Before he met his partner-in-crime in both music and life, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo cut his teeth in late rocker Rick Derringer’s band.
It was no trivial job, he beat 200 other guitarists to get the gig – not to mention Derringer’s own (very) formidable six-string skills. Derringer had full confidence in Giraldo, though – but he did have one condition for the young guitarist.
“In 1977, I joined Rick Derringer’s band and I was playing a red Gibson SG,” Giraldo told Guitar World in a 2013 interview.
“Rick had a [B.C. Rich] Mockingbird, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘You’re in the band, but you gotta get a new guitar. You can’t play that SG.’ Then he said, ‘I’ll get you a B.C. Rich, but you can’t play a Mockingbird, because I play one.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll have an Eagle.’
“[B.C. Rich founder] Bernie Rico fixed me up with a couple of them,” Giraldo continued. “And now B.C. Rich has a Neil Giraldo Eagle model.”
So, with the guitar model question sorted, it was all smooth sailing from there, right? Not quite.
Speaking to Guitar World in 2023, Giraldo recalled how his on-the-job education with Derringer involved, as is the case with many learning processes, falling flat on his face the first time.
“I remember the first gig: I was used to playing in front of 300 people, sometimes 25 people. Now I’m playing in front of thousands,” he remembered.
“After the gig, Rick comes out and goes, ‘What the hell happened?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘You sounded terrible.’ I went, ‘Rick, I was really nervous. I swear, I promise it’ll never happen again.’ And it never happened again.”
It was that belt notch – the blood, sweat, and tears – that helped Giraldo develop into the ace supporting player behind Pat Benatar’s rise to dozens-of-times-Platinum rock superstardom.
“I can’t even tell you how much it prepared me,” he told GW of his time with Derringer. “He taught me so much.”
