from a May 2001 interview with Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis  ( conducted by journalist Jeb Wright)

What are your plans for this summer?

That was a blast.  We had a good time doing that with Ted (Nugent).  Last year we did more shed shows around the country. We are already booked this year.  We are happy going out for the spring and summer and doing the big sheds.  That's where your audience is.  We take off during the winter months and work on other projects.  I've been working on the music for Tiger Woods and his new golf game.

Night Ranger really appears to be enjoying themselves.  If you are faking it then you have it down to an art.  You can really feel the energy that comes off of the stage.

After breaking up in 1989 and then reforming in 1996, it made it exciting to play with everyone again.  When we are on stage it is a blast.  We have a great time.  We don’t tour 9 months out of the year like we did in the 80’s.  It's spring and summer.  It's fresh again for us.  We're lucky to be a band together over 20 years that is still able to play live and attract an audience. We have not oversaturated the market, so we can get good crowds.

Let me ask you this:  Is there a lot of competition between guitarists on stage?

That’s what it's all about!  We kick each other in the butt to keep each other on our toes.  Jeff and I sit backstage and fire each other up.  We go, “I’m going to kick your ass tonight.”  It's all in fun but it makes us want to play better when we go back and forth, and when we join together for the harmonies it makes it that much more fun.  I’m biting him on his shoulder and we're wailing and raising our guitars in the air.  By doing this for so long, we have these cool moves down because we know where everybody's at all the time.  We're able to play off of the original moves that we've been doing for over twenty years and make things even more exciting.  We're able to run around and kick some butt!

Night Ranger has the songs for the girls and the guitar solos for the guys.

Songs for the girls and guitar for the guys?  Is that what you said?  Yeah!  Well, everybody likes something about their favorite band.  I guess we've got a two punch going on.  Kelly and Jack have written some great songs, and Jeff and I complement them with our playing.  Whenever we're in the studio we always write our solos to enhance the song.  We try not to overplay. We want to make things memorable and hummable.  We do that instead of just flailing lead licks, which gets tiring after          a while.

Did you think that you'd be getting ready to go out on tour in 2001?

Of course, man.  I've been doing this for so long.  I started playing when I was 8 years old and I played my first talent show when I was 10 years old.  I played "Gloria" at the talent show and I won.  I will never forget the girls screaming in the audience.  When you're 10 years old and you have these little girls screaming for you….. I said, “Hey, man, this is what I'm going to do with my life!”  I pursued it through grade school and high school.  In fact, when I was a freshman, I was in a band with all seniors and played the actual Senior Prom!  I started earlier than other people.  I was kind of a hotshot when I was in high school.  I was the best guitar player in my school.  After high school, I went out playing five nights a week in a club band and I got picked up by a band called Rubicon.  At 19 years old, I flew down to Los Angeles and did my first record.  It was a great experience.  I did "Solid Gold" and "American Bandstand."  I did all the things that a kid dreams of doing and that his parents dream of him doing.  I will never forget that my dad was not into me playing guitar.  He used to tell me, “You have got to have something to fall back on.”  When we did "American Bandstand," I went from being a dirtbag musician to being a rock star.  My dad was inviting me down to the bowling alley to meet all of his friends!

I got lucky playing with Ozzy Osbourne.  I did the Speak Of The Devil record and then got with Night Ranger.  We released "Don’t Tell Me You Love Me" right when MTV was starting.  It's been a great career.  I still love doing it.  We're still going strong, and I have no complaints.

Didn’t the Ozzy gig and Night Ranger all happen at the same time?

In 1980, we had put together our demo and were shopping it, trying to get a record deal.  We had been trying for years and nothing was happening.  I got a call through a friend, through a friend, through a friend, about auditioning with Ozzy Osbourne. The Night Ranger guys were like, “Well, okay.”  They thought, “If he gets that gig then we will never see him again.”  I got the gig with Ozzy and we started touring.  Everything was great but it was tough times because Ozzy had just lost Randy Rhodes. I always felt like a sideman in that situation.  I was never comfortable.  Even though it was great to tour the world, things didn’t seem that smooth.  I didn’t know if my future was with that band.

All of a sudden, Night Ranger gets a record deal.  But the record company said, “We’re not going to sign you without Brad in the band.”  I had gained popularity with Ozzy.  I had to make a big decision.  I went with Night Ranger only because I was part of that band.  I’m not a sideman.  They were my buddies.  We had spent years getting things together and we had worked hard trying to get a record deal.  I rolled the dice and went back to Night Ranger, and sure enough we came out with "Don’t Tell Me You Love Me."

