Mike Reno (Loverboy)

Mike Reno is the singer for the band Loverboy, famous for such classics  as "Working for the Weekend" & "Turn Me Loose."  He also sang the duet "Almost Paradise" with Ann Wilson from Heart on the Footloose soundtrack.  In this episode we discuss his early musical beginnings, working with producer Bob Rock, the revelation he sang backup vocals on one of the biggest hair metal songs of all time and more! 

00:00 - Intro
00:34 - Rockstar Injuries 
01:45 - Tour with Styx & REO Speedwagon 
02:43 - Show Set List & New Song "Release" 
04:28 - Making New Music & Live Shows & 
06:45 - Humble Beginnings in the Music Business 
08:15 - Why Things Didn't Work with Moxy 
09:25 - Manager Bruce Allen & Publishing Rights 
11:23 - Opening for Kiss 
12:33 - Expenses for VISAs
14:14 - Making Movies in Canada
15:55 - Jim Vallance & Bryan Adams for "Jump" 
16:57 - Working with Jon Bon Jovi & Richie Sambora 
17:45 - Eric Carmen, Ann Wilson & Draft Dodging 
19:55 - Recording in Vancouver with Bob Rock 
22:15 - Lovin' Every Minute & Mutt Lange 
23:40 - Singing Backup For Other Bands 
25:19 - Touring with Kansas, ZZ Top & Journey
26:44 - American Bandstand & Dick Clark 
28:16 - Touring Now
28:50 - Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation 
29:15 - Outro 

Loverboy website:
https://www.loverboyband.com

JDRF website:
https://www.jdrf.org

Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Hey, today on the show, we've got Mike Reno from the band Loverboy. So many hits with this band working for the weekend turned me loose. The kid is hot tonight, so many more. And he's here to talk about his new single release that the band put out really catchy song. They've got a tour with sticks and REO Speedwagon. And of course, lots of great stories from the past. So it's all coming up right now. Please welcome Mike Reno to the show. How you doing, Mike?

Mike Reno: 0:36

Great, thanks, Chuck.

Chuck Shute: 0:38

Um, I was gonna ask, Oh, how's your ankle? Did you break your ankle? Was that recent? I heard you talking about I don't know how recent that was, though.

Mike Reno: 0:44

You know what, I broken it three times. And it's usually always related to falling, you know, stairs breaking or the stage broke or something. Anyway, so that it's always rock and roll related. And it's, you know, it's, I can work on it. It's not like crazy. It's not broken now. But when you get a little older, these old injuries come back to haunt you.

Chuck Shute: 1:07

That's tough. So then you have to like tape it up, or something I heard you say is the way I deal with it.

Mike Reno: 1:11

Judo football players, they tape up pretty well before a game, we're gonna be kind of like that.

Chuck Shute: 1:17

Okay, nice. So as long as you're Yeah, I remember one time I saw this band and their bass player just had her appendix out. And so she sat down, but she still played. So as long as you can still sing.

Mike Reno: 1:26

Yeah, you know what it is? It's just you know, I think a lot of us in the bender in our 60s. And we tend to all the things that happened in the early days come back to haunt you. So we're going to be there. We're going to be rockin we're going to be having a good time. It's a crazy bunch of shows we've got this year. I can't even believe I accepted all that. But we're doing it.

Chuck Shute: 1:48

Yeah. So what is 85 shows with sticks and REO Speedwagon. I mean, that's quite a package.

Mike Reno: 1:54

You know, there's a lot of shows here. I don't know if it's 85. But there's a lot of shows here. Going to the pretty much the end of September. Okay,

Chuck Shute: 2:03

what you usually do is about 85 shows a year in America plus worldwide tour. I mean, that's a lot of shows.

Mike Reno: 2:09

Yeah, we do a lot of shows generally. However, Chuck, we haven't played for two years, you know, together. You know, we all on our own and stuff like that. But we haven't been together for two years up until March 9 is going to be the first show and the end of that last two years.

Chuck Shute: 2:24

And you how many rehearsals do you have to do before that first show? Or is it like you've already done it's like riding a bike?

Mike Reno: 2:30

It's kind of like riding a bike. But we're definitely going to get together for at least one full day before before the show on the night in close to Pittsburgh.

