Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen

by Vince Neil

  Also, about my hair in the back photo:

  It was airbrushed. It’s fake. The back of the Elektra record is one way and the back of the Leathür record is another. My dad’s got the original version, the one with the superimposed giganta-hair. People call it the big-hair album. What happened was Coffman’s photographer took the shots with us standing against a white background. And being that I have blond hair, it kind of disappeared and looked like shit. In the proofs it looked really, really weird. I should have insisted on another shoot, but this photographer had already left town, so I stupidly allowed Coffman to convince me that the guy—one of his buddies, it turned out—could rectify the problem in the lab or whatever. When I saw the finished cover I was really fuckin’ pissed off. It looks like I’d borrowed Elton John’s beehive wig or some shit! There’s a clear, like, line going across where you can see they’ve superimposed more hair on top of the other hair. By the time I saw it, it was too late to change. At least I wasn’t the only one. Apparently Mick was also unhappy with the picture—he thought he looked like Joan Jett; he had a good point, though I wasn’t gonna be the one who told him. Funny how things come around: On the night my son, Neil, was born, I had been working as a roadie for Joan and her band the Runaways.

  Now my bandmate was fucking their guitar player.

  It was just another night on the Strip.

  I can’t tell you what night, exactly.

  You got a problem with that?

  I suppose you can remember the exact date or year of everything you ever did?

  That’s what I thought.

  By this time, things were a blur. We were living in the moment. Shit was happening. Other than being at the gigs on time, I didn’t know what day it was. Night became day became night. A blur of gigs and girls and places and people. And maybe a little blackout time; when my drinking was bad I would black out and lose time. It’s like this switch would go off. Later people would tell me what I did. Or maybe they haven’t told me a lot of it, I’m sure. Maybe that’s the reason some people have gotten mad at me over the years. There is a lot of stuff I don’t even remember. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t speak to us for this book.

  But some things you never forget; this time was one of them.

  Nikki and I were leaving the Rainbow with our girls. Things were different then. We were all brothers in arms. Like guys from the same team or army squad, you know? We partied together; we played together; we fucked the same girls… sometimes at the same time—like they say, our swords crossed. We were that close.

  At this point Nikki was with Lita Ford. It was easy to see why he liked her—she was different from the other groupie-type women, like an idolized version of a musician’s girlfriend, a true rocker who could shred. (It was like a regular guy finding a woman who likes to drink beer and watch football.) When she got up on the stage, Lita was not fucking around. She was as good as any guy on guitar. She had no problem keeping up with Nikki—within moments of their first meeting she’d broken a quaalude in half and fed him one part. They were a true match from the jump.

  I was with my new girlfriend, Beth Lynn. She was beautiful—of course. She had a small, round ass and a nice rack—of course. She was blond and blue-eyed—or maybe her eyes were green. It is hard to remember; it’s been a long time since I last saw her.

  Some people say that if you lined up all my wives and girlfriends, you’d have a row of Barbie dolls—replicas of replicas, in descending order of age, older models replaced occasionally for new, and so on down the line.

  I guess I’ll admit: I have a type.

  A bit of an understatement?

  But you can’t say I don’t have excellent taste. Shoot me: I like wholesome-looking blond California girls. Who doesn’t? In the contest for what kinds of chicks are the best in the world, I’m gonna vote for my hometown fave, the wish-they-all-could-be Cali blonde. Once you’ve found what you like, what the fuck, you know what I’m sayin’? Why change? Yes, my mother was a blonde. And so was my first crush: Mrs. Anderson. I don’t know what it is about blondes. Maybe the brunettes are, you know, maybe they’re too smart for me.

  I do admit it’s a little weird how Beth and I met, but like I said, that was how things were at the time. Originally, Nikki was the one who knew Beth. She was a groupie type, but she was also superhot. I guess what I’m saying is that Beth was like a groupie who was a cut above all the other groupies… the kind who becomes a rock ’n’ roll wife.

