Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen

by Vince Neil

  The only real fix for a sore throat is not talking or singing for a couple days. Luckily, it’s been years since I’ve had any throat problems. Today I play five days a week, period. Some conditions are harder than others. Like it’s harder to sing in the winter because the heaters dry out the air. And then you’re always going inside and going outside, going from the warm air into the cold. In the summertime it’s better, but you know, as a singer, if you get a little bit sick it goes right to your throat. That’s just what happens. And you know you still got to sing no matter what. There have been days I wanted to cancel, but I didn’t. You have to do it. I’ve never canceled a tour, or canceled a show because of a bad throat. Never. I’ve been lucky. Some singers develop those polyps on their vocal cords.

  (One thing that always irks me: people who tell me to drink tea and honey for my voice. That’s an old wives’ tale—think about it. When you drink something it has nothing to do with your vocal cords. It actually bypasses your vocal cords; it’s a whole different tube, you know? Drinking is the esophagus, not the windpipe. The voice box is in the windpipe.)

  We did more than twenty shows with Iron Maiden. We went from Germany to Belgium, France, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy. After the final show, in Basel, Switzerland, Tommy and I went back to our hotel room and decided to try out the flare guns we’d bought earlier that day. One of the guns went off. There was this blinding flash of orange light. We both dove for cover as the fireball flew around the room before coming to rest in the middle of Tommy’s bed and setting it ablaze.

  When we went next door to tell Doc what had happened, we left our keys in the room—we couldn’t get back in. With smoke billowing from under the door—and the sprinkler system already in high gear—we had to summon the hotel staff. The management was not pleased; somehow we convinced them it was an accident. The next day, on the way out, we broke the mirrors in the elevators for good measure.

  By the time I got back to Redondo, I was toast. Since we’d hooked up with Thaler and McGhee we’d been working basically two years straight. All of us needed rest pretty badly, but I’m not sure I was getting much, especially since one of my first acts upon returning had been buying that pound of blow.

  The party at our place at the beach went strong for a couple days. Day became night became day. We were drinking Jack Daniel’s and beer and a mix of brandy and Kahlúa and doing quaaludes and smoking pot and, of course, we had the seemingly never-dwindling pile of coke.

  On day three, December 8, 1984, Mick showed up. That was a surprising development because he never partied with us. I guess he was fighting again with his girlfriend. He was a frail guy. It seems like his women were always taking advantage of him and giving him shit. Sometime that afternoon, Mick waded out into the cold waters of the blue Pacific, drink in hand, intent upon drowning himself, I guess.

  Later, having passed out for a few hours, I woke up in my bed. Looking out my fifth-story window, I spotted this black-clad shape on the beach. It looked like a dead seal, only it seemed to be dressed in a leather jacket. I grabbed some people and went downstairs to check it out. It was Mick all right. He was all sandy and wet, still wearing his leather pants and jacket and motorcycle boots.

  “Just leave me alone,” was all he could muster.

  It was afternoon by then; the sun was out; I figured he was far enough back from the ocean that the high tide wouldn’t get him. I followed his wishes, went back to the party.

  Toward dusk, the booze finally ran out. There was a liquor store just four blocks up the road. I could have walked there, but I’d been partying for three straight days, you know—walking there was out of the question, too much reality to deal with, if you know what I mean. I’d just bought myself a new car, a vintage ’72 Ford De Tomaso Pantera. It had a bright red finish with a sleek black leather interior; it was a fast and beautiful car. One thing I didn’t know at the time I bought it—a time before the Internet made researching things easy—Panteras were known to have a lot of problems. Frustrated with his Pantera, Elvis Presley blasted it full of holes with a handgun.

  But I’d had no problems with mine up to then. It was my first real splurge of a purchase. I was just so proud of it. Razzle thought it was cool, too. He wanted to check it out. So I was like, “C’mon, bro, let’s go make a liquor run.” I didn’t see any problem. We’d drive the four blocks to the store, get some supplies, be back home in a flash. I’d been driving drunk for about as long as I’d been driving. It had never been a problem before. The coke kind of evened things out. When you were doing a lot of blow, the alcohol didn’t really affect you. We’d be traveling eight blocks, total. We told everybody we’d be right back.