Chuck Shute: 2:42

Okay, and so the setlist I mean, of course, you're gonna play the hits. But you're gonna throw anything fun in there. Like I know you do some you did a snippet of the doors riders on the storm, are you still gonna do that?

Mike Reno: 2:52

Yeah, we just do that for fun. It's kind of in the middle of one of our songs, we just break away and then we come back to ourselves. I don't know if we're going to do that. Still, we might. But we did record a new song recently, we might throw that one in. And we kind of did it a whole different way. We used to record all in the same room this time we record it in different houses sent.

Chuck Shute: 3:15

Yeah. And email it to each other. Exactly. The release song right. The song is so good. It's in my head. Actually, it's on my head right now just listening to it and saw the video.

Mike Reno: 3:25

Thank you. Thank you appreciate it. Yeah, that's how we did it. You know, I Paul and I put it together at my place. We and I sang it. After that. We sent it to Doug, he played keyboards, we sent it to Matt, he played drums, we send it to Spider a bass player. And this is you know, going from one city to the other. And isn't the internet a wonderful thing?

Chuck Shute: 3:45

Yeah, it's amazing. So way who did the production on though because it sounds so like high quality production? Like in the 80s. This would have cost you $5 million to make the song I would think

Mike Reno: 3:56

yes. Close. You won't. I thought you stopped exaggerating 6 million years ago. Just know it. You know what Paul produced it. He spent some time in. And he's kind of a stickler for for good sounds. And so we're really proud of them. Thank you, Paul, if

Chuck Shute: 4:17

you're listening. Yeah, that sounds amazing. It'll it's like I said, it's just a really catchy song. So is that just you guys, we're just going to be doing singles. Now you're not going to make a full album just because the way the music business is then,

Mike Reno: 4:28

kind of, you know, I've said it a few times in different interviews I've done. It's kind of hard these days when everybody's just so interested in, you know, instant gratification. They have the attention span of about, you know, five minutes, and then everybody wants something different. You want something new you want to in one hour, you want to hear 14 different records. So I think a single down again is the way to go. But that's just my my personal belief. I would love to do another album and I'd love to be in the same room doing it. But we'll see. We'll see how Panza,

Chuck Shute: 5:01

what about you as a music fan? Do you still try to buy the albums if there is albums coming out? Or do you listen to these streaming services? Or how do you listen to music?

Mike Reno: 5:10

Alexa, like Steely Dan. That's how I listened to music.

Chuck Shute: 5:16

Is that how you do it? Yeah, it does make it easier with that. I mean, I guess there's pluses and minuses, but I do feel bad for artists. I mean, at least you have you still have the royalties and all the movie and TV stuff that you get commercials and things you get paid paid for.

Mike Reno: 5:29

You know, it's okay. We're doing okay, that way. It's just the last two years kind of took a little wind out of our sails. I mean, I can't wait to get back. Personally, I think it's going to be fun. It's going to take a little getting used to again, you know, the two year breaks a nice way to recharge. And I think we're heading into the third year. I think we've all just about had enough of this, Chuck.

Chuck Shute: 5:50

Yeah, no, I'm ready to I've already seen some shows that some bands have already started back up. And it's amazing to see live music again. And people, we just saw a concert outside. So I felt like I was like, I think we're gonna be okay, we're outside. It seems safe. And everyone's having a good time.

Mike Reno: 6:05

Yeah. I think this, the COVID thing is going to go around and it's going to go away. It's just like, I think everybody's probably going to get it. And then you're going to deal with it in your own way. Those who are vaccinated probably won't suffer much. And after you got it, it just goes away. And that's the way I look at it.

Chuck Shute: 6:25

Yeah, I hope so. Or I mean, to me just, it's kind of weakened enough to where it'll just hopefully be like the flu that most people have it and get over it. And then we'll move on. I'm hoping,

Mike Reno: 6:36

you know, in my lifetime, I have never experienced anything like this.

Chuck Shute: 6:41

Yeah, it's strange for me to I mean, gosh, I mean, times have changed even in my lifetime, but your life lifetime, too. I mean, I was listening to an interview so fascinating that you had started out your story so inspiring that you had a paper out at 11. And you saved up your money to buy this drum set to that's how you wanted to start in music and play the drums. I thought that was really cool.

