Tales Of A RATT Page 8

  I'm reading this fax, and it's from Eddie Van Halen. It says that Alex has been injured, and they need a fill in drummer to finish out the tour with.

  I was freaking out! Was this real?!? This was Van Halen! The biggest band on the planet. It seemed like a possibility! I mean, I'm here in Europe, about to go out on a major arena tour. Maybe I'm coming into my own, you know? They knew me from when I was in Airborn. Maybe they knew I was making records and out on tour? I was going to play with VAN HALEN??? This better be fucking real!

  I called Jeni, and was like, "Did anyone from Van Halen call and ask for the contact phone over here, or something?” She said, "No". I told her what was going on, and then we were both freaking out! The mighty Van Halen, and I was going to play with them!

  I rolled with this thing all the way into the night, calling and trying to find out any information I could. The end of the fax had a little blurb saying they would be in touch with all the important info. Then later that night, we were all liquored up in the bar, supposedly celebrating, when Vic starts laughing. He and Tom had set up the whole thing.

  "April Fool's, fucker!” The bastards...

  I got him back, though. After we got back stateside, we had a couple of weeks off before we went out on the road again. We were going to do a couple of rehearsals, just to tighten things up before heading out again. Vic was waiting for us down at the rehearsal studio.

  He had been staying at the Oakwood Apartments in Burbank at the time. So I got hold of him through Pricilla, the girl who worked the front desk at the Burbank rehearsal studio.

  I threw a bunch of bass in my voice and said, "Yes, Mr. Vergat? This is John Sweeney (or whatever name I made up in my head) over at the Oakwood Apartments, and we seem to have some problems over here. Apparently there has been a burglary and your apartment was broken into. Everything has been turned inside out and there's a lot of damage done. Are you a musician, or something?” He's like "Yes, I am." And you can hear the crushing doom in his voice. "Well, the people who did this were seen leaving the apartment with guitars and things. Did you have instruments in there?” He's like "Oh my God, yes, I did!", with his Italian / French / Swiss / German, only Americanized, accent. "Well, the place has been ransacked. Some of the guitars have been smashed, and are in pieces in the room. You should probably get here as quick as you can.”

  So, he's hauling ass the 5 or 10 miles from the studio to the apartments, just sick to his gut.

  I specifically waited for this moment, so I could be late. When he got back, I was already at rehearsal. He comes walking in and I'm like, "We're even, motherfucker! From Basil?” It was completely hysterical. A huge laugh.

  I haven't seen Vic in years and years. He surfaced at my house back in 1994, and stayed with me for a week. His hair was all white. I mean, really white. "Albino with a bleach habit" white. Completely tripped me out. The guy was ten years older than me, and in great shape; just white headed in his mid-forties. He's back in Switzerland, as far as I know. I heard he was working in a studio over there. But, who knows?

  After we had finished rehearsing, and Don had scurried back to the states with his briefcase full of money, we went on tour with Nazareth in Europe.

  Incredible. Absolutely one of the highlights of my life. Packed to the rafters at the arena shows every night. Just a huge sea of people each night.

  We had a couple of guys in the crew who were monumental assholes. The label had hired these guys, and sort of shoved them on us. One was the soundman, Night Bob, who had cut his teeth for seven years on the road with Aerosmith.

  The guy was a New York type. The tour who was a New York attitude on wheels was Rabbit.

  Because they had finished a couple of tours with some names, they had all these stories to tell, and that was pretty cool. But, they always talked shit. Always. And, they would do it in that really condescending New York way, like they wanted to fight.

  I tended to just shine them on, but Night Bob was rolling on me one night, when we were touring the U.K. He was just giving me nonstop grief, and Tom got sick of it. He walked up and called the guy out. It was a thing of beauty. Night Bob just caved. The guy went down like Heidi Fleiss with cashflow problems. A total pussy moment. I gotta give props to Tom for that. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

  Touring with Vergat had some interesting moments. Most of them coming from Vic himself.

  Vic used to have a habit of washing his ass in the dressing room sink before each show. That's right. You didn't misread it. He would wash his ass in the sink.

  Tom and I would be laughing our ass off at this. We'd be going, "Vic, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you washing your ass in the sink?”

  He'd say, in his funky Euro-accent, "I don't want my ass to stink while I'm on stage!”

  "Who the hell is going to be smelling your ass while you're on stage?”

  "I don't know, but if they do, I don't want it to fucking stink!”

  There's an odd logic to that, especially when you've been stuck in Europe for weeks on end. But, logic or no, Tom and I were not going to wash our asses in the sink. Let them stink! If they were dumb enough to sniff our ass, they deserved what they got!

  Those damned ass-sniffing Europeans!

  10

  Fucking With The Rookie

  "Do me a favor. Just kick my ass, okay? I'm not asking, I'm telling with this. Kick my ass." - Artie Fufkin - Spinal Tap

  We came back to the states and toured over here, also with Nazareth, and then the Joe Perry Project was added. I was playing huge arenas, at only twenty-one years old. I was sure that I had made it!

