From Rockford to Rock Gods: The Rise of Cheap Trick
There’s something distinctly American about a band like Cheap Trick.
Equal parts earnest and irreverent, they arrived like a punchline that somehow carried real emotional weight. Their rise wasn’t overnight, and it certainly wasn’t tidy. But what it was—was genuine.
Cheap Trick band members joined Dan Rather to talk about their careers and how they got into music.
And it all started in the basements and battle-of-the-bands contests of Rockford, Illinois.
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Drums from Sears, Gigs in Garages: Robin Zander’s Musical Spark
For Robin Zander, the journey began when he was barely nine. His mom walked into Sears and bought him a drum kit. His dad—a weekend warrior musician—played in the basement. Little Robin soaked it in.
“I started my first band when I was 12. We were called The Destinations. Not bad, right?” Zander recalls with a chuckle.
“Then in eighth grade, we were Butterscotch Sunday. That one… less great.”
But it was at the Sherwood Lodge, watching local bands and battles every weekend with his brothers, where he saw something special.
Bun E. Carlos, Cheap Trick’s eventual drummer, was in one of those opposing groups. Years later, it all came full circle—three days of rehearsal in Rick Nielsen’s dad’s garage, and just like that, a band was born.
“I knew right then,” Robin says. “This was the best thing I’d ever done.”
Tom Petersson: Beatles, High School, and Factory Forks
Tom Petersson didn’t plan on being in a band that would outlast trends and time. It was the Beatles on the Jack Paar Show, before Ed Sullivan, that changed his life.
“They looked like girls, but they had this incredible energy. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.”
By 15, Petersson was in his first real band. “Some older kids asked me to join because I looked like John Lennon. Not sounded—looked,” he laughs.
“And I said, ‘Sure,’ because the alternative was working in a factory.”
By the late ’60s, Tom and Rick Nielsen would find themselves in London, dabbling with early bands and big ideas. They weren’t rock stars yet, but you could feel it simmering.
Rick Nielsen: Choirboy Turned Rock Disruptor
Rick’s parents were classical musicians who sang opera and directed choirs. His childhood in Rockford was surrounded by harmonies and rehearsal rooms. It was all very dignified—until Rick blew up the school music system.
“I was first chair in seventh grade and told the band director he was an ‘incompetent drunken fool.’ That was it. I was banned from the Rockford music program for life.”
But it’s not as if that stopped him. With his dad owning a music store and his rebellious streak already forming, Rick bounced between instruments and garage bands.
The drummer in him loved volume. The guitarist in him loved chaos. The future frontman loved attention.
And Cheap Trick would give him all of it.
Cheap Trick’s Man of a Thousand Voices… and One Weird Elvis Cover
The band’s early identity was all about contrasts—quirky yet precise, funny yet musically elite. Robin Zander’s vocal range could shift gears mid-song. Rick dubbed him “the man of a thousand voices,” and it stuck.
Zander approached songs like an actor with a script. Whether snarling like Elvis on “Don’t Be Cruel” or channeling Beatles-esque melancholy, he treated each track like a role.
The Elvis cover, in fact, almost didn’t happen.
“I thought it was ridiculous,” Robin says. “They wanted us to follow up Ain’t That a Shame with another oldie. I said, ‘Let Tiffany do that.’”
But then came the massage.
“I literally recorded the vocals for Don’t Be Cruel while lying face-down on a massage table. Mic through the face hole. As a joke. They kept the track.”
Of course they did. Because somehow, with Cheap Trick, the more absurd the method, the better the result.
No Past Required: Reinventing the Rules of Rock
Cheap Trick built their legend by being just a little off-center.
They weren’t trying to be Led Zeppelin or the Stones. They were the weird kids from the Midwest who grew up worshiping music but didn’t mind mocking it, too.
Rick wore a bowtie and mugged like a cartoon character. Bun E. Carlos looked like your uncle who fixed lawnmowers. Tom had cool hair and swagger. And Robin was the glue—handsome, versatile, and completely unpredictable.
By the time Live at Budokan broke them worldwide, they’d already spent years perfecting their sound and blowing away club audiences. Their success wasn’t an accident—it was sweat, sarcasm, and sheer musical skill.
Legacy of the Laughs and Hooks
Cheap Trick never tried to be cool. And in doing so, they became legends.
They were Beatles fans with a punk sensibility. Musicianship with a wink.
And a storybook rise that included opera-singing parents, musical mutinies, and vocals tracked during a massage.
Additional Sources:
- Fricke, David. Cheap Trick: The Authorized Biography. Legacy Books, 2021.
- “Cheap Trick Interview – Behind the Music.” VH1, 2000.
- Zander, Robin, Petersson, Tom, Nielsen, Rick. Interview excerpts.
- Wiser, Carl. “Cheap Trick: Stories Behind the Songs.” Songfacts. https://www.songfacts.com/
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**Featured image stolen directly from CheapTrick.com
