Love is a battlefield. And don't forget to hit him/her with your best shot while you're at it.
Which is why, no doubt, rock's reigning old married couple is winging in on their quarter-century anniversary - a nuptial record no other band, freshman or senior, can beat.
When Mr. and Mrs. Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo take the stage of Bloomington's U.S. Cellular Coliseum next week (7:30 p.m. Aug. 31), the distinctions that keep them apart also will prove to be the ones that keep them together, says the Mrs., 53, of the Mr., 50.
"We fight like cats and dogs over things like music, arrangements and lyrics," she confided with a curious enthusiasm. "But that's because he's the visionary and I'm the interpreter. He can't make what he sees in his mind so that humans can understand. So I put it in a form that can forward from his imagination. He can't do that. So I make it happen."
Beyond that rather vague explanation, "I can't really specifically define who does what," she said. "He's supposed to be out there in the universe and I'm on the ground making those human beings understand what he's talking about. He's nuts; we're completely opposite. But that yin-and-yang thing works up there on stage."
By the way, Benatar calls her mate neither "Neil" nor "Giraldo," but "Spider," her pet nickname.
Brooklyn-born, Polish-Irish Benatar came into the world as the considerably less wieldy Patricia Mae Andrzejewski on Jan. 10, 1953.
Though her Brooklyn rearing endowed the tiny (5-feet-no-inches) Patricia Mae with street smarts, "I was raised in the theatrical-classical musical style, while Spider was Iggy (Pop) when he was 15. My entire core is based around classical and theatrical. So I have this serious edge both musically and as a person." (She studied both voice and opera.)
Still, "I was a consumer of rock, and I loved it." An early marriage at age 19 to high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar rescued her from a marquee name few would ever have been able to spell right.
A move to Virginia and a daytime stint as a bank clerk allowed her to rock at night, leading to a 1977 win at a singing contest at New York's Catch a Rising Star comedy club. She found her stage persona and look in a punked-up Halloween costume the audience loved. As a result, she decided to retain it year-round.
Mating the exaggerated punk look to her own defenses created the Pat Benatar who would land a recording contract with Chrysalis records, meet a guitar player named Neil Giraldo, and score a hit album ("In the Heat of the Night") and single ("Heartbreaker") on the charts - all in the space of just two short years.
By the time 1980 rolled around, the brand new decade had its first and most defining female rock icon. It was a development that occurred just as the MTV/rock music video phenomenon was about to erupt.
And when the big bang came a few years later, she was there, ready to absorb it all into her all five feet of her dynamo persona.
In fact, what would '80s MTV have been without Benatar and her choreographed minions charging through "Love is a Battlefield"?
Again, though, there were opposing philosophies on opposite sides of the musical fence: "I thought they (music videos) were a great idea; Spider hates them, and he hates it when people think of something he wrote in terms of some director's idea of what it should be, bastardizing his interpretation with a visual interpretation. We were always duking it out over that."
Though Benatar and Giraldo have been involved musically since the beginning of her recording career, the marriage contract wasn't forged until about five years later, in February 1982.
As stable as their marriage has been their Hawaiian home away from the rock world, in Maui, where they've lived for the past 25 years.
While the Grammys were rolling in (four wins), the singles were dominating the airwaves (more than a dozen hitting the Top 40), the hit albums were being tallied (six platinums, four golds) and the classic MTV videos were being shot, the couple had the stability of their abode.
It's also the place where they've raised their two daughters, Haley and Hana (the former was recently seen on the E! reality series, "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive," a show and TV genre mom says "I hate," adding, "and I hated that she did it, but she had a great time").
Though rock's longest-running couple is now officially middle-aged, Benatar says the music will still keep coming, and they'll keep hitting us with their best shots.
"We've been really lucky," Benatar says. "Spider and I are not into the kind of lifestyle that gets you into trouble. We've been afforded the luxury of not being preyed upon, and, luckily, we don't have that much bad stuff happening. It's the only way we know how to be together - we met as musicians, and then we became a couple. Thankfully, he is just a great man, easy-going, a good guy."
WHAT: Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31
WHERE: U.S. Cellular Coliseum, 101 S. Madison St., Bloomington
COST: $35.50-29; call (866) 891-9992
ON THE WEB: www.benatar.com; www.uscellularcoliseum.com
Dan Craft can be reached at dcraft@pantagraph.com.
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