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

by Stephen Pearcy

  We piled into Phil’s Crown Victoria, all of us squeezing into the front seat.

  “Where’s this party, Dee Dee?”

  “It’s in Laurel Canyon,” she said happily. “Oh, this is great. I’m bringing the hottest rocker in town!”

  “And the rocker’s friend,” Phil pointed out, starting up the car, looking behind him carefully, then pulling out onto Clark Street.

  “Sure, honey,” Dee Dee breathed. She was staring at me, deep in the eyes. “Whatever you say. God, Stephen, I’ve missed you so much.” She tousled my hair.

  “Dee Dee, goddammit, control yourself, okay?”

  “Why should I control myself?” she breathed excitably, reaching for my crotch. “I want it now, Stephen.”

  “Hey. That’s enough,” I said. “Phil, pull over.”

  “You got it, Stephen,” said Phil. He screeched the car to a halt on the side of the road and turned off the engine.

  “Thanks, Phil. Now look, Dee Dee, this is it. No more. Ratt’s earned our spot at the Whisky. We got a record in the stores. I don’t have to keep getting blown by you.”

  “I didn’t realize it was such an imposition.”

  “The first few times, it wasn’t. But now I’m starting to feel a little trashy.” I crossed my arms. “You want to blow someone, blow Phil.”

  “What?” Phil yelped.

  “What are you trying to do, Stephen?” said Dee Dee.

  “It’s time for you to try someone new, Dee Dee. Go ahead. It’ll be good for you.”

  Dee Dee looked doubtful. Then she turned to Phil, sizing him up. “Well, he is kind of cute. In a nerdish way.”

  “Exactly,” I said. I turned my head discreetly, so I was staring at the passenger’s side window. “Go ahead, you two. Don’t mind me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Hey, I don’t know about all this,” protested Phil, but soon Dee Dee had lowered her head, and all conversation ceased.

  Three minutes later, gulping, Dee Dee came up for air. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and shot me a dirty look. The drained Schwartz slumped, comatose, over his own steering wheel.

  “Are you happy, Stephen?” Her eyes were angry slits. “Now are you satisfied?”

  I was better than that: I was free.

  The EP continued to do brisk business. One evening, Robbin and I were driving home from a club, listening to KLOS, one of L.A.’s rock stations.

  “And next up, we got a song from a new group called Ratt—it’s called ‘You Think You’re Tough.’ ”

  Robbin and I looked at each other, stunned. Simultaneously, our mouths dropped open.

  “Dude!” screamed Robbin. “We’re on the fucking radio!”

  “Unreal,” I whispered. “Unfuckingreal.”

  We listened, awestruck. My hands were trembling so bad, I thought I’d swerve off the side of the road.

  “Okay,” I said, before the song was half over. “We gotta change the station.”

  “Why? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s bad luck to listen to yourself,” I said. “It’s like reading your own reviews.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Robbin, laughing wildly. “Absolutely fucking insane.” His eyes were still wide open with disbelief. We’d made it on the airwaves. Anything could happen now.

  I twisted the dial to KMET. And while no one in the world should believe this, I swear it’s God’s honest truth. “You Think You’re Tough” was playing there, too.

  “This is unbelievable!” I screamed. “No! It can’t be happening!”

  “We’re on two radio stations at the same time!” yelled Robbin. He stuck his head and torso out of the window of my Datsun B-210. “IT’S TIME TO RATT AND ROLL, YOU BASTARDS! NOW BACK TO RATT MANSION WEST, TO PLAN OUR NEXT RATT ATTACK!”

  We’d written the song in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and recorded it in an exhausted frenzy. Now it was hitting. I pressed on the gas pedal and turned the radio up as loud as it would go. Robbin wedged his body further out the window, until he was half in and half out of the car, his blond hair flying behind him, screaming into the wind. We drove like that for a very long time, shrieking and spitting like two half-human beasts, our car disappearing into the night.

  ALL THROUGH THE SPRING OF 1983, I heard us on the radio, and it never ceased to thrill me. The same was true of being able to waltz casually into a random record store and check whether our EP was for sale. It never got old. Usually, the tape was there, and if it wasn’t, I could bug the clerk about it, ask him to order it. Ratt wasn’t famous yet, but we were official. We’d cut a record. People paid for our music. And man, it was just so weird.

