At least two members of Chicago, including fellow co-founder Robert Lamm, have said that Peter Cetera refuses to reunite with the group because he doesn’t want to work that hard anymore.
Cetera is firing back, saying: “That’s a lie.”
Chicago has become more a touring act since Peter Cetera’s mid-1980s departure, regularly scheduling lengthy concert jaunts while rarely working in the studio. A promised studio effort, in fact, will be their first album of new music since 2006. (2008’s XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus was a shelved, early-1990s record.)
That’s quite a change from the initial incarnations of the band, formed in the late 1960s with Cetera, Lamm, James Pankow, Lee Loughnane, Walter Parazaider, Danny Seraphine and the late Terry Kath — who died in 1978. Back then, the group was known for regularly issuing multi-album projects.
Seraphine departed in 1990, five years after Jason Scheff took over for Peter Cetera. DAnny Seraphine has been warming to the idea of getting back together, suggesting recently that Chicago reunite for charity.
Meanwhile, Lamm, and apparently Pankow, have said Cetera won’t budge — with both adding that Cetera, who is about to turn 69, doesn’t have the stomach for constant touring.
“No, that’s a lie,” Cetera tells the Straits Times, with whom he spoke in advance of a September show in Singapore. “I don’t even talk to them anymore. I don’t know what he’s talking about. He made that up; I’m sorry.”
Whatever his reasons, Peter Cetera doesn’t sound like he’s warmed to the idea of working with Chicago again, despite the passage of so much time.
“I would never say never because I’ve been saying no for the longest time,” he adds. “It’s not something that I long to do. It’s just like a marriage, where after a long time, you get divorced. You go your own way, and you know, that’s that.”
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IT IS A SHAME BECAUSE I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THESE GUYS TOGETHER AGAIN LIKE BACK IN THE DAYS.
“I don’t even talk to them anymore. I don’t know what he’s talking about. He made that up; I’m sorry.”
I thought it was hard to say “I’m Sorry”…
Booyeah! You win the Internet!
Say what you want about Cetera. He was a good singer and hit the high notes a helluva lot better than Scheff does. Scheff came close “back in the day,” but his voice just ain’t what it used to be. At 70, I’m sure Cetera’s isn’t either, but it was “back then.”
Peter go back for one year tour…give me thieves first ticket!