Tom Petersson on Cheap Trick’s new album, ‘All Washed Up’: ‘We just want to do what we think sounds good’

Cheap Trick will release their 21st studio album, All Washed Up, on Friday, and bassist Tom Petersson says their approach to making records today is the same as it was when they first started out over 50 years ago.

“We just are making songs that we like, would like to hear ourselves,” he tells ABC Audio. “So it’s like we’re making it for ourselves and our friends, and then the rest, it’s like having a lottery ticket.”

Songs on the album range from fast rockers like “The Riff That Won’t Quit” to ballads like “The Best Thing,” but Petersson says they don’t go into the studio with a plan to have specific types of songs on an album.

“If one person doesn’t like it we won’t do it,” he says of the songs they record, noting they won’t include a ballad on a record just because someone tells them to.

“If somebody writes a ballad, then we go, ‘Hey, that is a good one. OK, let’s do that,’” he explains. “Now we just basically do it for our own enjoyment because that’s probably all anybody’s gonna get out of it is their own enjoyment.”

“We want to do something we’re not embarrassed to play for people,” he says, explaining that they wouldn’t want to record something they don’t like even if it could sell 10 million copies.

He adds, “We just want to do what we think sounds good.” 

All Washed Up is Cheap Trick’s first album since 2021’s In Another World. It will be released digitally, on CD and on black vinyl. There will also be an orange marble variant, limited to 1,000 copies, sold through the band’s website.

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