“Sure, no problem, but I have to leave this afternoon to head home. I'll drop off a check before I go at S.I.R, it'll be in an envelope at the front desk with your name on it. By the way, can you supervise the rehearsal tonight?”
“Yeah sure, no problem. Thanks.”
After hanging up I wondered to myself what the hell I'm thanking him for as it was my money and our agreement.
This rehearsal was not fun. Before going into the room I checked with the studio manager. Not only had there been no check left for me, but I was asked when they could expect payment on a large past due bill for rehearsal space and equipment storage.
‘Damned if I know’ I thought to myself as I walked away, starting to see a pattern developing here.
We had always arranged to have the studio available for Tommy to work out on his drums about an hour before the rest of the guys showed. It was good logic, as anyone can quietly practice guitar or vocals in private in their house or apartment but drums are pretty loud, especially given the aggressive style in which Tommy played. After he finished his work-out on the skins Mick and Nikki joined him on the stage platform planning a full-set rehearsal. The opening riffs began and Vince appeared out of nowhere taking the mike. It was immediately obvious that Vince was ‘feeling no pain.’
Nor did it take but a few lyrics to see something was terribly wrong. I hadn't heard music so out of sync since Images Country Club show. It was almost deja vu.
“Stop! Stop!” Nikki screamed. “Vince, what the fuck are you doing? Are you singing the same song we're playing? How fucked up are you?!”
The reply came immediately. “I’m fucked up enough to tell you to go fuck yourself asshole! Fuck all of you!”
Lots of ‘fucking’ here, but there wasn’t an orgy in progress.
Nikki remained surprisingly calm after that outburst while Vince smashed the microphone against the back wall and stormed off.
I guessed now we owed S.I.R. even more money.
Sixx put his bass down and walked across to where I was sitting on the studio couch.
Not knowing exactly what to say, I just quipped, “Well, Nick, what's new and exciting?”
“I’ll tell you what would be new and exciting. A new fucking singer!”
I wanted to ‘defuse’ the evening… “Let's call it a night, man.”
I drove Nikki back to the apartment, pretty much in silence except for him shaking his head and mumbling “We were almost there, we were almost there... What the fuck is going wrong?”
Back in the Mötley kitchen there was a familiar face at the Formica table that by now was criss-crossed with razor marks. I was wondering if this guy had moved in. RATT guitarist Robin Crosby was in attendance as well, (Robin lived in an upstairs apartment) participating in the obvious.
Sixx and I sat down and I decided ‘what the fuck, might as well…’
The phone rang early the next morning. Too early. It was Alan.
“Mike, I’ve already heard ten versions of what happened at S.I.R. last night and I know you'll give me the facts.”
I did. And I also told him I was becoming concerned about a situation that was developing at the house but I wanted to discuss it in person when he returned to town.
“I think I know what you're talking about Mike and I’m very much aware of it.”
I had some guilt feelings about mentioning that especially as I was enjoying the activity as much as the guys were.
In fact, I felt like shit about saying anything at all.
CHAPTER TWELVE
One of the things I was enjoying the most through my association with Mötley Crüe were the various characters whom I was meeting, and Hollywood was full of them. I received a call from a fellow whose name rang a bell, Kim Fowley. Kim wanted to meet with us to offer his opinions as to the future of our band. I made an appointment with him for the following night, back at the Beverly Hilton coffee shop as I knew Alan was flying in the next morning. Curious, I made a couple of phone calls. It turned out that Fowley was indeed the man who had put the Runaways together, managed and promoted them to success. I figured that we could learn a lot from this guy.
At almost seven feet tall, he was a commanding presence. It was immediately obvious that he knew the music business inside and out and wasn't shy at voicing his opinion. I respected that. Alan and I sat and probably looked like we were pupils in a classroom as he spoke. He told us the he had known Nikki since the London days and related the story of how they met....
