If you were a child of the 80’s or maybe just a loyal watcher of VH1 Classics, then you might have caught yourself humming “Sister Christian” more than a few times in your life. While the power ballad has arguably been Night Ranger’s most famous song, there was much more in the band’s repertoire than just your usual Top 40 singles.
They’re about to reinforce that point once again with the new record Hole In The Sun, which has the distinct vocal harmonies and twin guitar work of past albums – but with a touch of the modern. When it came time to write songs that did have more of a contemporary sound, the band looked to primarily one member: guitarist Brad Gillis.
Since forming Night Ranger with bassist/vocalist Jack Blades and drummer/vocalist Kelly Keagy over 25 years ago, Gillis has given the band its harder edge, which carried over to his days playing with Ozzy Osbourne in the early 1980s. For the new record Gillis created a modern sound by not only adding riffs and solos, but also by using techniques like down-tuning to keep things fresh. When he chatted with Ultimate-Guitar writer Amy Kelly recently, Gillis discussed his approach to the new record, the band’s long-awaited appearance at Rocklahoma in July, and how Jimi Hendrix inspired his unique tremolo techniques.
UG: You’ll be appearing at Rocklahoma in July alongside Triumph, Lita Ford, and Living Colour. Will this be your first year performing at the event?
Brad: This is our first year doing it, and I guess it’s just getting bigger. It’s getting bigger to the point where I know they’ve been selling tickets on every continent in the world.
The new album Hole In The Sun definitely has elements of the classic Night Ranger sound, but you can also hear the progression in the band. I understand that Jack and Kelly looked to you to bring in more modern ideas.
I didn’t want it to sound like old Night Ranger and also the production for the 3 biggest Night Ranger records – Dawn Patrol, Midnight Madness, and Seven Wishes. It kind of has that old 80’s sound, that old 80’s drum sound. Things now are a lot more straight up with real drums and real drum sounds. So I wanted to make sure that we hit it hard with the straight-ahead drums and, of course, had the classic Night Ranger twin guitar harmonies that Jeff and I have done so long, and then the twin vocals of Kelly and Jack. We wanted to keep all those in the mix, but on one song I tuned down my guitar to get more of that modern, rougher, low-end guitar sound. It’s a song called “White Knuckle Ride.” We had a couple different little beats here and there to go in there with the real drums on a couple of songs. The chord changes on a couple songs are a little more modern and a little fresher, but we wanted to keep the classic elements in there, too.
Considering this is the first full-length studio album for Night Ranger in 10 years, was the chemistry still pretty much the same?
Yeah. The touring end and the writing end, everything is going real good right now. We’re excited about having this new record out and touring this year. It’s the biggest touring season we’ve had since probably the late 80’s. We’re excited about that, doing all these festivals and fairs. Everything is great. Everybody is getting along, and we just got back from Japan. We had a great trip over there. What we decided to do is to make things different for this year since we had been touring for quite a few years. We reunited back in ’95 when the Japanese offered us a record deal to get the original band back together and tour over in Japan. We did that and we’ve been together ever since. We went through a few changes last year, but now we’re back, fired up, and ready to go.
We relearned a lot of the B cuts from earlier Night Ranger records that we haven’t played since the 80’s. It’s really exciting to go in and relearn all these old songs, and now we’re throwing them into the set. We have a 30-plus song repertoire to change up songs, but of course we’ll keep all the classic Night Ranger hits in there. We do a few Yankees’ songs, and we throw a cover or two in there just for fun and to have a good time. We’re changing things up and ready to kick butt this summer.
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| "I didn't want it to sound like old Night Ranger." |
You mentioned the lineup changes that the band went through in the past few years. What is it like working with your new guitarist Joel Hoekstra?
Joel is wonderful! He’s from a background of playing a lot of different songs with a lot of different bands. He has a real wide range of styles that he can play. Plus, he’s one of those guys that had woodshed for years. He ended up actually listening to early Night Ranger records and sitting down and learning Jeff Watson’s 8-finger technique years ago. It sounds great and the audience is loving it. We’re doing blazing twin guitars with Joel, and it’s real comfortable now.
We’ve got about a dozen or so shows under our belt with Joel and our new keyboard player, Christian Cullen from Chicago. Those two guys ended up playing with Kelly Keagy, our drummer, and Jim Peterik in his little stage band. That’s when a bunch of singers all get together with a backup band and sing all of their hit songs. Joel and Christian had been doing a lot of these shows with a backup band, and Kelly mentioned that we should check them out for Night Ranger. We got them both in the band and they’re working out great.