  Rock music is racked with its touring traditions and superstitions. One of those traditions is for the headlining act to prank the opening acts on the last night of a tour. Our last show of the tour was in San Antonio, Texas.

  However, this was not to be a traditional closing night. The crew, bastards that they were, decided to fuck with the rookie, meaning they fucked with me. They told me that it was customary for the OPENING act to prank the HEADLINER, not the other way around.

  I didn't know! I was a kid on my first tour!

  But, never one to buck tradition, I was told to put baby powder in Darrell Sweet's hi-hats. When he came on, he hit the hi-hats, and baby powder exploded out of the thing! A huge cloud of this shit completely encompassed the stage. Pete Agnew, their bassist, was so completely pissed off that I thought he would stroke out on stage. The guy was spitting at me! He was ready to kill!

  By the end of the first song, Darrell's glasses and beard were solid white! He looked like he was ready to be tossed into a frying pan. The whole room stunk like baby powder, and, dear God, they were so fucking pissed! I'm lucky they didn't beat the shit out of me. But, again, I was a kid! What the hell did I know about it? I was just doing what I was told!

  You can never trust a road crew. Not ever! They're pranky little pricks who would love nothing more than to get you beat to death by a gold record artist!

  The guys in Nazareth did come hunting for me after the show. And, I did plead my case.

  "Those dudes told me to do it, man! I didn't know!”

  Nazareth was a great band, and obviously they had a good sense of humor. At the least, they were forgiving, as evidenced by my ability to still breathe. Either they were forgiving, or their lungs were so permeated with baby powder, they couldn't breathe enough to stomp the shit out of me.

  Jeni was pregnant with Michael during the American leg of the tour, so she was coming out with this huge belly with Michael in there.

  Oddly enough, it's when things are going the best that the worst shit tends to happen. The American leg of the tour was done by late November of 1981. We were gearing up to do it all again. We went into the Capital Records Studios, which are in the basement of the world famous Capital Records Building, and cut thirteen new songs. We were looking for a producer, when suddenly, there was no more money.

  The band was funded by a guy named Yurig Margward. He was a filt
hy rich, publishing type who had pieces of Penthouse Magazine, Poprocki Magazine, which was a European version of Metal Edge, and tons of other things. The guy was the principle financier for Vic, along with the label. He just decided he didn't want to pay for the Vergat thing anymore. The label picked up an option at EMI Europe, but dropped the new record stateside. Vic wound up going back to Europe and releasing the new album, but I didn't make the trip.

  Tom was still in as the bassist, but Frankie Banali replaced me on drums. I never got the straight answer as to why, but in hindsight, I think it worked out for the best At that moment, though, it completely sucked! Just like that, I was done. No more band. No more answers.

  I was, out of a gig. I had been touring Europe and America with Nazareth and Joe Perry, playing to 10,000 to 13,000 people a night, just a few short weeks before. I had gotten my Ludwig Drums endorsement, and my Paiste Cymbals endorsement while in Europe. Now, I didn't have a job, and a baby coming in a month. Jeni was still working, we took in a roommate to help with the bills, and I started looking for a new gig.

  It was all the way back to square one.

  11

  Into The Cellar

  Some of them want to use you. Some of them want to get used by you. - Annie Lennox

  I was trying to get into a band called Bruiser. I was talking to Rick Ramirez (not the serial killer, don't get excited) about the gig. Vinnie Appice (Carmine's brother) had recorded a monster album with these guys, but he wasn't going to tour with them. So, I was jockeying for the gig.

  Ramirez kept me on the line forever. He was always telling me, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to do it. Any day now.” I learned the whole record, was ready to go at a moments notice, but they still kept me hanging for months.

  During this down time, Stephen Pearcy had started coming around, and he was really pushing for me to join RATT. I had met Stephen through a guy named Dennis O'Neil, who was dating one of my roommates. So, I went to see RATT, and I didn't like it. I thought they were okay. It just wasn't what I was looking for. So, I turned him down.

  About five weeks later, Stephen buzzed me up again, and was like, "What's going on, man. Did you get that thing?” I had told him I was trying to get the Bruiser gig.

  "No, dude, they're still not doing anything.” So, he tells me that they're playing another gig, and they have a new drummer, but they don't really like him either. So, why don't I come down and check them out again?

  I went and saw them a second time, but it wasn't that much different from the first. Same music with a different drummer who wasn't very good. But, I was sitting around doing nothing, so I thought, "What the hell. I'll join these guys until something better comes along.”

  Thank God nothing better did, because it's fucking RATT! It's my life, now. And, it has been since that day. March 1, 1982.

  Dennis O'Neil's mother's house was where we rehearsed; right in her garage. Juan Croucier drove me down there with all my shit in the back of his truck to play. Then he was heading off with this Top 40 band he was playing in.

