Street Player

by Danny Seraphine

  I went in with a positive attitude, but everything quickly deteriorated and I got caught up on the same timing issues. The song had a bass drum pattern I couldn’t pull off for some reason. I literally dropped down on my knees behind my kit and tried to play the part on the pedals with my hands. It was the height of my musical humiliation. Even Umberto was embarrassed for me.

  “Come on, Danny,” he told me. “Get up, man.”

  It was a full-blown musical breakdown. In the past I could have played the parts in my sleep. The band ended up having to bring in Carlos Vega to play on “You’re the Inspiration.” It was a weird feeling not to be able to perform up to the best of my abilities. My mind and body were misfiring.

  18

  Peter Goes Solo

  When Chicago 17 was released in the spring of 1984, it shot up the charts and even outperformed 16. Peter was at the top of his game and sang lead vocals on all four of the singles we released: “Hard Habit to Break,” “You’re the Inspiration,” “Stay the Night,” and “Along Comes a Woman.” Every one of them was a radio hit and in many ways locked us in as an adult contemporary “ballad band.”

  The record redefined what we had considered as successful and went on to sell over six million copies. After everything we had gone through in our career, we were bigger than ever. Not only was Chicago still playing the massive venues like Madison Square Garden in New York City and the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, but we were selling the places out for consecutive nights at a time.

  With Peter continually assuming the lead vocal duties on our biggest hits, the disconnection between him and the band widened over time. When we held a meeting to talk about putting together an extensive world tour, Peter was the only one not in favor. He had hit the wall and was suffering from major burnout. Being the stubborn and persistent Virgo, I went to work on him. In many ways, I understood how to communicate with Peter better than anyone in the group. After all, I was the one who had worn him down early in our career and convinced him to join the band in the first place. I explained that we had made money in the past, but this was seven-figure money we were talking about.

  And it was true. Peter’s songs were up and down the Billboard charts. Once he saw the projected numbers in black and white, he came around. Everyone knew it was too good of a deal to pass up. The idea was to strike while the iron was hot. And we were absolutely smoking.

  Peter reluctantly agreed to the world tour and additional dates, but he needed something in return—a double share in Chicago’s business. From the beginning, Chicago had operated as a democracy, but that was beginning to change. Aside from songwriting royalties, we had always split everything equally. Peter was wielding a new sense of power and became frustrated by all the bureaucracy. Not that I didn’t see his point, but I didn’t necessarily like it. Peter got an attorney and began negotiating a new arrangement with Howard. Because of the business dealings, the distance between Peter and the band was at an all-time high. He also mentioned that he wanted to record another solo album before doing the proposed hundred tour dates. We insisted that he do the shows and then record his next solo album. The back-and-forth between our two sides continued and we weren’t getting any closer to a compromise. We were at a stalemate.

  During the break in touring, I took the opportunity to get some much-needed rest and relaxation with my family. My daughter Danielle had been acting up and giving Rose a hard time back in Chicago, so we decided that she move in with Teddy and me for a while out in Westlake. Now that she was older, being with Danielle on a day-to-day basis was like looking into a mirror. Krissy had her mother’s calm demeanor, but Danielle inherited my fiery Italian temper, so we constantly butted heads. Her stubbornness brought out the worst in me. The new living arrangement wasn’t easy on any of us, but at least I was helping lighten the burden on Rose. She had come to her wits’ end.

  My idea of home was where Teddy and my children were. I wished they could have been out on tour with me more, but Teddy was never too thrilled about that idea. I always wanted her to meet me out on the road with the kids so we could be together, but she had a different take on it.

  “I’m not going to drag the kids around and sit in hotels all day while you have your band meetings and play shows,” Teddy told me.

  What I didn’t take into account was that their concept of home was a place where friends and family were there to support them. It didn’t have anything to do with planes, hotels, and concerts. The situation was hard on all of us, but we tried to do the best we could to make it work.

  During the break in our schedule, I took the family out to the house in Hawaii for a short vacation. I got back from a jog on the beach one afternoon to find the phone ringing. Peter was on the other end of the line. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so it was good to hear from him. We both knew the negotiations between Howard and his attorney were at a standstill. Initially, I thought Peter might have been reaching out to me to put my mind at ease over the situation, but as our conversation continued, I wasn’t so sure. “You know, Danny,” Peter said, “we’ve been through so much together over the years. I care for you and your family and want to say that I hold you in the highest regard. I’ve always considered you one of my best friends.”

  “Thanks, Peter,” I said slowly. I didn’t know what to make of his demeanor.

  “Listen, no matter what happens in the end, I don’t want you to overreact,” Peter told me. The seriousness in his voice was unnerving. Whenever someone mentioned “don’t overreact” in a conversation, there was usually something coming up that I was going to overreact to.

  “Of course, Peter,” I said.

  And with that our awkward call came to an end. I walked out onto the back porch of the house scratching my head. What had gotten into him?

