© Debbie Kruger

I first met you guys in Sydney 20 years ago, in 1979 at the Boulevard Hotel.

JP: I still have a picture of a bunch of us standing around with members of the rugby team. No, not rugby, cricket!

You guys were so into cricket, and Walt was wearing this t-shirt from Dennis Lillee that said "I'm into cricket balls and all" and I remember the whole thing, it was very cool.

JP: So we meet again!

Yeah, well it's interesting, last time I bumped into Robert at the Whisky —

RL: Yeah.

You introduced me to Joy, and you said, "Debbie's interviewed me a couple of times," and I thought, actually I haven't, so it's time I did.

RL: But we've talked. Didn't we do a thing on the phone? Or I did a... an ID?

We've talked a lot. You sent me that fabulous ID for my radio show. I wrote to him, sent him a blank tape, said I've got this radio show in Australia, can you do me an ID? And he went to his studio and you did the whole thing. And that's really cool. So thank you.

RL: You're welcome.

Okay, well I've got a lot of questions, we'll see how we go with you for time.

RL: We have level here?

We have level, we have good level, we have a tape that's going.

JP: Great. All the prerequisites.

And a good microphone. Regarding rehearsals. When you are touring so much, and generally playing the same songs, what is the rehearsal process about for you?

RL: It's usually about if we've added a song to the repertoire that we haven't played for a while we need to become reacquainted with it. And of course if we're doing a new song, like we're doing Jimmy's new single, Jimmy's song from the second Heart of Chicago volume, "Show Me A Sign," that's a song that's beginning to chart now.

You didn't play that one last year?

RL: No. So we had to really learn how to play that. So really, rehearsals are about playing new songs and re-introducing older songs that have been out of the repertoire for a while. And then kind of fine-tuning. 'Cause even with repetitive play, you know, for 20, 25 years of certain songs, sometimes they kind of start to slip away, they kind of drift away from what the original parts were.

JP: They tend to need an edge sharpened. It's basically like sharpening your knives at home. You know, if you use them over and over, you have to keep the edge sharp. So we have to come in here before every tour and pick up the loose ends.

RL: It's really not any more elaborate than that. We tend not to do production rehearsals. Our production has been scaled back so that's it's maximum quality but minimum bells and whistles.

JP: We've trimmed the fat, as it were.

Yeah, I've noticed that. Don Henley has often remarked that he has a high tolerance for repetition, that's one of his favorite quotes, so he doesn't mind doing a song like "Desperado" a zillion times. Is that a factor in your performance longevity, that you don't mind the repetition?

JP: Well, you know Debbie, let's remember an important fact here. The audience comes to hear certain songs. Without that audience, without that fan base, what's the point? We wouldn't have a career. We made the mistake one year of doing a very narcissistic set for ourselves —

RL: Twenty-five years ago.

JP: Yeah, we did what we called the jazz set. And we did all the instrumental —

All the stuff from VII?

JP: Yeah, you know, all the more obscure music in our catalog. Because it was fun to play, cause we never had a chance to do that live. And the year after that, subsequently our audience, about half our audience showed up.

Really.

JP: Because it scared a lot of people away. And so there are songs that you must do, and every night you do them the crowd changes. The crowd is a constantly changing factor. Every night, it's like the first time every night to a large degree because the audience situation is different. It's a different set of people that you're performing that song for. If we were to do that song 80 dates in LA for our friends it'd be rough, because you'd have to make believe you were getting a fresh take on it.

Well I read in an interview that Lee did last year that he said audiences don't want to be educated, they want to be entertained but don't you ever yearn sometimes to just play a few small venues, do some of the early stuff like "Listen" and "Mother" and stuff that you could still do because you're still in the group, and trust maybe that the audiences will trust you? Do you know what I mean? There are a lot of people who come and see you year in year out, and I'm not just talking about the fan club people. There are a lot of people that go back to the Universal or the Greek every year that might trust you if you just stuck two or three of those more interesting — more interesting doesn't mean the others aren't — but the early stuff that we all long to hear. I don't say you have to do a whole show of it, but, have you ever thought about that?

RL: Yeah, I agree. I do long to do that. And every once in a while we'll pull out, you know, like "Question 67 & 68" and I think it had that —

When you did the whole "Ballet" for a couple of years, that was great.

JP: We're going to do it again this year.

RL: Yeah, we'll do that this year. So yes, but within that, I mean, there tends to be, we tend to be a little conservative in the way we structure our shows, because you know the audience that comes has a certain expectation and we don't want to disappoint that. But having said that I still think that there is room in the concert, there's room in the concert to take a chance and either play something that's less familiar or something that's more sensitive, or something that is a little more challenging. My opinion is that there is room for that. But we tend to be a little more conservative.

I wondered if songs like "Just You 'n' Me" and "Saturday in the Park" do still move you and really delight you.

JP: You know one of my — again, this is my personal thing — one of my MO's, you might say, is to get out there every night and if I can play every note in that song, I don't care if I've played it a million times, if I can make every note count, then before I know it the song is over. Because I'm so absorbed in playing that song perfectly that that becomes a challenge within the song. Instead of just, oh god, we've gotta play this song again, I'm thinking, okay let's see I'm gonna dial in these notes, there's a particular section that gives me trouble, I'm gonna play it perfectly tonight. And so I tend to look at the song as a piece of music, and I'm gonna perform this piece of music flawlessly, as if I were up there for a solo recital.

I'm interested, though, as the two composers who've been there since the start, whether you can still be moved by the original inspiration for the song. And I particularly think of "Just You 'n' Me," and I hope you don't mind me being a bit personal, but I've always been fascinated since your marriage status changed and since that song had such a personal and beautiful conception, which is why it's always been one of my favorite Chicago songs, whether you at some stage disconnected from that, or whether you can still connect to that, or whether just years ago you switched off from the emotional level of that song, long before your first marriage —

JP: (Laughing) That's a legitimate question, yeah.

It's just as a fan, as someone who's followed you personally for many years, as soon as I heard about your first marriage being over, my first thought was — but that song!

JP: Yeah. Well, she got half of it.

(All laugh)

Well that happens, but —

JP: It's on tape, too! It's available.

RL: Not to get him off the spot, but I've had you know similar occasions where —

Your life has been through many changes, Robert, yeah.

RL: For instance, whenever we play "Beginnings" I always think of the girl that I was with when I wrote "Beginnings" — at the beginning. Because for me, when I'm singing one of the songs that I wrote, I always go back to when I wrote it, the moment that I wrote it.

You do? So you walk through Central Park in your mind when you do "Saturday?"

RL: Yeah, all of that. Yeah. But for instance with "Beginnings," as I sing the song I bring myself back and, like anybody else who's hearing the song — I mean obviously if you hear the song you're not thinking of the girl that I was thinking of, you're thinking of whatever you're thinking of, whatever it makes you think about — and so I let the lyrics bring me back into where I am now, and I think about Joy.

Yes.

JP: And I agree wholeheartedly with what Robert just said, and to take it a step further, he hit the nail on the head when he said, you know you write a song and you look out into crowd during the song and you see people relating to each other because of what that song represents in their relationship. And you can re-live the feeling that you had when you wrote it by experiencing what they're experiencing. It's really quite delightful. We're very lucky to be able to be so personal with so many, and that is what gives the song coninued life. I mean you can look at any given audience with any given song and you can see two sweethearts going, oh, remember that song, we were standing on a rocky cliff and we heard that song play in the convertible, you know, blah blah blah. And it gives the song added meaning. Regardless of what your status has, how it has changed. But yes, I do flash on the moment that I wrote that song, and how it came about, the fact that we had had an enormous quarrel, and rather than focus on negative energy I went out to the piano and poured emotion into a song instead, it happened quite spontaneously, and the magic of the occasion of writing that song has never quite happened like that since. And it just happened, thank god I was near a piano, and I happened to be at the right place at the right time, and have a fight at the right time, that I could sit down and, you know, transform a negative situation into a positive result. And I do flash on that when we perform the song. But again, it also has meaning for my current love. Because the song is kind of a universal message.

Well on my radio program in Australia I used to play it as a dedication for my dog.

JP: (Laughs) Oh well there you go!

I wanted to share that with you.

RL: Woof woof!

It was always that one and "You're My Best Friend" by Queen, they were my songs for my dog.

JP: Well you know our pets are our best friends, so that's understandable.

Lee has said repeatedly over the years that "Beginnings" is his favorite song to play. He said it in an Australian interview in 1977 and he said it in the interview I read last year. How important is it that your older work not only moves your audiences but moves each other? Are you always checking with each other to keep a song in the set?

RL: I don't know if that's like, if.... I don't know if it's important that we have a discussion about every single song, but I think what happens is that an occasion like this past week when we're putting together the show for this year, if something is just not working, you know, regardless of how much one or two of the guys might like a song, it's generally going to come out of the set and something else is going to go in. So, you know... I think, you know, we've played "Beginnings" probably somewhere around 3600 times.

Is that all?

RL: Yeah. It's probably —

JP: That sounds like a low number to me, too.

It sounds like a very little number. Haven't you played it in every set since the first time?

RL: Yeah but you figure we've been playing for 32 years, we play roughly an average of let's say a hundred concerts a year.

Okay

RL: It's not that many.

JP: There you go. Our historian.

Thank you. Okay, this one might come out a little convoluted but hopefully you'll see where I'm coming from. As the two central composers of the groups since the beginning, I'm interested to talk with you about the change in focus in composing over the years. You started out as prolific writers and you recorded prolifically. I can't think of any group except the Beatles, who recorded so many albums in such a short space of time — taking into account your double sets. And even the rapidity with which you got Hot Streets out after Terry's death, in retrospect, that's — I don't think any group would do that today, within six or eight months you've got a brand new album full of original material out. So it's almost like you were all on musical speed in the late '60s and '70s. Until the '90s the albums were coming out regularly, but the original material was less prevalent. So what I want to know is, did the writing output wane as you grew older or are there other factors? Because the use of other composers has baffled me since you started doing it.

[Long pause]

RL: Well you're talking to the right people.

JP: Yeah.

That's why I wanted to talk to you two. This is the crux of what I want to write about.

RL: I write more than I — I've been writing more in the last ten years than I did in the first ten years. What's happened is that the trust that the management and the record company has in us has gone away. So they basiclaly don't trust what we do. They don't trust us to do, to record the music that we're writing.

JP: To a degree I believe that may be true. But on the other hand I believe that the music business and the nature of how songs are written, produced and why they are written for what has changed remarkably. Back when we were so prolific, or so the impression was, it was largely due to the fact that we could write just about anything we wanted to and it would get on a record, because that was where we were at that point in time. And the album, or the project we were working on, was a chronicle of where we were in terms of our writing and musicality at that given time. Nowadays the music business doesn't focus on music for the sake of music. Nowadays the music business focuses on music for the sake of dollars. And that is pretty much across the board, and nowadays it's become a lot of suits with a certain idea, a certain artist, a certain sound in mind, and you're competing with an image, you're competing with a style. You're not really free to do, for instance, double discs, like we used to do. You can put more than ten songs on a CD. Whether or not that music is going to go on that CD with the same fulfilment to the artist or the same recognition is questionable. Nowadays formats are the thing on radio. Nowadays radio grabs so many songs and they play those songs for so many months, and that's the only songs they will play. And not only that but we became successful to the point of being recognized solely on the basis of one type of song, and that's the power ballad. With the enormous success of "If You Leave Me Now" radio decided that that was Chicago's sound on radio. And I can't tell you how many attempts we made at pushing up-tempo songs to get on records and fans would come up to us and go, 'What happened to you guys? You've been eating too much pabulum. What happened to that, you know, the guts and the soul and the funk that you guys had back when. Now you guys have sold out.' You know, we heard that so many times. And you know, our answer to that was, well, we actually became victims of the success of one type of song that was embraced by mass media as our sound. And no matter how hard we tried to knock that door down and to get another, like a "Make Me Smile" or a "Beginnings" or an up-tempo —

"25 or 6 to 4"

JP: A "25 or 6 to 4"! We've been one up-tempo song short for 30 years, man. You know, "25 or 6 to 4" is the encore song, every night, I don't care where we are, when it is, that song has to be the closer of the show, because that is the rock 'n' roll anthem from this band. There ain't any others.

And that's the real Chicago.

JP: Well, that's not the real Chicago. That's part of the real Chicago. "If You Leave Me Now" is just as much Chicago as "25 or 6 to 4". "Hard To Say I'm Sorry", "You're The Inspiration", those are all Chicago as well. But after the success of that genre of song the "25 or 6 to 4" aspect side of this band got put on the back burner, and every year it gets farther and farther back, and you know we've been fighting tooth and nail to come back. And this song that is now just starting to climb the charts that we rehearsed today is a new song, it's a hip hop type of a song. It may be that first toe to open the door back into you know getting back into up-tempo stuff, some R&B, some funk. Because you know Robert's written a lotta you know, funk type tunes in the last five years. We did an album that has never been released. He even got into a rap type of approach that this band had never done, and it was laughable to these suits, because, "Oh no, no, no, that's not Chicago!" And so we're up against this image thing, and no matter how prolific we are on that side of the coin, in terms of up-tempo songs, it's like they don't trust it, because that's not — you know, our manager comes to us and says, "Hey man, that'll never get on the radio. We know programmers, our A&R guy in the office couldn't shop that song no matter what he did." Do you know what I'm trying to say?

Absolutely.

JP: It has nothing to do with our lack of being prolific.

RL: The good news is that the next album that we record will be on Chicago Records, and I'm of the opinion that we ought to take some chances, you know, take some chances on that album.

Where is that album at, at the moment? Are you anywhere near starting it?

JP: We haven't even started recording it. We're writing music right now. And again, I'm not here to look a gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps one of the reasons we're still sitting here talking to you or rehearsing for another tour, our 32nd year on the road, is because of the enormous success of that ballad type song.

RL: That is without a doubt.

JP: We wouldn't be here. And perhaps we can, perhaps this continued success and longevity will get us finally to the point, over that hump, where we can start sneaking in some more daring compositions.

I had a question about the whole thing I have felt, for many years, Chicago was misunderstood because of the ballads, but it's got to the point where you've had to become what people were misunderstanding you to be.

JP: We've had to live up to expectations.

But why you can't — maybe it's hard to answer — you talk about management this way, but obviously they're doing great things for your career —

RL: Yeah.

Would it be too difficult to just take control, manage yourselves, or find someone —

JP: It would be suicide.

RL: Well, Chicago is a corporation. It's more... the way we exist now is more a corporation than a band. I mean, we are a band, but we're also a corporation.

JP: That again goes back to my point. It's a business now. It's a business, and we have to think like businessmen. It's disgusting!

RL: On one hand we don't have to. But if we don't, then it would be, if we didn't have Chicago Records I think that very likely there wouldn't be any place for us to go with new music.

And yet artists like Dylan, and Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, and Crosby Stills Nash & Young, who are doing a new album now, why don't they have this trouble? They just do what they want to do, and trust that the —

JP: No.

They don't?

RL: No, they've been doing what they do. With the possible exception of Bruce, Dylan sounds like Dylan, Crosby Stills & Nash sounds like Crosby Stills & Nash, who was the other band you mentioned?

Neil Young solo. I mean, he does whatever he wants to do, don't you think he does?

JP: Let me tell you something, speaking of that. I got a call from Graham Nash and Stephen Stills, they wanted Chicago's horn section to be on one cut. The powers that be said... We got to the 11th hour, a couple days before this session was supposed to happen. We had planned it for nine months, our schedules finally worked out so they could be in town when our section came in and did this song, they were all totally excited about the collaboration. I got a call in the 11th hour, and the powers that be said, "No, no no no, we can't have horns on this song, it's not what —"

Their powers that be?

JP: Yes.

Oh really.

JP: So there you go. It happens to all of us.

Isn't it a shame, because back in the '70s you were doing it with the Bee Gees, the Bee Gees were doing it with you, everyone was just —

RL: Yeah I mean, that was the nature of —

Everyone was just working with each other, and if you look at liner notes on albums you see great people doing sessions for other great people.

JP: Right.

RL: That was the... I mean, in the '70s that was the nature of music, you pretty much, it was expected that you would make more artistic decisions and be granted more musical freedom than is allowable now. Especially because we're older bands.

Well, with the new original material that you have recorded on these Heart of Chicago albums you've had significant input from people like Lenny Kravitz, James Newton Howard, Glen Ballard. I don't need to know about how each of these collaborations happened, but in general, how are these collaborations coming about and how much is their sound styling Chicago now, or is it not at all?

RL: Chicago's sound is the brass. Chicago's sound is —

JP: Not really. It's a big part of it. But it's, I think it's you, I mean you have a style. Bill has a style. Our sound is the result of the people in this band who have remained relatively intact, especially Robert and the horn section, we go back to day one, and our style is how we play and how we sing and how we approach what we do. That style is recognizable, and true, the horn section is an obvious signature in the music. But stylistically you know, we play a certain way and we approach songs a certain way. When Robert writes a song or I write a song it doesn't really become a Chicago song until thememebrs of the band put in their special touches and the song has life. I mean, I could have given "Just You 'n' Me" to the Bee Gees or somebody and it would have been a different song.

RL: Yeah, I would say, of the people you mentioned Lenny Kravitz probably had the most musical —

JP: Personality. Stamp.

RL: Yeah, his style came on, you know, really blended with what we were trying to do more than the rest of the guys. The rest of the guys, you know, whether it was Ballard or James Newton Howard, or even David Foster. And David Foster made the Chicago sound in his image and —

I was going to ask about him next, yeah.

RL: But the other guys are really, without giving them their proper credit, were just producers, and they were given a task of bringing the song and the sound of Chicago together in a marketable way for radio.

How do you look back now on that pivotal David Foster period in your career? Because for a lot of us long-time followers of the band it really signalled such a huge change in the sound, in the way the group was going to go from then on. How do you look back on it? 'Cause it's been a long time now.

RL: Well, you know I firmly believe that without David Foster at that time the band probably would have ceased to exist, at least as a mainstream band. It would have taken a lot of struggle, if we hadn't had those hits, for us to find out way. You know, that was like the right guy at the right time both for us and with radio.

JP: Well he was on the rise. You know, when we did Chicago 16 with him he wasn't the famous sought-after person he is now. He was up and coming. But he was hungry. And we were hungry for a jump start, you know, and like Robert said, we were both at the right place at the right time and it worked for whatever. I don't necessarily agree with the fact that if it hadn't been him it wouldn't have been somebody else.

RL: Yeah we have that kind of tenaciousness.

JP: Yeah. And when Terry Kath died, that was the biggest kick in the ass that we ever could have had, just in terms of keeping the ball going.

RL: Well it didn't really happen with Phil [Ramone], and it didn't really happen with Tom Dowd, and I don't know who else we'd worked with before David, but it didn't really happen. We weren't ready for it to happen, and we kind of got by with those albums, but you know, David really created a sound that incorporated the Chicago sound but turned out to be his sound rather than, rather than... His sound using Chicago as an instrument.

JP: Yeah. Right. Right.

So in that respect then the David Foster factor was unique in the broad spectrum of Chicago, because when I thought about this the other day, I thought well, gee then if I go back to the first eleven albums, how much of that was Jimmy Guercio and how much of it was you guys? Because there's been lots of talk about... Because I listen to those albums and what comes to me is this completely self-style, raw, open this-is-who-we-are sound. I'd hate to think it wasn't that.

RL: Yeah, the first eleven albums are Chicago. The first eleven albums are Chicago, and Guercio's genius was that he captured it, and no other producer has captured it.

And allowed you to be yourselves.

JP: Yes. And Jimmy Guercio stayed on the other side of the glass. Jimmy Guercio was kind of the mentor. As great a musician as he was, he was a very talented bass player and composer in his own right, but he let us do our thing. And like Robert said, he was able to capture it incredibly well. David was more... I don't want to be.... I want to say this...

RL: David Foster badly, still to this day, badly wants to be an artist and he'll never be an artist. So what he does is he makes records using artists so that, you know, what he does can shine through using the artists as a synthesizer if you will.

He's done it most recently with the Corrs, particularly, the Irish group. Fabulous records.

RL & JP: Yeah.

But that real slick shiny glossy —

JP: Slick! Slick, and this synthisized, you know, I mean it's Foster's keyboards.

RL: That's David.

JP: He is an incredible pianist.

Didn't he play at the Olympics or something?

JP: Yeah, well the Olympic theme is his thing.

RL: He'll play anywhere they let him. He'll go anywhere they'll let him.

JP: You know, and the guy is an amazing talented guy, but it's almost as if he's goin, "Okay you guys go play in traffic, you know, and I'll make this record, and you know, I'll put as much of you guys as I need to get the Chicago sound across, but you know, this line, here I'll tell you guys." Like the horn section, "Okay, here's the line I want you guys to play." (Simulates horn sound). You know I got to the point where I went, "David, don't tell me what to write because that is the magic of what we do, it comes from this brain, not that brain." And it got to the point where we did bump heads quite severely.

But I guess he and Peter didn't bump heads so much, because when I look back on it —

JP: Well Peter hated horns. Peter hated the horns.

They were kind of working together and collaborating.

JP: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they were talking about you know Peter leaving the band and doing, you know, a partnership thing long before it happened. Because yeah, they were nurturing something completely separate from what this band was. He was creating a wedge between Peter and the band. But that wedge would have been there anyway because Peter and the horn section in this band never saw eye to eye.

Which is interesting —

JP: And then Peter went out and made records with horns on them.

And some of the songs he wrote, the arrangements you did, you kind of think how could this song ever have existed without?

JP: Well look at "The Glory Of Love," the first single he had after he left the band. It's a Chicago production. I mean, come on. Michael Omartian put a Chicago horn section on there. I might as well have written it myself and played it. So I didn't get it, and I'm not patting myself on the back, that's the way it is. So I find it quite ludicrous that all of that went down. It's a lot of gray matter we're talking about here. I don't think —

RL: Yeah, David did great records for us at a time when we really needed to do some great records.

And I certainly wasn't looking for a "Let's get at David Foster"; I'm more interested in how other artists affect your sound, and it's clear that David Foster was the one who really did.

RL: Yeah.

But perhaps it was what you needed at the time, maybe it wasn't, but that's what happened.

RL: We needed something.

JP: Yeah, we needed something, and maybe, maybe not.

I don't know if you want to go where I'm going to go now, and if you don't that's fine.

JP: Okay.

I love the stories about your connection with Jimi Hendrix in the early years, and I've often read about his comments on the band, and particularly his comments about Terry's playing, and how Terry was a better guitar player than he was. And the publicity bio I have refers to Janis Joplin's endorsements, as well. So I sat and I thought, well what would Jimi and Janis think of Chicago now, and for that matter, and this is where you might not want to go, what would Terry think of the group now, and if he were still here, would you still be together doing this, or would you have gone in that direction where your hearts still lie?

RL: Ah, I would say that — and this is all speculation, you must understand — I would say that Janis Joplin would be probably doing country records and starring in a tv sitcom.

(All laugh)

RL: No, I think two things. If Terry, a) if Terry would have sobered up, and he was leaning towards grasping a new technology, all the technology that we're now immersed in, my fantasy is that he probably would have mastered that technology before anybody else in the band, because he really wanted to do that. Because he was already doing crazy things with his little home studio set-up anyway. So my fantasy is that had he not died he would have, the direction that the band would have taken would definitely have been influenced by his still being around, his interest in the technology. And you know, who knows where that would have ended up, but I don't think we would be the band that we are now. I'm not saying that it would have been a better band, I'm saying that it would have been a different band.

Do you both —

JP: If Terry was still performing with us?

(RL nods)

Do you both still seek Terry out sometimes and just talk to him or think —

RL: I dream about him.

— Or dream about him?

JP: I think of him quite often.

RL: I dream about him all the time.

Because his spirit, I mean, any fan who's been there since then, his spirit is still there and when you listen to the old albums, it's — sometimes I get very teary when I listen to those first three albums particularly, and it just washes over me, and always on my radio program in Australia, I would play a lot of that early stuff and I would teach my listeners, I would say, "This is the Chicago a lot of us remember." And I would play "Listen" and I would play a lot of his stuff, just doing my little bit to say hey, they're not just a ballad band, there's this, and there was this great man. And I thought you guys particularly, and Lee and Walt, must go to him sometimes.

JP: Well I am convinced that he is just smiling ear to ear in the fact that we're such a bunch of tenacious bastards, we're down here, man, we're not letting go, we're going to do this until we get it right, that's the way we like to say it. And I think he's proud of us. But you know, Debbie, this is rock and roll, it's music. It's not a cure for cancer. It's not a new wheel. This is entertainment. And granted, it gives life a quality that otherwise it wouldn't have, just like beautiful flowers do, and things in nature that give extra meaning to life. And it's great to be a part of a career and an endeavor that's perhaps given lots of people happiness and a place to go when life gets them down. And I think Terry was a great inspiration to us when he was alive. And I still, as you have alluded to, think his spirit exists within this band, and we think of him quite often with great fondness, and I hope he does the same — I hope he's having fun.

He's got a lot of company up there. He's just got Dusty now!

JP: Oh yeah. I hope they're saving us a place in the section, you know. But, you know, who's to say? I mean, who's really to say? It's anybody's guess.

Sure, and I knew it was kind of a weird one, but —

JP: Yeah, I mean, Jimi Hendrix might be the next, he might be who Quincy Jones is now. I mean, you know, Quincy Jones was a jazz trumpet player, man, you know, he was in the back room smoking tea, you know, he was just a jazz cat, and he turned into this enormously talented visible powerful production figure, okay?

RL: A guy with a vision.

JP: A guy with a vision.

RL: I think Terry, I think Terry very easily could have been somebody like that.

Producing and working with a lot of other artists as well.

RL: Yeah.

Thank you for that. The ups and downs of Chicago really have been the stuff of true drama, and I guess many people are wondering why there hasn't been a VH1 "Behind The Music" yet.

JP: There's been a lot of things here.

Or a book. Having watched the band go through these changes since Terry's death, what I've noticed, at least until Dawayne's departure, was a tendency to always be — I've seen a lot of interviews that you did — always be really upbeat about whatever the current situation was. So Donnie Dacus made you feel alive again, and then later on you read, well he never really fitted into the group. It's almost like after about ten years you tell the truth. So I'm wondering, with a lot of these situations were you trying to convince yourselves that it was great. did you really believe it was great, was it just great PR? Like you've often said, "This is the best lineup that we've ever had." And I think now you really, with Keith, you've really got a really great lineup.

RL: Yeah.

But a lot of the times, were you kidding yourselves or did you belive it at the time and then it just didn't work out?

RL: I think we're all very optimistic, we're all optimistic, we're all very optimistic people and I think that —

JP: Yeah. We all wanna believe that.

RL: — in the case of Donnie and Chris Pinnick and Dawayne Bailey, we really, we would not have allowed those guys into the band if we didn't really think at the time that it was gonna work out really great. And I personally was just full of optimism. And you know it's not a matter of telling the truth ten years later, it's the value of hindsight ten years later. You can see things a lot more easily for what they were, a little bit later down the line.

Okay. It seems that every member who left the group either disappeared into a kind of oblivion, or, say in Danny's case he just wanted to go, I think, and lead a more quiet life, or in the case of Peter, had a solo career that was probably disappointing to him compared to Chicago's profile. Which says something about the power of the group as a united force. And I was wondering with all the things you've said about how prolifically you still write and the frustration you feel, is it that amazing force that the band has that keeps you guys in the band still today? The fact that if you leave you might not have that again.

RL: You answer first, I'll be right back.

JP: I don't think, again, you know, regardless of whatever frustration we might have, I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing songs. The fact that I can't write another "25 or 6 to 4" and get it on the radio is not gonna ruin my day.

It'd be funny if you wrote another one — you didn't write that one.

JP: No, well you know what I mean. (Laughs)

Sorry. Trying to be a smart ass.

JP: No, no, no, no. I think we're very lucky people. Okay? Maybe, the fact that we've been around so many years, you know, you begin to appreciate it more. And I don't know how many more years we're gonna want to do this. Frankly, I don't know if I'm gonna want to be on the road a hundred days when I'm 60 years old. I don't think I will. I have a new wife, and a baby in the oven —

You do?

JP: — and I'm gonna do it again.

Congratulations.

JP: Thank you. And this time I wanna be home for that child.

Was that a big problem the first time?

JP: Are you kidding me? Okay, baby's born, see you hon, I'm going back on the road. I mean, you know, yeah, I missed, I missed everything. I mean, we were busy. So we paid our dues. And we're not going to be doing this many more years, frankly.

Yeah, I've heard that. Five, maybe?

JP: I'm not saying this is the last tour. 'Cause there's no end in sight right now. But no, there's other things. I wanna write — maybe I wanna write a symphony, maybe I want to conduct the symphony orchestra, maybe I wanna —

I'd love you to write something with more movements, like you did in the early days.

JP: Well, like the "Ballet" was, a ballet was about as far as I could go with a rock 'n' roll band, you know, and do it live.

Well you did other ones like that back then.

JP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm talking about going back to school and writing for 50, 60, 70, 80 pieces. You know. It's not too late to even fun with that. And maybe have it performed long after I'm gone, who cares. Just to fulfil myself. But let's get away from me. I think we're very lucky individuals to be a part of this. And this has been a great vehicle for whatever we've wanted to do. Chicago has allowed us to expand as individual writers. I mean, I write stuff, I'm actually as we speak getting into a situation where I can write for television, write for other artists, sell songs outside of this, you know, songs that this band wouldn't want to or couldn't do. Because, that limits what we do. I mean, Robert maybe wants to write for Broadway show. I mean, there's other scenarios for our writing, and that's what I'd like to do, collaborate in different fields, that would challenge me. And Chicago has been a wonderful, I mean, platform to do what we do. We're very lucky that we've had such a great springboard to write what we write and have such a successful vehicle to present our songs with. But there are other ways of presenting songs and there are other things to write songs for.

[To Robert] And you? With regards staying in the band all this time when you know, you've obviously got other things you want to do. You are doing other things. I'm still waiting to find out about the project with Gerry and Carl, and whether that —

RL: Yeah, actually, I was talking with Gerry just the other day, and I'm going to present the album to Chicago Records and see if they want to.... And this is my new album. [Pulls In My Head CD from his bag.]

I was going to ask you about that. Have you got any others?

JP: And then I wrote...

Have you got any others in there?

RL: (Laughs) No, no just that one.

What's happening with that one?

RL: Chicago Records.

But when?

RL: Ummm...

JP: Yeah. When?

RL: Maybe June. June 1st, something like that.

Great. That's a lot quicker than between the first and the second one.

RL: Oh! Yeah!

JP: And there again, we can do our own thing and still —

RL: Chicago Records is like, for me, it's one of the greatest things that — I mean, I think we're just beginning to see what we can — the Christmas album really showed us a lot what we could do on our own. You know, it's not, you know, at first it was just a way to reissue the back catalog. But now with the success of the Christmas album, you know, we'll do the next Chicago album just for Chicago Records and you know, it's a real record. It's a real record company,

And who'll distribute that? Warner?

JP: Well, not necessarily, no. Independent.

But what keeps you in the band? Because you have these frustrations with management, and the record business.

JP: You'd have it with any band or even if you were a solo artist.

RL: In any business you'd have it.

Is it just because you love it? That's what I'm trying to get to.

JP: We love it. We love it.

RL: I'm very grateful.

JP: And that's why we're still here, Debbie, okay?

I got that.

JP: Okay? That is the answer. We love this. How many people can say they make a good living doing something that they look forward to doing?

Well, and it shows on stage. I've never seen a band that loves being together on stage as much as you guys. Ever.

JP: We hear that quite a bit. And that's not an act.

You particularly.

JP: You're damn right. I'm having a great time.

It's fabulous. Okay, I wanted to ask you something about the changing sound of the horns. I'm not musically educated, so I only know what I hear. But the horns sound entirely different now, on record to me, to how they sounded in those first albums, and until how they sounded right up until David Foster, really. Now they sound sort of smoother and more integrated. On stage it's a different thing, it's still the brassy thing. But on record they're there, but they're just a part of something.

JP: Again —

And is that because you've been told, arrange it this way so that it'll sound good for radio?

JP: Again. Again. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the control booth with a producer, and with, you know, members of the band. You know. "The horns, the horns are too loud, they're conflicting with the vocals." I don't write horns to conflict with vocals. I write horns as an extension of the vocals. In the old days, however, in the old days I used to write horns very harmonically. "Questions 67 & 68" is probably a very good example of how I used to approach horns. I had no rests. We played from the first bar of the song to the last bar of the song, which is not musical any more. I mean, we got away with that then, I guess. And the horns were playing all the time and the horns were always choral [simulates horn line].

Well I sing the horns, in those albums, I sing the horn lines. I can't sing the horn lines on this stuff.

JP: Yeah, well the horns were —

RL: Are you talking about the texture of the horns or the note they're playing?

That too. The texture, yeah.

JP: Okay. Jimmy Guercio had the horns more up in the track than producers —

RL: Also, you're only doing two, or maybe three tracks of horns, right?

JP: We're doubling.

RL: You're doing A, B and C.

JP: No, no, no.

RL: A with C and B with C, right?

JP: No. No, we're doing stereo section — A, B, C and A, B, C and then combining the two tracks. So we're doubling. We're doing one section and then we're doing another section, and then combining into two tracks in stereo. And Guercio used to triple, quite often. He'd have three sections. He'd have a section here, a section here and one in the middle. And the one in the middle was me playing pedals, that's why it sounded like Count Basie, it sounded like a big band.

So it was a production thing, not the playing or the instruments themselves.

JP: It was production. These other guys, they had no idea how to set up the mikes, they had no clue as to what a horn section was. And James Newton Howard — and this can go on the damn record — James Newton Howard, I worked with him, and he sent me a rough mix, and I said, "Hey, James, the horns are buried. You can't even hear them." "Oh well that's just a rough mix, don't worry about it, I know your level, blah blah blah." And I said, "Not only that, but the tenor's too hot in the mix, it doesn't sound, it doesn't have that round Chicago, you know, fat Chicago characteristic to it." "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know." And then I got the final mix. No change. You know, this is "Here In My Heart."

Yeah, that's the song I listened to that brought this question up.

JP: You hear the horns in the intro, and then, whoop, they're gone. You can hear, what the hell is that, is that horns there? And then we have the little three-bar interlude in the bridge, and then, oh there's horns, and then, whoop, they're gone. And that son-of-a-bitch — YOU HEAR THAT, MAN? YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT!!!

How do you really feel about this, though?

JP: [Right into the microphone] I'm only kidding, James. Ah, no, I will never work with a guy that strokes me, okay? I don't want to be louder than everything. But don't fuck with me, I've been doing this 30 years, I know what this section should sound like. And I could produce a great song for this band, but, you know, these guys, I'm tired of working with guys that were fuckin' playing in a sandbox when I was doing this.

RL: Now you sound like an old fart.

JP: I am, goddammit! I'm not an old fart, I'm an experienced artist, and don't be telling me how to do my job when you don't fucking know it!

So obviously you guys could produce an album for Chicago that would be the way you want it to sound. Is it simply that the management won't let you?

RL: I think we could. I think we could.

[JP laughs.]

Are you doing that for 26? Is that going to happen?

RL: No, we won't do it.

Because of management?

RL: No, I think we need a referee.

JP: Yes. Yeah. There are so many talented people, you know. He'd want to do his song his way, I'd want to do mine my way.

RL: I mean, a producer will say, give me an idea for a section, he'll get eight ideas in 30 seconds.

I guess that's what happens with Crosby Stills & Nash but there are only three of them, so a David Crosby song sounds like a Crosby song, and Nash, and —

JP: Right.

RL: This is worse.

JP: There are six principals in this entity. So that could get a little messy. But you know, I mean, as far as James Newton Howard, I don't hate the guy, but I don't appreciate the fact that, you know, I'm working with this man, and I found it rather, more than a little insulting that the guy would stroke me and tell me this is just a rough mix and then for posterity, forever on disc, and for the rest of the world to hear, is a horn section that sounds like shit. I mean, it's not mixed properly. That's not the way a real horn section is mixed. And so then people like yourself come up to me and go, "Man, I miss the horns, why do you guys do that?" It's because of people like that.

Okay, that answers the question.

RL: That's clear.

Thank you.

JP: I'm glad that's clear.

I want to talk to you about your relationship with your fans. You mentioned this right at the beginning. I've met a lot of bands and artist who've been around 25 or 30 years, both as a fan and a journalist. I've had people like Don Henley say to me, when I said, could you do an ID for my radio show, "My dear, after 30 years in the business, we don't do that any more." You know.