  Here’s the thing: You lie awake at night half your life, hoping for something great to happen—marry the hot chick, make a million bucks, play football in the NFL, become a senator, whatever. Most of the time, it never happens. But sometimes it does. And when it did for me, it kind of took me by surprise. For a while, I just didn’t know how to feel. Grateful? Entitled? Tripped out?

  Despite the first taste of success, we were as broke as always, and that tends to keep a man grounded in reality. The initial EP sales were more than fifty thousand, and because it was on an independent label, that meant cash for someone. But we never saw a penny.

  “I’m going to crush Marshall if he doesn’t give us our dough!” swore Bobby, swerving from lane to lane as we headed down to Long Beach Arena to catch a Scorpions show. Bob knew the group well and had gotten us backstage passes. “I never trusted that guy in the first place.”

  “Calm down, Bobby,” I said. “We’re no worse off than we were before we met him. He got us airplay, you know?”

  “Do I give a shit about airplay?” Bobby looked incredulous. “I am a businessman, Stephen. I got a wife and kids to think about here!”

  Blotzer was sweating heavily. The front of his shirt was soaked through. He cracked open a Budweiser and swigged deeply from it.

  “But if we get airplay,” I explained, “then we—”

  “I know, I know,” sighed Blotzer. “Airplay means we get signed, and that’s when we’ll make our money. Shit, Stephen, you think I haven’t made the connection? I’m not stupid, man. You think you and Robbin are the only smart guys in the band? I might drum for a living, but that doesn’t make me a total imbecile.”

  Blotzer gulped down the rest of his beer greedily and threw it into the backseat with gusto.

  “Fuck, this is gonna be a great show! Scorpions rule!!” He extended his left arm out the driver’s side window and gave the entire universe the finger. “I FUCKING LIVE FOR ROCK AND ROLL!”

  On Memorial Day weekend, Robbin and I headed to San Bernardino to catch Heavy Metal Day at the US Festival. Hundreds of thousands of fans made the trip, too, and for good reason: The lineup was impressive, including Quiet Riot, Mötley, Ozzy, Judas Priest, Triumph, Scorpions, and Van Halen. We were guests of Eddie’s, which was the next best thing to playing there ourselves.

  “Dude, I can’t believe how many people turned out for this,” I said, looking out onto the massive, swelling crowd. There were literally more than two hundred thousand fans watching the show.

  “It’s our time,” Robbin said. “Metal is having its moment.”

  He was exactly right: The US Festival marked the beginning of mainstream commercial heavy metal. Apple’s Steve Wozniak had ordered the three-day event by musical genre, and New Wave Day preceded Heavy Metal Day. Bands like Oingo Boingo, Men at Work, Flock of Seagulls, and even the Clash threw down their best stuff, but stacked up against our brothers in arms, they didn’t have a prayer. The new wave crowds were pleased to hear their favorite songs, but the rest of us were bored by what had evolved into a fairly tame brand of music. Metal was dangerous, a bit more unpredictable. Simply put, we were the new thing.

  Robbin and I decided to try and hang out by the soundboard during Triumph’s afternoon set. To get there, we had to crawl for hundreds of yards through a dark tunnel full of intricate wiring. At the end, there w
as daylight, and we popped our heads up, then lifted our bodies into the tiny space around the board. We took a look at our surroundings. Absolute fucking bedlam. Heavy metal Woodstock. The overheated crowd surged with drunken fervor. The stage was miles away, but anyone behind the soundboard was a sitting duck.

  “Yo! It’s the dudes from Mötley!” one dude slurred. “What’s up! Hey, let me get an autograph.”

  “Hey! Get me in there! Come on, you fags!”

  Robbin and I looked at each other.

  “Let’s beat it,” I decided. “I ain’t getting hit with a beer bottle.”

  “Right you are,” he said, ducking that enormous six-foot-four frame back into the tiny tunnel.

  The entire ride home to Los Angeles, I tried to analyze what I’d seen. It had been a remarkable event, not least because we’d seen our boys Van Halen make that enormous leap from stellar band to true supergroup. They had it all: power, musical integrity, and mass appeal. It bowled me over that I’d seen them rise from playing in front of twenty people at the Whisky to headlining the biggest rock festival of the last ten years.