  The questions didn’t linger in my mind long. When I switched on the television the next morning, the news ticker on the bottom of the screen caught my eye: “Peter Cetera announces his departure from the band Chicago.”

  Peter held a news conference to let everyone know he was leaving the band to pursue a solo career. I sat in silence staring at the television set. Peter and I had known each other for eighteen years and it broke my heart that he couldn’t take the time to explain his decision to me. His odd behavior on the phone should have tipped me off, but I still expected more from him. Not long after the press conference, he tried to call me a couple of times, but my anger prevented me from speaking to him. I bad-mouthed him at every opportunity. Much of the band did the same thing.

  We had finally climbed back to the top of the mountain, and now we had just had lost what everyone was calling the “voice” of Chicago. How could we replace someone like Peter? I wasn’t convinced we had another comeback left in us. We had overcome so much as a group over the years and part of me wondered if it was the end of the line. Any other band would have buckled and called it quits. But none of us were ready to pack it in yet.

  Once again we were forced to try to replace someone who was irreplaceable. We made offers to Mickey Thomas from the band Starship and Richard Page from Mr. Mister, but they both turned us down. Then the president of Warner Brothers, Lenny Waronker, suggested we consider a young, twenty-three-year old bassist and singer named Jason Scheff. Lenny sent us a demo tape of Jason’s material and we liked what we heard. When we auditioned him, we noticed that Jason had the uncanny ability to sound very similar to Peter. They shared the same inflection and vocal range. Although the band was convinced that Jason would be a good fit, David Foster wasn’t nearly as certain and had other singers in mind . . . that is, until I started working on him. Sure, Jason suffered from some pitch problems, but that wasn’t any reason to cast him aside. He was the best option the band had for Peter’s replacement. To David’s credit, he gave it a try, and together with Umberto he worked to help Jason develop.

  In retrospect, we should have treated the situation with Peter the way Genesis handled their dealings with Phil Collins. We could have s
cheduled in breaks for Chicago to allow Peter the opportunity to go do his solo albums and tours. But things didn’t go that way. What was done was done. None of us were strangers to overcoming adversity, and Peter’s departure was yet another opportunity for Chicago to show what we were made of. Although Robert still handled vocal duties now and then, the band relied on our two newest members, Bill and Jason, to carry the bulk of the singing.

  As a result of the chart-topping success we achieved with David Foster, we decided to collaborate once again and went back into the studio to record the follow-up to Chicago 17. The band was coming off of our most successful record, so we had a tall order ahead of us.

  At that time in the mid-1980s, electronics had all but taken over in the studio. Playing had been replaced by programming, especially with the drum arrangements. There was an overall feeling among many producers and studio techs that drummers were becoming obsolete. If they didn’t like what you were playing, they would simply cut you out of the loop and perform it electronically on their own. Producers loved drum machines because they played in perfect time and didn’t have the ability to talk back. Like most drummers of the time, I was intimidated by them and reluctant to embrace them in the studio. But it was no use putting up a fight. I grew tired of banging heads with David over the same drum issues. In the end, I figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

  I couldn’t stand hearing songs on the radio with drum parts programmed by a keyboard player. Damned if I was going to let someone else arrange drum parts on Chicago’s records. From the beginning, the drums were my job and would always be my responsibility. To educate myself, I purchased an E-mu SP-12 drum machine sampler and learned it inside and out. In the process of exploring the new technology, I came up with an elaborate setup of digital drum pads. It was necessary to make sure that anything done in the studio could be played live in concert. My acoustic drum set grew to incorporate electronic pads and triggers to deliver the new sound. Now I not only had to be a plumber, but also an electrician to set up my kit. In the end, I went on to program all of the drum parts on Chicago 18 and David was satisfied with how they turned out.

  Peter had also been busy in the studio. He put out his second solo effort, Solitude/Solitaire, in the early summer of 1986, and we weren’t able to get our album out until the early fall. The late showing really hurt us. Chicago 18 was lost in the wake of Peter’s record. His single “Glory of Love” from the Karate Kid II soundtrack tore up the charts while our album clunked along looking for airplay. Our previous album had gone platinum six times over, and the new record, despite the success of the single “Will You Still Love Me?” only managed to reach No. 35 on the Billboard pop charts.

  Peter’s solo success with Solitude/Solitaire overshadowed Chicago’s album. In fact, a case could be made that it swallowed us whole. The band was still successful, but we slipped down a few notches in overall popularity. Because of his huge success and the chilly reception to our album, I was even more pissed at Peter.

  Late one night, I was watching the evening news when a breaking news report came on. A black-and-white photograph of Tony Spilotro flashed onto the television screen. I hadn’t had any contact with Tony for quite a while and his mug shot photo was a little jarring. The reporter started his voice-over:The bodies of reputed mob figure Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro and his younger brother Michael Spilotro were found in a Newton County, Indiana, cornfield today. Police say the two brothers were beaten to death and placed in a shallow grave clad only in their underwear. So far, police say nobody has been charged with the murders.

