Head East returns Saturday to The Horny Toad
By Randall Yelverton

Published: Friday, September 18, 2009 8:19 AM CDT

Head East, the first national act to ever perform at the Horny Toad, first played years ago on a makeshift stage made from several docks tied together. Plugged in and perched on the floating platforms, the band brought their rock and roll hits like “Never Been Any Reason” to lake rock fans. The band will return Saturday, Sept. 19, to a more stable and much larger lakeside stage at the Horny Toad as part of this weekend's Bike Fest.

Roger Boyd -- keyboard player, vocalist, and original member of the group since its inception in 1968 -- shared an experience from his youth that convinced him he wanted to make a career of rock and roll. While playing at a 4-H event with friends, Roger and his group brought out an array of simple instruments including a kazoo and jug. After playing a few traditional tunes, Boyd and friends broke into “All My Loving” by the Beatles and the girls in the audience went nuts. The man had found his calling.

Boyd and the group's original line-up first met while students at the University of Illinois in Champaign. Head East's first album Flat as a Pancake was self-financed and released on Pyramid Records, the band's own music label. The record gained traction in the newly formed album oriented rock stations of St. Louis and Kansas City. The track “Never Been Any Reason” proved very popular and helped Head East sell all the 5,000 records and 500 eight tracks they produced. The growing regional popularity of the band caught the attention of A&M Records who signed Head East and re-released Flat as a Pancake to a national market.

The group produced several other hits throughout their long career including “Since You've Been Gone” and “Love Me Tonight.” Once a regional favorite, the group began to gain popularity nationally and their first album eventually went gold in 1978. John Schlitt, original lead singer of Head East and fellow classmate of Boyd, was with the group throughout its success in the 70s. After a long career with the band, however, he was let go from Head East due to, as Schlitt describes it, an “out-of-control drug and alcohol addiction.” Schlitt, after recovering from his addiction, would go on to be a part of the massively successful Christian rock group Petra.

Boyd today when not touring and recording with Head East is a professor of social work at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. Seeing the effects of drugs and alcohol on those he has known helped inspire the rocker to pursue a career in social work. The former full-time rocker confessed that at times he finds it difficult to make the regular switch from academic to rock mode. When his students ask him if he ever gets tired of playing the band's signature hit “Never Been Any Reason” he tells them “never.” (One member of the group opens shows with the claim that the track is “the rock and roll national anthem.”)

Over the band's 40-year career, the line-up has changed repeatedly, but Boyd believes the newest incarnation of the group “is almost identical in sound to when they started.” Roger Boyd says the band is unique in the fact that everyone in the group sings. Boyd promised to perform many of the band's biggest hits at this weekend's show in addition to several new tracks off the band's fortieth anniversary album. Head East will perform a free show Saturday evening, Sept. 19, at the Horny Toad Entertainment Complex as part of this weekend's Lake of the Ozark Bike Fest. For more information, call 573-365-5620.

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