The Day Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen Missed His Son’s Birth… for John Lennon

Forty-five years ago today — August 12, 1980 — Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos were in New York City’s Hit Factory, playing alongside one of rock’s most legendary figures: John Lennon.

For Nielsen, a lifelong Beatles fan, the invitation was a dream come true. But it came with an impossible choice. Just hours before the session, Nielsen’s wife, Karen, gave birth to their third son, Daxx, back home in Rockford, Illinois.

“I got a phone call at five in the morning that my third son had been born,” Nielsen recalled. “I would have been home except for the fact that I was asked to do this hush-hush thing with John Lennon. So I smuggled some Cuban cigars from Montreal and we all smoked and toasted in the studio with John and Yoko and [producer] Jack Douglas. Thank God I got an understanding son and an understanding wife.”

The connection came through Jack Douglas, who had produced Cheap Trick’s debut album and served as music supervisor on their breakthrough live set At Budokan. Douglas was producing Lennon’s upcoming Double Fantasy album and recruited Nielsen and Carlos to play on “I’m Losing You” and Yoko Ono’s “I’m Moving On.”

When Lennon arrived at the session, there was a moment of comic confusion. “As John came in, he saw me and said, ‘Oh, it’s you guys,’” Nielsen said. “Jack had told him, ‘I got these guys, Cheap Trick, Rick Nielsen,’ and I think he thought it was Ricky Nelson from Ozzie and Harriet or something. But then it was fine — it went really well.”

Despite the enthusiasm, the Cheap Trick recordings didn’t make the final cut of Double Fantasy. The officially released versions featured a different lineup of session players. Nielsen and Carlos’ take on “I’m Losing You” finally surfaced in 1998 on the John Lennon Anthology, offering fans a glimpse of what might have been.

In a twist of musical fate, Nielsen’s newborn son Daxx — the reason he almost skipped the session — would eventually join Cheap Trick himself, replacing Bun E. Carlos as the band’s drummer in 2010. Daxx turns 45 today.

And even years later, Lennon’s son Sean was impressed. In 1998, he told Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson that he never knew his father was “that hip” until he found out he’d recorded with Nielsen and Carlos.

A birthday, a Beatles legend, and a once-secret session — all on the same day.