Metal, Madness & Mayhem - An Insiders Journey Through The Hollywood 80s

by Michael J. Flaherty

  I was late for my appointment with Sterling that day as usual. It was a legal deposition that he asked me to participate in regarding a lawsuit from a former tenant in a building that I had supervised during my employment with him. Even though I had better things to do, I didn’t mind as we had, as mentioned previously, remained friends after I resigned.

  Waiting in his office lobby I was summoned into his secretary’s office. “Michael, I thought you might like to like to meet Rick Stevens, he’s our new tenant at the Sunset/Lacing building and he’s opening a record label headquarters and studio there.”

  Smiling and shaking hands, he inquired “Michael Flaherty? I’ve heard your name, aren’t you working with Mötley Crüe?”

  Second time within a day I was asked that question. “No, that was awhile ago, I have a rehearsal studio and (coughing under my breath) a nightclub these days.”

  “We should probably talk Michael, any plans for lunch today?”

  “No, not really, I just have to do this quick deposition thing and I’m free for a couple of hours.”

  “Great. Why don’t we meet at Mirabelle’s around two, my treat? Maybe we can do some business down the line.”

  I accepted. “Sounds good Rick, I’ll see you then,” figuring that it can’t hurt and hell, maybe he could even send us some desperately needed rehearsal bookings.

  Over lunch I found out that our music business experiences were somewhat similar. Rick had worked for PolyGram records some years prior and was given the assignment of touring with, and keeping the peace among the members of Deep Purple.

  “Five guys, five separate tour buses and five separate hotels.” He went on to tell me that each member had hired their own personal body guard for the tour to protect them from their fellow band mates. “That’s why they would only sound check with tapes.”

  I had heard about those sound checks and commented that “The tech guys must have loved that.”

  “They tolerated it very well actually, after all it was Deep Purple and it was better than dealing with fist-fights on the stage. Amazingly, little if any of the animosity between the players ever came through during one of their shows, they were pros for those two hours each night.”

  He mentioned that the opening act for that tour was Elf. “Mike, it was so weird you would have had to have been there to see it, but with all the hostile feelings between the guys in Purple, almost every night after the show I would go into Elf’s dressing room and there would be their singer Ronnie and Ritchie on acoustic guitars quietly writing songs and playing some incredible music, just the two of them. Their musical and personal chemistry was amazing.”

  Rick said that he knew that once the tour was over, Deep Purple would be history. Time would prove him right, at least until the ‘Perfect Strangers’ reunion many years later.

  “Purple had fulfilled their contract with the label, there were no more albums required. I had a vision of putting Ronnie and Ritchie together in a new band project with fresh songs and new players. I didn’t have a clue as to how to approach it at the time, but I knew I could sell the company on it if it came together.”

  He told me he had arranged a dinner meeting around the end of the tour with only Dio, Blackmore and himself. The concept project was immediately accepted, in fact Blackmore and Dio had already talked about it. The discussion went on for several hours, including suggestions of other players and of possible band names. Ronnie happened to mention that he was getting married within a few weeks and would prefer to wait to get everything together until after the honeymoon. Rick offered his congratulations and started asking about the lucky lady. “I asked him how they met, and he said she was a waitress at his favorite restaurant in Hollywood. The Rainbow.”

  Rick told me that Ritche’s eye lit up and said “That’s it. The new band will be called Rainbow! Better yet, Blackmore’s Rainbow.” The three agreed without hesitation, as did Polygram a few months later when they heard the demo Stevens had produced for the pair.

  As a big Deep Purple and Rainbow fan, I was thoughly enjoying his stories.

  “I’m starting my own label to be called Summa Records.” He said. “The bread and butter of the label will be dance music which will pay the bills and give me the cash to experiment with other genres, probably even metal. If you hear something that sounds worthwhile, my door is open, I’ll give it a listen.”

