CLEVELAND, Ohio -- At this point in her life -- with a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction and three grandchildren -- Pat Benatar says she and husband/musical partner Neil Giraldo expected they “would be just cruising.”
That was merely what you’d call a promise in the dark, however.
Both, speaking separately, tick off lists of projects they’re doing together and on their own. That includes a jointly written children’s book for 2025 and continuing work on their stage musical, “Invincible.” There are plenty of their own songs around as well, while Cleveland native and Parma Senior High School graduate Giraldo is working on a memoir, an all-star holiday album and a project with former Benatar band drummer Myron Grombacher -- not to mention his Three Chord Bourbon brand. They also keep touring together and will be in town on Wednesday, July 10, for a concert at at MGM Northfield Park.
“Apparently we keep going and be crazy,” Benatar, 71, says with a laugh by phone from the couple’s home in southern California. “It’s a lot, but we’re having a good time. “The beauty of it all is at least now it’s of your own creation. That makes it a lot better. You don’t have to blame anybody but yourself.”
Well, there’s always Giraldo...
“That’s right,” she says with another laugh, “and I will blame him quite a bit!”
Giraldo, 68, is equally gleeful about the full docket he’s carrying now. Some of the projects have years in the making -- he’s been talking about the memoir since at least 2016, for instance -- but he’d rather be overloaded than wanting for things to do.
“I still believe I haven’t done the best work I’ll do in my life,” explains Giraldo, who joined Rick Derringer’s band after graduating from Parma Senior High School, then was partnered with Benatar during the spring of 1979 for her platinum debut album, “In the Heat of the Night.” They began dating shortly after that and married in 1982.
“I really mean that,” Giraldo adds. “I’m never satisfied, ever -- and never was. It can be cliche, I know, but if you think you’re gonna get lazy and be, ‘The hell with it. I did everything I’m gonna do. I’ll play golf all day,’ that’s not gonna happen. I will never stop.”
Both acknowledge, however, that their Rock Hall induction in 2022 in Los Angeles gave way to pause and reflection -- somewhat unexpectedly, according to Benatar, who had insisted that she and Giraldo being inducted together as a duo despite the albums being released under her name.
“It’s a funny thing that happened there,” she acknowledges. “I don’t know if we were protecting ourselves, subliminally, from being hurt by not being inducted before, but it didn’t have any weight to me at all. It wasn’t validating for me at all. It’s always nice to be recognized, but it doesn’t change anything about how you feel about your work.
“But I have to say as time went on after the induction...it DID mean something. It means a lot to me now to be in this very small group of humans in this place and be acknowledged in that way. It had no weight before, so it was kind of surprising to me, personally that it actually is something I’m proud of now.”
Benatar and Giraldo are hardly resting on that substantial laurel, however.
Both are excited about the children’s book; they’re keeping details, including the title, vague right now, but it was inspired by and is about their grandchildren and their relationship with them. “It’s sweet,” Benatar allows. “It’s about everything we do and everything they do. And it’s all about music.” She and Giraldo are also planning to write and record some songs as a companion to the book.
“Invincible,” meanwhile, remains a work in progress and is in the process of reboot, according to the couple. A retelling of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” using Benatar and Giraldo’s songs, it premiered in late 2022 in Los Angeles, a run they say was instructive -- so much so that “we’re tearing it to shreds and starting over,” according to Benatar, with work sessions planned for the fall in New York City.
“We’re going to take it in a little different direction,” Giraldo says, “maybe go back to where it began. It was a learning experience the first time for us. We made mistakes, learned great things along the way. I think we got too far into the weeds with it and it started getting a little messy.”
Benatar adds that, “It’s been exciting. It’s been fun. We have the liberty to (revise it) because we haven’t gone to even Off-Broadway or anything. So we can keep evolving ‘til we get to the place we feel like it’s time to put it out there.” And when they do, she adds, they have an idea of where they’d like to try it out.
“There’s the possibility of actually first showing it in Cleveland,” says Benatar, who refers to it herself as “a Clevelander by marriage, so we love it there. There’s family, friends, everybody in the audience. It’s a home thing for us. It’s as good as going to New York for us. It’s a family place, and the audiences are amazing there. So there’s a possibility it’ll be the first place to open it in this (next) form.”
“They really do have the greatest fans there, no question” Giraldo concurs. “The amount of knowledge and excitability people in Cleveland have for music, it’s always been phenomenal. So it’s always exciting to come back there.”
“Invincible,” of course, is comprised of existing Benatar-Giraldo music. Their last album, “Go,” came out in 2003, with a few non-album singles and soundtrack songs between 2015-2020. They also recorded a new version of Benatar’s first hit, “Heartbreaker,” with Dolly Parton for her “Rockstar” album last fall.
As for prospects for more new material of their own, Giraldo says that “if the time feels right, that’s a possibility. It’s not like we don’t have a lot of material. We do have a lot of songs.” In fact, Benatar adds, “We have about 125 songs sitting around, waiting to be recorded. If you can get my husband in (the studio) to do it, I will bless you.”
So what’s the holdup?
“Here’s the deal with making a record,” says Giraldo. “The best records, I believe, are done in 29 days, done one to day 29 to do everything. Do it and get it done. But you have to be able to block that time out so your primary focus is just on that recording. That’s the most difficult part, and as you get older and you have grandchildren, and children besides, its’ hard to find that block. We’d probably have to go somewhere for 29 days away from where we live to do that.”
In the meantime, Giraldo in particular is juggling his variety of other projects. He himself laughs at the saga that the memoir has become but explains that he has a particular story he wants to tell with it.
“I don’t believe reading a memoir about me is really important, I don’t,” he explains. “What is important is the story, I want to (write) something that will give people hope and show people if I can do this, you can do this too. That’s really what I want it to be about.”
He’s also excited about the album with Youngstown native Grombacher, who played on nine of Benatar’s albums and whose hyperactive presence was a highlight during concerts, including his occasional guest appearances now.
“We’re writing all the songs together; I know we’ve got about 21 songs, a lot of material, and we really like what we have,” says Giraldo, who plans to get back with the drummer after touring this summer. “We were childhood friends in Cleveland, right? What’s cool about what we do is we make two people sound like one, one rhythm instrument. That’s what we create together.”
This year gives Benatar and Giraldo another opportunity to celebrate what they’ve done together as well. “In the Heat of the Night” gave them a solid launch 45 years ago, including 10 more albums and 15 Top 40 hits that followed, along with four Grammy Awards and Three American Music Awards. They prefer to look towards the future, of course, but there’s no denying how the glorious path they see in the rearview mirror.
“Some days it feels like it’s been five minutes, some days it’s, ‘Holy s***, this is a long time!’ -- but it feels mostly like five minutes,” Benatar says. “We’re so tightly woven in all aspects of our life. It still feels great on all of our levels -- for us as a couple, still made for each other, and then musically everything is so fresh. Every day we go out it’s like a new day. We have such gratitude for that We couldn’t have asked for a better life than this.”
To which Giraldo seconds, “We remember being in the studio doing (the first album), everything about it. We connected on so many levels. The minute we met we knew we were gonna do something that was really special. I’m not a metaphysical guy, but the idea it was aligned the two of us would meet like that is remarkable. All I was looking for was a great singer and form a band and...we got so much more, y’know? It’s great.”
Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 10 at MGM Northfield Park, 10777 Northfield Road. For more information call 330-908-7625 or go to mgmnorthfieldpark.mgmresorts.com. Tickets, starting at $82, are available at ticketmaster.com.
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