You know what the funny thing is?  Speak Of The Devil and Dawn Patrol were released the same week.  Both records came out.  I remember an album network magazine said that it was the first time that one guy had released two records simultaneously that were both Pick Of The Week.  Things were great, having two records come out at the same time.  As I said, we released "Don’t Tell Me You Love Me" and, boom, we got major radio off of it.  MTV was big at the time, so we did a video and it was a big hit, too.  It started a great run for Night Ranger.  Between 1983 and 1989 we were touring nine months out of the year.

How do you survive that much time on the road?  I don’t think people realize what it physically takes.

When you are young it is easier.  You are not committed to being married and having families.  It was a lot easier to tour the world.  We went over to Japan and we were a hit over there.  We started out as an opening band.  We opened for people like ZZ Top and Black Sabbath.  The second album, Midnight Madness, came out and "Still Rock In America" did real well, and then all of a sudden we released "Sister Christian ."  Boom!  That thing took off.  We were able to break off from any type of opening act and started headlining 3,000 seaters across the country.  The bigger the song got, the more we noticed that our shows were being sold out way in advance.  We were able to go from 3,000 seaters to 15,000 seaters.  All of a sudden we were on top of the world in 1984-1985.  In ‘87 and ‘88, we started getting a little lazy with our guitar playing.  I know I did.  We were working an awful lot and things fizzled out.  In 1989 we decided to call it quits.  It was so nice to get back together in 1996.  Everything was so fresh again.

When I saw you on the Rock Never Stops tour, that song was really awesome.  I was one of those people who had said, “God, if I hear that song ever again, I'm going to puke!”  I had not heard it for years and then I saw you play it live.  To be honest, I like the song more now than I did when it was a hit.

A great classic song will never die if it is not overplayed.  It was overplayed in the eighties and then we didn’t get much airplay in the nineties.  Now it is considered classic.  It is being added to all these classic rock stations and getting in rotation again.

Did you do the solo on "Still Rock In America"?

That is split between Jeff and I.  I did the first half and he did the second.  It's the same way on "Don’t Tell Me You Love Me."  Jeff does the eight finger tapping technique on the second half of "America."  That was the introduction to eight-finger tapping.

I’m telling you,  I saw that transcribed once in "Guitar Player" and I felt sorry for the guy who had to write all of it down!

Well, I have tried it and I got seven out of eight!

What is there left for you to do that you have not done?

I pursue other avenues, musically.  I want to continue to do solo albums.  I have ideas that are flying around in my head.  Who knows?  Maybe I will get with some other major players and do some type of band record.  Maybe Night Ranger will do another record.  Who knows?  Everything is open, but my schedule is full throughout the summer.  I did the Van Halen tribute record.  I did the Ozzy Osbourne tribute record.  I've been doing a lot of sessions in my studio in California.  I have my own digital studio.  We just started this little company called Liquid Hot Music Productions.  We create background music for video games.  We are generating a lot of interest.

What guitar players influenced you to play?

My brother was seven years older than me and he had all of the coolest albums.  That was around 1970, when I was about 12 or 13 years old.  He had the first Santana record, Led Zeppelin I, Big Brother & The Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills and Jeff Beck and Hendrix.  I would sit in his room and listen to his records while I ran my guitar through a little amp.  I would play along with those records.  The people who stood out the most and really caught my attention were Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.  Hendrix: He be da man!  I love his whole style and flamboyant approach.  I was really into that and it gave me a little wildness in my playing.  When Van Halen came out, I started getting into the tremolo bar Eddie was doing on those dive bombs.  I remember thinking, “Man, that is so cool.  Harmonic dive bombs.  How can I make it into my own style?”  Instead of taking a harmonic and diving, I would pull it up.  I would pull the harmonics up and wiggle them real hard.  I would flick the bar with my finger and get a chirping sound.  That's when I came up with some of the sounds that I have used on my solos.  They are just wild wang bar stuff.  They evolved into my style.

I remember when Floyd Rose tremolo units came out.  You could not get them.  Eddie Van Halen had the first one.  The second one was sent to Carlos Santana.  I was able to acquire the third one ever built by Floyd in his garage.  It is made out of stainless steel and was made by hand.  It is solid as a rock.  I remember trading a Les Paul Custom guitar for an original Floyd Rose.  I ended up popping that into my red Strat.  I remember the guys routing out my Strat.  They had never done it before because it was a new item.  It worked out well and I started using it all the time.  I just totally got into the wang bar.  I started to acquire other originals for back up guitars.  I still have that original on my red Stratocaster.  It is unbelievable how well it stays in tune.  You can go nuts on the wang bar and it will still be in tune.

source:  classicrockrevisited.com