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Rock and Roll Class of 2015: JOAN JETT's original BLACKHEARTS bassist is a fifth-grade teacher ... and loving it
from: cleveland.com
By Chuck Yarborough
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Gary Ryan is a lucky man. After all, he's going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 18, as the original bassist for JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS.
And Gary Moss is just as lucky. After all, he's spent the past 17 years as an elementary schoolteacher and has a beautiful wife and 10-year-old son.
Oh, and they're the same person, just for the record. And BOTH of them are lucky, because Ryan and Moss have gotten to live their dreams.
Ryan -- or Mr. Moss, as his students as Swiftwater Elementary Center in rural Pennsylvania, a couple of hours outside of New York City, call him -- was 15 (he lied about his age to get the gig) when he teamed with Jett when she launched the BLACKHEARTS in 1980.
"I did," Moss said, admitting with a rueful smile to the little age fudging. He was sitting in the comfortable conference room of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Thursday afternoon, sharing his story with the media. Not far away, his fourth-grader son Alden fiddled with goodies from the Rock Hall, and his wife of 22 years, Jennifer, sat beaming.
Moss said he felt like he needed to create a stage persona -- his real name IS Gary Moss -- so he adopted Gary Ryan.
Moss said he made the call to leave music behind after the globe-trotting tours that followed the success of "I Love Rock and Roll." The band had gone from cars to vans to tour buses to private jets, and he was just tired.
"We were taking a break -- everybody needed a break -- and I remember sitting in my apartment in Manhattan feeling just how good it felt to be HOME, sleeping in my own bed instead of hotels and buses," Moss said.
"After six years with all the hard traveling, we had three albums," he said. Jett took her leave to make the movie "Light of Day," here in Cleveland.
"I felt like I just wanted to be home," he said.
As you might expect, his musician friends and his educator colleagues both have the same question: How could you give all that up for teaching?
Well, it didn't happen overnight. Once he decided to leave the music business, Moss said he programmed music for a restaurant, as he'd always been a "vinyl junkie" who harbored thoughts of becoming a disc jockey. Then there was the stint doing custom cabinetry and woodworking. But after a time "breathing sawdust all day," he thought maybe the classroom was more his style.
It's actually in his genes: Mr. Moss -- who teaches science, social studies and American history -- is a fifth-generation teacher, and it's clear he loves it, because he loves making a difference.
Like many of us, he had that one special teacher in his life, his cello teacher, Mr. Hubbard ("I can see his face but I can't remember his first name").
"The mission of educators is to inspire the students, who get all the credit," he said.
Not that Old Man Hubbard had it easy, don't you know. See, Moss is a lefty, so when he first picked up a cello and bow, he had them in the "wrong" hands, a no-no with Mr. Hubbard.
"I'm going to teach you to play the right way!" Mr. Hubbard told him.
So Moss played cello -- and still plays bass -- right-handed. His dad's biggest dig? Wondering if Hubbard made a mistake by forcing his son to switch.
"Maybe you could've made something of yourself," Moss said his father told him, jokingly, after the success of the BLACKHEARTS.
The move to Pennsylvania was really an easy one. Moss' wife had spent her childhood summers among the dairy farms of Pennsylvania. And really, they've not looked back since.
"[The BLACKHEARTS] was a big part of my life," he said, noting with a sweet smile in her direction that had it not been for the band, he wouldn't have moved to New York and met his wife.
Which doesn't mean that he's not still playing. The junior high kid who used to bring his bass on the school bus every day still plays. He and Jett and the rest of the BLACKHEARTS just recorded a cut in New York for a new movie, and he keeps his fingers nimble strumming "those same three chords" on his six-string. He also jams with his son, Alden, a budding drummer "with an old jazz soul of Gene Krupa."
He'll be on the stage along with Jett and guitarist Ricky Byrd. Drummer Lee Crystal, who left the band the same year Moss/Ryan did, and played with him a few bands after that, died in 2013, 20 years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Drummer THOMMY PRICE, guitarist DOUGIE NEEDLES and bassist Acey Slade will be the ones on the Public Hall stage when Jett and the BLACKHEARTS play after their induction.
Moss may or may not be onstage with them, at least for the initial song or two (bet money on him bringing his Ampeg bass onstage for the traditional show-ending jam). He wouldn't turn down the gig if asked.
Either way, that Saturday night at Public Hall is going to be special for Moss. Or Ryan.
Or both. |
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