  That sounded good. Despite the fact that I was constantly asked by bands to take over their management, I had sworn off any direct involvement with that end of the business. In fact, Bryan Marr (the ex-Hellion bass player) had given me a gift of a small brass plaque which he had had custom inscribed with the tongue-in-cheek statement:

  I’ll manage any band as long as I don’t have to deal with musicians.

  I kept it prominently displayed on my desk in the studio office. None-the-less, I wouldn’t have minded simply shopping a demo to a label if I felt it had potential. Receive a nice percentage of the deal and let someone else take the three am phone calls, perform the bail-bond duties and all the other bullshit that band management entailed.

  I said “I’ll keep my ears open Rick, in fact I might have something for you in a few weeks,” thinking that if the S.I.N. self-produced LP that was being recorded at that moment was as good as the guys thought it would be, it could be a quick deal, especially as mentioned, S.I.N. did have a Deep Purple influenced sound with Vince’s grinding Hammond. My guess was that he’d like that.

  Wrapping up what had become a very long and interesting lunch, Stevens invited me to tour his new offices and studio which was under construction. We took a short walk down Sunset to the building where there were numerous workers putting the finishing touches on what was obviously going to be a state-of-the art facility.

  “I’d like to see your studio too, Mike.”

  Shit, I was afraid he’d say that. At least the Shamrock restroom was clean thanks to Adler if Rick had to go during his visit, or at least it had been clean when I had left the place a few hours earlier. Filth happened fast around Shamrock Studios.

  I made a quick excuse and said “soon, for sure,” thanked him for lunch and promised to be back in touch.

  Michelle called late in the afternoon from my place and said she needed some help loading all the food up. Joey and I took my truck back up to my place to assist her. Sure enough, she had created a major feast but upon our return to the studio it was obvious that it wouldn’t be enough for to go around for everyone.

  We had been invaded. Not only were all the guys from S.I.N. there with their friends in tow, but Steven had brought his entire band and more than a few members of the female gender to join in. While I was used to seeing starving musicians and hanger-ons, this assortment looked like dirty, hungry homeless street urchins worthy of the downtown Union Rescue Mission. Or perhaps even the Manson family.

  Steven was at least polite and introduced us. “Mike, meet my band mates….. Slash, Duff,

  Axl, Izzy.... this is Mike, he owns the place.”

  “Well…good to meet you guys, enjoy the food.” Vince did the honors of serving us the beers that had been left-over from the last weekend’s party stored in our cock-roach infested ‘fridge as well as loading and passing around the bong that was to be our appetizer.

  Over Michelle’s spaghetti, lasagna, garlic bread and a great Cesar salad, I learned about the adventures and history of Steven’s band.

  They had migrated from Indiana to the promised land of Hollywood and were in fact living on the streets or at best staying overnight with the occasional stripper or a Rainbow tart one of the guys would hook up with. (I learned later that Steven’s landlord story was just that. A story he had made up to work his way into the studio. An innocent enough white lie, I really didn’t care when I found out the truth.)

  “You’re the Mötley Crüe guy, huh?” the guy that was introduced to me as Axl asked softly. I gave him the same answer that I had given Steven and Rick earlier that day. The stock ‘that was a
long time ago.’ At least it seemed like it was a long time ago, but the question was starting to get on my nerves as it was the third time today, a new record.

  Something about this guy Axl I found strange that night. He seemed very quiet, soft spoken and shy but at the same time there was an underlying intensity. He was the polar opposite of the front men that I had dealt with in recent times like Percy, Neil and certainly Blackie and Roth, lead singers with bravado. This Axl dude was different. Perhaps I was short sighted at the moment (and time has certainly proven that I was) but I could not imagine him fronting a hard-rock band, especially given the fact that the bands that were making at least some progress towards success were, for lack of a better term, ‘pretty and clean.’ Mötley Crüe, Hanoi Rocks, London and even W.A.S.P. Bands that had put energy and thought into their public images.

  It would be a few years before I would first see the ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ video with Axl stepping off the bus in Hollywood, hay seed in his mouth. That was exactly the Axl Rose I met that in the studio that night.