What were the reasons behind Jeff Watson leaving?
Well, we had some conflicts of direction in the style of music and personality conflicts. It was either move on or break the band up, and we had to keep the machine rolling.
Some might not be aware that you’re also phenomenal as a shredder, which became quite obvious when you were playing with Ozzy Osbourne back in 1982. Do you enjoy bouncing between a variety of musical styles?
I grew up playing hard rock, and I’ve always been into hard rock. Night Ranger’s “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” is hard rock. When I did play with Ozzy, we just took it to the next level, and after hard rock the next step is heavy metal. So doing the Ozzy stuff was quite a challenge for me, playing the Randy Rhoads stuff. But the thing is, I was able to tour the world for 10, 11 months. It really let me grow as a guitar player and as a traveler. I learned how to live on a bus and play in front of large crowds. So it was a great learning experience for me.
It’s funny because before that I got Night Ranger together and learned how to get a record deal. Before that I was together with Jack Blades in a band called Rubicon. That was a funk rock band! So I went out of high school playing in a club band, learning all kinds of different stuff from rock tunes to disco. I got a few funky chops after that, and that led to Rubicon into Ranger, which led into Night Ranger.
Your ’62 Strat has been used so heavily over the years, whether on Night Ranger records or on the Ozzy tour. Are we hearing that same Strat on the latest Night Ranger record?
I used a few different guitars, but mainly on my solos and stuff I would use that main red Strat. I do have this brand new PRS 513 that is built for me.
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| "It's the biggest touring season we've had since probably the late 80's." |
One of your trademark techniques is your usage of the whammy bar. Can you recall when you first started to experiment with it?
I was a big Jimi Hendrix fan, and he was playing a Stratocaster with a tremolo. Of course, I had a Strat with the tremolo and what they called the Super Slinky guitar strings back then. When you’re a kid, you get those Slinkies and you go crazy, but the guitar always went out of tune. I just couldn’t get a handle on it. Then Van Halen came out in the late 70’s, and he ended up getting one of these original Floyd Rose tremolo systems, which this guy started building in his garage. Once I heard him play with this locking nut tremolo system, I had to have one!
So Floyd was just building these tremolos in his garage then. The first one went to Eddie, the second went to Neal Schon of Journey, and I got the third one. I went in and had this company route it out and put it in, and they had never done it before. They figured it out and put it in that red Strat that I’ve used throughout my career. That’s the guitar that I did all the Night Ranger early demos on, and I took it out on tour with Ozzy.
When I got that tremolo, I started really getting into the bar harmonics. Eddie Van Halen was doing these harmonic dive bombs. I just thought, “How can I be different?” So I just started pulling up on the dive bombs. Instead of diving, I raised it up and did big wiggles. When I banged it one day it made this little twirping sound – this little warble sound, I should say. I incorporated that into a lot of stuff. It’s on the “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” solo. Everyone was like, “How did you get that sound?” They thought I was using a little pedal on it or something. Basically it’s when I bang my guitar to flick the end of the tremolo bar, it would make that sound. I just started getting into all these sounds and going crazy with the tremolo and harmonics.
When you first began playing the guitar, what techniques did you find essential to progressing?
I just remember certain records that would really influence me. One, when I was just starting to play lead, was Dave Mason. He had this record out and did this trill where he would play one note and flip it off the other note. I remember learning that and thinking, “Oh, my gosh! I can do one of these trills!” Then I started trilling all over all these other different notes and stuff, and I was able to incorporate that in my style.
Then I started doing these lick little runs that I started from listening to Hendrix. A friend came over and showed me a bunch of rhythmic ideas from Jimmy Page and “Over The Hills and Far Away.” I learned that and just woodshed in my room all the time, listening to the radio and listening to the records at the time. I learned mainly by ear. I took lessons when I was 8 years old for about 6 months, and I just couldn’t handle that. A friend of my brother’s came out and showed me about 7 chords. I then realized that most every song were those 7 chords!
You’ve mentioned Jimi Hendrix a few times. Was he your main influence?
Oh, yeah. He was my god. Just the way he fluidly played and had no real system in his playing. He just went for it and flowed off of all the chords. He just kept it moving and never played anything twice in the same way. It was great.
Interview by Amy Kelly
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