Cheap Trick Find Heaven
The Man is slight, swarthy, and he wears a black T-shirt with the words Cheap Trick Live at Budokan emblazoned on the back. “I have many things for you,” he tells me, smiling slyly. Together we proceed down a long, dark corridor hung with banners that read Cheap Trick. “This is yours now,” says the man, draping a gray satin baseball jacket that bears the logo Cheap Trick Dream Police over my shoulders. “This also. And this. And this.” Soon, my arms are laden with trinkets and paraphernalia: Cheap Trick belt buckles, Cheap Trick buttons, Cheap Trick bow ties, Cheap Trick clipboards, Cheap Trick undershirts, Cheap Trick karate belts….
“But…what is Cheap Trick?” I stutter, confused. “How old are they? Where are they from? Why is their name on all these things?”
The man stops smiling. “Cheap Trick is a rock & roll band without a past. That’s all we can tell you now. Don’t ask any more questions, or I’ll be forced to turn you over to the Dream Police.”
“But…but…I’ve come all this way! I have to know!”
A crash, then blackness. The banners fall from the walls, the corridor seems to spin, and the man in the Cheap Trick T-shirt is suddenly transformed into a cloud of oddly shaped plastic chips that fly in my face like crickets hitting a windshield. “Who are you!” I scream. “What are you hiding? Tell me the truth!”
“Welcome to Japan.”
Wha?
I wake up to a shower of plectrums. Outside the airplane window, 30,000 feet below, the Japanese coast looms on the horizon. Above me, Rick Nielsen, lead guitarist and leader of Cheap Trick, is flicking personalized guitar picks at my face and laughing.
“So this is the plan. You’re in car number six. Remember that, and when it’s time to move, move!”
John Whitehead, the young lawyer who is Cheap Trick’s tour manager, hands over a diagram labeled: Cheap Trick Limousine Assignment. Nielsen’s name is written in the box marked car number one, bassist Tom Petersson is in car number two, drummer Bun E. Carlos occupies car number three and vocalist Robin Zander is in number four. Whitehead nods gravely, then darts off to discuss more logistical matters with the leader of our security platoon.
Twenty black-suited Japanese guards are bustling outside the entrance and exit driveways of CBS/Sony recording studios in downtown Tokyo, waiting for the band to emerge from its rehearsal session. The guards all tote half-concealed walkie-talkies under their suit jackets; earplugs with long wires trail down their necks and disappear inside their coats.
All these elaborate precautions seem silly. Since Cheap Trick landed in Tokyo yesterday, we’ve been shepherded from airport to hotel to studio by a squadron of guards. True, Cheap Trick is one of the most popular rock bands in Japan, with three Number One singles and four gold albums to its credit. And, last April, when the Midwest’s foremost British Invasion-style band toured Japan for the first time, it was mobbed at every turn by screaming teenage girls.
So far, however, the expected hordes have failed to materialize. Fifteen members of the Cheap Trick Fan Club greeted the band at Narita Airport, and that’s been it. “They’ll be here,” warns Kirk Dyer. Dyer, one of four personal bodyguards the band has brought along from its home base in the Chicago-Madison area, is a strapping, Bunyanesque fellow. Like all Cheap Trick road personnel, he’s wearing a matching black Cheap Trick T-shirt and satin jacket; there are three colors of this uniform, and they are rotated every day. “They just don’t know we’re here yet,” Dyer theorizes. “Wait.”
One by one, the tiny Toyota limousines edge their way into Tokyo’s rush hour snarl, headed for radio station JOLF, where Cheap Trick will tape two interview programs. Car number six, which I share with Epic Records publicist Lois Marino, is the last to pull out. As the driver weaves his way through traffic-choked, labyrinthine streets, die rest of our cortege disappears from view.
We drive up a narrow road, pull around a corner, and it happens.
Robeeeeeeen!
Hundreds of tiny palms assault our Toyota; they’re pounding on the roof, the windows, the doors. Hands, faces, arms and legs press up against the car windows and block out the daylight, while the car pitches and sways, threatening to turn over any minute. There is something particularly horrifying about being attacked by a pack of thirteen-year-old girls. Evil is one thing, but when the innocents are transformed into monsters….
