Tales Of A RATT Read online

  Given the penchant for the average LA band to self-destruct in the drug scene, RATT was managing to avoid that. Don't get me wrong, we were by no means drug-free. We all did blow.

  I had done blow for years, well before I joined RATT. In the Seventies, no one could understand why cocaine was illegal. All it makes you do is talk too much, feel good, and it's perfectly fine...right? Well, maybe not.

  But, as much as I did, I never got hooked to it. Never. There was even a point at which I was dealing some blow. A gram sort of thing. It was just to make extra money. I needed money. It was laziness, or whatever you want to call it; and, it wasn't my proudest moment. That doesn't change facts, though. Krell was a part of the scene back then. It was viewed with the same casual humor as weed is today. I mean, I used to have Vince Neil coming over at three o'clock in the morning.

  "Dude, just two or three grams, that's all.”

  One night, we all went out. Me, Jeni, Vince and his wife Beth. We went to the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa Beach to see Gallagher, the guy who smashes watermelons with a giant mallet. Bill Kirkenbauer was there too.

  I don't remember how we were introduced, but they knew the guys from Mötley and RATT. They all came back to our house where we were snorting blow and drinking. It wasn't long before Vince started being Vince, getting all weird and shit. He started accusing these guys of looking at his wife's tits and stuff. Then Vince and I started wrestling around and fighting in the living room and just blew those guys minds. They looked really uncomfortable and not sure what to do with themselves.

  Of course, that was around the time I first met Vince and Tommy. Those guys came out to a party at my house after the Foreigner / Scorpions show at Anaheim Stadium.

  The guys from Scorpions rode back to the house with us in my little Datsun! I remember backing that thing down into the guts of the baseball stadium, piling those guys in, and driving them out in this little piece of shit 1977 Datsun B-210. They had just finished playing in front of 50,000 people!

  The guys in Mötley and RATT came over and we partied all night. I remember Matthias Jabs looking at me and with his thick German accent going, "Bubby! You need to change zee name of zis band! No vun is going to buy a record from a band called RATT!” I remember laughing and going "Yeah, Matthias, 'Scorpions' is a little less threatening of a name.” It was pretty funny. He's probably changed his mind about it, since then.

  We partied all night long, and that was when I first got to know Tommy. He was just a kid then. Let's face it. We were all kids, but when you're 21, 18 seems a huge difference. But that didn't matter, because Blotz and T-Bone were fast friends. Mötley and RATT did a lot of partying in those days!

  In 1986, while we were recording the "Dancing Undercover" album, I bought a boat, which tripped the guys out.

  After I had finished all my drum tracks, I went with a buddy of mine, Mark Valdez, down to Long Beach at this place called Marine Stadium where you could water ski. It was this giant, intercoastal, just off the ocean, lake kind of thing. And, Mark had a little ski boat down there.

  So, we went down there, and I wanted to drive the boat. I'd never driven a boat before, but I drove all over the place in this thing. It was great! As we were leaving, the guys were like, "Hey, dude, there's a boat show down in Long Beach by the Long Beach Arena. Stop and check it out.”

  I went down there, and I bought a yacht.

  The king of the giant impulse buy, remember! It was completely retarded. I had just driven a little tiny ski boat, and I came back with something that had bedrooms and a kitchen and all that. So, I came to the studio the next day with the manual brochure and showed those guys. And they went, "You're fucking kidding us, right? You bought a fucking yacht?”

  My boat was the source of MANY interesting stories. But those are yet to come. I'm getting ahead of myself again.

  During the 1986 tour of the UK, we met up with Motley. They were coming in to play, and we were getting ready to leave, but we were staying at the same hotel for a night.

  Tommy and me went out on the town partying. We went to all these clubs, finally settling at this strip joint. We were big shots at home, but we were only "sort of" known in Europe. Barely. You know, just in certain clubs, that sort of thing.

  Well, we settled into this strip club. And, they figured we rockstars of some kind, because T-Bone was ordering bottle after bottle of Cristal. I'm drinking what I usually drank, which was Jack and Coke, and, we've got all these girls sitting around us. They were sitting on our laps, hanging out and giggling. It was pretty cool.

