Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:00

My guest today is the guitar slinger behind some of the most iconic riffs of the 80s and a player whose blazing solos helped define a generation of rock radio. Hey everyone, it's Randy Hulsey with Backstage Pass Radio. From songs like Don't Tell Me You Love Me to Sister Christian and You Can Still Rock in America, his tone is unmistakable, his vibrato is legendary, and his stage presence is pure electricity. Decades into an incredible journey, he's still touring, still shredding, and still proving that rock and roll is very much alive. Plug it in and crank it up, and my friend Dana Steele and I will welcome to Backstage Pass Radio, the one and only Brad Gillis from Night Ranger, and we'll do so right after this.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

This is Backstage Pass Radio. Backstage Pass Radio, a podcast by an artist for the artist. Each week we take you behind the scenes of some of your favorite musicians and the music they created. From chart-topping hits to underground gems, we explore the sounds that move us and the people who make it all happen. Remember to please subscribe, rate, and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. So whether you're a casual listener or a die hard music fan, tune in and discover the magic behind the melodies. Here is your host of Backstage Pass Radio, Randy Holsey.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Brad Gillis, good to see your face. Welcome. It's great for uh that you're here. You know, we we've changed a exchanged a lot of text in the last couple of weeks, but it's good to see you and glad that you're here.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Well, thanks for having me, Randy. And of course, uh having Dana on is uh quite a cheat because we go back since the dawn of time.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Actually, the dawn of No, you're older than me.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

The dawn of rock and roll. Yeah, in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

And uh and a friendly hello to Dana Steele, my friend Dana Steele. Thanks for being here, Dana. It's great to see you as always. It seems like we see more and more of each other all the time. You were out at one of my shows in Kemo a couple of weeks ago, and that was a nice surprise. So it's good to have you here, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Yeah, and you think I came to see you, and I actually was there for the I was actually there for the crawfish. Well, Gulf of Mexico, it's crawfish season, baby.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

We'll go with that. We'll go with that. Well, Dana, I guess my first question is I I wanted to tee this up for you, uh, because I want you to set me straight on where you connect with Brad.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Like, where do you where do you guys the 80s? Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

From what you remember, tell us where you guys connect with.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

I mean it's it has to be KLOL and rock and roll auctions. And I mean, it was the 80s. And if you ran a rock band in the 80s and you came through Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in the United States, with one of the top five AOR stations in the country, you came to KLOL. And you didn't normally

KLOL Auctions And 80s Radio Chaos

SPEAKER_04 3:00

come to the morning show because you couldn't get up that early, and you didn't come to the afternoon drive show because you were doing sound check. Uh, and I was the I was the top interviewer at KLOL. I'm the one they took to the Grammys or whatever to do interviews. So anytime it involved an interview, it was usually middays. They would come to the radio station, and that's where I got to know so many of these people that I have maintained gratefully such incredible friendships with to this day. Um, because we were young, we were in our 20s, it was the 80s, we were rocking. It was the top, one of the top rock stations. It was the top bands. And so, you know, if Night Ranger came through, they were gonna be up at the radio station more often than not with me. And I was there for I want to say 16 years, it's like dog years in rock and roll in radio. Um I I was there forever. So, you know, I would see these guys every year or every couple of years, and and and pace concerts would fly me out to their shows to do interviews, to promote upcoming shows, and and then people like Brad. Brad came in several times for the KLOL rock and roll auction. And we all Oh, it was a yeah, it was such a blast, but we all knew, I mean, every year we did it for a different cause, and we were all unbelievably passionate about whatever cause we chose. It was not corporate radio. We were family-owned, the Joneses, Jones Fountain, Jones Road, Jones Hall. We were, you couldn't pick us up and put us in any other city. We were so Houston-centric. And these rock stars would come in and not only have a ball, getting to know each other and jamming with each other, but we would make sure they were aware of whatever the cause was that year, sure, so that we could really raise a lot of money. And we did. It was unheard of back then. Uh, you know, now Sotheby's auctions off everybody's stuff, but we were the first ones to say, Hey, can we have your underwear?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Right. Well, it seems like if I remember, if I remember correctly, like the In Hunger Network, that was part of the rock and roll auction.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

And yeah, we did it with a different charity every year, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Sure. And Brad, what about what about you? What was your recollection? You know, like that was Dana's perception of what she remembered from the 80s. What did you remember from the 80s about KLOL in Houston?

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Well, it was the 80s, so I don't remember much.

SPEAKER_04 5:36

I guess see.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

But I I gotta tell you, I remember the we you drew a lot of a lot of people to those auctions, uh to the jam sessions at that, and thousands of people every time you did it. And I just remember hanging out with the Bon Jovies and Vince Neals and and all these great players, and you we would set up different jams at the auction uh with different people, and it you know, it was like a box of chocolates. You never know who you're gonna get, what you're gonna begin a jam with. And it was and it was awesome because I I loved the stepping out of the box back then, because you know, I'm playing with Night Ranger, playing the same set every night, just a different city. Uh, it was awesome to be part of that. And uh then, you know, after the auction, the big parties after that we all go out and goof off and do whatever, but it was just a fun time for all. And we did, I don't know, six, seven times, probably every year.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

Yeah, I mean, it was a lot.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Well, I think the auction started, and if if my memory, so I was a senior in high school, I think 84 is when the auction started. I don't know if that sounds right, Dana.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

We were in Sharpstown Center with me, Joan Jad, and a fresh out of rehab, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry standing on the counter at the record store.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Wow, that's where it started.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

That's where it started at a at a record store. I think it was Cactus Records. That's where they were back then.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yep, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

And I remember the party that night was at my apartment because it was the very first one. And and that was my first exposure to Joe Jet. She walked in my apartment, went, We're gonna take a piss. And I was like, not the plant. Like that's funny. Well, but that was where it started on the on the counter.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And I think it went to like 1993, if I'm not mistaken. And Brad, how many years did you say you were involved? Quite a few years, right? Oh, quite a few.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

I just you know, it's hard to recall exactly when, but I know uh throughout the 80s, at least five, if not more.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

But we was one of those people that every time we called, he said yes. Okay, so he would be one of the first people we called to make sure it got on the schedule. And then if if Jack could come with him, Jack Blades, Jack would come. And those were just some of you guys were some of the first people we reached out to because we knew that if you could, you would say yes, and we wanted to get on your schedule.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah, and it was so much fun. Like I said, it was great. And uh uh, you know, because how often do you get to jam with all these other big rock stars unless you're in a situation like that?

SPEAKER_04 8:10

You know, oh, and the stories that happened, Gene Simmons and Jessica, what was her name? That was where they first got together. That was the uh they it went on to be a big scandal, but whatever. You know what's funny?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

You know what's funny, and Brad, I think you might be a mutual friend. Uh, but I'm a I'm good friends with Bethany Heavenstone, the bass player for the Grand Bonnet band, right? And she was telling me about um, she was telling me about the first time she met Gene Simmons, she was talking to him backstage somewhere, and she said, Gene, um, my eyes are up here. It's like Gene being Gene. But yeah, I but I also understand, and we won't go into any gory detail, but there might have been some after parties up fr from the rock and roll auction as well, right? That's just hearsay, though, right? Hearsays.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

But you know what? People got together. You had you had Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades and Ted Nugent. What did you know, what did that eventually become?

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Damn young, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

Yeah, thanks to uh John Kalodner, John Kalodner, and you know, just these different artists that would get together, uh, you know, Earl Slick and Phantom Rocker and Slick, and um yeah, I have a have a a golden retriever who wants attention. Um but yeah, it's just it's been really nice over the years to keep in touch with with Brad and and see just to see the fans still love and appreciate Night Ranger so much.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Well, thank you. You know, I gotta tell you, we've been doing roughly 80, 85 shows a year for the past decade or more. Uh maybe two decades, but you know, we went from uh William Morris to CAA, and once we did that, we upped our game and everything changed and and more shows here. We gotta have that major tour back in 2011 with uh Journey Foreigner Night Ranger all over the world. That was huge. Um, of course, we're doing festivals all the time. We just there's so much going on with this band that you wouldn't think would happen after 40 something years. But we just played in Boudicon in Tokyo and sold it out, and it was absolutely awesome because we hadn't done that since the 80s, and we sold out two of them. But to go back there and do that was astronomically cool. Uh, and we didn't know w how well we do, but what we did to change it up for the Japanese is we went back in and learned all these cuts that we hadn't played for years and added them to a two-hour and 45 minute set at Boudican.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

And it really paid off because we announced that we were gonna go deep, and that was awesome. And you know, where we we got the Monsters of the Rock Cruise coming up, we're going to Europe and doing the big Frontiers Records Festival. We got shows with you know Cece Top, Brett Michaels, uh, anybody and everybody uh this summer. Um the machine keeps rolling, and and I and I thank my lucky stars for that. But you know, the as far as the health thing, you know, uh we changed everything around with the band too, with Jack and Kelly, that and me, the three originals, that we're all eating and uh uh good salads every night and a lot of fish and staying away from you know unhealthy snacks and uh and and dinners and stuff. So everybody's on this uh this health kick and it's paying off because and I'm 68 and I'm the young one out of the three.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

