NIGHT RANGER's JACK BLADES Opens Up About His Recent Health Scare: 'I Had A Blocked Artery'

During an appearance on this past Monday's (July 17) episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", NIGHT RANGER bassist/vocalist Jack Blades opened up about the recent operation he underwent that resulted in the postponement of several of the band's concerts in late March. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I had kind of a crazy — I didn't see it coming — wake-up call, kind of a scare back in March, about four months ago. And luckily, I was down in Anaheim. We went right into a hospital, and, man — boom. Just like that. My body wasn't feeling right. I'm, like, 'Dude, this isn't right. Something's not right.' So I called my tour manager. He just took me right to a hospital, which was, like, there was one every five minutes away from us where we were. And so I just popped in. And they fixed me. I'm all good. I'm feeling great. Actually, to tell you the truth, I feel better. Maybe something was going on even for the past year on me or something like that. They cleaned out some of my pipes in my heart, some arteries and everything like that, and I'm all in good shape and I'm just rocking and rolling, as you can see by the shows and everything like that. I feel like I have more air to sing now. Maybe for the last year or something, something was going on then. But all I know is that it's fixed now and I'm in good shape. And we're, like, 'Let's rock and roll, baby.'"

Asked about the symptoms that he experienced that led him to check himself in to a hospital, Jack said: "What was going on with me is I felt like I had indigestion, like I had heartburn. And I don't get heartburn. I'm, like, 'What the hell is this all about?' I had some Indian food the night before, and I thought I had some crappy Indian food and it was giving me some indigestion. But it was kind of like not going away. And I'm sitting there, going, 'This is kind of weird.' And then I'm watching a video of our… I was approving the video of our symphony show that we did in Cleveland to release for a record and everything like that, and I was looking at that. All of a sudden, both my arms started tingling. And dude, I know my body. I'm, like, 'Dude, this is not right. This is really not right.' So I go into a hospital. And I'm sitting in the hospital with all these dudes walking into the hospital in the emergency room, screaming and yelling — knife wounds and gunshot wounds. And I'm, like, 'What the…?' So I'm, like, freaking out and everything like that... But then they started doing tests on me. The next day they went in and did that thing where they go up and check out all your arteries, and I had a blocked artery. So they put one of those stents in and they fixed me."

Blades went on to say that he regularly exercised before he was hospitalized and that his previous exams showed a very low heart disease risk profile.

"The doctor said to me, 'Dude, you have low cholesterol, you have low everything. You are completely under the radar. You've gotta look at this thing as it was like the canary in a coal mine,'" Jack recalled. "It was out of the blue. I don't know if it's genetics — like your father or your grandfather that had heart issues. But you would have never known. It was the craziest thing. I exercise. I'm not a smoker and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, you've gotta just watch yourself.

"I'll tell you what the key was," Jack continued. "The key was when I knew something was going weird and I felt something weird, I didn't screw around and go, 'Hey, man, I'm just gonna tough through it,' or something like that. 'Oh, it'll be cool.' No, dude. 'I know my body. Something's weird. I'm gonna go in right now and find out what's going on.' And thank goodness I did because it could have been a lot worse. The heart's not damaged; nothing's damaged — everything's fine. So, who knows? If I would have sat around and just said, 'Ah, I'm not worried about it.' But I didn't."

NIGHT RANGER is currently supporting POISON frontman Bret Michaels on his 2023 "Parti-Gras" tour. Also appearing on the bill are JEFFERSON STARSHIP and Steve Augeri (former lead singer of JOURNEY) and Mark McGrath (SUGAR RAY),plus a nightly surprise guest to rock your world.

NIGHT RANGER released its 12th studio album, "ATBPO", in August 2021 via Frontiers Music Srl. "ATBPO" stands for "And The Band Played On", an ode to making music during the COVID-19 era.

NIGHT RANGER is Blades, Kelly Keagy (drums, vocals),Brad Gillis (lead and rhythm guitars),Eric Levy (keyboards),and Keri Kelli (lead and rhythm guitars).