Cheap Trick eye up summer release date for 18th studio album
Less than a year on from April 2016’s ‘Bang, Zoom, Crazy... Hello’, Cheap Trick have almost completed their 18th long-player.
In a post on the Illinois hard rockers’ social channels last night (6th February), the band said work is already underway on the record and they’re eyeing up a summer release date.
They wrote: “We've been in the studio working on a new album - hope to have completed by Spring and released at the beginning of Summer 2017.”
> We've been in the studio working on a new album - hope to have completed by Spring and released at the beginning of Summer 2017. > > — Cheap Trick (@cheaptrick) February 6, 2017
The fast turnaround for the new album is in stark contrast to the seven years fans had to wait between 2009’s ‘The Latest’ and last year’s ‘Bang, Zoom, Crazy... Hello.’
In a 2015 interview with Macomb Daily, bassist Tom Petersson insisted Cheap Trick are a “working band” and if they have two weeks off “it’s a miracle.”
Tom said: “We want to record a record every year and just keep them coming out, like in the old days when everybody had a record out every six months, us included. We’re writing all the time, so what good is it if those (songs) don’t come out?
“We’re not the kind of group that will take two, three years off to go make an album or something.“If we have two or three weeks off, it’s a miracle.
"We work all the time — not non-stop, certainly, but we’re back and forth a lot and we do all sorts of different shows. It’s like having a small business. We honestly have to keep going to survive, and that’s what pushes us forward. It’s our livelihood. And we like it. It’s fun, so we wouldn’t want to stop even if we could.”
Despite Cheap Trick’s work ethic, it has been over half a decade since they last performed in the UK supporting Deep Purple on their November 2011 arena tour. They played Download festival and a one-off show at Bristol O2 Academy earlier that summer.