Rick Nielsen

The song "Surrender" by Cheap Trick was released in 1978. Rolling Stone called it the ultimate 70s teen anthem, and included it in their list of the greatest songs of all time. It’s been in a bunch of movies and tv shows—including South Park, Scrubs, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, New Girl, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Cheap Trick formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973. They’ve released 20 studio albums, they’ve sold over 20 million records, and in 2016 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rick Nielsen is the guitarist in the band. He wrote “Surrender,” and for this episode, I talked to him about how the song was made. For more, visit songexploder.net/cheap-trick

Rick Nielsen is best known as Cheap Trick’s lead guitarist and main songwriter. In the late '70s, Cheap Trick helped popularize power pop with their songs “Surrender” and “I Want You To Want Me," which were precursors to the pop punk explosion in the '90s with bands like Green Day and Blink-182. In June, Cheap Trick released their 20th studio album, In Another World that's chock full of Rick Neilsen’s monster riffs that recall their glory days in the 1970s.On today’s episode, Bruce Headlam talks to Rick Neilsen about Cheap Trick’s origin story while Neilsen fiddles around on an electric guitar and samples riffs from the new album. Nielsen also talks about how he was hired to bring a hard rock sound to John Lennon’s final album with Yoko, Double Fantasy, and what it was like working with the Beatles legendary producer, George Martin.Subscribe to Broken Record’s YouTube channel to hear all of our interviews:  https://www.youtube.com/brokenrecordpodcast and follow us on Twitter @BrokenRecordYou can also check out past episodes here: https://brokenrecordpodcast.comCheck out a playlist of our favorite Cheap Trick and power pop tracks HERE. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.