by Tommy Lee
We separated and I carried Brandon outside to the fountain at the front of our house. He liked to go down there to listen to the frogs, so that’s what we did. While I was outside, Pamela called the cops. After our walk, Brandon and I were sitting in the playroom when I heard a man’s voice asking me to stand up and turn around. It was a cop, already in the house, and I hadn’t even heard them come in. Pamela had already told them her side of the story on the phone, so I was arrested without question. While I was sitting in the cop car, handcuffed, I asked the sheriff why he wouldn’t listen to what I had to say. His answer was, “In California, it’s whoever gets to the phone first. If you would have called, this whole thing would have been reversed.” That was February 24, 1998, just five days after our third-year anniversary.
The next day, I was labeled a wife beater by the media. That’s tight. At some point in her story to the 5-0, Pamela mentioned that there were guns in the house, which violated my probation. Guess I should have read the small print on those court papers. Fuck! My whole collection, the one I replaced after the first one was stolen, was confiscated and that’s when this situation and whatever I was going to be booked for was bumped up a notch. I had everything under the sun, from .38 Specials to fully automatic Uzis and Mack 10s, shotguns, riot guns, .44 Magnums, Berettas, Glocks, and FNC assault rifles. Those were my toys, and most of them were illegal. When Pamela led the cops up to the gun safe, I knew I was fucked.
I was in jail for two nights. I called my good friend and producer Scott Humphrey twenty-three times in thirty minutes that day. He had gone out to do some quick errand and couldn’t believe it when he came back and saw that many messages on the answering machine, each one of them saying, “This is a collect call from the L.A. County Jail.”
On my third day in jail, a piece of paper was handed to me. I sat there and read it, and at first I thought it said I needed to post $100,000 for bail. When I looked at the number again, I thought it was an optical illusion. It wasn’t—I had to post one million dollars for bail. I fucking lost it. I felt like I was being treated like one of the Menendez brothers, like someone who had committed a hideous murder. Needless to say, my lawyers posted bail and got me out of there. Pamela had taken the kids and left our home. When I got back there, I tried to relax, but the media logjam outside and all around our property was worse than it had ever been. I tried to ignore it and sort shit out, but after two days, I was ready to jump off the fucking roof and really give them something to photograph. I called in Scott to help me out. He said he would take me in, but he sure as fuck wasn’t going to have the media circus pitching tents outside his house. I thought I’d be able to get over there without being followed, but that wasn’t happening. As soon as I left my driveway a convoy of five cars, a couple of vans, and a fucking helicopter tailed me. I was on the phone with Scott as I was driving, saying, “Um … dude? We have a problem, there’s a fucking helicopter, a few news vans, and a shitload of paparazzi behind me.” God bless Scott. He and my engineer Frank came up with a plan: We met at the top of Runyon canyon at night when it was pitch-black. He told me to go to a certain street and look for the blinking flashlight. I get there, I see the flashlight, and there’s Scott in the bushes holding two mountain bikes. He’s shouting at me to jump out of the truck, into the bushes, and to leave my keys in the ignition. I’m shouting, “What the fuck?” as I dive into the shrubs on the side of the road. Scott hands me a flashlight, tells me to get on the bike and follow him. We took off in the dark, down a steep hill, leaving my truck and a line of photographers scratching their heads in the dust. Scott had planned our escape route, all along the fire roads in the canyon that he rode all the time. He had never gone for a spin in the dark though, so there we are, flying down dirt paths with two little beams lighting the way, getting a little bit lost and at one point just tearing through brush. We get to the end of a road that Scott thought would be open and we find ourselves staring down a twelve-foot gate. We throw the bikes over it, onto someone’s property, and climb over. As we ride away all the security lights go on in the house and some big fucking dogs start barking. We’re sitting there, freaking, trying to peel out and going nowhere because the driveway we’re trespassing on is gravel. That’s tight. We finally made it to the pavement, thinking we were lost, way out of our way, and totally fucked. Then we looked down the road and realized we were just a few hundred feet from Scott’s house.
Scott was the best—the next day he ordered a shitload of tall ficus trees and had them planted on his back balcony so no one could shoot pictures of me from the hills around it when I wanted to go outside and get some air. He saved my ass in so many ways. When we got back to his place, he turned to me and said, “You’re at the house of music, man. I’ve got a room for you.” He set me up with more than a room: There was a studio downstairs and all the instruments I could play. He knew that I needed a place to figure out what the fuck was happening to my life and get out a lot of emotions. And he realized the practical side of getting out of jail: You are going to fucking have diarrhea until you get used to eating regular food again. He had stocked the place with all the basics I’d need to get myself back to normal.
Do people know what this is?
He might not be English, Lord Byron, but Rob Zombie has a fuck lot of fans here in the U.S.A. He’s a rock star, an artist, and he just wrote and directed his first movie, ="1%"House of 1,000 Corpses
="1%". I’ve played drums on most of Rob’s solo albums. The question in my mind is, Why don’t ="1%"YOU
="1%" know what “this” is? Shall I send you some MP3s?
