Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll: My Life in Rock

by Stephen Pearcy

CHRIS HAGER:

  When we were playing in San Diego, it was before anybody had ever heard of AIDS, so it was a time of really free sex. The twin girls that lived down the street, Stephen and I used to date them. They were barely legal, and we started hanging out and dating them and fucking them. They were hot. We weren’t talking about ugly chicks here.

  They would come over, have sex with him, and then split! And then they’d come back! He just had this power, this mystique. He was laid-back, but he was super cool. Somehow, when he would make his move, he was undeniable.

  I had a bit of money from the accident, which I figured I had coming to me after having been a human pincushion for a year, so I immediately set about squandering it—a talent of mine, which, even as the years pass, never seems to fade.

  “Like the action on this custom Les Paul?” I asked Chris, grinning. “I’m telling you, watch your back, man, or your rhythm guitarist is gonna take over lead.”

  I bought a custom-made Explorer, too, because I was in love with it, and both of the guitars were loaded with Bill Lawrence pickups, which were insane. You can’t get them anymore. I miss them dearly. Throw in a couple of Marshall amps, and Mickey Ratt suddenly had a little power to it.

  CHRIS HAGER:

  His mom worked at a doctor’s office, and we used to go pick up bottles of Valium and bottles of Dalmane, and other sedatives. And when I say bottles, I mean a bottle of 120. He’d get these prescriptions from his surgery, and we’d pop two or three or four of these things, and we’d literally bounce off the walls. Take a few Valiums, smoke a joint, and drink a Mickey’s Big Mouth. We were just fucked up. This was probably a good half of the time. At least.

  Our first drummer, Bob Eisenberg, was a full-blown rocker jock: he ran marathons and always pulled chicks. He had a good sense of rhythm and a solid connection to high-quality Colombian cocaine. A few months into the band’s tenure, he got busted. I thought it would be prudent to give him the ax.

  “Of course, you’re right,” Chris said. Then he added, looking sheepish, “Although, we also could give him another chance.”

  Mickey Ratt was always practicing. Late afternoon, we would set up in my living room and run through our set, much to the chagrin of the people who actually lived there, like my stepdad, Jim.

  Thrift shops supplied the necessary costumes, producing an eclectic, haphazard look that, if you wore it with pride, looked mildly innovative and somehow hip. Vests covered with pins and buttons, worn without a shirt, could always get you in the door, but on wilder, drunker occasions, bathrobes and open-necked karate uniforms were good choices. Always, T-shirts with the necks ripped out, cock-hugging bell-bottom jeans, and silk shirts with collars that stretched to the tips of your shoulders. Leather pants had not yet entered our lexicon. Once they did, they would change everything.

  Mickey Ratt took every opportunity to play, including battles of the bands. At one such occasion, I met a tall, handsome, blond Viking of a guy named Robbin Crosby. He was there with his group, Phenomenon.

  “You guys are great,” he said. “I really like your sound.”

  “Well, hey, thanks,” I said. You could never tell if other musicians were going to dig your band, or just throw you a bunch of crap because they were too competitive. “You want to smoke a joint?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m Robbin. Seriously, dude, it was a lot of fun, you guys are tight.”

  “Well, Phenomenon isn’t half bad either,” I admitted, sparking up a little number. “Hey, man, have you seen the chicks here tonight? I’m impressed.”

  Robbin flashed me the most brilliant smile I’d probably ever seen in my life to that point. “Don’t I know it,” he said.

  “See anyone you like?”

  “No, man. I got a chick and I’m pretty deep in love with her. Her name’s Tawny. Tawny Kitaen. Have you met her?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Nice to have a girlfriend though, right?”

  “It’s actually kind of terrible. Can’t hang with any of these,” he said, motioning to the cuties who were just starting to congregate around us.

  “That is too bad,” I agreed, my gaze falling on the perfect, corduroy-striped ass of a blond-haired girl who looked like the younger sister of a San Diego cheerleader.

  “Yeah, love’s the absolute worst,” said Robbin, grinning.

