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

by Stephen Pearcy

  “Are you guys in, like, a band?”

  I nodded.

  “Chris, how about getting a cold beer for Phil, here?”

  “Oh, no, thanks. It’s a school night,” Phil said hurriedly.

  “We don’t have any beers left, anyway, Stephen. You finished the last one about three hours ago.”

  “What do you study, man?”

  “I’m taking a photography course,” said Phil. “No big deal. Just at the community college while I try to figure out what I’m going to do with my life.”

  “Hey,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “We need band photos. For publicity purposes.”

  “Well, I could do that,” said Phil. “I wouldn’t even charge you or anything.”

  “This is starting to be very cool, Phil,” I said. “This is a very lucky coincidence that we’ve met—for everyone involved.”

  Phil smiled, unsure.

  “Now, here’s what I want you to do,” I continued. “Go back to your house and tell your mom that what sounded to her like random, horrible noise is actually a promising job opportunity for her son.”

  “Job?”

  “Official band photographer sound good to you?”

  “Wow!” said Phil. “Sure does!”

  “Then hurry back,” I said. “We’d like you to start immediately. We still have a few more hours of practice tonight. This could be a great opportunity for you to squeeze off a few trial shots.”

  “Right!”

  “Oh, and Phil?” I said. “Bring back a couple rolls of toilet paper, okay? We’re totally out over here.”

  They were great days. Nobody knew what the fuck they were doing, yet we were in constant forward motion. We knew it was the right thing to do, not morally, or for reasons of personal growth, but for the good of the band. Though I’d sworn I’d never stoop to a level quite this dirty, we needed a new Marshall cabinet, and so, with no other money coming in, I applied for a job at a head shop in Culver City. Three days later, I was appalled to learn that my application had been accepted.

  It was a lot to ask of a guy, to toil like a serf in the yuppie wilds of Culver City three times a week, just to bring home a lousy hundred bucks or so. But we had to eat. With pride, I took my first paycheck directly to Victor’s, where I bought a bag full of beer and sandwiches.

  “Good God, we eat!” Chris yelped. “Great job, Stephen.”

  He grabbed for a sandwich.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “How’s your job searching going?”

  “Pretty good,” he said defensively. “I dropped off an application at Toys R Us today. Should hear back soon.”

  “You gotta be kidding me. A toy store? Dude, that’s embarrassing. You should work at a guitar shop, man. You could talk to the customers about our band. Maybe we’d even find a bass player.”

  “It’s work,” Chris said simply.

  We were living on the edge, a little too close for comfort. It was exciting as hell, but rubbed our nerves raw. None of us had bank accounts. Multiple times per day, we checked the mailbox, in hopes that one of our parents had sent a letter with a few twenties tucked inside. Mrs. O’Neill offered to feed us, but we felt bashful cadging too many meals from her, seeing as she had yet to charge us a cent for rent. That left girls as our best source for food and gas.

  “You are not going to believe this,” Chris whispered to me, right after we’d pulled off a small gig with some success at Madame Wong’s West, in Santa Monica. “I just met a really hot-looking chick.”

  “Yeah? What’s so unbelievable about that?”

  “Man, she’s a twin.”

  “Oh,” I said casually, my interest mildly aroused. “Is that so?”

  “That’s not even the best part.” He paused dramatically, then shared this: “She works at Cupid’s Hot Dogs.”

  “Sweet God almighty.”

  Cindy and Stacey, the Hot Dog Twins, came bearing ten-pound packages of frozen hot dogs and endless packets of chili seasoning. They would come over to our garage after work, watch us practice, accompany us in getting shitfaced drunk, and then fuck us. It was a deal that worked out for everyone, except John, our drummer, who was forced to take long, thoughtful walks around the neighborhood during the latter part of those evenings. But then, John ate his fair share of hot dogs. We had him there.

  Besides feeding and fucking us, the Hot Dog Twins could be depended on to loan us a little pocket cash so we could fill our cars up.

  “Gosh, I owe you a million, Cindy,” I said, kissing her absently as she made to go.

