Night Ranger's Discography Explored: Hits And Hidden Gems [Episode 300]

A trip through the discography of one of the most underrated bands to come out of the 80s. Author Tim Durling returns, this time to discuss the hits and the hidden gems from Night Ranger!

Purchase a copy of SING ME AWAY: The Night Ranger Album Review
 
Visit Tim Durling's YouTube channel Tim's Vinyl Confessions

----------
 
BookedOnRock.com
 
The Booked On Rock Store
 
The Booked On Rock YouTube Channel
 
Follow The Booked On Rock with Eric Senich:
BLUESKY
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
TIKTOK
X
 
Find Your Nearest Independent Bookstore
 
Contact The Booked On Rock Podcast: [e-mail]
 
The Booked On Rock Music: “Whoosh” by Crowander / “Last Train North” & “No Mercy” by TrackTribe

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on Booked on Rock, we go through the
discography of one of the most underrated bands to come
out of the eighties, Night Ranger. You can Still rock
in America, Sister Christian, Sentimental Street, Don't Tell Me You
Love Me so many more. We'll get into it with
author Tim Durling, who's just written a brand new book
all about Night Ranger. That's next. We're totally booked.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Rock and Roll. I mean, I'll leave you you're reading
Little Hands this. It's time to rock and roll.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Rock roll out. I totally booked. Welcome back, so booked
on Rock andmeric Senich. It is great to have Tim
Durling back on the show. His latest book is sing
Me Away, The Night Ranger Album Review. Tim, welcome back.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Thanks Eric.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Love your story when you became a fan of the band.
This is one of those childhood moments that every music
fan has. Take us back to that moment on the
playground summer nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, I mean, everybody's got an entry point, right, everybody's
got a point where they remember hearing a song for
the first time, and after that they can't imagine a
world without that song. I you know, I'd love to
be able to say. I was in on the ground
floor and was watching MTV and saw the video for
Don't Tell Me You Love Me. But unfortunately I'm up
here in Canada, we didn't have MTV, and so I

(01:21):
first heard a night Ranger when probably most of the
world did, which is Sister Christian. But I distinctly remember
being at a playground and it was summer, like, yeah,
summer eighty must have been summer eighty four, and there
were some older kids, and they had a boombox, you know,
like like you do, and probably I don't know if
they were playing like a set or they're just playing
the radio. But I heard this song motor in I'm like,

(01:43):
I didn't know what they were saying. I just knew
I liked it, and I liked it a lot, and
that was it. That was the first time I heard
the song. Took me a while before I put together
who it was, what it was actually called. I just
knew I liked it.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
This band has sold seventeen million albums total. Pretty impressed
if their first five albums sold more than ten million.
Sister Christian number five single, several other top forty hit
singles in the nineteen eighties, Don't Tell Me You Love
Me When You close your eyes, Sentimental Street, four in
the Morning, I Can't Take any More, and Goodbye. So

(02:15):
we'll get to all those in this episode. Let's start
with the debut album, Dawn Patrol, released November of nineteen
eighty two. The lineup Jack Blades on bass, lead vocals,
Brad gillis lead guitar, Jeff Watson on guitars, Alan Fitzgerald
on keyboards, and Kelly Keegey on drums and lead vocals.
Don't Tell Me You Love Me, sing Me Away, Young

(02:35):
Ger in Love are the singles you Know It in
the book How Accomplished This album sounds for a debut
pretty impressive. How long had the band been together at
that point.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
I think the band had been together for maybe a
little less than two years, but they were all music
biz veterans at this point. Alan Fitzgerald had the probably
the longest recording career at that point because he replayed
Bill Church on the second Montrose album. So he goes

(03:04):
all the way back with Sammy Hagard in nineteen seventy
four in the Paper Money album, so he plays bass
and keyboards. A few years after that he actually joined
Sammy solo band with Bill Church. It's the only example
I could think of where somebody ended up in a
band with a guy that they replaced in another band.
So Bill was on bass and Fits was on keyboards,

(03:27):
and then you know, he went back to Ronnie Montrose
for a while and he was actually a keyboard player
on one of the Gamma albums Gamma. So that band
that was Ronnie's band, late eighties or late seventies, early eighties,
they did three albums in and around that time, Jack
Blades and Brad Gillis were in a band called Rubicon,

(03:50):
which was formed by Jerry Martini who had been in
Flying the Family Stone. And it's very very different. It's
very different than night So don't make the mistake that
I made and think, well, this has to sound like
Night Ranger if it's got Jack Blades and Brad Gillison.
Not at all. And it's much more sli in the

(04:11):
Family Stone than it is Night Ranger. Jack plays some
incredible like slap bass on that you would never know.
I mean, it's just it's a total you know, given
the background. It's sometimes I wonder how did Dawn Patrol
come out of? Where did that come from, you know,
the hard rock stuff, unless it was just fact that
they just liked, you know, music. But then at one

(04:35):
point even Kelly Keigy was in Rubicon. I think Rubicon
only did two albums. Kelly was not any of the albums.
And then the three of them were sort of a
core and they formed a band called Stereo, which was
more of a new wave thing. No recordings have ever
been released to my knowledge, and eventually that morphed into
some of the songs were the same, but they morphed

(04:56):
into more of a hard rock thing. And then we know.
Of course, Brad Gilli got the gig with Ozzie after
Randy Rhodes died, and he did you know that the
tour and ended up on the Speak of the Devil album,
which is all Black Sabbath covers. So he has that
cred and that's one of the reasons why Night Ranger,
even though they're they're a lighter band, they have a

(05:18):
lot of cred in the metal world because of Brad's
time with Ozzie. It's it's almost like if you've been
anointed by Ozzy, people think of you as one of
his guitar players forever. In a day because Jaki Lee
he played on two albums and people always bring him up. Yeah,
he played with Ozzie, but night Ranger was their thing,
and he passed up a permanent gig with Ozzie because

(05:40):
he believed in what his band was doing, so and
I think we're better for it.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
That's the story. Yeah, that he could have joined Ozzy
said no, no thanks. So that's the question is if
he did join Ozzy, does night Ranger go forward.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
I don't know because I mean, they had Jeff Watson
on guitar, but they really wanted the two guitar players
at this point. And if you think about it, it's
I can't think of another band that is I know
there's a better word, Eric, I can't think of a
better word than configuration, but I know there's a better
word for the setup of night Ranger. It's a unique

(06:13):
lineup because you've got Jack Blades on bass and vocals,
Kelly Kagey on drums and vocals, so your lead singers
are your rhythm section. You've got two amazing guitar players,
and then you got a keyboard player. So it's a
unique setup. It's not your typical five piece rock band
where you've got a front man, you know, two guitar players,

(06:34):
maybe a guitar player, keyboard player, bass player. It's really different.
Everybody's got an instrument, everybody's got their part to play
in this band. And that's three fifths of the band
are intact. But that's still the lineup they go by today.
And you know, they weren't They weren't kids at this point,
but they were all pushing thirty. Not that that's old,
but they had that experience under their belts. So I

(06:57):
think that's one of the reasons why, you know, some
debut albums you like them because there's a certain naivete
about them or a quaintness and there's hints of greatness
to come. But some bands just come out firing, you know,
Van Halen and Boston and Foreigner, and I would put
Night Ranger in that category. There's no growing pains here.