Mike Reno: 7:01

Yeah, that's it. I had a big brother that was really great at kind of making me join in. You know, sometimes you want to get rid of your little brother in this case. Yeah. He always he always got me involved. He was older than me. So he played guitar. And I started playing drums and singing background harmonies, it was kind of a nice way to grow up. Yeah, so

Chuck Shute: 7:22

when you decided to that you were gonna be a musician full time? Was there somebody that had kind of given you? I mean, there must have been some internal awareness that you were good. But was there somebody that really big that had said, Hey, you got it you're gonna make in this business kid or something like that? Or what? What was it just the internal thing that drove you?

Mike Reno: 7:41

It was really all it was internal. It was, there was never anything else I wanted to do. And I never even thought about doing anything else. Occasionally at the beginning, I would do something to make some money. Because sometimes when you first start out in music, you don't make much money. And you're going to pay the rent like everybody else. So I used to like work on construction crews, or do whatever was necessary, you know, just to make a bit of money. But it was never anything I wanted to do forever. Music was the only thing I ever wanted to do.

Chuck Shute: 8:12

Yeah, no, I thought that was so cool. You're in this band. Moxie, that was one of your first bands. And you left because quote, correct me if I'm wrong, that they didn't want to work as hard as you and it must have been accurate. Because I've heard of Mike Reno, I had never heard of the band Moxie before this. So you must have been onto something there.

Mike Reno: 8:29

It's just you know, they were a great bunch of guys. And I did three years with them. And one album. It was the time when I learned how to write songs came right out of a kind of the need to write songs because everybody said, Let's go in the studio and I went well, we better write some songs, see it. So we had some opportunities, and then it just kind of the fire kind of got dim. And I wanted to, I want to still to raise a little while and I didn't want to, you know, rest on the laurels of the band. They had a few records up before me, their singer killed in a motorcycle accident. And I was kind of put in the position, but I wasn't the same kind of singer as their singer. So it was it was a little uncomfortable for me being in that band. But you know, I did it. I did it for as long as I could. And then I wanted to search for more. Yeah, and

Chuck Shute: 9:19

so you found it with cover boy originally, or sorry, it was cover boy originally, and then it's Loverboy. But tell me about the your manager, Bruce Allen, because I heard you say that he got you guys the same deal that Michael Jackson had, which was like, unheard of. So you got to retain a majority of your publishing rights, because that's a big deal. Music Business, right.

Mike Reno: 9:39

It was very big deal. And Bruce really dug deep for us. He was really hard worker. He started off as managing them BTL. Bachman Turner overdrive, and so he'd been in in the game for about 10 years. And when they decided to kind of hang it up and not tour as much and stop doing records. We were the next choice for Bruce and Bruce took really good care of us. He really did. And he got us a fabulous deal, which today I can say thank thanks very much Bruce out.

Chuck Shute: 10:08

For sure. Right. So that because that deal stays the same from that time, does it ever expire? Then you have to reap re up the deal, or how's that work?

Mike Reno: 10:16

Well, you can after 25 or 30 years, and I think we're kind of thinking about doing it right now. Just because, you know, all the debts to our CBS Records, or Columbia Records is basic, they've been paid 10 times over. So it's not like they should get anything anymore. Really, other than the fact that we're all started together. So we're all still in it together. You know, you can look at it that way, too.

Chuck Shute: 10:39

That's pretty cool. So I see a lot of musicians are selling their music as they get older is it's kind of like you could sell it the rights to it for I think that's what Neil Young did. They said he sold his music for 50 million.

Mike Reno: 10:52

That's a lot of millions. I mean, how much do you really need in this? Yeah, I'm not I'm not dying to receive a whole bunch of money because all that is which creates tax problems, in my opinion. And so I don't mind the trickle system.

Chuck Shute: 11:07

Yeah, the mailbox money as you call I believe, right.

Mike Reno: 11:10

That is what I call it, man. You really kind of know me, don't you, man?

Chuck Shute: 11:14

Yeah, no, I love listen, I heard so many of these stories. Like all these questions I had you answered most of them in interviews, I've listened to tell tell my audience the story of you guys opening for kiss when 1979 That was? That's kind of interesting story.