  It made me sick to my stomach to find out someone I had known was murdered in such a brutal way, but Tony existed in a different world than the rest of us. He and his brother associated with a violent and unforgiving breed. I had always heard that Tony was notorious for pissing people off and getting under their skin. I guess his wild ways finally caught up with him. (Little did I know that he would one day be the inspiration for Joe Pesci’s character Nicky Santoro in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino). It’s like they say: you live by the sword, you die by the sword. And that is exactly how Tony and his brother Michael went out. Still, there was a part of me that felt sad for them.

  After all I had gone through in life, those days back in Chicago seemed so long ago. Everything was much more complicated now. At one time our band was a tight brotherhood that could do no wrong. But all of a sudden our new lineup were still getting to know each other and trying to do something, anything right. Jason Scheff and I clicked from the start. I found him easygoing and likable, and we grew close over a short period of time out on the road. Bill Champlin, on the other hand, wasn’t the easiest guy to get along with. He may have been a talented singer and musician, but I found him to also be overly insecure and abrasive. He had a horn band in the seventies called the Sons of Champlin that never managed to take off, and it seemed like Bill held on to some jealousy of Chicago over the years. It was as if he was bitter that our band had made it and his had not. He and I clashed much more often than we saw eye to eye. Over time, he started making comments here and there about my drumming, which really got under my skin. He said I constantly overplayed and that he wasn’t crazy about my style. There was no way I was going to sit back and take it. I was the one who brought him into the band in the first place. Who was he to criticize?

  “Well, don’t talk to me about overplaying until you stop over-singing,” I told him. He used to oversing the shit out of “Colour My World” every night and it drove me nuts. It was as if Bill was trying to cram every vocal lick and run he knew into one song. As time went on, he proved to be surprisingly controlling. To be honest, we were very much alike in some respects. But where we differed was that Bill was not the type of person who would do things simply for the good of the band. He did things for his own benefit, and I had never operated that way. The group always came first with me.

  Whether I was still the elected head of the band or not, I continued to take charge of the day-to-day duties of a leader. Whenever anybody wanted to talk business with the band, even our own management, they came to me first. It was just the way things worked.

  One tremendous positive change in the band was that the guys were putting a lot of effort into maintaining their sobriety. On many nights out on the road, I came back from the hotel gym to find them on their way out to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I’d pinch myself sometimes and wonder, Is this really our band? What is going on? Back in the day, everyone would have been hiding out in their rooms getting high and staying out till all hours of the night. But now they were determined to concentrate on their personal health and well-being. I never thought I would see the day. Despite any distance that may have been developing among some of us, I still thought Chicago was playing as tight as ever and putting on great performances.

  Jimmy Guercio at Caribou Ranch

  Clowning around with Jimmy at Caribou Ranch studio

  New B.Ginnings

  With Pete Schivarelli in Rome in 1976

  With Howard Kaufman on tour in England in 1977

  Howard Kaufman and Pete Schivarelli at Westminster Abbey in 1977

  With Danielle and Krissy at the Caribou Ranch

  Terry healthy and happy during a pool party at my house in Encino

  My birthday party in 1979: (left to right) Hawk, Marty Derek, Pete Schivarelli, Angelo Arvonio, me, John “J.R.” Robinson, and Lee Loughnane and his son Bryan (front)

  Double-bass drum action on the Chicago 13 tour

  Performing with Laudir de Oliveira

  My daughter Maria

  At a fund-raiser for the Terry Kath scholarship fund in 1982: (left to right) me, Robert, Marty, Lee, Walt, and Jimmy

  I made quite a fashion statement covering up my hair transplant scars

  With Hawk entertaining the troops at Le Studio in Montreal, Canada

  On tour in Europe in the ’80s

  On top of the world during the band’s third comeback in 1988


  The Chicago 16 “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” comeback

  With my young son, J.D., in Hawaii

  It was always comforting spending time with Mom and Dad in Colorado

  The proud papa with Danielle and Krissy at Krissy’s wedding

  Daddy with his little girl Taryn

  J.D. growing up in Evergreen

  With my daughter Ashley

  Today I’m back where I belong

  19

  The Hairpiece That Saved My Life

  Image has always been an important part of the entertainment industry. Not that Chicago relied that much on our appearance over the course of our career—if anything we purposely leaned away from pushing an overall look. The only image we promoted was of our recognizable band logo. Aside from that, we let our talents do the talking. That being said, Chicago was constantly in the public eye and appearance had an effect on how many people thought of us as a group. There was no getting around it.

  My hair had been thinning since I was in my early twenties, but over the years I tried everything possible to fight it. My decision to get a perm at one point back in the seventies to look like Jimi Hendrix didn’t do me any favors. The procedure burned the hell out of my scalp. I had a respectable Afro for about two seconds before the hair on the front of my head started falling out.