Raising Hell

by Ronin Ro

  Menello warned, “Man, [filming a movie] is gonna be expensive,” but Rick and Russell decided it would be worth it and paid him to turn a story idea by Lyor Cohen and publicist Bill Adler into a screenplay. “It was this romantic-comedy musical, Krush Groove, with this little murder mystery thrown in where their friend gets killed and they solve the mystery,” said Menello. “But there was no real action in it.”

  Michael Jackson’s celebrated producer, Quincy Jones, heard about the movie, Menello recalled, “and originally offered to get the money and produce it for a few million.” But Jones didn’t think Rick Rubin, a first-time director, should helm the project, since Run-D.M.C. had acted in only one other film. The screenwriter suggested that they hire Bill Duke, who had directed A Rage in Harlem, but Rubin wouldn’t relinquish the director’s chair.

  An executive from New Line Pictures somehow got his hands on a copy of the script (someone connected to the project, never identified, passed it to the film studio). After reading it, the film executive approached the screenwriter. “He explained why New Line could give the film more care than a bigger distributor, and wanted the film based on the script,” said Ric Menello. “I told him Rick and Russell weren’t making any deals until the film was finished.” Rick and Russell decided that Rick, Russell, Run, D, and Jay would handle production costs.

  Run-D.M.C. was excited about the prospect of Def Pictures earning them more money. Run and D felt that Profile wasn’t paying them what they deserved as a platinum-selling act, and that they should have received more for their starring roles in Krush Groove than the $15,000 they had had to split with Jam Master Jay (who also starred in the film). Jam Master Jay meanwhile welcomed the deal because he was a member of the group and received an equal share of monies from performances, but was not officially signed to Profile (meaning he might not be receiving royalties for albums that included songs named after him).

  If they put up most of the money for the film, Rick and Russell told the enthusiastic young trio, Run-D.M.C. would have greater creative control and earn more money once they sold the completed film to a larger studio. And in addition to an action-packed movie, Rick and Russell told them, Def Jam would release new Run-D.M.C. songs on a Def Jam sound track album, and have Rush Management publicist and former journalist Bill Adler take a leave of absence from Rush to create an authorized biography that would bear the same title as the movie and the sound track album; and best of all, the book, the movie, and the album would arrive in stores and theaters in unison. The group decided that it was a sound and innovative plan, and a brilliant way to bombard the media with new Run-D.M.C. products and keep them in the public eye, and agreed to divide costs of the film with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. “We were rich, we had money; we could do it,” said Run.

  Now that it was time to record a fourth album, Run began to worry that fans might not enjoy their new material as much as they had enjoyed their earlier works. Run-D.M.C. was the first rap group to go gold, then platinum, and then triple platinum; to have a video on MTV, get the cover of Rolling Stone, and sign an endorsement deal. But fear of not being able to match the success of the last album had Run feeling he didn’t want to leave his bed each morning. Crippling self-doubts and an exhausting work schedule—touring, recording, and planning to film a second movie that Run-D.M.C. would help finance with their hard-earned savings— overwhelmed Run to the point where he didn’t look forward to participating in any of these projects. He couldn’t explain why he felt this way, and it seemed nothing could snap him out of his depression. Everything technically was going great, but he still felt melancholy, and voiced his fears in interviews with Adler, who was hard at work on the authorized biography. “Run was always under a lot of pressure but I think it was always self-induced,” said publicist Tracy Miller, who handled Run-D.M.C.’s career from her desk at Profile Records. He was also a perfectionist. “Maybe there was a fear of not matching the success of the last record, a feeling that he had to do that.” Run joined Jam Master Jay and D.M.C. in the studio to simultaneously begin a fourth album and record songs for the second movie while the movie script was being written. They decided to produce the fourth album—ultimately to be called Tougher Than Leather—without Russell. “Peter Piper” proved Jay could produce hits, so Rick Rubin wouldn’t produce either. “We didn’t want him to, basically,” D.M.C. admitted. “We didn’t mind him doing the rock shit but then he tried to do everything and we were like, ‘We don’t need any help with the b-boy shit.’”

  Instead, original DJ Davy DMX, whom Larry Smith wanted, coproduced songs for their new album because, D explained, “Jay and Davy were hanging out.” Run and D weren’t concerned about Jay’s choice, because they didn’t have clear-cut ideas aside from wanting to rap over “I Can’t Stop” on one song.