  “I’m Stacey,” she laughed. “But you’re welcome.”

  What would we have done without them? Behind every successful man stands a great woman, but behind every great band? Ten thousand women. If you’re lucky, that is. I still had my first love, Tina, back in San Diego, but that’s exactly where she was: back in San Diego. My heart remained true, while my sexual prowess earned dinner.

  My soul was bursting with excitement. I would wake up each morning, smell the odor of Chris’s and John’s feet, and think to myself, We’re doing it. We’re really doing it. Each moment was packed with potential, for who knew what destiny-turning event might occur in the next day, in the next hour? Persistence had its rewards, and Los Angeles was the place to reap them. It was the land of scumbag opportunity, featuring balding movie executives with actual phones in their cars, hookers with hearts of fool’s gold, and a harsh, bright sun that never knew when to shut off.

  “Yet another step in the right direction,” I announced one afternoon, returning to our home base after a long day of relentlessly pounding the pavement. “Gentlemen, I just secured us a gig at the Londoneer. We’re getting a hundred dollars and a portion of the gate.”

  “The gate?” John said. “Uh, isn’t that place a tiny café?”

  “Look, the point is, we get a buck for every five people we bring in the door.”

  “We should make two bucks easy,” Chris said, grinning. He looked way too pleased, and it set off suspicious bells in my system.

  “What the hell are you so happy about?” I asked. Then my gaze fell upon the many bags of groceries that covered our floor. I rifled through the brown bags: salamis, grapefruit, pretzels, soda, beer, wine, tall loaves of French bread. The take was enormous.

  “Impressed?” Chris asked.

  “Who’d you have to fuck to get this?”

  “Remember that gig at Toys R Us? I’ve been working there for almost a week.”

  I frowned. “Last time I checked, Toys R Us paid $1.75 an hour.”

  “Yeah, well, I work over in returns.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’ve been, uh, ‘returning’ some stuff myself.” Chris coughed. “First I steal it. Then I return it.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Oh, absolutely, I can. Works great. And hey, before you get all high and mighty on me, remember those Marshall stacks we’ve been talking about? Let’s make a time to go get them this weekend.”

  I laughed. “You’re evil, dude. Honestly, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Chris shrugged. “This is rock and roll, right? The weak have no place here.”

  I was in no position to argue with that. Immediately, I began to devise more ways to spend Chris’s newfound cash. Flashback Threads, located on Sunset in Hollywood, had some way-cool clothes in their storefront windows. It was rumored that a couple of Italian designers were behind their collection. We would start there.

  With money in Chris’s pockets, we began to gather momentum. A friend of ours from San Diego, Dave Jellison, played bass. We auditioned him in the garage, the Hot Dog Twins watching from the sidelines.

  “You can play, sure,” I said. “But tell me this: What kind of heads are you working with?”

  “Ampeg SVTs,” he said. “Four of ’em. You want power? I got what you’re looking for.”

  “I like it,” I decided. “You’re in.”

  The pile of equipment behind us onstage grew and g
rew. Chris and I brought home three Marshall stacks and a bundle of hundred-watt heads.

  “Isn’t this a little excessive?” Chris wondered. “I’m not so sure we even have room in the garage for all this shit.”

  “It’s excessive. Definitely,” I said. “That’s the idea.”

  Soon we were no longer able to cart our gear to and from shows in my Datsun B-210. We enlisted Dennis and Andy Holgwen, both of whom had vans, to come along for the ride as our first roadies. Together we screeched around the city streets at night, snatching folding barricades from in front of open manholes and other sites of municipal construction, painting them black, and stenciling our band’s logo on them. I made sure to place them in front of us when we were playing.

  “What the hell’s the point of that?” Dave said.

  “Adds to our mystique,” I explained.

  Our constant drinking and trying to pull chicks in the parking lot before and after every show may have added to our mystique, too; either that, or it made us look like total idiots. But we were having too much fun to give it much thought. That could have been our slogan in those days: Don’t overthink things. Just PLAY. . . .

