Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll: My Life in Rock

by Stephen Pearcy

  “I’m going with Ronnie Dio,” he spat. “He’s a pro. I’m outta here.”

  Dio, a mild-mannered Brit managed by his wife, Wendy, was a decent man, one of the nicest rockers on the planet. But his brand of hard rock was a weird fantasy blend that somehow always returned to goofy man-on-a-silver-mountain themes.

  “Fine,” I snapped. “Enjoy your Dungeons and Dragons.”

  Jake departed, and immediately I fell into a catastrophic funk as I attempted to envision Ratt without its resident guitar god.

  “Dude, we’ll be fine,” Robbin consoled me, a strong arm around my shoulders.

  “No, we won’t,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re done for, man. I’ll never find anyone who can play as good as Jake. He was one in a million.”

  “Come on, Stephen,” Robbin said patiently. “You’ll see. We’ll rebuild.”

  This was true, but first, we’d fall completely to shit. One week later, Matt Thorr dropped his own atomic missile on my ego and our band.

  “I hate to do this to you, bud,” he said. “But we’re leaving.”

  Our drummer stood behind him, his arms crossed. “We’re starting our own band,” Matt said. “We’re going to call ourselves Rough Cutt.”

  “Good luck,” I said bitterly. “Hope you make it. You don’t even have a lead guitarist.”

  “Yes, we do,” he said quietly. “Chris.”

  I couldn’t believe my own ears. But it was true. Sarge was a casualty, their army fatigues never quite catching on with the drugs-and-vodka-fueled Sunset Strip crowd. Now Hager was joining up with the enemy.

  The situation looked bleak: I had paying gigs scheduled, but no members in my band. Only Robbin stood by me. This was our make-or-break moment. And I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Let’s fucking steal people,” I said to Robbin.

  “Ratt is in attack mode,” he assured me.

  We assembled a skeleton crew to get us through the next few gigs, swooping up the bass player from Teaser and a hyper local Los Angeles sticksman with a bizarre Rod Stewart haircut who could barely see out over the edge of his own colossal drum kit—but our guns were aimed on bigger targets. At a show in Anaheim, we shared a bill with a La Jolla band. Their lead guitarist was a skinny, wispy young dude who went by the name of Warren DeMartini. The kid had no “look” whatsoever. In fact, he resembled someone’s younger brother who’d managed to sneak up onstage. But minutes into their set, you could tell this was no mistake. The boy could grind.

  “You should come up and hang out sometime,” I told Warren casually.

  “Hang out?” he said.

  “You know,” Robbin broke in, flashing the movie-star grin that had parted a thousand female legs. “Audition.”

  We weren’t just making idle promises—Ratt had gigs locked in at the Troubadour, and any aspiring musician had to respect that. Warren showed up at the garage a week later, and the young lad promptly rocked our faces off. We wanted him badly, and I told him as much. With a few well-placed ego boosts from Robbin, he was in. He was only supposed to show up for one day, but he never left.

  “Now drums,” I told Robbin.

  “Go.”

  We auditioned a host of drum warriors, all of whom could hit the skins well enough, but nobody made much of an impression on me until a ruddy blond Ozzy Osbourne look-alike named Bobby Blotzer crossed our paths.

  “Man,” I said, squinting at him. “I feel like I know you from someplace. . . .”

  “You probably saw me with Vic Vergat, my old band,” Blotzer said. “We’ve been on TV a few times.”

  “No, that’s not it. . . .”

  “Well, we just toured Europe. Say, do you ever make it over there?”

  “No, that’s not it either,” I said. “Dude, this is really odd, but I’m going to ask anyway—have you ever met a guy named Dennis O’Neill?”

  “Oh, yeah!” said Bobby, his face lighting up. “Hey, I remember you!”

  As it turned out, Bobby and I had met briefly a few years earlier, through my old friend Dennis. Bobby’s girlfriend had been sharing an apartment with Dennis’s main squeeze and another chick I used to pull in every now and then.

  “Sure, I remember you.” Bobby laughed. “That chick you used to bang was so damn hot! Except she had a missing finger, right? She was like Jerry Garcia, man!”

