Cleveland’s Neil Giraldo: From Benatar to Bourbon

By Mike Olszewski

Setting life goals and achieving your dreams involve many elements: talent, ambition, determination and, let’s face it, a good amount of luck.

For Parma High grad Neil Giraldo (Class of ‘74), it was a harmonic convergence. From his earliest days playing local bars with his band, Lover’s Lane, to working with the legendary Rick Derringer and then his decades-long personal and professional relationship with his wife, Pat Benatar, Giraldo has achieved goals that few dream of. 

Giraldo’s work has led to five Grammy Awards, record sales in the millions, and an enviable version of success: fame without celebrity.

It’s a big jump, playing the Viking Saloon and the Piccadilly Inn here in Cleveland to the biggest stages in the world. Giraldo’s journey started with a birthday gift from his parents: a guitar from Difiore’s Music. Call it six strings and a dream.

Giraldo started working with Benatar in 1979. They married in 1982, had daughters Hailey and Hana, and a couple of grandchildren after that. I had an opportunity to catch up with Giraldo about living life in and out of the spotlight, the challenges of raising a family and how he’s extending a helping hand to folks who haven’t had the same opportunities that were offered to him. Neil makes it clear that, with all his success, his heart is never far from his Northeast Ohio roots. Enjoy our Q&A below.

Neil Giraldo: I knew I would always be surrounded by music. I knew when I was six years old, as soon as I held a guitar in my hands, that it felt like it was home. I had such a crazy upbringing. I was a sick child all the time, so I was never really in school. I was staying at home, so music was my only way of getting out and becoming a human being, basically. I had dreams like everyone else. It just so happened, it panned out in one direction for me. I try to tell young people when I talk to them that you have a dream, and you go for that dream. Now, it doesn’t mean you only have one dream. I’ll give you an example: There was a young man who was a great golfer and he wanted to be a pro. He was 19 and I played with him in New York. He had one problem. He couldn’t putt. He loved the game so much and I told him he should look at other “fingers” of a career… and he ended up an architect for golf courses. He has a great life and he really enjoys it, so there’s a lot of variations of a dream.

You and Pat raised a family. Were there challenges being a rock-and-roll family?
Not really. All families are basically the same. Children are like songs and songs are like children. You love them all, and there’s no challenge any different than anyone else. We traveled a lot together and they were always with us. When I was home — and I was at home a lot other than touring — when I was writing songs, I’d be watching the Lakers game with the little ones in the background with “Papa, papa, papa!” It’s just being a family.

Now, the question so many face when becoming a parent: Did you become your father?
Absolutely! All the time. My friends who know my father tell me, “You’re just like your father, Tony!” I just want to be as good a man as him. He’s 94, crazy as can be and we do Facetime. I’ll ask, “Hey Pop, how you doing?” “Neil, is that you?  You look good now!”  I’ve become so much like him.

You’re a grandparent now. What’s it like?
Phenomenal. My sister used to say, “Wait until you’re a grandfather.” She’s absolutely correct. It’s the best. Very special. I always tell people you have to play piano first. I started playing piano when I was 11 years old and I play more piano than I do guitar. I got them a little piano for Christmas, and one does like to play it, the other one not so much. The one tells me, “Don’t play that, Papa! Don’t play that!”  

Music is a volatile business. How do you stay ahead of the changes?
I never dumbed down the audience. That’s part of the production technique I use in creating and writing. Always challenge the audience. In the digital world, you have a safety net. The only problem is, too many people fall into the net, so they’re not letting those mistakes live.  

When I started out, we would record a lot of vocals and put them on half-inch (tape) and then I would hit “play” on the half-inch and the other producer would hit the two-inch and we would take turns to “fly things in.” We had to do it the hard way and you had to learn that because you were still using your ears. With digital and the modern way of things, you still have to listen, and I tell people if they are using Logic or Pro Tools or other (music) software, don’t look at the screen. Don’t look at the colors and the waveforms.  Use your ears. I always believed in moving with the technology. I think it’s important, but you still have to go back to your roots.  