It seems that he was enjoying a Rainbow dinner one night at the next table from Nikki. When the bill arrived, Sixx suddenly realized he was broke. Faced with the prospect of washing dishes, he tapped Kim on the shoulder and asked if he could borrow some money.
Fowley told the story colorfully.
Nikki knew that Kim was a record producer and offered him the publishing rights to a song he had just written, ‘Toast of the Town,’ scribbled on a Rainbow napkin. Kim felt sorry for him and indeed paid his dinner tab, sticking the signed napkin into his coat pocket.
And yes, Kim wanted his share of the royalties for that song from our Leäthür release. I couldn't blame him as business is business but as it didn't amount to all that much money (at least at that point) Al agreed to send him a check.
‘Good luck, Kim, stand in line,’ I was thinking.
(This is why "Toast of the Town" was on the original Leäthür version of ‘Too Fast for Love’ but dropped on the Electra release. Electra would not meet Fowley’s royalty demands for the song to be re-issued)
.
I liked Kim Fowley a lot and we remained casual friends for several years. I thought Alan was very short-sited in not allowing Kim to become involved, at least on some level with the Crüe, especially at that time.
Yet another Hollywood personality popped up. Marshall Beryl, a cousin of comedian Milton Beryl. Back at the Hilton (I was surprised they didn't charge us rent for office space) Marshall made us an offer to buy the management and record rights outright.
“No!” Alan said sternly. “It's my band and I'm going to take it all the way!”
Personally, I thought the offer deserved some serious consideration at the very least. Beryl, like Fowley was well connected in the industry and was in fact the first manager of Van Halen, or so I was told. I checked him out a bit and sure enough he indeed did have management credit on the first Van Halen album.
Besides, I was becoming more worried about Alan and his finances each day, wondering how much longer the money to keep this going would last. We needed an input of cash, and rapidly.
At the same time Alan was becoming gravely concerned about Vince and his future with the band, and in fact told me that there had been some informal rehearsals with Stephen Percy,
“What do you think? Should we replace Vince with Percy?”
My immediate reaction was “No.” This was nothing against Steven in any way. I liked Pearcy, he was a good front man but he was the voice of RATT and in my honest opinion, Vince was the voice of Mötley Crüe.
“Work out the problems with Vince, Alan. I vote no on Percy.”
“And thanks for telling me about the secret rehearsals, by the way.” I snipped curtly.
“Mike, calm down and look at it this way... There may be ten thousand people in Los Angeles that have seen the band with Vince but once we go worldwide, they’re will be hundreds of thousands of fans who will see Steven as the voice of the Crüe.”
“Point well taken, but I still vote no.” I stood firm. “The chemistry between the band members as it stands now is too strong to fuck with.”
Eventually, I was out-voted. Percy was offered the gig but after thinking about it, declined and stayed with RATT. Vince was still our singer.
I heard soon after that Marshall Beryl had signed RATT. (That's how Uncle Milton came to appear in the "Round and Round" video)
I never got around to talking to Coffman about signing RATT to Leäthür as I had promised Nikki. It was a tactical deci
sion as I could sense, again, that if Al was running short on cash and Mötley's bills were going unpaid we sure as hell couldn't afford another band on the roster. At the very least I didn’t want to get Percy’s, Crosby’s and the other guys hopes up that they were about to be signed with a powerful, wealthy management and recording company. I started to avoid them as much as possible.
I continued placing ads in the local press as well as getting the publicity in motion for our Oxnard show. If successful, this could give us a much needed influx of cash as well as be a prototype for our own series of self-promoted shows in other areas.
Still, at this point there had been zero success ‘getting the guys out of town.’ It looked like we would have to do it ourselves and prove the band to the World.
Nikki had decided to invite RATT on the bill as well as another band that had previously opened for the Crüe called Stormer, who’s bassist, Bill Gaines went on to form the Christian metal band ‘Stryper.’