  We were guided by a shared exuberance, and an incredible amount of luck. One night, after a gig in Riverside, Dennis’s van broke down by the side of the highway, forty miles outside of L.A. Every member of our band and crew was shitfaced drunk. No one had money. It was two in the morning. After contemplating for a solid minute, I announced the answer: My B-210 would push the two-ton van, from behind. They all called me insane. But somehow, we made it home safely.

  “This car is magic,” I announced to everyone as we congregated in the O’Neills’ driveway, victorious. “Magic, dammit!!”

  But I was wrong. It was us. We were the magic.

  ONE EVENING, AT A BATTLE OF the Bands in Venice, we were approached by two nice Catholic girls who said they loved our sound—Beth Miller and Mellette LeBlanc. Oddly, they didn’t seem interested in having sex with us. Instead, they wanted to give advice.

  “You should start a mailing list,” Beth advised me. “That way, all these potential fans could know when you have your next gig.”

  “How would one go about doing that?”

  “Watch,” said Beth. Removing a small notebook from her purse, she began to confidently and professionally approach every paying member of the audience, asking them for their addresses, and writing them down swiftly.

  “Impressive,” I said.

  “I’m just organized,” Beth said modestly.

  Our team was growing. Mellette and Beth began to attend Mickey Ratt shows regularly. The mailing list swelled to enormous proportions.

  “Now, how about flyers?” Beth suggested. “Ever thought about making them?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to do that!” I cried. “Let me draw something.”

  That evening, I sat down on my cot in the garage with a fat Sharpie and a piece of white typing paper. Freehand, I drew our first-ever Mickey Ratt logo, adding in my crooked hand all our upcoming dates. The next day, we took it to a copy shop and made hundreds of duplicates. We set aside a pile to fold into thirds, address, and toss in the mail; the rest, we took to the street in the middle of the night, running up and down Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevard with a staple gun, posting our logo everywhere at eye level.

  “Fuck, this is great!” I shouted.

  Beth and Mellette were indispensable to our growth. Right from the very beginning, they made it clear that they were never going to sleep with us. “You guys go through women like tissue paper,” Beth admitted. “It’s kind of, well, gross.” Thus, we were able to shut off that part of our brains around them and treat them as normal human beings.

  “Just call us if you ever need us,” Beth told me. “We want to help you guys make it.”

  It was almost too good to be true.

  “They’re like angels, dude,” I told Chris, as we set up our stage show at Madame Wong’s East.

  “If you say so,” Chris said, plugging his guitar in. An hour later, we whipped the Madame Wong’s crowd into a frenzy. The posters and the mailing list had worked like a charm: For the first time, an audience appeared to have come to see us on purpose.

  “Mickey fucking Ratt!” cried one long-haired dude. “You guys are my favorite band. You and the Knack!”

  A compliment was a compliment, and I decided to take it. After the show, Chris and I headed to the Troubadour to celebrate and take in a show. We guzzled a bottle of vodka in the parking lot, supplied by a cute little pop tart named Cherry.

  “I know about this enormous party tonight,” Cherry said. “A couple of friends of mine are house-sitting a mansion in Beverly Hills. You guys want to check it out?”

  Chris and I looked at each other. “Will there be more booze there?” I asked.

  Cherry looked blank. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Then we’ll go,” I decided. I swiped the bottle from Chris and poured its remaining contents down my throat.

  “All right,” laughed Chris. We dragged Cherry along with us, staggering happily along the street until we found my Datsun B-210. Chris hopped into the passenger seat and patted his lap.

  “I just love you guys!” Cherry giggled. She jumped into Chris’s lap. Wriggling her butt until she was sitting on the floor, Cherry then twisted around so her knees were on the ground. Her head came to rest in the space between Chris’s legs.

  “Nice,” I said, and I started up the car.

  Chris began to receive the tenderest of blow jobs from his new friend Cherry. I pulled out into traffic at 2:30 in the morning—wrong move—weaving across the lanes, the majority of my attention directed to the action going on in the area of the passenger seat.

