Sometimes You Gotta Have Faith

Although he hasn't been in Germany for the last 20 years, Jack Blades remains a very successful singer, bassist, songwriter and producer in the Rock Music Industry. He has sold millions of albums with his bands NIGHT RANGER and DAMN YANKEES, and he is continuing this success with the TAK MATSUMOTO GROUP, the project formed by Japanese Superstar along with Eric Martin. I was lucky enough to talk to Jack on the phone recently about all what's going on over there.

Let me start this with a compliment for my favourite record of the year 2004 (and this has been written before this interview was scheduled) - Congratulations for TMG 1, Jack!
Wow, George thank you so very much. We had such a good time recording it and we enjoyed playing it and touring with it. I'm glad that you like the music.


So tell me how did it all come together. I know you guys are popular in Japan with NIGHT RANGER, but did you knew about the B'Z before?
Well, I knew about the B'Z, I heard about the band before, but I have never met Tak Matsumoto. So Tak and the band B'z were playing in San Francisco, and Tak tracked down how to get a hold of me, and invited me down to the show, and afterwards we all get together Eric Martin and myself and Tak said that he was thinking about doing a band project, and would I like to be involved. And after I saw him play guitar ... I mean he's just an amazing, excellent guitar player, I mean and his live tone, was just WOW man!! Great sounding, so I said: "Sure, I'd love to do it" and then we worked out all the details and started writing an album, and next thing we know, we had a huge double Platinum selling album in Japan and a huge sold out tour and everything was good! Number One Record in Japan!!

Double platinum already, man, I knew B'z are so big over there, but you continue this with TMG! Yeah, I know they sold 80 million copies in Japan alone ...!
That's crazy - isn't it!? Many, many, many ...

NOBODY knows about them here. Luckily I have a Japanese friend and she gave me 4 records of them, very different styles all over this discs, he can play everything!
See, that's the thing, he can play all styles, that's so great about Tak, and he's an amazing songwriter, and a great musician, he's a musician's musician. It was very easy making the record with him.

So basically he chose you, what an honour?
Very much! Very much an honour. Because when you're in Japan and you go around in Tokyo with Tak Matsumoto, it's like you walking around the streets with ELVIS!!! He's SO popular, so famous, like "OUHHHH" and "AHHHH" all the time ... its pretty cool.

That was gonna be my question, can you explain the status of him there?
Because they sold so many records, his fans are just really really excited fans. And when he decided to create TMG, they were excited too. And then the fact that it was Jack Blades from NIGHT RANGER and NR was always very popular in Japan, and Eric Martin, singer for MR.BIG, and they were very VERY popular in Japan ... so basically it was like a Supergroup, it was like when I formed the DAMN YANKEES in the US in 1990, with Ted Nugent, Tommy Shaw and myself.


It really looks like you had a lot of fun, I have the limited edition with the DVD, but the actual recording was in California. Was it a strange experience for you (and Eric) to write lyrics to songs that were given to you, was that a new way of songwriting for you?
Well, I've done that before with NIGHT RANGER in certain instances like the song "Goodbye", Jeff Watson brought the music and I put all the words to it. It's not so difficult, it was a little different, I would have enjoyed writing the music with Tak also, but because of time constraints and the fact that Tak was in Japan most of the time, we're here in America, we didn't have the chance to sit down in a room. I'm hoping that on TMG 2, we'll be able on a couple of songs to sit in a room and come up musically with the song as well as the lyrics.

So has Takahiro Matsumoto, the most successful Japanese musician of all time, has he not only become a business partner, but also become a friend of yours and Eric's?
He's become a very good friend of mine. We email all the time, whenever he comes to America, we talk all the time. We visit him, when we're in Japan we hang out together a lot, I mean Tak was so gracious, and he showed us everything. Made sure that we're happy, made sure that everything was ok, having us in his country. I mean it could have been the other way 'round, Tak could have gone "Hey, I'm Tak Matsumoto, and you guys take care of yourselves". Instead he took such good care of us and we have become very good friends.

I found a little name in the CD "International A&R for Vermillion Records - Kuni Takeuchi" - is THAT the KUNI, who made this album in 1986 ...?
YES! He's crazy! Kuni is crazy, he's like, you know, "Compai - Bonsai - Get High!" He's just a wild man, he was our road manager also for the entire tour, and believe me: We had some crazy crazy nights 'cos he's wild. But yes, it's the same KUNI; who's the guitarist in the mid-80'ies.