Both bands were thrilled to be part of the show. I was very excited about this event until... I received a rather angry phone call from the auditorium manager. “The deposit check you gave us came back non-sufficient funds. In order to hold that date, we'll need cash.”
‘Shit, so do I.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Despite all the negativity that was had recently surrounded the band and what had become at this point a troubled project ‘in flux’, the next day I had a refreshingly positive phone call from the press, and it wasn’t just any press. It was from The Los Angeles Times well-regarded music journalist Jeff Spurrier who received the band media kit that I had sent him. He wanted to do an interview with the guys to be published in the paper. Even though it was still local Southern California press, it was the Los Angeles Times. I felt that now we were finally on the verge of getting some mainstream media coverage and respect. If the Los Angeles Times wanted us, we must have been doing something right and at least it was a start. We scheduled the interview for the following week to be held at my apartment.
Unlike the previous rather awkward and sloppy College radio interview, this time around the guys were in top form and handled the situation with charm, professionalism and a ‘we’re already rock stars, it’s just that nobody knows it yet,’ attitude. It was perfect. The fact that Alan and the boys arrived at my house an hour early for several rounds of strong drinks didn’t hurt either.
Our first major media interview had a familiar tone. Eventually titled ‘Mötley Crüe Aims for Anywhere, U.S.A,’ the underlying theme was to get out of Los Angeles. Nikki stressed the fact. “We have all seen what happens to bands that get trapped on the club circuit while waiting for a record company angel to appear. We quit our other bands because they were just going round and round and not trying to progress. So many bands get locked into the club circuit without realizing that it’s going to kill them. They think that by staying there they’ll eventually get a record deal. Well, some do. Van Halen did – after five years.”
Spurrier remembered that he had a message to pass along to the band. During the course of a recent interview with Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks, he had mentioned his upcoming meeting with the Crüe. Morris asked him to relay a proposition. He wanted a double bill with the Circle Jerks and Mötley Crüe. Morris had said “We’ll put a rope down the middle of the audience and have our crowd on one side and yours on the other and we’ll just let them go crazy.”
Sixx thought it was a great idea. “Think of the publicity!”
Coffman quickly pointed out that no amount of publicity would be worth the bloodshed and eventual lawsuits that would result from joining our hair-spray and stiletto crowd with their hardcore skinhead and Doc Marten audience under the same venue roof.
By the time the interview session had wound down a. Times staff photographer arrived and suggested that we use the rear alley as a photo backdrop. “Maybe we can dump all the garbage cans out there and shoot the guys standing in the middle of it.” It wasn’t a bad idea, or at least didn’t seem like it until two Beverly Hills patrol cars appeared who had apparently been called by my neighbors, concerned that a team of freaky looking long haired aliens had arrived and invaded their upscale, conservative alleyway, asked us only somewhat politely ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Alan’s quick explanation as well as his Police I.D, which once again came in handy seemed to resolve the matter. “We’ll clean it up right away officers.”
“Damn Alan, the music business sure is glamorous, huh?” I joked while lifting another shovel full of rancid garbage into a dumpster.
“Yeah, can’t beat it” he replied while working the broom. “By the way, where are the guys? We sure as shit could use some help out here.”
“Vince and Tommy said they were going inside to order some pizzas, hope they save some for us.”
Alan hesitated for a moment and then laughed. “Don’t worry about that Mike, look what I just found,” holding up a soggy and stained week-old pizza delivery box he had pulled from the pile of rubbish.
I glanced at it. “No good. The rats have already eaten the pepperoni.”
Expectations were running high in the Mötley camp in anticipation of that much-welcomed publicity. Appearing in the ‘Calendar’ section of the Sunday Times a few weeks later on December 20, 1981, the half-page article failed however, to light any real fires.
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but we were expecting not only a flood of requests from other media for interviews and perhaps even a call or two from a major label or some sort of offer of something.
