Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions play blues rock music without regard to genre, yet if you listen, youโll hear Rock N Roll with a bluesy undertone. Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions, a formidable force, will release all tunes as singles prior to the early 2023 publication of the Destiny Road EP. The forthcoming release features Sherm Tate on bass and vocals, Marty Steinberg and Jethro DeFries on drums, Jerry Manfredi on bass and musical direction, and Tommy Mars on keyboards. Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions have performed widely in Southern California and are now looking forward to performing in Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah.
Gary Dranow, a bandleader, resorted to music as a means of coping with bipolar disorder and the aftereffects of a stroke after establishing successful outdoor sports-related businesses. The outcome is a genre-defying compilation of songs that offer solace to others also traversing a challenging path.
(Made It) Another Day is a quirky blues song about the vicissitudes of everyday life for those experiencing mental or emotional turmoil that can result from a breakup or from the routine of daily life and the difficulties one faces. Check out the song and the exclusive interview below:
1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?
GARY DRANOW: I was born in 1954 in Santa Monica, California. Spent my first six years in West Los Angeles and attended Warner Avenue Elementary School. I had a difficult childhood which I will elaborate on later. I got my first experience with music at Warner when I signed up for the band and was given a Clarinet and sheet music. I didnโt know how to read the music or the foggiest idea how to play a reed instrument. I was quite frustrated with the whole thing, and I believe the music teacher at Warner expected the parents to get their child into music lessons which at that time apparently my parents didnโt have a clue how to get me stared with lessons so my first experience with music was an abject failure. I was quite athletic, which both my parents recognized, and they got me into martial arts quite young and then around the same time into equestrian training. I got my first horse shortly after we moved to the San Fernando Valley in Woodland Hills. My new school was Collier Street Elementary School. My parents got me hooked up with very good equestrian trainers, Jack and Linda Baker Stables out of Thousand Oaks, California. While I immediately started to excel in my horsemanship, primarily Stock Seat Equitation, I was being bullied as the new blondish red-haired kid at my new school. My martial arts training came in quite handy as I regularly punished the kids that bullied me, mostly because I was Jewish, not the norm when we first moved to woodland hills. I started competing at horse shows at around 10 years old. I won the very first class I was entered into by my trainers. My parents took notice and would have me stay at Jack and Lindaโs ranch every weekend and all summer breaks until I was about 14, when my interests shifted to motorcycles. My Motocross career is a whole other chapter to which I will spare tor readers. Just leave it that I excelled again and turned pro at 15 years old.
2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
GARY DRANOW: Both actually. I got my first guitar at around 13 when my mom happened to be driving me up Ventura Blvd. When Creamโs version of Robert Johnsonโs song Crossroads came on the radio, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning, and I immediately knew this was something I had to do. Eric Claptonโs playing and singing had me in rapture. I had my mom turn around and take me directly to Ernie Ballโs Guitars in Encino and I walked out with my first Fender Stratocaster, a 1966 Olympic White over a Sunburst finished guitar and a Fender Champ Amplifier. The reason why Fender painted the solid color over the already finished body was the paint would cure much faster and give a luster to it. So back to your question. Yes, I started immediately taking lessons at Ernie Ballโs.
My first teacher tried to start me out by tapping my foot and counting (which I still suck at to this day to my band mates dismay) and play Marry Had A Little Lamb (not Buddy Guyโs version) to which I didnโt take to very well. I wanted to play like Clapton and by then I had started listening to Jimi Hendrix and was blown away. I had to know their secrets. Even though now I realize that my first instructor was trying to build my musical foundation, I grew frustrated and quit.
So, then I would play songs from the bands of the sixties over and over again trying to pull the notes and phrases out of my guitar. I did make some headway, but I was concentrating all my time on the solos and had no concept of rhythm playing initially.
Shortly thereafter, when I tried to play in my first band made up of friends from school, one of my friends admonished me and said, youโve got to play chords to support the songs and the singer. I was embarrassed but took that to heart. I started learning chord progressions from Hal Leonardโs books.
This went on for a couple of years and I slowly became a decent though not naturally talented guitar player. The one thing I had going for me was I was doggedly persistent and would pick up things from every guitar player I would befriend. Thatโs when Don Sunderland came into my life, around 16 years old Iโd guess. He could play every song I longed to master and for him it was second nature. Thatโs when I realized if I was going to play like Don, I was really going to have to apply myself 100 percent. I went looking for a teacher that could take me to the next level.
