INTERVIEW: RONNIE PLATT from KANSAS – May 2023

Photo credit: Mark Schierholz

According to a recent press release: America’s preeminent progressive rock band, KANSAS, will be touring 50 select North American cities to celebrate the band’s 50th Anniversary. KANSAS 50th Anniversary Tour–Another Fork in the Road will showcase music spanning all 50 years of the band’s illustrious history. The tour will showcase two hours of hits, fan favorites, and deep cuts rarely performed live. In 1973, the “garage band” from Topeka was discovered by Wally Gold, signed by Don Kirshner, and released their debut album in 1974. KANSAS has gone on to compile a catalogue that includes sixteen studio albums and five live albums. KANSAS has produced eight gold albums, three sextuple-Platinum albums (Leftoverture, Point of Know Return, Best of KANSAS), one platinum live album (Two for the Show), one quadruple-Platinum single “Carry On Wayward Son,” and another triple-Platinum single “Dust in the Wind.” Most recently, KANSAS has released two Billboard charting albums with 2016’s The Prelude Implicit and 2020’s The Absence of Presence. KANSAS is currently comprised of original drummer Phil Ehart, bassist/vocalist Billy Greer, vocalist/keyboardist Ronnie Platt, violinist/guitarist David Ragsdale, keyboardist/vocalist Tom Brislin, and original guitarist Richard Williams. With no signs of slowing down, KANSAS continues to perform in front of large and enthusiastic audiences.” We get lead singer Ronnie Platt to discuss new music, old music, touring, and much more…

Toddstar: Ronnie, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. I know you all are out on the road whooping it up.

Ronnie: I’m actually home right now. We have a little bit of a break after being in the great white North. We just got done in northern Minnesota and northern North Dakota. So we’re on a little bit of a break now, but boy, after this break, it is complete craziness.

Toddstar: Let’s talk about that. Quite the celebration – 50 years. We’ve all been there parts of the 50 years with the band, watching them, listening to them, and enjoying them. What’s it like for you to be a part of this 50th anniversary celebration as the lead singer? You’ve got almost a decade in with the band.

Ronnie: Even when you say that, I’m still shell-shocked by that, to think that I’ve been a part of the band now for a fifth of its existence. It’s really crazy I am quickly coming up on 10 years. It’s so funny, in some ways I feel like I’ve always been here because I’ve been such a fanatical fan of the band. I’ve always considered myself a prog rocker. My term is prog snob. It started with Kansas and being in high school and just gravitating towards the prog rock bands, Kansas, Yes, Genesis, and Rush. Of course, I was a Journey fan, a Boston fan, because I had super admiration for Steve Perry and Brad Delp and these singers that were just over the top talented. Kansas appealed to me because of the diversity. If you were to take different songs, they would fit in different genres, classically influenced or very straight-ahead rock and roll, or dare I say, commercial rock and roll. When you look at “Wayward Son” and “Dust In The Wind,” you couldn’t have two songs that are farther apart, but yet they’re still 100% Kansas. That’s something that appealed to me being a musician and always wanting to be challenged by music and just continued to be a fan through all the albums. To be a part of the band and put out two studio albums, it’s really mind boggling. It’s still surreal to me.

Toddstar: What was it like the first time you hold that slice of vinyl in your hands and it’s got your name and your picture on it? When you’re a fan of the band, you’re in the band, you’ve toured with them, and you have recorded with them, it has to be a surreal feeling.

Ronnie: When you’re a musician your entire life, it’s gratification that can’t be explained. It’s funny, in all my cover bands, we played Kansas music. It was a demand by me, “I’ll join your band, but we got to do some Kansas songs.” I know I had some bandmates that might have frowned over that over the years, but it was just, “Hey, you know what? I come with some baggage and that’s my baggage.” It wasn’t just “Wayward Son” and “Point of Know Return.” My band in the ’80s, Chaser, we played deep cut Kansas stuff. We played “Windows,” we played “Right Away” and “Play the Game.” My bandmates and myself just loved the music, loved those songs, and said, “Ah, we’re going to do it. If the audience doesn’t like it, tough beans. We like it, so we’re doing it.” It’s funny to look back at that and all those years go by and I’ve played all those songs hundreds of times before. It’s a different element when you’re singing “Wayward Son” and you’re in the band.

Photo credit: Emily Butler Photography

Toddstar: It’s funny you mention being a fan of the band and you arguably two of the biggest songs in the Kansas catalog – “Dust in the Wind” and “Wayward Son.” You also mentioned the track that I knew Kansas from before I realized they did the two classics. “Play the Game” was my baptism into Kansas and I never looked back.

Ronnie: It was the same way with me. I think the first album that I bought was Leftoverture because “Wayward Son” was on the radio every 10 minutes. I had that album, then researching the band a little bit at the record store. There was obviously no such thing as the internet back then; you’d go to the record store and see Leftoverture in the album bin and you’d see, “Oh, here’s Song for America, here’s the first album.” I really didn’t realize that they put anything out before that, because Leftoverture just busted loose with their popularity. I went back in time with the band and discovered their earlier stuff. That’s a shame about today with iTunes – nothing against iTunes or all the digital services that you buy music from. I think that’s something that’s really missing today. When I was a kid and you bought an album, you bought an album because you heard a song or two on that album that you really liked. You ended up listening to the rest of that album and you really got a flavor of what that band was about, not just those one or two songs. It could have gone either way. There were albums I bought that I liked a song or two and didn’t like the rest of the album at all.

Toddstar: We’ve all done that.

