The brown-haired musician whose brash fills and fluid solos helped spark a decade of Foghat sessions, shows and albums is calling it quits. Now in the midst of a tour that will carry the band to December, Price has agreed to stay until his replacement is chosen. But his agreement doesn't necessarily include dining or traveling with his old bandmates.

"Rod has decided to retire on November 17," says Tony Outeda with undisguised concern. "It's been building up, really," Lonesome Dave Peverett adds, speaking as if the information were classified. "Rod was not putting as much into it as he should. It got to the point where it was affecting us, and affecting the music." Peverett tries to change the subject.

Peverett may not want to talk about the breakup, but at least he's opening his mouth. Not only is the tight-lipped Price avoiding the band socially, he has nothing to say in public about his departure. In the past, Price could be a model of cooperativeness in interviews; these days few magicians are as adept at disappearing as the guitarist when he's located by a reporter. Why is he leaving Foghat so quietly?

"I guess he just wants to take it easy for awhile," Peverett says noncommittally. He doesn't mention how the last tour exhausted Price, nor does he mention the marriage which has been taking up more of Rod's attention than the band sometimes does now.

Taking it easy may be something Price needs as much as wants; he's rarely been able to relax during his long stint with Foghat. The former Londoner had had a taste of the rigors of the road when he played with Black Cat Bones, Dynaflow Blues Band and Shakey Vick's Big City Blues, but none of them could match Foghat for sheer intensity of pace. Early in 1978 the start of a six-month tour overlapped with the completion of an album, Stone Blue, to which Price was making a considerable writing contribution. That winter he found himself forced to do guitar overdubs when he should have been sleeping, and at one point he had to be shunted to a New York studio at daybreak in a helicopter in the middle of a blizzard. The tour, which began the same week, earned millions for Foghat, but took such a toll that Price looked pale and emaciated at the end of the jaunt. Playing rock & roll was becoming an insufferable burden instead of a joy, and it was starting to show. When a Minneapolis promotion man spotted Foghat jamming onstage with the blues-rocking Lamont Cranston band in Wisconsin, he couldn't help saying of Price and company that "They looked like they'd just crawled out of a tomb encased with wine and hard liquor."

After the '78 tour, Price continued to grow as a musician, adding delicate guitar shadings to such songs such as "Third Time Lucky" and "Full Time Lover," but his songwriting output slackened after Stone Blue. Tight Shoes (Bearsville), the latest Foghat L.P., is almost totally a Dave Peverett album.

"I had to take more responsibility for things," explains Lonesome Dave simply. The result? Tight Shoes has a progressive FM orientation that no other Foghat record displays. The personnel may be the same as it has been for the past four LPs, but Foghat's tenth album distills a novel blend of influences. There's Dave Edmunds-style pub material ("Too Late the Hero"), hook-heavy hard rock ("Loose Ends"), Fleetwood Mac-like radio fare ("Baby Can I Change Your Mind"), and even a soulful ballad on which Peverett delivers one of Foghat's purest, most emotional lead vocals since "It's Too Late." Most of the songs are uptempo and hard-hitting. But why are there none of Foghat's familiar blues or boogie nutcrushers?

"Just this album," says Peverett of Foghat's change in direction, "we thought we'd do a whole album of rock & roll, maybe more melodic than normal. It just happened that some of the things I was writing were in a slightly different style. We chose to go with them. I thought it felt like a fresher approach."

Foghat actually made enough demos for two albums' worth of material at its Port Jefferson, New York studios, including two songs, "Diamond in the Rough" and "Endless Night," which were co-written by Peverett and Price. When the entire band voted on the songs they wished to include in the album, however, all eight songs chosen were Lonesome Dave compositions. It hardly seems surprising that Rod Price should have become disenchanted with his job.

But a musician's disenchantment, argues Peverett, "becomes mutual instead of staying one-sided. When somebody's unhappy with the band, the band tends to become unhappy with him." "Unhappy" is a kind word for the way the band actually feels about Price. His replacement was still unnamed as fall began. Rod is completing the fall tour; when it's over, the band will have decided among the three guitarists who are vying for his spot. Characteristically, Dave Peverett claims Price's absence will actually help Foghat.

"Me, Roger and Craig are getting tighter than ever," he says, "playing with the different guitarists we've been trying out." Ever since June the three have been playing two shows a day on work days, first rehearsing with that day's prospective new member, then playing the regular gig with Price. "We've had to hold it together, really, the three of us," Dave adds. "We're the foundation of the band right now."

Why the atmosphere of silence and mystery surrounding the change in lineup? Speaking with deliberate ambiguity, Peverett replies: "It's a good thing we've been a little bit ... well, not cagey, but we don't want to make a big thing of it, because it looks bad. We almost made a big mistake with a guy that we thought would fit in. We rehearsed with him a few more times, but he wasn't from the same background as us and it didn't work. There are in fact, guys out there who have played in blues bands and then they've gotten into rock & roll. We've just gotta be careful till we can pick the right one. Eric Clapton wasn't available for this tour," kids Peverett. As press time arrived, Foghat still had no decision to publicize.

"It's a big step for the guys to make," offers tour manager Ronnie Smith, articulating the band's hesitation and silence. "Dave, Rod and Roger have played together for ten years. Foghat wants someone now who can contribute something new to the group. A departing member has to be eased out gradually."

"When a strong tree starts to topple," adds Tony Outeda almost conspiratorily, "you let it fall its own way. If you get in its path to force it in a different direction, you can end up letting it take you with it."