  And while Mötley might not have been on Van Halen’s level, at least musically, when you started talking about a force that kids could identify with, they were definitely getting close. Rock and roll had always sold danger and rebellion: Mötley understood that and exploited it better than almost anyone else. They spit-shined the punk ethos, spray-painted it cherry red.

  They’re cartoony, I thought. You see the heels, the pentagrams, the hair, the attitude, and you know it’s them. They’re like Kiss: Even if you don’t love their sound, man, you gotta dig all that flair.

  I returned home feeling increasingly optimistic for our chances. Determined not to let the moment slip away, I called our manager and pressed him to redouble his efforts.

  “Marshall,” I said. “I was just at US, bro. This is our time. The audience exists. I saw ’em with my own two eyes.”

  “Stephen,” Marshall said, “I’m so far ahead of you, it’s not even funny. Listen, you think I would have taken you on if I didn’t think you had a shot to make it? You think I don’t understand the climate out there?”

  “Get us signed, Marshall,” I pleaded.

  “I’m working on it,” he said. “First, I gotta get you some better gigs. Make you a couple bucks. Whisky’s fine, but we want you rubbing elbows with the big boys now.”

  “Like who?” I asked.

  “Gimme a week,” he said, and hung up on me.

  It was a long week. I ran through the list of my contemporaries. Twisted Sister: signed. W.A.S.P.: signed. Great White: signed. Black ’N Blue: signed. Ratt? Not there yet.

  I was antsy. I couldn’t stay at the Ratt Mansion by myself. It was too quiet. I drove down to the Strip, snapping at the traffic, and popped up to the Rainbow, ordered myself a beer. I sucked half of it down glumly. Then Chris appeared.

  “Is this seat taken, sir?”

  “Please,” I said, sliding my beer to the side.

  “How’s life, dude?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Very good. How’s Rough Cutt?”

  “Can’t complain,” he said. “Hey, did you hear? Wendy Dio’s managing us.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yep,” Chris said. “Dude, I don’t want to jinx anything—but she thinks she can get us signed!”

  It was just too much. I pushed away from the table and got up to leave. “Let’s talk later, man.”

  “Hey, what’d I say?” Chris asked.

  Something had to happen, and soon. We were sure to lose Juan to Dokken if Ratt didn’t step it up within the next month or so. I trusted Robbin to stick with me until the bitter end, but Blotzer and Warren were total wild cards. Other bands, if they sensed weakness, would happily pry them from our grasp, just like we’d done. Los Angeles had never been for the weak, but now the atmosphere on the Strip had begun to tilt toward full-on feeding frenzy. We all wanted stardom.

  MARSHALL CALLED. “WHAT ARE YOU BOYS doing next week? Got appointments at the tailors, or are you ready to work for me?”

  “What do you have?”

  “You ever been to Phoenix before?”

  “No, I don’t think so, man.”

  “Well, it’s hot as hell. Tell the boys to take sunglasses. I got you a big gig. You’re opening for ZZ Top.”

  We trucked all our shit to Phoenix, trembling with excitement. We’d have a half hour to make our mark before handing the stage over to ZZ Top.

  “Holy shit,” Robbin said. “You don’t understand. I idolize these cats. Billy Gibbons is one of my favorite guitarists ever. I don’t know, man—are we ready for this?”

  We had no choice but to be ready. We blazed through the set with a manic, ripping energy that surprised me. Where the fuck did that come from? I wondered as I rushed off the stage, dripping with sweat. The crowd was going batshit. They wouldn’t shut up. Thunderous applause rained down from the rafters.

  “Dude,” Robbin yelled, shining with excitement. “You hear that? They want us to go back out there!”

  “We’re the opening act. We don’t get an encore.”

  “They want it!” he cried.

  “Go back out there, you dummies,” Billy Gibbons yelled. “Hurry up and give ’em another one.”

  We hit them with “Sweet Cheater.” The crowd swelled up, spread its legs. It was our greatest moment yet.

  “Unforgettable,” Robbin said, driving back, overwhelmed with gratitude. “I never thought I’d do that in a million years.”

