Culture
Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo recall Rick Derringer, Parma roots, Ohio arena rock amid Bryan Adams tour
By: Ian Saint
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CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOUB) – When Bryan Adams’ Roll With the Punches Tour stops at Cleveland’s Rocket Arena (1 Center Court), the “Groover from Vancouver” may find his opening act earning just as much applause.
Neil Giraldo, born and raised in Cleveland during arena rock’s heyday, will return home alongside his musical partner and wife, Pat Benatar, who tells WOUB, “I’m a Clevelander by marriage.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees also played an indirect role in launching Adams’ career. In an interview with Billboard, Adams revealed that he originally wrote his 1981 single Lonely Nights for Benatar and Giraldo to record.
“She didn’t do it, but it ended up being the first song (to chart on Billboard’s Hot 100). That really opened the door for me in America,” he said.
Benatar and Giraldo spoke with WOUB’s Ian Saint in May, when they headlined three shows across northwest, central, and southeast Ohio. In part one, Benatar and Giraldo discussed their songwriting and new children’s book My Grandma and Grandpa Rock! In part two, they reflected on launching MTV and the evolution of their songs’ impacts.
In the third and final installment of their interview, they reflected on the significance of sharing the stage with Adams in Giraldo’s hometown NBA arena.
A transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.
IAN SAINT: Welcome home, Neil. My father, also from Cleveland’s west side, shares your name — same spelling, too.
GIRALDO: Wow, that’s rare. It’s such an odd name. (laugh) Especially for me, since I’m Sicilian.
What’s your Ohio alma mater?
GIRALDO: I graduated (early from) Parma Senior High in 1973. In my junior year, the guidance counselor said “I know this type of learning isn’t your environment. You have a bigger thing to do with your life. How about I give you the credits to graduate, and you can fulfill your dream?”
That’s wild, because Dad’s cousin Jeff Powers is a classical guitarist who graduated from PSH in 1972. Was there an understated guitarist scene in Parma?
GIRALDO: Maybe I knew him. The population of musicians in Parma was real high; I’d hear great players all the time. It made me work harder, and choose to play multiple instruments — I started playing piano, then drums. Cleveland has a really solid music culture.
Before you and Pat teamed up, you played with Rick Derringer, who sings Ohio’s official state rock song (The McCoys’ cover of Hang On Sloopy). What led to that?
GIRALDO: I was playing in a nice Cleveland band with Kevin Raleigh, who went on to play with Michael Stanley. Rick had over 200 guitar players auditioning. I go (underdressed) in a t-shirt, jeans, rope belt, white sneakers, with one guitar; I figured there’s no way I’m going to get this gig. But the funny part is I said “I can play piano, too,” (knowing) Rick and Johnny Winter would (perform) Jerry Lee Lewis type things. He said, “okay, prove it.” We brought the piano in, and I played that. It helps to play other instruments. The record I did with Rick, Guitars and Women, I played more piano than guitar on it, which is ironic.
(You can hear “Hopeless Romantic”, featuring Giraldo on piano, from that 1979 album produced by Todd Rundgren below. Derringer shared his memory of Giraldo playing guitar and piano with him, then teaming up with Benatar, to Guitar Player last year. Then, Derringer began producing the first of six albums for “Weird Al” Yankovic in 1982. Read Yankovic’s recent remarks to WOUB about Derringer here)
Pat, you’re from New York. What’s your first Ohio memory?
BENATAR: I’d never been to the Midwest until I met Spyder (Benatar’s nickname for Giraldo). The first time I went to Cleveland was great. It was winter, and we had snow where I grew up, but that lake effect is serious. It was amazing to hear that darling accent everybody has. It wasn’t that far away, but it was a world away; his family was so different. I fell in love with Ohio then; and we had so much success in Ohio, so we spent a lot of time there in the early days. I really got indoctrinated.
How did Neil’s Parma neighborhood compare to Lindenhurst, your Long Island hometown?
BENATAR: So different. New York is cosmopolitan; I wouldn’t say (Parma) was cosmopolitan, but it was very earthy and the people were amazing. The neighborhood was Italian and Ukrainian, which was great — amazing food everywhere. I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in New York, so I always thought I was basically Italian (in spirit). Then I got to Parma, and this was a whole other thing — these people were authentically Italian.
My family is small, so it was great to be in this whole Italian family; Spyder’s father was one of eight kids. It was like Goodfellas; everybody had a nickname, some you weren’t allowed to say their real name out loud. It was fabulous. I have such fond memories of Cleveland, because besides our family time, so much of our success began there with WMMS and (DJ Kid) Leo breaking the record.
Wow. When I interviewed Foreigner frontman Lou Gramm — your fellow “arena rock” singer, and Rock Hall inductee — he also said Cleveland’s WMMS rock station and Leo were crucial to their launch.
BENATAR: Absolutely. We’re still good friends with Leo; we see him all the time. We were actually going to have him give us the award at our Rock Hall (induction); but they wanted another musician, and Sheryl Crow is a really good friend of ours, so she did it. But when we do our show, Leo made the recording to introduce us.
What’s it like to rock a Cleveland arena, Neil, having grown up in Parma with this dream?
GIRALDO: I do like bigger venues; and when I come back to Cleveland, it’s so loud. Everywhere we play feels the same; the audiences all connect at the same places of the songs — even in Europe and Japan, if they don’t understand (English), which is fantastic — but in Cleveland, it’s a totally different animal. The audience is deafening, and they love everything so much. It feels real great.