His friend was a musician, "one of the few guitar players that I knew from high school," and when they arrived Cronin found "a guitar sitting on his porch, and I picked it up and I went to play it, and I hit a chord and it sounded hideous. A friend of mine said he was driving out to Boulder, and I'd never been to Colorado." "It was my first heartbreak … my first girlfriend," he told Reader. Watch REO Speedwagon's 'Time for Me to Fly' VideoĪnother journey from years before inspired Cronin to write the second single, "Time for Me to Fly." This road trip was meant to help him decompress from a romantic breakup. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles while becoming one of REO Speedwagon's most indelible songs. Issued as the first single released from You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish, "Roll With the Changes" hit No. So I am literally driving down the freeway, with a U-Haul trailer behind me, kind of jotting the words down on this paper bag, because I was literally rolling with the changes." "Somewhere around Albuquerque," he added, "I started having this idea, and the only thing I had was this brown paper bag with some munchies in it that I had gotten at a truck stop. So I drove an old blue Pinto station wagon, with a U-Haul trailer in the back, from Chicago to L.A. "I decided if I am going to move there, I'm not going to do it on an airplane I want to feel the earth move under my feet. because the band had moved while I was out of the group, so it was like if I'm going to stay in the band and I want to be with them, I guess I'm moving out to L.A.," he told Reader. "I was literally moving from Chicago out to L.A. One of the first they tackled was "Roll With the Changes." The song's genesis came, appropriately enough, from a moment when Cronin was in motion. The band went into the Tuna Fish sessions with a brace of songs they believed in. So when Gregg Philbin left the band, it was a no-brainer for me, man. "He had started singing some harmony with me on some Beatles songs, and our voices sounded pretty good together. They later "met Bruce at a party at Alan Gratzer's apartment," Cronin added. "I had known Bruce since the early '70s, saw him singing with his band at the old Red Lion, which was the coolest bar in Champaign, Ill.," Cronin said in Songs & Stories from Camp Cronin. REO Speedwagon also had some new blood in the lineup, as Bruce Hall replaced bassist Gregg Philbin, who had left the previous year. Listen to REO Speedwagon's 'Lucky for You' So we felt pretty safe going in there producing that record." "He was in the studio and rode shotgun, in case we needed him. "John Boylan is one of my favorite people in the world," Cronin told Reader. Thankfully, Cronin and Richrath found an ally in Epic's West Coast vice president, who ended up serving as executive producer on Tuna Fish. "Gary and I were looking at each other, going like, 'Now what do we do? We don't know how to produce records. "To our surprise, they were like, 'Okay!'" Cronin said on Adam Reader's Professor of Rock program. They called a meeting with the leadership of their label and presented Epic Records with an ultimatum: Cronin and Richrath would produce the album, or they'd leave. He and Richrath thought it was time they took a shot at producing themselves on REO Speedwagon's next studio record, 1978's You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish. "Some of the early records had good tunes on 'em," Cronin told Creem, "but they came out sounding weird because the producer had a different image of what the record should sound like." No producer had ever been able to replicate their on-stage energy and tightness in the studio. Live: You Get What You Play For eventually earned the band its first platinum certification but, more importantly, captured what Cronin and Richrath felt was their true sound. The band would want to play every night and rehearse every day and, on a physical level, my voice couldn't handle it."Ĭronin returned in 1976, in time to experience REO Speedwagon's initial success with a 1977 concert double album. It was demanding on me vocally and I didn't know how to do it. I was feeling unappreciated and unhealthy, vocally. "If you talk to the band, they'll tell you I was kicked out, so it depends on who you talk to. "If you talk to me, I'll tell you that I left," Cronin told Creem.
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