Rick Nielsen

By Joan Tupponce

January 1st, 2010

Rick Nielsen may be known to most folks as one of the leading guitarists in the world, but the co-founder of the rock band Cheap Trick likes to refer to himself as a “computer geek.”

At the moment, he’s on his computer finishing a humorous vocal introduction to be played at a friend’s son’s bar mitzvah. He’s using voice recognition software to create a mechanical voice with an English accent. “I didn’t want to use my Midwest nasal twang,” he says, laughing. “I did this thing like I was doing a commercial with some humor thrown in. I like goofing around with that kind of stuff. This is what I do, dumb stuff.”

Nielsen, who hails from Rockford, Ill., formed Cheap Trick with his friend bassist Tom Petersson in 1972. Since then, the band has sold more than 20 million albums and toured the world several times. Their hits include “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender” (both penned by Nielsen).

Nielsen’s love affair with music started long before the band was organized. His father owned a music store in Rockford and both of his parents sang. “I was around music all the time, but the music my parents liked and I liked were totally different,” he says.

His parents leaned toward opera and religious music – both of Nielsen’s grandfathers were ministers. Nielsen, on the other hand, was drawn to rockabilly and the gritty-but-soulful sound of the blues. The guitar wasn’t the first instrument that Nielsen picked up. He started out playing the drums, trying to emulate drummers such as Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. While he was playing, Nielsen found that he often strayed from the drums to help out guitarists who were having trouble with a song.

“I always had perfect pitch,” he says. “I know a bad note from a good note.”

Nielsen taught himself the keyboard and the guitar. He played in several bands during his younger years, including Grim Reapers and Fuse. Nielsen and Petersson got their first record deal when Nielsen was in his late teens. That deal resulted in their first record, which was produced in 1968. “We thought we were going somewhere and that went nowhere,” Nielsen says.

In an attempt to garner more attention, Nielsen and his band moved to Philadelphia, adopting the name Sick Man of Europe, coincidentally the same name as a Cheap Trick single off their newest self-released album, “The Latest.” The band toured Europe for a year before heading back to Illinois. Nielsen and Petersson added drummer Bun E. Carlos and vocalist Randy Hogan and renamed the group Cheap Trick. When Hogan left the band a year later, he was replaced by Robin Zander, who became the band’s lead singer.

Cheap Trick’s rise to rock ’n’ roll fame came in the 1970s, when they gained a following by opening for bands such as Queen, Journey, Meat Loaf and KISS. It was their huge fan base in Japan that eventually led to the group’s legendary live album “At Budokan” and the hit “I want You to Want Me.” The rest, as they say, is rock history.

Nielsen has never been one to adopt the rock-band persona. Instead of long, frizzy locks and leather, he keeps his hair trimmed and dons a baseball cap on stage. His bowties and button-up sweaters border on geeky. But that oddball look is as comfortable to Nielsen as playing a five-necked guitar. “I’m never going to be a pretty boy guitar player,” he says. “I’ve always been a musical nerd. I like girls but I also like computers and guitars.”

Not one to shy away from the camera, Nielsen never enjoyed watching other rock guitarists contort their faces during a show. Now, at the age of 60, Nielsen doesn’t like watching videos of him on stage either. “I’m not exactly pleased with what I see,” he remarks.

One of Nielsen’s trademarks is the checkerboard design that graces everything from his guitars to the band’s Web site. The inspiration for that look came from his childhood, when there were only three network television stations. Each would sign off around 10 on Sunday nights. Nielsen remembers watching the black and white dots that filled the screen as it faded into the night. “In Europe and Japan they are rectangles,” he says. “I liked the idea. It was something so simple. I kept using it.”

Nielsen, who says he still feels like a kid, recalls that when he was in school, he could never sit still. “I still can’t,” he admits. “I’ve been an insomniac all my life. I love to play. I have energy that doesn’t want to go away.” That energy is obvious as Nielsen bounces around the stage, periodically flipping custom guitar picks into the crowd.

Over the years, Nielsen has written some of the band’s most well-known songs. It took him only five minutes to come up with “I Want You to Want Me.” “I wish I could be that dumb more often,” he says, laughing.

A prolific song and jingle writer, Nielsen also wrote the theme for “The Colbert Report” and “That 70’s Show” as well as other film and commercial-related projects. “I love doing that,” he says, adding that he has his first royalty check, for 66 cents, framed and hanging in his basement bathroom. “A year and a half ago I got a check for $1,000 for a song I wrote 40 years ago (the song was used on a soundtrack for a Japanese movie). That was found money.”

A portion of Nielsen’s money is poured into his renowned guitar collection. Nielsen’s collector mindset surfaced when he was young and would collect coins and stamps with his grandmother. That evolved into baseball cards and, by the 1960s, into guitars. “They were called ‘used guitars’ then,” he says. “I always bought used guitars and I never got rid of stuff. I was a musician and didn’t have that much money.”

Every time he made a little cash, he bought a guitar. “I’ve owned about 2,000 different instruments through the years,” he says. More than 15 of his guitars, from his 2008 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top to his 1963 Guild Merle Travis, were recently on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., during its Rock Star’s Cars and Guitars Exhibit. Nielsen also lent the museum his tricked out black-and-white checkerboard John Deere riding mower. “I’m a menace on that,” he says. “It goes about 20 miles an hour.”

That’s not the only vehicle that Nielsen likes to talk up. Last December, RealWheels Corp. created a rock-themed vehicle with the help of Cheap Trick. The vehicle was created as a tribute to the band’s 30th anniversary of its “Dream Police” album and comes complete with checkerboard wheels and a laser-light and music show that emerges from the rear of the vehicle, along with the popular video game “Rock Band 2.”

Nielsen also has a few unusual items on his personal “Smart” car, including a semi horn, rear-view mirrors in the shape of a guitar head stock and door sills with stainless steel cutouts of his kids’ names.

Even though Nielsen is now a 37-year veteran of the music industry, he is still excited about traveling around the country with the band. This past summer Cheap Trick toured nationally alongside Def Leppard and released their new album, “The Latest,” which they’re offering in limited edition vinyl and 8-track (ordered off their official Web site) as well as CDs. “The 8-track was partially for fun,” Nielsen says. “We are Cheap Trick.”

In addition to its touring schedule, the band takes time out to play for various causes and organizations, such as the USO. The group has participated in three USO tours within the last 20 years. “It was the right thing to do,” Nielsen says. In December 2007 the band performed “Sgt. Pepper Live” at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for the Michael Milken Prostate Cancer Foundation Charity Concert and Auction. The guys, who are fans of the Beatles, reprised their performance as special guests of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra to commemorate the 40th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” record release.

Rock star isn’t the only hat that Nielsen wears. He’s also a proud granddad. He has three sons (two – Daxx, who has played drums for Cheap Trick, and Miles – are involved in the music industry, while Erron is a businessman) and one daughter, Scarlett. “She’s in college and she’s high maintenance,” Nielsen says with a chuckle. As far as his two granddaughters, he comments, “I prefer they call me Grumpy and not Granddad.”

Could that Grumpy reference relate to the band’s heavy work schedule? Possibly. “We’re busy boys,” Nielsen says. “We’re too dumb to quit. We sure have fun.”