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

by Stephen Pearcy

  “Chris,” I said. “I need some of that Toys R Us loot. Pronto. It’s an emergency.”

  “Wish I had some to give you,” Chris said. “They’re onto me, man. Yesterday they moved the assistant manager over to returns.”

  Desperate, I sped over to the head shop. “I need a two-week advance,” I demanded.

  My boss laughed in my face. “Steve,” she said, “you call in sick half the time. When you show up at all, you’re hours late. I’ll be honest: Lately, I’ve entertained the notion of letting you go.”

  I scanned her face for any sign of sympathy. There was none. “So, no advance?”

  Her eyes darkened. “No.”

  “Fine. You know what? I’m out of here. I quit!”

  “We accept your resignation,” she said calmly.

  I sped furiously back to the garage, racking my brain for a solution. Short of selling sperm or blood, though, I had only one salable resource to my name. My Marshall stacks.

  “I’m sorry, my darlings,” I told them. “I never, ever wanted it to come to this.”

  It was like cutting off a part of me and putting it up on the auction block. But I had no choice in the matter. Sweating, I pried my best cabinet from the corner of the garage, hefted it up on my shoulder, and dumped it into the backseat of the B-210, determined to try my luck at the neighborhood’s best used-music-equipment store.

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” said the long-haired, bespectacled clerk. “Looks pretty good, I guess. Tell you what, I’ll give you three hundred for it.”

  “Three hundred??” I said, outraged. “Eddie Van Halen used this cabinet at the San Diego Sports Arena! Dude, this cab is cherry. . . .”

  “Jesus, all right,” said the guy. “Three-fifty. Will that do? Don’t have a heart attack, man.”

  I boarded the airplane with a tiny bag of clothes—my coolest ones, naturally—and a stomach full of cold fear. I had never been to New York before. Aside from the drag-racing event with Walt in Indianapolis, I hadn’t seen much of America.

  “Could I get you something to drink?” a sexy stewardess asked me.

  “Yes, how much is a beer?” I asked, fingering the few bills I had left in my wallet.

  “For you,” she whispered huskily, “nothing . . .”

  “No, I’ll pay,” I snapped. No more bathroom blow jobs for Steve! No, this trip—this very moment, in fact—would mark the beginning of my adult life. My faithful life. Visions of me and Tina, housebound, with critters and rug rats, smooching on some boring beige living-room couch in the suburbs, flashed across my brain. A one-woman man, that’s me. . . .

  That weekend in New York turned out to be the most painful, lonely, wretched stretch of days I’d ever experienced in my entire life. Upon arriving, I wandered around the bleak city, confused and lost, freaked out by the towering buildings and the speeding, honking yellow cabs. What the hell was SoHo? Would I know it when I saw it? Manhattan was damp and cold and ominous. It was late evening when I finally found my way to the address Tina had given me months before. A tall girl answered the door. She gave me an amused once-over and then broke the news.

  “Tina’s not here.”

  “What do you mean, she’s not here?”

  “Exactly what I said,” she said. “She’s gone.”

  “As in, she doesn’t live here anymore?” I peeked behind her. “Are you sure?”

  “Look, come on in if you don’t believe me. See for yourself.”

  She wasn’t there, but her roommate sent me to a cocktail party in full swing where I might find her. Thirty or so glamorous models and fashion-industry people mingled, drinking and flirting. Normally it would have been a dream come true for me. These people were successful and smart, and they worked in an industry I admired. But I was sweaty and out of breath, and not feeling myself at all. I looked around for a while, but there was no Tina.

  My plane wasn’t leaving until Monday morning. I wandered until I went back to her apartment. I stretched out flat on my back. So this is what a broken heart feels like, I mused, surprised at the extent of the pain. Wow, I’m really not a fan.

  Other guys might have used it for artistic fuel, writing an album’s worth of sad songs that night. I just lay there, feeling my heart closing up.

  “How was the weekend in the big city, man?” Chris asked. “Worth that Marshall cabinet?”

  “Fuck no,” I said, tired. “Let’s not even talk about it, man. It’s over.”

  Mickey Ratt continued on, destination unknown.

  “LISTEN,” CHRIS SAID ONE DAY. “I’VE been thinking about doing my own thing.”

