16 Things We Learned Hanging Out With Cheap Trick

7. Most of the early-Nineties grunge bands loved them, but that didn’t help their career very much.
“People would say to us, ‘This is going to be the greatest thing for you guys!'” says Petersson. “‘Now you’ll get this underground audience!’ Well, it didn’t do shit for us.”

8. The group grew intensely frustrated in the Nineties when Carlos insisted they play short sets that didn’t vary much from night to night.
“The one person who is not here made it next to impossible to change things,” says Nielsen. “He just didn’t like the idea [of doing long, varied] shows and didn’t want to do it that way. We suffered and our audience suffered.”

9. They not only make good money playing corporate gigs; they have a lot of fun doing it.
“Some bands are like, ‘If I’m not playing Shea Stadium, this is bullshit!'” says Petersson. “But what do they know? Private gigs never bothered us. People are always so glad to see us. They walk up to you and go, ‘When I was in high school …’ They tell these great stories. And we always get a great paycheck, even better than what we normally get. One time we did a series of club shows organized by some corporation where you could win tickets. It wound up that there was often nobody there, which was kind of fun, like playing someone’s living room. We got to walk around and talk to everyone.”

10. Robin was not happy that Bun. E Carlos brought up his young daughter when explaining to Rolling Stone why he left the band.
“I don’t even care to acknowledge what he said there,” says Zander. “It just proves why he isn’t with us anymore. But he’s still a member of the band and still gets paid, but he’s not on the road and there are reasons for that, real reasons, not bullshit. Look, the guy hated the last record we made, The Latest. He wanted us to get rid of Julian Raymond, our producer. Bands always use the term ‘musical differences.’ Well, we had some musical differences that were pretty extraordinary.” Adds Petersson: “He’d be critical without offering an alternative. ‘OK, this sucks.’ ‘What’s the alternative?’ ‘I don’t have one. Just do something good.'”

11. Zander says that Carlos was right when he told us he didn’t want to do an additional 100 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band gigs in Las Vegas.
“If you were in a rock band as great as Cheap Trick, would you want to end your career being a Beatles cover band?” says Zander. “There you go. Not me.”