  So Jam Master Jay and Davy DMX created tracks, and Run and D.M.C. did what they did best: rapped. Their new “Papa Crazy” covered the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” “Ragtime” revisited the lighthearted Doug and Slick Rick–style of “Perfection” (with Jay saying a few rhymes). “They Call Us Run-D.M.C.” seemed to be influenced by the Beasties in that the song included the horn from the break-beat “Catch a Groove” (which the white trio had rapped over on their song “Posse in Effect”). Now Run-D.M.C. included the same horn, and “How’d Ya Do It Dee” had as much echo as the Beasties’ song. “They came out after us and went to number one and were new and white,” said D. “And Run being very competitive didn’t know how to handle that information. Jay and me didn’t give a fuck.” D, happy with the money he was making, just wanted to use more break beats, but Run, D said, was intent on competing with the white trio’s success. Run began to feel that the Beasties were mimicking Run-D.M.C.’s sound as much as he had once felt L.L. was imitating Run’s look and Run-D.M.C.’s stage show. “But for focusing on that, it fucked Run up in the head.”

  As sessions continued during 1986, D also wanted to modify their sound. With new rappers Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, and the Juice Crew enjoying success with break beats, many other new record labels offering rap records with more intricate rhyme styles, and new rap groups insulting Run’s simpler lyrics (as the Ultra-Magnetic MCs had on their popular single “Ego Tripping”), D.M.C. thought, “We’re getting too far away from the fucking basement! Why aren’t we doing that shit? That’s our shit they stealing! We’re busy making fucking rock records to try to fuck with MTV. I want to go back to the park, man!” He told the others he didn’t want to record any rock songs, but they ignored him. “I guess they saw the industry was growing, they were looking at Billboard, and they were worrying about MTV. They started worrying about the bullshit we shouldn’t worry about. ’Cause when you worry about it you start to decline.” Before D knew it, he and Run were recording “Miss Elaine,” a cheesy rock number that mimicked the theme of Van Halen’s MTV favorite “Hot for Teacher.”

  They were in Chung King when Rick showed up with screenwriter Ric Menello and said, “Here’s the guy who’s gonna cowrite your film.” Menello was then writing the first draft of Cold Chilling in a Hot Spot, as the film was called at the time. Rick had told Menello to “make it the best action film you can” and “give it a little Blues Brothers comedy.” D.M.C. had another vision for the film. “I want it to be like The Terminator.”

  The chubby white screenwriter returned within weeks with a finished script, now called Cold Chillin’. Menello had managed to give everyone what they wanted.

  Cold Chillin’ begins with D.M.C. in a prison cell. A white corrections officer comes to escort D to the warden. He’s about to be released from prison. The officer attempts to hit D with his nightstick on their way to the warden because he feels D is acting defiant and not walking quickly enough, but D grabs the stick in midswing, holding it for a second.

  In the warden’s office, the warden lectures D about staying out of trouble on the outside. The dialogue establishes that D’s character was incarcerated after attacking a guy with a broken
bottle during a barroom brawl. “So we knew it was self-defense and his being in jail was bullshit,” said Menello, “but it was cut because Rick thought it made D seem ‘tougher’ to be just coming out of jail for something we didn’t know about. More mysterious.” Still, the fact that his character was innocent explained why the warden in the movie wanted to meet with D before his release from prison. D is released. Outside the prison, Run’s character waits by a cool black car while Jam Master Jay sits inside of the vehicle, behind the steering wheel. D hugs Run, who says, “My nigga.”

  In the black hot rod, the mood of the script changed. Instead of more mature character development, Rubin and Menello decided to include a ludicrous scene in which Jay describes a nightmare about two beautiful women picking him up on the road, then giving him oral sex. “I’m like, ‘Yeah!’” Jay shouts. “And then you know what she do? She bit my dick off. Same fucked-up dream for weeks.”

  D mutters, “Fucked up.”

  The anecdote, Menello explained, “was based on an actual dream a friend of mine kept having.” He also felt it was ironic, macho rappers expressing a Freudian fear of the opposite sex. At the very least it would “explain some of the more sexist stuff later,” he said, “like Slick Rick singing ‘Treat Her Like a Prostitute.’”

