Playing in Japan for thousands of people was like playing on the moon.
— Rick Nielsen
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.
I don't always feel like a million dollars, but I try not to let anybody know.
If you start having to tell people you're cool, you're not.
I'm a normal person. I don't see where people come off saying I'm crazy.
To me, a day off is sitting at a piano or with a guitar and writing.
We tried to act trendy. We took one of our songs and tried to make a dance mix. They put it on the turntables, unannounced, in Los Angeles and New York the same weekend, where they had a big dance crowd going wild. It cleared the floor on both coasts.
Whenever we tell the truth, nobody believes us. We lie, and people take it as etched-in-stone fact.
We're a band's band. We have real songs, real players, real problems. Real ups, real downs.
I have four warehouses full of stuff. I have every boarding pass of every flight I've ever been on. I have all the old contracts that we had from all the clubs and concerts we played, every one of them, up from 1980. Guitar picks and amps - it goes on and on.
Some people collect this or that. I'm a musician; I collect guitars.
We toured with Deep Purple a number of times.
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.
I have too many options when it comes to guitars.
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.
Our band is rock n' roll. We were never just a studio band trying to make everything perfect. It was never supposed to be perfect. It was supposed to be cool.
I can't stand it when groups come back for an encore, and they play some slow thing. Oh, brother! It's like, 'Had I known that, I would've left.'
I never went to any high school dances or proms unless I was playing in them.
Playing it safe isn't fun; you have to take a chance.
We do try to be entertainers, but we're musicians first, and we try to showcase the music.
I'd rather be known as a songwriter than a guitarist, although I love to play the guitar.
I don't like the term 'rock star.'
No one knows this, but when I would play the clubs back in '65, '66, they used to call me 'Screaming Chicken,' 'cause I would go out and scream, fall on the ground, beat myself, smash stuff, jump through the ceiling, roll on the floor, and act like I was having epileptic fits.
I like the guys in Cheap Trick. I like playing in it and the music we do.
We may not be proud of every song we've ever done - or been forced to do - but I believe we've done more than meets the eye.
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.
It's an honor that people give a crap about us. We're in a rock band; we're not supposed to be treated with any respect.
People are like, 'Why are you playing that five-neck guitar?' I want to hurt. I want to play.
Every other year, I spend Thanksgiving in England with Dave Clark from the Dave Clark Five and a bunch of other people.
Hendrix was a different kind of guitar player. It was like, 'Holy cow, this guy can sing, he can play all this weird stuff... what is this?' It was a new kind of music.
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.
When we toured with AC/DC, we always had to bring our A game. They really felt like our equals.
The song 'Hello There' was written because we never got a soundcheck. 'Hello There' was our soundcheck.
I always thought of myself as more of a rhythm player than a big soloist.
People say, 'Oh, Rick, he's crazy.' Well, I'm crazy, and I'm not crazy... When I went to my high school reunion, I was the only one there doing what he said he was going to do. How crazy is that?
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.
One reason I rarely listen to radio is they don't play our music much.
We're known as a touring band, not a singles band.
I think every one of our songs could be a Top 10 record.
There's no way we could make up what we are. The group is just what everyone is. Each of us has a different audience.
You've got to work hard and have luck. Luck only enters in if you do work hard.
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 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.
People used to trade their guitars to get new ones; I never traded anything.
I've taken all the mirrors out of my house because when I'm playing onstage, I feel like I'm still in high school. I feel like that kid that wanted to play in his first band, and then I look in a mirror, and it's like, 'Uh-oh!' It ain't pretty.
I got to meet Keith Moon!
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?
Cheap Trick have always prided ourselves on being groundbreaking.
We played with AC/DC. There are actual recordings of us doing 'Johnny B Good' together.
If we waited for a hit record to tour, we would never have toured.