Ronnie:  Right? It wasn’t the way with Kansas. When I got Leftoverture, I fell in love with every song on that album. Then Point of Know Return came out and it’s like, “Okay, this “Dust in the Wind” is kind of a left turn, but the rest of the album was just rocking. I couldn’t tell you how many times I played “Closet Chronicles,” probably a million, because I just loved that song. I think that’s missing from today – that relationship that you develop with a band knowing the full flavor from everything they do, not just a couple of songs.

Toddstar: Let’s talk about some of these things that have turned the corner with you at the helm being the lead singer. What was it like for you to dig back and do “Can I Tell You,” which the band rerecorded for the Another Fork In The Road compilation that came out end of 2022. I love that you modernized it without modernizing it. What was it like for you to take a song as old as “Can I Tell You” and put your own stamp on it underneath the umbrella of Kansas?

Ronnie: I really think that was our objective; to do an updated version of it, but keep it organic. With today’s technology, you could produce stuff to death and make it so homogenized. I really like that we kept it organic. We used today’s technology with recording, but really didn’t overproduce it. I absolutely love that because it shows that this version of the band really has those elements of the original six and there’s that connection there.

Toddstar: Were there ever discussions of doing a different song that you think could have better showcased where you guys are now or do you think that was the right choice?

Ronnie: I absolutely think that was the right choice. It wasn’t a known song, but it’s the song that got the attention of Don Kirshner and Wally Gold. It was raw, but the violin is so prominent in that song. It’s very basic lyrically, I’m really just repeating the verse three times in the song. I would say it’s a Kansas anthem in a way. I think it was the correct song to do since it had such an impact with getting the band signed and starting the journey of Kansas.

Toddstar: As you said, you guys are doing some one-off shows and you’re gearing up for the anniversary tour. I’m excited to see the show here in Detroit at the Fisher Theater. What song or two when you know it’s coming in the set list just gets you amped up because you cannot wait to get into it?

Ronnie: Oh, that’s an easy answer, the next one. Being a singer, you have to keep your energy up. Todd, I kid a lot about the complexity of Kansas music and how difficult it is. When I’m on stage, it is such tunnel vision. It is just extreme in-the-zone focus. What song do I get amped up about? The first one and then every one after that.

Toddstar: Do you still get that giddy feeling when you’re about to take the stage?

Ronnie: Absolutely. We stand in the wings and Derek, our monitor man, he gives us the countdown, 10 minutes, five minutes, two minutes. I’ve been doing this my entire life, but when Derek turns around and he gives us the two-minute sign, my adrenaline goes through the roof, and I become 20 years old again. Then after the show, my body reminds me that I’m 61. Where’s the Geratol? Who’s hiding the vitamins?

Toddstar: That said, if you could go back and talk to Ronnie back your early musician days, what piece of advice would you give yourself then based on what you know now? What conversation would you have with a young Ronnie Platt?

Ronnie: Stop wasting time. No. Boy, that’s a tough one. What would I say to a young Ronnie? It’s funny, all my life, I’ve had self-inflicted discipline. I really didn’t have discipline from an outside source. My parents were divorced when I was nine, 10 years old. Father wasn’t around. My mother was working and preoccupied with my sister who was four years older than me. I really didn’t have a lot of discipline. It’s funny how I just accumulated this mindset, and I say this all the time, that I never had any visions of grandeur. A young Ronnie never said, “Oh, well, I’m going to be the lead singer of Kansas, you guys just wait and watch.” I never had that attitude. Musicians that had that attitude just, geez, I wanted to punch them in the head. Really, you’re going to be the next Eddie Van Halen? Okay, sure. When I started singing, I just know I wanted to be better than my last show. I really think that’s what kept me going. If anything, looking back, what I would say to myself then is, “You’ve got the right way of thinking, just stick with it.” That’s really what I did. A side story – I got a text message from my friend Dina, who is Dennis DeYoung’s niece, Dennis DeYoung, formally of Styx, longtime friend, her and her husband Andy, longtime fans of mine, longtime friends. We went out to dinner and I was just in Kansas a couple months at this time, and they gave me a bracelet. And on the bracelet, they had inscribed ‘100% Every Time.’ Dina and Andy, they said to me, “Whenever we’ve seen you play…,” and let me tell you, they’ve seen me in some less than favorable bars and shitholes. They always said, “Whenever we’ve seen you, whether you were playing for 10 people or 10,000 people, you’re 100% every time.” That’s what they had inscribed in this bracelet for me. I just thought that was very nice. It really has been my life mission statement and look where it got me. I’m not complaining. Interesting question, I’m going to be thinking about that one later, Todd.

Photo credit: Mark Schierholz

Toddstar: Good! I know you’re busy getting yourself situated at home so you can get back out on the road. I appreciate the time and I’m hoping that when you roll through Detroit, we can discuss the answer to this one a little further.

Ronnie: That would be neat. I mean, something to think about.

Toddstar: Yeah, sure. Well, listen man, I appreciate you taking the time out, giving me some insight into you and your thoughts on the band, and where you’ve been, where you’ve gone, where you’re headed. And I look forward to seeing you rock the stage in Detroit and wish you safe travels until then.

Ronnie: Yeah, thank you so much. Boy, June 17th, that is right around the corner. That’s going to be here before we know it. I’m really looking forward to it. Quick question. Todd, have you seen this incarnation of the band?

Toddstar: I have not.

Ronnie: I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.

Toddstar: I don’t think I’m going to be surprised. I think I’m going to just pleasantly enjoy the show because the musicianship and the dedication to the music, the band, and the fans is there in this incarnation.

Ronnie: Thank you. Appreciate that. Man, we’ll see you June 17th Todd. Have a great day and thank you so much.

KANSAS LINKS:

OFFICIAL SITE

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Category: Interviews