  Razzle was a drummer. He was a fun guy, kind of a hot dog—he put his own name on the front of his drum kit rather than his band’s. When asked about this, he said once that he probably wouldn’t be with Hanoi Rocks forever. He was setting his sights on the long term; his dream was to play for a stadium rock band like Heart or Iron Maiden. I kind of admired that about him. He was honest enough to tell the truth. (And he was real: He didn’t think about the fact that he could have just bought a new drumhead. They weren’t that expensive!) He had aspirations.

  Another thing about Razzle: He wasn’t actually Finnish. He was from England. A place with the fanciful name of Royal Leamington Spa. Adopted at a young age, he’d grown up on the Isle of Wight. He was tall, with dark hair. He was into glam—after he joined HR, those guys went more in that direction. What can I say… the guy looked great in eyeliner. Together, we could put a big dent in a room full of groupies with no sweat.

  Razzle was just a really nice guy—the guy I vibed with the most of the band. He was a lot of fun, you know, and they were really a great group. They were fun to watch and stuff; they were cool. I mean, when I was on the road, I would often want to stay and watch other bands we were playing with. I was a fan of rock ’n’ roll at the same time I was part of it. When we opened for AC/DC, I watched them every night. Every single night. Or like when Whitesnake opened for Mötley, I actually would sing. I would help them sing the backgrounds. No, I wouldn’t go onstage. I’d be in the back. On a microphone like where the soundboard was. Or when we played with the Scorpions. I watched them all the time. The same was true when we were on tour with Razzle and Hanoi Rocks.

  According to official police reports, the accident happened at 6:38 P.M. I don’t know who came up with that time. I don’t think I was wearing a watch.

  We got to the bottle store no problem. We shopped—picked up a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of booze. Then we set off back to my house. The Pantera didn’t have any backseats, so Razzle was sitting beside me in the passenger seat holding the bags of booze in his lap. We were driving along, chatting about this and that, two long-haired guys out on a booze run, me in my customary Hawaiian shirt and shorts, Razzle in his high-tops, leather jeans, and frilly shirt.

  Because it was December, it was already dark out. It gets really pitch-black in the winters by the ocean, partly because of the marine layer, a wet fog that leaves the streets slick during most evenings. I wasn’t far from home. As I rounded this curve leading to a hill, I downshifted; the car had so much power, the tires broke their grip on the wet pavement. According to a police report, I swerved to avoid a parked fire truck. My blood alcohol level would later test at nearly twice the legal limit.

  The next thing I knew, the Pantera had lost its grip on the asphalt and was sliding sideways. I tried to turn back into the skid; meanwhile the car drifted into the oncoming lane. The next thing I knew a pair of headlights appeared at the crest of the hill and was bearing down on us—a white Volkswagen driven by an eighteen-year-old girl. The police would later say I was doing 65 mph in a 25 mph zone when the tires came unglued. I don’t know how they could know that. The VW struck the passenger side of the Pantera.

  When I came to, I was still in the car. Razzle was actually in my lap, you know; the impact had sort of thrown him into my seat. I was holding
him. There were broken booze bottles everywhere. Later I’d hear the cop saying something about how bad we reeked. Well, of course we reeked—Razzle had been holding a party’s worth of liquor in his lap. At this point I was really woozy. I became aware of people, you know, people trying to help us get out, but it was weird, it was surreal. There was no sound at all, like there were technical difficulties. And people were trying to get us out. I remember myself saying, “Razzle, there’s help here.” And then I was pulled out of the car and he was pulled out of the car. And he was put right onto the stretcher and taken away.