Mike Reno: 11:28

Well, this came kind of right out of the blue. We were just rehearsing songs and recording little demos on a track demo tape machines. And Bruce Allen once again, gives me a call it says, Reno get the guys together. You're playing tonight. I said we're playing where Bruce? I said we don't even have a bass player. He says we'll find a bass player you're playing in the Coliseum warming up for kiss. And I went oh, what are you talking about? He said, Just get it together? I'll see you there. Bye. Click. And I kind of went what is going on? As I find out later, the group the New York Dolls were refused entry. At the border in Vancouver, you know, from United States, Canada, it's like 20 miles away, right? There's the border. I guess they were coming up from Seattle. And Canada said no, thank you to the New York Dolls. For whatever reason, it had to probably deal with something, you know? Oh,

Chuck Shute: 12:24

I thought it was because they didn't have visas or something. It could have been

Mike Reno: 12:27

that too. But we don't actually Canada is never required musicians to have visas to work in Canada. However, I have to have a visa to work in the United States, which I'd like to talk to your president about the next little while.

Chuck Shute: 12:40

Oh, okay. What would you how do you change that rule then?

Mike Reno: 12:45

Hire No, just to tell them. It's just an expense. You know, we're down here, what we're down here playing constantly, we play most of our shows the United States, and we pay taxes. So we're paying taxes, we're contributing to society? Why do we have to pay two lawyers to get us these visas? It really doesn't seem fair. If we're going to get paid lawyers to get the visas. How about we don't pay the taxes? You know, say? Well, you

Chuck Shute: 13:10

have to you have to pay lawyers to get a visa, I don't understand.

Mike Reno: 13:15

Well, in order to get it all arranged through the government, you got to send an entertainment lawyer takes a few weeks. And then they have to do documents on not only the band, but also the road crew. So there's 10 or 11, maybe even 1314 people on the visa because we have extra, put extra people on it. So it's like, you know,$2,500 per man, per person.

Chuck Shute: 13:39

So it's a little more complicated than just showing a regular visa as you cross you have to have a special working visa.

Mike Reno: 13:44

That's right. It's called an O one, or an O two. And it's kind of you know, it's nothing we really deal with technically, you just have a piece of paper and you show it to them and they go okay, but the paying of taxes we've been doing for 41 years. And you know, I kind of wish I had a little little say in a few matters that happened after pay those taxes but

Chuck Shute: 14:07

that's how many American movie companies go to Vancouver is because this is a sort of tax break where they can go and make movies they're cheaper than I mean, it must be cheaper than California I'm sure but

Mike Reno: 14:20

well here's here's the thing with the with the movie making Shut up city, let's say like Calgary or Vancouver, or Montreal or even Toronto, Winnipeg, they will offer a tax break if you come and do your whole production in their in their community. Yeah. And also, when they have to pay for the production you pay in Canadian dollars with using American dollar so you get about 30% Extra because the dollars your American dollars worth about 30 cents more right? Than the Canadian dollar. So between The tax breaks and the price difference in the dollar. You know, they're saving a lot of money by doing these productions in Canada. And I was watching the show last night I think they recorded in Vancouver, and I could see all the stuff that they cover, but they're supposed to be somewhere like in New Mexico or something. Or somewhere, you know. Yeah, of Virginia or something that it's obviously Vancouver, but they do

Chuck Shute: 15:22

it all the time. See, I'm from Seattle, I used to go drive up to Vancouver to drink because the only to be 19. But I'd see these movies and they'd say, like, oh, it's in Seattle. I'm like, That's Vancouver. I get so now I get a film in real Seattle.

Mike Reno: 15:34

Well, thank you chuck for noticing. I noticed it all the time, too. So yeah.

Chuck Shute: 15:39

Yeah. What is the the Bates Motel I think that was one that was filmed out there that that looked really cool. I wanted to go to that. I think they toured on the stage though. But look for the studio or whatever,

Mike Reno: 15:48

where it was filmed look cool. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

Chuck Shute: 15:51

There's a lot of those. And then you record a lot in Vancouver. And so you had all these, you know, other musicians that you worked with, like the song jump that you wrote, you co wrote that with? Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. Tell me about working with those two heavyweights? Because those guys are both amazing songwriters.