So so um you have uh do you have a nutritionist or a trainer? I know uh Metallica was like touring for a while there with a nutritionist and uh and a trainer and a yogi master. And I mean, we've all had to change.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

No, we just we just know what to do. We know what to eat. I know to work out, swim at every hotel, do light lifting. I can't do heavy lifting. I play guitar, I can't stiff it on my fingers. And uh and walking around every town I go to. So if it's not snowing or rainy outside,

Touring Pace And Staying Healthy

SPEAKER_02 12:10

I'll swim, work out, and do a one or two hour walk around town with my headphones there with my latest, greatest fun music to listen to, and it's paying off. Um, but you know, this band, we've been doing it so long that we got it down, you know, it's it's a machine, and we've got a great crew. I was lucky enough to get Darren Hurst as a guitar tech who totally changed up my game for my sound. And he uh he did uh five years with Peter Frampton and many years with Joe Perry, Aerosmith, and he was available and I grabbed him. And when he got to the camp, he just loved us because he felt like it was a family uh-oriented situation, and he loved that idea because you know the other cans he said weren't you know too corporate or whatever. Um so he came in and rewired my whole rig and got my sound twice as big, and once he did all that, I remember doing sound check, and my sound man came up or went through the microphone and said, Holy shit, what'd you do with your sound? Or what I pointed to Darren, I go, he did it all. So it's good to have people like that involved, and everybody else in crew wise uh been wonderful. And Ed Ripe, our road manager, he's the the he's the jack of all trays, the wearer of minion every hat you can think of. Greatest guy in the world, and he's really bringing it, brings it all together. And the band, Jack Kelly and I, you know, especially will never hear of any issues when we come to the show before we play because he's rectified any issue and sweeps it under the under the under the carpet, right? Which is how it should be, right? How it should be.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Randy, I gotta tell you a great story. The last time Brad was, they played uh at Agua Caliente, one of the casinos in the Palm Springs area. We happened to be out there at our house out there, and and I I you know texted Brad and said, you know, I'm old, I'm not coming to the show, I'll come to Soundcheck. And so I I'm you know, I'm Ed comes and gets me. I'm sitting out, you know, in the dark. Um, everybody who's paid for the VIP, you know, experience is sitting up front watching sound check, and like halfway through a song, Jack goes, Is that Dana? And I'm thinking, I can't see that well anymore. That's a brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

So that was nice. Yeah, I was always happy to have you around.

SPEAKER_04 14:41

We go that was nice. Well, I'm gonna jump off, guys, because I know Brad and I can tell all kinds of stories that no one else cares about, but Randy's got all like the technical questions and the guitar questions. So yeah, I love you both dearly.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Likewise, Dana.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Thanks for jumping in.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

All right, I'll see you out on the road somewhere.

unknown 15:01

Good deal.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Thanks, Dana Steel. All righty. The lovely Dana Steele. How about that, Brad? Guest appearance. There you go. Well, so you know, you guys have been doing a lot. You're you're still relevant, you're still moving around the the world doing your thing, but let's let's take a quick trip in the time machine, real quick, right? Let's go back uh a couple of years to uh the Rubicon days, right? That was a couple of days back, right? Uh late 70s. Yeah. So Rubicon, I guess, was founded. You you correct me on the dates, right? But the bicentennial year, 76, does that sound about right?

Rubicon Beginnings And Learning By Ear

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Roughly around then, yes. And uh just to let you know how that came about, I uh I started playing young. I started, I uh the Beatles came out, I wanted to, I wanted to be Ringo star. Uh my parents got me a drum set, this little cheap drum set. I was banging the hell out of it and back in my room. My parents were like, I gotta stop, stop! And I said, Well, give me a guitar, an electric guitar, and an amp. And they're and they're like, Okay, there's no more drums, but you gotta take lessons. So they got me a K Vanguard 2 guitar and a K amplifier for my eighth birthday. And I remember taking lessons, and basically I I didn't want to learn Mary had a little lamb she music, right? So a friend of my brother's who was, you know, my brother's seven years older, his buddy came over and said, Brad, you're doing pretty good, you know the course. Just start listening to the radio. Really paid off. Wow. I would listen to the radio. Back then, songs were pretty easy, rock songs, and and I would learn any and everything that came on the radio by ear, picking up that root root chord and everything. So that got me moving further along at a young age. At 10 years old, I started my first band called The Invaders, which are kids around me that just learning how to play, but I was pretty good. We kind of did that band for a while. Then I got in bigger, better bands through high school. And when I was a freshman, I joined a band with all seniors at in Alameda, California, in the East Bay by Oakland, San Francisco, and started a band and uh played high school and such. And then after high school, when I graduated, I got in a club band at 18 years old with all guys in their early 20s, and I was even too young to be in a bar, but they would let me in the bar as long as I didn't drink and I stayed in the back. Sure. Well, I ended up going to Berkeley and getting a fake ID for 50 bucks and then changed my world. That's awesome. I was dating a woman in their 20s, and they, you know, they said, You look so young. How old are you? I go, 21. You look so young for your age. Little did they know. Right. Anyway, playing all those songs in clubs, I did that for a year, which was absolutely the best thing that could ever happen to me because I played five sets five nights a week of all the disco funky ninth chord stuff that was coming out, and then bad company songs and Leonard Skinner songs, whatever was in that mid-70 or uh 76, 75 era era. And then I remember that someone said there's some band looking for a guitar player who got a record deal on 20th century Fox Records, and they needed a guitar player. So I knew these guys were coming. And sure enough, there's these guys sitting in the audience, uh uh dressed like rockers with their arms crossed, you know, watching me play. And I thought these must be the guys, right? And I got done with the set, and they came up and said, Hey, you sound pretty good. You want to come to SIR Studio Instrument Rentals in San Francisco to audition for this band Rubicon? I said, Sure. So Jack Blaze from Night Ranger was in that band too. So went to rehearsal, they'd went through like 25 people and still haven't found the right guy. And they had picked Danny Chauncey. No, I grew up in Danny Chauncey in Alameda, California. We had uh in high school, we had rival bands, and uh Danny was a great player, more blues oriented, but real good, real soulful, real tasty. And he had the cassette of all the Rubicon songs. Really? And they said, Well, you got the gig, we got this one more guy coming in, Brad Gillis, and Danny's like, oh great, right? So I went into audition with Jack Blaze on bass, and I remember we hit it off, and we were doing this little dance, and we were like bouncing up and down, dancing in like the circle, doing this this funk jam. And they got done, and Jerry Martini, who was the leader of Rubicon, who was the sax player in Sly in the Family Stone, okay, through all the big hits, he had started Rubicon. He said, All right, let's have a little meeting. So Jack and everybody went to the corner and they're talking, and and I'm sitting on stage going, All right, here's my fate, right? And and Jerry looks up and goes, All right, who's gonna get the cassette back from Danny Chauncey? So I knew I got the gig. There we go. Awesome. I felt bad for Danny. He hated me.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

He gave me the cassette. I I I learned the material. We went right into rehearsals to uh to acclimate mean to get me in to learn all the songs, and we went into American recording right around 76 to record at Richie Podler, his studio, and he had uh done all these big bands uh back uh back in the day. He recorded, he um he produced and we recorded that first record, the Rubicon record, and it came out and we did fairly good chart action with a song called I'm Gonna Take Everything. It was a ballad, it has a few horns in it, and and it was, you know, it really wasn't a rock song, but it did pretty well in the charts. Anyway, the great thing about Rubicon is we went in and recorded the second record, and that did okay, but we played the Cal Jam 2 at the Ontario Motor Speedway, March 18th, 1978, the biggest day of my life. 250,000 people when we played, and 100,000 people already left. They were gonna have us open the show, but it was too big of a slot to put us on, so they put us after Aerosmith. So it was Aerosmith, Day Basin Heart, Santana, all these huge bands. Um back then. We were the only unknown, but it was still the biggest day of my life. So that was Rubicon. And then we weren't doing too well, we weren't getting much action or interactive with Rubicon. So we split off. Jack Kelly and me stayed uh Kelly had joined Rubicon, Kelly Keggy joined the Rubicon at the very end, and we branched off and started Ranger.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Okay, before you before you go to Ranger, I wanted to ask you about the music of Rubicon. This was a fusion band, was it not? This was not like just your your typical rock band. That you you guys blended some different genres in that that sound. We were not like we were a funk rock. Rock band.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Okay. We were kind of a rock band with three horns, and we'd go from funky ninth chord to heavy stuff with the horns. It was very cool. Interesting. But a little, I think it was a little beyond its time back then. And since we were jumping into two different genres of funk and rock, it didn't, it didn't work. A lot of it probably had to do with publicity back then and getting the word out. Whatever, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

No, we're morphed into Ranger.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

