Dirty Rocker Boys

by Brown, Bobbie; Ryder, Caroline

  I didn’t realize just how troubled Rob really was until we became close. His mother had been a stripper in Germany, and he had spent some of his childhood in orphanages. The pain of his past didn’t reveal itself until later—at first, it was nonstop fun, dance floor after dance floor, party after party. His Milli Vanilli bandmate, Fab Morvan, was dating my roommate Shantae, so each night we would return to our place and carry the party on until the sun rose. I loved to see the peachy-pink light of an L.A. dawn, dotted with palm trees in silhouette. There’s something magical about it.

  Rob and Fab were the toast of Hollywood at the time—their number one hit, “Girl You Know It’s True,” had just won them the 1990 Grammy for Best New Artist, and the world was in love with their dance-pop raps and MTV-friendly break dancing. I did think it was a bit odd that not once during our few months of dating did Rob rehearse or step foot inside a recording studio. And when he sang along to music in the car in his broken English, it was clear he was tone-deaf. Later, it was revealed that they were fakes. Neither Fab nor Rob had ever sung on a Milli Vanilli record—their Machiavellian producer, Frank Farian, had simply hired them to be the pretty faces of his consumer product, and the industry lapped it up. When a coked-up Rob told Time magazine that he was the new Elvis, they printed every word, even though Rob was clearly unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. His mood swings were erratic, he rarely slept, and his hygiene was poor. Very poor. At the end of the night, he was generally too coked up to have sex. And on the rare occasions where he was sexual, he usually liked the attention focused on his ass. This was something new for me, and it wasn’t much fun for me at all. This was not what I had bargained for. Rob was too strung out. Matthew had been pursuing me throughout my time with Rob, leaving flowers and notes on my car, begging me to come back to him. When Rob left town to go on tour, I decided to give him another chance.

  “Now will you move in with me, Bobbie?” he asked. He and Gunnar had recently moved into a charming house in Sherman Oaks, in the Valley. Matthew and I would take one bedroom, and Gunnar and Laurel would be in the other. “Okay. But Gunnar better not be a jerk,” I said. “Gunnar wants what’s best for me, and he wouldn’t dare come in between you and me,” said Matthew, stroking my hand. I think we both knew that was wishful thinking.

  A few months after Rob split, the Milli Vanilli fraud would be exposed (by none other than the man who created it, Frank Farian) and the media unleashed a tidal wave of hate upon Rob and Fab. It wasn’t fair. They weren’t the only lip-synchers to score a hit in the 1990s—C+C Music Factory and Black Box both used uncredited Martha Wash vocals on their top-charting tracks. But Milli Vanilli were the scapegoats, the ultimate lip-synching fake pop stars. Their Grammy was taken away, and Rob and Fab became the laughingstock of pop. Rob, sadly, wasn’t strong enough to weather the storm, and in 1998 he died from a drug overdose.

  Chapter Five

  BIRTH OF A VIDEO VIXEN

  Jani Lane, lead singer of the hair metal band Warrant, and his buddy Tommy Lee, drummer for Mötley Crüe, were sitting in a hotel room, watching TV. They were on a sixteen-month tour of America, a wild hair metal extravaganza with Warrant opening for Mötley at sold-out venues across the nation. Warrant were the new kids on the glam metal block, surfing the wave of their number one hit of summer 1989, “Heaven,” from their debut album, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich, which hit number 2 on the Hot 100.

  “Wow, she’s kind of a babe, huh?” said Jani, nodding at the TV. They were watching Star Search, and the babe was me.

  “Oh yeah!” said Tommy, rubbing his nose. “Smokin’.”

  As they channel surfed, Tommy swigged from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, elaborating on the different things he planned to do to my body as soon as he got back to L.A. (no matter that he was still very married to TV star Heather Locklear at the time). But Jani, who loved a little friendly competition, claimed first dibs—he had set eyes upon me before Tommy, after all. The two men laid down the challenge: The race was on to see who could bed Bobbie Brown first.

  When Jani told me about this bet several years later, I tried to imagine how my fifteen-year-old self might have reacted had she been a fly on the wall. She would no doubt have suffered some kind of a heart attack at the thought of her idol, Tommy Lee, expressing interest in her. Jani Lane, on the other hand, I was less excited by. I had never even heard of Warrant.