Mike Reno: 16:08

They are amazing. They've had they've done some amazing songwriting over the years. I think in the case of Jeff, it was a song. Basically, they put together and they'd offered it to us. And then we changed it around. And that's how the Colruyt happened. There was a whole section missing that we needed just to give it the Loverboy thing. And so we ended up writing a whole new bridge until it became a call right between those two guys and Paul and I. And that happens a lot with songwriting. You know, somebody will give you a song but you change it just because it has to fit your brand. And Jim valances a fantastic writer, a great guy. I had a wonderful studio up there and Bryan Adams course we all know how well he's done. He's he's written songs for everybody. And we're proud and proud to call those guys Vancouverites.

Chuck Shute: 16:56

Yeah, so there's that the same way with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. I know you guys did a couple songs with them, they gave you a song, and then you reworked it.

Mike Reno: 17:03

Actually, Paul and Richie and John worked that song up together, and then when they came back to Vancouver, I was unavailable. We started recording it and I said, Well, we got to go here instead of there and we made some changes. So very similar kind of idea. Just give it the old Loverboy touch. And that became that became a co write as well.

Chuck Shute: 17:25

Yeah, that was notorious and I think you also there was one that went on Paul's solo record, I think that you got a credit for to

Mike Reno: 17:33

a bunch. Paul did a few solo projects in his spare time. He's always writing and recording and having doing all the extra stuff. He just loves that studio work.

Chuck Shute: 17:42

Yeah, that's so cool. And then the song Almost paradise that you did the duet for Footloose with Ann Wilson. You said that you pick hand picked and Wilson, you could pick anybody with now who if she would have turned you down? Who would have been your second choice what Stevie Nicks Lita Ford, Pat Benatar, did you have a second person in mind?

Mike Reno: 18:01

Yep. Never. Never. versus my, I went in full confidence that she would do it. You know, it's kind of one of those songs. When you when I first heard it, I went, That's a smash. I just hit that smash hit. And it was written by

Chuck Shute: 18:16

Eric Carmen. Now why didn't he want it for himself?

Mike Reno: 18:19

I don't know. It was a song and it was chosen. The movie company loved it. Eric Carmen's written a lot of songs. And that was one of those guys who writes a lot of songs as well. But when when it was given to me in a bad track, and they said you could pick wherever you want, I just went well, I don't know if you know this, but Hart lived in Vancouver for 11 years.

Chuck Shute: 18:41

Yeah, no, I think I did hear some that there. And they were originally from Seattle as well. So but yeah, that makes sense. So there would be a Vancouver that's very close. Very, very cool.

Mike Reno: 18:49

I think they ended up in Canada, too. I think the boyfriends were trying to put the the draft as it were. Oh, it was like saying you're at the age now where you can join the army because joining the army, I'm in a freakin rock band. I'm not joining the army. And I don't blame them for coming. And we love to have them there.

Chuck Shute: 19:09

Was there was there a war at the time though? I guess. It was like

Mike Reno: 19:14

getting ready for some shenanigans.

Chuck Shute: 19:16

Okay. Yeah, it's like a very common thing that would happen is a go to Canada hideout.

Mike Reno: 19:22

Now that could be that could just be I don't know, I don't even know if that's true. I shouldn't really pass rumors around.

Chuck Shute: 19:31

You know, we get headlines we talk about rumors, we talk about gossip. That's how we get the headlines.

Mike Reno: 19:38

True. It's a great town to live in. So I and there was a lot of music venues back then. There's not so much now but there was a lot of music. There was bands playing everywhere. So it was very competitive. And there was a lot of work. And it was kind of fun. You know, Vancouver is a fun town.

Chuck Shute: 19:55

Yeah, and it tell me about this then you were recording next to Aerosmith, and Motley Crue. There's gotta be some sort of you gotta give me a Motley Crue story. There's got to be some craziness that happened if they're recording next year, right?