Downstairs in Scott’s studio Rob Zombie was recording Hellbilly Deluxe and one day while I was there, he and Scott realized that I was upstairs, sitting around, thinking way too much.
They came up to my room and asked me if I wanted to play some drums on the album and I don’t think I’ve ever been more ready to answer a question: There has never, ever been a time when I wanted to beat the fuck out of some drums that badly in my entire life. I wanted to fucking hit shit—hard. It was epic; that invitation was the therapy any good, honest doctor would have prescribed: “Tommy, as your physician, I advise that you find some drums to destroy as soon as possible. Continue the medication every day until you feel better.” I had a lot to get out, so I ended up playing drums on four or five tracks of that album. I’m grateful for it: Scott, Rob, thanks dudes. Fuck! I needed that.
I lived with Scott for a few months and started to work on the music that became my solo project, Methods of Mayhem. Scott gave me a computer rig for my bedroom and I had my home studio computer brought over as well after Pamela and the kids moved back into our house. I worked every day and it was the only thing that kept me going as everything else in my life got worse. I was already on summary probation, which is the lightest variety, for flying too many assholes first class on friendly skies. After my arrest and Pamela’s accusation of spousal abuse, I was in deep shit. On May 21, 1998, I was sentenced to three years in jail. In the end, I served four months and was let out early for good behavior with probation. That was the time that changed my life. It’s not anything I can sum up without losing the plot right here.
Between the time I was arrested and went to court, and then went to jail, Pamela and I were still talking, still fighting, still at each other, and still so crazy about each other that we could not leave each other alone. We were trying to work things out, and let me tell you it was minute-to-minute. It was a fucking box of dynamite in a gas station and I was sitting on it lighting a cigarette. It felt like everyone in the world was part of our breakup, which didn’t help. I didn’t want to go public with all the bullshit, but she did. She really did. She went for the full-on media blitz and made me look like shit in every available media outlet.
I’ve always tried to take the high road when I get into fucked-up shit with people. I try to never judge anybody and if I’m gonna do it, I never do it in public. So I didn’t say anything about Pamela even on those days
when I felt like going the fuck off on her. To me, being Silent Guy was the right thing to do, but it sucked because when you say nothing people automatically assume you’re guilty. Fuck ’em. Let ’em talk. They don’t know shit about me.
After I did my jail time, which you’ll learn about in a moment, my readers, it looked like things stood a chance of being normal again with Pamela and me—and there was nothing that I wanted more. I tried my best to work things out with her when I was behind bars. It wasn’t easy. She started dating her old boyfriend, that surfer, Kelly Slater, and if you don’t think that hurt, you don’t know shit. We did start getting along again though, and it seemed like we were on our way to getting back together. We would spend time together with the kids, as a family, hang out, and it felt like we were finally enjoying each other again. But it didn’t last forever. I went on tour with Mötley in support of our Greatest Hits album in 1999, and when we were separated, the lines of communication got twisted again. Both of us were still angry: We were going through our ups and downs—and they weren’t in bed.
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT.
On one of our good nights, which happened to be New Year’s Eve, Pamela came over and we hopped in the hot tub and I made the mistake of cracking a bottle of champagne to celebrate what felt like a new beginning. I was on probation and consuming alcohol violated the fuck out of it—if I were to be tested or if someone testified that I had consumed booze at all, I was heading back to jail. That night, celebrating with Pamela felt right to both of us. I didn’t realize for a second that the champagne we shared was a full clip of hollow-point bullets served to her on a platter. Bad move.
On May 26, 2000, Pamela pulled the hammer back in court and shot those hollow points at will. While I was on tour with Methods of Mayhem, I was informed that she’d told the district attorney I’d violated my probation by consuming alcohol. I was fucked. And I went back to jail for four days. I got out on May 30. I don’t remember dates too well, but let me tell you, those who have been to jail remember the day they get out.
Around the same time, this shitty situation went from worse to worst. Pamela had been hanging around with a mutual acquaintance of ours named Bob, and before I knew it I started getting emails from hell from her, which of course I fired right fucking back. That was great. What was better was the wack-ass courtesy call I got from Bob, all stuttering, saying, “Uh...hey, bro? Uh... I need to tell you something, dude. Um... Pamela and I hung out in New York...and...uh... dude, one thing lead to another.” I said, “What are you talking about, dude?” He stumbled on, like a drunk guy walking home, saying things like, “Dude, I know we’re buds and all, dude.... Ah, dude, I don’t know what to do, dude.” I’m on the phone, listening to this fucking idiot fumbling, knowing I know the deal, thinking, “Of course. Pamela made him call. Because she could never fucking do it.” When my patience ran out and I couldn’t take it anymore I said, “Thanks for the courtesy call, asshole.” Click. Later. Whatever.