The Masque record ... somehow I thought this was gonna be him!
Yeah, he kinda looked liked DAVID LEE ROTH all painted up on that thing.

Ha ha, yeah. Now hold on, if you don't mind, let us go back to summer 1984, Manhattan, New York City: Your "Midnight Madness" tour, do you remember your gig at the Pier with Tony Carey opening?
Yes, kind of, I remember we played at the pier, Tony Carey opened a lot of shows for us, didn't he have PLANET P or something?

I guess it was around the time the PINK WORLD double-album came out, yes. Anyway, I was at that show, and it was excellent, people singing all your songs at that beautiful setup in the harbour across the ships. That was the very first concert I wrote an article about for the pupil magazine at our school! I came back from the States and thought this was so cool, I gotta write something, that's why I joined them, so basically, Jack I gotta thank you guys for inspiring me to start writing about music!
Oh, George, thank you very much, I am honoured. I tell you I remember after that show we all went out and partied, and Tony Carey was a big big partier, he and Jeff Watson just were SO wasted and we ended up at Trump Tower at our Record Company's president condo and having this huge big party and we were all so drunk it was unbelievable. I remember more the night after the concert than I actually do the concert, ha ha!

You can be sure, the fans also partied I remember that very well. So we are making our first interview 21 years later, isn't that crazy!?!?
I'm glad we both still alive!


Then one year later in 1985 you played "Rock Am Ring" here in Germany, I remember we did a live review, but you played way too early ... to almost no response ... :-(
Oh, my gosh, that's when we played with like FOREIGNER and ... wow, I remember that, what a small world, ha? I remember walking around ... was that in Nürnberg? I think there's a wall in Nürnberg in the red light district, where all the Red-Light girls are and my wife was with me and we walked down the street and I had two big roadies on each side of me and my wife, real tall guys. But the prostitutes would come out and throw buckets of water and beer at Mollie because they were working there and no woman should be there. It was hitting my roadies and never us, it was so funny.

Now because obviously NIGHT RANGER is back together again in the original Line-Up since 1997 and Kelly, Brad and Jeff helped you out on your solo-record recently its clear you are friends again, so looking back will you give me a comment on the NIGHT RANGER album you did not take part of ("Feeding Off The Mojo")? Were you angry or disappointed back then?
Ehm, No! Because at that time, if you recall I was with DAMN YANKEES, and we were selling millions of records, I mean DAMN YANKEES were selling five millions records with those 2 albums! And we were touring and every show was sold out, so it didn't matter to me. I felt like everybody had to make a living. To this day I haven't heard the record! I can not comment on it, I am being very honest with you. I met Gary Moon when DAMN YANKEES was playing McNickels Arena in Denver, Colorado in 1992 or something like that, NIGHT RANGER was also playing at a small club in town. Tommy and I had a night off and went over and jammed with them.


To your various writing-collaborations, you write a lot together with Tommy Shaw, so an interesting question would be in my opinion, are the songs when you have written them aimed at a certain band or not? For the example, were the songs "I Will Be Your Witness" or "Best New Face" who ended up on STYX's "Brave New World" record always thought to be STYX songs? Or another example, was the song "Kong" on NIGHT RANGER's "Seven" planned for it?
I think we were feeling in an AEROSMITH mode when we wrote "Kong", but those songs - it depends, when Tommy and I write songs together we write for certain people, or we write for ourselves or for various bands (for example AEROSMITH, OZZY, ROGER DALTREY, JOURNEY, CHER, ALICE COOPER etc. - gl). It just depends on what we're doing at the time, or if Tommy and I writing for a new DAMN YANKEES record. Sometimes we can exchange them, yes. I mean if you write with the AEROSMITH guys it's definitely for them.

Or maybe JUDE COLE?
Oh, JUDE COLE yeah, we wrote a song with Jude, boy you know everything, don't you?

Start the car!
Yeah, that's a good one!

John Elefante?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah Hector and Umfante, neverleaf Brothers (not clear on tape - gl), right?

A question about an abbreviation I don't get, and you have it on two different records, first on the SHAW / BLADES record "Hallucination" in the song "Down That Highway" and then on "Seven" in "Peace Sign" - what does D.E.A. mean?
Drug Enforcement Administration, it's like the narcotic drug enforcement association, so like if you're smuggling in tons of Marihuana, the D.E.A. is after you.