  Like a lot of accidents when people are drinking, I was totally uninjured. Well, I had a slight concussion and maybe a broken rib. And I had a couple of cuts, but that was it. I remember they took me out of the car and I was sitting on the curb, just waiting, kind of dazed, not really knowing what was going on. I could see the car. My new Pantera. It was just mangled, you know? I wasn’t really thinking of anything. It was like I was out of my body. I was observing everything. Like it was a movie. It was very strange. I remember that.

  Then I guess Beth showed up. Beth and Tommy. They came running onto the scene, ’cause it was only a block or so away. They said they’d heard the sirens and they’d known it was me.

  I remember the cops gave me the Breathalyzer test. I guess I was too dazed to refuse. I don’t remember riding in the squad car or being put in the squad car. But I remember being in the police station. But I wasn’t in jail or even in a cell. I was in an office.

  Meanwhile Razzle was taken to South Bay Hospital. Tommy drove after the ambulance, taking along his wife, Candice, as well as Beth and members of Hanoi Rocks. After a long, tense time in the ER waiting room, a doctor came out and advised them that Razzle had died at 7:12 P.M., the result of severe head injuries.

  The passengers in the Volkswagen were in critical condition. The driver, eighteen-year-old Lisa Hogan, was rushed to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance—she would remain in a coma until the end of the month, with a broken arm and two broken legs. Her head injury would leave her with damaging psychomotor seizures. Hogan’s twenty-year-old boyfriend, Daniel Smithers, was taken to South Bay Hospital, suffering a broken leg and head injuries. He would later have to undergo rehabilitative therapy to learn how to speak again as a result of brain damage. Ironically, Smithers had previously worked as a counselor at the Palmer Drug Abuse Program on Van Nuys Boulevard, where I would later undergo treatment. The driver of a third car involved, twenty-five-year-old Karimi Khaliabad of Torrance, was uninjured.

  (Another irony I have since discovered is that the date of the accident, December 8, 1984, was the first day of National Drunk Driving Awareness Week. The final five Hanoi Rocks shows (in California and Arizona) of the band’s thirty-city U.S. tour were canceled, including what was to be their Los Angeles debut the following Friday night. Hanoi Rocks returned to Finland and played two contracted gigs in the capital, which they dedicated to Razzle’s memory. Tommy offered to play drums at the shows, but former Clash drummer Terry Chimes took the drum stool instead for the televised special. There was no animosity between me and the surviving members of Hanoi Rocks. Their lead singer even offered to stand in for me if I was jailed for any considerable period of time… well, maybe there was a little animosity.)

  Down at the station, it never even dawned on me that Razzle could be dead. I just assumed somehow he was in another room giving his statement. I kept asking, you know, “How’s my friend? How’s he doing?” The cops didn’t answer me for a long time. Nobody would tell me anything. Everybody kept saying, “We don’t know…. We’re not sure…. I’ll go find out.”

  And then, it must’ve been like a lieutenant or something, a plainclothes guy, an officer. He’s the one who told me. He said, “Your friend passed away.” And I… it still didn’t register. It just didn’t hit me. It didn’t; I couldn’t… I really didn’t understand what that meant. I had a concussion; I was having trouble processing everything. Three days being up probably didn’t help, either. I started thinking to myself, you know, If only I’d gone to the liquor store alone, or walked, or sent someone else for the booze. If only the car had skidded at a different angle so that I’d be the one lying on a slab in the morgue. And I still didn’t know what had happened to the people in the other car. What if more people had died as a result of their injuries?

  The cops released me just as the sun was coming up the next day. My ribs hurt so much that I could hardly breathe, let alone walk, but the pain was nothing compared to the hurt I felt over Razzle. He was fucking dead. That was so fucking final.

  Twelve hours earlier—with the possible exception of my fucked-up marriage—my life had been going so great. Now everything had changed. I was still the same person, but even I knew things were never going to be the same again.

  I got home and Beth and Tommy and Mick and all them were there. Tommy said I should try to get some sleep, but that was the last thing I wanted. I was frightened to close my eyes—I was afraid that I’d relive the crash over and over again. All that day the phone never stopped ringing. Family and friends calling to offer support, reporters calling to get the story. And then the phone suddenly stopped ringing and we just sat there in eerie silence for what seemed like an eternity.

