our first pictures were in a foundation of a building. and we had suits. you know, we picked up shovels. we were leaning on shovels and stuff. i enjoyed playing music. i enjoyed playing in all the groups that i had played in up till then, which were three to four different combinations. but i really enjoyed playing with these guys. you know, it was a whole other animal. robert has always been a song writer, ever since i met him. when he joined the band, he had a book of 50 songs. i remember meeting him at depaul and he had a notebook this thick full of lyrics. i remember, he said, i have a few songs here. i just said, well, you know, they might come in handy one day. in those days, there weren t bands that you know, there were individual singers and the bands backed up the singers. while we were playing in the clubs, we were doing what other bands do. we were playing covers.
to his music. you know, we looked up to him. terry was already playing stuff that hendrix had on his records. terry could play a rhythm guitar part. a lead guitar part and a lead vocal simultaneously. i never heard anybody that could do that. i got to tell you i think in a couple of weeks we are on the road with hendrix. we got to see stuff that was driving them. jimi is not happy with the licks he was playing. do you have to practice every day like a violinist? if you re not working say you re off in england and, do you keep in shape every day? i like to play to myself before we go on stage or if i feel down and depressed, you know. you know, it was stuff that happens to every musician, and you know, especially guys who are in the limelight and are put
and everybody is a equal part. peter cetera. bobby lamm. danny seraphine on drums. chris kennic on guitar. my first day of rehearsing with them i had to go down and hide in the pool house because nobody had told don anybody was out of the band. we had auditioned unbeknownst to donny. donny day was late for rehearsal. we finally got a hold of him. what? bullshit. what do you mean? two words, buddy. you re fired. i thought that you thought you love the shoes. you bought the shoes because you loved them. but they don t feel comfortable. next you ve got to get a different pair of shoes that don t put blisters on your feet. my playing just happened to rhythmically wise, happened to be a lot like terry s. chris pinnick had some of the inside guitar stuff. terry was a great rhythm guitar player outside of a great soloist and a great singer.
the club owners wanted us to play stuff that people could dance to and then drink. they would make money and, you know, hopefully fill the club. we started playing one song called clouds and we got fired because we did an original song. he wanted to hear top 40. it was exciting. really, we d gotten the chance to hear what the band sounded like. i love you so we wore the suits and did the steps. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the club. we re going to warm it up. it was an entirely different attitude toward playing music. then eventually, we began to arrange those songs for the inspiration of chicago. that s when we got into some dispute. we d get a call on a saturday night at 9:00 saying, this band, chicago transit authority, won t play the top 40 stuff. the kids hate it. we re getting rid of them at the next break. can you guys come down and
as far as the business i really kept an eye on the business a lot more. things were kind of inequitable. first thing that kind of really resonated with me is here i was living in a 1,000-square-foot rental house in studio city and jimmy s up on a ranch, a 3,000-acre ranch. danny was always trying to tell us that we need to take a look at the contrasts, we need to do this. let s look at the contracts. we need to start looking at the contracts. relax. let them do that stuff. we ll do ours. finally got the band to listen and we had the books audited and lo and behold, i mean, the difference the difference in money was staggering. he was taking 100% of the publishing. millions of dollars had been going to the wrong place. millions of dollars. it wasn t like anything was being stolen because we signed