Beatles tribute gives Bice chance to tour with idols

By Gene Triplett

Published: August 22, 2008

"American Idol's” Southern-rocking Season 4 runner-up is the first to admit he's an unlikely candidate for a Beatles tribute band.

"I'm no Paul McCartney or John Lennon,” Alabama native Bo Bice drawled in a phone interview last week. "Everybody knows that.”

Still, when progressive-pop wizard Todd Rundgren tapped him to join such a project, Bice couldn't turn it down. After all, four of his boyhood heroes had signed on for "It Was 40 Years Ago Today: A Tribute to the Greatest Album of All Time, ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'” He would be playing alongside Rundgren, Foreigner lead singer Lou Gramm, singer-songwriter Christopher Cross and ex-Wings/Moody Blues singer-guitarist Denny Laine.

"It's such an honor to get to hang out with these guys,” said Bice, 33, the youngest of the group. "I think one of the coolest parts is not even the rehearsals. It's sittin' around with 'em and chattin'. I mean, Christopher Cross likes my voice and my music, man. I mean, these guys are somethin'. And Denny I've been admirin' my whole life. So it's kind of a surreal thing, and it's ... just an exciting couple of weeks we'll be able to spend together.”

The Fab Four salute launched an eight-city tour last weekend that will bring it to Tulsa's Brady Theater on Thursday. Then Bice will resume his own tour, which began in February, performing for American troops in Afghanistan and Kuwait.

He took off just long enough three weeks ago to be with his wife, Caroline, for the birth of their second son, Caleb. Their other son, Aidan, is 3. Bice said the downside of touring is being away from his family, but he has an understanding wife.

"She knows this is what I do,” he said. "I don't take for granted all the blessings the Lord's given me.”

The blessings include the night in 2005 when he came in second to Carrie Underwood, who had become his close friend during the earliest stages of the "American Idol” elimination process.

"When there were 84 of us left, she and I kind of started buddyin' up about that time,” he said. "We were both country folks. She's from Oklahoma, and I'm from Alabama. We were kinda kindred spirits, and we just really hit it off.

"She sat with me when I had my tattoo that I have on my chest, my cross tattoo that I have.”

His Okie friend may have won the race, but second place landed Bice a contract with RCA, which released his debut album, "The Real Thing,” in December 2005. "Idol” also brought him enough fame and fortune to build his own Nashville studio, launch his own label, Sugar Money, and record his sophomore effort, "See the Light,” with a lot more artistic freedom.

And now his "Idol” success has afforded him the chance to tour with some idols of his own.

"This is a fun group of guys that you can tell really love this project and are proud of it,” Bice said.

In the first half of the "Sgt. Pepper's” show, Rundgren, Laine, Gramm, Cross and Bice each will play two or three of their own songs.

"And then the second set we're doin' ‘Sgt. Pepper' front to back,” he said. "We're addin' a couple of bonus tracks in there, but the majority of the second set is gonna be just like you put the needle on the record, man, and let it go.”

Rundgren, best known for his pop-rock hits "Hello, It's Me” and "I Saw the Light,” is also a gifted producer and a master of audio effects. He's skilled at conjuring up faithful recreations of other artists' works in projects such as the New Cars and his previous Beatles cover show, "A Walk Down Abbey Road.”

Bice said audiences will be amazed at how closely the band's performance resembles the magnificent aural collage that is "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

"To hear these things when we're practicing, it blows my mind,” he said. "We're trying to stay as true as possible to the album, but I also think there's a little bit of artistic freedom. So it's not like I'm gonna try to pull off all (the Beatles') parts. But I'm also not gonna come out there and sing my Southern rock style over some Beatles stuff.”

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