  “You what?” I said, genuinely stunned.

  “Going my own way, man,” he said. “Musically, that is. I’m not knocking Mickey Ratt. I just feel like I need to explore my own artistic vision. You’ve got such strong opinions, Stephen, and that’s great. I just have a few of my own, you know?”

  First Tina, and then Chris? I was completely rattled. My whole world was crumbling around me. Chris and I talked it over for a while, and we agreed to part ways, though we vowed to stay close friends and offer each other support. And just like that, Mickey Ratt had no lead guitarist.

  John, our drummer, hung out for a while, but every other member of my band deserted the ship. When Dave Jellison, our bass player, put down his instrument and went to go work for Van Halen as their lighting technician, I was the only member of Mickey Ratt left standing. Lesser men might have given up right then and there. But the callous jilting gave me strength and determination. No one is going to take my dream away from me. I didn’t move here to fail. I moved to L.A. to make it. . . .

  On New Year’s Eve 1982, I gobbled a handful of Valiums, chased them down with a beer, and headed out to the Troubadour to mingle. This would be my year, I decided. A slutty brunette with blue eye shadow edging up to her temples flashed me a sultry look; ten minutes later, we were slobbering all over each other in the back corner of the Troubadour parking lot. It’s all or nothing, I thought, rocking back and forth into her squishy tan thighs. Rock glory or bust. The party was still Ratt ’n’ rolling.

  The next day, nursing the most brutal hangover of my life to date, I recruited four Southerners, new in town, to audition for the band.

  “Mickey Rayutt?” one sneered. “Ah don’t understand that at all.”

  “Actually,” I said, my head splitting with pain, “the name of the band is now ‘M. Ratt.’ ”

  “Mickey” was yesterday’s news: too soft, too cutesy. It was time to put away childish things. “M” had more pithiness to it—more mystery. The Southerners decided to join up. Soon they could be found dragging their lackadaisical asses to practice sessions in Mrs. O’s garage. Instantly, our sound changed, transforming from that of a hard-edged, dramatic, flesh-eating shark to that of a soft, trippy rock quintet. Secretly, I couldn’t stand the way we sounded, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to keep myself out there at all costs.

  “I don’t get it,” Bill Gazzarri said to me. “So you guys are now ‘M. Ratt’?”

  “As of now,” I said, “yes.”

  “Son, make up your fucking mind,” Bill said. “Our audience ain’t that bright. We don’t want to confuse them.”

  The new moniker was a little awkward, I had to admit, and not particularly catchy. Sensing I was close, I decided to drop the M completely, rechristening the band “Ratt.” It was a mature, leaner, meaner name—more adult, harder hitting, and finally fitting for the new image that I wanted strutting around the streets. I also wanted to create a logo for Ratt to look like the one for the band Kiss.

  “Ah still don’t really care for the name,” admitted one of my new guys. “I mean, a rayutt? That’s a despised animal, man.”

  “You’re fired,” I said. “Thank you for all your hard work.”

  So I was back on my own again. But that didn’t last for long: I was too determined, and too connected in the music scene to stay solo for long. Matt Thorr and Jake E. Lee, two talented young music
ians from San Diego who had recently made the move up to Los Angeles, were looking for stardom themselves. I let them know exactly where they could find it.

  “Hey, I remember you!” said Jake. “You were the guy from Straight Ahead Sound. My band Teaser would play with you.”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, let’s see how we sound together.”

  Those guys weren’t the only members of the San Diego music mafia who’d decided to come up to Los Angeles. Everyone, it seemed, had made the move, from Aircraft, to Seagull, to Teaser, to good old Robbin Crosby.

  “How’s Phenomenon?” I asked him, when our paths finally crossed.

  “Phenomenon is no more,” said Robbin, sadly. “But I got a new band, Mac Meda, and we’re hot as can be. You were right: Nothing’s happening down there in San Diego. I guess we all kinda came to our senses a couple of months ago and decided to get serious.”

  “I don’t want to say I told you so,” I said. “But I did.”

  Robbin grinned. “Stephen Pearcy, always ahead of the game. How’s this place treating you?”

  “Up and down,” I said.

