Across the vast panoply of Classic Rockers, you’d be hard pressed to name an artist more prolific in output and eclectic in sound than Todd Rundgren.
Across 25 solo albums, another 13 with bands, and other collaborations stretching back nearly six decades, Rundgren has continually challenged both himself and his audiences. And he was (and is) an early and enthusiastic user of new and emerging technologies both on the stage and in the studio.
And if that wasn’t enough, his wide-ranging production credits include work with the New York Dolls, Grand Funk Railroad, Badfinger, and Hall & Oates to the Tubes, Patti Smith Group, Meat Loaf, Psychedelic Furs, XTC, Jill Sobule, and Bad Religion. And even—in the most adventurous disc in his discography—Shaun Cassidy.
But for his upcoming “Damned If I Do” tour that kicks off June 11 and makes a stop in Houston on June 17 at the House of Blues, he’s doing something a bit different. And that’s trying to reach all of his audience.
Which means something for the person who only recognizes “Hello, It’s Me” and the person who has treasured bootlegs of practice jams from The Hermit of Mink Hollow sessions.
“That’s the crux of the matter essentially!” Rundgren says on a Zoom video call. “In other tours, I was blithely playing what I thought the audience needed to hear, not necessarily what they wanted to hear, and it was great. But then it didn’t suit as well those people who don’t come to see a performance, but a song. And every song they hear that’s not that song pisses them off! And they’re tapping their feet in impatience rather than to the song.”
So in an effort to play more “familiar songs,” audiences can likely expect to hear many of the better-known Rundgren tunes sprinkled through the set like “Hello, It’s Me,” “I Saw the Light,” “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” “Love is the Answer,” and “Can We Still Be Friends?”
Though the first song on that list is his highest-charting tune, there’s another that almost matches it in popularity: “Bang the Drum All Day.” A workingman’s anthem of the guy who prefers repetitive percussion to his daily office grind has been featured in commercials and even made its way into that rarified group of Classic Rock Anthems Heard in Sports Stadiums.
In an inventive move to save his hands, at each show Rundgren will invite one lucky audience member up on stage to…well…bang on the drum. Not all night, but at least during this song.
“As I get older, things happen to your hands. As a guitar player, you want to take care of them. That drumming thing is not good for me night after night. I don’t need my joints swelling. And people want to hear that song!” the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer says. “We’ll get that one back in the set. And it’s penetrated the cultural consciousness to where everybody knows your song, but they don’t know that you wrote it!”
But there will still be plenty for Rundgren’s most diehard fans (who call themselves “Hot Toddies”), as well. The show will last 2 ½ hours, with a slower acoustic segment, and even an intermission.
“I sometimes forget to acknowledge my older fans and the realities that they live with, people who are my age,” says Rundgren, who turns 78 this month. “Sitting that long without a pee break is a challenge! Especially if you spend time at the bar before the show. So, we’ll have that intermission.”
But while the tour will have its share of nods to the past, Todd Rundgren is very much still making new music. His most recent single is a collaboration with the surviving members of the Call on a version of their 1983 politically charged tune “The Walls Came Down” (singer/guitarist Micheal Been died in 2010).
Rundgren had often covered the song in concert as part of his “Unpredictable Evening” shows where at least half of the tunes were obscure originals or covers ranging from Red Rider’s “Lunatic Fringe” to Rebecca Black’s of-the-moment “Friday.”
So, the Call members approached him about re-recording it. Of course, being the studio wizard and true star that he is, there’s both a regular mix and a “Todd Rundgren Mix” that’s less rock and crunchy with his unhinged vocals pushed up in the mix.
Speaking of protest songs, Rundgren wrote one of the best in recent years with “Tin Foil Hat” off 2017’s White Knight. A collaboration with Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, there can be little doubt who the track is referring to with lyrics like “He’s coming down the escalator with a girl from east of here/He wants to make the country greater, we’ve got nothing left to fear” and ‘’Cause the man in the tin foil hat is tweeting like a teenage girl/He puts the Pluto in plutocrat, it’s gonna be a yuge yuge yuge new world.”
So surely, with the Trump 2.0 term in a full and even more wildly swinging swing, it’s time for a sequel song?
“My response now is pure, plain disgust. I’m not going to spend another second investing in a song about a certain clown,” he says.
“I haven’t watched the news in a year and a half since the 2024 Election Night. Half the time I don’t know what shenanigans are going on. I only find out through late night shows. And I lost a major source of news when they cancelled Colbert, so we’re acclimating to Kimmel now. I spend the day in blissful ignorance.”
Rundgren’s last studio record was 2022’s Space Force. It found him collaborating on each song with a wide range of artists including Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, the Roots, Neil Finn, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, rapper Narcy, guitarist Steve Vai, Thomas Dolby, the Lemon Twigs, and Alfie Templeman.
On the simplistic but-earworm-catchy “Your Fandango,” he’s with brothers Ron and Russell Mael, better known as the sometimes avant garde rock/pop duo Sparks. Rundgren first encountered them all the way back to the early ‘70s when they were known as Half Nelson.
“I got them signed to Bearsville Records and I remember the audition like it was yesterday. It was a total hoot!” Rundgren—who would produce their 1972 debut album Sparks under that name—offers. The band had a rehearsal space in the San Fernando Valley next to a factory that made dog beds, so they called the space “The Doggie Factory.”
“The did the audition for [label head] Albert Grossman, who was going to sign them or not. They gave everybody a ticket, and there were maybe 10 people in there. So, Russell took the tickets, scurried around a table, and collected them all again. Then they gave out movie theater candy before the show. Albert loved it and signed them.”
Rundgren says that the band’s name change came from Ron Mael’s distinctive Charlie Chaplin/Adolf Hitler mustache, and the considered calling themselves “The Marks Brothers” because of an additional resembles to Groucho Marx. The Marks Brothers became the Sparks Brothers, which became just Sparks.
Rundgren adds that he was interviewed for the 2021 documentary on the duo, and unbeknownst to him, the brothers were in the next room while he was reminiscing. He hadn’t seen them in more than four decades when they had a surprise reunion.
What’s no surprise is that Todd Rundgren is a Beatles superfan. His 1980 album with band Utopia, Deface the Music, was a satirical love letter and tribute to the band. He’s also recorded covers and fronted tours focusing on their music, including a 2022 stop at the University of Houston that spotlighted Rubber Soul and Revolver for which The Houston Press also spoke with him.
At about-to-be 84 and 85 years of age respectively, Both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have just put out solo albums and still tour. But are we prepared for a world coming soon with no surviving Beatles left?
“The Beatles ushered in the era of the completely self-contained unit. Write, arrange, and play all your own stuff yourself. And that model has survived ever since. So, the sad thing is not the passing of the Beatles, but the sensibility that produced a band like them,” he sums up.
“It doesn’t seem that artists take the actual musical part as seriously these days. It’s a part of your brand building and personal marketing. You’re just as happy to sell shoes or be in a commercial for a fragrance.”
Todd Rundgren plays Wednesday, June 17, 8 p.m. at the House of Blues, 1204 Caroline. For more information. Call 888-402-5837 or visit, Houston.HouseofBlues.com. $95-$126.
For more on Todd Rundgren, visit Todd-Rundgren.com
