Chicago’s Lee Loughnane discusses band’s current chart hit, challenge of making group’s new album

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Chicago‘s 38th studio album, Born for This Moment, was released on Friday.

The 14-track collection features the lead single “If This Is Goodbye,” which recently broke into the top 20 of Billboard‘s Adult Contemporary chart.

“‘If This Is Goodbye’ was one of the first songs I heard as a possibility to be on the album, and immediately I knew that this definitely should be a contender,” founding Chicago trumpet player Lee Loughnane tells ABC Audio. “And I think 15, 20, maybe even 30 songs came in, [but when I heard that one, I thought,] ‘Yeah, this has got…some legs on it.’ And turns out it does.”

The song is a showcase for Chicago singer Neil Donell, who joined the group in 2018.

“He is the latest tenor voice in the band. And he sings as well or better than [former member Peter] Cetera ever did…and Cetera was at the top of his game when he ended up leaving us,” Loughnane maintains. “So…it’s really good to have him in, and he’s enjoying it, we’re enjoying having him…The band is smokin’ right now.”

Lougnane says recording Born for This Moment was challenging, since most of the project was done remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We couldn’t even get into the same rooms together to speak with each other,” notes Lee. “[W]e missed being able to have that camaraderie, but I think it came out pretty good, despite not seeing each other all that much.”

Loughnane reveals that the entire band did record one song on the album together, a tune he co-wrote called “If This Isn’t Love.”

“We were on tour and I had us set up before the show,” Lee explains, “and we ran the song down…three or four times.”

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