By Scott Meeker
smeeker@joplinglobe.com
Technology is an amazing thing, according to Greg Cook, the bass player and vocalist for Ricochet.
These days, many people carry around their entire music collection on an iPod, he said, speaking on his iPhone from an airport in Dallas.
“When we first started recording, our first album was done in analog on tape,” Cook said. “Now everything is digital.”
The country band — which had a No. 1 hit with the 1996 single “Daddy’s Money” — will perform on Saturday in Wheaton and is on the rebound in the digital age with its latest release, “Ricochet Reloaded.”
The new album is partly a collection of the band’s greatest hits, along with several new songs.
“We re-recorded all the hits. They’re pretty much all the same, but we just took a fresh-coat-of-paint approach to them,” said Cook.
Over the past 16 years, Ricochet has undergone several lineup changes. Currently, Cook and lead singer Heath Wright are the only original band members.
Cook said that the band has become something of a brotherhood, and that picking a new member is a difficult process.
“A lot of things go into picking somebody. You have to be able to play your instrument, you have to be able to sing a certain part and you have to have chemistry with the band,” he said. “We’ve been lucky in that every time we’ve had to replace somebody the band has taken a step up.
“It’s never easy, and you don’t want it to happen. On a smaller scale, it’s like having to pick a new Supreme Court justice.”
“Reloaded” marks the band’s first release of brand new material since 2000’s “What You Leave Behind.”
“We had a live album in 2004, so this is our first studio album in a long time,” Cook said.
This time out, the band embraced the technological improvements made since their last proper album, he said. They recorded it mostly from the home of the band’s guitar player.
“You can send someone a file and tell them to put steel guitar on it and never have to leave the house,” said Cook. “It still sounds great to me.”
He said that the band is trying to fully embrace the capabilities of the Internet to market its music.
“I think that the days of selling albums in stores are over,” said Cook. “The Internet is a thing of the future and we’re trying to embrace that. We’re using our Web site like our store front. Our new single, ‘Feel Like Fallin,’ can be downloaded for free from our Web site.”
Still, performing live is where it’s at for Ricochet.
When they are on stage and feeding off the crowd’s energy, there’s nothing like it, Cook said.
“We give ourselves the challenge of making it fun, and not just standing there playing a song,” he said. “It sounds weird, but when we’re signing autographs after a show and someone comes up and says, ‘You sounded great,’ we’ll take the compliment, but that’s what we’re supposed to do. But if someone comes up and says, ‘We had fun at your show,’ then we think that we’ve really done our job.”
Want to go?
Ricochet will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Gizmo’s Event Center in Wheaton. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 the day of the show. Doors will open at 7 p.m. Details: (417) 652-3434.
Enjoy
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