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Second Decade Liner Notes
Written by John Swenson

This past summer I witnessed a miracle during a week-long trek across middle America from the foothills of the Rockies through the high plains of the Wyoming badlands to the banks of the Mississippi River. What I saw was no less than the spirit of rock and roll raging like a prairie fire across the American heartland during an REO Speedwagon tour.

It was not especially surprising just to see the corn-fed teenagers and their immediate elders who were moved by rock and roll, although the sheer numbers they turned out in was impressive. In Fort Madison, Iowa, home of Wally World, the 20,000 who jammed the riverside midway to see the band more than doubled the previous attendance record. The most remarkable thing about the experience, though, was the way the band caught the imagination of so many older people as well. Like the middle-aged trucker at a Wyoming gas station who recognized the group and identified himself as a lifelong fan. Or the scores of fans at a Burlington Astros home game who brought baseballs and programs over for autographs when the band showed up unannounced to watch a game. Officials of the team, which had just won the Class A league's first-half championship, were so impressed that they invited the band back to sing the national anthem the following night. And they did.

Travelling across the midwest with REO was like watching a Frank Capra film set in the 90's. Yet the band inspired this reaction without any of the requisite trappings of a standard rock and roll tour. There was no high-visibility promotional campaign by the record company. No corporate sponsorship. No heavy-rotation music videos-in fact, no video period. There was no record on the charts, no song on the syndicated radio playlists.

Then why were all these people going nuts? That's the mystery I had to wrestle with. The music on this record, assembled to profile the past ten years of the band's 20-year career and act as a sequal to it's first "Decade" set, goes a long way toward solving that mystery.

The past ten years been a rollercoaster of highs and lows for REO. The span began with the band's greatest musical triumph, the Hi Infidelity album, and ended with a complex series of personnel switches which led REO into uncharted territory.

The Second Decade opens with a live version of "Don't Let Him Go", the song that has opened every REO show over the span of this set.

We've tried opening with other songs and we'd always gravitate back to it, explains REO frontman and principal songwriter Kevin Cronin. You want to set the tone and I think this song is pretty symbolic of the sound of the band. There's a hard rock feel to it, but it's melodic. It's a preview of what the show is going to sound like. The lyrics are actually about a kind of mythical conglomeration of all the band members. It's not about any one of us. It's about your fantasy rock star, a weird caricature of all of us put together.

Much of the album, and all but one of the songs from Hi Infidelity is taken from live performances. The Hi Infidelity songs were recorded at an '85 show from Kemper Arena in Kansas City, except for a reggae version of Keep On Lovin You recorded in 1989.

We ended up doing 180-190 shows that year, said Cronin, and this particular show was about two-thirds into the tour so the band was definitely playing tight, but it wasn't so close to the end of the tour that we were burnt out. This one stuck in our minds.

I have a stack of tape boxes in my studio that just about fills the room up. We had to go through them and find the best performances of the songs that we chose. This concert was a high period for the band-that was on a live performance level, the peak period of the original group.

Tough Guys was based on an idea Cronin had been kicking around since childhood. It had been burning in my gut since grade school, he said. It's a real simple idea-an anti-bully song. I was one of the kids that got bullied around. I was 29 when I wrote it, but the emotion had been with me since I was 10 or 11. It came from taking guitar lessons when I was growing up, this was before the Beatles. If you were walking down the street with a guitar case in those days you were fair game for anybody who had a bone to pick with life. They chased me, but they never caught me.

The Hi Infidelity album featured two of the band's best-known songs, Keep On Lovin You and Take It On The Run, forerunners of the now obligatory power-ballad style used by heavy metal bands to cross over to pop.

We like to think we helped invent that style, said keyboardist Neal Doughty, who co-founded REO to play local gigs while he attended the University of Illinois The idea of a rock guitar in a ballad kind of started out with Keep On Lovin You. When Kevin brought the song in I thought he was completely crazy, but he turned out to be right. I thought it would get laughed off the radio. To this day when he says, 'Trust me on this', I do.

We said to ourselves, 'Kevin's writing these slow songs, how are we gonna make them REO songs?' That's where the big change happened. Everybody liked the material but said, 'What are we gonna do with this, we're a rock and roll band?'

The idea that his songs were not considered right for the band had bothered Cronin and he decided to do something about it.