  Nikki met Beth at the Troubadour one night; she was hanging out with the guys in Ratt. She was a rich girl from San Diego, sweet and hot at once, like Chinese food. You could tell she’d had an expensive upbringing, just the way she carried herself. Let loose on the streets, she was like the rest of us at the time; we were all walking on the wild side. One night, after partying hard at the Rainbow, we all three headed back to the Mötley House, she and Nikki and I. On the way the talk got pretty hot; there was mention of a threesome. We got to the house, but then I think Nikki passed out.

  I was still wide awake. And so was she.

  From that night on, Beth was my new girlfriend. She wasn’t the first girl I had shared with Nikki or Tommy. Like I said, it seemed perfectly natural. We had that spirit between us.

  On this night, we four—Nikki and Lita and Beth and I—were walking from the Rainbow to the Mötley House when these biker dudes started yelling shit in our direction. Back then, there was a lot of static between bikers and the rockers—especially the sort of hair metal/glam variety like us. To them we looked like “fags.” (Lemme tell you. I’ve never known a gay guy in hair metal. [Other than Freddie Mercury.] You have to be a real man to wear makeup. And I guarantee you no biker has ever gotten as much pussy as we got—and certainly not more beautiful. Have you seen those Hell’s Angel biker chicks? Ohhhhh. Skanky! Some writer once called our music Glam Cock Rock. I think that says it pretty well. We might have teased our hair and used Aqua Net, but we were as macho as anyone.)

  Things quickly escalated—obviously the biker boys were drunk and spoiling for a fight. Before I knew it, they jumped us. Nikki removed the chain from around his waist and started swinging. As I’m sure you’re learning, I’ve never been one to back down from a fight, either.

  We dove right in, the four of us going toe-to-toe, everybody throwing down. Suddenly these two other dudes appeared out of nowhere. I figured they were friends of the biker dudes. In an attempt to get the chain off Nikki, one of the new guys grabbed his wrist. Nikki whipped him across the face a few times before the new guy clamped down on Nikki’s hand with his teeth. He looked like a pit bull trying to tear Nikki’s hand off his arm.

  Then the other new guy pulled a badge and a gun.

  Undercover cops!

  As the cops focused on Nikki, the bikers scurried off into the night—as did I. There was nothing I could do. If we both got arrested, who would, you know… I was better off on the outside to help get him released. And besides, I’d just been arrested the week before at the Troubadour for hitting a chick who didn’t like the U.S. Marines getup I was wearing. I didn’t want to get arrested again.

  While “taking him into custody,” the cops hit Nikki seven times in the face, breaking his cheekbone and giving him a black eye. He was transported in a squad car to the West Hollywood police station. On the way Nikki must have said something to someone—he’s never shared exactly what he told the cops that made them stop in an alley, pull him out of the car, and repeatedly beat him about the stomach and face.

  After spending two nights in the lockup, Nikki was bailed out by Lita, who hocked her Firebird Trans Am for one thousand dollars to raise the money. In the end the charges were dropped—I think there were too many witnesses to the obvious police brutality… they were really whaling on Nikki. After his release, the lovebirds walked the three miles back from the police lockup to the Mötley House—just in time to change for our show that night at the Whisky.

  That night Nikki wore exaggerated makeup to cover
his bruises. For fun and camouflage he added the two swatches of black beneath his eyes. He liked the look so much that he continued to wear it even after he’d healed.

  Beth Lynn Neil Vince’s First Wife

  I moved to San Diego in 1979 for my junior year of high school; I began dating Robbin Crosby from the band Ratt; we both went to La Jolla High School. I’d been raised on a lake about an hour and a half outside Chicago. I was pretty naïve and innocent and country—I showed up wearing like cowboy boots. I was hungry for exposure to things that I hadn’t been exposed to, I guess you could say.