  Meanwhile, back on the Star Search set, I was bawling my eyes out, having just lost out on the $100,000 prize money that everyone in the nation—myself included—had assumed would be mine. I had been on the show for nearly a year, with thirteen consecutive wins in the modeling category, more than anyone in the whole history of the show. I really, really wanted to win. Not only would it have been my biggest paycheck ever, it would also be conclusive proof that I, Bobbie Brown, had made it, all by myself. But it wasn’t to be. I couldn’t help but replay the night’s events in my mind, over and over.

  I remembered Ed McMahon, the host, onstage holding the $100,000 prize in his hands. I was on one side of him, and Debbie James, the other finalist, was on his other, as the nation held its breath in anticipation of the four judges’ decision. Ed opened the envelope and stumbled as he read the winner’s name—it wasn’t mine. Debbie broke down in victory tears, and I kept my pageant queen smile in place for about two seconds before running offstage. This was the worst night of my life.

  I lay on my back on my dressing room floor, ball gowns and bikinis all over the carpet. I had locked the door and didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was too humiliated. Millions of people had just watched me lose on live TV. This is a major career setback, I thought. From now on, I would be “that girl who lost Star Search.” I thought I was done, washed-up. But I should have remembered from my experience at the Miss Teen USA pageant that sometimes, even when you lose, you win. Because you never do know who’s watching.

  My agency called, saying the hair band Warrant had been hounding them, wanting to book me for their upcoming video, “Cherry Pie.” I was not in the greatest headspace to be auditioning. Despite getting back together with Matthew, the old habits I had revisited with Rob had proven hard to shake off. I was addicted to the dance floor and the coke-fueled lifestyle that was attached to it. Spice and the Roxbury were my glitzy Hollywood haunts; the Cathouse, the Roxy, and the Rainbow were where I rocked out with the hair guys. Increasingly, Matthew was expressing his concerns about my hedonistic lifestyle. He had grown up seeing the lows that inevitably follow the highs of the Hollywood party scene. But I thought Matthew and Gunnar were boring, and their lecturing was driving me to party even more, and it was affecting my career. My manager and agent despaired of my no-shows, my increasing lateness, my flaky attitude. It was no surprise to them when I failed to show for my first meeting with Warrant, but the band’s management was relentless. They called again. And again.

  “Bobbie, they’ve got a major hard-on for you,” said my agent. “Can you please just meet with them and get them off my back?”

  “Oh, fine, whatever. I’ll go.”

  I was told to meet Jani Lane and his “people” at Jerry’s Deli in Sherman Oaks, in one hour. I was, of course, late. Bleary-eyed from partying the night before, I slid into the booth next to Jani, picking a French fry off his plate.

  “Thanks,” I said, licking my lips. I had a killer hangover. “I’m Bobbie, what’s up?”

  They told me about the video concept and asked if I’d be okay with wearing little shorts while the band hosed me down.

  “Um, sure.”

  Jani barely said a word. I picked another French fry off his plate.

  “So, what’s the name of your band again? Torrent?”

  “It’s Warrant. We just toured with Mötley,” said Jani.

  “Oh, I fucking love Mötley Crüe! So you know Tommy Lee?”

  “Of course,” said Jani. “You in?” They hired me on the spot, and a few days later I was blasting their song, “Cherry Pie,” in my car tape d
eck on the way to the video shoot. I didn’t even know much about the hair scene, to be honest. Apart from Mötley and Def Leppard, I didn’t listen to rock. I had always preferred soul, dance, hip-hop, and rap. Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige. New jack swing. When it came to my musical tastes, I had always been the blackest white girl in Baton Rouge, and probably on the Sunset Strip too. But “Cherry Pie” I liked. It was fun and poppy. It had a cool hook, and I could picture strippers the world over go-go dancing to it.

  She’s my cherry pie

  Put a smile on your face

  Ten miles wide

  Catchy, I thought. Apparently the head of Columbia Records, Don Ienner, had called Jani asking for a “Love in an Elevator”–type rock anthem, and Jani had come up with “Cherry Pie” in about fifteen minutes, writing the lyrics on a pizza box (the box is now on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Destin, Florida). At that time, no one had any idea just how much of a hit it would be.