(07:18):
That first album is fully realized and just amazingly good
and amazingly consistent.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Booked on rock podcast will be back after this when.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
When impatients Madia patients absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Who are the main songwriters for Night Ranger?

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Jack Blades is definitely the main songwriter. You know, he
has solo writing credit on a lot of the songs.
If you look through their writing credits. I mean Brad
Gillis co writes, Jeff Watson would co write you know, Kelly?
Would you know? Famously Kelly wrote Sister Christian. Alan Fitzgerald
is like the unsung hero because his contributions I think
further than some the songs that he's credited for, Sister

(08:03):
Christian being a good example. He wrote that piano part
at the beginning pretty iconic, right, can you imagine the
song without it? So they were all accomplished songwriters, but
Jack is the main one, and I think he's also
the main lyricist. And I like his lyrical style because
he tells stories. His lyrics are sort of self contained stories,
a lot of them are, and they're very evocative. It's

(08:24):
easy to see why he became an in demand songwriter
in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, that debut album sent him up nicely for the
follow up. They had the attention of radio, they had
the attention of MTV. The result, the band's best selling album,
Midnight Madness October eighty three, came out over one million copies,
sold three singles. You can still rock in America, Sister
Christian and when you close your eyes all three still
get played on classic rock radio. And you're say in

(08:49):
the book, the front and back covers make for a
fun Where's Waldo experience.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, there's tons of characters you could spot there. There's
vampires and magicians and cheerleader and astronauts, and you know,
it's one of those things you really got to get
the vinyl to figure out everything that's there. There's a
lot of things going on. Somebody's like climbing up the
wall and I think that was that album cover shoot
was done in the Universal Studios lot. The other thing

(09:16):
though about Night Rangers that they were very fortunate they
had a major hiccup with Don Patrol because their record label,
Boardwalk Records, went under. Boardwalk Records was formed by Neil Bogart,
who had formerly been with Casablanco Records, so Kiss fans
will know the name Neil Bogart. He died in nineteen
eighty two and the label kind of folded with him.

(09:38):
And really there were a handful of artists on Boardwalk
and the only ones that went on to any success
were Night Ranger and Jon Jett and the black Arts.
But fortunately, there was difficulty with getting the record don
Patrol in stores because Don't Tell Me You Love Me
was taking off on radio and the video was getting
a lot of play on MTV. Because again, this is

(10:00):
this point, were sort of into early nineteen eighty three.
MTV had been on the air for less than two years.
They still don't have a huge backlog of videos to play,
so when a new video came out, I'm told by
a lot of people older than me that grew up
in the States watching MTV that video was on. It
almost seemed every hour we saw the video that Don't
Tell Me You Love Me. So even though the song

(10:22):
was popular, it was hard to get the album stocked
in stores. Fortunately, MCA picked up the deal. Their deal
reissued Dawn Patrol and that was their label for the
rest of the eighties. Now, they didn't do everything right
as a label, but what record label does. But that
was one good thing because most bands, you put your
first album one on, your first album in your record
label implodes. That's pretty much it. The only other band

(10:45):
I can think of that recovered from that was Twisted Sister.
Oddly enough, right around the same time because their first
album came out in eighty two and their label tanked
and then Atlantic picked them up. So yeah, Midnight Madness
was I think some of the songs they were working
on before Patrol. I've been told that Sister Christian was
actually written for, you know, in the sessions that produced

(11:08):
the Dawn Patrol album, but it was saved for the
second album, and obviously that was That's a career song
for them, right, That's the song that gave them a
name but actually went all the way to number one
up here in Canada. Night Ranger were never a band
that toured Canada all that much, but for that particular time,
the Midnight Madness album went gold and they did have
a number one song. But yeah, that was their calling

(11:29):
card song to this day. More it's a unique situation
where you have a band where the success of one
song sort of outsizes the success of the entire band.
In other words, there's a lot more people that know
Sister Christian than would know say the individual players and
Night Ranger and maybe even who does the song. Sure,
it's a little bit like you know, you could say

(11:51):
mister Big is like that, Extreme is like that. It's
not like Journey where you have a dozen or so
radio staples that you could never beat. Label them one
hit wonder, it's like, well, which one are you talking about?
Even though night Ranger had six top forty singles, Sister Christian,
it's unique, it's got a unique title, it's got a

(12:11):
unique cook everything about it is. It's not a cookie
cutter power ballad by any stretch of the imagination. And
it's remained in the public eye, and it's a song
that will outlive all of us. Now. I happen to
think that Night Ranger had in their arsenal songs as
many radio staples as Journey or Foreigner. I think that

(12:33):
they should have been They did all right, I think
they should have done better. I just think that they
had the capability and not the capability. They did deliver
songs that should have been radio staples and that we
should all be sick of hearing. But for whatever reason,
it just didn't. It didn't exactly happen that way. They
sold a lot of albums, but it's always easy to

(12:55):
blame record labels because they're an easy target. But MCA
weren't exactly a hard rock label. Well, now, maybe they
had a little bit more savvy than say an M.
I always pick on them when I talk about Y
and T not becoming superstars, But I know, for a time,
Night Ranger were MTV darlings. So there was probably a
period between like eighty three and eighty six where they

(13:15):
played Night Ranger a ton that helped. You know, they
did well on the road. They became a headline act
during that time, but they never stayed there long enough
to the point where they can go out now and
headline big places. They can go out now and headline
large sized theaters, you know, places like that. They can
do very very well as special guests on a bigger
tour and you know, and often cases below the headliners

(13:39):
off the stage. But yeah, they're just one of those
bands that I've always been a huge fan of, and
to my knowledge, there's never been a book on them.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
It is a head squatcher. We're talking again. How many
albums thirteen albums.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, and they kind of, you know, like a lot
of bands, they had some growing pains adjusting to the nineties,
a lot of eighties bands did. But once they signed
with Frontiers Records. Because Frontiers Records Italian label, they become
home to a lot of classic bands and a lot
of newer bands that have a classic sound. Now. Unfortunately,

(14:14):
you know, you get on a label like that and
it's a ceiling. There's a ceiling, right like, your reach
is limited, and sometimes those albums don't always stay in print.
Like I myself, I've never seen a Frontier's Records album
in a store. I've always had to, you know, order
them online, which is fine, But in twenty eleven, I'm
gonna mention this a lot because it's a pivotal moment