No, we didn't we didn't tour that much. We didn't tour that much. But the reason we got on the Cal Jam 2 big huge concert is because every label got to put their biggest act, rock act, on the bill. Okay. So every label, that's how they did it then for that show. And we were the big act that would fit that bill, uh, because we were from 20th century Fox Records. Okay. So we they threw us on the bill. But if you see the double live album and stuff, they bill us with every all the big boys, you know. And it's crazy because we were we were nobody, you know, we just had a one semi-hit on the radio. But uh getting back to uh morphing into Ranger, you know, we had gone in and cut our original demos, which were master demos, uh recorded in a big studio with Pat Glasser. He put us into this big studio in in down in LA to record these master demos, we called them. And we had written uh Don't Tell Me You Love Me and a bunch of all the other songs that that were on the first record, along with Sister Christian. Okay. So since we just to let you know the timeline, since we didn't gig that much, nobody really knew who we were, Ranger. Uh we played a couple shows around the Bay Area, we did a battle of the bands and won, but to be nationwide, we were nobody and had no record out. So as Ranger was shopping a record deal um in 81, 82-ish, uh, I started a band called the Alameda All-Stars, which were a bunch of buddies uh from uh great musicians back at that time around 1980-81 when Night Ranger was shopping the deal. So I remember in 1981 going to the day in the green big huge concert uh at Oakland outdoor, the the stadium there, and I saw uh Ozzy play with Randy, and that's when you know those records came out, all the big records, and I saw I was blown away. So we had learned uh Crazy Train and Flying High again and put those two songs in the Alameda All-Star set. I'm kind of getting into a couple things uh with a timeline. Randy, you'll probably ask me, but I just sure I'll I'm answering a few questions with one long uh uh uh interview here. But uh um so I remember driving up to the uh Lucky Line nightclub in the Oakland Hills for an all-star gig, and and this would have been March 19th, 1982. And I heard that Randy had died in that plane crash. And I had all my equipment in the back of my truck, a Dawson uh pickup truck, and I pulled over and I went, are you kidding me? I love this guy, he was great. And my father was a pilot, he he

The Call From Sharon And Ozzy

SPEAKER_02 25:40

flew big, big uh uh uh commercial jets, but he had a private pilot's license that my dad and I used to fly around the Bay Area in the Cessna of the same uh you know, uh plane that Randy died in, and so it kind of hit home and it was pretty freaking heavy. And I was pulled over and went, man, what a loss. So I remember going back up to the Lucky Lion to do our show that night, and we did this tribute to Randy, and we were playing the the Aussie songs and stuff, and and uh there was a guy there watching me play, and his name was Preston Thrall. He was a drummer, and his brother was Pat Thrall, great guitar player from Alameda too. Pat Thrall was that played with the Pat Travers band, did all the boom boom out goes the lights and all those great songs, the live record with Pat Thrall, with Pat Travers. And at that time, Tommy Aldridge was the drummer. So long story even longer. Preston, he said, Preston said, I might be able to get you an audition. I'm like, Yeah, sure, right? So Preston told Pat, Pat told Tommy, Tommy told Sharon, and I didn't know it went that far, and and and and there's no way I thought I would even get that gig because I was basically a nobody. And that was you gotta realize that replacing Randy Rose at that time in 1982, that was the biggest gig any guitar player could ever imagine. 100%. The absolutely biggest gig. And uh, I remember uh like a week later, a week w went by, and and and I remember saying up real late and and with this this girl I had met, and uh and I remember my phone ringing then like at uh at eight in the morning and woke me up, and there's this lady on the phone going, Hello, hello Bradley, this is Sharon Arden. We like to fly you to New York for an audition with Ozzy Osbourne, and I'm like, come on, I'm sleeping. Who is this? Quit screwing with me, right? She's going, no, no, this this is Sharon. Uh let me put Ozzy on the phone. And I remember going, Yeah, put fucking Ozzy on the phone, right? Yeah, put him on the phone. And they were in New York, supposedly in New York at the time. Uh sure enough, this male voice comes on, Bradley, this is Ozzy. And I'm thinking, who's ever screwing me with me is doing a really good job, right? All right. But my father being a pilot, when he would call home from New York and me being in California, there was a slight delay on the phone. A slight delay. And talking to Ozzy, I heard that delay, and I wish I could have seen my face. I think I turned pure white and was I was frozen. And I looked at this girl and I said, It's Ozzy. So Ozzy goes, get a pen and paper, write down these songs I want you to learn. I said, Okay, and I wish I had that paper because I'm sure shaking right now. And I wrote down 18, 19 songs, and he said, uh, how many do you know? And I said, I know three or four. And he said, You'll learn them, won't you? And I said, Yes, I will. And I felt confident about it because I had learned by ear and all the songs I was learning for uh the Alameda All-Stars. I learned everything by ear and solos by ear, and I used to sit in my brother's younger age and play all this greatest records and learn solos and stuff by ear. So I kind of had that down, right? Yeah. So I remember calling my friends on that Sunday morning and having them bring me over any record I didn't have with Black Sabbath to learn these songs on a record player. So I sat around for only one day. Uh I don't think I got too much of it on that Sunday afternoon, but all day Monday learned it, and I flew out on Tuesday to New York. And I only knew, I only got to five or six that I was comfortable with. So basically I landed. Um I remember I I didn't have any credit cards. They sent me the one-way ticket. I had $150 cash to my name. When I flew to New York, I landed. This limo driver guy picked me up, took me to the Helmsley Palace, and they had played Madison Square Gardens that night with Bernie Torme, who just sat in with the band interim until they found a guitar player, which was gonna be me. Uh, because when I got to the hotel and they got back from their gig, um I got a call to come up and meet Ozzy. Um, and Larry McNey, the road manager, called me and said, Come on up. So I went up and I hear all this music and everything go on behind these two big presidential suites, two big doors, and I'm going, I'm banging on the door, and Larry answers the door and he goes, Oh, you're Brad, right? I go, Yeah, and he goes, he goes, uh, you made it okay, y'all good? So when I checked on the hotel, they didn't have a reservation with my name. I had $150 the room back then, $135. I had $15 to my name. And I said, I told Larry that story. And he wolfs over his wallet and he gives me five $100 bills, slaps them in my palm. She goes, he goes, Will this work? Yeah, well, thank you. Oh, wow. He goes, come meet Ozzie, right? So I go over and there's a bunch of people uh hanging out in this party in Ozzie's room. And I said to Larry, I go, how many, a lot of guys really young like me, long hair, they look like you know, possibly guitar players might be auditioning. I said, Larry, how many, how many of these guys are auditioning? He goes, Brad, it's it's just you. Well, who are these guys? He goes, Oh, they're reporters and and this and that, and and you know, whatever. And oh, okay. So I he introduced me to Sharon. Oh, hi Bradley, glad you made it. Come meet Ozzy. And so funny, and Ozzy's on sitting on the couch and he's kind of out of it, you know. Ozzy, this is Bradley, the the the the chap that we flew out from California. And Ozzy looks up at me and he goes, Go get your guitar.

unknown 32:12

No way.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

And I and I said, Oh, oh, oh, I uh okay, I don't have an amplifier. I don't have an amplifier. He goes, go get your guitar. Okay. So I didn't even take the elevator. I I ran down the stairs. I think it was like five floors down, whatever. Grab my my red strat that I've had all my life. Uh oh, in fact, uh oh here it is. I I thought I'd show you. Here we go. Yeah. Same guitar, right? 62 Stratocaster, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Grabbed it and uh and are you are you are you are you like shitting yourself at this like what's going through your brain? Like you you you finally come full circle, you're in front of Ozzy, and he tells a young kid to go get his guitar. Like, are you shitting yourself at this point in time?