  “I never minded the finger!” I cried, “I always said: I’ll take her!”

  Bobby sat down and played for us. Immediately, it became clear that he was head and shoulders above the rest of the dudes. He clearly had a fat ego to go along with his talent, but Robbin and I were committed to getting a good rhythm section for the band, and we told him so.

  “Join us,” I commanded.

  But Bobby Blotzer was not so easily convinced. Having recently been relieved of his duties with Vic Vergat, he had his sights set on another band.

  “They’re called Bruiser, guys,” he informed us. “And they rock.”

  I had a soft spot in my heart for all bands that rocked, of course, but I’d decided that Bob was our guy, and I’d be damned if any other band was going to lure him away.

  “We have gigs,” I reminded him. “Solid dates. Big crowds. Can Bruiser say that?”

  After a few weeks, Blotzer came to his senses.

  “All right, I’ll play for you,” he sighed, like it was a favor. “And by the way, if you’re looking for a bass player, I know a good one.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “Who’s that?”

  “His name’s Juan Croucier. He plays for my best friend, Don Dokken.” Bob thought for a moment. “Let’s steal him.”

  Robbin and I fell into step with no hesitation. When Dokken played their next gig at the Roxy, we dressed in our finest threads and made the scene.

  “How about letting me in for free?” I asked the pretty girl taking tickets, giving her my best charming grin. “I’m in a band, Ratt.”

  “Never heard of you,” she said, bored. “That’ll be five bucks, please.”

  “I always tell them I’m in Iron Maiden,” said Robbin, laughing. “Try it, it works.”

  With bellies full of booze, we pushed our way to the front of the crowd, spotting the curly-haired Cuban playing the bass.

  “He’s good,” I said, after a moment. Juan Croucier played with confidence, and he had impeccable timing. His backup vocals were strong. “Damn good.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Robbin, frowning. “But those cowboy boots he’s wearing, aren’t they . . . ?”

  “Cow-patterned,” I finished for him. It was true. They were leather moo-boots. But we could fix that, unlike talent.

  With Blotzer firmly in our corner, we went after Juan with both barrels, giving him the hard sell. It was another tough one, though, because Dokken already had a deal. They were already in the process of recording an album.

  “Look, I like you, but you guys aren’t signed,” said Juan simply.

  “But we’re going to be,” I promised. “Give us a try. If you don’t like it, you can always quit.” Everyone else always had.

  Juan agreed to give it a shot, at least temporarily. And just like that, we had created the Ratt nucleus that the world would eventually come to know: me, Robbin, Warren, Juan, and Bobby. Our first gig was an end-of-the-semester campus party at UCLA, and all of us were pleasantly surprised at how nicely we fit together as a unit.

  “It’s fucking bizarre—we sounded great!” I cried to Robbin, as I poured an entire can of beer over the front of a coed’s T-shirt.

  “We got chemistry,” he answered, nodding.

  The beginning of any new relationship is a fucking fairy tale, and this was no different. I found Warren DeMartini likable and talented, like a small, gifted chipmunk. Bob was loud and often hilarious. Juan, spicy and unique. I was sure we’d be signed within a month. Then the owner of the Troubadour, Doug Weston, threw a monkey wrench into the works.

  “I don’t like your name anymore,” he said. “I don’t want the word
associated with my club.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with it?” I said. “Everyone else likes it.”

  “Conjures up images of vermin,” he said shortly. “Haven’t you ever heard that before?”

  “People are coming to see us,” I pointed out, seething. “Dude, we’re hot right now.”

  “Stephen, I’m not going to argue with you,” said Weston. “Change the name, or find a different place to play.”

  I went back to the garage, frustrated beyond belief. “Can you believe the balls on this guy?” I yelled. “The whole town loves us, and he can’t get with the program. What got up his ass?”

  “Probably a gerbil,” said Robbin calmly. “Stay cool. I know what we can do.”

  “You got something?”

  “Let’s call ourselves the Gladiators,” he said. “Simple as that.”

  Ever resourceful, Ratt became the Gladiators for a week. The name was on all of our tickets and flyers. It shut Weston up, and no one in my band seemed to care. But for me, it signified a shift in identity, and I wasn’t about to start over at square one. I made sure to stamp the name RATT in huge letters on all the flyers. Stubbornly, I strung up our big RATT banner behind us, too, when we played. The crowd knew who we were.