  Eventually I met this group of girls and we would drive up to LA every weekend. We’d go to Gazzari’s and the other clubs on the Strip. When I graduated high school, Robbin was moving up to LA, so I went with him. He’s dead now and it absolutely breaks my heart. He was probably my best guy friend, ever. You know how you start out in a relationship with somebody and you think you’re in love and then you figure out you’re really just good friends? He was that guy for me.

  I met Vince briefly for the first time back behind the Troubadour. I pulled up in a Datsun 240Z. Vince was in a blue one, the same kind of a car. And one of us said, like, “We should race or something,” something really cheesy to that extent. And then he goes, “Hey, I’m Vince. I’m playing here tonight.” Which is typical for him. Vince was such a gregarious, outgoing, funny, charming guy. He was so outgoing and so just full of himself. He was spectacular, really. He’s like, “Come upstairs; I’m playing tonight.” So I went upstairs to the backstage area.

  It was early in the night, like maybe seven. We started talking and hanging out and I was meeting everybody. Vince introduced me to Nikki and Tommy. Robbin showed up at that point; we were all, like, pretty heatedly talking, just into it, having a good time. And Vince leans over and says, you know, “We’re going to have a party after the gig, you should come over,” blah blah blah. And right about that time a girl came in the room. Well, not a girl. She was much older. I was like nineteen. I had a fake ID. I had like five of them. I’m actually almost exactly one year younger than Vince. My birthday is February 10. So anyway, the woman was Leah. I had no idea who she was and she came over and just started yelling at me, “Get away from my husband,” blah blah blah, “I’ll kick your ass; I don’t know who you think you are,” and I’m like, “Hey, no problem. I’m out of here. That’s fine with me. I don’t even know him; I just met him.” She was maybe thirty-eight, thirty-nine years old. She seemed ancient to me at the time. But in any case, that was his girlfriend.

  Vince was pretty amazingly gorgeous. But honestly, there were a lot of little boys running around in those days that were amazingly gorgeous at nineteen and twenty. It was more than just that with Vince. I absolutely adored him because he was fearless. He was absolutely courageous onstage. Like when they wouldn’t even pack the place—it’d be like twenty people there or something, and he would have this fantastic all-white leather or all-red leather outfit with the crotch stitched up, from North Beach Leather, this really expensive store where Leah bought him stuff. I mean, the place might only have twelve people in it, but he would be in these outfits, and he’d find like a door he was going to come through, and he’d try to make this huge entrance onstage. And it was nothing faux about it at all. It was totally, completely, authentic—like he was going to be famous. And not only that, he was going to do it better than anybody had ever done it before. He had this courage that I absolutely adored about him. And he was gregarious, too. And funny. He was also fragile and a little boy in a lot of ways, too. He was absolutely driven. He had the moves. He’d do this sidestep thing where he was almost prancing like a horse—and with his hair as white as he could dye it—and he’d come down those stairs like sideways, and when he hit the stage the intensity he had was just awesome, awe inspiring, it just lit up the whole place. He really, really had something special. Was he physically beautiful? Yes. But that wasn’t the bulk of it. I think that he just had that kind of charisma and drive and courage. It’s like, he was insecure in life, but never onstage. Onstage, in those moments, he was completely focused. He’s always been a very driven individual.

  At some point I started dating Nikki. I’d come over to pick up Nikki—they all lived in the Mötley apartment—and Vince would be there. Or I’d call there and he’d answer the phone and start flirting with me, like, “Hey what are you doing? When are we going out?” Dah dah dah. And I’m like, “You’ve got a girlfriend. I’m not going out with you. I’m dating your best friend.” Nikki and Vince were really close at that time. I think later they had their battles, but not then. Sometimes I’d come over to pick up Nikki and Vince would be like, “Oh, Nikki’s out at the Body Shop watching strippers; why don’t we go out and get a bite to eat?” He was always trying to go out with me.