SPEAKER_02 33:00

I'm freaked out, I'm excited, but then but then I'm I'm I'm happy, you know, that you know I'm I'm good on audition. I felt good about what I was gonna play for him because basically he grabbed me and says, Come on upstairs, you know. So we walked up these stairs and him to Aussie and me to go to the master suite. And this this it was the presidential suite. It had this big, huge view of New York City and all about 50 people in there. And and uh I just remember walking upstairs and I looked back, and the all 50 people were staring at me. No way, like, oh, this is the big audition. I tell you, this the whole Aussie thing was so much pressure. It's I couldn't imagine I talk about it and I laugh about it now, but uh I had to be strong to go through what I went through, and I ponied up for the for everything. So we walk up to the room, he closes the door, I sit at the end of the bed, my guitarists sit down, and he kneels in front of me, cross-legged in front of me on the ground, he goes, What would you like to play? you know. And I said, Well, let's do flying eye again. Um, because it not only had the great solo that Randy did, but it had this major tapping thing that went through all these different keys that I had it down because I'd been playing with the all-stars for many times. So I remember I oh no, oh no, here we go now. You know, him looking up and singing to me. Right? This is so crazy, right? So I got to the solo and I played the solo, and he's literally this this far from me watching me play it. And he gets up and he's right after the solo, he stands up, and I stand up, guitar in between us, gives me a big hug, and he goes, Bradley, pull me through. I love you. He goes, I love you, Bradley, pull me through. And I'm like, Ozzy, I'm I'm here for you. I'll do whatever I can. And uh I remember him he opening that, he opens the door and uh yells down to the audience, and he goes, I I found it. I we got a fucking new guitar player. And I remember everybody like clapping and everything, and I walked downstairs and all these interviewers and people and radio stations and magazines, Brad, uh, who are you? And I'm like, I'm nobody, you know. Uh uh, well, I was with Rubicon and played Cal Jam2, and and uh and so basically I Sharon goes, Great, you're gonna come along with us on the road, tell me what you need on the road. Uh so the next day we traveled to, I'm not sure where we traveled not too far on the bus. We got in and they had somebody go out and buy me a boombox, a little with the cassette in a boombox, and a little amplifier. And they gave me two cassettes from a few months an earlier '82 off board tapes that Randy had been on. They gave me two of these cassettes. So it had the exact um uh, you know, all the songs in exact order of what we'd be playing live. Yeah. So I would sit in my room all day and listen to the cassettes, and I was able to stop and think about it and rewind and go back to learn the songs. And then that at night I would stand at the soundboard and watch Bernie play with the band with all the lights and the fire and the crowd going nuts, and and you know, just thinking, oh my god, I'm I'm gonna be up here soon. And I'll never forget the sound man mixing, he'd look at me, go, ha, ha, ha, good luck, buddy. You know, like, all right, like no no no pressure there, right? And you know, and so I did that for four days, sitting in my room, watching the show live, hopping on the bus, going to the next city, practicing in my room all day. Did that for four days, and I felt after the fourth day that I was ready to start with the band. And uh um, so I told Sharon and we went and did sound check. I've never played with the band. We did soundcheck, Ozzy wasn't even there. We played seven out of the 18 songs, and that was my first night. Binghamton, New York, uh, April 19th, whatever it was, 1982, uh sold out, and that was my first show. I didn't know what to wear. They gave me this uh for white Ferrari uh jumpsuit, and it was white, and then they said, Oh, we found a black one. So I wore this black Ferrari jumpsuit for my first show. And I'll never do you still have that? No, I don't remember what had I didn't actually own that. Okay. Then after that, I started wearing other things. It was so long fun. But um, but I remember I screwed up on uh Revelation Mother Earth, uh, which is a ballad that kicks into the fast section halfway through, and I I went into it a verse and a chorus too early. Uh and I remember Ozzy looking over me with this this this look of death, right? Basically, and uh uh and I stopped playing and they were still playing the slow park on an ice kudo, so I went back into it and I ended up finishing out the set, and and I'll never forget because uh because uh the next night Sharon comes up and says, Bradley, you're doing a great job, but tonight don't fuck up, you know. So little little by little

First Shows And Surviving The Pressure

SPEAKER_02 38:40

I got it all together. Then it went go went to us doing Irvine Meadows, the live uh uh uh uh uh video that we did that was huge, and then uh a month or two later we went into the uh to the Ritz and recorded the live Speak of the Devil record, did two nights there, which they released, and uh uh and then towards the end, um things weren't going well. Uh it was just Randy's death and Ozzy just kind of out of it. Uh Rudy decided to leave. He went back with Quiet Riot, and at the end of the year, I decided to quit and go back with Ranger.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

When did it when did it finally sink in for you? Like how many shows into this did it did it take to sink in that where you were and who you're playing with, right? Was it instantaneous or did it take a while? Like 10 shows in, you're like, I'm playing with Ozzy Osborne. Did it take a while for it to set in or not really?

SPEAKER_02 39:38

No, no, that didn't uh sink in. What took a while to sink in was to get comfortable with the set and really get into the groove of playing well every night uh and playing it right, uh, and trying to do the my best to emulate Randy's solos that were classic that you can't really change up. But I started getting into the whammy bar back then, and I wanted to kind of throw my style into that, into the show, so I would do little whammy bar things and you know that that basically that that all came about with the whammy bar, me incorporate incorporating that into my style was with all these great players out there, I just wanted to be different, you know. Yeah, Edd came out and started doing the harmonic dye bombs and stuff like that, and doing that. So I, you know, I started hitting harmonics and bringing it up at harmonics and wiggling the bar, and and and I was banging on the guitar and looking in the mirror to throwing some shapes when I was just night around 1980 when I got that tremendous third Floyd Rose ever built, and uh I don't know, banging on the guitar and it went and I was like, what is that? And I narrowed it down to the end of the whammy bar if you you flick it, it made that that sound, right? Yeah, and no one had done that before. So at the very end of my solo and don't tell me lovey, you'll hear and harmonic. So I just wanted to be different, man. I I I had to cut my own uh style uh uh into my playing, and that's kind of what I'm known for now. And uh I kind of throw it in here and there and everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Of course. What kind of person was Ozzy to work for in the short time that you were with him?

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Well, he was he was great to work for, he very professional when he got on stage. Uh, what really blew me away right before he'd go on stage, he was shaking. He was nervous. Really? More nervous than me. No kidding, you know, and that kind of blew me away. But he'd always go out and he'd always pull it off, sing great, and put 110% into it. And he'd always do this thing where he'd have an Aussie shirt on and he'd shake and he'd rip the shirt off and throw it on the ground, and he'd go shirtless for the show. Did it every night. Yep. Now uh around uh June or July, whenever it was in 1982, we went down to play Dump South in Louisiana and and Texas and these two big shows. And I recalled uh we had a couple days off in Dallas, I'm pretty sure. And and then and and for those days off, uh we all did our thing. And Sharon calls everybody's room, of course, before cell phones, and have you Bradley, have you seen Ozzy? And I go, Oh no, and so he was missing for a couple days. When he showed up morning of the show, he had shaved his head bald. Oh wow, that was that time. I remember Sharon like screaming, Oh my god, what'd you do?

SPEAKER_00 42:53

We gotta get you a wig, we gotta get you a wig, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:57

So they had somebody go out and buy him this long blonde wig that came down to here. And and I guess Rudy Sarzo used to cut hair, and he ended up cutting the the wig to be Ozzy's length as it was before he shaved it, and it looked real, it looked pretty damn good. Yeah, wow. And when Ozzy put it on, he's like, I can't wear this fucking thing. Oh and then uh came up with the idea of so Ozzie, you rip off your shirt during the stage. What if you we put fake blood under your scalp and you rip off this wig super slow so the audience think you ripped your scalp off? Oh my god, yeah, oh my god, I can't let us do it. So I even have pictures of which I might release soon.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Um, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yeah, well, you know, we'll we'll get to that someday. Who knows? But uh he couldn't wait. get out and do that and I'll I I I'll never forget man he goes out and he's got the wig on with fake red blood under his scalp. He couldn't see it. Of course he's starting to sweat and he rips his shirt off and he throws it to the ground and and and the odd there's 80,000 people at the show. And uh I remember he uh he starts ripping off his scalp real slow because if he just ripped it off people would know and he's shaking and ripping it and then the blood sweaty blood starts coming down his face and he ripped the thing and threw it to the ground and there's 80,000 people with their jaws wide open. They couldn't believe what they just saw. And everybody just we got away with that for two shows I think it was Dallas and and somewhere in Louisiana and the word got out you know and uh but that was probably one of the craziest uh gigs uh we we'd ever done wow so that's 82 so you you leave let's see you leave ranger you join Aussie right and then when you leave Aussie you come back and that's when Night Ranger forms is that correct is that kind of the order well the deal what happened was we had gotten a record deal okay uh and one of the stipulations with the record deal was if I come back to the band because of my popularity with Aussie right it so happened it worked out well because Rudy had just quit and things were you know there's uh you know everybody was you know the whole passing of Randy was heavy can you imagine just playing with this guy for so long and then all of a sudden he dies in a plane crash and you got to grab somebody else I mean it was that's crazy it was tough and it was tough for me and and the fans so it was tough for the fans to even accept me but after a month or so I started getting recognition and got a little got getting a little love but uh so I quit the band and Ozzy just took a break at that point. Uh we'd finished the night the Ranger record okay and we were gonna release our first record uh Dawn Patrol um we found out through Billboard magazine I was looking through it and a two-page ad was this country band uh that had been around for 10 years called the Rangers and we were called Ranger and we thought oh man it's too close we don't want to get sued whatever so we we'd written this song called Night Ranger on the first record so we just put a night in front of it and I remember the record company printed

