Cheap Trick might be older, but they're wiser and still holding the flame

Cheap Trick singer Robin Zander will never forget the prank he and his bandmates fell for - hook, line and sinker - on their maiden Australian tour in 1979.

It provided the fresh-faced US power pop-rockers with an immediate introduction to Aussie humour.

"We went out on Sydney Harbour in this beautiful boat and there was a party with drinks and everyone was having fun," Zander remembers from his home in Safety Harbour near Tampa Bay in Florida.

"Suddenly this police boat pulled up alongside and the police came aboard and everyone threw their cigarettes overboard, you know what I mean.

"The whole crew was freaking out and we came to find out that the promoter of the tour pulled a fast one on us. It was a joke and we fell for it."

That 1979 tour occurred at a pivotal juncture in the Cheap Trick story.

After forming in 1973 in Illinois, Cheap Trick had spent several years and three albums without cracking mainstream success.

Zander and his bandmates Rick Nielsen (guitar), Tom Petersson (bass) and Bun E. Carlos (drums) decided to gamble everything on recording a live album, realising Cheap Trick's stage show was their greatest asset.

The result was Cheap Trick At Budokan, a live album recorded in front of 12,000 Japanese fans.

"At that time of our career we were still questionable; we didn't know what the hell we were doing," Zander says.

"At Budokan we played live and we spent the last money we had in the bank making that record. We'd already recorded three albums before that happened and we were broke.

"So at that time, 1979, we were just writing songs and hoping for the best."

Cheap Trick At Budokan became a surprise hit. It perfectly captured Cheap Trick's electrifying sound - Neilsen's muscular guitar ying to and Zander's theatrical wail yang.

Soon after Cheap Trick would release their worldwide top-10 album Dream Police and Zander was suddenly experiencing global rock superstardom he'd fantasised about since first hearing The Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand on the radio while on a camping trip with his father as a 11-year-old.

Fast forward 45 years, Zander, Neilsen and Petersson are returning to Australia to keep their rock'n'roll dreams alive.

Carlos left the band in 2010 after a bitter falling out with Zander and was replaced by Neilsen's son Daxx.

Cheap Trick were last in Australia in March 2022, when they headlined the ill-fated Under The Southern Stars, coming in as a late replacement for '90s post-grunge rockers Live.

This time Zander and co have been performing on the Red Hot Summer Tour plus doing a separate side show with old friends The Angels.

Zander says The Angels' Brewster brothers are old friends.

"They were some of the first guys we ran into in Australia," he says.

"We really liked the band. At that time their songs were on the radio like Marseilles, and we thought we could fit in in Australia, because the first time we toured there we weren't greatly popular.

"People didn't know who we were. We just finished touring with AC/DC in the States, and they were semi-popular already, and they were huge already in Australia."

Zander admits there has always been a misconception about Cheap Trick by passing fans, due to popularity of their 1988 single The Flame, which went No.1 in the US and Australia.

The syrupy power ballad - which is drenched in dated '80s production - wasn't written by Neilsen and Zander and was recorded at the urging of their record company, Epic, who were desperate for Cheap Trick to re-establish commercial success.

"The record company was always trying to find a hit single in us," Zander says.

"They would talk to us and say, 'you're a heavy rock band, but at the same time we need to get you on the radio, so can you write something that would do that for us?'

"We listened and then left the room and went about our business. That's the way the music industry is; they wanna make money too."

The Flame and its subsequent album, Lap Of Luxury, were Cheap Trick's last major commercial success, but the band have continued to tour and release albums, the most recent being 2021's In Another World.

Zander is 71, Neilsen and Petersson are both in their mid-70s. However, there are no retirement plans on the horizon.

"I don't really think about it much," Zander says. "We're too dumb to quit, first of all. We're old guys, but young-hearted guys.

"We've still got music in us. We have two more records we have to do. I think we're gonna continue on for a while yet. You can't get rid of us that quick. Fifty years is too quick."

Remaining tour dates

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This article first appeared in the Newcastle Herald.