Terry Luttrell

[Author's Note: Terry Luttrell, REO Speedwagon's lead singer from

1970-1972, currently works at a motorcycle and personal watercraft

dealership in Urbana, Illinois, and I caught up with him after a two

and one half hour pilgrimage to get an autograph on what is now a

rare treasure: REO Speedwagon's self-titled debut album. Luttrell

speaks highly of the band with whom he once sang, and was very

amicable. He wasted no time in greeting me and signing the LP's

cover "157 Forever," an ironic inscription considering he had no

idea that the song"157 Riverside Avenue" has endured so well that

the band still closes its show with that song 25 years after its initial

release.

Following Luttrell's split with REO Speedwagon, he joined Starcastle

as lead vocalist. Starcastle was a progressive rock band which released

four albums on the Epic label: 1976's Starcastle, 1977's Fountains of

Light and Citadel, and finally 1978's Reel to Real. Starcastle also hailed from Champaign, Illinois.

Though Luttrell initially declined a formal interview citing lack of free time, the conversation which transpired
was long enough that a few informed questions could be assembled for the telephone interview which he later
offered. Both in person and on the telephone, he was gracious, straight-forward, and while projecting a sense of
satisfaction surrounding his musical career, he was sincerely moved that he is not only remembered, but that an
interest in him and his work remains. Of all the impressions Luttrell made, that sentiment is most prominent.

This interview took place on August 20, 1996.]

THOMAS WEISS (TW): Let's start by finding out who influenced your singing. Who were your heroes?

TERRY LUTTRELL (TL): I liked Bob Seger a lot. I can't say he was my hero, but I always admired his singing style.
Of course, Roger Daltry [of The Who] and Jon Anderson [of Yes] as well. I was always compared a lot to Jon
Anderson. He always had kind of a unique voice. It just evolved as it did, and if I had any heroes back in the old days,
it was a lot of the old blues guys.

TW: You've become a Christian. Are you currently involved in any Christian rock bands, or anything like that?

TL: I do sing. I go out occasionally and sing for some youth groups. I go around to churches and sing songs.
They're not really my songs, but they are songs which I've selected. I talk about my life and how it really wasn't built
on the foundation of Christ. But now I know that Christ was there all along, and he had protected me to that point.
Musically, I'm not doing anything right now, but there is stuff in the works. Right now, I'm kind of overwhelmed with
work.

TW: By all accounts, Neal Doughty and Alan Gratzer

are the guys who started REO Speedwagon. When did

you hook up with them?

TL: I hooked up with them in the basement of an Illinois

Residence Street home [Note: presumably a dormitory

at the University of Illinois.] I can't remember the exact

dates. I hooked up with them as a singer and we dev-

eloped it into a really exciting bar band that became a

recording act.

TW: Were you the one who convinced Neal and Alan to

concentrate on the band instead of school?

TL: Well, they were talking about going back to school.

I said, "You can't go back to school because we're

working too much!" Things had changed and developed,

and we had built up a strong regional following.

TW: Were you in school, too, or were you a townie?

TL: No, I was really a townie. I had gone through high school and had been in bar bands at the time. I started in
some bands, and it was really just a way to have fun and make a little money on the side.

TW: Were you strictly a singer, or did you play instruments as well?

TL: I was originally a guitar player before I was a singer. The reason I picked up singing was because one of the
bands I was in needed a singer, so I was a singer as well as a guitar player. But, to be honest with you, I couldn't do
both of them well, so I laid down the guitar and developed my singing. That is continuing to develop even today.

TW: What was an REO Speedwagon show like when you were the frontman?

TL: Back in the days when the band really got rolling, we had a tremendous

following in Champaign. Our regional following was pretty big. The bars

were turning people away at the doors, and it was pretty awesome. There were

many times we would play here in town, and the bar was just so full of people,

you couldn't get oxygen. And that made people really sit down and listen to

you. They'd get in touch with you and pay more attention than maybe they do

today. It was a good rapport between band and crowd, and there was a lot of

energy in the original band. I remember one date in particular. We played

the [University of Illinois] Assembly Hall, and we got the audience in such a

frenzy that they actually charged the stage. There were actually people

coming down from Section C. After that, they told us we could never play there

again. It's really kind of a monumental thing, because the band did, of course,

get to play there again after they had some great international records.

TW: Neal said you are the one who gave him the nickname "Trout."

TL: [Laughter.]

TW: I guess it stuck. What was the deal with that?

TL: [More laughter.] Oh, that's an unusual story. That's really funny. It's funny that he would even remember that.
We were in airports occasionally. We would always get on the phone and page people for lack of something to do
while we waited for our plane. Neal would be talking about something, and then we'd pick up the phone and page Ned
Trout. So we kept paging him as Ned Trout and it kind of stuck, you know? It was like, "You're Trout." Later we'd
be working, but the name still came up. It was like, "Hey, Trout, how's it going?" I don't remember how it got
started, but it evolved from paging each other at the airport.