  After going from emotional drama—D’s release and reunion with old friends—to Jay mouthing a sexually explicit anecdote (a result of Rubin, Russell, and Run-D.M.C. all asking the screenwriter to juggle comedy with action), the next scene shows Run-D.M.C. meeting with their manager, Russell, and saying they want to “lay down some funky joints.” Russell takes Run-D.M.C. to see his new group, the Beasties, perform. The Beasties performance detracts from the film’s main story—that of Run-D.M.C.—but Rubin and Russell wanted to include the Beastie Boys in the film and figured a concert scene would be a good way to let the film-viewing audience see the group perform a new song (which would appear on the Def Jam sound track) and also introduce even more comedy to the film (since the Beasties follow their performance with a few jokes).

  Russell then leads Run-D.M.C. to small label Strut Records, where owner Vic Ferrante wants to sign them. Russell says he’ll have to sign the Beasties, too. Ferrante (played by Rick Rubin) agrees. Once they leave, Ferrante tells fat, bumbling label executive Arthur Rattler (played by bearded Ric Menello): “Sign them.”

  “But why, boss?”

  “Nobody wants to watch ten niggers play basketball, now do they?”

  The line—created by Russell, Menello explained—was an example of the sort of shock value Rick Rubin wanted to include in the second Run-D.M.C. movie, and very different from Run-D.M.C.’s public image as positive rappers. The story picks up once the viewer learns Strut is a front for a mobster’s drug ring. When Runny Ray, Run-D.M.C.’s newly hired roadie, happily walks into Strut and interrupts a drug deal, Ferrante shoots him dead. “Why’d you have to kill the guy?” Rattler asks. “Why couldn’t you just pay him off?”

  “Since I’m not a Jew like you,” he answers, “I didn’t think of it!”

  Ferrante plants drugs on Ray’s corpse. Run-D.M.C. eventually suspect Ferrante of involvement in Ray’s murder and meet with the police to discuss their suspicions and ask whether the police have any leads in solving the crime. But the cops are not only racist, they believe Ray was a drug dealer and not worth the effort. Run-D.M.C. (by this point Russell’s character goes unmentioned in the script) have no choice but to take the law into their own hands: breaking people’s fingers, beating rednecks in a bar, and finally buying their own weapons from a local gun dealer to use in their rescue of a potential witness to the murder of Runny Ray. “We wanted the film to be like Death Wish,” said D. “We wanted it to be real. ‘Yo, they killed fucking Ray!’ We didn’t want to be the ‘good Catholic suburban kids.’ We wanted to be the motherfuckers from Hollis.”

  During the finale, Run-D.M.C. learn that a woman they questioned during a quick-moving scene has been kidnapped by Ferrante and his bodyguard. Run-D.M.C. therefore kidnap one of Ferrante’s employees—who can also provide evidence to the police that Ferrante killed Runny Ray. Run-D.M.C. then carry their weapons to a prearranged meeting in an abandoned warehouse to exchange hostages, and hope to not only rescue the hostage Ferrante is holding, but also capture Ferrante and turn him over to the police with evidence linking him to the murder. But during the hostage exchange, Ferrante and his black bodyguard, Nathan— who has been seen throughout the script scowling at Run-D.M.C. and defending his racist boss—pull guns out and threaten to shoot Run-D.M.C. After a few bullets fly and every character ducks behind various objects to avoid being hit, Jay confronts Nathan. “Jay was the free person who stood up for his friends like a man should and was loyal, while the bodyguard, Nathan, sold out for money,” Menello explained.

  “I like you, Jay,” Nathan tells Jay while aiming his gun at Jay. “I’m gonna kill ya, but I like ya.”

  Aiming his own pistol, Jay tells Nathan to drop his gun.

  “I’ve come too far to go back now,” Nathan replies. “A black man who wants big money ain’t got a choice how he makes it.”

  Jay shakes his head. “A man always has a choice.” (Jay outdraws Nathan in a gunfight.)

  D.M.C. finally corners Ferrante. In a traditional action movie, the hero aims his gun at the villain, preparing to shoot, but a supporting character stops him with the reminder that pulling the trigger will make the hero no better than the villain. But in this screenplay, Ferrante yells, “I never thought it would all end at the hands of a nigger.” D shoots him in the face. There is no one to stop him.