Night Ranger Name Change And MTV Break

SPEAKER_02 46:55

like 10,000 album jackets that said Ranger on it. And they just had to throw them all away and redo it with Night Ranger. And sure enough we released it MTV just came out we did the video for Don't Tell Me Love Me and and uh MTV having a 247 uh video format that was on all the all the time they played and not enough uh uh videos to play it they probably played don't tell me love you 25 times a day of course no job yeah right which was no problem and we were lucky enough to start go out and tour with KISS we went out on with KISS and they they were greatest guys in the world man Gene was great and and uh and and uh Paul Paul Stanley every everybody was great to us and just treated us like the new kids and you know and uh just make sure we had everything we needed and and it was that was awesome awesome tour then from there we just went on to all these other big tours with big bands and and uh then we want they they wanted us to go right in and cut another record because we were doing so well so we uh ended up uh uh cutting the second record now the record company at the time decided not to put Sister Christian on their first album which was the best move ever because they thought we would have longevity and and not get you know uh the the sophomore records uh get crushed and and uh then the our career's over you know yep and then Jack and I had wrote uh uh you still rockin' america yep so sure enough we released still rockin' america I did the video all over MTV boom kicking butt and then we released Sister Christian and that was blew up huh all over the all over well the uh the the Dawn Patrol you I mean that was uh your your your debut effort right and it was a million million plus sellers platinum yeah platinum double platinum or whatever yeah yep and then Dawn Patrol that sold even more um but the thing was holding off and releasing Sister Christian as the second single from Midnight Madness was huge and it came to the point where management and record company they're like um it's time for you guys to headline which was a great feeling because we went in and designed this great set and uh um had all these couple buses and trucks carrying our equipment and and I remember pulling into lacrosse Wisconsin was our first headline show that probably had to be early 84 ish and on the marquee it said tonight Night Ranger sold out like four or five thousand people and we were blown away that we're headlining and and and selling out a huge venue like that and that's when things started getting bigger and bigger and we you know we got up to selling 10 to 15 thousand seaters you know uh up to the mid 80s and then trouble started well this was this was this was the midnight madness tour right Brad yes yes okay then trouble starts what what's going on at this time then trouble starts because the record company from the success of Sister Christian kept releasing ballots after ballot after ballot yeah and it killed us I gotta tell you man it's like we were no longer a rock band we were a ballot band okay and it killed us even with everybody doing them at that time I mean everybody was doing them everybody had a ballot out at that time right yeah but we were ballot ballot after ballot okay and you know and it killed us so on the third record I think it was we third or fourth record we we gave a record with all rock songs no ballots they said well where's your ballot?

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Well we don't want to give you one like we want to be a rock band no no you need a ballot anyway so they we did a this ballot actually somebody else co-wrote it and we released it and it just killed the band and by then uh we saw all the the dudes leaving uh in the audience and it was all women which is cool but yeah it was it wasn't right you know we weren't we weren't a rock band anymore so that's when we ended up quitting and just taking a break we were doing like 250 shows a year yeah I bet uh and and that's that's stupid that's huge stupid huge we were we were traveling for a living was this right around seven was this right around seven wishes Brad does that does that sound right like 80 85 time frame is when it kind of no no it was like it was 80 eight 89.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Okay so later later okay because every record we released after the fourth and fifth record was ballot after ballot and it just killed us so we took a break in 89 and uh basically um something's going on with my never mind um uh basically uh Jack went on the dude the damn Yankees I ended up doing a solo record and I had uh Derek got Derek worked with Derek Schrinian one of the best keyboard players in the world known as one of the best still and I had met Greg Allman and and so I did this record with all instrumentals and uh two songs with Greg Allman and one song was called Honest to God and we had a top 10 hit 18 on Billboard with this song with Greg Allman huge and um you know did some local shows around with Greg and stuff and and Greg was awesome just the greatest guy in the world and and uh uh you know we got to be good friends and uh in fact my band the Alameda All Stars ended up becoming I was out with Night Ranger uh doing my gigs and the Alameda All-Stars the band I started out with ended up being Greg Allman's band backup band uh when he would was Greg Allman and Friends that was the Alameda All Stars together so that's the tie there. Anyway so uh ended up putting out this record with Gary Moon on vocals great singer and awesome called uh Peding off the mojo and uh while Jack was doing the Yankees thing and that did okay not great uh we toured a bit and then uh ended up uh that broke up Yankees broke up we got back night ranger together around 95 ish and had to slowly kind of bring it bring it back up uh and little by little um we had more gigs per year doing better and better than we uh we got with the William Morris booking agency then we are we upped our game more and then CAA saw us and wanted us to are the top uh booking agency and we signed with them and then now you know we've been with them 10-15 years now and we've been doing like I said 80 to 90 shows a year and all over the all over the world.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Well well I take you back to 1985. I remember I was going to school uh college in Lafayette Louisiana and I remember my buddy saying hey man there let's go to a concert I said all right where where what are we doing where are we going he's like we're going to the Lake Charles Civic Center in Lake Charles Louisiana 1985 for the uh Seven Wishes tour where Tony Carey and Planet P opened up for you guys there and Tony's been on my show twice and has become a dear friend and I thought that was really cool you know that that's the first time I ever saw you guys was with uh with Planet P back in 80 I think it was around 85 yeah sound right sounds about right yeah you know I uh it was so funny I figured out with a few friends of mine uh and the band guys uh just looking back at everything we've done over 4,000 shows in our career you know wow uh which is pretty crazy. Well the interesting thing too uh Brad is that after all these years you guys still have the core members but you you have a a a couple of they're not new members but they're of course newer than the core talk to the listeners just real quick about who those two other players are in the band.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Of course I know who they are but for the listeners of Backstage Pass radio right I think it was about 15 years

Ballads Backlash And The 90s Rebuild

SPEAKER_02 55:40

ago uh we uh Jack had found this keyboard player that played at his church that he was just thought was amazing and uh his name is Eric Levy and he came and auditioned for the band and fit right in and he's a jazz player a monster smoking jazz player but he plays perfectly for Night Ranger never misses a note and he just knows what to play and how to do it and get the right sounds so he's been a core member of the band for 15 years ish. And then about 12 years ago something like that uh we had Joel Hoekstra before that uh for a couple years and Joel was great loved the guys two best buddies with him on my show going on with Whitesnake so we got Carrie Kelly in the band and Carrie had spent quite a few years with Alice Cooper and Slash and Carrie is a monster guitar player played he's just a shredder and he coffed all the Jeff Watson stuff to the T uh but he didn't do the eight finger thing and uh but Joel had done it well before that.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

So I I remember going up to Carrie and I go man because he played everything so perfectly I said man how cool would it be if you were to if you were to actually learn and play the eight finger technique and uh on still Rockin America on the solo and he laughed at me goes yeah right okay whatever you know we had a two week break got back together together two weeks later we're doing soundcheck and Carrie with a big smile on his face comes up to me goes come on let's do Rockin America and it was just funny because he was so excited to play it and I I didn't get it right yeah so we're playing it it gets us a solo and I do mine and Carrie turns around and looks at me and I'm like what finish the song I go dude he goes yeah it took me uh these couple weeks to learn it but I got it down so now he's real good at it that's awesome and uh so we're playing everything as it should be played and having you know Jack sing the Jack songs and Kelly sing the Kelly songs and me you know the whole three-part harmony with Night Ranger had always been Jack Kelly and me you know I always did the high harmonies or the super low one and Jack and Kelly would split off as a root or the fifth over it or the third major or minor third over it depending on who's singing lead and I'd always be on top or on the bottom uh so we got the right vocals happening we got the doing the right music and uh and you know everybody around this health kick right

New Bandmates And Keeping The Sound

SPEAKER_01 58:30

now and everybody's uh uh lean and mean and uh so the our energy is up you know 100 110 every night yeah how would you compare the two players though Brad like uh you know from the Watson days to Fast Forward to Carrie Kelly like how how do they differ in style uh just in general can you speak to that uh well Jeff was a monster player and he really delved into the eight-finger thing very well so carry also is a great play player and once he learned the eight-finger thing he shot right up there so I they're both great players in their own mind and I always hated the phrase when somebody goes well this guitar player is better than that guy you know or different or Jimi Hendrix is better than Jeff Beck or you know Jimmy Page is better than Jimmy Hendrix you know whatever because you don't say that they're different yeah of course they're not any better they're different you know and they've created their own style so you have to recognize them for what they are talk to me real quick about um guitars as as you can see behind me uh I I'm a player I I play professionally here in Cyprus Texas at one time about 130 shows a year as a part-time musician as a part-time musician but uh I I love guitars I I'm not near the guitarist that that you are but it's my understanding that that you have a one or two guitars floating around in your house somewhere right there there might be a collection somewhere well you know I gotta tell you uh I should have started collecting back in the 80s I sure wish I would have because that would have the I can imagine the guitars I would have had uh we did a long tour with uh with cheap trick and um one night we had a night off we went and had uh at dinner at Rick Nielsen's house and uh um and at the end of dinner and he's like you know he he was excited to show uh me and Jeff and me and Jack to his guitar collection so we went down to his basement and and I'm just blown away with you know the most killer colored Stratocasters from the 50s you know early gold tops uh of course you know the big boys the 59 uh Les Paul Standards he had all these guitars and I'm just blown away going wow and I think at that time he probably had a couple hundred of them I should have got into collecting then but I didn't but right around 2000 I had a good buddy of mine who just passed away uh named Robbie Zelezzi Robbie Z he went by and uh and I remember looking for a certain guitar I wanted to get and he was I had an ad in the paper back then in 2000 and I called him up he lived in the San Jose area and he goes yeah hey Brad oh Brad Gillis Knight Ranger he goes hey come on over man I'll show you my collection I I got that guitar you're looking for long story short