  Robbin and I hung out and talked for several hours. He was excited to be in town. But more than that: He was excited to be alive. His unrelentingly positive energy reminded me that you didn’t necessarily have to claw your way to the top.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling generous, “Gazzarri’s is practically my second home. We’ve done at least fifty shows there. I mean, we’re more or less the house band. You want me to talk to Bill for you? See if he’ll give you guys a shot up on stage eight?”

  “Seriously, man?” Robbin said. “Would you do that?”

  “Consider it done.”

  Mac Meda imploded soon after that, and Robbin was left without a group.

  “Come jam with us,” I said. “Bring that ax up onstage.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  And I still remember that first night we played together up onstage. Robbin Crosby was a killer, no doubt about it. Just up there, sweating, growling, a six-foot-four blond oak tree, slobbering all over his new guitar like it was some chick, and every woman in the audience groaning with heartsick desire over the very sight of him, laughing, one hundred percent rock star, riding the crest of our music like it was a cold ocean wave.

  And I just had this feeling: He was gonna be our guy.

  THE GLADIATORS

  THE NEW RATT HAD sex appeal. With Jake on guitar and Robbin coming in to jam, I knew we were onto something special. The drunken cupcakes who packed the Strip couldn’t get enough of us. Night after night, they stretched their trembling arms toward the stage and called out our name.

  Gazzarri’s began to bore me. Too easy. I knew the place so well, I could walk around blindfolded and not bump into a single wall. I wanted to keep climbing.

  The Troubadour was the next logical spot. I met Doug Weston, the owner, a flamboyantly gay man who wanted me around for more than booking my band, which I wasn’t going for. Book my band, and that’s all you’re going to book. I fed him a superb line of bullshit, one that would make a used car salesman proud.

  “Ratt has a new philosophy of heavy metal.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “Slay, steal, pillage, fuck, inspire twenty-chick orgies, all that good stuff,” I explained. “But in a classy sort of way, no devil worship.”

  “Gee,” he said, looking dubious. “I don’t know.”

  “Look, man,” I said, “we’ll bring so much ass into your club that you’ll have to look sideways to see anything else.”

  “Sideways, huh? Well, I’ve got a slot next Monday night for an opener. Would ten work for you?”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” I said.

  Inspired by the new location and a bigger, crazier audience, Ratt was agitated, ready to tear into some flesh. I laid down the guitar, and for a time, I missed it, but whenever I listened to Jake, I never thought twice about picking it up again. Jake E. Lee had moves that not even Eddie Van Halen could duplicate. He had no whammy bar. And yet, his guitar whammied out all the time. It was uncanny. (Warren DeMartini would eventually become Jake E.’s roommate and learn all his riffs and solos, which he would incorporate into Ratt.)

  “Jake’s like that Jeff Beck guy,” I whispered to Robbin. “He must have sold his soul to Lucifer to get those chops.”

  “Can I make the same deal?” Robbin said, looking on enviously.

  A pack of hard-core, truly psychotic fans began to crawl out of the woodwork. Before long, we had our own Ratt army. The soldiers came to our shows, babbled about us to their friends, and passed out our flyers with demented determination. After one packed Troubadour show, a member of our new street team smashed a flyer right into the palm of some freak dressed in full military gear. I took a closer look. It was Chris.

  He and I stared at each other.

  “What the hell . . . are you wearing?” I said, finally.

  “Well, I started a new band,” Chris said, somewhat embarrassed. “We’re called Sarge. It’s military-themed.”

  I looked him up and down, observing the green khakis, army boots, and close-cropped hair.

  “It’s the same old rock and roll,” Chris explained. “Just, like, in camouflage.”

  “So, how’s that going for you?”

  “Well, so far, not too many converts,” Chris admitted, “but hell, at least we’re trying.”

  Ratt kicked ass at the Troubadour several times in succession, and a buzz grew quickly. One evening, the top dogs in town came down to take a look: Mötley. Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, and Nikki Sixx had been famous on the Strip since day one. They were four charismatic fucks who wore huge heels and leathers and tights when they played their offensively huge, cartoonish stage shows. They had a solid reputation for drunken, lewd behavior, and their whole vibe was based on the implicit understanding that they’d sock you in the face as soon as look at you. I respected their look and dug their music, but was prepared to do battle with them.