In 1971 I moved to Mammoth lakes to ski with a friend of mine, Paul Crain, who I had worked with at a restaurant called the Jolly Ox. Funny side story is the Ox served liquor, so you had to be 21 to work there, but I was 18 or barely 18 years old. I had a friend who was a master in photography, Kevin Simpson and made a license for me that said I was 21, he did such a good job with it that when the manager suspected I was under age the license worked like a charm.
Anyway, back to Paul. I had already started skiing as soon as I got my real driverโs license at 16. A friend and I would drive up to Mammoth every weekend in my Dadโs Oldsmobile Delta 88 and would het up there at nighttime on Friday and would sleep in the car at the base of chair two, ski all Saturday, Go out for the cheapest dinner we could find and do it again on Sunday then would make the 300 mile drive back to Woodland Hills and back to Taft Highschool on Monday.
So, when Paul Crain said โHey letโs move to Mammoth I was all in. We made the move. Paul was a decent guitar player and had a Martin D-18 and a Gibson 335. The first thing he played for me was Classical Gas on his Martin. I was enthralled. That entire winter weโd ski and work at a restaurant at night and play guitar every minute as well as listen to Paulโs extensive vinyl collection. Thatโs where I got introduced to Clapton once again with Derrick and The Dominos and The Stones Let It Bleed. So, Paul had a profound effect on me before I got to Ted Greene. We are friends to this day and because of him I recently switched to Soldano Amps.
Enter Ted Greene, the author of Chord Chemistry. I started taking lessons with him at 19 and he took me to places I had only imagined. He even had me take a few lessons with his teacher Joe Pass, who I found to be the most disagreeable person I ever met. What I learned from Joe is that I didnโt want to be a jazz musician.
When I told this to Ted. Who had been teaching me chordal melodies, also in a jazz framework he recommended another teacher at the same store who was a blues master.
I donโt recall his name, but he introduced me to Robert Johnson and to the Three Kings. I fell in love with Freddie as well as Jimmy Reed. I was surprised that many of the songs of my favorite bands like Les Zepplin, the Yardbirds and so many others had taken songs from the 40โs and 50โs blues masters and covered their songs. Heck, even The Rolling Stones.
I was determined at around 19 or 20 to become a fluent blues musician and I marveled at the massive number of songs that followed the tried and true 12 bar blues with the I IV V chord progression often time utilizing chord fragments or triads to evoke amazing emotions in me. The inversions and extended chords that I studied so hard with Ted faded to the background.
I was pretty much self-taught for several years when I got Introduced to Keith Wyatt from GIT. He filled in the blanks for me and really for me started writing my own songs in the eighties and nineties.
The rest is history.
3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name โ
GARY DRANOW: Clearly early Clapton, Hendrix, the Three Kings. Buddy Guy and so on. If you can recall your first question, I said I had a troubled childhood, well also had a troubled life. It wouldnโt be until my forties that I finally started seeing a psychologist who in turn referred me to a psychiatrist that I learned I suffered from Bi-polar 1 illness cycling with Mania. My songs were a true reflection of what I was feeling from day to day until Dr. Parad got me on Lithium. Immediately it was like a dark shadow was lifted from me, but the Lithium still left me with Mania. I was very aggressive. I was married three times, all ending in a divorce due to my behaviors. Until I found my world traveler from my Destiny Road song, got married a fourth time shortly thereafter my dear friend Harold DeBlanc sent me to my current Psychiatrist, I kid you not, Dr. Kalm. He prescribed me a cocktail of drugs that most likely saved my marriage to my fourth wife Elizabeth and tomorrow we celebrate our 18th anniversary! So why the name? Kinda fits, doesnโt it?
4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
GARY DRANOW: Its good old guitar oriented 70โs Rock with a modern twist being the subjects and lyrics of each story that is the song. I hope that people experiencing personal battles will relate to me, appreciate my vulnerability, and find personal meaning in my music.
5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as ROCK?
GARY DRANOW:
I started playing in original bands early on in my musical journey and while I thoroughly enjoy playing many cover songs especially Hendrix, it is playing mt original music and getting a rousing reception from the listeners gives me the most satisfaction. I developed my style by learning hundreds of songs note for note and delivering them with authenticity built the foundations of The Manic Emotions sound. Because I never really had much tonal memory and lost what little I had from my stroke, what I write is truly original, my melodies a phrasing is particular to me. Hints of my influences are there but not to the degree that anybody can say I sound like this band or that.
6. Whatโs your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles โ and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?
GARY DRANOW: Hard question and I wish I had the time to simmer on this one. If I had to choose, Iโm a little in both camps. My new album is filled with stories about personal battles as in the central figure of the Roman society laboring his life away in my unique song Hadrianโs Wall. And I take on the climate change situation head on in Motherโs Angry. But then I revert to my rock roots in Iโm A Man.