Vintage Guitar Collecting And The Red Strat

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

I went down and I went to his house and his collection was over the top over the top he had a uh he had a big display case that had a 54 55 56 57 58 59 Stratocaster first year 54 to a 59 or 60 all in a row all mint a bunch of great let's falls and everything in this big huge case I'm like oh my gosh and uh he goes yeah man I got I got a band that I I I I play blues and I want to get in and cut a record and I said well I have a friend that I'm working with in Hayward California that has a big studio he goes why don't I get you in the studio and I'll I'll produce your record and play on it you turn me on to a couple of these guitars he goes no problem he said what do you want so I ended up getting a 1953 Gibson ES 175 beautiful mint guitar sounds I get out of that are unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

And a 1956 Les Paul Jr Mint to help him produce and play in this record. Well that got the old fever going well once I got those and hanging out with Robbie I had to get a board yeah next thing you know I did a second record got a couple other guitars next thing you know I'm going to record music stores I'm buying guitars I'm going online next thing you know Craigslist comes out uh I'm buying guitars on there I'm on the road I go to on my days off or before sound check I go to the local music stores I'm buying guitars there having them shipped at home next thing you know I got 150 vintage guitars I'm on the cover of Vintage Guitar magazine uh bunch other magazines showing off my collection guitar world guitar player showing off my collection and uh I had the fever right well that's subsided by then and uh I still look for guitars for you know anything uh uh anything vintage I'm still looking but I ended up selling a bunch of them a bunch of the 70s guitars I started collecting because I sold those to get my 50s and 60s uh you know uh fenders givesons Martins I got a bunch of old uh serious old Martins too sure um now I'm about down to 90 and uh but I play these guitars man a lot of people collect them I play them I set them up intonate them do everything I can one of the the most fun things to do is to take it apart polish it clean it up new strings intonate it set it up play it play it through my amps maybe do a recording play it on the recording or something I'm doing with Night Ranger at home if we're all recording from home throw it on something but yeah yeah man that's one of my passions well you uh I saw a video maybe I don't remember what year it was but you and Hoekstra were playing at NAM and both you guys were playing the uh I think it was the Coa Wood uh T5Z right uh the Taylor speak to that guitar like what what's your thoughts on the T5Z as a as a hybrid guitar? Well we were working with Taylor and we were playing Taylor Acoustic Lives and they came out with those T5s and they actually gave me one and I used to actually play one live on uh uh during the Night Raser shows um and uh I think they're awesome and you know Taylor guitars play great right out of the box you know when you build a guitar a great guitar that's fine it's the finish work that the guitar companies have to do to make it right and they do a good job at that and they asked us to come down and play the Taylor Nam uh their little uh they had an actual room and we did it a couple times we did it uh with Joel and I playing uh together we did uh you know a couple things with the band and him and I together and then we came back one year and we were playing all of um uh Taylor electric guitars too yeah um but they didn't seem to set up their Floyd Roses the way I liked so I got through the gig it really wasn't for me I went back to my 62 Strat you know when I was trying to remember the guy's name now but you know Taylor did the road shows where they'd go to the local music stores and they would sell the Taylors or whatever and they always had a I guess a touring musician that was the player like he was making them all sound good like like great players do right and he and he was um I'll think of his name in a minute but it's irrelevant to the story I guess but he was playing with the Manhattan transfer uh at the time and he said you know I

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Used to carry 10, 12, 13 guitars on the road. And he said, Man, when I got my hands on that T5Z, that was the only guitar I carried with me on tour, right? I could get every sound out of that that I wanted. Wow. And I was gonna ask you, kind of in I I guess as a segue, do you think you could pull off a Night Ranger show with a guitar like a hybrid guitar? Does that make sense? It may not make sense for Night Ranger, right? Or could you do that? Like a like a like a T5, you're saying? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:33

No, only on acoustic stuff. No, I uh not on not on uh I'm not gonna lay that up. Don't tell me, let me sure. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I I I play my red strat, and that's what I play. And I have uh back in uh 1985, we went to Japan and Fernandes ended up making a hundred uh copies of my red strat, Brad Gillis models, and so I have a few of those on the road that are original Floyd Roses and built-in wireless, sure wireless systems that I play those on the road. So I take my this guy that's been forever. Yeah, wow. And uh, you know, it's it's my is it's my original one, and it's it's all sanded down, and you can see the old the old uh anyway, that's that's the old wireless antenna, which was the 80 system that's going through the bottom here. Okay, uh dug in there, but now I use the shure's and and those are only uh really short antennas. And this is where my shure wireless is built in, and you just change the battery on that, and you there's a switch to turn turn it off and on. Um third Floyd Rose, ever made by Floyd in his garage. Uh Eddie got the first one, Neil Shang got the second one, I got the third one, and the fourth one, which I put on my black 1971 Lust Ball Custom. Um and I've been he he only made 25-ish in his garage. I have about a dozen of them. And I'm still looking for them if anybody's got them.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

And those things really don't go out of tune, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

They're case hardened steel. No, they're you know, uh the later ones were made with, I guess, pot metal, but they flux. These I've had this thing since 1979 when I bought it, and it's still running, it's still great.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:17

You know, the only thing you have to do, technical talk, is you know, uh every couple years you have to, you know, either uh uh you have to file down inside this this bridge plate here and get that knife edge back into it so it goes up and down, it's smooth. When it flattens out, it's gonna be flat, sharp, flat, sharp. That makes sense. Um also now um I signed with a new company that I'm uh I'm working with. They they wanted to hire me. Have you heard of Stumac?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:47

Uh I I have. I think they were, I think they are say they were. They are like the maker of uh parts and and things for stringed instruments, right? Something along the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:57

They make luthier tools for people that build guitars. Okay. I've heard of it. And the stuff they build is super high quality. Everything from everything. If you look up STUMAC, S-T-E-W, M-A-C, is a chauffeur Stuart McDonald, you'll see they make great parts. Anyway, they contacted me, they hired me to uh to because they

Floyd Rose Details And StewMac Innovations

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

want to branch out instead of doing guitar kits and and acoustic kits that you can build that they sell now, they want to have finished products, finished guitars, finished acoustics, and and and go for the more of the mainstream guitar players like you that uh just play and maybe switch pickups and do stuff like that. So they're branching out, they hired me to be their spokesman, whatever. And they've hired me out. Um I am their chief innovation officer now, which I'll be announcing soon. Um as I just signed with them just not too long ago. But I've uh I've designed a couple new products that no one's uh ever things that people have never heard of or used before. And these products will be coming out soon through them. And I wish I could mention them, uh, but I can't. Um but I'm getting them patented and I make sure they're all uh legally uh in my name. So when they do uh manufacture and sell these that uh I'm covered for everything, but so I'm into my whole creative mode knowing that anything I invent. I have a huge company in Athens, Ohio, that has a 50,000 square foot four-story building that encompasses uh everything from C and C machines to woodworking machines to uh products to build uh effects and everything, uh video rooms and uh uh video uh photo booths. Anything I do and manufactur and and and and have for them, they could manufacture and sell them. And so that's totally exciting for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

That is super cool. And what what percentage of your time would you say goes into the Stu Mac project, or do you not really know how much time you're gonna be spending on that yet?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

I had I had a month off uh right after the uh holidays, and uh we were at not very little weekend gigs in the last couple months. Right, it usually happens right around the holidays. So I've been at my house here building and and designing all these products I'm talking about. And I swear I'd be I'd stay up for 16 hours working on some of these things, and I'd have to put myself to bed because it's so exciting, yeah, knowing that I've got something that the huge company's gonna release. So, what I can tell you about are these pickups, these red, this red humbucking pickup that I designed uh the artwork for, and they they wound for me. I told them I wanted a PAF style uh pickup that has that old PAF sound that that the 50s uh uh Gibsons have, you know. And I told them I wanted that crunchy sound, but with sustain. Now I don't know anything about wiring a pickup, but they do. Sure. So I brought my Bubba down to them. I took to to their uh Stu Mac in Athens, Ohio, and uh they went through and they took measurements of my guitar of everything and they they because we're gonna start manufacturing uh guitars, we're we're getting into that. But they ended up making these pickups and I've been they're on my guitars, I've been playing them live. I can talk about it because uh they're starting to manufacture them now and we're gonna hopefully have them out here in the next month or so for people to buy. But I gotta tell you, man, I mean, I had Seymour Duncan JBs on there before. I had the original PJ Marks pickups that he used to make in the 80s that I used for a while, which are great, more super high output pickups. But these new pickups, man, they got a thing, man. I've been playing them live, and this is this my my guitar singing and sustain and good harmonics, and the crunch is really shooting out there, and uh and uh it's it's they're working for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:06