  A horn blared angrily at me. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  “Not a thing,” I mumbled softly. “Not a goddamn thing. . . .” I ventured a sly hand onto Cherry’s shoulder. She grabbed my crotch.

  “Man,” moaned Chris. “This girl is something else.”

  “I’ll agree to that.” I increased my speed as she unzipped my fly. Some turbulence in the cockpit, but that was cool.

  “Hey,” said Chris. His tone had changed.

  “Yep?” I answered idiotically, my left hand gripping the steering wheel.

  “Stephen,” said Chris, “I think there’s a cruiser behind us.”

  I jolted forward. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I ventured a glance into my rearview. Red and blue lights flashed.

  “Shit shit shit shit shit!” I swerved wildly, pushing my pants upward. “Stop, Cherry! Chris, get your jeans back on. Now!”

  Chris grabbed the waist of his jeans and thrust his pelvis in the air. As he did, his crotch caught Cherry’s jaw.

  “Sorry!” wailed Chris, as he tried to push his dick back between his legs.

  I pulled to the side of the road and turned off the engine. Cherry began to sob, from her huddled position.

  “Don’t worry,” I mumbled. “I know how to deal with these guys.”

  Soon a police officer was tapping on my window.

  “License and registration, please.”

  I smiled pleasantly. “Hello, Officer. How are you doing tonight?”

  He didn’t smile. “License and registration, please.”

  “Officer, we could go that route.” I tilted my head toward Cherry, crouched on the floor. “Or I can offer you something much, much better.”

  “What the fuck!” hissed Cherry.

  “What?” I said. “Well, excuse me for trying. Officer, never mind. I’ll get you the paperwork now.”

  In the end, we got off easy. I got cited for drunk driving, but the car wasn’t impounded, and there were no charges of lewd conduct. We’d been nabbed in rich people’s Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, so I got to bunk in the county’s nicest drunk tank for a night. It was bearable, even mildly interesting. I learned, for instance, that most people in jail liked to get a lot more wasted than I did. It made for aw
ful breath but great opportunity. When my new buddies passed out and began to snore, I got to steal their cartons of milk. Full belly, everywhere I went.

  “Stephen Pearcy?” came the voice. “You made bail.”

  “Holy shit,” I said, grinning. “Just like in the movies. Guys? Hang loose.”

  Beth was waiting for me on the courthouse steps when I got released.

  “Beth!” I said, overjoyed to see her. “You shouldn’t have.”

  She laughed. “What was I going to do? Let you rot in there? Chris told me that you guys got arrested.”

  “I got arrested,” I corrected her. “Chris probably got laid.”

  “Stephen,” she said, shaking her head. “What are we going to do with you?”

  “Well, it’s rock and roll, Beth,” I said. “Sooner or later, you gotta do some time.”

  “You did fourteen hours,” she said.

  That night, I returned to Mrs. O’s garage and passed out. Tomorrow was another day, and I would need my strength. I would need every cell of my being in top working condition, in fact, to continue cementing the legend of Mickey Ratt.

  ALL OR NOTHING

  BETH MILLER, FRIEND:

  I think Stephen was upset that they didn’t get their big break faster. He would get mad playing stupid clubs. They did a gig out in the Valley one night and there were about ten people in the audience. He was like, “Whatever. For what it’s worth, here’s another song.” He felt like he was wasting his time with that stuff. He knew he was going to do bigger stuff.

  They were always starving, always arguing who was going to take the first shower. There were these condominiums in Marina del Rey that were close, and we would break into them at night and go swimming, use their Jacuzzi, use their weight room. We would have the best time. Stephen, Chris Hager, John Turner, Mellette, and I would spend two or three hours in a Jacuzzi. Stephen would always wrap his head in a towel so his curly locks wouldn’t fall out from too much chlorine. That was a big deal.

  He was extremely driven and focused—always had that energy and that drive to succeed. Some people never achieve that, don’t know how to channel it. And Stephen had it at a very young age. Stephen would never get discouraged. Never! The other guys in the band would sometimes have those moments, questioning whether it would happen, and that was almost sacrilege. You never say that. If you think it, you still don’t say it.