(14:35):
in their career. I think they came up with an
album called Somewhere in California that was like a renaissance
that began, like a Night Ranger renaissance. And they've since
released three more albums. So between twenty eleven and twenty
twenty one, they put up four studio albums. They're all really,
really good, and sadly they just don't get the recognition.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
But I'll be honest, I didn't even know they were released.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Again, that's why I did this book. You know, and
you're someone that knows about music, right, so you imagine
the average radio listener, you're never gonna hear about this
stuff ever. So you know, Night Ranger could have been
a band that lived and died in the eighties because
they put up five albums on MC well five if
you count down Patrol, but five albums in the eighties,

(15:20):
and by the time that they put out their fifth album,
which is actually probably my favorite album, Man in Motion,
in nineteen eighty eight, MCA was not promoting them. MCA
was not promoting a lot of veteran bands at this point.
They had moved on to pop and R and B.
It was all about Bobby Brown and Tiffany and you know,
acts like that. But your rock bands are your bread

(15:42):
and butter. But I digress. So Night Ranger, not because
of any real internal conflict, more just frustration with the
music business. Disbanded in sometime in nineteen eighty nine, and
that could have been the end, but they eventually did
get back together after sort of a lot of classic bands,
if you look through their career, have one album that,

(16:06):
for one reason or another is kind of an outlier.
You know, if you think about Aerosmith, They've got Rock
in a Hard Place, Kiss has Music from the Elder.
You know, Van Halen's got Van Halen three. You know,
there's tons of other examples, I'm sure, but you know,
most bands have one album where you know, Mentallic has
got st anger where people go, I don't know about

(16:27):
that one. I don't know about that one. Well, night
Rangers version of that is an album that came out
in nineteen ninety five called Feeding Off the Mojo. Now,
this was the first night Ranger album in seven years.
But the notable thing about this album is that Jack
Blades is nowhere to be found. Jack Blades, of course,
had a very successful second act as a member of

(16:49):
Damn Yankees, and I think he proved a lot of
naysayers wrong. That first album is double platinum, High Enough,
went all the way to number three, and he reinvented
himself and they did two albums ninety and ninety two.
First one was more successful. The second one did go gold,
and it went gold and had a top twenty single
called where Are You Going Now? In the Heart of Grunge.

(17:11):
So they were doing okay, but Jack Blades was doing that.
Then he and Tommy Shaw formed an acoustic duo Shaw Blades.
While that was going on, Kelly Kiggey and Brad Gillis
still had obviously the rights to use the night Ranger name,
so they sort of reformed, and they reformed with a
guy named Gary Moon on bass and vocals. Gary had

(17:34):
been kicking around the scene for quite a long time.
One of his gigs that would be recognizable to sort
of melodic rock listeners was he was a member of
Jeff Paris's band. Jeff Paris is mostly known as a songwriter.
You've probably seen his name on a few songs, Yeah
Vix and Mister Big Yan t. He's on one of

(17:55):
his albums, as is Matt Soarm. Actually it's a rabbit hole.
But they demoed a bunch of songs and they started
playing around, obviously playing very small places. They put this
album out called Feeding Off the Mojo in nineteen ninety five,
and opinions are divided on this album. Some don't consider
it a night Ranger album because Jack Blades isn't there.
I think it's quite a good album, and when Kelly

(18:16):
Cagy takes lead vocals, it sounds like night Ranger. Gary
Moon doesn't sound at all like Jack Blades. Gary Muons
get more of a Tom Keefer voice. It's very raspy,
sometimes a little Kipwanger, sometimes a little Mark Slaughter, but
very much of the of the early nineties period, it's
a little bit different musically, and the closest comparison I
can make is the ninety four Motley Crue album, which

(18:39):
I really like that album because it's different.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
The self titled one Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
With John Carobbie vocals. A lot of people said, no Vince,
no Motley. It's kind of the same idea, although, like
I said, you do have one of the main singers
still on this album. But the band themselves, the original
five piece lineup of Night Ranger, reunited in ninety six
and they did two albums and then things got complicated.
But they themselves don't even consider feeding off the Mojo

(19:07):
part of their catalog because in nineteen ninety eight they
released an album called seven. Well actually that's their eighth album,
but that just shows you that that feeding off the
Mojo album is. It's like the album that dare not
speak its name, which, of course, when you're somebody like me,
you're like, why, I want to know more. It's like,
before I got into Kiss, I knew about this album

(19:28):
called The Elder that nobody liked to talk about and
the band didn't like to talk about. That just made
me want to listen to it all the.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
More those are the most interesting parts of their career.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Well, you know, I'm sure you know what I mean
by Chuck Closterman. He's a well known he's a well
known writer. And I saw an interview with Chuck talking
about It's so true. If you like a band, you're
interested in the high points of their career. But if
you love a band, you want to know about the
low points where the wheels were coming off. You just

(19:57):
want to know about everything. And that's really true because
there is something very interesting because you look at it,
not that you're oh, yeah, I want to know the dirt.
I want to know what they went through and what
they had to do to come out of it. You know.
But like I said, the original five piece lineup did
come back together. Now, Alan Fitzgerald was the first of

(20:17):
the original guys to permanently leave.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Alan Fitzgerald was the one that was some kind of
a falling out reposes something on social media.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
I think that's Jeff Watson.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's Jeff Watts.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
I've never Alan fair Fits as most people call him.
He's been very quiet. He's like the mystery guy. The
only thing I know for sure is that in between,
you know, before Night Ranger reconvened. He was Eddie Van
Halen's keyboard tech. He was with Eddie for a long
long time, which is of course at that time would
have been you know, he and Sammy go that far back,

(20:47):
and I'm not sure how he ended up with that gig,
but it might have been do you know anybody that
can tech keyboards? And Sammy's like find out what Fitzgerald
is doing. But he was with him all the way
up until even on the Tokyo Dome album from twenty fifteen.
He's credited on that album, and at one point he
had something to do with Springsteen. So really I'm sure, yeah,

(21:08):
I'm I'm not a Springsteen aficionado, but I at one
point he was doing these acoustic shows which just him
and like a piano player or something. Fitz was that
piano player. Springsteen paycheck has got to be more than
a Night Ranger paycheck, Let's be real. And also I
think fitz was older than the rest of the guys.
With Jeff Watson, who was the blonde guitar player, there

(21:30):
was a bad falling out and it got personal, and
I remember on Melodic rock dot Com I used to
follow that website a lot well, Andrew mcneese's site out
of Australia. He posted this long, open letter and it
was you don't like to read the dirty laundry in public,
but when you see it, you kind of can't help it.
It's like passing by an accident. You kind of have
to look.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
And it was posted by who Jeff Watson.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Jeff, Yeah, Now the band posted a rebuttal, but it
wasn't It was very much shortened to the point, but
Jeff went.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Seen is the rebuttal on Wikipedia? There's nothing about what
Jeff said.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, that may have you know, that may have been
something that's you have to go to the dark web
to find it now. But I do remember reading it
at the time.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
I mean, what was the gist of it? Or is
it something that's not worth repeating or.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
They think it had something to do with well, the
easy answer is probably money, but I think it had
to do with who actually owns the name night Ranger.
I think it had a lot to do with that,
like you know, what percentage of the name does he owner?
And that culminated the point where Jeff was no longer
with the band. It was a long, long period in

