Rock band Kansas recalls going to ‘Point of Know Return’
Kansas finally hit the big time with its fourth studio album, 1976’s career-making “Leftoverture,” which boasted the classic-rock staple “Carry On Wayward Son.”
Yet, the prog-rock band didn’t spend a lot of time basking in their newfound success. Instead, Kansas decided to strike while the iron was hot and rushed back into the studio to begin work on a follow up.
The result was 1977’s iconic “Point of Know Return,” another smash that firmly established the band among the top rock acts in the world.
I recently had the chance to chat with longtime Kansas guitarist Rich Williams about “Point of Know Return,” the multi-platinum epic that the band is currently celebrating with a tour that touches down April 10 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. Show time is 8 p.m. and tickets are $50.50-$126, www.ticketmaster.com.
Q: Hi, Rich. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. How’s the tour going so far?
A: It’s been going great. It’s kind of a perpetual tour. It never really ends. We take breaks over the Christmas holidays. But we are (otherwise) out there all the time. So, how is the tour? For the last 20 years, it’s been great. (Laughs)
Q: Fair enough. But the show we’re seeing in Oakland is a bit different, since it’s part of the ongoing 40th anniversary of “Point of Know Return.”
A: We are doing 80 some shows this year. Most of those are going to be that (“Point of Know Return”) show.
It’s about 2½ hours long. We come out and play five songs acoustically. Then we play a set of things from all aspects of Kansas — past, present, a little bit of everything. Then the final hour, we do “Point of Know Return” in its entirety. So, it’s a long, fun evening.
Q: That should make for some cool setlists.
A: The middle set gives us a chance to go back and pull some things out that we haven’t played in a long time. Playing these type of shows, everybody that is there is a pretty hardcore Kansas fan.
Like you play a state fair or something, you get the more casual listener that is wandering by and is like, “Look, honey, there is a combo. It’s the Kansas fellows that have that ‘Dust in the Wind’ song we played at grandma’s funeral.”
But at these performing arts center types of shows, most of the people there are familiar with most, if not all, of our catalog. So, we have the opportunity to really dig deep and play things we haven’t played in a long time or hardly ever.
Q: Take me back to 1977. What was it like walking into the studio to begin recording a follow up to “Leftoverture”?
A: We had been slowly building a fan base, and each album was selling a bit more, but we really hadn’t broken through. Then with “Leftoverture” and “Wayward Son” — boom! — we just kicked the door down. So, we were definitely riding high. But we had been working a lot. Then we had to go back in the studio and record. So, it was a bit of a scramble as far as “where’s all this going to come from?”
But then Kerry (Livgren) just got on a writing streak. He was showing up with songs just every day. It was pretty amazing to watch that happen.
Q: And one of those songs just happened to be “Dust in the Wind.” How did that song come about?
A: It was just an accident. He had created a chord pattern. It was a finger-picking exercise to teach himself how to do a guitar picking technique called Travis picking (named after Country Music Hall of Famer Merle Travis). So, he was teaching himself how to do that and his wife was mentioning, “That’s really nice. You ought to write a song using that.” He said, “We don’t do anything like that. I would never take this to the band.”
But he’d been reading a book that inspired the lyric. So, he brought it to rehearsals one day. We were about finished with writing the album. And he goes, “I’ve got one more to throw on the pile. This isn’t anything we’d ever do. But you never know.” So, he had a real rough recording of him playing acoustic, and he was kind of mumbling the lyrics and melody, and we just right then and there said, “That’s our next single.”
We heard it right away. He goes, “Really?” And we go, “Yeah, Carey, that’s really good.”