I remember arriving at the show and seeing a line down Sunset Boulevard in the afternoon. LA is hipper and more fashion conscious than Middle America; for us, it was ahead of the curve. We didn’t know that we had broken through a little in the States. It was a peek into the new landscape: a post-MTV world was waiting ahead in the States; a lot of kids were dressed rockabilly, punk, and new-wave styles. Like in the rest of the world, the Cats appealed to all the different music-based tribes of kids who were looking for something different. The shows were all memorable, and we got through them without a hitch. We partied every night between the shows, too. We were young and had good stamina, but I guess Mario’s plates of pasta really did help. Kids were climbing up to the dressing room window trying to get a glimpse and sneak into the packed-out gig. It was mayhem in the daytime on the Sunset Strip. I even saw Jack Nicholson rocking out in the audience and thought, This is my life—isn’t it great?
It was also the first time I met world-class record producer Lou Adler, who is partners with Mario in the clubs on Sunset. Lou would become a longtime friend, and we’d be linked forever in an LA extended family. “Small world” doesn’t even come close to explaining it. But before all of that, Lou really liked the Cats, and like the other supersmart music business veterans we’d met, he understood what we were doing. More on this later.
We landed in Tokyo, Japan, and were greeted with an airport scene reminiscent of A Hard Day’s Night. There were kids in the lobbies of all the hotels, and we were followed everywhere we went. The record company thought it would be a good idea to walk us through Harajuku Park on a Saturday past the rockabilly dancers with the two-foot-high pompadours that everyone has seen on postcards. These were the early days for that kind of thing. The Cats had unknowingly tapped a nerve and started a huge movement in Japan. It started out with a few finger points and low talking that turned into a few kids following us, which escalated to us being chased by a frenzied mob of Japanese rockabillies and punks through the park. It was a cool adrenaline rush, and we laughed at one another while sprinting through the park, but we knew that they would have lovingly ripped us to shreds if they had caught us. We used old-school New York skills, and the three of us easily scaled a chain-link fence and dropped to the other side while the poor record company guy got crushed. We somehow got back to the hotel. After all that, I was surprised that the gigs in Japan started earlier than everywhere else—around 6:00 P.M.—and the audiences were a little quieter than you would expect. That’s just the way it is, and you get used to it and do the shows accordingly. The first trip to Japan for anyone, especially with that kind of reception, is a fantastic experience.
We went to Australia and New Zealand next. More escapades followed, and we did a few TV shows that added to the legend building around the band overseas. Australia is still a good market for rockabilly; there are genuine people there who have a strong history of their own rock and roll and who are always welcoming and appreciative when you make the trip to play there. I’ve been all over Australia quite a few times and have long-term, still-current real friendships with a lot of Aussie musicians, including Jimmy Barnes, Chris Cheney from the Living End (who as a whiz kid guitarist was sneaked in by his older sister), and Mark McEntee from the Divinyls, all of whom we met on that first tour.
We came back through LA, and through a bit of luck and another kind soul, we landed a TV show that would eventually be a big break for us in the States. But first there was a gig to go to. The Stones were playing at the LA Coliseum, a little gathering of one hundred thousand fans and friends. We landed and went to the Marquis. The Stones had sent a car for us; the only catch was that we had to leave straight away—no shower, no change of clothes, no problem. We were welcomed and greeted backstage. It was even bigger than I could’ve imagined. The stadium was decorated with thousands of balloons, streamers, and banners like a national championship football game but with a rock-and-roll expectation and excitement that accompanies a Stones show. The backstage area had hundreds of people soaking up the sun and the decadent hospitality that the Stones always lay on. Jim Callaghan made sure that we had an extra level of access, and we went back and said hello. I spent some quality time with Charlie and Jim Keltner talking about drums. Prince opened the show that day as an unknown performer and did great under the circumstances. After a shaky first response from the giant crowd, he won them over by the end. We would have that same experience. It was a memorable day, and I remember talking to people I recognized from the movies and TV, including the late greatest-ever Robin Williams, whom I had met a few months before and hung out with a little in London. I was flattered that we were there as invited guests and had nothing to offer anyone except ourselves.
There was a newish TV sketch comedy series in the States called Fridays, filmed live in the style of Saturday Night Live. It had guest stars and a current band perform each week. Larry David was the head writer, and Michael Richards was one of the cast members. The Clash had appeared in an earlier episode and were still a little underground, but they had broken through in the States with “Rock the Casbah.” We had been living in London for the past year, and no one knew anything about it. The talent booker for the show, Chuck Hull, had been visiting in London and saw us play a show there. He loved it and had followed our success and wanted to help in the States. The show was trying to be cutting edge, but it was still a mainstream show. We did not have an American record deal yet. We were completely unknown outside the few places that “Runaway Boys” was getting airplay as an import. This guy really went to bat for us to get this big opportunity. The rumor was that he had to promise to get Journey, which was the biggest band in the USA at the time, for the week after if his bosses allowed him to have us, these complete unknowns, appear on an episode. Karen Allen, who was a big movie star riding on the heels of Raiders of the Lost Ark, was the guest star that week. She was cool, and the cast were all nice to us.