(22:36):
between albums, So they put this the album seven out
in nineteen ninety eight, and it was nine years before
there was another night Ranger album, and it finally surfaced
in Japan and other parts of the world in two
thousand and seven. It didn't get a US release until
two thousand and eight, and it was called Hole in
the Sun. And it is far and away my least
favorite night Ranger album. When I hear it, I hear

(22:59):
conflict and I hear anger, and that's not what I want.
That's not what I listened to night Ranger for, you
know what I mean? Like you listen to Metallica for
aggression and m you know, stuff like that, you don't
listen to night Ranger for it. But I can hear
the conflict on the album. Jeff has only got two
soul songwriting credits on that album, and they're both stuck

(23:21):
at the end of the album. I doubt they were
ever in the same place at the same time recording it.
And that was it. He's been gone ever since and
there's never ever been any talk of reunion. So whatever
it was, it runs deep and fans will still say, well,
I wish the original guys would get back together. Listen.
They've had great lineups since, and they've had a solid
lineup now for about ten years because when they sort

(23:45):
of reconvened, because after Alan Fitzgerald left, he was the
first leave. They got a guy named Michael Lardy who
a lot of people know him because he was in
Great White, keyboard player and producer in Great White, so
he was with him, then he left or whatever happened,
they got it. They had a guy named Christian Cullen
who's never been on an album, but he briefly was

(24:06):
the keyboard player. Then he was replaced by guy named
Eric Levy right around twenty ten, and Eric's been with
the band ever since. And Eric has fit right into
that Alan Fitzgerald role as far as his choice of
keyboard sounds and has just been a really good fit
for the band. Initially, their second guitar player they had
was believe it or not, Reb Beach. And that's something

(24:28):
when I was doing the research for the book, I
don't even think I knew that Reb was a night Ranger.
And I'm a fan, I'm a huge winger fan. I
saw Reb when he was in dock, and I knew
that he wasn't all exclusively with White Snake. Yeah, White
Snake was the big gig. Yeah, but I don't think
I ever knew he was a night ranger. So this
would have been circa two thousand and seven, two thousand

(24:50):
and eight, just basically long enough for a tour. Then
he was replaced by a guy named Joel Hoakstra, who
also ended up in White Snake. Joel was on two albums.
Then Joel was replaced by Carrie Kelly. Carrie had been
in a lot of bands. I think he was a
version of La Guns. He's a great fit too, great players.
So you've got three fifths of the original band intact,

(25:10):
the two singers, one of the main guitar players, and
you've got two other guys that are doing their jobs
very very well. You see clips of those guys on stage.
They still bringing it on stage. And as vocalists, Jack
and Kelly don't get enough credit for how well their
voices have held up. Yes, there's degradation over the years
that comes with being seventy years old or almost, but

(25:34):
they're still pulling it off and way better than singers
that are ten fifteen years younger than them. And they're
playing bass and they're playing drums, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, yeah, Kelly had some health issues, didn't he.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Kelly had like a bit of a heart scare. And
I know I think Dean Casternovo sat in for a gig,
which that. You know, he's a good guy for a
job like that, because he could sing too rock podcasts.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
We'll be back after that.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't
call me surely.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Kelly and Jack their voice is similar, well, I thought
for the longest time, Jack singing Sister Christian.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
You know, I have had people say that to me.
To me, I've always been able to pick them apart.
But I can understand they're not dissimilar. You know, it's
not like Triumph with Rick Emmon and Gilmore. It's really
easy to pick those guys apart. You know, when they're
singing in a lower key, it is kind of hard
to tell who's singing what. Jack and Kelly are both

(26:36):
great singers. I think they have very different tones. Though
Kelly has a lot of what I would call soul
in his singing. I mean, he just can just when
he sings it.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
It just at the end of Sister Christian.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah example, Yeah, that's Kelly sentimental street is Kelly, Goodbye
is Kelly, even though Jack wrote it. Now Jack sings
Rock in America and Don't Tell Me You Love Me.
Jack's got a naturally higher voice, and it's interesting. I've
always found this interesting because when it comes to harmonies,
Jack will tend to do the high harmonies and Kelly

(27:15):
will do the lower harmonies. But in Damn Yankees, Tommy
Shaw sang higher than Jack, so they switched roles as
far as who did the And in both of those cases,
Jack was just this guy that just his voice blended
with whoever he was singing with. He's just got that ability, right.
But lest anyone think Jack can't sing a ballad, there's
plenty of examples where he does. But because Sister Christian

(27:38):
was such a huge hit number one, the record company
wanted another ballad as a single. They wanted ballads to
come out as a singles, and no rock band wants that.
It's the double edged sword, right. You ask any rock
band that had hit with a ballad, especially their first
hit and their biggest hit, it hangs around their necks.
But we're a rock band, It's like, yeah, but you
wrote this song and it was a big hit. You know,

(27:59):
there are problems a band could have, but I do
know that it does eat away at a band's credibility,
a band that I grew up on. It was one
of my all time favorites. I've said this before. It
ate bon Jovi Alive. You know, the temptation to go
with too many ballads, but because they had such a
hit with a ballad and Kelly sang it, MCA's like,

(28:21):
give us more ballads, and we want Kelly to sing them.
So even Jack wrote Sentimental Street and Goodbye. You know
those are his lyrics, and Goodbye is a very very
personal song for Jack. It was partially inspired by his
brother that died young. Kelly ended up singing them and
I don't think that caused any conflict within the band,
but like I said, it caused the frustration with the
music business. And then there are songs where they trade

(28:43):
off lead vocals. And actually the best example if you
want to hear what each of them sounds like, listen
to when you close your eyes, because Jack will sing
the first part of the verse and then Kelly takes
over for the bridge of the song. That's a really
good way to distinguish. Okay, that's this guy, that's that guy.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
And you were surprised, as I am, that you can
still rock in America. Wasn't a bigger hit.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, that was actually a song that I also heard
back in the day, around the same time that I
first heard Sister Christian.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
My personal favorite night Ranger song.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
That's a great song. But I remember, now this is
really going back in time, and I've yet to talk
to someone else that remembers this show. But in Canada
we had much music. It was Canada's answer to MTV,
and it went on the air in nineteen eighty four.
It was not until nineteen eighty six that it was
on the air where I lived. I knew what existed,

(29:34):
and the idea of twenty four hour music videos just
seemed like, that's amazing, that's the coolest thing ever. So
because I was just sort of obsessed with these little
movies put to music, I just, you know, like like
so many others, it was the generation for it, right,
I was the MTV generation, even if you didn't watch MTV,
just the music video craze and anytime that there was

