Jack Blades: Touring more important that ‘trying to get hits’

For Jack Blades, nothing seems as sweet as life on the road.

That’s where the bass player has been since the 1970s, first playing with a funk-rock band called Rubicon in San Francisco and releasing a couple of albums during the disco craze.

Then, after 1979, Blades committed himself to the sounds of Night Ranger, a mainstream melodic rock band with a penchant for being almost – but not quite – a heavy metal act.

Today, after a stint with The Damn Yankees, that is where Blades is again – singing and playing bass for Night Ranger.
On Nov. 13, Night Ranger opens a show at Bristol’s Viking Hall Civic Center for Styx and REO Speedwagon.
And, like his song says, he aims to prove that “You Can Still Rock In America.”

MTV HITMAKERS
Night Ranger got started with the 1982 single “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me.”

Yet, immediately, this group gained fame as the band that had “Ozzy’s guitarist” in it.

Brad Gillis, the lead guitar player for Night Ranger, had played briefly with Ozzy Osbourne, replacing the late, great Randy Rhoads, a guitarist who died in a 1982 plane crash.

Gillis recorded a live album, “Speak of the Devil,” with Osbourne in 1982, but then returned to Night Ranger, Blades said during a recent telephone interview.
Night Ranger’s debut “Dawn Patrol” album made a dent on the Top-40 album charts, climbing to No. 38 in early 1983.

Still, it was 1983’s “Midnight Madness” and the subsequent “7 Wishes” album that put Night Ranger into the mainstream rock zone with lots of radio airplay and heavy video rotation on MTV.

“They started playing our video like 13 or 14 times a day,” Blades said.

‘WHAT HAPPENED?’
For a couple of years, Night Ranger’s hits arrived in rapid succession – “Sister Christian,” “When You Close Your Eyes,” “Sentimental Street,” “Four In the Morning,” “Goodbye.”

But, so it seems, life imitates art.

And “Goodbye” said it all.

“What happened?” Blades said. “We broke up in ’89, and everybody else went their separate ways.”

Yet Blades formed a super-group, The Damn Yankees, teaming himself with legendary guitarist Ted Nugent plus singer/guitarist Tommy Shaw and current Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Michael Cartellone.

In 1990, The Damn Yan-kees scored a huge hit called “High Enough,” reaching the Top-5 on Billboard’s singles chart.

“That was like Tommy and myself singing at our finest as a duet,” Blades said, “and there was Ted Nugent, just blasting away.”
But the blast didn’t last.

Within a few more years, Blades was back with Night Ranger.

And that’s where he’s been ever since.
“It’s a different era right now for classic rock bands,” Blades said. “I think it’s more important – the touring – than trying to get hits.”

‘DIFFERENT ERA’
Originally from Palm Desert, Calif., the 55-year-old Blades grew up listening to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Simon & Garfunkel, Deep Purple and The Beach Boys.

At age 8, he played a ukulele. Later, he moved on to a Sears & Roebuck Silvertone guitar that he still owns.

Blades played in his first band, The Nomads, in the late 1960s after his family moved to Scottsdale, Ariz.

Later moving back to California, he made plans to be a doctor. But then he met Gillis, the guitarist, and the musicians released two records with Rubicon, a seven-piece horn band.

After that, they formed a group called “Ranger” that, ultimately, had to be renamed “Night Ranger” because another band – a country group from Kentucky – had claims on the “Ranger” name, Blades said.

Year after year, now, Night Ranger keeps motoring, playing concerts across America.

“These are all the songs that people love and people grew up on,” Blades said. “We’re doing a lot of shows on our own. It’s a lot of fairs, festivals, casinos.”

Still, as Blades said, it’s a “different era.”

“We’re not as severely medicated as we were in the ’80s,” Blades said, laughing.

“We have so much fun,” Blades added. “It’s a fun band to be in, and it’s a real fun band to watch.”

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YOU SHOULD KNOW
What: Concert featuring Styx, REO Speedwagon and Night Ranger
Where: Viking Hall Civic Center, Bristol, Tenn.
When: Nov. 13, 7 p.m.
How much: $28 to $68
Info: (423) 764-0188