I was always the new guy, said Cronin, who originally joined the group for it's second album, dropped out for the third, fourth and fifth and returned for good on the sixth. I used to offer songs and they would say, 'Nah, that doesn't sound like an REO song.' I finally said, 'Wait a minute. I'm in REO, so these are REO songs.' It's not like I took over the band or anything. I just asserted myself.

I think we opened it up a bit on Hi Infidelity. We just kind of stretched the boudaries. The Beatles were my heroes and they did everything from 'Twist and Shout' to 'Yesterday', so why can't we?

Cronin's self-assertion was a turning point in REO history.

"We yanked control of the band out of the hands of the outside producers," said Doughty. We had always been influenced too much by the producer and the record company and everybody else. Kevin and Gary took that role and kept it inside the band. There was always this thing that Kevin was writing these folksy kind of songs and (lead guitarist) Gary Richrath was writing these rock songs. It was like a power struggle. On the Hi Infidelity album we kind of relaxed and said, "What are we fighting about this for? Let's take these songs and make them into REO songs." That was the album we finally got that balance and found out how to incorporate things that weren't traditional rock into sounding like our group.

Keep On Lovin You, the signature song from the Hi Infidelity album, marked a turning point in Cronin's development as a writer.

I was starting to get in touch with things that were important to me, said Cronin. It was about infidelity, that's really where the album title came from, too. It wasn't the kind of thing you'd want the whole nation to know about. It was a serious thing that was happening in my life. I wrote the song never thinking it was going to be a number one single and my mom and dad were gonna hear it. At the time it was kind of an embarrassing thing. It was the first time I opened up and was vulnerable in my songs as opposed to trying to create a character in my songs that was superhuman.

Ever since then songwriting has become a whole different thing for me and I really enjoy it a lot more. The thing that was scariest to me is the thing that I like the most about it. Now the more I expose myself in a song the better I like it. Before then, songs were more of a way to hide.

Cronin's honesty affected the whole band.

We were all going through the same thing, he was just the one who had enough guts to write about it, said Doughty. He kind of had company with what was going on so he didn't have to feel uncomfortable about it with us.

The inclusion of Richrath's Take It On The Run was inspired by the new direction Keep On Lovin You represented.

"When everyone heard me kind of pull my pants down in front of the band, 'Take It On The Run' became Gary's version because he was going through the same thing," said Cronin. "We had gone through this huge tour and for some reason everyone was just crazed."

"The song was originally called 'Don't Let Me Down.' It was kind of the opposite of 'Keep On Lovin You,' it was more aimed at the guys. 'Keep On Lovin You' was a song about forgiveness, while 'Take It On The Run' said, 'If you're gonna fool around on me, get out of here.' Those were the first two singles on the 'Hi Infidelity' album and they pretty much covered the subject. Maybe that's one of the reasons people liked the record so much."

The success of "Hi Infidelity" had an unforseen negative effect on the band when they were rushed to make a follow-up album, "Good Trouble," before they were really prepared.

"I didn't have the same strength and focus that I had for the 'Hi Infidelity' record," said Cronin. "I remember the first day back in the studio we didn't record anything and the session ended in a big fight."

Keep The Fire Burning is the representative track from "Good Trouble" on the "Second Decade" set.

"'Keep The Fire Burning' was the opening track on the 'Good Trouble album and a top ten single for the band," said Cronin. "The song was almost like a prayer when I think about where I was at when I wrote it, it was like 'Get me through this.' Maybe people relate to it on that level."

"Keep The Fire Burning" and Roll With the Changes were recorded live at a 1983 show in Rockford, Illinois.

"That was the 'Good Trouble' tour," said Cronin. "Gary played very well on that tour. It was the spring of '83. We had the truck out with us for a week recording shows and this particular show had a certain vibe about it. This is the same show that 'Roll With The Changes' came from. Even though by the book 'Roll With The Changes' came from the first decade of REO, the song really came into its own in the second decade. When we were going through these tapes this is the one I was looking for. What you hear on the album is exactly what those people heard that night in Rockford. The band just jelled that night on that particular song."

After the "Good Trouble" tour, the band took an extended vacation before returning with the "Wheels Are Turnin'" album.

"We took a long time off, almost two years," said Doughty. "I felt like I had gone into semi-retirement. We didn't even have a rehearsal for about a year."

For Cronin, it was an important period of self-evaluation.