  At the end of the night, they bring us the bill, and I see Tommy just shoot his head around at the guy who gave it to him. And, I can see he's pissed! His face is all like, "Dude, what the fuck is this?” I'm across the way, and I can see him pointing at the bill and gesturing wildly. Then he starts chewing on a strand of his hair. That was the sign.

  Anytime Tommy started getting nervous, he would chew on his hair.

  So, I go over to check it out. I'm like, "T-Bone, what is that?”

  He's really worked up. "Man, it's our bill.”

  "Okay, so what's the deal?”

  "Well, it's in pounds, but the guy just told me how much that it is in dollars, and it's three grand.”

  I go, "WHAT?!?” We get the guy back over, and find out that he's been charging us for the girls just sitting there, and all the champagne.

  I'm like, " T-Bone, bro? I was drinking Jack and Coke all night. Figure out what we got going here.”

  I think I picked up about $800, and he got the rest on his AMEX. I had to kick in on some of the chick thing, which sucked, because we never asked for it, and were never told! We went back to the hotel, I've got this on videotape, and we were partying in my room.

  I had to be up at seven o'clock in the morning, because RATT was going to Abbey Road Studio! This is the place where The Beatles recorded so many of their albums! This place is Rock N Roll history! They were going to shoot us playing in Abbey Road Studio, and beam it out via satellite, which was very new back in those days, to a television show in Japan. It's seven in the morning, but over in Japan, it's the dead of night, and we're going on a TV show that has fifteen million viewers a week!

  I forget what the hour exchange is, but it's significant. My call time was really early, and Tommy didn't leave my room until about 5:30 in the morning. So, I couldn't think about sleeping.

  I get up at 7:00, after I've dozed for about an hour, still half drunk. Then, we get to Abbey Road Studio. As a Beatlemaniac, to be at Abbey Road should have been a bright eyed, bushy tailed, sponge moment for me. I mean there's the crosswalk. There's the steps up. The whole kit caboodle.

  We get there, and the Japanese are in there. They have us set up in the tracking studio; the big room. They have a train track set up around our gear, and a platform with a camera on it that rides around the track. I think it's called a dolly track. Anyway, it goes all the way around our set in a circle. And, they were zooming around on it while we played.

  Anyway, while we were waiting for them to set up, there was this old guy there. I forget his name. This guy had been working there since the 50's. He was still there in 1985. So, I started telling him how into the Beatles I was, and how my whole family were fans, and yada, yada, yada. So, he gave me a personal tour of the place. Which was an amazing feeling, being in that room, knowing that those guys were in that room writing and recording and stuff.

  So, after he gave me the tour, I slipped back into where we were going to be doing the recording for "Lay It Down.” "Lay It Down" was the song they were beaming. Once I got back in there, it was "not ready", and it wasn't going to "be ready" for the next ... "whatever.” So, it was, "Just go hang out somewhere, and we'll find you.”

  I wandered back down the hallway that the old man took me down, and wandered into one of the studio rooms where the Beatles had recorded. I went into this room, and laid down and went to sleep.

  They finally found me. It was one of those th
ings where I was "missing" and "sleeping".

  "Woah, oh, shit dude! Sorry, I was taking a nap.”

  "Yeah, no shit. We've been looking for you for the last 45 minutes.”

  It gave me a little extra nudge of sleep to help me do the performance better, I guess.

  I called Tommy later that day at the hotel. Tommy was hurting from our party the night before.

  He goes, "Fuck, dude. That was fun last night, but I'm hungover, and that BILL! What was up with that bill?!?”

  "I don't know, man. That SUCKED!”

  Eight hundred bucks was a lot, for me anyway. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't have money, but I never had bar tabs like that, not that high. Especially in those days. We pretty much would drink for free.

  This was all at the end of the 1985 Invasion Tour. We had finished in the states on New Year's Eve, then went to Europe with Ozzy.

  We had a lot of history with the Mötley guys. A lot of history.