  “Hey, Bobbie, you look nice,” said Jani, giving me a sideways glance as I walked on set. I peered at him over my sunglasses. He was dressed even more wildly than when we had met at Jerry’s. With his teased blond hair and sprayed-on ripped jeans, his image seemed much louder than he was. I hoped he’d relax a little before the “bedroom scene” I’d seen in the treatment. I hadn’t told Matthew about that part. He was already upset that I was doing the video in the first place. Nelson was at number 1 with their hit “Love and Affection,” but Matthew knew it was all too easy to become last week’s news. It seemed disloyal, as far as he was concerned, for me to be starring in a competing band’s video.

  Hair metal had, at this point, become part of the MTV hit machine. Record labels wanted pretty boys with tight pants and eyeliner to feed the craze for as long as it lasted, one after the next after the next. Hurricane, Autograph, Keel, Vain—the list of one-hit hair metal wonders is endless. Hair metal was never going to be an art form that lasted, it was supposed to be a fireworks show—a shocking, colorful, and short-lived event that burnt itself out less than a decade after it started. By the time Penelope Spheeris’s documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II came out in 1988, capturing the vanity, hubris, and self-importance of the L.A. glam metal scene, kids were already starting to lose respect for it. Anyone who was in a hair band in 1990 was probably starting to feel the futility of it all. For Nelson, Warrant, and all the newer hair bands, there was an unavoidable sense that it was now or never.

  In the dressing room, I surveyed the outfits the stylist had laid out for me—skimpy red bustier with tiny denim shorts and red cowboy boots. Cute. Roller-girl waitress. Baseball groupie. Wow, there are a lot of costumes, I thought. I put on the red bustier and shorts first, walked out onto the set, and stood in front of the guys.

  “So?” I asked no one in particular.

  “Fucking hot,” said Jani.

  “So? Bobbie, you see that bathtub over there? You’re going to be naked and we’re going to fill it with whipped cream.”

  “Gross. You’re out of your mind,” I said, walking away.

  * * *

  The second day of shooting, an assistant handed me a bouquet of roses. I glanced at the card, thinking how sweet it was of Matthew to be sending flowers to me on the Warrant set.

  For my cherry pie. Love, Jani

  Oh. I waved the flowers at Jani, mouthing, “Thanks.”

  I overheard Jani talking to the director, saying how he wanted this to be a much better video than the one for “Heaven.”

  “Wait, you guys wrote ‘Heaven’?” I yelled. “Heaven” was one of my favorite pop hits of last summer. Warrant, it turned out, were the toast of the hair scene. Big riffs, pop hooks, party-time metal—the girls loved it. To many, Warrant were the purest embodiment of latter-day L.A. hair metal. With “Cherry Pie,” they were about to score the biggest of their three Top 10 singles.

  * * *

  “Quit tickling me,” I yelled at Jani as we rolled around on the sheets in front of the camera, smudging my makeup. That Jani was into me was obvious to everyone on set. When I gyrated my hips in my teeny-tiny shorts, shaking my bleached-blond hair around for the camera, I could feel Jani smile.

  “Oh, man, Jani really likes you,” said Kathy Conan, who was married to Warrant’s lead guitarist, Joey Allen. All the Warrant girlfriends were on set, and they were sweet as . . . pie. “This video is going to be huge,” said Kathy, exchanging numbers with me. Of course I agreed with her, just to be polite. From experience, I figured it would pop up on MTV for a little while and then disappear, like the other videos I had done so far.

  In November 1990, “Cherry Pie” hit the radio waves, followed by the world premiere of the video on MTV. I was home in my pajamas with Matthew, watching.

  “I’m not sure how many of my scenes they’re going to use, probably just one or two,” I told Matthew, taking a handful of popcorn.

  The video opened with Jani spinning like a wheel, his polka-dot shirt open, black jeans tight.

  “Hm,” muttered Matthew.

  A flash of me, in the red bustier, red lipstick, and denim shorts.

  “You look nice, babe,” he said. There I was as a roller waitress with a slice of pie, tripping over Joey’s guitar cable. Then the pie landed in my lap. There I was in a baseball outfit, there I was in a tight black dress on the couch. Oh, and now they’re hosing me down.

  “Wow, there’s like, more Bobbie Brown than Warrant in this video,” said Matthew.