"The anxiety that I was feeling had a lot to do with the fact that my music hadn't been accepted on a mass level," said Cronin. "So when the 'Hi Infidelity' album came out and the music was accepted on a mass level and I still felt the same anxiety, I realized there was something else I had to deal with. After the 'Good Trouble' album I went through a period where I just had to take a look and see what was happening."

"I went back into my studio, sat down and said, 'Now I've got to write some songs.' Nothing happened. This went on for a couple of months until one day I said, 'I'm not even going to try to write a song today'- and all of a sudden I felt like the weight of the world was taken off my shoulders. I just took a break. A good friend of mine had been talking to me all the time about running, which I started to do. Little by little I found out that there was more to life than writing songs and being in a rock band, which is what I needed. After about three or four months of not even trying to write, suddenly, I started writing again."

I Do' Wanna Know is a live version taken from the '85 Kansas City show. "That was the first whole song I finished after I started writing again," said Cronin. "It's also the first song I'd written that has a sense of humor to it."

"I remember the video of that song more than anything else," Doughty added. "The public should know that we're a funny band but we wern't going to do a Spike Jones record. When the video thing came along we knew we would be able to show that side of us."

"Can't Fight This Feeling" was the definitive REO Power Ballad. The song not only spent 3 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, but was a huge hit single in countries around the globe. "Suddenly we were touring Japan, Europe, and South America and people were singing this song along with us in concert so loudly, that they about drowned out the band...and we play real loud!" says Cronin. When they performed "Can't Fight This Feeling" at the legendary 1985 Live Aid Concert," it served to reinstate REO Speedwagon as a member of Rock's hierarchy.

The next song, Live Every Moment is from the "Wheels Are Turnin'" album.

"I wrote that song in Molokai, walking down the beach," said Cronin. "I used to walk down the beach every day. It was kind of me realizing that life is too short. I had just gone through a portion of my life where I felt I had wasted a couple of years. It was me saying to myself, 'You'd better make the most of it.' It's a simple thought, but one I really needed to say to myself at the time."

The result of Cronin's renewed songwriting energy was the turning point album for REO in decade two, Life As We Know It the last record Gary Richrath would make with the group.

The seeds of Richrath's departure were sown during the "Life" tour.

"We did about 150 shows that year," says Cronin. "It was a rough tour but the band went through a metamorphosis about that time. We got together with a guy named Robert Haas, who wrote 'Eat To Win,' a nutrition book that really turned Martina Navratilova around.

"His theme was that you can be a touring athlete or a touring musician and still not self destruct. There's a way to eat room service and still eat healthy; there's a way to tour yet keep your body in shape."

"Before that we were like most other rock bands - the minute you get on the plane to leave home - it's like one big party from the beginning to the end of the tour. So the theme for that tour was 'Let's have as much fun as ever but not self destruct in the meantime.' It was a real big change. The whole band got into exercising and trying to keep healthier. It was a very positive thing. Some people were more into it than others, but the important thing was that the focus of the band changed."

Unfortunately, the change was not one that suited Richrath.

"Gary had been kind of a rock and roll big brother to me," said Cronin. "I learned a lot from him. He was a major part of why REO became so popular, a great showman, and an amazingly original guitar player. But as far as our new lifestyle...well, Gary just never really got into it."

The band knew something was wrong as early as the beginning of the sessions for the "Life..." album when Richrath, normally a prolific songwriter, was suffering from writer's block.

"He just totally stopped writing," said bassist Bruce Hall, a close friend of Richrath's, who had played with him in another band before the two joined REO. "When I first met Gary he'd write about three songs a week. He always had a new song. But after a while he just stopped doing that."

Cronin wrote One Too Many Girlfriends as a direct reaction to the troubles he was having with Richrath.

"It's one of my favorite songs," admitted Cronin. "You wouldn't know it was about Gary necessarily, but if you listen to the lyrics it's about a guy who has one too many... . It's a message I needed to get across to him.

Richrath wasn't the only member of REO drifting out of orbit during the "Life..." tour. Drummer and co-founder Alan Gratzer, who Cronin describes as a "solid rock drummer as well as the most stable member of the band emotionally and business-wise," was already thinking about settling down after 18 years on the road. "I had no idea at the time how deeply, or on how many levels Alan's departure would affect the group," says Cronin.

During the "Life..." tour Cronin and Hall formed a little combo they called The Strolling Dudes, an aggregation that would prove to have enormous impact on REO in the ensuing years.