  The chemistry came pretty quick. I was a good drummer, and had a lot of experience. They could sense that, I think. Plus, we were all influenced by the same bands; Aerosmith, in particular. We were all close to the same age, and had the same influences, and that became a launching pad. We were just like, "Well let's have at it. Let's fucking do it.” And, that set the tone for the band.

  At rehearsals, the bass player really wasn't good. I was trying to get him out of the band. I wasn't being malicious about it, or anything. I was just trying to get him tightened up some; more in sync with me as a drummer. I was trying to get the rhythm section of the band going so there would be a foundation to the music.

  The first gig we played together was at the Country Club in Reseda. Our bassist took a hit of acid before the show, and was just gone; completely out of it. He couldn't play any of the songs. So I told those guys after that, "Hey, it's him or me. I'm not playing with this guy anymore. I've got Juan Croucier. We've been playing together since we were seventeen. He is great. He's great on stage.” So, I brought Juan into the mix.

  Suddenly, RATT had elevated its music several notches in one big step. Juan and I were rock solid as a rhythm section.

  I write songs, and I've learned to do it pretty well, but my strengths were always in arrangements musically. I could come up with parts. "How about going from this, to this to that, and maybe add this chord…” That sort of thing. So, instead of sitting down with a couple of guitars in a writing session, like those guys had been doing, we would take those sessions as a group and turn them into tunes. It wasn't that Juan and I "fixed" everything wrong with RATT. We simply brought out the potentials.

  Warren was really young then. Seventeen or eighteen. And, he and Stephen used to butt heads a lot. It got so bad, that at one point in 1982, with Stephen's prodding, we actually got rid of Warren. Marq Torien, who's the lead singer for the Bullet Boys, came in and played guitar for us for a couple of months. He was an absolute wackjob, and we did not dig the whole thing.

  Robbin Crosby, Juan and me, I can't remember if we really wanted Warren out, or if we were just tired of all the bullshit fighting between he and Stephen. It didn't matter, because we went out and got Warren back, then just continued on like nothing happened.

  Our mentality was not so much a family mentality as it was just a gang. It was "us", out there to get "them". "Them" could be anything from an individual to the world, depending on the moment.

  We were out to plant our flag and take what's ours.

  Back in the early days, Stephen and I pretty much handled the booking. And, we were playing the same places, a lot. It wasn't like we had 35 venues that we circulated. For that matter, we weren't playing 30 shows a month, either. We would do anywhere from 3-5 shows a month, then we would go up north, or something. We weren't playing a lot, mostly weekend stuff, then occasionally during the middle of the week. But, we pretty much played every weekend.

  Promotions was interesting. Stephen was a fanatic about it. We had a group of loyal fans, which they call street teams today, who would go out and flyer the gigs of other bands. Whatever was happening, at the Troubadour or the Whisky, we'd have someone there.

  Pearcy was really into all that stuff. He'd always be out putting posters on poles and stuff. Me, I never did that kind of shit. I was just way to jaded. I was like, "I'm not going out into the cold, or whatever, to put posters and handbills up on telephone poles.” It was pure laziness, I'm sure.

  It wasn't long after that we played with Glen Hughes and Pat Thrawl. They had the Hughes Thrawl band. We headlined there a handful of times with bands like Steeler opening. Tons of others.

  One of the first big gigs that RATT did was at Magic Mountain, the amusement park. May 27, 1982. We did two shows there in this huge amphitheater, and Great White played with us. It was completely packed for both shows, and that was a huge crowd. We were like "Ho, boy. Here we go. This shit's on!” That place held well over 3000 people.

  Then we did a gig at the USC Mardi Gras. Which had close to 15000 people. It was really weird. Everyone in LA was just freaking out over RATT at that time.

  Beyond that, those early days were on the Hollywood Circuit. Sunset Strip. The Roxy, The Whisky a Go-Go, the Troubadour, all of those places. We did some gigs up in Northern California. And, beyond that, we really hadn't ventured outside LA yet.

  To my recollections, Marshall Berle was the first real manager to come out of the woodwork when we started to get a bit of a name. That was around August of 1982. Let me put it this way, we were meeting with him in August, and after all the meetings and shit, we probably went with him about a month and a half later. So, by fall of 1982, we were with Marshall Berle.

  When Berle first saw us, we had been doing much better at the live shows. We were a lot tighter of a band. It had reached a point where we obviously had to get a record out, and, Berle saw that. Almost immediately after signing with him, we were in the studio recordi
ng our self-titled EP.

  Music Man Studios on Melrose was where we recorded and mixed. It was really cool, because you'd walk out and Melrose is just like the streets of New York; Stores, clubs, restaurants. It seemed like it was overnight, but in very short order, RATT was selling out shows all over the LA club scene.

  Suddenly, this thing was getting exciting. Musically, it had stepped up significantly. RATT was no longer the so-so band it had been when I first saw them, and the crowds were eating it up.

  I had been in popular bands around LA a number of times, but it was never like this. