REO Speedwagon keeps perspective

CHICAGO - Everyone has a past. If you're a rock band, how do you reconcile that past with the necessity of a genre that wants to keep swimming forward, sharklike, to the Next Big Thing? Well, if you're Kevin Cronin, longtime frontman for REO Speedwagon, you revel in the power of nostalgia and the disposable income of folks who were rocking in the 1970s and '80s -- who used to play air or tennis-racquet guitar to "Ridin' the Storm Out."

But you also keep banging out new music, as a way of clearing the heart and mind and taking your own nostalgia trip to the times when you could hit open-mic night at a club like Chicago's Earl of Old Town, and take your risks for free.

"And you'd go there and sing your original songs, and people would pay attention. Would give you a chance to hone your craft. They were such a great place to really learn how to be a songwriter," says Cronin.

He grew up in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn as the weird kid with the long hair and funny clothes who played guitar all the time. There's an openness, a "howdy, stranger" Midwestern sensibility to REO Speedwagon's music.

Which doesn't escape the fact that REO has been doing this for more than 30 years, probably in front of a lot of the same people.

What's up with that? How does playing "Keep On Loving You" for the 9,423,222nd time still work? "We have a core of 10 or so songs that if we don't play, there will be an angry mob at our tour bus after the show," says Cronin.

"But as quarterback of the band, I can call some audibles, so to speak, songs that I can call out, based on the vibe of the crowd. I always like to surprise the sound or lighting man, or break into something surprising.

>"We're always tweaking arrangements, changing little things, always trying to improve it. If you paint a picture and hang it in a museum, it's done. With a song, you can always change a little thing later."

There is a sincerity and professionalism of veteran bands. Cronin understands that the most effective way to keep people coming back to hear "Music Man" is to never forget what it was like to be that kid on the club stage.

"When people come to see us, they're surprised that it's not just a trip down memory lane," says Cronin.

"When we play in Waukegan and Joliet (Ill.), we play a set with brand new songs. I'm on my way to the studio right now to do a new song, with my daughter Holly who will sing background.

"I feel like we have to, even though people are buying tickets to hear the old songs, it's important to do what I did as kid, to walk out there with an acoustic guitar and play a brand new song that nobody's ever heard.

"Whether you do that in front of 50 people or 5,000, there's nothing like it."