  I would see Robbin around from time to time after that, him and Tawny. They were living in an apartment down on Ingram Street, just around the corner from my grandmother Betty. Many Sundays, when I came to take my grandmother shopping, he’d be around, hanging out on the street.

  “Stephen Pearcy,” said Robbin, by way of greeting. “Of the great and legendary Mickey Ratt.”

  “I want you to meet my grandmother Betty.”

  “So nice to meet you, Betty,” he said. “Are you two having a nice morning?”

  “Yes. Stephen gave me some marijuana,” Betty informed him. “For my glaucoma.”

  “That’s very sweet of him,” Robbin said gallantly. “Your grandson is a very nice boy. Stephen, can I talk to you real quick? Privately?”

  We ducked into a corner.

  “Someone was telling me you go up to Los Angeles a lot still.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said.

  “And that you sometimes get good acid when you do.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I’m tired of this windowpane shit.”

  “Bunkest acid in the world.”

  “So?” said Robbin. “Can you help us out?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m going up next week. And when I come back down, I’ll bring you the strongest Pyramid acid you’ve ever had in your life.”

  “Awesome,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.

  “Consider it done,” I said.

  “You’re the best, man,” he said. Then to my grandmother, “Betty, it was a pleasure.”

  “Yes, dear,” said my grandmother, giving him a little wave. “Have a beautiful day. What a nice boy!”

  Slowly I began to get more and more serious about the music thing. First of all, I realized that I wasn’t musically literate enough. I hadn’t experienced enough sounds. The San Diego Sports Arena was this fantastic resource for me—like a library, almost. Every weekend they had another monster act: Ted Nugent, Blue Öyster Cult, Deep Purple. I tried to make the scene as often as I could. At one concert—it could have been an Aerosmith or Peter Frampton show—I was walking around during intermission and I spied a stunning brunette.

  “Hi there,” I said, swooping in for the kill. “I’m Stephen Pearcy.”

  “Oh, I’m Tina.”

  “What do you think of the music?” I said.

  “Amazing,” she said.

  “You know,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I’m in a band.”

  She hesitated for a second. Then she smiled.

  Sparks flew between me and Tina. She was much younger than me, and so fucking beautiful I thought my eyes would pop if I looked at her for too long. Seriously: She had one of those faces that was so perfectly formed, it actually hurt to look at her. She was super smart, but her dream was to be a model.

  “Do you think that’s shallow?” she asked, embarrassed.

  Shallow? Was she kidding? The fact that she was even bashful about choosing a line of work based on her appearance was enough to show me that she was about ten times as deep as I was. Our love bloomed; and love, as Robbin pointed out, is the absolute worst. But it was also the best, because with Tina, I relaxed. With Tina, I was in the moment.

  Tina was a virgin and she wanted to stay that way. I was so in love that I didn’t even try to change her mind. Her dad didn’t really like me: I was the rocker boyfriend, not the jock he’d imagined for his daughter, a few years older than his kid, leading her down the path of darkness. I understood his position. After all, I was tasting the fruits of Babylon for hours on end in her bedroom, knocking the bed into walls in everything-but-sex teenage passion, then waltzing downstairs, completely straig
ht-faced, as if nothing had even occurred.

  “Will you take me up to Los Angeles sometime?” she asked. “I want to see where you grew up.”

  “Oh, sure,” I answered. “Sometime soon.”

  But not right away. I had business up there, best done alone. I had sheets of acid to score. My connection was this kid Mike, who I’d met through my brother.

  L.A. was 150 miles away, but it might as well have been a million, if you didn’t own a car. My mom wasn’t popping for any plane tickets anymore. So hitching was my solution, a perfect exercise in basic survival if I’ve ever seen one. But it was all worth it to get to see my friends up in L.A. They were still the closest guys in my life. Victor and Andy and Mike and Dennis—they hadn’t changed much.

  “So you graduated from . . . hey, what was it you graduated from again, Pearcy?”

  “I got my GED,” I said to Andy. “Asshole.”

  Those guys were in no hurry to get out into the real world of jobs and responsibility. Victor and Mike were into music, and they spent most Saturday afternoons jamming out in the fresh air of Culver City public parks.