  Nonetheless, he as well as the other members of Hollywood Rose seemed like nice enough guys. I just felt sorry for them as they were just poor kids trying to make it like everyone else.

  At the end of the night, the dishes hardly needed washing. They had been famished and eaten our food like a pack of very hungry pirahannias.

  Driving home, it occurred to me that while I was distracted listening to their tale, I missed out on most of my share of food as it had been stolen off my plate unnoticed.

  A quick drive-thru at McDonalds was in order. While stuck in the take-out line, I heard a familiar riff on the radio. It took me a minute to recognize the voice and guitar.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ Then it struck me… It was Quiet Riot’s ‘Metal Health,’ playing on KLOS-FM, the premier hard rock station in Los Angeles. Interestingly too that it was being played in prime-time between Black Sabbath and Zeppelin, not on a ‘local licks’ or some other type of amateur show. I knew that DuBrow and company didn’t have the money to pay off the programmers for airplay and their small label Pasha had virtually no influence with the stations. Someone at KLOS had obviously seen the metal wave hitting the shore in Southern California and was starting to ride the surf. Yet, despite the Electra signing and the US Festival, Mötley Crüe was still pretty much in airplay limbo. I found it ironic that Quiet Riot who had been considered the ‘poor stepchild’ opening act for the Crüe for so long was getting heard before the main attraction. (That irony was further galvanized even more when a few weeks later RATT’s ‘Round and Round’ was put in full rotation on both KLOS and KNAC.)

  Arriving at the studio the next morning I found assorted clothes, shoes, bottles, panty-hose and knapsacks strewn around the lobby. Bodies were asleep everywhere. It looked like a Hollywood version of the afore-mentioned Union Rescue Mission.

  Yet Vince was wide awake, practicing his karate moves with a very beautiful bikinied blonde in studio B. It was nice to see other live humans there as I had the eerie feeling that I had accidentally walked into the Los Angeles County Morgue instead of my studio facility.

  “Vince, I assume there was a party here after I left?” I asked.

  “Not really a party at all, they were just tired and asked me if they could crash here for the night. I didn’t think you’d mind, Mike”

  “I guess not, at least for one night, but we’ve got to get’em awake and up and clean up this place. We’ve got rehearsal bookings coming in within an hour or so. That’s why I’m here early.”

  Vince volunteered to do the duty. Not unlike a Marine drill Sergeant awaking a platoon of raw recruits in the barracks, Vince somehow produced a whistle and roused the future Guns ‘n Roses with a loud shrill blast.

  “Everybody rise and shine! Get this area policed up! I want it spotless! Now!”

  Bodies popped up from every corner of the room, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ style.

  “Do we fall into formation, Sarge?” Slash asked sarcastically.

  From that point on, at least to them, Vince was no longer Vince, he was ‘Sarge.’

  The guys scurried around and sure enough had the place neat and clean within only a few minutes with Steve dutifully directing the procedure.

  Vince returned to teaching his private karate class but not before I asked him who the chick was.

  “Her name’s Pam. Athena Flynt promised she would hire her as a bodyguard if she would learn martial arts.”

  “I’ve got to see this Vince, mind if I watch for a few minutes?”

  “Sure, come’on in….”

  Vince began to continue the instructions to his near-naked student. “Pam, in this defensive stance you need to place most of your weight on your left foot.”

  Pam hesitated.

  She looked at both her feet for a moment bewildered and mumbling. “Left. Left? OK, now I’ve got it!”

  I watched as she put her weight on her right foot.

  Two thoughts immediately came to my mind…. First, I was thankful for her sake that she had nice tits, a great ass and a cute face. She would always be able to eat. Second thought was that Athena’s in deep shit if she hires this one as a bodyguard.

  I left the rehearsal room before I started laughing, making a mental note to later ask Vince which Hustler issue she had been in. (Several, it turned out.)