Mike Reno: 20:06

I think I was away during the Motley Crue stuff. They were always in the studio when what happened was we kind of record it there. And when we became very successful people went, where the hell did these guys cut that album? You know? And so they researched it. And then next thing you know, the studio was too booked for us to even go back and do our second album. So we had to do our second album. In the same studio, they cut dream bone Annie by heart, just down the road, a place called mushroom studios. And then every once in a while we pop by little mountain sound. And there'd be like Aerosmith or Motley Crue or Bon Jovi, we're always up there recording. So they basically got our engineer and our producer. And if you read the back of these album covers, you'll see that Bob Rock engineered and produced a lot of the same stuff that he started with us. And that was his first project. So

Chuck Shute: 21:07

yeah, so what did you see his talent at that point? I mean, he must have been really good. But he's still being an engineer at the first several years, like three of your three or four year albums, I think,

Mike Reno: 21:17

well, yeah, he was he was twisting the knobs. And that's kind of and I think he learned a lot of his production chops by being in the studio because the studio is a whole different animal. There's nobody really watching you. You know, there's a lot of thought there's a lot of time and you have to be able to kind of pace yourself to do like a 12 hours a stint. You know, rather than a two hour show, which is all excitement and presents the studio, there's a lot of just hard work that you just have to do repetitive hard work. And I guess Bob learned that of Bruce Fairburn, how to handle it what to do. And Bob went on to become a super huge, very famous producer, and so did our second engineer Mike Fraser, for that matter.

Chuck Shute: 21:59

Yeah. And then I think also did did Mark what's his name? Mark Dotson, I think he engineered one of your albums too. And he went on to produce Judas Priest and anthrax and

Mike Reno: 22:08

yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, he was he was an engineer for loving every minute of an album and it was produced by Tom alum, who also worked on those same bands you mentioned.

Chuck Shute: 22:19

Yeah, that's, that's really cool. I love the story to how Mutt Lange gave you guys that song. So he played it for you over the phone? Did Did he play all the instruments on it? Or who was like singing and doing the guitars and stuff?

Mike Reno: 22:32

Well, it was recorded, recorded project. And to be honest with you, I don't know who recorded it. It was done in England. And so in order for us to get it, he would have had to mail it. Now, I noticed is kind of hard to believe for some of your viewers but email wasn't even there yet. Reverend sending a whole song. You know what I mean? And then so all we had the only way and we needed it really quick because we were finished in the studio by the end of the weekend. I think it was Thursday. So then he said, Why don't you just play it for us over the phone. So we recorded it, of you know, of the phone just and then we just picked it apart when in the studio and bang it off. It was really quite a lot of fun. So we put a little bit of our own pizzazz into it. And I don't know it's done very well for us.

Chuck Shute: 23:22

So I love that song. It is but I never knew that the Mutt Lange thing until I heard you talking about it. And then I listened to now I go okay, I could talk because obviously he worked with Def Leppard. I could have hurt her here Def Leppard doing that song as well. I ended up on one of their albums.

Mike Reno: 23:37

Yeah, it would have been a great song.

Chuck Shute: 23:39

I think you had a Jamie St. James and Tommy Thayer from the band, black and blue sing backup vocals on that. I don't focus on that song, but on the album somewhere. And of course Tommy goes on to be the guitar player for kiss. So now we're like full circle. was Tommy

Mike Reno: 23:53

there in black and blue? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's why I saw it before accept become friends, become friends with Tommy over the years, the different things that we've done, and he's asked me to do some tournaments that he does golfing just to raise money for charity, but I haven't seen him in a while. But he was a great guy. Well, it was one of those things where there's two studios in little mountain. So if you pop by to say hi, this uses a bunch of people around so it's kind of a nice thing to do pop by. And when you're there, if somebody says can you come in and sing? Whoa, they're there on a prayer. You don't say no, you just go in and do it. And then you got yourself you do it 10 times you got yourself 100 voices

Chuck Shute: 24:38

and you did that on your on living on a prayer you on the backup vocals.

Mike Reno: 24:42

I'm pretty sure I am. Yeah, that's really cool. Somebody I don't know. I did a lot of things like that. I remember and a lot of people did it for us to come in and they'd seen me man it was whoever was.

Chuck Shute: 24:57

Credits though is somebody in charge of keeping track Have you get royalties? Or is it just like this a freebie? Whatever, you

Mike Reno: 25:03

just freebies, you just you don't ask for anything. You don't even ask for money. It just you just doing favors for everybody. It's kind of like, you know, a barn racing a good old fashioned barn racing.

Chuck Shute: 25:15

Okay, yeah, that's the God you and you guys have toured with so many great bands. Which one stick out to you because I have this giant list. I mean, I could ask you about all these but we aren't we're obviously strapped for time.

