For well over 50 years, Head East has held on as one of the Midwest’s most fervently appreciated classic rock bands, whose blend of huge harmonies, memorable melodies and flashy playing led to “Never Been Any Reason” being crowned “The Rock & Roll National Anthem” by many radio stations across America.

That track, of course, came from the Illinois natives’ million-selling debut, “Flat As A Pancake,” which kicked off a lengthy run on A&M Records that included the fellow staple “Since You’ve Been Gone,” landing on movie soundtracks such as “Dazed And Confused,” “Sahara” and “The Education Of Charlie Banks,” plus Emmy-winning TV programs “Friday Night Lights” and “That 70s Show.”

After being annual touring fixtures prior to sitting out the entire pandemic, founding keyboardist Roger Boyd, bassist Greg Manahan, lead guitarist Glen Bridger, drummer Eddy Jones and lead singer Darren Walker are especially ready to roar through RiverEdge Park (alongside their lifelong pals REO Speedwagon) when the Aurora venue finally re-opens on July 1.

Is this your first show back?

Roger Boyd: We [had] a couple outdoor shows in Wisconsin to kind of get limbered up and be on a live stage in front of a crowd, but the first big show is the one with us and REO in Aurora. I’m excited to finally get to play [laughs] after all of these months. We had just gotten off the Rock Legends Cruise with [The Who’s] Roger Daltrey, [Supertramp’s] Roger Hodgson, [Heart’s] Nancy Wilson and [Grand Funk Railroad’s] Mark Farner. We thought we maybe were gonna get quarantined for two weeks on the ship, but we docked March 2, [2020], just two days before everything shut down. It’s been a long time.

What is it about your music that lends itself to the outdoor environment?

Boyd: We’re a happy band. We love the crowd. We love the people. Our music is up-tempo, and especially now coming out of COVID, everybody needs some happier stuff…The band doesn’t play in the winter anymore. Those days are over for me, but we love doing the outdoor shows. We think we really interact with the crowd well. We don’t use any taped music. Everything we do is all live, all the time and always has been. I think when you do that, you don’t have the freshness and you don’t have the energy of the music. We’re out there having a great time and smokin’. I think that people can feel that.

What exactly do you have planned for RiverEdge?

Boyd: We’re gonna do a combination of stuff that people want to hear, of course, off of “Flat As A Pancake,” the double “Live!” album and what we call the “Arrows” album, which is just called “Head East,” and then we’re gonna do two or three [other] numbers for everybody as well. Some people may have heard it cause we were just starting to work ‘em in before everything shut down, but lots of stuff. People request the stuff off “Flat As A Pancake” all the time cause that was our biggie. It was the first one out of the box and it put us on the national stage.

That album means so much to so many. How do you feel about its longevity?

Boyd: In today’s market, you can’t hardly get anything to stick around. If you can stick around a couple years, you’re lucky. We recorded “Flat As A Pancake” in 1974 on our own money and we put it out on our own label in January. We did 5,000 albums and 500 8-tracks…and then later that summer we moved to A&M Records. They re-packaged it with a different cover and put it out, but for an album to stick around that long, and for “Never Been Any Reason” to still be on SiriusXM, and in movies, we’re so blessed.

What’s in your head when playing it?

Boyd: I just hit a home run or grand slam out of Wrigley Field [laughs], for all you Cubs fans. I’m a Cardinal fan, but that’s the way it is when crowds react to that. It’s like being in a big sporting event, like you scored a goal in the Stanley Cup or hit a home run in the World Series. It’s incredible.

“Since You Been Gone” was another hit that was also done by a few others. Where did Head East fit into the equation?

Boyd: Actually, Mark Spector, who was our A&R [artists and repertoire representative] at A&M Records at the time found the song for us. We really liked the tune and it did well. It was Top 40 for us and then Ritchie Blackmore [with Rainbow] came out with it just about the same time. The two editions kind of walked on each other, so neither one of us broke as big as we would’ve liked, but it’s great song. It’s a Russ Ballard song and killer tune that fit our format really well.

What are some of your memories throughout those A&M years?

Boyd: One of the things I like wasn’t even about the music business. The company was headquartered and had studios in the old Charlie Chaplin movie studios and residence. Going on the lot at A&M Records was just a rush thinking about all the history, but it was a great label. Obviously, “Flat As A Pancake” went gold when we were still on the label. It’s gone platinum since then, which was a big deal. Then we were into some issues with the company down the line. They switched distributors when our double “Live!” album was coming out right in the wheelhouse of live albums. Live is our forte and that’s our favorite thing to do, as opposed to recording, and that album was breaking big. All of a sudden, we couldn’t get any albums in the stores for a couple of months and that slowed its progression down. It was interesting being on A&M because they were a big label, but they were really a boutique label and we were a bunch of beer drinking, big, tall guys [who were] rock & rollers from the Midwest. They weren’t always sure what to do with us [laughs].

You’ve always been a concert draw, but made less impact on the charts. Thoughts?

Boyd: I think primarily because the East Coast and the West Coast don’t rock as much. Everybody says, “oh, you guys are a bunch of Midwesterners, so you’re big in the Midwest,” and we go, “yeah, because that’s where the bands that are big rockers are big.” I mean even Boston and Aerosmith broke out of the Midwest. I always think of the Midwest between the Appalachians and the Rockies. You kind of throw Seattle/Northwest in it, but rock country is between the mountains and that was big. We just never really broke like New York, or Philly, or Boston, a couple of really big population centers. Even REO’s biggest market is the Midwest and the rock belts as well, because that’s the music we play and the music we grew up with.