Interestingly, the only solid offer we received from anyone shortly after the Times hit the streets was from the Nike Corporation, who had just started a new promotion wherein they would provide free cases of their high-top sneakers to any band that agreed to wear them on stage and in publicity photos. Still on a twenty-five dollar a week salary, the guys readily agreed. At least they’d have shoes for awhile and for whatever it was worth, Mötley Crüe had received its first major corporate endorsement.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I had heard some talk on the street about another band that was coming into town called ‘Steeler’ from Nashville, Tennessee. I was curious to see them not only because I had grown up in Nashville but played Hammond in most of the handful of rock bands there. Maybe these guys were old band mates? I had also heard talk that their guitarist was incredible. A young guy from Sweden named Ynvigne Malsteem.
Their first show was on a rainy Sunday night at the Troubadour and despite the bad weather, I decided to walk up Doheny Drive from home and get some exercise. I chose to put on a warm, brown leather jacket that had been given me as a Christmas present by one of my plumbing contractors. He and I both shared a fascination with Howard Hughes, the millionaire aviator and this was an exact replica of the ‘bomber’ jacket Hughes often wore. It was a thoughtful gift.
Earlier in the afternoon, I had called Tina to invite her to meet me. She said she’d love too and in fact Nikki had invited her sister Lynn there too.
“Great, see you around nine, front bar.”
When I arrived, I was somewhat surprised to see none other than Michelle sitting at a table enjoying drinks with Mick.
‘Nikki's gonna love this’ I thought.
Joining them out of politeness we made small talk until Tina and Lynn arrived.
My casual friend Jan, at the time a rather infamous Hollywood male poseur also happened to show up. Jan was one of the growing (and unwelcome) number of guys who were gravitating to the Strip and had no connection with music or bands what-so-ever but had discovered how quick and easy it was to get laid in the clubs simply by using the right amount of Clairol ‘Blue-Black,’ some Spandex and lot’s of Aqua-Net.
We proceeded to take a back booth in the showroom and as Tina sat next to me, Lynn joined her on our side with Jan sitting opposite the three of us. Jan immediately put the hard ‘hustle’ on Lynn, leaning over the table to whisper his stock ‘I’m f
riends with Mötley Crüe’ line in her ear. Unfortunately Jan hadn't realized that a long strand of his hair-sprayed, dyed hair had found its way into the table candle.
First, I smelled it. Then I saw it. A rapidly growing blue flame was running up the side of his spiked hair. I grabbed my water glass from the table and tossed it on him extinguishing the flames.
Pow! He punched me in the nose and screamed “Why the fuck did you do that?”
Before I could answer he smelled it, that unmistakable odor of burning human hair. Realizing that it was his, he ran out the back exit not unlike a vampire who senses the morning sun rising.
He wasn't seen around Hollywood for several Months.
After my nose bleed stopped thanks to my friend Lyle who was with Troubadour security and provided lot’s of ice, I dropped into Steeler’s dressing room to say hello and to introduce myself. No, I hadn't known them from Nashville but they were nice enough guys.
I was surprised to find Rik Foxx there.
“Well hi Rik, what are you doing here?”
“I'm with Steeler now. Gilbert fired me from S.I.N. last week.”
“Well, good luck. By the way, weren't you with W.A.S.P. before S.I.N.?”
“Yeah,” Rik replied. “Blackie fired me too.”
I wondered if this guy could sing. Thinking that given his track record he would probably be fired from Steeler any day now, and maybe he could replace Vince, but knowing he and Sixx were buddies I figured Nikki had already thought of this possibility in the event Neil had to be replaced for whatever reason.
Rik and Yngvie On Stage – Steeler’s Troubadour debut.
Despite the small crowd, Steeler’s show kicked ass. Lead singer Ron Keel had just the right amount of country charm and soul from his Tennessee roots that he blended with metal riffs, backed up by Rik and Ynvige. It was an impressive set.
Metal, Madness & Mayhem - An Insiders Journey Through The Hollywood 80s Page 9