7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?
GARY DRANOW:
Iโm really taking on my music career with no other distractions such as business or sports for the first time in my life. It says a lot about my dreams to be a successful original artist with some blues roots melded in that I hope it will support me financially in the future. I am treating my music as a business for the first time in my life. I have surrounded myself with the best marketing and promotion experts I could find such as Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR and several others that have already made their professional goals in music and are out there to give back so their charges like me donโt have to spend a lifetime of hard knocks to taste success. Iโm in the fortunate situation that I can support my music in such a way that I am likely to see the finish line, if there is such a thing befote I am 80.
8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
GARY DRANOW:
When I started writing in the โ70โs I would come up with a chord progression, record on my Tascam two track recorder, work out a melody and then came the Lyrics. In 1978 I met a kid that had a studio with a four-track recorder. Called Spoiled Brats Studio, a name I would later take and use for my first apparel company, Spoiled Brats of California, a girls 7 to 14 manufacturer, He recorded my first LP and we became friends. His name was Britt Bacon. We shortly formed a group with a drummer named Shaun and a Keyboard player named Fred Rehfeld. The band was called The New Invaderz. We wrote a lot of songs but what we did that was a bit groundbreaking is we shot an early music video directed by a friend of Brittโs who was studying film at the University of Northridge. If I recall it was shot on 16-millimeter film. It was 1979, three years before M-TV. Hereโs the video of The New Invaderz Anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWeAcn0_DREย
I digress, 20 years later a had perfected my song writing process. I used a Tascam 4 track recorder and would, as before coming up with chord progressions, various guitar parts like Intros. Motifs, Solos, Melodies, and vocals. In 1996 or so I had a very vivid dream of me moving to these Emerald Hills far away and would also meet the love of my life, a world traveler, who I would marry. That next morning with the dream fresh in my head I wrote the title song to my current album, Destiny Road. From there my writing became rather prolific.
Shortly there after I met a man named Markian, he and I formed a band and played many venues in the West Los Angeles and surrounding areas and would okay only his and my original music.
He had a 16-track professional studio. Though we stopped playing together when I formed Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions, we remained good friends. He agreed to record a produce my now finished Destiny Road Album.
In comes Jerry Manfredi, my base plater and musical director for The Manic Emotions. He helped me polish and arrange my songs for which I have given him credit on the now released singles and the Album due out May 12th of this year.
So I did collaborate with various composers from the late โ70โs to the mid โ90โs primarily Britt, Markian and Jerry.
9. What has been the most difficult thing youโve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
GARY DRANOW: Stepping away from my music for ten years from 1998 when I uprooted from Manhattan Beach California to my current a forever home in Park City, Utah. I was concentrating on one of my businesses (founded and sold four in total), my ski racing and my recreational ski racing academy Modern Ski Racing. I almost forgot that I had a stroke in 1997 which left my face partially paralyzed and messed up my inner ear for music. I picked up one of my 100 guitars in 2008 and never looked back. I reinvented myself musically and reformed The Manic Emotions 2.0 in 2020 with my bass player and coach/confidant Sherm Tate and my incredible drummer Bob Smith. I also have a teacher/Co-writer in Melbourne Chris Zoupa (Teramaze) who has helped me write my second album, Never Give Up, a fourteen-song odyssey which will be released hopefully in the winter of this new year.
10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
GARY DRANOW: Recovering my performance and singing ability, getting the original tapes to a studio in Lakewood California who baked them then transferred the analog tracks to digital, wav files and finding Tim Wilson, my loyal and hardworking engineer to remaster all of the songs from scratch and giving me what I hope to be a very successful seminal album.
11. With social media having a heavy impact on our lives and the music business in general, how do you handle criticism, haters, and/or naysayers in general? Is it something you pay attention to, or simply ignore?
GARY DRANOW: I just delete and literally forget and move on. If someone doesnโt like me or my playing and singing or my songs, to me it is their problem not mine.
12. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?
GARY DRANOW: They both do is the simple answer. I feel great personal satisfaction when a song, which sometimes starts as a riff, gets a life of its own to the point where the lyrics almost write themselves, like so many of the fourteen songs on Destiny Road and Never Give Up.
But Iโd be a liar if I said a good-sized crowd yelling for me at the top od their lungs is not a huge thrill. I live for that!
13. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?
GARY DRANOW: Easy one here. I write to affect the listener. I think my songs are stories filled with life lessons that I fill qualified to tell. I am 68 after all ๐
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Photo credits: Melanie Greenwood