Mike Reno: 25:27

I'll tell you one thing. When we first went out, we played with one of the best bands in the world, Kansas. Yeah, I loved the voice of Steve Walsh, and the drums everything was just a great band all the way around. And like every night, I just wanted to listen to the whole set. But we had to leave halfway through the set and drive to the next town because we're on tour. And then with that, for the next tour, we got lined up with ZZ Top now come on. I mean, I got ZZ Top cards, and I'll be at how about to do an ad contracts with CC TA and you're on stage with them. We became friends with these people. I mean, this is fun. And then they throw us out there with journey and journey was was pretty promoting their escape album and we were promoting our get lucky album. So it was like to two great albums to one of I think it was the tour of the year. I could say that hopefully humbly. And that was you know, and then then we started headlining so it's been like a wonderful ride.

Chuck Shute: 26:35

That's so cool. So and you won. I heard you say you won seven Juno Awards, which is like the Canadian Grammy, but that your wasn't your highlight your highlight was playing American Bandstand? Is that still your your biggest highlight for you?

Mike Reno: 26:48

Well, I'll tell you what you read. I don't know American Bandstand isn't even on anymore. But back then. If you hit American Bandstand, you're pretty much guaranteed to sing a song for about 10 million people every Saturday. Maybe? I do. Yeah, maybe even more. I made him undercut it by six times. It could have been 16 million people, for all I know. But American Bandstand was a big deal. So if you played American Bandstand, then you really had something and you knew your life was about to change. So that's why it's important to me. When we got asked to play American pants down the first time, it was like, Wow, this this is this is really it. And then we got to know Dick Clark. And he asked Paul and I to do American Music Awards a few times and hand out awards. And, you know, it was really kind of, yeah, it was great American Bandstand was a big deal for me. That must

Chuck Shute: 27:39

be a big part of your success, too, is being able to build these relationships with people. I mean, all these bands keep asking you to continue to tour with them. I mean, you guys must be easy to get along with.

Mike Reno: 27:51

You know, we're pretty easy to get along with, you know what they say we just keep our heads down and we do our thing. That's what our managers always told us to do this, play your contracts and move on down the road. We became friends with these guys just because I think it's, you know, a mutual admiration. We love them. They loved us. It was it's next. That's that's how you that's how friendships develop. Right?

Chuck Shute: 28:14

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it's been an amazing career and it's still going this is a great package. This wasn't no start to not I was gonna say summer but I think it's starting sooner than that is it started in March,

Mike Reno: 28:24

May 31, is when men are with sticks in REO Speedwagon start. March 9, we start up and do about 1822 contracts on our own to okay, you know, there was a lot of this stuff was postponed, and now we're starting to pick up on all the postponements, and we're gonna go back and redo those shows.

Chuck Shute: 28:46

Okay, perfect. And then I know you got to get out of here. So but I do like to end each episode with a charity. Is there? Is there one that you've worked with, or you want to give a shout out to her at the end?

Mike Reno: 28:55

Yeah, juvenile diabetes is one that we always set the JDRF. Okay, I be this Research Foundation. That That has been something that we've been involved with for about 20 years.

Chuck Shute: 29:09

Okay, great. Well put that in the notes along with the Loverboy website and people should check you out. And also the new song release. It's like I said, it's super catchy. So thanks so much for doing this, Mike. I appreciate it.

Mike Reno: 29:19

I appreciate it. Chuck. Thanks. It's been great talking to you. You too. All right. Bye.

Chuck Shute: 29:23

Bye. Okay, well, that was a lot of fun. Some questions that I didn't get to so hopefully I can have Mike back on the show. Again, so many great stories. Some things we didn't get to talk about like the Get Lucky album cover. So what I read about that one was the person on the cover is actually the daughter of the photographer, because she was the only one who could fit into the red leather pants and a sad story about that she later died in a car accident her 20s So lots of interesting rock history with Loverboy. So we'll have to have Mike on the show again, or maybe another member of the band, so make sure to subscribe or follow my show, wherever you watch or listen and of course, follow me on social media and Loverboy on social media, and check Loverboy website for the current tour dates and thank you so much for listening. Have a great rest of your day and remember to shoot for the moon.