"During the tour we always had one room in the hotel designated as the party room," said Hall. "We called it The Dungeon. After the show we'd invite our friends there to hang out. That way if you wanted to party, you could do that, and if you wanted to go to bed, you could do that. That's how the Strolling Dudes got started.

"It was just a silly name we gave ourselves. Kevin and I would go back to our rooms and put on sunglasses with flashing lights and t-shirts, and stroll down the hall to The Dungeon, playing guitars and singing songs. Then we'd leave, come back a few minutes later and say, 'Oh, we missed the Strolling Dudes? We always miss the Strolling Dudes!' It was a Superman-Clark Kent thing."

"When we came off the road after the tour Kevin and I kept calling each other up to play. So we decided to put together a little band to play the clubs in L.A., and we called it the Strolling Dudes."

"When we first started out we were just going to do oldies, but KC went wild and started writing songs for the group. He got Steve Grove, the sax player from Tower of Power, Steve Conn was a keyboardist with Sheena Easton, drummer Graham Lear from Santana, Carla Day and Melanie Jackson sang - it just kept getting bigger and bigger. We started playing every Wednesday night at the Ten Pesos in Encino, down the street from Kevin's house. Every night we sold the place out - the place was jammed and we had a line out the door. The record companies even came down to check us out."

When Gratzer announced he was leaving the band, Graham Lear became REO's drummer. He toured with the band in 1989, the last time Richrath played with them. The two tracks from the 1989 performance in Hawaii, the reggae version of "Keep On Lovin You" and "Back On The Road," were recorded at the last show Richrath ever did with the band.

Back On the Road Again was originally recorded in 1979 but it's really part of the second decade of the band," said Doughty. "Playing it live it grew to be something different than what we recorded. It's a nice way to bring the Richrath era to a close, it's a real guitar showcase song."

When Richrath left, another member of the Strolling Dudes, guitarist Miles Joseph, momentarily joined the band.

"Then it was just Kevin and me singing," said Hall, "so we decided to bring in the girls, too."

At that point there were more Strolling Dudes in the band than REO members. This lineup did one show in Vina del Mar, Chile.

"REO went through a lot of changes," said Hall. "Alan left, Gary left, KC had the Strolling Dudes vibe in his head. We almost changed the whole sound of the band. We were going off in a kind of funk thing."

When it came time to make another album, the band added songwriter/keyboardist Jesse Harms to the lineup.

"Jesse became a big influence on the band because he thought the whole direction we were involved with was wrong," said Hall. "He felt we really needed to get back on track with the REO sound instead of the Strolling Dudes sound." Harms brought in former Ted Nugent guitarist Dave Amato, and drummer Bryan Hitt joined soon after for the sessions that produced The Earth, A Small Man, His Dog, and a Chicken After the recording was finished Harms left the band.

"He doesn't like the road," said Hall. "It feels right now, it feels like it should be a five-piece band."

The songs from "The Earth..." included here depict a revitalized REO Speedwagon. Cronin's Love Is A Rock has become one of the high points of the band's live show. The All Heaven Broke Loose here is a remixed version.

The last two tracks on the record demonstrate the band's newfound unity. L.I.A.R. was written by the whole group.

"It's an acronym for 'Love Is All Right,'" said Cronin. "It started with one of Neal's songs, Jesse and I worked on it, we brought it to the band and Dave played the guitar lick. The thing I like about that song is that it was written in the classic rock and roll band way, where the drummer says, 'Hey, let's turn the beat around here,' and the guitarist says, 'How about this riff?' That's how we used to write songs in the early 70's.

"It also shows that with Dave and Bryan, we have the right five people together," Doughty continued.

One listen to Live It Up recorded with the current lineup at a 1990 show in Grand Rapids, Michigan, proves Doughty's point. Hitt, who said he was surprised at how hard the band rocked when he joined up, has breathed new life into the rhythm section. Cronin says of Hitt, "Bryan was a diamond in the rough of the L.A. music scene when we met him. He plays the drums with such amazing power and passion." And of Amato, "Dave is just one of those great guys who loves everthing about being in a rock band. He plays great guitar, sings great, looks great. This band definitely kicks ASS!!"

After 20 years in the business, REO keeps finding new ways to reinvent itself, avoiding the pitfalls of becoming an oldies act or blatantly following the latest fashion. The band has managed to keep moving forward without losing sight of its identity.

And that's the answer to the mystery I encountered on that cross-country tour with the band. The people keep coming back to the shows because they're going to see the real thing.

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