"More relatable than Mötley Crüe or Ratt and hipper than Foreigner or Journey": Night Ranger's place in rock history settled by first album Dawn Patrol

Right before the band started recording this first album, guitarist Brad Gillis left to tour with Ozzy Osbourne as a replacement for Randy Rhoads, who had died in a plane crash in March 1982. Gillis promised he would return to Night Ranger. The other guys feared he might not. But he was true to his word, and what the band created was what Classic Rock once described as "the best American hard-rock debut since Van Halen’s."

A supercharged, ultra-melodic sound was defined on brilliant songs such as Don’t Tell Me You Love Me, Sing Me Away, Eddie’s Comin’ Out Tonight and Young Girl In Love. The album quickly went platinum. Night Ranger had hit the ground running.

"We were called Ranger and just as we were set to release our debut album, Dawn Patrol," bassist Jack Blades told Classic Rock. "With something like 10,000 covers printed up with the name Ranger, I spotted an ad in Billboard for a country band called The Rangers. I looked at that and went: “Uh-oh.” So we changed the name to Night Ranger. Which was a song of ours anyway."

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Other albums released in November 1982

• Hello, I Must Be Going! - Phil Collins
• Long After Dark - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• A Kiss in the Dreamhouse - Siouxsie and The Banshees
• Gone Troppo - George Harrison
• Showtime! - The J. Geils Band
• The Lee Aaron Project - Lee Aaron
• The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect - Todd Rundgren
• Coda - Led Zeppelin
• Talk of the Devil - Ozzy Osbourne
• Three Lock Box - Sammy Hagar
• Before the Storm - Samson
• Saints & Sinners - Whitesnake
• Identity Crisis - Sweet
• Oh, No! It's Devo - Devo
• Plastic Surgery Disasters - Dead Kennedys
• Run for the Roses - Jerry Garcia

What they said...

"Unlike many of their pop-metal contemporaries, Night Ranger's early work has aged quite well, and this excellent 1982 debut is a well-kept secret of the genre. Dripping with hooks and irresistible choruses, Don't Tell Me You Love Me, Sing Me Away, and Young Girl in Love are simply outstanding songs." (AllMusic)

"The latest of Boardwalk's forays into the field of contemporary rock'n'roll, Night Ranger has shown immediate acceptance by radio, laying claim to the top FM added album of the week. Starting off with a raucous, rippling gut-wrencher called Don't Tell Me You Love Me, the band continues its loud power chord-dominated ditties throughout the album, criss-crossing between heavy metal and hard pop energy. The signature tune and Young Girl In Love are prime picks for AOR playlists." (Cashbox, 1982)

"Most bands would give up their bass player for a debut album like Night Ranger’s Dawn Patrol, never mind a run of several commercially successful albums. And for us fans? Just one listen is a reminder of how great the album was in 1982 and how heart-pumping it is to crank thirty-five years later. (Sleaze Roxx, 2017)

What you said...

Nigel Mawdsley: A decent debut album which reminded me of early MSG (with an 'Americanised' sound). The lyrics to some of the songs are truly dreadful, though. 7 out of 10.

Chris Elliott: The kind of record you've forgotten whilst it's still playing. Never even heard of them before this week, so it's just fairly bland FM rock with no nostalgia or "hits" to brighten it up.

Gary Claydon: AOR is rock music's equivalent to the cockroach. Whatever seismic shifts shape the rock'n'roll firmament, AOR endures. It simply 'is'. Come the apocalypse, all that will remain will be roaches and AOR bands. Fiercely resistant to change, reliable, utterly predictable. And in the early 80s there seemed to be sooo many of the fuckers around.

It became so difficult to tell many of them apart that they almost seemed to merge into one. Night Ranger are a perfect example. Nothing on Dawn Patrol stands out from the crowd. Don't Tell Me You Love Me is decent enough, with neat guitar solos, but that's about it. One or two others start promisingly, with nice, chugging riffs, such as the eponymous Night Ranger, but don't take long to evaporate into typical AOR shit-with-sugar-on.

Night Ranger aren't the worst of their ilk, but neither are they in the top bracket. Dawn Patrol is, at best, average. Can only assume that the writer of the review mentioned in the introduction was taking the piss. Or had been on the piss. For several days. Or, indeed, hadn't listened to a single album since, well, Van Halen's debut.

