Brad Gillis of Night Ranger – High Road is about Big Fat, Heavy Licks!

By: Robert Cavuoto

Back in the ‘80s you couldn’t turn on the radio or MTV without hearing the licks of Brad Gillis on Night Ranger’s hits; “Sister Christian” or “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”.

These are the top songs that helped them go straight to the top of the charts and headlining arenas by their second album.

For those who haven’t been around long enough, Night Ranger is one of the bands that heavily impacted popular culture, providing the sound track of the youth of the ’80s and beyond.

Their hits are entrenched in our DNA, from the era of our MTV obsessions that still resonate today.

Fast forward thirty-two years and the band is still a gale force wind of rock; releasing their latest CD, High Road, on June 10^th.

So, people get ready, because Night Ranger’s still creating great new music that will energize a new generation of fans.

To date, the band has sold 17 million CDs worldwide with several platinum and gold certified albums under their belts.

Night Ranger is Jack Blades [bass guitar, vocals], Kelly Keagy [drums, vocals], Brad Gillis [lead & rhythm guitars], and relatively new additions to the fold, Joel Hoekstra [lead & rhythm guitars] and Eric Levy [keyboards].

I had the chance to sit down with Brad Gillis to talk about the group’s hit making formula for High Road and reminisce with some Ozzy Osbourne stories and antics.

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Robert Cavuoto: I’ve been listening to your new CD and I’m really enjoying it. Tell me the story behind its making.

Brad Gillis: We ended up getting a record deal from Frontier about a year and a half ago so Jack Blades, Kelly Keagy and me went into the studio to start throwing down some rough ideas. Come January Joel Hoekstra and Eric Levy joined in to put a little icing on the cake.

We wrote a couple of songs, the five of us together, but basically what we like to do is just give the general ideas to Jack, Kelly and me, because we all have ideas and we try to stick to that original format, which is a big licks, three-part vocal harmonies and two-part guitar harmonies.

We then took a break to go on the road; then back to the studio to re-listen and reevaluate the songs. After that we went back out on the road again. So, this took longer than we wanted. In fact, we came close to missing our release deadline, but ended up getting everything out in time. We’re looking forward to its June 10^th release.

Robert: Night Ranger songs have always been about great storytelling too. Is that something you consciously do when writing?

Brad Gillis: Jack and Kelly have a pretty good handle on lyrics, melody and choruses. They come up with a general idea; I interject my ideas and then it ends up being Night Ranger. It’s great that the record is getting such good reviews from people like yourself and reviewers. It’s not released yet, and we’ve got that hang time of waiting for the public to listen to it. We’re excited to get a worldwide release.

Robert: My favorite song so far is “Rollin’ On.” It’s one of the heavier, hard- driving songs.

Brad Gillis: “Rollin’ On” has that big lick I was talking about earlier. It’s just a big fat, heavy lick driven tune that we knew fit the record well.

Robert: Do you always start writing fresh for each new CD?

Brad Gillis: A few times we had gotten together and would write something at the rehearsal recording house and other times, I would just bring in riffs that I have. I wake up in the morning and fire up my computer and start writing riffs, because I do a lot of music for ESPN Fox Sports, so I’m constantly writing riffs and throwing down ideas.

The stuff I write that may not be right for ESPN, I’ll put aside for either my solo record or Night Ranger. Those riffs can get turned into a great Night Ranger tune.

Robert: The band has been through a couple of member changes throughout the years. How has it impacted the band?

Brad Gillis: Well, it got to a point a few years back where we had to make a change.

Joel Hoekstra came in so prepared. He was absolutely amazing. All we did was a sound check with him and he played that night – probably about seven or eight years ago – and he just totally blew us away. He is a great fit with the band. He has been playing guitar from a very young age and was learning the 8-finger technique when he was 14-years-old.

We have fun onstage; he’s like my best buddy. Now three or four years ago, we ended up getting Eric Levy. He is an easygoing guy; great to work with; and is just a master on keyboards. We have a great lineup. These two new guys bring so much excitement and musicality to the table.

Robert: Between your debut LP and now a lot has changed in how you balance the rock lifestyle with the family lifestyle?

Brad Gillis: I’ve been a professional musician for over 30 years. I learned when you go on the road to do your thing; you make the best of it. Then you come home and switch gears to get in the family mode.

Basically, me being a Gemini, I kind of lead two lives, the rock and roll life and the home life. It ends up equaling out very well. When I’m home for a couple of weeks, I get itchy to go out and play shows, and I go on the road and I’ll be gone a week or two, and I can’t wait to be home – it balances out.

Robert: When you guys were writing and recording “Sister Christian,” for your second CD, did you realize the success and impact the song would have?

Brad Gillis: Yes, we did. Actually, it turned out that the song was written in the same period as the first record, but it was the influence of the record company to put it on our sophomore release, Midnight Madness, because they knew it was going to be huge.

