For the past 35 years, Cheap Trick – rock’s power-pop originator – has forged its rightful place among the world’s most accomplished and emulated rock bands with a timeless sound that blends elements of pop, punk, and even metal, in an instantly recognizable way.   Since the release of its self-titled debut album in 1977, Cheap Trick has sold over 20 million records, received 40 gold and platinum recording awards, given more than 5,000 high-powered live performances (the quartet of consummate musicians is widely known for nearly four decades of almost continuous touring), and appeared on 29 movie soundtracks, exhibiting its far-reaching popularity and appeal.  In 2007, Cheap Trick was honored by the Chicago Chapter of NARAS for its extensive and significant contributions to the music industry.

One of the most avant-garde, influential and enduring bands in the history of music, Cheap Trick (Robin Zander – Vocals and Guitar, Rick Neilsen – Guitar and Vocals; Tom Petersson – Bass, Guitar and Vocals; Bun E. Carlos – Drums) has contributed an impressive list of classics to the American Rock Songbook, including “I Want You To Want Me,” “Surrender,” “The Flame,” “Dream Police,” and “Can’t Stop Fallin’ In Love.”  Likely one of the most covered bands of all time, Cheap Trick continues its reign as power-pop progenitors worldwide – especially in the United States, Australia, Europe and Japan.  In the latter, they are often referred to by the press as the “American Beatles.”  The band was ranked among the Top 25 in VH1’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and its 1977 sophomore album, In Color, was ranked in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Heaven Tonight, the third record by the esteemed Illinois-based rockers released in 1978, was the first album ever recorded with a 12-string electric bass and made the band megastars in Japan, creating a frenzy reminiscent of “Beatlemania” on its first tour of the country.  Two concerts attended by loyal Japanese fans at the Nippon Budokan were recorded during the 1978 tour, and the monumental live album Cheap Trick at Budokan was released, launching the band into international superstardom.  The galvanizing live recording went triple platinum in the U.S. powered by the smash “I Want You To Want Me.”  By the time All Shook Up (produced by former Beatles producer George Martin) was released in 1980, Cheap Trick was headlining arenas and lighting up the charts.  Abundant success continued with 1985’s Standing On The Edge (called the band’s “best collection of bubblegum bazooka rock in years”); 1988’s platinum “comeback album” Lap Of Luxury (including No. 1 “The Flame”) and 1990’s Busted.       

Cheap Trick has continued its amazing run into the 21^st Century with an authenticity and focus that perpetually sets the band apart.  In August of 2007, the band honored the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by playing the album in its entirety with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and guest vocalists.  Recent performances of its entire Dream Police album with an orchestra received critical acclaim; its music has been featured in recent ad campaigns by Audi, McDonald’s, and John Varvatos and in video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band; and the theme song for Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report was written and performed by Cheap Trick.  Its current album, The Latest, has received glowing reviews worldwide, and the band continues to thrill crowds around the globe with its phenomenal live performances – most recently on a North American Tour with Aerosmith. 

Highly regarded and respected by its peers, Cheap Trick has inspired and influenced countless other artists and bands – Joey Ramone, Gene Simmons, Joe Perry, Angus Young, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hüsker Dü, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, and Kurt Cobain among them.  Cheap Trick has made an indelible mark on rock and roll…and the band’s legacy continues. 

This December Cracker will be releasing their tenth studio effort, entitled Berkeley To Bakersfield, a double-album that finds this uniquely American band traversing two different sides of the California landscape – the northern Bay area and further down-state in Bakersfield.


Despite being less than a five-hour drive from city to city, musically, these two regions couldn’t be further apart from one another. In the late ‘70s and ‘80s a harder-edged style of rock music emerged from the Bay area, while Bakersfield is renowned for its own iconic twangy country music popularized, most famously, by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Yet despite these differences, they are both elements that Cracker’s two cofounders, David Lowery and Johnny Hickman, have embraced to some degree on nearly every one of their studio albums over the last two decades. On Berkeley To Bakersfield, however, instead of integrating these two genres together within one disc, they’ve neatly compartmentalized them onto their own respective regionally-titled LPs.


As Lowery explains, “On the Berkeley disc the band is the original Cracker lineup - Davey Faragher, Michael Urbano, Johnny and myself. This is the first time this lineup has recorded together in almost 20 years. We began recording this album at East Bay Recorders in Berkeley, CA. For this reason we chose to stylistically focus this disc on the music we most associate with the East Bay: Punk and Garage with some funky undertones. To further match our sense of place we often took an overtly political tone in the lyrics.”


“This Bakersfield disc represents the ‘California country’ side of the band. Throughout the band’s 24-year history we’ve dabbled in Country and Americana but this time we wanted to pay homage to the particular strain of Country and Country-Rock music that emerges from the inland valleys of California.”


Cracker has been described as a lot of things over the years: alt-rock, Americana, insurgent-country, and have even had the terms punk and classic-rock thrown at them. But more than anything Cracker are survivors. Cofounders Lowery and Hickman have been at it for almost a quarter of a century – amassing ten studio albums, multiple gold records, thousands of live performances, hit songs that are still in current radio rotation around the globe ("Low," "Euro-Trash Girl,” "Get Off This" and “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me” to name just a few), and a worldwide fan base - that despite the major sea-changes within the music industry - continues to grow each year.