  The script ends with Run-D.M.C. walking backstage after a concert. They face a newspaper headline saying Ferrante’s assistant, Arthur Rattler, has provided evidence that exonerates their friend Runny Ray of charges he was a drug dealer. Run says, “You think anybody will care about this tomorrow?”

  D replies, “That ain’t the point. If we didn’t do this, it would’ve been like Runny Ray never lived.” Then D adds, “A wise man once said every man is the father of every child.”

  Jay says, “Word, I’d like to be every father!”

  “Every man is the father of every child?” Run asks. “That’s cool. Who said that?”

  D quips, “I did.”

  Rubin changed the title of the film to Tougher Than Leather, and Run-D.M.C. adopted the name for their forthcoming album. Then Rick and Russell began talking seriously about getting Run-D.M.C. off Profile. Run and D supported the move. They already felt Profile was “jerking the shit out of them,” said Runny Ray. “They wanted to be on Def Jam or ‘whoever’ really.” They complained to friends about money, having to pay for independent record promoters, studio time, extra plane tickets if they wanted friends to join them on trips. During midautumn 1986—when they were between albums and not touring—they were always unhappy with Profile Records or Russell, Ray said. “Run used to always talk about, ‘We signed to this nigga; niggas always robbing us and taking our money. We ain’t getting our royalties for this record, that record, this album.’ Sometimes he’d say Russell. Sometimes he’d say Cory Robbins.”

  It was going to be great: a bombarding of the media. A movie, Adler’s authorized biography, and a new Run-D.M.C. album. Their songs on a Def Jam sound track. Many Def Jam artists in the movie. More action than Krush Groove, and more money once Def Pictures sold the completed film to a larger studio. The only obstacle, Russell and Run-D.M.C. felt, was Profile Records. Profile didn’t mind Run-D.M.C. starring in the film—much as Profile hadn’t minded Run-D.M.C. starring in Krush Groove—but the label suspected Russell was trying to get Run-D.M.C. off of Profile and onto Def Jam’s roster of artists. To prevent any other label but Profile from releasing Run-D.M.C. music, Profile reminded Def Pictures that Profile held the sync rights, meaning Run-D.M.C. could perform their music in the film only if Profile agreed. “They wanted it to be a Def Jam sound track and that’s sync rights and Profile said, ‘No, no, no, if you’re gonna put out
a sound track to this movie, its gonna be a Profile album,’” said Adam Dubin.

  At Profile, Cory Robbins knew Run-D.M.C. “wanted out of the contract at various times” and that it bugged Russell that “they were not on his label,” but Profile wasn’t about to let Run-D.M.C. go. The group was simply too valuable. The first week of filming, early November 1986, their Rolling Stone cover appeared on newsstands, so they were huge. Yet, though their contract was ironclad, Adam Dubin explained, Rick and Russell still tried to get them onto Def Jam. “As I remember it, Run-D.M.C. was signed to Profile,” said Dubin. “Jam Master Jay was signed to Def Jam so he would appear on a Run-D.M.C. record ‘courtesy of Def Jam,’ but that wasn’t enough ’cause [Rick and Russell] wanted Run-D.M.C.” When Rick and Russell allegedly signed Jay to a Def Jam deal is unclear, and Dubin did not elaborate. But Dubin said Rick and Russell saw “other people making money off what they were doing. [Rick and Russell] were making some money but wanted to make a lot of money. So that was also the idea behind making Tougher Than Leather.”

  To get around the issue of not having sync rights, Run and D were handed scripts that called for them to perform “routines.” “It didn’t say they’re doing a song ’cause then Profile gets the music for it,” Dubin said. The filmmakers tried using misleading scripts to conceal that Run-D.M.C. would be filmed performing songs despite the fact that Profile Records never prohibited Run-D.M.C. from performing their music for film cameras. “They said, ‘Perform all the music you want but [Profile] is doing the sound track. Go do anything. Record anything. It’s just that we, not Def Jam, own the right to release any new material by Run-D.M.C.’” A battle with Profile was forming and Run “didn’t really want to do the movie,” said Runny Ray. “Because of all that bullshit they were going through. All this shit. ‘Niggas robbing them.’” While Profile and Def Jam bickered over which record label would release new Run-D.M.C. songs, Run-D.M.C.’s new batch of songs sat unreleased and the group remained out of the public eye.