How do they how do they do that, Brad? Do they like uh do they just design a pickup and you say, nope, that's not the sound. It needs to sound like this, and then they go back and they do their magic and come back to you with another rev. They make prototypes. Okay, we're getting close, but we're not there yet. Go back and do it again. Is that kind of the process?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:25

Yeah, they made prototypes, they sent them to me, and I'd have my guitar tech Darren Harris pop them in uh on the road, uh, and then I'd I'd play them. But the first one they did, uh they did a few prototypes on their own until they felt comfortable with what I wanted. So they sent me the latest one, which they have, and I've this is it, and this in my bubble right here. And I did a video for them, it's it's online. Uh Stu Mac, you'll see it somewhere, and you'll see me playing it during sound check and and how it's stinging and and uh working for me. So they're going with this design, this prototype, and they've made five or six more. Darren's got some. He's he just popped them into my two other guitars on our A-rig. I got three guitars, three Bubas that I play on the road. What one's my original, and the other two are Fernandez copies. Uh, but he's put installed these pickups on them and and they're great. And I have a couple here at home. I'm putting on a couple uh uh uh guitars here, uh, so I have that sound at home to record with.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:28

Sure. Well, I meant to ask you two questions earlier. One of them was about the vintage col uh the guitar collection. Is there a centerpiece uh guitar that you have in this collection that you would consider the centerpiece? Or I know that's kind of like calling you know one of your babies prettier than the others, but no, no, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:47

Actually, I got a few. I have uh uh a 1959 uh Les Paul Custom Three Pickup Gold uh mint that I got uh about a year ago. That's most expensive high-end guitar I own, $150,000 guitar, whatever they go for, who knows? But I love it. Original PAFs, all that stuff. Um, you know, I got a uh in 1968 uh Fender Telecaster, uh Pink Paisley, which is very cool. Mint, bought a guitar center in LA about 20 years ago. Uh, you know, I have a uh uh 1952 Les Paul Gold Top. I have three of them, and one of them's absolutely mint, and I put a mojo axe mojo axe bridge on it to get away from that round bridge that they have that were no good back then. Uh, you know, I have a um uh yeah, they did these reissue uh Gibson J200 uh Elvis Presley, so they have the Elvis Presley down the neck. Awesome, sounds great. And the J200 Vine, which is beautiful and sounds great. Uh and then I have, you know, all these old Stratocasters from the 50s. There are a couple are really meant. And Stratocasters, they have that that sound too, man. You get play at 50 Stratoca original strat that the woods dried up and and you know, and they just God, they got a thing, they sound great. Uh so those are my staples uh in my collection. I got a bunch of old amps, of course, you know, 1959 basemans, and I got off, you know, the uh all the Fender's amps from the FiberChamp up until the you know ViroVerbs and Fiber Luxus, deluxe, all that stuff. And I have those because I record with them and use them on Night Ranger Records and stuff, and they got their own thing. Um, so I got quite the guitar and amp collection.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

Yeah, well, you mentioned that that J200, and I and I have to admit, uh, you you can see some of them, but I I mean for the longest time I was a big Taylor player. In fact, when I got this this one tattoo on my arm, you can see that there you go. You know, I I I love Taylor, I was a big Taylor player, but I'll tell you, this J200 right here is my go-to workhorse acoustic, and that thing sounds like a freaking canon, man. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:12

Well, yeah, they're they're huge and they sound big, and and uh um yeah, I uh I've recorded uh a bit uh micing those up with a couple microphones and stuff, and and uh then you know I have a lot of guitars that have the built-in uh fishman pickups too, so it's great to always uh be able to mic a mic a guitar and then use the uh the microphones within it to uh double up on recording to get them to sound as big as possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

Yeah, and and the other question I was gonna ask you, Brad, is that um are you a technical player or are you only a by-ear player? Like, do you read music? Do you understand the whole theory behind the music, or you just say, give me a tape and let me No, I don't I don't I don't read music.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:56

I I read core charts, but I don't read music. I just wasn't my thing. I learned by ear. Fair enough. And and you just give me a recording and tell me what you want to play, I'll sit down and play it back and I'll learn it. And I think that's uh that kind of takes you away from being oh, what's the right word?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

Being a you get away from the field playing, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:18

Like you uh Yeah, I I I'm into soul and field. Sure, yeah. There you go. There you go. And uh, you know, I I could take something that just interject my own uh style to it to make it me with a little Wang Wamby bar uh inflections and stuff, and that's where I'm at. There you go. You know, I love jamma with other bands. One of the favorite my favorite things to do is here in town when I got a weekend off, and my friends, I got a bunch of friends and bands playing just going and sitting with them. And that's cool. What do you got? You know, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:45

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:46

And just picking up on it because mostly all the classic songs I know anyway from playing in the Alameda All-Stars back then. But yeah, I am not a technical player. There you go. And I never played. I've never even claimed to be a shredder, but people say I shredder with Aussie. But uh I'm uh I'm a stylist player. I play with my own style. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:09

Well, we fast forward a little bit. Monsters of Rock Cruise. It's coming up. What can you share with the listeners regarding the cruise? Uh what uh those cruises? Yeah, the monsters of rock cruise.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:21

You guys are awesome. I mean, we've done quite a few, and they're always a blast. Uh, you know, uh you get all these different bands to do them and stuff, and and but it's good to just like hang and see all these people. And Joel Hoax just seems to be at most of those. He does this like morning uh hangover, morning uh whatever he calls it, and and he plays acoustic and serves

Monsters Of Rock Cruise And Fan Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 1:19:45

uh uh drinks or whatever. Uh so it'd be fun to see him and hang out with everybody. Um uh we love doing those. Um they're just a lot of a lot of fun. And you know, and then you get to dock and at a port and you get to go off during the day and bop around or shop, whatever, get back on. You're out that night cruising over, then you play. We I think we played two shows on the five-day cruise, whatever it is. And uh looking forward to it. We hadn't done one in a little while. We did one last week to about one a year, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:19

This one coming up, I think, is April. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:23

April 12th-ish, something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

How how does it feel though to be surrounded by fans um for five days 24, kind of 24 by seven? Yeah, what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:35

Yes, always the issue because you're walking around, they kind of get in your face, and I can deal with it up until a point. But I usually walk around with one of my crew guys, you know, and when it gets to the point where people are in my face, I say, Hey, sorry, I gotta go, and kind of bow out, I slip out. Yeah, uh, but that's part of the life I chose. I mean, you know, it's especially when you're on a cruise, because everybody knows who you are. Of course, of course, of course. But they put us, you know, they put us away in a whole different uh deck where you all only the bands can get to and the fans can't.

unknown 1:21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:12

So that's a good thing. They're not banging on my door. Okay, got it. And I got my own swimming pool.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:16

There you go. There's a big one right off the side of the ship, too, that you can swim in, right? Well, did the uh did you find that the sea air affect the sea, like the the the salt air uh from the sea, did did you find that it affected the guitar, the tone, or it anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:37

Is that a no I said it doesn't affect it. Okay. The only thing that affects us is from going cold to hot, hot to cold. You know, that'll that'll screw up your guitar when you're tuning in and playing live. You know, that's why we've we've realized if you know you're playing in a warm room that a lot of people is packed, you know, in your backstage and you're trying to warm up and the room's cold, you got to give it back to your tech to let it acclimate to the temperature before you play because it does there's always a temperature change doing that stuff. That makes sense. But you know, we got this stuff down, we've been doing it for too long, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:07

Of course. Any unexpected jam sessions that happen on those ships for you guys, or is it just your two shows and you're done?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:14

No, they do jam session sessions and they've asked me to play on a few. I'm not sure I can't give you details. I don't know many, but I said, yeah, I'll play. If I'm not gigging with the band, sure, I'm a ham. I'll get on stage and play. Because uh I've always been a ham. I've never been shy to get on stage. I guess I lost my shyness playing with Ozzy. There you go. Because once you do that gig, you know, you can do anything. But uh there will be a few jam sessions which I will be involved with.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:38

Very cool. And what does the the tour, the night ranger tour? Is there one coming up that you can speak of? Uh is is it if if there is one, is it stateside? Is it European tour? Like what can you speak of there?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:50

We're definitely going to Europe doing the Frontiers uh music festival in Italy. Um, we have a we just played Boudican in Japan, sold it out. That's great. So they're having us come back to Japan to play with somebody major at a major event, but I can't talk about it yet. But we are going back to Japan, which is awesome. Uh, we had a big tour lined up with a couple other bands, and it fell through. Not no reason even to mention it, but I know we got shows with uh, you know, uh with you know, Brett Michaels, love playing with him, he's great, always jam with him. Uh, you know, and the ZC Toffs and the you know, lover boys and everybody. You know, we we we got shows around with everybody and a lot of these festivals and stuff, but they're still booking a lot of them. And uh we're still waiting to hear.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