Shit, Bob! I thought we were boys! I reminisced back to 1999, when ol’ Bob* came by while I was working on my Methods of Mayhem album. He rapped or whatever you want to call what he does on one of my tracks. Thank God he didn’t do any of that country shit he’s doing now on my record. I thought about how I’d met him: I’d invited Fred Durst over to be on the record and he showed up with Bob. I didn’t give a fuck—hell, I didn’t even really know who he was. Those guys were early and partied with their posse down in the studio while I had dinner with Carmen Electra, my girlfriend at the time. After Bob made many trips to the bathroom, and I was done eating, it was time to throw down. I’d only planned on recording Fred that night, but Bob was hell-bent on getting on the mike. What the fuck did I care? We worked for hours and at the end of the night, when I went to save all the work we’d done, I hit the wrong key and deleted all those files—Fred and Bob were gone. Karma? Fate? I don’t know. For better or for worse, we eventually rerecorded them. Anyway, that was the first night I met Bob and I had met him only one other time after that, just chilling in his hotel room after some show or other. We had made music, we had partied, we were friends—and I thought this cat was my bud. After that phone call, all I could think was, “Why you gotta raise up on my ex, dude? There are so many other hot ladies on tap.”
Whatever. The two of them started hanging out. Bob has custody of his son, so I’m almost positive that he got in Pamela’s ear about getting full custody of our kids—at least that’s what she told me recently. That’s when it became a war, because I love my boys too much not to be a major part of their lives every step of the way. Within six months, the full court custody battle began.
I hated having to put our boys through the weirdness of us separating. Divorce is difficult for anyone at any age, but I’m very glad that my boys were young enough that they might just forget the details of the time that Pamela and I were butting heads. We were like two fucking rams. It was just terrible to be so mad at someone you love so much. But I think back to when I was around six and I can remember things about that time—generally, it’s good shit, like my dad taking me fishing in Minnesota. The things that remain in your soul or your subconscious or whatever are snapshots that you feel more than see. It’s the same way the smell of gardenias takes me all the way back to my mom’s garden when I was a little kid.
I only hope that the tough times between Pamela and me—all the custody shit, all the divorce rage that went back and forth between us—did not register in our boys’ memories. Because that time and the way we treated each other was not and is not their mom and dad. We were getting things out that they’ll only understand much later, when they’re older. On the divorce, on the lawyers, it was such a ridiculous amount of money we spent. We dropped six figures on all that fighting, and if we had been adults, we would have figured out some way to communicate, work out a plan, and put that money in the boys’ trust funds instead of funding new wings on our lawyers’ Beverly Hills estates. If we had had the tools to talk to each other, we could have avoided the legal system and the whole fucking endless train of paperwork—damn we killed a ton of trees. Pamela and I threw rocks at each other’s glass houses, in transcripts hacked out by court stenographers, in arguments acted out by lawyers before a judge, in motions filed with the court—all the money we wasted went into everyone else’s pockets. The boys got none of it. Looking back, I wish we’d just piled it up and lit it on fire. At least the Monkeys could have roasted some marshmallows on it.
13 STATE OF TRANSITION
a.k.a.
INCARCERATION + CONTEMPLATION + INITIATION = SALVATION!
I went to jail in 1998. Here’s the deal. After my arrest the night Pamela and I fought, I was hauled in. After Pamela led the po-po to my gun safe, I was looking at a stack of charges: spousal abuse, illegal possession of weapons, violation of my probation from piloting the uninvited, and a few others that spelled “fucked.” After all was said and done in the courts, I pled no contest to the spousal accusation to avoid the much heavier sentence I would have gotten for weapons possession. The judge gave me four months in L.A. County Jail.
Jail was hell for me. I remember sitting there and talking to my manager at the time, and telling him how much I was freaking out. I was writing on the walls, counting the days. He was like, “Okay, stop counting the days. Just count the weeks. And every seventh day you’re there, that’s the day you can fucking lose your mind and freak out about being cooped up.” He was right. I had four months to kill in there—an entire summer. And summer is the season I live for.
I couldn’t see daylight at all in my cell. There were just walls all around me. My view was a tiny little window wide enough for my face, through which I could see down the hall. No bars, nothing, just a solid steel door. They’d open it twice a day to bring in food. They were casual about giving me my tray of mystery meat, but it wasn’t that way with my cell’s former resident. Before me, one of the Menendez brothers—I’m not sure which one—was in there. They painted a white line on the
floor that he had to stand behind whenever they opened the door. Creepy. In my cell there was a little toilet, if you can call it that, and a bed. I don’t know what time anything happened, but I’d guess it was about seven or eight in the morning when they’d wake us up by turning the lights on, bright as fuck. Or they’d bang on the door. Every two days they’d take me out for a shower. And once a week, every Thursday, they’d take me out to a cage on the roof. L.A. County Jail was like this high-rise with nothing around it—no trees, no people, no nothing. You could see a piece of sky and a bit of sun. They’d always take me up there toward the end of the day so that I’d see sunset, or a slice of it. It was like an escape-proof pigeon coop and I’d sit there with tears rolling down my face, staring at a sliver of sun.