We really stole the show. What we did had not been seen on U.S. television before. Imagine settling down on your couch in 1981 to watch a wacky comedy show with a musical guest, turning on your TV, and seeing three very young scowling guys, two of whom are covered in tattoos, dressed in black shirts with the sleeves cut off playing a revved-up punk version of American rockabilly using only a big old slap bass and Gretsch guitar, with the drummer standing up and on top of a tiny drum kit. We were deadly serious, and it showed. I had a T-shirt made up with the lettering saying “Surgery Can Help Tattooed Teenagers” in a response to some article I had seen in a newspaper. This was one of those times in life when it was all on one roll of the dice; this was live TV in the States like Elvis on Ed Sullivan. We knew it and were very ready, very prepared. Everybody really played great, and we did the full act: Lee stood on the bass, spun it around, and slapped it until his hands bled; Brian played his rockabilly virtuoso best while singing his ass off and looking like a true punk rock teen idol. We let it fly and nailed it. I saw the show recently; I hadn’t seen it since we did it, and I couldn’t believe how good it was. We really looked the part, filled with piss and vinegar, really going for it. It’s pretty shocking stuff when I look back—we looked so skinny, and the tattoos were still really colorful and looked even bigger on my scrawny arms. It was one shot, winner takes all, and we did it. We also came armed with a few soon-to-be-classic songs that are undeniable hits, and that is always the most important element. The audience included a few early rockabilly hipsters whom the camera people let move up to the front, where they swing-danced and added to the whole atmosphere. A lot of time and energy goes into being an overnight sensation.
There was a party after the show at producer Jack Burns’s house. I knew him from old TV as half of the comedy duo Burns and Schreiber. He was old-school showbiz, and maybe he didn’t get exactly what we did, but he knew it had been special and was a complimentary good host. We all went back to the Marquis, though I probably stopped at the Rainbow first for a nightcap.
We had conquered America but w
eren’t completely aware of it. Big success was still about a year and a hundred gigs away, but we knew it had been an important performance. For me, it was another part of the grand adventure we’d started in Massapequa. I was loving it and really proud of our band. I’m sure we had some drinks on the plane ride back to London, and I’m sure someone tried to pick up the stewardess, and I’m sure there was a scene at customs. Somehow, no one had lost his passport.
5
I Married a Bond Girl
It was June 1982, and I was living in a tiny room at the Portobello Hotel, Notting Hill, London, W10. A few weeks earlier, I had gone through a strange changing of the guard in my personal life. I had broken up with my childhood sweetheart, Laurie, who had moved to London to be with me, when I had gotten my first solo residence on Stratford Road, Kensington, London, W8.
That apartment was a cool two-bedroom pad in a good part of town; there were always people coming and going, staying over. It was on a quiet street and near both Earls Court and Kensington High Street. The hospital at the end of the street was the one where Hendrix died. I found something cool about that rock factoid and would point it out when anyone came over.
I had somehow wound up with a piranha as a pet. Some artist friend had made a backdrop of the Vatican that I stuck to the back of the aquarium, and the fish became known as the Pope. I had tried to put one of those little bubble-blowing mermaids and treasure chests into the tank with him, but he just tore them all up. He was 100 percent hunger, rage, and destruction, but he was low maintenance, as I could dump a dozen live goldfish in the water and he would eat them over the course of a week when I went away. I had a neighbor who liked to party and would take care of him if I was gone longer. Countless hours of enhanced heightened enjoyment were had by all, watching me feed the Pope live goldfish while we blasted rockabilly and blues records. I would feed him strips of bacon, the trick being knowing when to let go. Actually, that’s a good message for the whole time period. I had the party act with the Pope down to where he would bite right up to the tips of my fingers and make a little splash as I dropped the last piece of bacon fat into the water.
True pal Joel Brun from Paris and his wife, Helen, would come and stay for a couple of weeks at a time. Joel was a cool guy, a founding member and secretary of the French chapter of the world’s most famous motorcycle club. He was also an original French rocker; he saw Gene Vincent play in France and was the number-one biggest Stray Cats fan. We met Joel when we performed on a legendary live broadcast concert show and interview program hosted by the number-one French telejournalist and host Antoine de Caunes from the Palace in Paris. This program featured an interview segment cut during the afternoon and inserted in between the songs from the gig that night. This one show launched the Cats into superstar status in France. It was a huge break where a whole concert was shown live on national French TV. The band, as always, delivered the goods. We, of course, didn’t quite realize the magnitude of the opportunity and just went out and nailed a gig and interview. We really looked like tattooed children on this one. Antoine was just starting his career, too, and he looked as young as we did. He was a true early fan and helped us a lot. He’s a good guy and is now one of the biggest stars in France. Joel can be seen sitting behind us during the interview segment, just smoking and looking cool the whole time.
In the future, we would do whole tours of France; we went to every city and town and did a lot of French television. I have very positive memories of those times. If I had learned to speak French and life had turned out slightly different, I would have happily lived in Paris. The Cats were and still are a legendary, huge act in France.