(29:55):
a show that played videos, you know, like at one
point American Bandstand would one video per show, right, they'd
have their standard the kids dancing format and an interview
and somebody like lip syncing on the show, but then
they'd play one video they started doing that, so there'd
be like a half hour video countdown, or there'd be
an hour long countdown, and you'd just comb through the
TV guides and try to find them. Well, there was

(30:17):
one show that I discovered quite by accident, and I'm
not sure how long this show ran, but it was
on PBS, of all networks, and it was called Color
Sounds and the object, the idea behind this show is
that each episode they would show a bunch of videos
they were actually they'd show the actual videos, but they'd
have the lyrics going almost like karaoke or almost like

(30:39):
you know what they call lyric videos now, but they
would highlight certain vowel sounds. I'd really love to know
what was behind this show and how it ended up
on PBS, you know, the almost asame Street and stuff.
I always wonder if there was somebody that worked for
PBS that was a younger person that just really wanted
to have a music video show, and their excuse or

(31:01):
the reason they were able to get it on the
air is that they found this educational angle to it
and teach people about vowel sounds. Anyway, I remember catching
one particular episode of this. I'm like, why are there's
videos on PBS like this is stranger? They're showing the
lyrics anyway, one of those videos which you can still
rock in America, So that stuck with me. I liked

(31:22):
that song too. Now I didn't, and I mentioned this
in my intro. I didn't realize that was the same band.
You know, when you're a kid and you don't have
the internet, the internet was not an option. You just
had to find things out any way you could, you know,
you just the information was just not at the drop

(31:43):
of hat. I mean, I remember for years and years
in our house we had encyclopedias. If you wanted to
look something up that you're not gonna find anything. You're
not gonna find anything about rock bands.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Encyclopedia.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, like it's it's It was just such a different time.
But then when I started listening to Casey caseon you know,
American Top forty, then I would take in everything he
said if it was information about a group, and I could,
so I was actively listening to the radio by the
time Seven Wishes came out, and I remember hearing Sentimental
Street and just being just blown away. That's still one

(32:17):
of my favorite night rangier songs.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, one of the things I discovered by reading the
book is that I should give more credit to Jeff
Watson because when I hear a song like you could
Still Rock in America, Brad gillis the Wammie Barr, you know,
the Floyd Rose he's famous for. But Jeff Watson is
the guy you're hearing doing the two finger tapping.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah, well the eight two handed, but eight finger tapping
any finger. He was really and the best example. I
think Rock and America is a good example, but I
think Don't Tell Me You Love Me is even better.
There's a twin lead solo on that. It's one of
my favorite guitar solos of all time. You know, it's
a good example of both. Yeah, they were. They were

(32:55):
great because they didn't sound like each other at all.
They each had their styles and even though they could
shred their faces off, what I loved about you know,
I still love about those guys. Well, I don't know
what Jeff's been up to, but they play for the song.
It's always about the song, and it's always cool little
parts to It's what we love about Eddie, right, It's

(33:16):
what we love about the Van Halen solos. They were
never the techniques that Eddie used, were never there just
for show. They were to get to the next part
of the song and keep you interested. And Night Ranger
songs are just packed, even on their ballads. I mean,
brad solo on Sister Christian is a masterpiece. It's almost
a piece of music undo itself. The choice of notes,

(33:39):
the way that he was able to get a feedback
loop going so that he could sustain the notes throughout
that entire solo. If you listen to that guitar solo,
there's never a point where there's never a note playing.
And that's just him, you know, letting the guitar sustain.
Great use, very tasty use of the whammy bar. I mean,
he can go nuts on the wamby bar too.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
But is he a ciple of Randy Rhodes, because I
really hear that influence in his play.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
I'm not sure. I mean he would have been. I'm
thinking he and Randy were, but probably about the same age.
I'm sure that he had to study up on Randy's parts,
but I'm not sure who Brad's influences were. If I
had to make a guess, I would say Jeff Beck
was probably a big influence.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Can hear that?

Speaker 2 (34:22):
For somebody from a previous generation?

Speaker 1 (34:24):
He was on the third guy to get the Floyd
Rose because it was Eddie war Neil Sean two. And
then Brad Gillis, who says he traded in his guitar,
which his friends thought he was crazy to sell his
guitar so he can get a Floyd Rose.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
He's always had that red and black strat and I
remember when I finally got to see them live a
couple of years ago. It's like, there it is. There's
that guitar. You know. It's like you get some of
these guys, you just know them. For certain guitars like
Dave Menichetti playing that sunburst Les Paul that's all beat up. Yeah,
that's that's his guitar. No one else can play that.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Booked on rock podcasts will be after this Bam the
future rock And tell me about the songs you mentioned.
Sentimental Street Four in the Morning was the number nineteen single,
and Goodbye is number seventeen. All these off that third album,
Seven Wishes. But you don't hear these songs on the radio,

(35:18):
and you don't hearrazy people talk about them.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Why, Yeah, I don't understand that Sentimental Street was number eight,
it was a top ten single in the States, and yeah,
it doesn't get the recurrent play. I don't understand why
that is other than it's just radio change. Pick whatever.
Classic rock songs, they're set in stone and very rarely
do they add to those. And it's you know, it's

(35:42):
it's just how it is. And again it just what
it does is just strengthen my resolve, Like I something
needs to be out there. Look, I know we've got
the big wide world of the Internet. If you're trying
to look up something, let's be real, it's not easy
because there's bits of information here, there's bits of information there,
and there's never one place where you know, Wikipedia is

(36:04):
only as good as its contributors, right, same as discogs.
But there's something about a book that you can pick up,
take with you anywhere you go and consult it. I
want to know about this album. Okay, Well, here's a
bunch of people talking about this album. Here's the songs
on it. Should give you a kind of an idea
of what the album is all about. Another thing that
Seven Wishes did for Night Ranger is it kind of

(36:26):
solidified that they were going to be around. They weren't
just you know, a one hit wonder and a one
album wonder, like just one successful album. They were able
to repeat that success. And I've always wondered if they
had Seven Wishes came out, I think June or May
or June of eighty five, and it wasn't until February
of eighty seven until Big Life came out. That's and

(36:49):
if you think about what happened between May of eighty
five and February of eighty seven, there was a huge shift.
It wasn't as big as shift as grunge taking over everything,
but it was pretty big. You had Guns n' Roses
come out in that time. Bon Jovie hit it, Big
White Snake hit it, Big Van Halen went through, the
singer changed, a whole bunch of things changed. The PMRC happened,

(37:12):
and I always wondered if Night Ranger had come out
with a new album Fall of eighty six, if they'd
been able to keep the momentum up and had another
platinum album. I've always wondered about that. You know, I
also think that they put all of their eggs in
one basket, and that basket was secret of my success.
That's one of the first times I think that Night
Ranger had wrote a song that was sort of made

(37:34):
to order. They came to them and said, here's the
title of the movie. Go write as a theme song
and spoiler alert. I like that song. I also realized
that if a younger listener was to listen to it,
they would say, Man, is this Samiti soundtrack cheese or what? Yeah,
that's what I like about it, you know what I
mean exactly. It feels as good. A lot of their