When you were just starting out, we’d see you playing the downstairs club at The Agora (The Mistake), The Joker’s Wild in Elyria and plenty of places in between. You were one of the premier acts shown in the first hour on MTV back in 1981. Now you and Pat are looking at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on the horizon.  More than 880,000 people voted for you and Pat on the fan ballot and most agree it’s not if but when. Your thoughts?
The Rock Hall is really for the fans. They invest so much of their time and life and energy that I feel bad for the folks waiting for us. It won’t change the way we do anything. It’s just that the people get so passionate and angry and hurt about any delays and I hate to see that.  

We’ll expect to see you enshrined in Cleveland. And hurry back for a visit, too.
I was raised on the west side of Cleveland, but I love the east, too, and especially Murray Hill. I want to go to the Hill and eat some good macaroni, Corbo’s Bakery and Presti’s… I’m getting hungry right now.

You’ve accomplished so much.  What’s in your future?
I’ll continue to do what I always do. I love writing music, but I love writing screenplays and books, too. I have one on inspiration and creation, and helping people open that up.  Truthfully, everyone has it in them; you just have to know how to open it. I also have one that’s not a memoir but a story about my life and all those things you may have known but didn’t know the real story. I’ll be telling that story.

A Musician Mission: Bourbon for a Cause

Few industries are as critically assessed as the world of fine spirits, and a few years back, Giraldo took a careful but decisive step in producing Three Chord Bourbon. It turns out that his interest in distilling goes far beyond what’s being poured in the glass. Here’s why he’s in the bourbon business and using some of its profits to help musicians.

I was working on a film idea that was a hybrid documentary. A friend suggested we should look for a spirits company to maybe give us some money to get a trailer made.

I wanted it to be an independent film. I wasn’t looking for a big-budget thing because I wanted it to be an artsy thing that people would dig. I said, “Why don’t we start our own company?”  That was in May 2016.

The film I was writing was about a giveback program, the local musicians and the stories they have, how they grew up and the great moments, the sad moments. Then I challenged myself the way I do musically. How about bourbon because it’s really difficult to do? (My friend) told me, “You’re crazy. How about vodka?”  But I wanted to have a spirit where people would be able to talk. Not that there’s anything wrong with tequila and jumping on tables. That’s just not my thing; I want conversation.  

I also wanted to start something for the musicians because I am just like all those other musicians out there. You have to work, you have to master your tools, practice and do all that stuff. Sometimes people get lucky, sometimes they don’t, but we’re all the same.  I wanted to make sure we had a giveback program established right from the beginning.  

Of course, I want it to be successful, but think of the philanthropy we could do with that. Musicians have a tough life, a crazy life, and not that everyone doesn’t have a tough life, but when Covid closed the clubs, performers couldn’t support themselves and their families. With Three Chord Bourbon, we would do tip jars on Facebook (and pay for musician-support programs). We call it the Music Ambassadorship program, to teach musicians that business goes along with the word music. We teach them how to make a living.  

Here’s another thing. Do you know that (blues pioneer) Son House doesn’t have a tombstone? I got involved with the blues society to further the campaign to get blues pioneers tombstones. If it wasn’t for these pioneers, none of us would be making music.  Bourbon is pure American and so is the blues. That was the process behind Three Chord Bourbon.

So you’re also active in marketing?
Absolutely. We have a pinot barrel bourbon, a 15-year old Kentucky, a blend, a fantastic rye, a 12-year reserve. We have a Tennessee cask, as well. My guitar czar, Rob Cunningham, had Evans drumheads made with the Three Chord Bourbon logo and I’m going to get all the great drummers of the world to sign it and auction it off, 100% non-profit, hopefully by Christmas.

Will we see Three Chord in Ohio?
We’re in 31 states now. You can order it through CraftShack online. We’ll get it to Ohio, but it takes time. I’m also putting together a band of all-star players and we’ll go out to play and celebrate the Three Chord express. It’s too early to say who’s in the band, but the Roomful of Blues horn section will be part of it.