Robby Jackson: One for the 80s, and there it can stay.

Jon Peacock: I purchased this album on the back of Brad Gillis playing with Ozzy, a position I felt did both him and Ozzy justice, but didn’t really get on with Dawn Patrol apart from a few tracks. Possibly, I was expecting heavier than it was.

Having not listened to the album for many years, it was an interesting revisit to the album, and did feel it was better than I remembered, which was a nice surprise and will give it a few more spins again.

To my mind, they fit into the Foreigner camp more than any other, but don’t quite have the songwriting to really match them, certainly nothing to match the big Foreigner numbers that many of us know and love. But it's enjoyable just the same, so a solid 7/10, and thanks for it being suggested. It certainly piqued my interest after decades of not listening.

Mark Herrington: The musical style of this album should appeal to me as I don’t mind a bit of good AOR. Stylistically, it reminds me of Toto’s harder-edged albums Isolation and Kingdom Of ‘Desire, somewhat, but lacks that band's skill with songwriting and hooks.

The musicianship here is good, but it needs more memorable tunes and lyrics. The first track, for example, repeated the words ‘Don’t tell me you love me’ over and over, endlessly. The enjoyable guitar solo was actually a welcome break.

It's not an album I recalled afterwards or would listen to again.

Greg Schwepe: There are some bands where I am familiar with pretty much everything that was played on FM radio or shown on MTV; but I never bought any of their albums. Night Ranger are one of those bands. A compilation CD is the only release of theirs that I own. And I really like the band, but even though they had some really kick ass songs, never had the urge to head to the record store with my hard-earned cash. This is the first time I’ve ever listened to one of their albums all the way through.

With Dawn Patrol, you have a solid album of well-written, well-crafted songs with two awesome guitarists and two distinctive vocalists. What’s not to like?

Don’t Tell Me You Love Me hits you right off the bat, and by the time you get to the dual guitar shredding, you’re pretty locked in. Sing Me Away follows and you do just that… sing. Great harmonies all the way through.

This is standard “turn up the volume, roll the windows down” American rock. Standard arena rock fare. Two guitars, a little keyboard thrown in for balance…and there you have it.

I really didn’t hear any filler on this. I would call this a “good” album, not “great.” Worthy of multiple listens, but I wouldn’t call it an Earth-shaking debut for something from 1982.

Even with their songwriting and musicianship, I don’t really think the band was really on the same level as the other arena rock gangs at the time: Journey, Starship, Foreigner, REO, Boston, Kansas, Rainbow, and the rest of that gang. Just a tad below.

8 out of 10 on this one for me. Decent band with decent songs. It's smooth and polished, but it rocks! And if you see them, you’ll get the “greatest hits” set with a couple of songs from this album. Gee, maybe I should have bought this back in the day.

Dan Palisi: Love the deeper cuts on this one: Play Rough, Can't Find Me A Thrill, At Night She Sleeps. The next two albums were good, but the debut is their best.

John Davidson: 1982 was a transitional year in music. The NWOBHM was largely spent, and the Californian hair metal scene hadn't yet become a thing. AOR, on the other hand, seemed to be immune to change. Bands like Foreigner, REO Speedwagon and Journey were riding high while other 70s artists formed bands like Asia or revamped their solo sound (Steve Miller).

I was a new student at university when this came out, and was exploring and exposed to a much wider range of music than I'd listened to before. This was neither new nor old but something in between. Perhaps that's why I don't have any recollection of it.

In my defence, I don't think Night Ranger got much attention in the UK, and, based on this album, I can understand why. Despite the twin guitars that occasionally made me perk up, there really isn't anything on the album that stands out from the crowd.

The music scene in 1982 didn't need competent "also rans", it needed bands to do something different, but Night Ranger weren't going to Rock The Casbah or take us on a long, lonely journey down the Telegraph Road.

Not bad. Just not all that memorable. 6/10

Adam Ranger: Sure, the playing is good, but I just can't get into this band. Maybe it's more the American 80s produced sound that just doesn't excite me. It's also the sometimes cringeworthy lyrics and delivery. Sure. Metal in the 80s has a lot of innuendo or cringe lyrics so they are not alone. But, for me, it just doesn't excite. Rock by numbers.