(37:55):
best songs are like vanthemic, and they feel good to
listen to. That's why I like Night Rangers, why like Triumph,
It's why I like Survivor, It's why I like Sammy.
You know, I like that kind of upbeat stuff, but
it's pretty dated and its use of the sequencer. You know,
you got that sequencer thing, Di do do do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Do do do. It's got that
that thing running underneath the whole song. They didn't do

(38:16):
that before. That's not that's not Alan Fitzgerald going like this,
that's him going hitting one key and it just sets
the whole thing off and the band plays to it.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
I didn't know was night Ranger. This was nineteen eighty seven,
for those who may not know, the Michael J. Fox
movie of the same name. Yeah, when I first heard it,
had no idea it was night Ranger.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Yeah, it was produced by David Foster. It's very slick.
It's it's not that Night Ranger wherever a really raw band.
But this was very, very slick. I mean this this
was produced to just be a radio hit. They really thought,
I'm sure they thought that that this movie, The Secret
of My Success, was going to be every bit as

(38:56):
big as Back to the Future was. Michael J. Fox
was one of the biggest stars. I mean he was
one of the biggest TV stars and movie stars. Now,
my understanding was this movie did okay, but it wasn't
a blockbuster. I never saw it. It wasn't a one
of those ones that everybody went out and saw. And
I also know that they when they came up with
the trailers for the movie, they didn't even play the

(39:17):
night Ranger song. They played Katrina and the Waves walking
on Sunshine, so they kind of got a raw deal there,
and the song only peaked at sixty four on Billboard,
which is you know, for I'm sure that the record
label and you know, and even the band and probably management,
we're thinking this is going to be top ten and
we don't need to worry about it. We'll have another
platinum album for sure, We'll you know, release Big Life

(39:40):
on the back of it, and it just something just
did not click and they were never the same after that. Now.
I mean Big Life it did go gold, but I've
seen Big Life in cutout bins for years after that,
like with holes punched through them. So obviously it was
an album that was overproduced. I don't mean overproduce sonically.

(40:02):
I mean they just manufacture too many of them for
how many they sold.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Booked on Rock Podcasts, We'll be back after this.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
I've seen this as you know what it is. It's
a forty seven year old virgin sitting round of this
space with Damas picking a Bana Brocoli shakes thing, and
I'm an Oscar Mayer Wiener.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Find the Bookdown Rock website at booked on rock dot com.
There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
the latest episode in video and audio. Links to all
of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
Find your local independent bookstore. Find out all the latest

(40:40):
hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
the booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
on rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
Sing Me Away The Night Ranger album review. It's the
latest book from our guest Tim Durling. Let's talk about
an album that came and went very quickly. Yet you
say this is your favorite album from This is from

(41:02):
nineteen eighty eight Man in Motion. That's the album, right,
their fifth album. Alan Fitzgerald no longer in the band
as the keyboardist Jack Blades left the band after this
to form Damn Yankees. Why did it come and go
so quickly? And why is it that you really love
this album? Well?

Speaker 2 (41:21):
I have a few theories on why it came and
went so quickly, But the first thing is that, yeah,
analyfis Gerald left and there are keyboards on Man in Motion.
There aren't as many, they're not as prevalent. They're certainly
not as prevalent as on Big Life. The album was
produced by Keith Olsen. It's a great sounding album sonically,
but it's very guitar centric. And that was the press

(41:43):
at the time Guitars Are Back, that was their whole
press campaign. They were down to a four piece and
all their publicity photos, the photos inside the album, there
were just four of them. Unfortunately, I've said this before.
I've said this about a lot of different bands when
you get to nineteen eighty eight, bands that were not
full on hard rock, like bon Jovi, like Death Leopard,

(42:05):
like White Sneak, bands that made that I'm sure influenced
the likes of bon Jovi and def Leppard, you know.
And I'll put Ario Speedwagon and Survivor thirty eight Special
in Toto. I'll put a bunch of those bands, all
of them. By the time eighty eight eighty nine rolled around,
they weren't selling and they weren't having hits. It wasn't

(42:27):
their time anymore. And unfortunately, if that's the case for
night Ranger, because you put night Ranger next to a
band like Guns N' Roses and they seem very polite,
you know what I mean, Like they didn't have a
wild image. Now I don't think a wild image means
it amounts to anything. You have to have good songs,
but to the mainstream, people gravitate towards somebody that's always

(42:49):
getting attention, and night Ranger were always more about the music.
Also they had They were on MCA Records, who were
notorious for just burying albums, and the same fate happened
to Kansas right around the same time on the same label.
Because Kansas put out an album called In the Spirit
of Things, produced by Bob Ezrin, and it hit the
delete bins within months of it coming out.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Why do these record labels bother signing an artist if
they're not going to do anything with them.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
I think at a certain point, if they think that
they're done and say it's the last album on the contract,
it's cheaper to put the record out and not promote
it than to go back to the band and say
we reject this album, because then they got to pay
more money to go back into a studio for another
year and do another album. I mean, Man in Motion
came out fairly quickly, you know, it came out a

(43:36):
year and a half after Big Life, You don't. I
can't think of a lot of other examples by the
late eighties where a band put out a studio album
and then the very next year puts out another studio album.
That's pretty quick turnaround, and it didn't stand a chance.
And there was one single that charted, and it's one
of a few times that you have a song that
was written by an outside songwriter. They did a song

(43:57):
called I Did It for Love, which was written by Ballard. Now,
Russ Ballard is a proven hit songwriter, of course. He
wrote New York Groove. He wrote God Gave Rock and
Roll to You. He wrote songs for all different kinds
of artists. He wrote America's you Can Do Magic. He
wrote I Know There's something going on by freda great songwriter.
You know you can look up since you've been gone.

(44:18):
I Surrendered by Rainbow Night Ranger were proven songwriters too,
And my understanding is they submitted the album to MCA
and they said, we don't hear a single. You got
to have a single on here, even though there's a
ballad on Men in Motion called Restless Kind that could
have been a huge song.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
So that's why they brought in.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, they brought in this, They brought in this Russ
Ballard song.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
The eighties that happened a lot. Yeah, Heart brought an
outside songwriters well.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
And I if you think about it, I think as
many times as it worked, it didn't work. Every situation
is different, and in this situation, I think it peaked
at number seventy four. Now they did a very expensive
looking video for it. I don't remember seeing it at
the time, but with the advent of YouTube, I remember
seeing Morgan fair Child's in it, like it looks like,
oh my god. Yeah, apparently she was friends with Jeff Watson,

(45:04):
but yeah, it looks like money was spent. The band
looks cool in it. But as far, I think that's
the only video they did for Man in Motion, and
it just didn't get the push, and so the album
ended up being deleted and by nineteen eighty nine they
collectively decided that we're gonna knock this on the head,
as the British say. I don't think they ever said
we're breaking up. Maybe they did, but I don't think

(45:27):
it was like I said, it wasn't due at that time.
It wasn't due to any real animosity. It was like,
we are sick of we got it. Maybe it was
to get out of their deal. I don't know. It
might have been to get out of the MCA deal.
But yeah, I mean, within less than a year, Jack
finds himself in another multi platinum band. It's pretty amazing.

