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Restless Heart sharing Kuss bill with Collin Raye

All five original members of the country band Restless Heart, remembered for top hits such as "Wheels" and "The Bluest Eyes in Texas," have been back together since 2002.

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 3:22 PM Friday, November 13, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Music, especially country music, is always better the way you remember it.

Thinking back, you’ve undoubtedly thought, the country of the ’80s and ’90s seemed so much better than all this junk now.

Of course, the irony is that, 20 years from now, people will be watching Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” on YouTube or some future equivalent, and making comments like, “Now THIS was country music!”

But for the five guys of Restless Heart, sharing a Kuss Auditorium bill on Nov. 20 with Collin Raye — now THIS is gonna be a country music show — things were, in fact, better the way they remembered.

So, short of taking the DeLorean back to 1985, they reunited after first calling it quits in 1996.

“We did a group hug and realized what a great run we had,” said Larry Stewart, the band’s lead singer.

“Let’s get this back together and see if anyone still cares.”

The band, good for a half-dozen No. 1 country hits in the ’80s, has been back with all five original members — Stewart, keyboard player Dave Innis, guitarist Greg Jennings, bassist Paul Gregg and drummer John Dittrich — since 2002.

“A couple of guys weren’t very happy with each other along the way,” Stewart said.

“We all grew up and got together and went, ‘Wow.’ We realized how lucky we were. We never really had more fun.”

Life, it turns out, is a lot more fun after you’ve already broken up two times.

“We really enjoy it now,” Stewart said. “It’s so much easier now.”

But in the midst of its 25th anniversary, Restless Heart now wants to make the comeback complete.

“We would love to be on the radio,” Stewart said. “We feel like we could do it if just given the opportunity.”

The band already released one new album since reforming (2004’s “Still Restless”) and is getting ready to release another, with a Christmas album planned for 2010.

There’s just one problem with this grand plan — Nashville in 2009 is not the Nashville of 1989.

If only radio still ran the way they remember it.

“It used to be almost mom and pop,” Stewart said. “We could make friends with the program directors and everybody worked together. Then when it got corporate, things changed a lot.”

Stewart, who initially landed in Nashville on a baseball scholarship to Belmont University, wants to still be a part of contemporary country music — but dang if he isn’t glad Restless Heart came along when it did.

“They (RCA) signed us, we went in and recorded an album,” he said, “and were on the radio within weeks. That’s where it’s changed.”

What’s funny, though, is that Restless Heart played a big part in country music’s change, turning out music that sounded less and less, well, country.

They didn’t even look like a country band.

A couple of the guys got themselves cowboy hats closer to the ’90s, but on that first album in 1985, they looked more like Hall and Oates’ backing group.

“We were just being young musicians and singers in the studio,” Stewart said. “We just did what we did.”

What they did was cross over — “I’ll Still Be Loving You” and “When She Cries” made the pop charts.

“It was a double-edged sword for us in a lot of ways,” he said. “The old guard of CMA and Music Row didn’t like what was happening. It’s normal now. The timing of it was a little odd, and it tweaked people a little bit.

“We paid the price in some ways, but we reached fans who might not have heard our music,” Stewart said.

“We have people tell us we brought people into country music.”

As for “When She Cries,” a big adult-contemporary hit back in 1992, it was sung by drummer Dittrich after Stewart parted ways to, as he puts it, “stop the madness for a minute.”

Ironically, Stewart had put the song on hold for his first solo album.

“That was my favorite song for my solo record,” he said.

Someone at a meeting persuaded him otherwise.

As Stewart recalled, “Someone at the meeting, who will remain nameless, said, ‘I don’t hear that song.’ ”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.