Yahoo Finance Chicago co-founder on loving lockdown, hating virtual shows and an unexpected new album
To say Robert Lamm is used to living life on the road is like saying the band he co-founded — Chicago — has had a little bit of success over the years.
In other words, it’s a colossal understatement.
Since the horn-heavy rock band was born under its short-lived original name, The Big Thing, in 1967, Chicago has toured every year, a run that has spanned thousands of concerts all over the globe and showcased hundreds of songs off its catalog of more than two dozen albums.
But a couple of weeks into a residency they were doing at The Venetian Theatre in Las Vegas in early 2020, the pandemic forced all 10 members back to the safety of their own homes. For a year and a half.
And Lamm, it turned out, couldn’t have been happier.
“It’s been an amazing year and a half,” said Lamm, 76, during a recent phone call from the Southern California home he shares with his wife of 30 years, Joy Kopko. “It’s the longest I’ve ever been home in the 50 years of being in a rock band. I’ve never been for really more than maybe a month. ...
“Our kids are all grown, so it’s really just been my wife and myself, and — I say this half-jokingly: I discovered that I married the right woman. We’ve had the most interesting and deep and refreshing and funny experience living as basically empty-nesters.
“In spite of all the drama and the death and horror of the pandemic, it’s been really, really wonderful.”
So how does the man who wrote early Chicago hits like “25 or 6 to 4” and “Saturday in the Park” feel about going back on the road, to do a summer 2021 headlining tour that includes a June 29 stop at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte? What did he think of virtual concerts? And what’s the best thing that came out of being house-bound besides quality time with his wife?
Keep reading our interview with Lamm, who is among three original members of Chicago still with the band (along with Jimmy Pankow and Lee Loughnane) and who these days shares lead-vocal duties with Neil Donell and Lou Pardini.
Remarks have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. Because you’re so used to being on the road, were you initially kind of stir-crazy?
I never got stir-crazy.
I mean, really the last five or 10 years for Chicago, somehow we’ve managed to extend our creativity, extend our audiences, played lots of concerts at lots of venues. I was a little bit burned out anyway. So at the time that the residency we were doing in March got canceled, I came home, and I was glad to be home.
I haven’t had a chance to sit at home, and sit at the piano, without any deadline or having to be anywhere, or live according to a schedule in a long time. And after the first week or two, I began to really explore some ideas that I hadn’t quite developed yet as a songwriter, and I was discovering new ones. Then I started calling friends and other songwriter people I know who I’ve always wanted to work with. I began writing songs with Jim Peterik, from a band you might know as a Chicago band (Survivor), and also a friend of mine who had been a guitar player and had recently had some health issues.
This is all a file-sharing type thing, which is very different than sitting in a room with somebody. I was actually recording tracks on my home studio equipment. In the first couple of months, my co-writers and I had written a few pretty nice songs. And quite by accident, a producer with BMG Records happened to hear it.
He said, “Do you think Chicago would be interested in doing an album?” I said, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, I’m just really writing songs here.”
As it turned out, BMG was very interested in having Chicago come up with basically a late-career album of all-new material. They offered us kind of a one-off deal. We’ve got probably at least 20 songs that are gonna end up as as an album.
So it’s been actually a very creative period. I was never stir-crazy at all. I love being home. I’m kind of sad that I have to go on the road again.
Q. How would you describe these new songs? Do they sound like classic Chicago, or are they something else?
I have a history of doing a number of solo projects, and those solo projects have helped me stay sane, by not locking me into the sort of classic Chicago sound, whether it’s the power-ballad thing or the poppy, brass-type songs.
These new songs, musically, at first, they weren’t intended for Chicago. They’re different. I think there’s a lot of contemporary influence. I mean, we’re using samples, we’re using loops, in addition to our normal instrumentation. The subject matter of the songs is a little deeper, too — or, I hope a lot deeper than people would expect. But they’re still grooving pretty hard, and that’s always where I wanted Chicago to get to. ...
And the message I’ve been getting from the producer and from BMG Records is they’re hearing some of the things that I’ve been writing and they love them, because it’s not ‘80s Chicago. It’s not ‘90s Chicago. It’s not the David Foster stuff. It’s much more original, and I think more mature, in a certain way.
Q. So is it safe to say that if COVID hadn’t happened, you might never have written these songs?
Right. It’s very likely we would not have done an album had it not been for the pandemic.
Q. Do you have any guess as to when this new album might be ready?
If it were up to me I’d cancel the tour and finish the album this year. (Chuckling.) But I’m hoping it’ll be the first quarter of 2022. It’ll be the first album of all-original new music since “Chicago XXXVI” in 2014.
Q. Speaking of the tour, your show at PNC Music Pavilion — which is the big amphitheater in Charlotte — will actually be the first concert there since 2019, because they never got to start their outdoor season last year. I know you loved being at home and you want to finish the album, but are you also a little bit excited about getting back out there?
Well, I know that the fans of Chicago — and music fans who attend concerts in general — they’ve been starved for live music. And let’s face it: Live music is really the only way to listen to music. I mean, yes, we’ve built a career on having very successful albums. But for us it’s the live performances that have created a group of people who love Chicago.
I love to play music, and I haven’t been able to do that in the context of the band. Which is a really great band. It’s a 10-piece band. We’ve got three lead singers who trade off, we’ve got an incredible drummer (Wally Reyes Jr.) and an incredible percussionist (Ramon “Ray” Yslas), and needless to say, a classic-sounding horn section (Loughnane on trumpet, Pankow on trombone and Ray Herrmann on sax) that has always been unique in the way that it addresses rock music with horns.
So it’s gonna be fun. I have no doubt about that.
Q. I know you did a virtual show to celebrate Camping World’s birthday last month. Did you guys do any other virtual shows during COVID?
There was one that I didn’t participate in April of last year. It was a Zoom thing associated with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. ... I’m hoping we won’t ever do any of those again. (Chuckling.)
Q. What was doing the Camping World show like?
It was fake. The whole thing was fake. People who wanted to see it saw it, and people who saw it liked it. But it wasn’t much fun for me.
Q. What do you mean it was fake?
Well, because it’s all lip-sync. Everything’s lip-sync. Or finger-sync. However you want to put it. I suppose there could be Zoom concerts, or that there have been Zoom concerts, where it looked or sounded like it was live. But it’s a completely different thing. It’s more like a music video, I suppose.
But like I said, hearing music in a live context — where the music is being generated in a space and the vocals are being sung, and the audience is feeling that impact, whether it’s an orchestra, or a jazz guy in a club, or a rock band on stage — that’s the real deal of music.
Q. The last show you played in Charlotte, you did the entire “Chicago II” album first, then the second set was a more traditional set list of songs. How does the band come up with the set list?
We usually start with the first song that was on the first album — the first cut off the first album, called “Introduction.” Then we kind of weave our way through basically 50 years of making albums. I think it’s at least 20 songs. We just want it to be a good, healthy, well-paced collection of music, and we’ve learned over the years what the audience really wants to hear.
Some people love the power ballads, and we try not to fear the ballad. (Chuckling.) But you can’t play too many of them. I mean, I wouldn’t want to sit through a bunch of ballads if I was in an audience. And I would never assume they would want to hear anything new. Yet.
Yet. I think once the next album is released, and we have a way to play those new songs and present those in a logical way, we’ll do that. But really, we play both songs that we like (chuckling) and songs history has told us the audience must have us play.