Michael Böcher: Simply a great debut. Don't Tell Me You Love Me has one of the best guitar solos ever.

Philip Qvist: I think I made a mistake playing Dawn Patrol and then their classic Midnight Madness after that. Dawn Patrol isn't a bad album, and it starts off with the rocking Don't Tell Me You Love Me, but as their second album proved, this record only serves as a big hint of what would be coming next.

The album, and especially the production, is definitely a product of the 80s, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, although others may disagree.

Bassist Jack Blades did the bulk of the songwriting and singing, although drummer Kelly Keagy came with a few co-writes of his own, while singing lead on a few songs as well. Guitarists Brad Gillis and Jeff Watson would have to wait for a bit longer to get their songwriting credits, but their guitar playing on Dawn Patrol sure made up for that.

The opening track is the best song, although there aren't any real bad tracks on here, and the record definitely rocks. I like it, so it will get an above-average score from me, but Midnight Madness remains my essential Night Ranger album.

Henry Martinez: As interesting as this album is, so is its journey to fruition. Jack Blades, Kelly Keagy and Brad Gillis all came from Rubicon, an unjustly forgotten pop/funk group led by Sly Stone sax man Jerry Martini. Alan 'Fitz' Fitzgerald was the second bass player in the original Montrose lineup, who landed on keyboards here and later played them offstage at Van Halen gigs. And of course, Gillis spent a minute as Ozzy's guitarist after Randy's death.

All said, these guys landed together as Stereo and recruited a second guitarist, Jeff Watson, for added heft. This was quite simply one hell of a talented band with twin lead singers, twin axe masters, and an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. After a final name change from Ranger to Night Ranger, they were set to go with Dawn Patrol, although they experienced one last hiccup as their label Boardwalk went out of business, leading to their second, more accomplished LP Midnight Madness being on MCA.

Dawn Patrol is a fine debut with three especially-strong tracks - the propulsive Don't Tell Me You Love Me, the proto-power ballad Sing Me Away, and deeper cut Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight. For their first four albums, you could depend on Night Ranger having three to four killer tracks padded by some filler, which means Night Ranger's greatest hits are a better collection than most. It's not on the level of Van Halen's debut, but Dawn Patrol is a well-crafted mission statement for their place in the '80s hard rock pantheon.

Mike Canoe: Dawn Patrol came out when I was in my early teens and, to me, Night Ranger was a band loaded with talent. The bass player sang lead and wrote songs, and so did the drummer. They had not one but two hotshot guitarists and a keyboard player who added more than the flatulent fluff of most 80s rock bands.

The band were helped enormously by their video for Don't Tell Me You Love Me, which was in heavy rotation on MTV. Not only did they sound cool, they looked cool - more relatable than Mötley Crüe or Ratt and way hipper (and younger) than bands like Foreigner or Journey.

Listening to it today, the album is still immensely enjoyable. Generally, Jack Blades sang the tough guy songs while Kelly Keagy sang the love songs. A lot of the lyrics are cringey now, but very of their time. Don't Tell Me You Love Me still begs you to belt out the chorus and air guitar the solos. Blades' other tunes like Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight, Can't Find Me a Thrill, Play Rough and Night Ranger all hit the hard rock bullseye. Not all the tunes sung by Keagy work for me, but Sing Me Away and At Night She Sleeps have enough Sammy Hagar-esque oomph to keep 'em going.

I also bought follow-ups Midnight Madness and 7 Wishes, but the band seemed to get poppier with each release, and I looked elsewhere for my hard rock thrills. No doubt the band were cajoled by their label to keep the Sister Christians comin'. But debut Dawn Patrol was pretty much perfect.

Warren Bubb: I came to this one after getting Midnight Madness. It's not as good as that one but a pretty good 80's AOR album with very little filler. For me it hasn't aged as well as other AOR albums of the period from Foreigner, Journey or REO Speedwagon, but it's still one I enjoy listening to now and again. Sorry, but they are not power ballad kings, That crown belongs to REO, Journey or Scorpions. Good for a 7/10.

Final score: 7.22 (63 votes cast, total score 455)

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