Joel would travel on the road with us and learned how to speak English by listening to us talk in the backseat of the car. This was before the days of tour buses in Europe. Brian went with the tour manager and his minder in the nonsmoking car, while Lee and I traveled all over Europe, top to bottom, thousands of miles, in a big Mercedes with true pal and ex–British soldier and bodyguard/driver Derrick “Captain Apollo” Unwin at the wheel. Joel and I had hundreds of adventures together, including seeing how many days in a row we could stay up. I think we made it to nearly five, definitely three. Another involved Derrick and Joel stepping in and protecting me from an overzealous store detective in Montpelier, who pulled out a gun when he thought I was stealing a pair of socks. When the statute of limitations runs out, I will include more of those stories in volume 2.
I had hooked up with Sarah-Jane Owen from the all-girl band the Belle Stars. It was my first taste of minor indie celebrity, as her band was known and played around England and Europe. People recognized us when we went out in London; a few of the rock papers had noticed and made small mentions. We had our picture taken a few times at gigs. She used to dress up in vintage western movie, dancehall girl–style clothes and looked good. At the time, like anyone else, I thought each of these relationships was important. Each one has a hand in shaping you, in some way, for the future.
The Cats were getting ready to come back and do our first tour of the USA. We had finally gotten a release date for the record on EMI, and our records would be available for the first time in the USA. They had previously been available only as imports, even though we were Americans. Our first record contract was what was called an “excluding USA deal”—it should’ve been called just “plain stupid.” Even though we had just had multiple hits in every other market, there was still doubt among the brass at the USA parent company about whether this band was for real or not. It proves that even legendary record company geniuses don’t really know anything.
We had just parted ways with the original manager whom we had come to London with two years earlier. I had let the lease on my apartment go, put my few things in storage, and was going to stay with Sarah-Jane until the situation was more settled. The party friend, my neighbor, had taken possession of the Pope. I don’t think he cared—being a piranha, as long as he got fed, he seemed happy. Where to go and what to do were two things very much up in the air, though not much time was spent worrying about it. It was definitely the last period in my life that I could totally live for the band and be in the moment. It’s also a luxury of youth to behave that way. I miss it. The most important thing was that the Cats were going to America. A band cannot truly say they’ve made it without cracking America. Everybody knows this, and we knew it, too. It was time to go back to the States and do it all over again from scratch.
Through circumstances that were probably my fault, although I can’t remember all the details, I wound up by myself with nowhere to live—from two girls and two places to stay to no girls and nowhere to stay in one move. I thought I was upset about it, but I was twenty-two years old and had been on the road, around the world, with a successful, highly visible band for the last three years, and I wasn’t really paying attention to much else. Things were constantly in flux, and I just went with the flow.
I had a few weeks to kill in London, so I moved into the Portobello Hotel. I had stayed there before during times between rental flats in the past. It was a very rock-and-roll boutique hotel in a trendy part of town. Everyone stayed there, and you’d always see someone you knew. It had the only twenty-four-hour liquor license in town, with a little pub and restaurant in the basement. In the late hours, they didn’t mind you serving yourself drinks, and I’d always remember to write it down on my tab. I have a good memory from that basement of staying up all night with Lemmy, along with tragic true pal and founding member of the Pretenders, Pete Farndon, and a few others, playing poker. The place opened for breakfast to the regular guests at 7:00 A.M., who found us still there with a tableful of empty pilsner bottles and an overflowing ashtray. Marc Almond from Soft Cell, in full bondage gear, came clunking down the steep wooden stairs at 7:05 and politely refused to sit in for a couple of hands.
From the outside, it was an old Georgian-style house, while inside it had been converted into a hotel. No two rooms were exactly the same, and each one had unique antiq
ue furnishings. The small lobby led to a sitting room with full-length floor-to-ceiling french doors that opened up to a back garden. It had decent showers with strongish water pressure, which for England in the 1980s was a rare, welcome amenity. It was the first hipster bed-and-breakfast but had an old-world charm and seemed to be completely staffed by nice British women. I came and went during rock-and-roll hours and would just take the key from a cubbyhole behind the front desk when it was late and the night manager was taking a nap on the couch in the lounge.
I had stayed there for a few weeks at a time, three or four different times, over the past two years, but I never had a credit card and cannot recall ever paying the bill or signing anything. It must’ve been sent to the little office we had on Wardour Street and must’ve been paid because they kept taking me back. Ignorance of the way money really worked was another sentimental part about that time of my life. Besides having enough cash in my pocket to buy some drinks, a little blow, and taxi fare, I never knew of or thought about finances. When I needed an airline ticket, I called the office. We were pretty much always on the road, and it wasn’t private jets, but I lived without ever seeing or thinking about a bill. This way of life comes back to bite you, but like the rest of it, it was great, youthful fun while it lasted. Until just a few years ago, I would get a Christmas card from the Portobello Hotel every year, sent to my parents’ address in Massapequa. In 1982, I still used it as my permanent address because it was the only one I could remember.
A Stray Cat Struts Page 5