The way Alligator came about was that
Brad was going to do a second solo record and I'd played on the first solo album, Gilrock Ranch.  I didn’t sing but I played on it cause it was more an instrumental type record. But he just called me up and said, “Moonpoopies,” -- that’s what he calls me -- he says, “Moonpoopies, man, I had all these people who were going to sing for me and they all fell through.  But me and you. . . we have a thing. Would you help me put a song together?”

It was like a one song thing so I said “Sure man, send me down your ideas.” So he sent me down a list of titles and music. And they all had temporary, working names. Just these silly names that meant nothing to me, had no story.

"I was first approached by Pony
Canyon Records in  Japan to do
a CD, but the more I started
writing songs  and recording, I became more serious about the material.  I didn’t want to repeat 
an instrumental CD and wanted
more vocal oriented songs
this time around. I got Gary
Moon involved with lyrics and
vocals on seven songs. He
was essentially my first choice
and is a great singer."

-- Brad Gillis
So after we did like two or three songs, he goes, “Well, you know, we got such a good thing going on, let’s just do the whole record together.”  I was like “Sure man, that’s fine. Let’s do it.” Even though I was working on this other project (with Persons UnKnown).  I’d just take a week out of a month, and I’d go up and finish a song and then come back. It turned out to be a good thing. But I’d never written that way before. This was like, taking an idea of a groove and trying to come up with a song. Using the music first. Before I’d always have the storyline first and then the music came after the story. It was hard, but it was interesting to me and it turned out really well.
Alligator was a song that everyone loved when we played it live, but Kelly thought it was a stupid song. In my Night Ranger days, we were trying to be a little tougher, more political, and that was more of a fun song. It was a true story actually of a girl that liked to bite from New Orleans. I’d met her in Georgia and I turned it around so that I was the alligator, cause I wanted to be the aggressor in the song. That was the first song Brad and I wrote together actually. He’d come down to my house, it was like 4 in the morning and we were drunk and everyone was in bed,
and he came up with this slingy guitar lick.I thought it was really cool, kinda funky, reminded me of New Orleans. Alligators are down there and so then the story of the girl came back and I sang a melody. Later I drove up to San Francisco, to one of our sessions, and in the car on the way up, I wrote all the lyrics. That song actually almost ended up becoming a state song for Florida. We played a couple of important shows there in Tallahassee, where the state college is, and they loved the song. It had energy and alligator in it and you know, Florida and alligators go hand in hand.  Ending up not playing it cause it wasn’t picked for the record. But Brad always liked the song, and I think it’s great. It’s got all these vocal breakdowns -- it’s like a classic.  

"Gary has a keen
sense for melody and
arrangement. His
vocal range goes

for days and he and
I seem to click in the studio.The
most fun is playing live with
Mooney.... A real showman
for the crowd."

-- Brad Gillis

 So we decided to call the record Alligator. During the Mojo days, I was always called the Alligator Man. All during the whole time before we made the record, if someone saw me in the mall after one of our radio interviews, they'd go "Look! There’s the alligator man!" And Brad would always tell this story before we did the song - it was a made up story - but he'd go up to the mic and he'd say, “Someone always comes up to me before the show and says ‘Where’s that Gary Moon? Where is he?’ and I always say 'Why
do you want Gary Moon?' and they’d say ‘He bit me so-oo-oo hard on my ass! Where is that Alligator man?” and then they would bring me out. So, it was perfect.

But you know, every song I’ve written -- I’ve never written a song that I didn’t experience in some way I've always written about something I was heartful about. It’s gotta be from my soul. Just something from the soul, something wrote down. A lot of my songs are a couple paragraphs of a story. Then I had to make it fit into some music. Never had the music and had to fill it up with lyrics like this time around with Alligator.  Like the first time I drove from Monterrey to Big Sur. I’d heard so much about it, people telling me that the drive would change my life, like I’d see everything in a different light. I’m driving down and that’s when I wrote Angels Don’t Lie from Still Moon. I told the truth and to me, that’s important. On Alligator, Circle of Light was about my favorite cat that died while I was up at Brad’s house.  Esposeto died, and all my friends talk about going into the light when they see a dead animal on the side of the road or something. Well, Espo is going into the light I started thinking, and I knew I had to get focused on this thing. So, I got a circle of light that I can focus on and now I can get on with my business and take care of what I need to take care of.

And then, Leap of Faith, which is the last song on the record. Once a month I’d fly up for 5 days. Brad would give me an idea on the music and I’d have to come up with the lyrics and the melody, and sometimes I wouldn’t even know what I was going to write about until I got there. I’d get there, go out and buy myself a bottle of Scotch, and sit on the couch I was sleeping on, and the TV was there on mute. I knew I’d have to come up with something and I didn’t have anything for this song and it was real uptempo. So I'd been reading the airplane magazine and there was a story about some guy and there was a line in the article that he took a leap of faith. I was like “Here I am, on a plane, taking a leap of faith up to Brad’s. I could die right now without having a song to write. So I’m going to write this song called Leap of Faith!" and I wrote the song on the plane. It has to be like that for me. It can’t be like talking about a club and picking up a chick or something. It’s gotta be personal for me.

"Right now there is airplay and lots of press in Europe and hopefully Gary and I could take a project over there.  We have been talking about gettin’ together to rehearse these songs live and see how it goes..I’d dig that!!!! Gary and I would have a blast doing all the "Gator" tunes along with some Night Ranger stuff."

-- Brad Gillis

For more information on Brad Gillis or to purchase Alligator, please visit www.BradGillis.com