Lois, a petite but spunky Brooklynite, yells over the din. “It’s my hair. They think I’m Tom or Robin. I’m going out there.” She shoves the car door open and squeezes out so she can be seen. The crowd draws back.
Robeeeeeeeen!
This time, it’s for real; Robin Zander’s limo pulls into the parking lot. Lois and I are left alone as 300 girls scurry toward his car. I push into the middle of the crush to get a closer look; on every side, schoolgirls are being wrenched and tossed out of the limo’s path by the guards, who — out of deference? — all wear white gloves. For a moment, it feels like things are going to turn ugly.
Bodyguard Ken Harris, a mammoth, barrel-chested off-duty Chicago cop, shoves his way out of Zander’s car and climbs over the roof on his belly, flicking off girls like so many pieces of lint. He bellows orders in English, but his sentiments transcend linguistic barriers. Harris and Dyer drag Zander out of the back seat, form a human sandwich around his slender, boyish figure and battle to the station entrance. I catch a glimpse of Zander as the three push by; his jacket is in shreds and he is holding onto his golden hair, gritting his teeth.
The arrivals of Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos are quite anticlimactic Petersson, a striking ski-nosed brunette, is surrounded by fans, but they don’t display the rabid urgency of Zander’s. Nielsen draws cheers, squeals and autograph hounds, and runs through the crowd holding his Hamer Guitars baseball cap on his head (he never takes it off; it camouflages a balding pate). The chunky, bespectacled Carlos walks the gantlet virtually unmolested. When the girls scream, he looks thrilled and waves hello.
Inside, 100 lucky girls in the studio audience wait at the foot of a small soundstage. The DJ leaps onstage, reels off a few sentences in breathless Japanese, ending with the words Cheap Trick. One by one, the band members greet their public:
“Hi! I’m Robin Zander and I’m so glad to be in Japan….”
Zander smiles. The rest of his speech is drowned out by a sustained squeal. Standing under the lights, dressed all in white, he seems impossibly pure, dimples within dimples.
“Hello. My name is Tom Petersson, and I play bass with Cheap Trick. I just wanted to tell you how thrilled we are to be here once again….”
Petersson steps forward to let the little girls snap photos; his squarish, well-defined jaw and high, chiseled cheekbones make him unusually photogenic. He has the same straightforward Midwestern good looks as Zander, but he seems a touch more sophisticated. The peach-faced Mouseketeer who grows up to become a hashish smuggler.
“Konnichiwa! Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick!”
Carlos smiles and backs off the microphone almost immediately. An embarrassed flush creeps up his neck from the collar of his gray Hawaiian shirt: “What am I doing here?” He’s endearing and cuddly, like your slightly dorky cousin. The girls love it.
“Hullo hullo hullo. I’m Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick.”
Nielsen moves like Jack Benny; his shoulders are locked in a perpetual shrug. When the spotlight hits him, he turns on, popping his eyes out so far you expect them to drop to the floor and roll around. His pale doughface becomes Silly Putty, twisting and stretching into gleeful contortions. It’s like watching a cartoon character come to life.
The on-the-air interview takes place in a smaller, private studio; the band sits in one room, and Lois and I watch from the other side of a glass window. Ken Adamany, Cheap Trick’s manager, is with us. Adamany, a slight, swarthy fellow, observes the proceedings with the cool, disinterested air of a camel trader. Nielsen is answering the questions with ease, as if he’s answered them many times before:
What do you say to people who tell you you are like the Beatles?
Well, we’re very flattered. But the similarity is just coincidence. People compare us to the Beatles because we just happen to have four members who just happen to have four distinct personalities. Cheap Trick is not just “Cheap Trick.” It’s Rick and Tom and Bun E. and Robin. We didn’t plan it that way.
What was the hardest point in your career?
Gee, that’s a hard one. It was probably back when we were just starting out. We were playing for very little money. We sounded pretty much the same as we do now. The band was good, the songs were good, the music was good….
“Good enough,” whispers Adamany, “to make money from.”
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