  “Whose gear is this and what the fuck is it doing here?” I asked Billy, pointing to the assorted speaker cabinets, amp heads and guitar cases stacked in the hallway.

  “It’s all Hollywood Rose’s stuff. They needed a place to stash it overnight and I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  I snapped back. “Well, I’m starting to fucking mind that nobody is asking me who and what can take up the square footage that I am paying for in this place. This is a business and it’s all become too fucking casual. Eight people sleeping on the floor like a damn hippie crash pad, private karate classes, this crap blocking the hall. This is total bullshit Billy, we’re gonna have a staff meeting around here in the next couple of days and make some Goddamn ground rules.”

  I calmed down…. “Meanwhile, let’em keep it here but make’em get it of the hallway. Put it in Studio D.”

  Later that day, Steve approached me with a question. “Any rooms open tonight Mike?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty slow around here tonight. If want to do some drum practice go ahead, take whatever studio you want.”

  “Well actually I was thinking that maybe, uhhh….” Steve hesitated. I knew what he had in mind.

  “Yeah go ahead, have a full band rehearsal if you want, but nobody’s providing food or booze tonight so you’re on your own.”

  Steve grinned. “Thanks man. I owe you.”

  “No problem, just share the wealth when you guys get rich and famous.”

  From what I’d seen so far I thought that was a very remote possibility.

  “You got it Mike!”

  I should have gotten ‘it’ in writing.

  Early Hollywood Rose rehearsing at Shamrock

  As a practical matter, to give away free studio space and allow the guys to practice there for free cost me nothing except for whatever little electricity the sound systems took. Even that hardly mattered. I was too embarrassed to let anyone around the place know that the light bill was several months past due and the reason I insisted that the front gates always be locked during the day was not ‘to keep the bums and drunks out’ as I would tell the guys but to keep the utility company from having access to the meters to disconnect our power.

  It was so ironic sometimes I had to laugh… Our weekend club nights attracted everyone from starving to successful musicians. Beautiful young rock babes to some of the richest and most famous celebrities in Southern California. Yet, the studio operation itself was still a dismal failure. The neighborhood was good enough to party in during the wee hours of the morning, but the despite huge stages, great lighting and the best outboard/inboard sound systems in town, not go
od enough to rehearse in?

  I didn’t get it.

  As mentioned, it had only been a couple of years prior that every studio room in the then “Falcon Rehearsal’ was booked weeks in advance.

  Several people suggested that it was because the immediate area had rapidly and recently become such a slum that musicians were afraid to bring their equipment there, as well as themselves. Probably another factor in the mystery as unlike the club nights, during the week we had no security guards.

  A second element, perhaps the major one, was the fact that the Hollywood metal community was simply becoming more sophisticated and ‘higher end.’ The Studio Instrument Rentals facility, Mars Studios just off of the then emerging fashion district of Melrose Avenue, DB Rehearsal in the Valley and other practice venues in better areas were thriving as a handful of record deals from major labels foreseeing metal as ‘the next big thing.’ were being handed out.

  Some, even if it wasn’t much, money was being tossed around the Los Angeles music scene. Many local bands were no longer sneaking out the back door of the Rainbow but were instead actually paying their drink tabs. The numbers of shop-lifted guitar strings, effects pedals and drum sticks at the Guitar Center on Sunset was way down.

  Discussing my business dilemma over dinner one night with my Doctor friend Howard, he summed it up perfectly in medical terms. “Sounds like the operation was a success but looks like the patient still died.” It was a perfect analogy.

  The outdated Shamrock Studios was indeed dying, or at the very least on life support. And that life support was the after-hours club operation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I know a lot of people but I don't know Rodney King. I've never met him and probably never will. My guess is that he doesn't hang out at the Rainbow.

  But when I saw that video that was shown on every TV channel in America of his arrest after a high-speed pursuit in 1991, being subdued by police officers using whatever force they must have felt necessary at that moment, it sure brought back a memory.