Was there ever fighting with Kelly (Keagy, drummer and singer for NR), about who is singing which song, or did one of you had to sing ALL the songs when the other one couldn't sing or was ill?
You know that's an interesting question. Sometimes Kelly's voice has been really bad and I've ticked in and try to help him out, singing some things and sometimes my voice has been bad. That's the nice thing about two singers, they can help each other out, we can switch parts, and Kelly can sing a lower part and I can sing his higher part.

I'm sure you don't want to be remembered about MCA - marketing of your band, but maybe you can summarize it all shortly.
Well, MCA when we first signed with them everything was very very good, they really pushed us, however when "Sister Christian" became very successful in the United States and all over the world, MCA wanted us, from that point on, just to release the ballads. They only wanted to show the ballad-side of NIGHT RANGER when we wanted to do like "This Boy Needs To Rock" and that really sort of was very difficult for us. And I think that caused the breakup of the band and caused everyone to be very frustrated and upset.

Did GLENN HUGHES have any input on "Midnight Madness"?
Glenn Hughes, he didn't have any input musically, Glenn came down and Glenn is the voice singing on all the high parts of "You Can Still Rock In America" ... (starts to imitate a very high voice) You can still Rock in America!! That's Glenn Hughes!

What's the most stupid question you have been asked in an interview?
Who sang the high parts to "You Can Still Rock In America"! Ha, no I'm kidding ... hey that's an interesting question ... Oh I know: The stupidest question I've ever been asked is "Night Ranger - aren't you guys from Canada?!?" I'm like: "Ouch - NO - THAT WAS LOVERBOY!" "Oh I thought you were a Canadian band!" "NO - we're from the Bay Area!"


Jack, the song "My Hallucination" is from the lyrical side a statement for peace, later you had a song called "Peace Sign", I appreciate and like all that. But your partner and friend TED NUGENT, he is for use of weapons, he supports the war. Do you sometimes disagree with him?
Well I mean sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I disagree with him. But one thing I always agree with Ted is the music. Because when he picks up his guitar it's spiritual. As far as I'm concerned I try to leave out politics out of everything. The two songs you have mentioned they have a place in my heart, but I would never go out and preach "You have to do this or that", I would rather just have music play. When we got together what we always agree on is the music, because its absolutely special and inspiring.

Ok, we leave it like that. Please tell me what was the secret to that never released third DAMN YANKEES record?
Ouh, we recorded the whole album, and it just turned out not the way we wanted it. We hated it, we hated the producer, we hated everything about it. It wasn't good, you know what I mean?

Who was the producer?
Who's the guy who did the last BON JOVI "Crush" record, forgot the guys's name. It just didn't click, it did not work. It was like fire and rain. And so after we heard the final thing, the way it sounded we said "Forget it! We're not gonna release this" and we just let go of the whole thing! Which is very sad, but a lot of the songs have appeared on our records since then, like "Shine On" was written for that record. Tommy said "Want you just put that on your Solo record" and I said OK! And then STYX on "Cyclorama" had a song called "Yes I can" and Tommy and I had done that for the record. Also there was a song on Ted's album, a song called "Damned If You Do", so the songs are appearing here and there.

May I remind you on your lyrics, you have to come to Germany. In your song "Sign Of The Times" it says "I like drinking Jack and coke in some far away land", so Jack, we have Jack and Coke here, too!
How about we drink that in Hamburg! So George, when do we come, lets go! We'll try to get to Germany. I'll tell everybody we have to go to Germany (now starts speaking in German :) Ja! Alles ganz gut, ja!?!


To end this interview with a Metal-Sludge type of question: Who were the biggest jerks you ever toured with?
Oh, we didn't have a hard time with many bands. Oh, I remember: JUDAS PRIEST - we did one show with them once and their road manager was such an asshole, this was when we're first starting out. He was treating us so badly and we're playing in San Francisco and the legendary promoter Bill Graham, he loved our band and always put us on shows. These English guys were being such assholes to us - NOT the band, the road manager and the roadies. Bill Graham went in there and screamed and yelled and nailed this guy, just completely nailed him and Bill came back and said "You won't have anymore trouble now."

There will be another NIGHT RANGER record, they start this march, a new SHAW BLADES disc will be mixed this month (March 2005), probably a new DAMN YANKESS record and like mentioned the TMG 2. Besides all that Jack is the host of Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp and will be producing Ted Nugent's new album for Sanctuary so 2005 will be a VERY busy year for Jack Blades. Who by the way has a son who also is releasing music, therefore please check out http://www.colinblades.com also besides http://www.jackblades.net and I am sure it won't be another 20 years before I finally meet the man in person!

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