  Me and Jani in bed.

  “Well, congratulations, Bobbie,” said Matthew, trying his best to sound upbeat.

  “Cherry Pie” stayed at the top of the video charts for six months, and was in heavy rotation on MTV for almost a year. People thought it was outrageous, and a Canadian cable-TV music network refused to air it because it was “offensively sexist.” Which seemed ridiculous to me. The controversy made no sense to me—it was a sexy, playful little video for a sexy, playful song. Of course, the media commentary, good and bad, only benefited both me and the band. “Cherry Pie” was a hit for Warrant, and Bobbie Brown, the Cherry Pie girl, became a star.

  I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing, “Hey, Cherry Pie!” I still get it to this day. Tawny Kitaen, Whitesnake video babe, had paved the way, but with my more contemporary bubblegum-pop look, I became the poster child for early-’90s hair vixens. To my relief, I noticed that no one, absolutely no one, seemed to care about the Star Search debacle. In fact, doors were opening for me in ways I had been dreaming about all my life. The only door closing was on Matthew and me.

  Unbeknownst to me, both Gunnar and his record label had been putting pressure on Matthew to break up with me. They feared my influence on him. I was opinionated, and if I didn’t like Matthew’s stage clothes, I would tell him, and he would listen. If I didn’t like a song, I would say so, and Matthew would bring it up with Gunnar. Which made Gunnar very nervous—the whole point of Nelson was that they were hair metal angels who matched. The last thing he needed was a Southern-fried Yoko Ono on his hands, messing with the program. Gunnar set about edging me out by making me feel as uncomfortable as possible.

  Gunnar was constantly trying to initiate a threesome, for example, with me, him, and his brother. Thankfully, Matthew said no and stood his ground. They had had three-ways together in the past, but when it came to me, Matthew wasn’t sharing. Even if he had been interested, I had told Matthew about my creepy almost ménage à trois with Steve and the lesbian, and had already made it clear I was not in the market for group sex. So Gunnar came up with other ways to try my patience. He would call me to come in his bedroom, and I’d walk in to find him naked on the bed. His girlfriend Laurel would casually walk in on me and take off her top. One night, the four of us were watching a movie when Laurel climbed on top of Gunnar and took all her clothes off. Then Gunnar started fingerbanging her, like, no biggie. I nudged Matthew in disbelief.

  “Why are we okay with this?” I whispered. “Should we leave? What the fuck!” />
  I got up, left the room, and got in the shower. The bathroom was the only place I felt safe.

  “Hey, you better quit eating all that cherry pie, Bobbie, you’re getting fat.”

  Gunnar had burst in on me and was ogling my body.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Gunnar!” I screamed.

  Eventually, I knew I’d have to tell Matthew about his twin brother’s behavior. I dreaded the conversation. To make things worse, it seemed like we couldn’t escape “Cherry Pie.”

  “And here we go again!” Matthew would half laugh, as the song came on the car radio for the millionth time that day. Deep down I knew he was threatened by Warrant’s success, and my connection to it. Then Jani really threw a spanner in the works.

  My agent called me, sounding half frantic, half amused. “Um, did you tune into The Howard Stern Show today, Bobbie?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, Warrant were on the show, and Jani was talking about you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he didn’t care who Matthew Nelson thinks he is, because he is in love with you and is going to marry you. Mr. Cherry Pie wants his Mrs. Cherry Pie, Bobbie.”

  I couldn’t believe Jani—surely this had to be a joke. Right? Reluctantly, I told Matthew, before he found out from someone else.

  “Ugh. Why would Jani say something like that?” he asked, looking sad. Gunnar was more direct.

  “Why don’t you just fuck Jani already and put him out of his misery? Unless you already have, that is!” Some days, I really hated Gunnar. It felt like he didn’t want his brother to be happy.

  It was true that Jani had been calling me a lot. Sometimes I would come home from work to find him hanging out with my roommate at our apartment. As soon as I walked in the room, all his attention would be focused on me. It was obvious he had a crush, and it was a little awkward—but now, with this radio shit, I had to put a stop to his flirting before people started getting the wrong idea. The next time Jani called me, I told him to lose my number. I reminded him that I already had a boyfriend. “I have your number, and I will use it if I want to, Jani.” He was crushed.