  And then it rang again.

  This time it was Doc McGhee, telling me the police had decided to charge me with vehicular manslaughter. I didn’t want the cops coming to my home to arrest me, so I went down to the station and turned myself in.

  I was obviously afraid.

  The preliminary hearing was held at the Torrance Courthouse in California’s South Bay Judicial District; the parents of the two injured kids were in court. I will never forget the way they stared at me.

  I was released on twenty-five hundred dollars bail. While I was awaiting trial, the first thing I had to do was to seek treatment for my drinking problem. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have a drinking problem. I wasn’t a wino lying in the gutter, was I? I was never the kind of person who started drinking when I woke up. I had a house, and friends, and a career.

  Alcohol, for me, has always had a couple of purposes. First, it’s a good way to just not feel anymore, you know? To just obliterate anything that’s bothering you or whatever. Plus, it’s like a social thing. For me, I’ve always been a pretty shy person; it makes me less shy. Like nowadays, when I’m not drinking very often, it’s hard for me to go to parties. I feel uncomfortable around people.

  But as long as I had that drink in my hand it was, like, safety. I didn’t have to be drunk. I just had to have it; I just wanted to know it was in my hand. I’d have a couple of drinks to loosen up, and then sometimes you just have too many drinks. And then, you know, you’re screwed. I guess that’s really it. I know with drugs, too, it’s like there’s a line. Below the line, you’re good. You’re fine as long as you stay below that line. Above that line, it gets bad real quick. But somehow it’s really hard for me to walk that line, you know? You try to be moderate in your intake—but then you always end up going over the line. That was my problem. It was like I never knew where that line was. I couldn’t see it because once I crossed it, it was already too late. I would tell myself, I’m only going to have a few drinks; if I start feeling buzzed I’m not going to drink. But that never worked. Toward the end, I mean, like toward 2007, 2008, before I got sober most recently, I never even got buzzed when I drank. I went from completely sober to blackout. One minute I’m hanging out with friends; then the next thing you know, I’m waking up the next day, not remembering anything. There was no gray area. It was white and black. That was it. That was the hard part.

  Back then I had none of this insight. But I had to follow what the court said. I was facing serious charges; I’d killed a man. The lawyers said I could do up to seven years if I didn’t play the game as directed. Doc said he’d booked me into this nice facility on Van Nuys Boulevard that was practically a country club, with tennis courts, a golf course, even a lake for
boating. The story of the accident was on the front page of every newspaper; editorials urged authorities to make me an example, to give me a life sentence in order to discourage other drunk drivers for whom I, with my outlaw, party-hard image, was a role model.

  The truth was, I didn’t want to show my face anywhere. Everywhere I looked I saw a pointing, waggling finger. I was deeply ashamed. The thought of escaping the nightmare that had become my life began to sound very appealing. I agreed to go along.

  Of course, there was no country club; that lying sack of shit was just doing his thing like he always did—telling me what I wanted to hear. He pulled up outside a grim-looking hospital. There were bars on all the windows. I wanted to run, but I had no choice.

  I spent the next thirty days in detox, undergoing intense therapy, which was basically reliving the accident over and over again while frowning therapists jotted down their observations. My folks and Beth came to see me, but no one from the band. Not even Tommy. Nikki called once, when I first arrived. I never heard from Mick.

  One of the main things I learned in rehab—the first of many, many visits—was who my real friends were, you know? Beth was very supportive. But Nikki, Tommy, and Mick were like: Fuck you. How could you do this to us? I was like, What do you mean, how could I do it to you? These guys were all doing just as much drinking and drugs as I was doing every single day. I was just the unlucky one. They didn’t have an accident—but they easily could have. Every one of them drove fucked up. It could’ve happened to anybody. Look at Nikki. He actually died from an overdose and was brought back to life. What happened to me could have happened to any one of the band members. But all they could think of was themselves.