JP: "My dear." [Laughs]

"My dear." Yes. And even when I first met you in Sydney 20 years ago, and you were still a young band in those days, I guess, I was so struck by the fact that you guys — I really remember this clearly — you asked me questions about me. Where do you live? Do you go to school? What are you interested in doing? It was like you wanted to know, who are our fans in Australia?

JP: I miss playing there.

[To Robert] You said you'd be back. 20 years ago. I'll talk to you about that in a sec.

RL: Send us the check and we'll come.

[Both laugh]

I'll bring you guys out. One of the things I'm thinking of doing when I go back is trying to bring out artists that I know people still want to see. The thing is, you've said you wouldn't be here today but for your fans. Maybe that says it all, but I wondered if you could comment more on your relationship with them. Because you've got a lot of time for your fans, you do that meet-and-greet every year in Vegas, and that's exhausting.

JP: It is, man.

And you're always friendly and polite, even if you don't have time. Is this just cause you're just all nice guys, or is it a philosophy that you have in the band, this is the way we will treat our fans, and anyone who doesn't, you know, has to answer to us?

RL: Yeah, it's not anything we're dying to do. I think the philosophy of the band is let's be polite to our fans, they deserve at least that. Me personally, having said that, you know, I appreciate the fans, I respect the fans, and as I've said before, the real rabid fans, like the fan club fans, I don't understand their zealousness —

Obsessiveness.

RL: Obsessiveness, you know. But I respect it. And, I don't think I really want to know each one of my fans individually, I just don't want to.

JP: I kind of agree with all of the above.

Yeah, I've read you say that before. And I can understand. You want the distance, you want the fourth wall.

RL: I want the, whatever the fantasy is, the illusion, to remain. I don't want to break that down. I don't want to go hang out with them, go out drinking with them.

That's fair enough.

JP: Yeah, and I guess any artist worth his weight in salt or whatever has that kind of fan base.

But not many of them are as outgoing and as giving as you guys are.

RL: Well thank you.

I just wanted to give you that. 'Cause I've met all of my favorite artists, I've met them. And Henley was the most disappointing, but all the Eagles are like that, they just, they're incredibly arrogant.

JP: They're too cool for school.

They came to Australia and they each travelled in their own van and they're walking down the streets of Double Bay, which is this suburb in Sydney, kind of like Beverly Hills, and no-one else knew who they were, but they all had security guys. And it's like —

JP: Who cares? Life's too short.

So I went to their press conference, and yeah, I kind of got that kind of response. And it really made me think of you guys, and what you [looking at Robert] had done for me, and it's just really important that you get the feedback from us that it's really appreciated and that it is part of the experience of seeing you play and hearing your records, knowing that you actually care about who's listening on the other end.

JP: Well, like I said, and I meant it, without an audience that liked what we did, what's the point?

Given that, this gets to the Australian thing, I'm really interested to hear your opinion on the band's decreasing international profile. Because as someone who was trying to follow the band from Australia in the pre-internet days, it seemed that as the 1980s progressed, your popularity in the domestic US market kept increasing, with more number one hits and platinum-selling albums, and at some stage there was a decision made to focus less on foreign markets, other than perhaps Japan. Was it in fact a deliberate decision on the band's part, was it record company thing, or was it just the way things unconsciously panned out? Because I want to know how you feel about the fan base outside the US who aren't been catered to?

[Long pause]

RL: It was Howard Kaufman's decision way back when to mine the gold domestically and let the foreign markets follow however they might. And I think, and he would probably agree, and I've told this to him before, that I've always believed that he was short sighted, now, because now it really is a global market, and there are places that we could be appearing regularly and we could be having record sales regularly, and we don't have them. About the only place that we go with any regularity is Asia, is Japan, and you know, so we do have a market there, we do have fans there, our records do get released there and are promoted there and have some success there. So now it's a matter of, if we wanted to re-open, like, Australia, South America, Europe, and other places where there never were markets where there are now, it would be, there would be kind of a, there would be a cost factor to do that, and I think the majority of the band doesn't want to do that, doesn't want to invest the time and energy, and the money, that it would take to re-open those markets, because it would take probably a three to five year program to do that.

So obviously if somebody said, "Hey, come out to Australia, we'll offer you this much money" —

RL: We would go if it was enough money.

JP: Yeah, I mean, as Robert said, it's very expensive to operate this band, because it's a big band.

RL: Other big bands go and other big bands have been able to go over there and tour, but what Howard has been unwilling to do and the majority of the guys in the band have been unwilling to do is to go to the foreign markets and break even, or even have it cost money, the first time. And that's, you know, and that's what's not happened.

'Cause when you came in '79 to Australia you were playing outdoor stadiums and playing to between 20 and 30,000 people in each city, and I guess had you, had you come back around the time of 16 — because that was a big hit in Australia — you could have continued and I don't think it would have come to this. But yeah, it's either up to a promoter to invest the money, be willing to maybe break even, and bring you out and discover what the market is there, or you just let them go, and obviously you've had to let them go, but it's —

RL: I think it was a mistake, and Howard knows how I feel.

If I'm there, there are other people there. And I know there are fans in Europe and England who are going, why don't you come?

RL: Yeah, and South America.

But that also answers for me, I guess, what the rationale is behind this annual huge tour, it's mining this huge pot of gold, and doing Caesar's, and knowing that there's the market there, that it's going to bring in a good income, that the fans love it.

JP: Yeah, but this huge pot of gold is just keeping food on the table. It's not like we're raking in millions and millions of dollars.

RL: Well we make a very good living and we're, we make a very good living.

Well guys like you have got royalties, obviously, coming in.

JP: Yeah. And I don't want to sit here and tell you it's all about money. I'd love to play in other countries, I really would.

RL: It is all about money, as far as —

JP: Well I'd like to think that you know we could go other places, but the reason we can't is because it costs a lot of money to ship the gear, and there's a lotta, we've got to cut the pie six ways.

RL: Whenever we've tried to even start to talk about it, all I've ever heard are reasons why we can't do it, or why it's hard to do it, or why we might lose money, or why there's too much gear. You know, I've always heard reasons why it would be hard to do it, rather than here's a way to do it, and here are the pros and cons.

JP: We were really close to coming to Australia last year, as a matter of fact.