  “Dude,” Nikki said warmly after the show. “You guys are fucking good.”

  I’d expected them to be competitive pricks, but instead, every member of their band was cool. Far from seeking to exclude us or humiliate us, they just wanted to be our buddies. Tommy and Nikki and Vince lived right up the street from the Whisky, in a shitty apartment building that was full of trash, hangers-on, discarded pizza boxes, puddles of half-dried puke, ripped leather jackets, trashed leggings, broken sunglasses, overturned ashtrays, and irregular brown spots on the wall that were as equally likely to have been blood from someone’s busted lip, Jack Daniel’s from a drunkenly thrown bottle, or the smeared remains of some dog shit.

  Anything went at the Mötley House—though boozing, screaming, fighting, snorting, and fucking would sum it up pretty faithfully, too.

  “It’s krell time, baby,” Robbin called out after one show, looking down happily at the fat line of cocaine that had appeared magically out of some chick’s purse. “Stephen, come on over here and take your medicine.”

  “Nah, no thanks. Not in the mood.”

  “Dude, suit yourself,” Robbin laughed, returning his attention to the mirror they’d pulled down off the wall. “It’s all good. I refuse to force you.”

  The Mötley House sucked you in like quicksand. When they threw a party, chicks just poured in, tirelessly wedging their way inside like termites and roaches, jamming through the doorframe with twelve-packs of beer hoisted overhead. Up-and-coming rock dudes dove in through the windows and sprinted to the bathroom, where they pulled down their jeans, banged drugs into the nearest vein, and passed out cold on the crapper. More than once when I was in their house, I merely blinked my eyes twice and returned to consciousness three days later, sprawled out facedown on the living-room carpet.

  “Holy shit, what the fuck happened?” I groaned, emerging from one particularly awful party coma.

  “You got laid, Pearcy!” Tom
my told me. “Congratulations, dude.”

  “Huh?” My head was ready to explode. Each word spoken felt like a thudding, detonating A-bomb. I massaged my genitals gently: They were swollen and raw. “Where . . . did she go?”

  “Oh, she took off, man! Right around the time you started to blow chunks.” He sniffed my collar, in his friendly manner. “Yeah, you smell ridiculous, bro!”

  Mick, although a hell of a sweet guy, was more reclusive, and Vince was sort of lost in his own universe. Robbin and I were closest with Tommy and Nikki, and we started tripping around with them frequently. Robbin, particularly talented at making up nicknames, soon gave Nikki the title Leader Sixx, apt for the man who’d created the Mötley mystique.

  “I’m fucking Leader Sixx!” he bellowed, scaring two little wide-eyed rocker preteens who walked the Strip, their hair carefully styled. They jolted with fright. “Do as I say!”

  Tommy was now Duke. Vince was Sergeant of Arms.

  “He’s Leader, but I’m the Duke, huh?” Tommy said sadly. “No one respects the drummer. Always the same.”

  I became Ratt Patrol Leader, or else they’d call me Felix.

  “Felix?” I said. I took a swig from my open beer can as we walked the packed Strip, shoulder to shoulder, gawking at all the chicks, pushing flyers into people’s chests with tireless dedication and obnoxious swagger. “Dude, why?”

  “Don’t question it,” Robbin said. He stopped in his tracks to stare down a gorgeous chick in a red miniskirt. “Live with it.”

  Nikki ended up giving Robbin the nickname King. And it was just so perfect. It became his name for life. Nobody called him Robbin after that—it was always King.

  “We’re like a fucking gang!” Robbin shouted. “We’re the Gladiators!”

  “Shit, yes!” I yelled, getting into the spirit of things and tossing my stack of flyers into the air. They fluttered down all around us, a snowstorm on the dirty Hollywood street.

  “Right on, King,” Nikki agreed. “If you say so, we’re the Gladiators.”

  Robbin was everyone’s favorite, but he was truly my musical brother, accessory to all my Ratt crimes. We schemed at great length and with unbridled enthusiasm about complicated and devious plans for fame and fortune. Robbin was there for me when any emergency arose, and soon one did. One night at the Troubadour, Jake and I got into it, embarking upon a screaming match that soon evolved into a spiteful resignation speech. He was leaving the band.