When REO Speedwagon entered a public period of turmoil earlier this year, no one could save it. Not even Irving Azoff, known in the music industry as one of the legendary heavyweights and influencers who can so often seemingly make anything happen with a few phone calls — and where necessary, fix things.
So when the Illinois-bred group hit a stalemate, eventually explained to fans as “irreconcilable differences” between singer-songwriter Kevin Cronin and bassist Bruce Hall, Azoff stepped in, but he had a certain reason for doing so.
Over the decades, Azoff is probably best known for his long-running association with the Eagles, but he also oversaw record labels including Full Moon and Giant, his personal imprints, as well as a stint at MCA Records in the early ’80s. He held key positions at Ticketmaster and eventually, Live Nation and was ranked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Power 100 list in 2012
But before any of that happened, he began working with bands while he was still a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was there that he met keyboardist Neal Doughty and the other members of the group that the world would come to know as REO Speedwagon. He proved to be an important influence on the band, taking them on as his first management client.
Decades later, when he heard there was trouble in the world of REO, he did what he so often does — he picked up the phone — and called Doughty, the last remaining founding member, who retired from the band in 2023 but remains a full partner.
“Irving Azoff, a lot of people in the industry don’t like him because he’s so successful. But to us, he’s that college kid, who said, ‘Neal, you play the piano, [and] you play the guitar…I’ll be the manager,'” Doughty recalled during a conversation on the UCR Podcast. “That’s the way it started out. When I saw I’d missed a call from Irving, I’m going, ‘Wow, they’re pulling out the big guns now.’ But it wasn’t that. He was totally sympathetic to what’s going on and why me and Bruce have to do what we’re doing. He had a talk with Kevin and called me back the next day. He said, ‘I tried. I have no stake in this. It’s just that you guys were my first band.’ It’s a shame, but he didn’t take sides. He just said, ‘I couldn’t do anything about it.'”
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“For me to actually accept a phone call from a person that most people [regard as the] most successful guy in the music business and for me to say to him, ‘I can’t vote against Bruce and you understand why. You know how close we are,’ it’s not like this was easy,” Doughty continues. “It’s not like we just said, ‘Okay, Kevin, you can’t use the name anymore because we’re mad at you.’ This was a full year of soul searching. I don’t want anybody to think Bruce and I just shut it down out of spite.”
One of the main issues centers around Hall’s time away from the band, which began near the end of 2023, for him to have a long-needed back surgery. While Cronin told UCR in an earlier conversation that it was his understanding the bassist had agreed to sit out the whole of the band’s 2024 touring plans, Hall shares a different story, “I’d set this all up with management so I wouldn’t miss any shows,” he explains. “So I could get [the surgery] done and get back to work.” There were unplanned complications with what had been sketched out and as the group was getting ready for a Las Vegas residency near the end of last year, Hall realized he couldn’t make it due to his back issues.
After the surgery was completed, by January, he says that he’d been cleared by doctors to return to active duty with REO. Voicing that he’d need to “possibly sit on a stool,” Hall says, “They didn’t want me to play. They were kind of happy with what they had going” and while he was frustrated, he decided to use the extra time to “take it easy for a little bit longer.” He rejoined the band in March to share the stage for a couple of songs in the encore during a charity gig in his home area of Orlando, Fla. Performing “Roll With the Changes” and his signature song, “Back on the Road Again,” felt good. Still, there were issues with Cronin, he says. “[He] didn’t like my posture,” Hall explains. “He kept coming up with reasons….and it became apparent that he didn’t want me coming back –and why exactly, I couldn’t tell you.”
During the previous conversation with UCR, Cronin shared his enthusiasm for the current lineup, featuring bassist Matt Bissonette in Hall’s position, plus keyboardist Derek Hilland and longtime bandmates, guitarist Dave Amato and drummer Bruce Hitt. He will follow through on his expressed desire to continue with that exact grouping of players under his own name in 2025 when he begins to play solo dates.
READ MORE: The History of REO Speedwagon’s Blockbuster ‘Hi Infidelity’
Both Hall and Doughty stress that they don’t want to keep Cronin from moving ahead with his own plans, they just wish it would have been handled differently — with Doughty sharing frustration that certain moves were made “unilaterally” by Cronin. If this is the end of REO Speedwagon’s touring days, they’d like to see the current chapter end in a proper way. “The fans want us to do a farewell tour,” Hall points out. “That would be great,” Doughty agrees. “If there was a farewell tour with Bruce, I would also go back and be part of that. Then Kevin could go back to his solo career with the guys.”
“Honestly, we could have done that,” Hall says. “He doesn’t have to say farewell personally — as the band, we’d go out and say that and thank the fans for giving us this wonderful life and being there for us every time we come to town. If it hadn’t been for them, [we wouldn’t have had this kind of career].”
Listen to Neal Doughty and Bruce Hall on the ‘UCR Podcast’
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Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening, except as noted below.