  Poison was one of those bands with a dubious reputation for getting along, but I never really saw that from them. They didn't come on to the scene until sometime in 1986. By that time, we had been on the road seemingly forever.

  When we got back home, all I wanted to do was hang with the kids, golf and ski. I really wasn't into checking out the local bands. So, we didn't meet Poison until they opened for us in 1987.

  Our first gig with them was at Reunion Arena in Dallas. RATT, Poison and Cheap Trick.

  I remember during sound check of that show, we were in this huge arena, and there were four random dudes sitting in the fourth row all right next to each other. We had no idea who they were. But, at the end of every song, they would be clapping. At one point, I stood up and shouted to them.

  "Sound alright out there?” They were all thumbs up and grinning.

  "Yeah, cool, great!” Turned out that was Poison.

  I watched them that night, and my jaw was just hanging open! You've got to be kidding me. These guys are comical! It was Barnam & Bailey retarded. They couldn't play. They were just ... so ... goofy!

  I was like, what the hell is going on? I think Stephen knew them, or something. It was obvious that we were doing them a favor. I don't want to sound down on them, because they were cool guys, but their stage show was sideshow ridiculous.

  I remember that Ric Neilson, from Cheap Trick, and I would go out and watch them every night and just laugh our asses off. But, after a few shows, they started to get tighter, and they were out with us for months!

  When their record started to do really good, and we could tell. Because at first, the audience was like, "What the fuck is this?!?” Then the record started taking off and you could hear the applause and could tell they were really starting to make ground. It wasn't long before they started wanting a little more production up there, which we accommodated for them.

  It was a good tour. Lots of fun. It was cool to watch those guys evolve in front of us. We did months and months with them, and it became very successful for us. Not as successful as our 1985 tour with Bon Jovi opening, but still a very good tour.

  But, true to form, the break after Poison didn't last. We were right back out on the road, again.

  In 1987, we were on our way to tour Europe with Deep Purple, and we were on a flight that was taking us over the North Pole and Canada. During the flight, this older man had a heart attack, and our production manager, Charlie Hernandez, this giant Puerto Rican, muscled the seat out to get to the guy and do CPR.

  He revived the guy, and the plane had to emergency land in Canada. So, Marshall, being the kind of manager that he was, took the opportunity to get a little publicity out of it, and made a big deal to the airline that it was one of our guys who saved the old man's life. We had to be in Europe to start a tour immediately, and we weren't going to make it. That was bullshit, of course. We had plenty of time. But, nevertheless, you'd have thought we were transporting organs for transplant the way Marshall sold it to them.

  Before we knew it, we were all on the Concorde, flying to Europe.

  Concorde flights were something like $10,000 per person. It was amazing. Flying at Mach 2, somewhere around 68,000 feet, I'm strolling through this plane with a video camera, talking to the flight crew and the pilot. It was pretty wild.

  That plane is extremely tiny inside. It looks huge from the outside, but it isn't. For anyone who has ever been in a leer jet, or a turbo-prop plane, you have an understanding of what it's like on the inside of the Concorde. Tight as it was, though, it was still badass to make it all the way across the Atlantic in three hours. King had to duck his head to walk down the aisle of that thing.

  We played the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1989. RATT, Kix and Britney Fox. Tommy came down with Heather, got up and jammed with us. We played an AC/DC song. So, I enjoyed the hell out of that show.

  By 1989, we were all pretty fashioned out. Some were really flamboyant with it, too. Even Mötley was, to an extent. Everyone except Guns N Roses. They were tattoos, leather and denim. That sort of thing.

  After the show, I had just gotten showered up and dressed. I was wearing this really hot blazer thing I had bought on Melrose. It was a purple, satin kind of jacket. Really sharp looking with the sleeves that would cuff up. The inside lining was a pinstripe look. It really looked cool. Especially for the time. Padded shoulders and everything.

  Tommy and Heather came backstage.

  T-Bone and Heather walk through the door, and fuck all if she isn't wearing the exact same jacket!

  I was like, "Okay. That's that.” I immediately took it off.

  I never wore that coat again. It really was a gay looking jacket, now that I think about it.

