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Trust turns Cheap Trick songs into family affair

Submitted photo .... Rick Nielsen, left, of Cheap Trick is joined by his sons Daxx (on drums) and Miles, center, in The Nielsen Trust, which performs June 18 at the Warren Community Amphitheatre as part of the River Rock at the Amp concert series.

The Nielsen Trust sounds like an idea born during the pandemic — a family filled with musicians that starts playing together during quarantine.

The band — Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick sharing the stage with his sons Daxx and Miles and his daughter-in-law (Miles’ wife Kelly Steward) — didn’t need a worldwide health crisis to start making music. The Trust was two dates into its first tour when COVID-19 shut down the concert industry in March 2020.

After playing a few livestreamed shows and limited-capacity concerts earlier this year, the Nielsen Trust kicks off a three-week tour tonight in Davenport, Iowa, and the band will perform June 18 at the Warren Community Amphitheatre as part of the River Rock at the Amp concert series.

In a telephone interview last month, Miles Nielsen said his father enjoyed the intimacy of the livestreamed shows and smaller venues.

“Dad discovered he likes the interaction with the crowd,” Nielsen said. “It almost has a ‘Storytellers’ quality now. I like that the concept provokes his brain to go into the wayback machine … These are stories I’ve never heard before. It’s been fun for everyone.”

There’s still plenty of music, most of it songs Rick Nielsen wrote as a founding member of Cheap Trick, which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. Miles said he and Daxx (who has spent the last decade as Cheap Trick’s drummer) have the Trust playing songs that Cheap Trick itself hasn’t played for decades, forcing their father to relearn songs he wrote.

But the band also includes setlist standards like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender,” even if the Trust doesn’t always play them the way Trick does.

Miles sometimes sings a slowed down, country-tinged arrangement of “Surrender.”

“I’ve been doing that for a few years,” he said. “It hits the right way as a ballad to me. As a rocker, you kind of miss the lyrical concept a little bit. The lyrics hit a little darker that way.”

Miles also relies on his wife, a singer-songwriter, to help cover the range of Cheap Trick lead singer Robin Zander.

“Robin, his range is so amazing,” Miles said. “As a male singer, I’m not able to do it justice. It’s a good thing we have a female vocalist with a high range. If I was to try to do that early on, we might not have a singer the rest of the night.”

Steward’s presence also affects the setlist. Steward takes lead vocals on songs Rick Nielsen wrote that other female vocalists (Stevie Nicks, Aimee Mann) expressed interest in covering and fleshes out the vocal arrangements on tracks that Rick Nielsen wishes Cheap Trick had used female backing vocals, Miles said.

Before Daxx joined Cheap Trick, he and Miles played together in a band called Harmony Riley, and the Nielsen Trust plays a couple of songs from that band as well as songs by Miles Nielsen and the Rusted Hearts that included guest appearances by his father or brother.

Miles credited those summers when the family would go out on the road with Cheap Trick for inspiring his desire to be a touring musician, and he said he was looking forward to his first opportunity to hit the road with his father as bandmates.

“I don’t know what it’s like to tour with dad,” he said, and instead of a tour bus, the Nielsen Trust will be using the van Nielsen normally uses with the Rusted Hearts. “We’re keeping it small, keeping it simple.”

After this tour wraps June 22, Rick and Daxx hit the road with Cheap Trick, which is touring this summer with Rod Stewart, and Miles returns to the Rusted Hearts. The Nielsen Trust hopes to regroup for some shows and maybe some recording before the end of the year.

“I think we’ll definitely see some studio recordings come out of this project,” he said. “It might not be in the next six months, but within the next year we’ll release a couple singles.”

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