I have perfect pitch, so it would always tick me off when a guy is up there, and he'd break a string.
When a guitarist can evoke a certain mood through his playing, that's what's most important to me.
If you can say something special on the guitar, then you're going to perk my ears up. But if you're just gonna run through all the scales, then I can always find something else to listen to.
People used to trade their guitars to get new ones; I never traded anything.
I like 'Salty Dog' by Procol Harum.
Cheap Trick have always prided ourselves on being groundbreaking.
In 1977, I had Paul Rivera hotrod six Fender Deluxes for me. At that time, a lot of studio guys in L.A. were using those - not so much live guys but studio guys. They had terrific tone and great technique, and I was like, 'Well, I like having terrific tone even though I don't have any technique.'
Some people design buildings and aircraft carriers and cars - and I designed picks.