(45:49):
And I think the fact that he and Tommy both
sang on high Enough, I think that was that probably
felt really good to him. Other than it's it's a
magnificent song. It's an amazing it is. It's an amazing song,
you know, probably one of the best power ballads ever.
But he's singing on it, you know, whereas he had
years of MCA telling him, no, no, you don't have

(46:10):
a voice for ballads, and he's like, you know what,
I guess maybe I do.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Did they put that in Night Ranger setlists?

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Oh? Absolutely, you better believe Yeah, you better believe it. Yeah,
even if they're just doing a special guest slot. I
saw them. I've only seen them once. I saw them
a couple of years ago. They came on before Brett
Michaels when Brett was doing his PARTI gra thing almost
every set. You can guarantee you're gonna hear high enough,
coming of age, you might even hear come again. Now
I didn't. They didn't do that long. Yeah, then they

(46:37):
didn't do that when I saw them, But they did
coming of Age and high Enough. And I'm I'm looking
at It's funny because like you know, you and I
we know so much about this stuff. I'm looking around
the crowd and everybody's singing along. But I bet you
there's a lot of people there going, I didn't know
Night Rangers saying this right, not putting two and two together, like, well,
that's they didn't, but he did, you know. And they

(46:58):
usually also do Crazy Train to honor Grant's time with Ozzy.
Now that's a double. A lot of fans say out
wish they do more Night Ranger songs. You can't make
everybody happy, Yeah, gotta play songs people know, right, that
was you know, that was a double platinum album, that
first dam Yankees album, So people know those songs.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Speaking of songs, everybody knows. This is interesting. Let's go
back to Feeding Off the Mojo from ninety five. There
were three albums I think you mentioned all three from
the nineties. There's ninety fives Feeding Off the Mojo ninety
seven's never Land in ninety eight seven, but off Feeding
Off the Mojo, that's the one they covered Frampton's do
You Feel Like We Do Right? Combined with the Beatles
Tomorrow Never Knows. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
See, Feeding Off the Mojo came out on this label
called Drive Entertainment, which is I've never heard of it
since that's the only album I've ever seen on this label. Now,
there's a guy that's credited on that album named Don Grierson,
which is the name I recognized because he was an
an R guy for Capital. And my understanding is that
he had a lot to do with getting Heart signed

(47:57):
to Capitol in the mid eighties and of course setting
them for that huge comeback, and this might have been
his He might have been trying to form a label
and it never got a major label distributor. I happened
to read about it a Metal Edge. I didn't otherwise
I never would have known that it existed. And I
have to think that that was a label thing saying
we need something for radio to play, and you know,

(48:18):
like you know, at a certain point, almost every band
it covers albums.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Yes in the nineties, because they thought classic rock radio
wasn't going to play the new single in your.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Best shot was to play okay, well, if they know
the song and they know the band, maybe you'll get
some play.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Well, play a new single if it's old material or
old music that we already know.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
I think that's what happened, because I do know that
there were other songs that those guys were working on
that didn't end up on the album. Now. I think
a couple of them ended up on one of Brad's
solo albums. I think one of them ended up on
Kelly's one of Kelly's solo albums. I'm not familiar with
that stuff. I probably should be, but I do know
that there were other songs that they were working on.

(49:00):
Some would say they were better songs. I have to
think the reason that they did this was to have
something a talking point for, you know, classic rock radio.
Classic rock radio was a relatively new thing too by
the mid nineties, if I recall correctly, so, I think
it's well done, but I would just rather hear another
original song. It's a good sounding album too, was produced

(49:21):
by David Prater. He produced Firehouse, he produced Dream Theaters,
Images and Words. He had you know, semi reputation and
for an independent album, it doesn't sound like it was
done on a shoe string budget either. It's a good
sounding album. I think a lot of people would be
surprised even if they can listen to it and go, well,
it didn't really sound like night Ranger, but I like
it was.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
The labels packaging of the seven album low budget. You
do not like, okay, so let's get to this.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
So what happened there?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
You're not a fan of this.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
The feeding off the Mojo album kind of came and
went all right. Then the band got an offer. They
got an offer from I think a Japanese label to
reunite because that's night Ranger and bands like that they
always did well in Japan. You know, you could always
think about if you were trying to fill out a
collection of a band on CD. Before the advent of
things like rock Candy records, you pretty much had to

(50:14):
get Japanese imports. That's how I got most of those
yant albums that came out in the eighties. It wasn't
for the Japanese imports, I wouldn't have one CD. So,
you know, it stands to reason a band like night
Ranger would have quite a following over there, so they reunited.
They actually signed with Sony. John David Kalodner, the famous
A and R guy who left Geffen for Sony. You know,

(50:35):
he revived Darrow Smith and Whitesnake. He's a pretty well
known an probably one of the most well known an
R guys in our in our field the music that
we tend to talk about he and Jack. I think
he had something to do with forming Damn Yankees. I
don't know. He Klawdner did a lot of trying to
find guys that weren't in bands at the time but
had been and put them together. I mean, I think

(50:58):
he had a lot to do with the Coverdale Page album.
Well what about this, aren't you know? Put these two
guys together and see what happens. But anyway, he got
them signed to Sony and they put the Neverland album out.
Ron Nevison produced it, and I think there's a couple
of songs in there that could have caught on to radio.
But again, bands like night Ranger were the scene was
hostile towards veteran bands, and just about every band took

(51:22):
a big sales drop. I mean even a band like
def Leppard with two diamond selling albums, couldn't get past
gold for the slang album. So it was just it
was not favorable for bands from the eighties. It was
it was like you didn't dare admit that you were
from the eighties.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Remember def Leppard went back to their signature sound on
before to just get their fans, their longtime fans.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Made me happy. I know that I have promises on
the radio. This is more like it.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
That's a good album.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
But anyway, yeah, but anyway, Neverland didn't sell. It wasn't
promoted very well. And again it's like, I don't know
why Sony bothered. They didn't even do a video for
the lead single, which is just it boggles my mind.
So by the time seven came around, they were down
to CMC International, and I'm sure you recognize that name
because that was a label that started up in the

(52:16):
early nineties.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Slaughter was on there.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Slaughter was on there, Warrant was on there, Ingvey was
on there. D Snyder's band Widow Maker was on there.
Accept I think was on CMC Lynyrd skinnerd. They actually
had a gold record and I think they're the only
gold record on that label. But obviously they just didn't
have deep enough pockets. So the seven album cover is
just the guy sitting on a porch and that's it.

