More than 35 years after Night Ranger debuted, they’ve remained a consistent presence on the touring circuit. In this day and age where tapes, and tracks, occasionally help flesh out what fans are hearing in concert, a Night Ranger show delivers the real thing.
“You know, Tom Petty, God bless him, I saw him on that last tour and he said something that I love onstage and it really holds true with Night Ranger,” Night Ranger bassist and singer Jack Blades tells Ultimate Classic Rock. “When you come see Night Ranger, there’s no artificial sweetening involved. In other words, what you’re hearing is coming out of the five people that are onstage. The vocals, the guitars, the keyboards, the bass. There’s no artificial sweetening coming out of any tape in the background or anything like that. It’s all us.”
Night Ranger have a new album, Don’t Let Up. And we have the exclusive premiere of a new video from it for the song Truth, which you can watch below.
Blades explains “…To make the video, we just wanted it to be real. This is who we are, this is how it is. This is what Night Ranger is in 2018. We just wanted to keep it real, keep it honest. That’s the way it is. Keep it truthful. So that’s what we did, and we didn’t do a storyline, but we kept it rockin’, because that’s what Night Ranger is all about right now, just rockin’ and rollin.’”
Blades calls Truth a “straight from the heart and soul” kind of song. “When I wrote the lyrics and we came up with the song, it was like, ‘Just give me truth,’” he says. “That’s kind of what this world needs right now. How about a little truth? I mean, with everything. I’m not just talking about what’s going on currently in politics. I’m talking about in the world as a whole. If people were really true to themselves, if everything was just truth, think how it would be. Maybe it’s a fantasy dream and everything like that, and I’m not saying that we’re pie-in-the-sky dudes, because that’s the last thing that Night Ranger is. But I’m saying that we came up with the song Truth for that very reason of what this world needs right now is some truth.”
They’ll be celebrating their career on the road this fall by performing their first two albums, Dawn Patrol and Midnight Madness, in full at special concerts in Waukegan, Ill., (on Oct. 18th) and in Denver (on Nov. 29th). The two shows will feature “a lot of songs that we’ve never played live,” Blades says, along with others that haven’t been performed since the original tours for those albums in the early ‘80s.
“We started rehearsing them and working them up,” he says. “It was kind of like a walk down memory lane. Which basically is what the show is going to be about. We’re going to be telling stories about what was happening at that very time in rock ‘n’ roll in L.A. in 1983 at the Rainbow with Motley Crue guys coming down, with the Ratt guys on tour with us. It’s going to be nuts.
“It’s going to be so much fun. Some of these songs that we’re playing … [drummer and singer] Kelly [Keagy] and I are looking at each other going, ‘What the fuck were we thinking when we wrote those words?’ It’s pretty funny. But it was captured at a certain moment of time and that’s where we were.”
The band has plans to record audio of the Illinois concert, and Blades hints that they’re already looking at the possibility of doing other concerts where they’d play the two albums in other cities.
Read more at Ultimate Classic Rock.
source: ultimateclassicrock.com
33 Responses
Seen Metallica a couple weeks ago, I seen people of all ages at the show. Why rock music isn’t top of the mainstream it’s because terrestrial sucks these days. Many years of social engineering has screwed everything up. Plus the powers that run entertainment haven’t helped. Rock and metal is treated second class in this country.
Nick,
Our music, even it it’s heyday, was always treated like Rodney Dangerfield, “no respect.”
Also, on a recent drive through the desert from Sedona, AZ to Santa Fe, NM, I discovered a “classic rock” station, maybe half way through the trip that played nothing but 80’s hard rock and metal. It was GREAT, so shout out to the South West, you guys rock…literally. I wish NYC affiliates would take a cue, that station was akin to a combination of Sirius/XM’s Hair Nation and the Boneyeard.
D 🙂
So several things. Nick I saw Metallica last week up in Canada. They did not disappoint. Actually they’ve never disappointed me live.
Dana – was in Sedona about 8 years ago. Absolutely beautiful part of the country…so red in comparison to the rest of AZ. I hope you made it to the Grand Canyon.
No, DR, unfortunately, I had very limited time, only five days, maybe I will return one day. The Canyons are truly beautiful.
D 🙂
Hey DR! We were at the Grand Canyon about a month ago. We went camping with about 40 family members, and we stayed at the South Rim. We also visited Bearizona in Williams, about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. The history of the Grand Canyon is very interesting. Arizona definitely is beautiful country…..
Yo, bro, so how far do you think the Jets will go this season? (The Winnipeg Jets, of course!) 😉
marketing music is aimed at teens and 20 somethings now – and rock is being left out edm was the it thing its kind of fading now hip hop urban music is the new it thing as far as I can tell- we all could argue this forever , rock needs to become more relevant – my overall point is its time for these older classic bands who are not priest, sabbath, kiss, Aerosmith , etc. and who dont have rock star money to become part of the 21st century and be smarter =that’s all i’m saying – why have these other genre’s kicked rock to the curb ? a million reasons , I think rock shot itself in the foot – love the discussion by the way very passionate with a lot of great points !
Robert,
Hip Hop/Gangsta Rap/Urban Music, never went away, it’s been a thing for decades, unfortunately. Talk about no musical talent, to me, there is no redeeming value in that genre at all, and their message only promotes violence.
Speaking of Rock, while I know he doesn’t exactly fit this demographic, I saw Lenny Kravitz on TV a couple of nights ago. He has a new album coming out, and to me Lenny is the epitome of cool. So, it was nice to see some rock being represented on the tele.
D 🙂
I love lenny ! and I know urban music has always been a thing – I hope you do understand that my overall point was my wish /hope that some of these older bands would just really get back to making great rock music and to embrace the younger audience who I think is starved for great rock from any new or older bands –
The youth can’t seem to appreciate great music, they are clueless. 😉