  The Gladiators nonsense went on for three nights, and then, on a Saturday night, our final show of the month, we sold out so early, turning away so many people that they decided to schedule an extra set that evening in order to accommodate the rest of the crowd.

  “All right,” Weston relented. “You sell this many tickets, you can call yourself whatever you like.”

  Finally, we were back to being Ratt, but further improvements had to be made. At our next gig, I nudged Robbin, onstage.

  “Take a look out there,” I told him. “What do you see?”

  Robbin frowned. “A bunch of people.”

  “People?”

  “Dudes,” he admitted.

  Exactly. Metal was hitting big. Maiden, Priest, Ozzy, and Quiet Riot had the world in the palms of their hands. But heavy metal audiences had far too many guys in them for my taste. I respected the average fat, stoned heavy metal fan as much as the next guy. A fan base is a fan base, and they all pay for tickets. But the truth was, it was not nearly as enjoyable to play to a bunch of long-haired teenage dudes as it was to drive a bunch of sexy sluts mad with desire. We couldn’t compromise our sound, of course—that had to remain as hard-hitting and brutal as we could stand it. But we could change our look.

  Robbin was with me. “The whole Mötley thing, it’s just not us. We don’t need all that leather, razor blades, and pentagrams.”

  “Fuck no,” I agreed. “Softer and sexier is the way to go. We don’t even need to get androgynous—just unique looking.”

  “New-wave swashbucklers?” said Robbin.

  “Kinda, yeah, man,” I said, nodding, excited. “As if we’ve been sent from the future, to fight you and fuck you.”

  “Pirates,” Robbin mused. “Cement pirates.”

  From that moment on, that was our look and our motto: Cement Pirates. We strove for originality and color. Our flair was inspired by Adam Ant and Duran Duran. I traded in my leather jacket for thigh-high boots and big puffy pants. Ripped T-shirts, cut by a thick belt, mismatched earrings, and long, wild necklaces. I tried to let fun and spontaneity dictate my fashion choices. I was always ready to trade rings or bracelets with people I’d meet backstage.

  Anything went: fingerless gloves, white gloves, black gloves, three belts, a sash tied to the belt, ivory tusks on a sterling silver chain, a bandana around the neck, a heart pin. Sounds faggy, but it really worked. Robbin, who could pull off anything, dressed in black tights and boots, red vests with studs on them, and full-on pirate blouses. We dressed a dubious Warren in clothing of our choosing. Juan and Bob were down with it in the early days, too.

  “I feel kinda like a freak,” laughed Warren, looking at his reflection in the mirror: his eye shadow, his blown-out hair, his costume jewelry, ear clips, and glitter spandex tank top.

  “When I was your age,” I said, “I was wearing bell-bottoms and a surgical mask onstage. Consider yourself lucky.”

  I don’t know if our fashion choices ever really changed the demographic of our audience. Chicks definitely came to all of our shows, but dudes continued to outnumber them. Still, for the first time, I felt truly authentic onstage, in terms of my look. I’d given myself permission to kind of branch out, experiment, and try new things. True, we weren’t going to intimidate too many people while wearing satin, but there was a kind of unburdening in that, too. . . .

  With our style locked in, our name defended, and our growing roster of semifamous friends, we were approaching near-professional status. It no longer made sense to live in my friend’s mom’s garage.

  I hugged Mrs. O good-bye and began to stuff band equipment and boxes of clothing into my Datsun. That evening, Robbin, Warren, and I moved into a shabby one-room apartment in Palms, a sector of Los Angeles located just down the freeway from neighboring Culver City. Our new apartment made the Mötley House look luxurious by comparison.

  “We don’t even get a kitchen?” Warren said, looking frightened, as he turned around slowly to survey the twin gas burner and minuscule Philco refrigerator that comprised our tiny kitchenette.

  “What do we need a kitchen for?” asked Robbin, plopping himself down, spread-eagled on the apartment’s only bed. “We don’t have any food.”

  “We live in a mansion,” I proclaimed. “Ratt Mansion West.”

