Culture
Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo chat evolution of song meanings, launching MTV, first Southeast Ohio show
By: Ian Saint
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MARIETTA, Ohio (WOUB) — Despite Neil Giraldo’s Cleveland roots, he and Pat Benatar have never played Southeast Ohio—until tonight, when the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers make their debut at Marietta’s Peoples Bank Theatre (222 Putnam Street), 46 years after they began touring.
In part two of their conversation with WOUB’s Ian Saint (find part one here), Benatar and Giraldo discuss finally performing across all of Ohio, how their songs continue to evolve live, and their role in MTV’s early days. A transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
IAN SAINT: How does it feel to play Southeast Ohio for the first time?
BENATAR: It’s amazing. Driving (into our Albany gig) this morning, I said, “We’re so lucky we’ve been traversing America for 46 years. You get to see so much of it. Otherwise, we’re in a bubble.” We live in California, and I’m from New York. Getting to see the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southern states is amazing. It’s really interesting because so much of it is different — but so much is the same.
I always say Ohio is like five states in one, culturally.
GIRALDO: Interesting you say that. You’re right; it’s like five states in one. Even when I was younger, playing in local Cleveland bands, we played all kinds of places throughout Ohio. If you go down to Cincinnati, you definitely pick up that Kentucky environment. Culturally, it’s very different, but there are lots of similarities. I find that when I meet people from all parts of Ohio, I can connect with them in a way they could tell I’m from Ohio. Not by accent, just by the way, people are thoughtful and kind, and they work together.
Marietta’s Peoples Bank Theatre is a testament to Ohio, which has a beautiful array of theaters throughout our state, even in smaller cities.
GIRALDO: Yeah, I love them. Theaters have their little ghosty element to them, which is romantic.
Listening to We Belong, that repeated refrain of “we belong” in different elements — prefaced by lines like “many times, I cried alone” — feels empowering today. It’s so anthemic about inclusion in ways that hadn’t grasped me before. Which songs have evolved in how they touch your heart as you’ve witnessed them transcending generations, cultures, and life experiences?
BENATAR: That definitely is one of them. When We Belong was given to us, it was a romantic song — but it changes all the time. This is the beauty of art and music: things become relevant in real-time.
Invincible is huge for us and the audience right now. I dedicated Invincible to all my sisters out there, but then I changed it to everyone who’s marginalized because that feels appropriate right now. Disconnected and Everybody Lay Down, I can’t sing them from any perspective except for what’s happening right now. And I see that in them, too. You see, they get somber during Hell is for Children. There are people that it directly resonates with, or they’re having empathy for somebody else.
So, all of the songs are living and breathing elements during the night, and they change all the time as the years go on. All Fired Up felt wrong to sing after 9/11, but Invincible worked there. With all the craziness out there, we have one song guaranteed to bring everybody together — many weeping, crying out (…) there are lots going on right now, so we’re trying to make (these songs) relevant, but at the same time, trying to offer respite from all the chaos.
The Police and Heart are fellow ‘70s bands that became MTV juggernauts in the ‘80s. When I interviewed Andy Summers and Ann Wilson, they had mixed feelings about MTV. Ann felt their pre-MTV hits had more freedom in peoples’ imaginations than those with popular videos. You had hits like Heartbreaker and Hit Me With Your Best Shot before MTV, but then you became central to MTV’s launch — You Better Run was MTV’s second video aired. What are your feelings on MTV, in retrospect?
BENATAR: Spyder (Giraldo’s nickname) and I have completely different views. Spyder is more of the thought that Ann has. He liked it better when the songs were ambiguous, and everyone’s visions of the characters were different — like reading books. I didn’t look at it like that. Maybe because I didn’t start in rock ‘n’ roll — I started in classical and theatrical music, so it was always playing a role for me. I looked at (music videos) as just an expansion on the role and another way to have more people access what you were doing.
Because back in ‘79, the only way you could see the people you were listening to was attending concerts, obviously — or watching Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert or The Midnight Special. At that time, it was not okay for artists in our genre to do mainstream television like Johnny Carson’s show, so it was very limited where people could visually see you. I looked at MTV as another vehicle to get our songs to the masses. I thought this was a great idea, that they’d be able to see you. They told us, “this TV station is coming on, they’re going to play music videos around the clock.” We didn’t know what they were talking about; but I said, “sure, let’s do it.”
Within 10 days of them playing videos around the clock like that, everything changed. We were already having tremendous success, but MTV catapulted everything to the stratosphere — I (suddenly) couldn’t go anywhere. I used to go to the market even after the records were big. Crimes of Passion sold five million records — it was everywhere — but I could still go to the market. MTV catapulted everything to another place; I couldn’t go to the market anymore. It changed everything.
Love is a Battlefield’s music video was pioneering for adding dialogue, like cinema.
BENATAR: Doing videos was really fun. It’s like making baby movies, and it was the golden age — they were throwing money at people making videos. You could do anything you wanted, no holds barred. I loved that freedom.
Thanks for speaking with WOUB, and safe travels throughout our state.
BENATAR: Thanks so much for having us. We’re huge supporters of NPR; we love it.