Kansas 50th anniversary tour: Q+A with lead vocalist Ronnie Platt

CHEYENNE – The legendary dad-rock band Kansas is headed to the capital city to perform at the Cheyenne Civic Center on Saturday as a part of their 50th anniversary tour, "Another Fork in the Road."

Kansas is a band formed in Topeka, Kansas, in 1974. With a career spanning over five decades, Kansas has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and has a catalog that includes 16 studio albums and five live albums, eight of which are gold albums and three that went platinum.

In the 1970s and '80s, the band appeared on the Billboard charts for more than 200 weeks and played to sold-out stadiums throughout the world. Their latest album, "The Absence of Presence," was released in summer 2020 and debuted at No. 10 on Billboard's Top Current Albums chart. The band has been non-stop touring since its conception, and they don't plan on stopping any time soon.

Their music has been included on live sports broadcasts, video games like "Guitar Hero" and "Grand Theft Auto," and TV shows and movies like "Supernatural," "Reacher," "The Office," "The Simpsons," "The Suicide Squad," "Pitch Perfect," "Anchorman" and more.

They've rotated through many band members since they started in the '70s, but the band is currently comprised of original drummer Phil Ehart, vocalist/keyboardist Ronnie Platt, keyboardist/vocalist Tom Brislin, guitarist Zak Rizvi, violinist/guitarist Joe Deninzon, bassist/vocalist Dan McGowan and original guitarist Richard Williams. On occasion, former members will come back on the reunion tours and make special appearances. Drummer Eric Holmquist is subbing in place of Ehart while he recovers from a heart attack.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle got to chat recently with frontman and lead vocalist Ronnie Platt. Platt has been with the band for a little over 10 years and said that in that time, the band hasn't been off tour. When he originally met with Ehart about getting the job in Kansas, they told him that they planned to do between 45 and 60 shows a year, and his first full year with Kansas, he did 98 shows. Whenever they would have breaks on tour, they'd go straight into the studio to record, and then would go right back on tour. To date, Platt has played over 700 shows with the band.

Platt Credit Mark Schierholz.jpg

Lead vocalist of Kansas, Ronnie Platt.

WTE: How did you get into Kansas?

Platt: "It's such a wild story. I've been telling it for 10 years, and it's still surreal to me. One day, while I was at work – I used to be a truck driver – I received a text message from a friend of mine, Dina, who knew what a fan I was of Kansas. All of my cover bands back in Chicago would play Kansas. ... Dina saw the announcement of Steve Walsh's retirement, and I reached out to Rich Williams (the original guitar player for Kansas) on Facebook to ask him if they would consider me. I was in a band called Shooting Star from 2007-2011, and we played with Kansas a couple of times, so we already knew each other. The very next day, I get a message from him saying, 'We're about to go on stage in Houston, Texas. If you get this in the next 90 minutes, give me a call.' Before I knew it, I was flying to Atlanta, having a great conversation with Phil (Ehart) and Rich, I get back home to Chicago, and then I get a congratulations email from Phil saying I'm in."

WTE: You've written many songs for Kansas before. What was your experience like being the 'new guy' when it came to songwriting with them?

Platt: "Well, when you have Zak Rizvi, now guitar player in Kansas, engineering and producing (the music) ... I cannot say enough about him being the most easiest producer to work with. He is pure genius. I can't stress that enough, and it would be wild to be in the control room and listening back, and you would just see the music flying by on the monitor, and he would pick out one note that was maybe a half step out to fix or re-record it. How the heck did you hear that, let alone catch it, you know? He has an incredible set of ears, and working with him, just, I mean, what a great experience. It was all pleasure."

WTE: What is a memory from the last 10 years that sticks out in your mind?

Platt: "Being in the band has been an ever-increasing intense experience, because it just seems in my 10 years of the band that we're just playing bigger and nicer places. I remember the first time we played the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. You walk into this theater and you're awestruck at just how beautiful it is. It was just a few years old the first time we played it, and it's state-of-the-art everything. The acoustics, the technology ... It's breathtaking. To play at a place like that (was great). It's been that kind of momentum since I started in the band that just keeps getting bigger. It's crazy, I was 52 years old when I joined the band. I'm 62 now, and things just keep getting bigger. ... When we played San Diego Comic Con in 2017 (because of our song being in 'Supernatural'), too, we really propelled and built momentum."

WTE: The music industry has changed so much since you've started. What keeps you going?

Platt: "I think it's something that's really been in me my entire life. My grandparents, my mother and my sister all played instruments growing up. One day, my sister brought a guitar home when I was probably 11 or 12 years old, and I stole it from her and never gave it back. It was just such a part of my life from the beginning that I can't imagine my life without it. So there's always been that deep-seated love in it for me.

"And then, as opposed to a lot of my friends back at home that were in cover bands when they were teenagers or through college, they got out of doing that to have families and such. For me, from the time I was probably 14 or 15 years old, I've always had at least one working band, and it's just something that is so ingrained in me. It's the greatest therapy in the world, too.

"And, you know, the business does get to you, at times, but I could sit in my music room, pick up a guitar and watch all of my troubles fade away. It's just pure enjoyment. ... For our shows, when we do meet-and-greets and everything we need to do, our tour managers run things to the minute; they're like drill instructors. Stepping up to that microphone, though, and from the time I sing that first note, it just sends me to that world of pure enjoyment, and that's what I look forward to every show, even now, after 50 years of doing it."