After the release of “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” from the Dawn Patrol, we were lucky enough to get MTV during their inception. We were on heavy rotation every day, 15 or 20 times a day. Actually, MTV didn’t have many videos back then. So that kind of got us on the board as an opening act for a lot of big bands.

Basically, when we released that second record, our first single was “You Can Still Rock in America,” a great anthem that also got a lot of heavy MTV airplay.

When we came out with “Sister Christian,” everything changed. We were all over every radio station. I remember that took us from opening act to headline status. And I’ll never forget pulling into La Crosse, Wisconsin, on our tour bus in late ’83 when “Sister Christian” was peaking and seeing the Coliseum marquee, saying “Night Rangers: Sold Out.”

It was such a great feeling to have our first sold-out headline show. From then on we pretty much headlined all through the ‘80s all over the world, playing Europe, Japan and all over the states. And we’re still out there doing it.

Robert: Were there any other songs that you thought were going to be big hits?

Brad Gillis: You always hope that any song released by a record company will become a hit. Our problem being that we got a Top 10 hit in two days after the release with “Sister Christian,” and the next thing you know the next week the record company was seeing dollar signs.

When “Sentimental Street” came out and even though it did well and the video got played a lot – it didn’t serve us as well as “Sister Christian.”

We released a song called, “Goodbye”, that I thought was a great song with great lyrics and I always thought that would take off. In the late ‘80s everything started slowing down and changing, when grunge came out, it pretty much killed ‘80s rock.

But a lot of these bands were lucky enough to weather the storm and keep moving on after the whole ‘90s invasion, and we just thank our lucky stars the band stayed together and stuck to our guns. We’ve been touring heavy every year, and this year is pretty much the same. We’ve got another 50 shows coming up, if not more, and we’re heading to Japan and coming back to Honolulu and Maui.

We just got back from Europe, doing the Frontier Festival in Milan. We’re just lucky to still be able to release records and tour as heavy as we do.

Robert: What is the history behind the unique tremolo spring vibration at the end of the solo on “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me?”

Brad Gillis: I’m pounding on my guitar! Basically when Van Halen came out in ’78, everybody was into Eddie. He was like the greatest thing out there. And when he started using the dive bombs and harmonics with his whammy bar, I decided well, I’ve got to get a Floyd Rose too.

So I actually traded a Les Paul Custom for a Floyd Rose and a fret job. Everybody thought I was crazy. “Why would you let this beautiful Les Paul go for a tremolo bar?” I thought, well, I’ll show you why. Next day I started fooling around with bringing harmonics up, instead of pulling them down like Eddie was doing, and that’s what you hear in the last part of my solo on “Don’t’ Tell Me You Love Me.”

You can hear me pull the harmonics up and wiggle the hell out of it. Also I realized how they had set up my Floyd Rose so it was floating and could go up and down with it. There’s a fine line on how much you can pull up and then throw it down and incorporate a good wiggle on your guitar.

I was fiddling around one day and accidently banged my guitar. I heard a brrrrr sound. It was a warble, I couldn’t figure out how it was coming out. I banged it again and hit a note and thought man, my bar is shaking. And I thought, well how is it doing that? So I flicked the end of the tremolo bar with my finger and heard it make that sound. To be able to do that, you really can’t have all five springs on your guitar. You have to narrow it down to four or three, and what that does is give your tremolo a looser feel, and it’s able to vibrate.

I just incorporated that into my solo in “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me.” A lot of people didn’t know how I was getting that sound. A lot of people thought I was kicking on a real fast tremolo pedal, but after doing it quite a few times live in the ‘80s, people learned that I was basically banging my guitar.

Robert: You played with Ozzy Osborne in the ’80s after Randy Rhoads died, what was the reason that you never fully joined the band?

Brad Gillis: You have to realize that after the tragic death of Randy, the whole camp was very unsettled. To bring somebody like me in was tough, not just for Ozzy, but for me as well and the audience let me know that “you better earn your keep.”

Towards the end of the touring, after about seven or eight months, Rudy Sarzo quit the band to rejoin his band, Quiet Riot. They had a record deal. Right after that Night Ranger was offered a record deal, and I decided to leave Ozzy too and go with Night Ranger. I thought, “It’s a fresh, new outfit and they could possibly take off.”

Once the CD started hitting the airways; we’re on heavy rotation, and we got a fairly big rock hit out of it paid off. I rolled the dice and it turned out to be in my favor, because here I am with the same band 32 years later still releasing new material. Ozzy is on like his fifth guitar players. So I think I made the right choice.

Robert: Do you have any funny Ozzy stories you could share when you were on tour with him?