  There were a lot of parties at the apartment. I mean, a lot of parties. After, after the clubs would close down, we’d end up at their house, everybody getting really drunk, snorting a lot of coke, women everywhere, a lot of people hooking up in the little rooms here or there, coming and going. A couple other bands lived in that apartment building, too. The Heart girls lived across the way. They didn’t really fraternize with us, but they were in and out of there once in a while. And there was a band next door that I honestly can’t remember who it was. They never ended up getting famous. But there were always parties going in a couple different apartments; people would kind of roam around between all of them. Their apartment was on the first floor; there was kind of a back window where people would crawl in. The window was on the back alley. When some people came over, they came through the window so they didn’t have to walk through all the people out there in the courtyard and the other rooms. It was kind of like the VIP entrance. David Lee Roth always came in that way.

  The parties had the normal drinking and drugging, everybody hooking up kind of thing. I remember Tommy liked to run around naked a lot. He was very proud of, you know, his manhood. And there were plenty of girls who were happy to pay him attention, too.

  The thing that happened was I was dating Nikki. One night we were all three walking home from the Rainbow and it was a time when I actually had a prescription for quaaludes. I always really liked downers better than uppers back in the day. So quaaludes were great—though they ended up really getting me in a lot of trouble that I probably wouldn’t have gotten into, as I review things in the past. But anyway, I guess I lived through it, so hey, it’s my history; I own it. But in any case on that particular night, I remember, we were all drinking at the Rainbow. There were some other people at the table with us; Vince actually got sick and threw up under the table. After that, we were just walking home. And Nikki said something to the effect of, “How would you like to have a threesome with me and Vince?” I had dated Nikki maybe two months at that point, but who knows how exclusive he’d been, you know? It felt exclusive to me, but who knows really? So I said, “Okay, why not? I’ll try it.”

  We got to the apartment and started to hook up. And what happened I guess is that Vince pretty much just didn’t let Nikki do anything. Vince just pretty much went for it and, you know, blocked Nikki out of the situation. So Nikki got mad and left. And I was like drunk enough and fucked up enough that I was just like, Whatever. The truth was, over that couple months when Vince was trying to charm me and go out with me, I kind of had a crush on him anyway. Nikki was very intense, very dark, very mopey. He was like Eeyore, you know, “My life is all fucked up.” And Vince was just like this little ray of light every time he came into a room. He was funny, laughing, cracking jokes all the time. That was Vince.

  The next morning I had to go out. Nikki was sitting on the living room floor, looking all pouty, and I’m like, Oh shit. So I tell Nikki, “Hey, I’m really sorry.” And he’s like, “It’s cool, don’t worry about it, things happen or whatever.”

  A couple of days later, I’m at the Troubadour with Robbin. Vince walks up. He’s wearing this T-shirt from the Pleasure Chest on Melrose
. It said: “Fuck me now, I have to get on with my career.”

  It was another quaalude night. Vince and I started talking. One thing led to the next and it’s like smash cut to: scene in my apartment/morning. I wake up. I’m with someone. I look over and I see this white blond hair. And I’m like, Oh shit.

  And then Vince rolls over all cheery. He’s like, “Good morning, beautiful.”

  And I’m, like, Oh fuck! ’Cause I literally, I literally didn’t remember how he got there. And now I’ve got to explain this to Nikki.

  But then, things started to turn. Vince was so chipper and sweet. We started talking and hanging out and I cooked him breakfast and then we went and bought a dartboard and hung it on the wall and we played darts from the bed and we just like had this whole big long week where he didn’t go home—he stayed at my place; we hardly ever got out of bed.

  At some point, Nikki started calling. He’s like, “Is Vince there? Is Vince there?” And Vince is like making signs, like, No, no, you know, but he’s grinning like he’s really amused. And then Nikki started calling again, saying, “I don’t care if he’s there or not, but if you could just have him let us know he’s not dead or something, that would be great.” So finally, I told Vince, “You’re going to have deal with this.”