What’s your relationship like with REO Speedwagon? I’m sure it goes back awhile!

Boyd: Fifty years! We were the two, big, friend, rival bands to come out of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign club period and it was great. I always compared what was going on [in that region] to what was going on [throughout] the West Coast that broke so many bands. You could play five, six, seven nights a week. You started out doing other people’s material and you gradually started breaking your own songs in, getting reactions from the crowd, refining them until it was time to do a record and it was great.

How have you managed to weather the musical changes that came after the classic rock era to “keep on rollin’,” as REO would say?

Boyd: I think for a lot of us, the ‘80s were tough cause disco, new wave and all that stuff came in. All of us [that hit big] in the ‘70s, we were out. We were called “dinosaurs” during that period of time, and then all of a sudden, we became “classic” [laughs], which was great. You just have to stick around, but I think just the overall love of the music and really loving the people that we’re playing with, that’s special. Very few people get a chance to do what us, and REO, and Styx, and Cheap Trick are able to do. To be able to do it for a long time is really special. The other thing may just be perseverance and stubbornness. I kept looking for that same kind of combination that was put together for what they call the “original” band that did all the A&M albums and I found it with these guys that I have now. It’s like a mirror image. Even [original singer] John [Schlitt] and [original drummer] Steve [Huston] say, “you can’t tell the difference in the sound. The band’s identical.”

How did you feel about John joining Petra and picking a new life for himself?

Boyd: We were very happy. In fact, Steve and I were just doing a documentary with John. We’re the only guys left of the original band. Two of the guys have passed. They were putting together a little thing about John with his progression from Head East and then joining Petra. We were glad to see that he got himself squared away and straightened out. He was really a good fit with Petra and Christian rock. [With the] story about [beating] his problems with drugs and alcohol, he did “The PTL Club,” “The 700 Club” and all [those TV shows]. Actually, from that perspective, he was as good, if not a better fit with Petra than with us. Petra doesn’t sing like we do, but we were really happy for him and that came out in the documentary. We’re still good friends. We did some 50th anniversary shows together, about a half-dozen, which were huge, and I think we’re gonna do another one this fall. You always like to see people that you worked with. We were all part of our success together and his success in Head East got into Petra.

What are your reflections on getting everyone back together for that milestone?

Boyd: Number one, we got [guitarist] Mike Somerville to come back out and it was about five months before he passed away. He was living up in the north woods of Wisconsin up by Tomahawk and had kind of withdrawn and disappeared. He just didn’t think the people remembered that much and to get him back out with the other three of us was just tremendous. He had such a great time, right before he passed away, cause he had cancer real bad. Then to get the guys in the “original” band with my current line-up was just incredible because we had vocals almost nobody could compare to. The guys that are with me now have been with me for 14 years, but they grew up on Head East, so they obviously were very familiar with the history, the music and all the guys. It was really special.

Is Head East still recording, perhaps a new album post-pandemic?

Boyd: We’re working on a little bit of recording, but no, we did not sit down and do a full project. It’s pretty tough these days. I know if you talk to REO, they’ll tell you the same. The last project everybody tried to do, we tried to get radio stations to play it, but because we’re “classic,” the radio stations really aren’t open to playing much new stuff anymore from our era of music. They want to play the older stuff that everybody knows. In the old days, you could really cut a hot album, take it into a radio station and [they would] go, “oh man, I love that new stuff! I’m gonna play it!”

The guys that pushed the last album we cut told a story [from when] they also hustled Bruce Springsteen’s last album. They took it into New York City to the big station that always played Springsteen. They played it for the program director, he listened to it and said, “I love it! It’s great!” And they said, “what cut are you gonna play?” He goes “none of ‘em. I’m gonna play ‘Born To Run.’ It’s a hit. Everybody knows it. Everybody loves it,” and I’m going, “wow, that goes to show you how tough it is!” In the old days, we didn’t make any money touring cause tickets were ten bucks. We toured to sell records cause that’s where you made your money. Now record sales have all but dried up cause people download everything and there are the VIP tickets. Ticket prices, in my opinion, are out of sight, but anyway, with the VIP tickets, people tour now cause that’s where they make their money. You don’t make money recording anymore.

Throughout it all, you never stopped strapping on your keyboard. Isn’t it getting heavy by now or are you used to it?

Boyd: It’s getting a little heavier, but I always tell people, once I can’t lift it over my head, I think I’ll have to retire. It’s such a trademark of what I do, so the crowd would be extremely disappointed if I couldn’t get it done. I make sure I exercise pretty much every day and I make sure I stay in pretty good shape for it.

How much fuel do you have left in the tank?

Boyd: I don’t know. I tell my guys that when I’m really close to that, I would let everybody know. I’d try to let everybody know at least two years before I officially step down, although I don’t plan on ever totally step down. I would maybe get to the point where I would do some shows and then have somebody else do some shows because of the travel. I’m 72 now, so there’s a bit of wear and tear that’s starting to catch up, but at this point and time, I have no plans of stopping.

Does anything else come to mind about your return right now?

Boyd: I’d like to thank everyone for all the wonderful support and enjoying our music over the years so we can still be playing, we are still relevant and still draw good crowds. We’re really excited because I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things from friends of mine from Chicago about RiverEdge and how beautiful it is along the Fox River. The fact that it’s [amongst] the first shows almost for everybody outdoors is gonna be something special. We really look forward to it because there’s “Never Been Any Reason” for people not to have a great time at the sold out RiverEdge with Head East and REO Speedwagon!

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Head East and REO Speedwagon perform at RiverEdge Park on Jul. 1. For additional details, visit Head-East.com and RiverEdgeAurora.com.