  “Dude,” Victor told me, “there’s a band out here that you really have to take a look at.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. “Who’s that?”

  “Van Halen,” he said.

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Take my word for it,” said Victor. “They cook.”

  I assured him that I’d make sure to visit the Strip the next time they had a gig. Then I attended to my other business. I found my brother’s friend and scored a couple of sheets.

  “Twenty bucks, brother. And that’s a friend price.” He grinned. “I only wish that I could watch you lose your mind on this.”

  “You should come down south and hang out sometime,” I said.

  “San Diego?” he laughed. “Nah. I’m afraid I’d turn into a hippie. Smog suits me.”

  I shrugged. His loss. I walked down to the freeway on-ramp, my thumb out.

  “Now listen, Robbin,” I said, when I’d arrived home safely, “this is strong stuff. I don’t recommend doing more than one hit of it.”

  He nodded.

  “In fact,” I continued, “my friends and I sometimes take a pair of scissors and cut a hit in half. Eat one half, then wait an hour or so, see how you feel. You might not even need the other half, you know?”

  Robbin nodded again. “Cool. I’ll take two.”

  “Two hits?”

  “Yes.” He looked at me gravely. “Is ten bucks cool?”

  “That’s plenty,” I said, confused. “But, who’s the other one for?”

  “Two for me,” Robbin said.

  “But I just said—”

  “I know what you said.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said, laughing. You had to dig Robbin’s style. Two hits of Pyramid acid would turn the most psychologically stable human being on the face of the planet into a gibbering wreck for sixteen hours at minimum. But no one was going to tell that to Robbin Crosby.

  As for me and Chris, we dropped one hit of Pyramid apiece, in order to get juiced up for a Boston show. Then we got in his car to drive the mile and a half to the Sports Arena, gunned the engine, and promptly forgot we were even driving.

  “Chris?” I said. My voice sounded funny in my head. “Hey, Chris.”

  “Yep,” said Chris.

  He continued to drive along in silence, going about ten miles an hour.

  “Hey,” I mumbled, “would you say I have weird hands?”

  “Where are we going?” said Chris suddenly. His Peugeot bounced off the divider in the middle of the road and bounced us back into our lane. We both jolted upright.

  “Shit, man!” I exclaimed, laughing. “We’re frying. Pull over, you idiot!”

  “No, I can make it, I can make it,” he insisted, his voice hoarse. “The arena is only a mile away.”

  Against all odds, Chris managed to guide us into the parking lot of the Sports Arena. But once we’d parked, the LSD truly launched into attack mode, exploding all the unused pockets in my brain. Everywhere I looked, fractals were forming and melting, tiny kaleidoscopes in motion. Around us, night quickly began to fall, and with it came a sense of weird foreboding and evil. In my mind’s eye, I could sense thousands of rowdy fans, clustered in every recess of the parking lot, guzzling beer and smoking cheap pot, gulping down quaaludes, wanting to fuck and kill. I slunk down deep into my bucket seat.

  “Chris,” I whispered hoarsely. “I actually might not make it inside for the show. Is that cool?”

  “I’m not moving,” he mumbled back, “from this car.”

  Some days later, Robbin would tell us how he had gobbled down his two hits and then, an hour later, the dude went surfing.

  “Best day of my life,” he confessed. “Thank you so much, man.”

  Robbin had an enormous appetite, whether you were talking drugs, food, women, or music that shredded. Out of all the aspiring musicians in San Diego, he was the one who was most heavily into metal. Judas Priest was one of his favorite bands. I listened to my first Priest album ever over at him and Tawny’s place.

  “Listen to this, man,” he demanded. “Both of you.”

  “We’re listening, calm down.”

  Robbin cocked his head and motioned for us to be silent. As if on cue, Priest churned out a chorus of heavy, gorgeous riffs. Robbin’s massive six-foot-four frame shook with excitement.

  “You just got your fucking head blown off there, didn’t you?” he said, with utter reverence. “Seriously, wasn’t that fucking disgusting?”

  “You’re right, man.” I laughed.

