Cheap Trick Provide the Soundtrack to People's Lives

While Cheap Trick may have just provided the music for an Audi ad that aired during the Super Bowl, the band has been instrumental in providing the soundtrack to people's lives since the '70s. Guitarist Rick Nielsen tells Spinner he's been privy to quite a few stories about his music's effects on fans throughout the years.

"Everyone has a great Cheap Trick story. If you only have one, it's good enough. I mean some people have 50 but everybody seems to have one good one, like hooking up or shacking up or getting pregnant listening to our music and 'then we got married,' or 'We were on this boat together and your song was playing,'" he says. "We've had people in the hospital playing Cheap Trick music and they woke up out of a coma. I was like, 'Wow.' It's not, 'I heard your stuff and it made me sick!'"

Famous folk are no exception to falling under the spell of Cheap Trick's classic rock anthems. Nielsen will always cherish a brush with 'No Reservations' host Anthony Bourdain. "I met Anthony Bourdain. I was waiting to say hello to him and all of a sudden he comes out of this restaurant and says, 'Hey you guys were the soundtrack to my life!'" Neilsen recalls. "We were gonna see each other later that night and then he ended up going back to his hotel room and I just stayed home. You can't buy that -- the cool factor is up there."