Brad Gillis: Oh, I’ve got a lot of great stories, about fun times particularly on the tour bus. At one point Ozzy made these signs up. Girls would drive by the bus when we were leaving the show, and he’d raise his shirt up like show us your tits. He makes these signs in these big letters SHOW US YOUR TITS! and he’d hold it up out the window and these girls were eager to do it,  He made this other sign that said, “NOW FUCK OFF.” [Laughter]

We had some great shows with Ozzy too. One in particular was playing Texxas Jam in the summer of ’82 and playing in front of 80,000 people. We couldn’t find Ozzy for a couple of days prior to the show. When he did show up the day of the show, he had shaved his head, and Sharon was freaking out, “Oh, my God, Ozzy, we gotta get you a wig.” So the wardrobe lady ended up going out and buying a couple of wigs for Ozzy and they cut them to look like his original hair.

He ended up putting ketchup underneath his wig so when he went onstage, he would shake his head and rip off his shirt and throws it out in the crowd. After that he grabs his scalp and he starts ripping off his scalp really slowly. The red started coming down his face; it looked like blood. Imagine 80,000 people in the audience with their mouths wide open, thinking that Ozzy is ripping off his scalp.

I have pictures of that from the side of the stage that my old guitar tech took.

There were some hard times too. A lot of moments when Ozzy wasn’t doing well, missing Randy, because that was a very heavy experience. Randy and Ozzy were pretty tight. It was very tough for me for the first couple of weeks, just trying to fit into the band and be accepted. Later on in the year, going in and recording the Speak of the Devil record was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, that was the only record I was able to do with Ozzy. I was never able to go in and actually write songs and release something fresh.

Robert: I think you had an extremely difficult job coming into that situation and you managed to pull it off really well, kudos. I can still recall watching the MTV concert of Ozzy and you with the big castle stage production.

Brad Gillis: That was in Irvine Meadows back in June ’82, and I’ll never forget it. It was a huge show for me. I had a lot of my friends there. It was sold out and they were filming it for MTV. They incorporated laser bats that were hovering over each side of the stage and, of course, that huge castle stage. It had the big riser with the steps going to Tommy Aldridge’s drums and Don Airey, the keyboard player, being in the top of castle in an archway.

In fact, when I flew to New York to do the Ozzy gig, Bernie Torme was playing guitar before I was ready to join the band, so I would sit in my room every day with a live cassette, and a boombox, and a little amp to learn material. Then I would head out with the band to watch the show that night from the soundboard.

I was just in awe just watching the show and thinking to myself, “Hey, I’m going to be doing this in a couple of days.”

It looked quite scary. After four days of learning everything that I could for the show, I let them know and that fifth day was my first show with Ozzy, which was sold out in New York. I’d never even played with the band before except seven songs at sound check without Ozzy.

So, that first night was very, very scary for me. I’ll never forget it. I was playing the show and I was doing very well, and did screw up until I came to, “Revelation Mother Earth.” Halfway through the song, it kicks into the fast riff. Well, I actually kicked into the riff too early, and Ozzy looked over at me like, you fucked up. I thought,”Oh, my God!”, and I just stopped playing and caught myself, went back into the tune, and finished it off.

Now I knew I’d screwed up. After the show, Rudy and Tommy told me I did a great job. Ozzy said “You won’t screw that one up again.” I said, “No, I won’t.” The next night, my second show with Ozzy, Sharon came up to me and she goes, “Bradley, you’re doing a great job, but tonight don’t fuck up.” [Laughter]

I thought, well, I’d better get my shit together. After a couple of shows, I actually started relaxing and having fun. Two weeks into the tour, we ended up doing King Biscuit Flour Hour live rock radio from Memphis, Tennessee.

The whole show was broadcast live throughout the country, and I remember being really nervous. I knew there was no fixing a live show. But, that ended up turning out pretty well.

Robert: These are great stories, you should write a book about your time with Ozzy!

Brad Gillis: I’ll never forget we were going to be playing the Oakland Coliseum, my hometown venue. The guys from Night Ranger all wanted to come to the show; I got everybody passes. And I remember pulling into Oakland before the show, and Sharon walked up to me and said, “Bradley, I’ve got some bad news, the show’s cancelled. I’m sorry; lack of ticket sales.” And she walked away.

I was dumbfounded. I thought, “Oh my God, every show has been sold out and I come home to my hometown, and there’s a lack of ticket sales?” She took about 10 steps before turning around and said, “Just kidding; it sold out in about three hours.” [Laughter]

Robert: Thirty two years going strong, what do you attribute Night Ranger’s longevity too?

Brad Gillis: Having great shows and selling out different venues just makes you feel like it’s all worth it, but the main thing is us all getting along.

When you get along with people, it makes things easier.  With humor, joking around, and goofing off both on and off stage. In any situation or any job in the workplace, if you get along with your coworkers it just makes things easier.

When there’s a thorn in your side, and someone’s yanking your chain, you don’t want to be there. We owe our longevity to being able to tour a lot, make records, and have fun doing it and getting along.