You were going to do something with Little River Band, I heard.

JP: Well, we had a tentative Japan/Australia tour, and the yen went down so far that Japan backed out and then it no longer — It made sense to do Japan and then go to Australia. But Japan was basically going to pay for the overages on that trip to make it worth going to Australia no matter what.

I wonder who the promoter was.

RL: Independent.

JP: Yeah. It was very disappointing, because it was really close to happening.

RL: Yeah, it was two nights in Melbourne and one night in Sydney, or the other way around.

This is a general question, but I just wanted to ask each of you, looking back on the 32 years, is there one thing that stands out, either musically, or just an experience that being in the group has given you that you'll always look back and say, "That happened because I was in Chicago, and that was the best thing that ever happened in my life or one of the best things."

RL: There's not only one. There's dozens, there are dozens. For me.

JP: It's been one hell of a ride. I mean, one hell of a ride. I don't know if there's any trombone players that have enjoyed what I have. I mean, trombone is not a common instrument, especially in pop. So I'm one of a kind. And it's because I was in the right place at the right time and I'm still having fun. So I feel very fortunate.

RL: Yeah, there have been so many of those moments in my life, experiences that I've had, that I know I would not have had, had I not been in Chicago.

Other than the Stones, you are the only grop that have stayed together consistently this long, aren't you? Without breaking up, without stopping touring.

JP: Yeah. I mean, The Who got together when —

They're not still together, really.

JP: Yeah. And then the Beach Boys (laughs), god rest —

RL: Mike? You mean Mike?

JP: Yeah.

RL: There's Mike —

There's Al.

RL: And then there's Al. But they're not together.

JP: And Bruce Johnston.

But really after Brian stopped playing with them it was never the same band. But this is a band where four core members, who really are a big part of the sound, are still there.

RL: For me, that whole thing is like, it's like the epitome of the stupid rock band, you know. Like the stupid rock band guys who like they don't want to ride in the same car, they don't want to share a dressing room, and it just goes downhill from there. It's like they have one hit, and the four guys in the band don't want to ride in the same limo, and they all get different managers, you know. That's the prototype for the stupid rock band. And the Beach Boys have fallen prey to that a long time ago, you know, it just got stupider and stupider. And individually nice guys. Individually lovely guys, you know.

So the fact that you all really like each other is —

RL: We're not stupid, let's put it that way. We may be dumb, but we're not stupid.

JP: Yeah. And we agree to disagree. All of us have opinions. We're not, "You have to think like I do." We're not of that mind. I mean, Robert is an individual, I'm an individual, and we have beefs, trust me, we have conflicts. But we talk. We settle differences before they become out of hand.

Well and everything you guys have been through, it either tears a group apart or it brings you together, and obviously right from when Terry died, it was like, you made that decision you were going to go on.

RL: Believe me, that was a far more critical situation than anybody leaving the band.

JP: And you talk about, you know, this album that we want. Maybe perhaps we're staying together to make that record that we've been wanting to make for so many years and haven't been able to. You know, who knows? I know that there are things left that we want to do before we hang up our cleats (?) so, whatever that is.

So the tour this year won't be to promote 26, but maybe next year.

RL: No, the tour this year is about "Show Me A Sign," possibly re-releasing some of the Big Band stuff on Chicago Records.

Do you think that there have been enough Greatest Hits packages now?

[Both laugh]

RL: No, I think there could be another one!

JP: I think that there have been enough Greatest Hits for a couple lifetimes.

What about The Soul of Chicago Volumes I and II?

RL: The Soul of Chicago — exactly. Thank you. I have to run, unfortunately.

No, you've been very generous with your time. Lovely to see you again.

JP: I think if we released another Greatest Hits then people would start wondering, hey, these guys may be over.

RL: They're already wondering, believe me, Jimmy.

JP: Yeah.

RL: If you go to Virgin Records, it's like there's Chicago IX, Chicago 15, Take Me Back, If You Leave Me Now, then there's the Greatest Warner Bros package, and then there's the two Heart of Chicago albums.

JP: Time for an original album.

[Robert leaves]

JP: You know what was a great album was the Night & Day album.

Loved it. Played it to death.

JP: Yeah, well Chicago Records is planning to buy it from Giant, we're going to try to re-release it, change the artwork, take the words "Big Band" off of it and just throw it out there. Because that was one, I mean, I was really proud of that. And you want to hear some brass, that's some of the best work I've done.

Do you ever listen to your old stuff? Do you listen to VII?

JP: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I go, man, boy we actually used to do that shit!

That's one of my favorite driving albums.

JP: I have a video tape of a gig we did at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, and it was videotaped by a company for promotional for CBS. And we were doing "Devil's Suite" into "Elegy" and you know, these 15 year old kids, I mean we're going [acts psychedelic crazy] and these kids are going [also psychedelic crazy]. I mean we were just —

Did you get a toilet flush on the stage?

JP: Yeah, I mean, it was everything but. And we were doing all of this shit, "Now That You've Gone" [simulates Terry's guitar] and we were just getting in their face,a nd these kids were going nuts and it was instrumental stuff. And I mean, those days are gone, those days are gone, because if you tried to do that now...

Do you ever think about just getting a few of you down to the Baked Potato and just doing something?

JP: Oh I do that. I do that. I did that last year, I went down and jammed, and I went up to Monty's in Woodland Hills and sat in. But you know it's a different world now, Debbie, it's a different world. Turn on the radio and I would like you to tell me how many of the songs that you hear on the radio that all the parts on that song are played by musicians in the studio. I bet you you can't fill one hand. 'Cause it's all sampled, it's all electronic, it's all [whispers] bullshit. I mean, realy music, man, people go, "What's that?" And it's coming back now, in clubs. It's coming back, live music is coming back, and I like seeing that 'cause it's giving players work. For a promoter, or for a producer or a record company, it's so much cheaper to hire one guy to write the song, and we'll hire a programmer, and you two guys, you are the artist.

You know what? If you did go to Australia, you would have the freedom with your set, because a lot of those power ballads have't even been hits down there. You could really go back to some of that earlier stuff and improvise more, and play more new stuff.

JP: Right, we could test the musical horizons. That'd be fun.

Let's hope.

JP: I know.

Jimmy, thank you so much.

JP: Hey, it was a pleasure. Nice to see you.