REO Speedwagon has always wanted to play

Neil Doughty just wanted to have fun playing music when he was in college. Because of that, he formed REO Speedwagon, which would become of the most successful American rock bands with such chart and radio hits as “Keep on Loving You,” “Time for me to Fly,” “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and “Ridin’ the Storm Out.”

And they have always been an in-demand live band, joining Tesla and Def Leppard at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Thursday night. It all just started with a desire to play some rock and roll.

“Well, that’s true, and we were a bunch of college kids just started it to have fun play around campus on weekends,” said Doughty. “I still had every intention of graduating and being an electrical engineer and somehow we just caught on around campus.”

In those days it was just him and drummer Alan Gratzer when it comes to the famed lineup – and a lot of cover songs.

“We were doing covers, but we had a better set list than other bands as they were doing drinking songs and we were doing West Coast and British stuff,” he said. “Our set list was timed with the summer of love and 1967 when music started to change and we got so popular we finally started to write a few original songs. The next thing we knew, a record producer heard it and signed us.”

While the big hits were still a decade away, I became clear to him that it would be music that would be his focus rather than engineering.

“We gradually got so busy with the band that we stopped going to class,” he laughed. “It’s a really difficult school and engineering curriculum is tough. We didn’t flunk out. They just sort of asked us not to bother coming back the next year!”

For Doughty, it was a chance to take a shot at the big time.

“I had one semester left, but with the band I figured we only have one shot and let’s see where it goes and we could always go back to college if it didn’t happen,” he said.

Of course, the fame was a long time coming. For years they went through lineup changes before solidifying with the classic group of Doughty, Gratzer, Kevin Cronin, Gary Richrath and Bruce Hall. The band’s current – and longest-running lineup consists of Doughty, Cronin, Hall, Dave Amato and Bryan Hitt.

“It took a long time for the band to get somewhere, but it always looked like it might be going in the right direction, but I never dreamed it would turn into this,” he said.

After having a few hits in the ‘70s, such as “Ridin’ the Storm out,’ “Time for me to Fly,” and “Keep Pushin’,” the band hit it big with “Hi Infidelity” in 1980.

Now, the band has so many songs to pick from.

“We definitely have more songs that we need for our live show, but over years we pretty much let the audience decide for us what to play,” he said. “You can tell by the reaction of the audience which ones they like. I think the most we played with at one time or another was maybe 30-40 songs live and it was obvious it wasn’t the exact ones people wanted to hear. So, over the years we have learned totally by watching the audience and realizing there are ones they want to hear before they go home.”

Doughty points out that it is really the songs that are the things most people remember. Their popular opening number, “Don’t Let Him Go,” is a perfect example.

“That was the song on our biggest record we have used it to open most of our shows, and we still do it,” he said. “The thing about the ‘80s is that the songs are more famous than the bands and there might be one song after another where people remember the song but forgot who it was that did it. Then it’s basically “Oh, I remember that song. That was REO?’”

And he loves the fact that he’s still playing in front of thousands of people each show.

“Touring with a monster act like we are now with Def Leppard means that we are getting 10,000 people who haven’t seen us in a long time,” he said. “And they remember the songs.”

It is the songs and the band’s energy that has kept them so relevant over the years.

“It’s nice seeing people of all ages because it is kind of like the whole ‘70s and ‘80s has crisscrossed generations,” he said.

And one of the things that has emerged is package tours of great classic bands from that era.

“I don’t know if I’d want to still be doing this if I was just playing little bars, but when you have big crowds like the gigantic ones on this tour and you are setting attendance records at some of these buildings it really wows you,” he said. “We still get to play rock star! A lot of my buddies have retired, but we are still going and we don’t have any plans to wind down. You look out an arena full of screaming people and it’s just an incredible feeling.”

It’s also a reminder that REO Speedwagon is still out there.

“A lot of people bought the records in the ‘80s and didn’t know we were still alive and well,” he said. “But we are out there and we have a good set list of songs that people know well. When you see us, we are still the same as we have always been.”