  That taste of the big time had us riled up. I was ready to go out on the road, and told Berle as much. He pressed me to stay in Los Angeles.

  “The industry’s here. I’ll set up some showcases. Bring people to come see you at gigs.”

  “We’re red-hot,” I told him. “Make it happen.”

  Now I was more than preoccupied: I was obsessed. No longer would I devote precious brain space to ordinary activities, like chewing food. I shoved one sandwich down every day, baloney on white, chasing it with a can or two of Budweiser, otherwise completely occupied with plotting our rise to the top.

  “Stephen,” one of my semi-girlfriends at the time, Patty, complained, “I never see you anymore.”

  I fixed her with a look. “I’m a little busy here.”

  “Too busy for me?” she said, fingering her gold-link necklace.

  “Sweetheart,” I said gently, “too busy to shit. I haven’t taken one in a week.”

  Every waking hour was spent thinking about the goal, and our image, and how to market us, how to rise to the top. Phil Schwartz helped me get one hundred promotional Frisbees made: TELL THE WORLD! they said. We opened for Mötley at the Troubadour, hurled the discs into the crowd. Next, I ordered one thousand buttons from a wholesaler in the Valley. They commanded you to BE A RATT! I passed out stickers, matchbooks, and flyers, enthusiastically, tirelessly, dutifully, eventually hatefully, day and night on the Sunset Strip.

  I’d been carrying around a rock-and-roll dream in my head for nearly a decade. It was now or never. We had a name. We had fans. We’d built a decent buzz in the industry. But no buzz lasts forever.

  “Fellas,” Marshall said, “you got a gig at the Beverly Theater next Friday night. Lita Ford’s gonna open for you—how do you like them apples? Oh, and by the way, don’t get nervous about this, but I got some important people coming to see you.”

  “Who?” I demanded.

  “Don’t worry your pretty little heads, okay? Just go out there and keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

  Tempers were short that week as we rehearsed. Bobby and Juan sniped at each other, but Robbin was there, as always, to keep the peace between all of us. The night of the gig, Marshall came backstage with bad news.

  “Lita’s not gonna play after all,” he said. “She doesn’t want . . . well, she doesn’t want to open for you.”

  “What, is she too good for us?”

  Marshall shrugged. “Look at it fro
m her perspective. She’s made it already. What’s she doing opening for a bunch of nobodies?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Hey, it’s her loss. And think about it this way, it’s more stage time for you guys. You think you can stretch your set another hour?”

  “We don’t give a shit,” I said. “We’ll play the same songs twice, if we have to. She’ll end up opening up for us anyway.” Which she did—an arena tour, years later.

  “Terrific,” said Marshall. “Now go out and kill.”

  It was a night to remember. Warren and Robbin were so in sync with each other, riffing so brilliantly and effortlessly, that I thought they were going to go off somewhere and get married. Juan and Bobby’s bickering dissolved instantly under the lights, and together they formed a mean, ugly rhythm beast. And I screamed my lungs out, jumped off our cabinets, and strutted around the stage with a passion that I had rarely felt before.

  Backstage felt like a party, some kind of arrival. It was one of the best nights of my life, even before the official-looking guy walked in alongside Marshall Berle and stuck out his hand.

  “Fellas,” Marshall said, “I want you to meet Doug Morris.”

  Robbin and I looked at each other.

  “Hello, Doug,” Robbin said. “What can we do for you?”

  I leaned forward, my jaw tense. Was this our moment? My stomach felt sick.

  “I’m with Atlantic,” Doug said. “And well, there’s no reason to beat around the bush, right?” Then Doug Morris said the words that would change all of our lives.

  “We’d like to offer you boys a deal.”

  I’ve been high a lot in my life. Some kicks were natural, some chemical; some based on attention, some on trim, some even on pain. A lot came through music. But this moment, backstage, sweating, still catching our breath after the best show of our lives, sticks out to me, unrepeatable, unforgettable. All I remember is my head and my heart exploded with joy.

  THE THREE P’S: PUSSY, PARTY, AND PAYCHECK

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO seduce the whole world to be happy, Stephen,” one of my therapists in rehab, Dr. Roberts, said to me one day, as we were sitting in his sparsely decorated office.