A classic rock singer is revealing more details about what led to his band’s breakup.
REO Speedwagon split more than a year ago due to “irreconcilable differences” after more than five decades of performing. In a new interview, frontman Kevin Cronin said the group dynamic started changing during the Covid pandemic.
“I started kind of reassessing some things. And I started wanting to reach further,” Cronin told Billy Corgan‘s “The Magnificent Others” podcast. “I was wanting a little more. And not necessarily outside the band. I wanted to lift the band in some way.”
Cronin said he started working with a vocal coach, “putting in 10,000 hours on my voice” so he would be ready to resume touring.
“So when the band got back together after the pandemic, I was psyched. And some of the guys in the band shared that excitement and some of the guys didn’t,” the 74-year-old singer said. “And so it became a little bit of a, like, ‘Wait a minute, what’s going on here?’ You know? And so there was a little bit of a chasm opening within the band.”
Cronin said things really started to fall apart in 2023 when REO Speedwagon was planning a Las Vegas residency, performing the band’s entire “Hi Infidelity” album “with a massive audio visual presentation.” When bassist Bruce Hall injured his back a week before the residency was scheduled to start, the band replaced him with Elton John’s bassist Matt Bissonette.
“I love Bruce and I think he might feel like I was out to get him,” Cronin told Corgan. “I’ve heard that from people, that there’s a feeling there and it’s just not the case at all. I hold no ill feelings toward him.”
REO Speedwagon performs at the St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview in 2022. Photo by Warren Linhart
Earlier reports said that Hall wanted to rejoin the band later in 2023, but the band continued touring with Bissonette. REO Speedwagon performed at the New York State Fair that summer and at the Syracuse amphitheater in 2024.
The band played its last show as REO Speedwagon on Jan. 1, 2025. Cronin said he tried to repair the rift, but was unable to do so.
“It just became an impossible situation,” he told Corgan.
The relationship further soured when REO alumni reunited without Cronin for a special “retrospective” performance (featuring Syracuse native Alan Gratzer) last June in the group’s hometown of Champaign, Illinois. Cronin went on tour under his own name, but later admitted it was harder to sell tickets as the Kevin Cronin Band.
Cronin, Hall, Gratzer and retired keyboardist Neal Doughty sparked fans’ hopes when they reunited in September as grand marshals for the University of Illinois homecoming parade. They performed with the Fighting Illini marching band, marking the first time all four had been together in a musical capacity since 1988, when Gratzer left the band.
But no further reunions have been announced, and it remains unclear if REO Speedwagon will take it on the run again.
REO Speedwagon, fronted by Cronin since 1972, is best known for ‘70s and ‘80s rock hits like “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “Take It On the Run,” and “Keep on Loving You.” Cronin said last year that he may continue performing solo — his next concert will be Feb. 23 on the Rock Legends Cruise — and will also work on finishing his memoir, tentatively titled “Roll With the Change: My Life Within and Without REO Speedwagon.”