  It was my first real apartment. I wanted it to smell of excitement and wet trim. We soon christened the mansion with a metal bash, inviting the entire Troubadour audience to our pad after one particularly packed show.

  “Come on down to our new place in Palms, off National, near Victor’s Meats,” we shouted, “and bring booze!!” Hordes of Ratt bastards and their slutty sisters jammed into our living room. The one-bedroom apartment could seat twenty comfortably, so we stuffed a hundred freaks inside, with more pushing in through the windows every moment. I sat on a corner of our bed, pushed up against the wall, bookended by two platinum blondes wearing leggings and jelly shoes. As they nibbled on my earlobes, I had to choke down two Valiums to deal with the pandemonium.

  “Hey, it’s Stephen Pearcy! Holy shit. Ever tried Everclear?” some dude asked me. He held up a cup of clear alcohol. I sampled from the cup and nearly cried out. It was the gasoline of liquors. Two hundred proof. Immediately, my gorge began to rise and my vision began to blur. In time, we would come to light the shit on fire and pass it around.

  I recollect the rest of the evening as a flurry of images: Robbin snorting an enormous line of white powder off the top of our empty, unplugged Philco refrigerator, its door hanging open. Warren with his arm around a gorgeous chick with hair-spray bangs, one full head taller than him, his nose perfectly level with her tits. David Lee Roth gabbing to a handful of chicks, refusing them all autographs, and instead, perversely, signing the refrigerator. Tommy and Nikki holding court in the corner of the bedroom, taking turns biting each other, Nikki drawing blood, Tommy leaving just teeth marks. Everyone laughing wildly. Cigarettes burning endlessly. Pop radio station blasting the latest ’80s rock. The warm glow of rising success in your bloodstream. The feel of being young and on the rise, with a beautiful girl’s feathered hair brushing up against your skin.

  Clarity returned at dawn next morning. I awoke to find myself sitting upright, back against the wall, shirtless, my expensive fashion metal pants ripped and stiff with dried alcohol and spilled ashes.

  Phil Schwartz eyed me. “Stephen,” he said, relieved. “You’re okay.”

  “Yeah,” I groaned. “Thanks, Phil. What . . . what happened?”

  “You had a very nice time,” he said.

  BY THE TIME THE SUMMER OF ’82 rolled around, Mötley was starting to break big. They were going out on the road with enormous acts, and when they came back to L.A., they were treated like roy
alty. I was happy for our buddies; don’t get me wrong. But I was jealous, too, and I’m sure it showed.

  “Stephen, my brother,” Tommy instructed me once, “do not stress! Your time will come, man.”

  Sure, I thought. But when?

  Because I was ready now. I was foaming at the mouth, ready for our share of the spotlight. It was time to tighten the pirate belt and start thinking with our heads. We had to be smart. We had to move now. Metal wouldn’t be king forever, we all knew that. The move out of Mrs. O’s garage had been the right one: We were up on our own two feet, and that gave us confidence, independence. But relocation had been costly, and besides draining us of every last cent, it had stripped us of our only practice space.

  Blotzer lived out near the beach. “Listen, Stephen,” he said, “I know about a great practice space in the Valley. Let’s go check it out. Maybe we can get a discount rate.”

  We jumped into his car. Weirdly enough, Bob had a Datsun B-210, too. Was it destiny, a pronouncement in the form of affordable Japanese imports?

  “Hey, mind if we make a quick pit stop in Manhattan Beach?” Bob asked me, checking out his hair in the rearview mirror as we slid through traffic.

  “Fine by me,” I said.

  We pulled into a small driveway.

  “I just gotta fuck this girl real quick,” Bob explained. “It won’t take too long.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’ll stay in the car.”

  “Nah,” Bob said. “It’s hot as hell. You’ll sweat to death. Come on in.”

  Mildly perplexed, I followed Blotzer to the door. A fairly cute young chick with blond ringlets in her hair answered his knock.

  “Bobby! How are you?” She made to hug him but he held her at bay.

  “Hey, Susie,” he said brusquely. “This is Stephen. Me and him are kind of in a hurry—it’s band business. So we’re going to have to make this real quick.”