5 questions for REO Speedwagon

CHICAGO — A heady claim, but we’re going with it: REO Speedwagon in Aurora on July 1 was the first big rock show in the whole Chicago area in more than a year.

The band that formed in Champaign in the late 1960s and owned the radio in the ’80s, so chances are, you know a few of their songs.

Lead singer Kevin Cronin spoke with the Tribune from his hometown of Los Angeles before a band rehearsal.

Now 69, Cronin says the last year has been hard on a lot of people, but has been a blessing of sorts, giving the band its longest break from touring in memory. Cronin has been working with a vocal coach he met through his son Shane (Shane Cronin is in the LA indie band Sir, Please with twin brother, Josh). You wouldn’t think the voice of REO Speedwagon would try to learn to sing all over again, but Cronin says his old style of singing live — where he thought he had been trying to protect his voice — was actually straining his voice.

“I hear a difference now, it sounds more open,” he said. “It’s changed singing for me: It’s more fun, I can let go more.”

The Aurora concert launched an REO Speedwagon national tour that will keep them on the road through December.

5 questions for REO Speedwagon

1. Song that should have been a hit, but wasn’t? “Building the Bridge,” the title song to their 1996 album, Cronin said. “It’s maybe the best song I’ve ever written,” he said. “It just erupted, I could barely keep up with it as it was coming out.” He says the song, about building connections, might get a whole chapter in an autobiography he’s writing — and would like to see published before the band co-headlines a next big tour in 2022.

He says he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories not long ago with his wife. While staying inside Jerusalem’s Old City, he played the song on the roof of the home the last night of their stay. It inspired Cronin to try to next play it in an area under Palestinian control, which through complicated connections they were able to pull off, at the Bethlehem Peace Center in the West Bank.

2. Favorite decade? The ‘80s. Maybe not a huge surprise there, though Cronin said each decade since has brought new experiences. But the era when they were selling out arenas and REO Speedwagon was the No. 1 band on WLS radio, the station he grew up listening to, has to be his favorite. The 1990s were a bit humbling after that. “We found ourselves playing some state fair dates, where you walk out on stage and see a Ferris wheel,” he laughs. “It was like, ‘What are we doing here?’”

3. The girl in “Take It on the Run” — yes or no, was she messing around? In a word, yes. “There was a lot of messing around then,” Cronin said. The song was written by then-guitarist Gary Richrath for 1980’s “Hi Infidelity.” Touring is hard, he said, “and as result, something has to give; our relationships always took the brunt. There was messing around on both sides.” The thing about songwriting is you’re telling the story, he said, “so you put yourself in the best light.”

4. The song you’re sick and tired of playing live? None. “You would think there would be, but I’m not tired of any of them, because every time you play a song, you can find new things to put into it,” he said. Plus he knows his fans aren’t sick of them. “I have a lot of respect for the people who pay hard-earned money to come out to see us play. Those are the people have connections to these songs and they want to hear them.”

5. About those connections, a disclosure: This writer’s wife reports she was once asked to prom with the lyrics to “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” Does Cronin get that a lot? Yes, fans tell him all the time about times in their lives that are soundtracked by REO Speedwagon. Prom, weddings, breakups, hardships.

“It’s hard for me to imagine,” he said. He thinks about the songs he’s listened to that have meant something to him, such as during his own teenage years. “To hear other people tell me their connections to our songs, there’s no greater compliment, I’ll put it that way.”