(52:42):
But what I really don't like is if you get
the CD to seven, the USCD, because of the background
that they print over, it's almost impossible to read the credits.
Like I think, it was a really big oversight and
someone should have fixed that. It's just about impossible to
read the lyrics to credit.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
It just tells you where things had gotten for all
of those bands.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
It was hard times. Even though oddly enough, I like
the Neverland album quite a bit, and I was quite
excited when it came out. I think I like seven better.
It's a better album song for song, so you know
they really they were putting out good music. It's just
that it was just so hard to get in a foothold,
and like I said, they had to find their way somehow,

(53:26):
and they put that Hole in the Sun record out,
which I don't know how to. I would have to say,
just listen to it and see what you think.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Two thousand and seven.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
That came out two thousand and seven, but it sounds
more like the an album that a band like that
would have tried to do in the mid nineties. It
sounds more like doc and doing Shadow Life, although it's
not that bad, but it sounds like a band trying
to adapt somehow to changing musical trends instead of doing
what they're best at. And like I said, since somewhere

(53:55):
in California in twenty eleven, I think they finally realized,
this is what we do, this is what we're good at,
and this is what people respond to. So this is
what we're gonna do. We're gonna just we're gonna stick
to work gun. It's not that they've been putting up
clones of their older albums, but I think it was
a stage they had to go through. Yeah, it was
an interesting period for sure. I mean I thought, after
the Whole in the Sun album, I thought, well, that's

(54:17):
probably gonna be it for Night Ranger. We're not gonna
have any more new music from them. Glad it was wrong.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Booked on Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
I mean, there's like no way that we can just
pause for a minute. You guys just go home and
do your stuff with an tomorrow we can just like continue.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
share on social media and let people know about Booked
on Rock. And if you do like the podcast, make
sure you subscribe give a five star review. Wherever you
listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,

(54:58):
tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
to the show. Another album after Somewhere in California three
years later with High Road and then Don't Let Up
twenty seventeen ATBPO twenty twenty one, which by the way

(55:23):
stands for and the band played on which is cool
because of COVID shutting down.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
That was very much a COVID inspired thing. That's why
the cover has a roadcase on it.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
A nod to the road crew.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Nod to the road crew. Yeah, and they've got they've
got a lot of guys in the road crew that
have been with them for many, many years. Too. It's
pretty much a family. But yeah, you know, there's so
many great albums and anything I see. There's even moments
on Home the Sun that I think that's not bad.
That's not bad. It's just you can't always knock it
out of the park. It's pretty hard, especially if you know,

(55:56):
I can't imagine what it would have been like to
be trying to make new music in an era that
was just not receptive to your kind of music. It
must have been a very very strange thing. And yet
they had songs that they could go on the road
and play to size, you know, decent sized audiences. So
it's like, I don't get it. I don't know where
the disconnect is.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
If you want to just go by the hits from
the eighties, that alone is reason to go see these guys.
But like you say, there's a lot more to this band.
And now we're in an era where you can go
to YouTube, Spotify and listen to this stuff and really
enjoy it and not listen to it in the context
of when it came out at that time, listen to
it just as a standalone rock and roll album or

(56:35):
a standalone night ranger album.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
M Yeah, and for the most part, I think that
their productions have stood up quite well to the test
of time. They don't really have a lot of albums
that sound dated to my ears. I mean, maybe the
eighties albums would sound dated to a younger listener, but
certainly the newer ones they've done are very very well produced,
and they kind of do it themselves. I mean, Jack
ended up being an accomplished producer in his own right.

(57:00):
You know, he built his own studio on his property
and it's kind of all contained, and they come out
with good sounding albums, and like I said, they still
perform at a really, really high level. And I would
just love for more people to just know about more
than just Sister Christian for start. I mean, really, if
somebody was just mildly curious, please buy the book. But

(57:24):
if you're gonna buy one thing that original Greatest Hits
that came out in nineteen eighty nine, that's great. I mean,
that's a great collection of songs. If you find yourself
liking that, there's really aside from like I said, a
few left turns, there really isn't anything that's gonna that
sounds so different that you wouldn't even know it's the
same band like Somewhere in California, I have described as

(57:47):
one of those very rare examples of a band putting
out I'm gonna call it a latter day album even
though it's fourteen years but you know, an album in
this century from an eighties band that is so good
that I would almost say you could start with that,
And that'll tell you what Night Ranger sounds like. You
won't know any of the songs, but you'll probably end
up getting them in your head after you hear them.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
And they're on tour this summer, so if you live
in Tennessee or Minnesota, or Wisconsin or Michigan, Illinois, they
are coming around also New York. It looks like here
in north Tonawanda, New York. In August Ohio, California. So
check them out Nightranger dot com and get the book.

(58:31):
Written by a friend, Tim Durling, a much more in
depth review of all thirteen albums in sing Me Away
The Night Ranger Album Review, and it also includes a
forward from Phil Aston of now Spinning Magazine and a
discussion of Night Ranger guitarist with Canadian musician and author
Sean Kelly, who was on the show to talk about
his excellent book, Don't call it here Metal, don't call

(58:52):
it hair metal. Yeah, great guy, great guests. So that's
in the book, great photos of the band. So it's
out now. You could get it at amaz that's the
place to go. You can not only get that book there,
but go to Amazon to get Tim's book on Sammy
Hagar Wyan.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
T unspooled, Kansas, Kansas.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
They're all there.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
I've got five now. Four years ago I didn't have any.
Now I got five.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I think we can call you prolific. Can we go there?

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Well, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you can and
I'll and I'll take that gladly. But I got to
shout up my buddy Matt Phillips and go North Design
because he puts it all together for me and he
does a great job.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
So talk about where people can find you on YouTube.
Whatever you want to plug besides the book, go for it.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
I've still got my you know, YouTube channel, Tim's Vinyl Confessions.
I put out free new episodes every week and you
can find me on YouTube. Actually, if you type in
Tim's Vinyl Confessions dot Com, it'll take you right to
my YouTube page. I rent the url so someone else.
I don't know why anybody else would want to use it,
but it's in case I ever want to do a website,
I've got the url anyway that'll open up my YouTube page.

(59:56):
But I'm on all the socials and post daily stuff
from my election and you could see me on the Contrarians,
you know, I'm on the Contrarians a lot, and I'm
just very grateful to, you know, have the chance to
promote the stuff on your channel and a lot of
other great channels that have said, yeah, we'll have them
on and talk to them. And it's gratifying, you know.

(01:00:16):
I've all of the books that I've done on specific
bands or artists, I've had people come back to me
and say, yeah, I only had a couple of albums.
Now I ordered a few more and it's really good.
So that's what I want to see happen with the
night Ranger, you know, just have people go where has
this stuff been? Why haven't I been listening to this
for years now? Why isn't this you know, this is

(01:00:36):
so good and if you like this melodic, this kind
of melodic rock, and man it it doesn't get much better.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Great band San Francisco's night Ranger. All right, Tim, thanks
so much man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Thanks Eric. That's it. It's in the books.