How did they yeah, how did the European when you play a show in Europe, how do the European how do I ask the question and be, I guess, I don't know really know politically correct, but the Europe how do I know you guys have a great following in Japan specifically, but how do you see the fan base uh differ there versus the US? Could can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

And yeah, here's the deal with that. We went over to Europe a couple times when we came out and we did real well. We stopped going to Europe for quite a couple decades. Then we got offered to do those big Sweden rock festivals, and there was a couple and a couple of huge festivals with about 50,000-ish people. And when we did those, we realized that fans knew who we were and loved us, and we came across great. But when we went to do a couple shows like uh on our own, we would only do a thousand to two thousand people on our own. Okay. Because we didn't we didn't keep up our our uh longevity of of coming back every year like all these other bands do. And you know, you got some of these other bands that are always go over there and they do very well and headline uh, you know, these other festivals. When we do a festival, you know, we do well. If there's ten, eight or ten bands for the day, we'll be up there third or fourth from the from the top and uh get a great response. But that's the deal with that. We didn't we didn't return every year to keep up the uh momentum.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:15

Yeah, that's interesting. And and I I I guess I'll have to ask Bethany this because you know they she'll tell you if she was uh you know, her and Graham both have been on my show and they're they're wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:26

They do well over there.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:27

They I mean she'll tell you that we can't we can't find a gig stateside, but we can go over there and and sell out just about every place we go. And I'm like, that's that's that's interesting how that works, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:39

You know, you guys are realize you know that they go over there all the time and um and uh you know he's been with so many great bands to have his name out there to be able to sell well. Um like I said, we do well when you uh we're we're we're trying to get them to pop us on uh some more shows here real soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:04

Yeah. Is there anything that you can share with the listeners of Backstage Pass Radio regarding uh new uh new music from Night Rangers? There's anything in the works, not I mean, I'm not looking for specifics, but anything that anybody can look forward to from a new music perspective.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:24

Uh we have Frontiers putting out a best sub here real soon, which we're um gonna do. I've been trying to get a solo record out forever. And a lot of it I have um I'm singing some stuff. I got Gary Moon singing some stuff. Gary's freaking awesome. Um

New Releases Merch Socials And Closing

SPEAKER_02 1:26:40

I got these little mini guitars.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:43

Oh, cool. Yeah, just like yours, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:46

That are are for sale through axe heaven. Uh got the same stickers and everything's the yeah, everything's the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

They're amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:55

Look, it's got real strings on it and whammy water.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:57

Okay, that's cool. Um, and and remind me where where do you where can you get these at again, Brad?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:02

Axe Heaven. Is that can it be just axeheaven.com?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:06

Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Okay. All right. Uh they just I just signed a bunch of them. I sign every one. They're releasing those. Um uh, like I said, as far as you know, new things coming out. I, you know, just our tour. I'm so busy. Yeah, I'm trying to remodel my house. Um, you know, I'm I'm I'm inventing these things for Stu Mac, trying to get my inventions out there, touring a lot, um, building guitars. I build them at home too. Uh I built a couple exact replicas of these with all the scratches. You know, I use metal picks, hence all the crashes scratches. And I'm I'm gonna be selling a few of those. And also, uh, I got a buddy Jim Kara, C A R A, Kara Guitars, who's been making replica. In fact, we just sold one last week, doing a great job, everything perfect as my Baba. And He's been selling those to uh uh he makes them, hand makes them, and they take a while to do. So uh Kara guitars, anybody interested in buying one of those? And if somebody buys one, I usually get them to a show, uh, meet with them in uh in a hotel room, give them a lesson, play the guitar, uh, bring them uh backstage and and and schmooze them and and make it worthwhile uh uh with with buying one of these replicas. So I'm doing that. Um where do you find the replicas at again, Brad? Jim Kara, Kara guitars. Okay now, Jim Carrey, he would made a bunch of guitars for Ace Freely that are the smoking guitars before he passed and doing all that. He built a bunch of Gene Simmons basses for Gene, and he does real well uh at making these guys, and a lot of um um different artists he uh he he he he does uh replicas for. But I got him doing them for me, and but mine take he even told me mine take the longest to make because of all the scratches, dings, and you know, uh, you know, that basically, you know, when I built I got this guitar sanded down in a box in 1978. A friend of my brothers came over in 1962 Stratocaster, just to let you know the uh the history. And I was playing in Rubicon at the time. He goes, Hey Brad, uh, I got the 62 Stratus, I sanded it down, and and I was gonna paint it, I never did. He goes, Do you want it? I said, Sure, yeah, man, cool. And I had a Dawson 240Z that was custom painted that I bought from some guy, and I had an extra gallon of Mron paint, orange red paint, uh in a can. So I took it down and had him, you can see the gray primer uh to a uh body shop in Oakland, California, at actual body shop, and they hung it and sprayed with a uh car primer and sprayed it, sprayed my Mron orange red paint on it, and that's with this guitar and I this one I've had all my life. And so Jim Kara has the same paint color scheme that and gray primer. He does the same thing and scratches them out with uh, you know, metal pick like this. This is all from metal picks throughout my career, and all the stickers and everything on it. Um and he tries to get he can't get originals, but he tries to get you know the second generation FR FRT2s and threes, whatever, to pop on these guitars and sand it down the back. Uh exactly like mine. That's right. With the actual uh the old wire that goes in here. He does he does great copies without the wireless system. So he does put wirelesses in them. Those are only my guitars.

unknown 1:30:38

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:38

But um this guitar's been a workhorse in everything I've done, and and and uh I'm all guitars, man, and not only a collector, but a builder and uh and a player, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:50

So um well, you have so many yeah, so many cool things going on, and it's you know, as as we uh as we get up there in age, uh it's it's always good to be relevant, you know what I mean? You're you're busy, you're doing things, you're in demand, and that's that's a wonderful thing. Um Yeah, I think my lucky stars to still be doing it, you know, unless and every day above ground is a good day, and it sounds like you're doing all the right things to try to keep that uh the longevity there in your life, too, right? By eating right and doing all the things. And uh thank you, Randy. Yeah, yeah, I tell people I'm plenty nine. Yeah, plenty. Exactly, man. Well, listen, where can the listeners of Backstage Pass Radio find either you or you and the band on social media?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:40

Well, I'm a big LinkedIn guy. All right. I start there and I'm like one of the only rockers that are on there, and people are really loving it. And I have tens of thousands of uh loyal business fans. Of course, anybody that knows LinkedIn, it's all professionals, you know. Uh, and I met so many professionals through LinkedIn. And then we have a social media guy named Josh who takes everything I do on LinkedIn and he throws it to Instagram and Facebook and and everywhere else. So uh under my name or whatever, you can look me up. Uh, of course, you know, bradgillis.com. I haven't really changed much on that lately. I gotta get up to date on that, but uh um, but you know, just look me up on social media. Um, I don't do much social media, but when I do, I'll just do, like I said, do some on LinkedIn and get it thrown around everywhere else. But last couple days I did three posts and and when when is this coming out that we're doing? Um, it's probably a couple of weeks out. Okay. So by then uh, you know, we'll be back out on the road and probably doing the Monsters of Rock cruise and uh going to Europe and uh and hopefully I'll have new products out with Stu Mac that my mentions uh soon. Well, you'll have to come back and there that hopefully it'll gonna blow people away because they've never been done before.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:59

Yeah, and you'll have to come back sometime and catch up with me and you know, any new stuff that you have uh coming out for sure. You know, Brad, this has been uh super cool, man. I really appreciate you you sticking with me here and getting the scheduled. I know we went back and forth a lot on uh on text. Well, you got me at the right time, yeah. You know, but uh all good stuff. Uh appreciate you being here, brother. Um I wish you can you know continued success on the road, good health, all the things. And uh you guys make sure to go out and follow Brad and the guys of uh Night Ranger on the official band page. You can find them at nightranger.com. And then I'm sure just a Google search, right? Brad, we'll find you guys everywhere you need to be found, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:45

Yeah, you know, and go to Night Ranger, you know, on either, you know, uh Instagram or wherever, Facebook, Instagram, or Night Ranger, and to find out where we're playing if we're coming to your city. We're all over the map. And you won't be disappointed. We we put 100% into our shows and throw it down. And you know, we throw a couple of Yankees tunes in there. Sometimes we throw Crazy Train in there, do a little Aussie, and and you know, sometimes we do a little Alice Cooper tune, but which Carrie used to play with. Sure. Uh so we mix it up, try to change things up. We know what town we were in the last time, but we know the set, so we change the set. So if we're in your town, uh, you know, the year before, we make sure to change up a couple of the songs uh to make each show different and fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:28

Yeah. Well, I I always say, Brad, that I have people on my show that their music has either inspired me or moved me either recently or over the years, and you're here for a reason, right? And I and I appreciate the time. So thanks for being here. And I ask the listeners to uh like, share, and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio, and on the website at backstagepassradio.com. You guys remember to take care of yourselves and each other, and we will see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.