  It seems that most of my notorious stories always had Tommy involved in some fashion or form. There was the time that T-Bone and I were out on the town with Ozzy and Sharron Osbourne.

  Imagine this picture. Ozzy and Sharron, Tommy and I all crammed into my Porsche. We had been partying all night, and were finally making our way back to Ozzy and Sharron's hotel room. They were in the penthouse of the hotel, and there were only two rooms on the floor. Theirs and some random CEO's.

  Outside the CEO's room were a pair of very expensive shoes, which had been set out there to be shined.

  Ozzy, being the anti-establishment kind of guy that he is, is like, "Quick, piss in the shoes!”

  "What? What are you talking about? I'm not going to piss in them.”

  He waves me off, and looks at Tommy. "Then, quick, shit in them!”

  Tommy looks at him like he's flipped out. "I'm not going to shit in them. You shit in them.”

  Now, Ozzy is a reactionary kind of guy. He's quick to embrace whatever gauntlet has been tossed out. Ozzy grabs the shoes, drops his pants and hovers, then pinches a shit off into them!

  Oh my God! It was the most putrid stink. Fucking hideous. Mind you, we had consumed A LOT of alcohol that night. This stench was like a physical thing, just kicking the hell out of our senses. How we kept from puking, I have no idea.

  The CEO should have been honored. He had the Prince of Darkness drop a deuce in his shoe! He could've had that thing bronzed, and sold it to some random fan for three times what the shoes were worth. I know he could have.

  I've met the fans who would buy a bronzed shit!

  Afterward, Sharron came up. She had been downstairs, waiting for the guy with the room key. We went into the room and partied out for the rest of the night.

  Pearcy showed up late at night. I have no idea where he came from. I finally left there at, like, eight o'clock in the morning. I was on my way back home to Redondo, and we had snorted so much blow that night, and I hadn't had any napkins. My nose had been running really badly, and I kept using my shoulder to wipe it off on.

  I got pulled over for speeding, and how I managed to not go to jail, I still don't know. Because, I had white dots all over my shoulder and arm from where I had been wiping my nose.

  I had crusted cocaine snot all over me. How's that for a sexy rock
star look? I'm so lucky. Yet another stupid thing you do when you're stupid and young.

  I ran into Sharon again in 1998 at the Wilshire Theater in Hollywood during the Mötley show. I hadn't seen her in a long, long time, but it was right after their Behind the Music on VH-1.

  She's like "Hey, Bobby! Hi!”

  I told her that I was really touched by her story in Behind the Music. She is so sweet and nice. People like to trash talk her in the media, but I'm telling you, she's as good a person as I know. Those people are full of shit.

  We're laughing up the old times, talking about the VH-1 episode, and she goes, "Wouldn't it have been great if they had put "the shoe" in there?”

  I about fell out laughing. "Oh, my God, you remember that, too?”

  She goes, "Oh, God, are you kidding?”

  I guess a rancid shit in a shoe is hard to forget.

  I'll give you another example. My 32nd birthday. 1990.

  One of my neighbors, and really good friends, was Alan Niven. Alan was the manager for Guns N Roses, and it so happened that on the night of my 32nd, Guns was playing the Los Angeles Coliseum, opening up for the Rolling Stones.

  I'm a huge Stones fan. Alan knew it, and suddenly BAM! There I am with a laminate pass around my neck, watching the show.

  It was awesome! A great birthday present. And, the Stones were really knocking it out during their set.

  I couldn't resist getting a closer look.

  Gradually, I worked my way to stage right, where the bands are led up. In a matter of minutes, I was standing on the stage, just out of sight of the crowd.

  Mick Jagger kept looking over at me, confused. It was pretty obvious that he had no idea who I was, or what the fuck I was doing there. Everyone else around me was personnel working on the show.

  After about 20 minutes, this guy taps me on the shoulder, and with a thick English accent goes, "Excuse me. Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing on my stage?”

  I tried to calm the guy down. I told him that I was a friend with Alan Niven, manager of Guns N Roses. My name was Bobby Blotzer and I'm the drummer for RATT. It's my 32nd birthday, and I'm a huge fan.