  Robbin just understood what rock was all about, and embodied the best parts of it without even having to try.

  “Did you know Robbin got offered a contract by a minor-league baseball team?” Tawny asked me once.

  “Huh? I didn’t know he even played.”

  “He was a huge star in high school,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “Well?” I said. “Is he going to take it?”

  “Are you kidding?” she laughed. “He goes, ‘I’m not a jock anymore. They can suck this dick. I like metal.’ ”

  THE NEXT TIME I CAME UP to L.A., Victor was on my ass about Van Halen again. But things got busy down in San Diego. Tina and I got tangled up in some tongue acrobatics, slowing me down. I hit the freeway too late to grab a good ride and I never made it to the show. Victor was looking quite smug the next time I saw him.

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a crowd get so thoroughly slayed.” He sighed. “You missed a classic for the ages, Pearcy.”

  “Look,” I said. “When do these guys play next?”

  “Two weeks from now. Whisky a Go Go. Be there.”

  I said I’d be there for sure this time. In the meantime, I started to do some research on the band. This was in 1977 or so. I don’t think Van Halen had even been signed yet. They might have been doing some demos, but they definitely didn’t have a record in any of the stores that I checked into. Only one clerk even knew who I was talking about, though he was quick to assure me, just like Victor, that Van Halen’s show was not to be missed. As the date came nearer, one thought kind of came to my mind over and over again.

  If these guys are so cool, I don’t want to just see them. I want to meet them.

  I took off for Los Angeles at exactly one o’clock in the afternoon, intent on getting to the Whisky in time for the sound check. I’d always paid attention at the San Diego Sports Arena when I went to shows, and I’d noticed one thing: The bands came early. I’d milled around outside many an Aerosmith or Ted Nugent or ZZ Top concert hours before the doors opened, chatting with hot groupies who promised me that they’d try to get me in with them. It had never happened yet; I blamed it on my lack of tits.

  But this band was small. There wouldn’t be groupies or a crowd at sound check.

  I sped up Highway 5 and made the switch to the 101 just outside of downtown L.A. I crawled north through
the midafternoon traffic, cursing the sluggish progress. Come on, come on . . . Finally, the Sunset exit showed, and I dropped down onto surface streets. I pushed my car west, notching steady progress, until finally, I was just in front of the Whisky.

  The timing of my arrival couldn’t have been more perfect. Just as I hooked a right onto Clark Street and pulled into an open space, David Lee Roth was walking up the stairs on the outside of the building, about to pull open the Whisky’s side door.

  It was now or never.

  “Yo, Dave!” I yelled. “Want to smoke a joint?”

  It sounds unbelievable—that I’d be dumb enough to ask, or that he’d be dumb enough to say yes. But then again, if I was a partying kind of guy, on my way to sound check on some perfect California afternoon, and some long-haired kid offered to get me high, I’d probably say “Sure.”

  “Sure,” Roth laughed. “Come on, man. Hurry up.”

  Unable to believe my luck, I parked and followed him in. In my palm, held on to for dear life, was the clumsily rolled joint that I’d packed special from San Diego.

  “This is really good shit,” I promised him as we walked up the steps to the backstage area.

  “That’s what they all say.”

  He and I soon got down to puffing. Members of Van Halen were tripping around the dressing room, and there I was with them: Stephen Pearcy, rock-and-roll infiltrator!

  “So what’s your story, kid?” Dave asked.

  “I’m in a band,” I said. “Down in San Diego.”

  “Hey, imagine that!” He took a solid hit and then coughed. “What do you call yourselves?”

  “Mickey Ratt,” I said.

  He nodded, appearing to consider it for a second. “That’s kind of fucking weird,” he decided, finally. “We were going to call our band Rat Salad.”

  We smoked until the joint was almost gone, and then Dave kind of nicely blew me off.

  “Thanks for the toke, bro. I gotta get ready to sing. . . .”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It was cool to meet you.”

  I could have left right there, but then I saw a dude fiddling with a really cool-looking guitar.

  “Hey, man,” I said, “that’s a sweet instrument you’ve got there.”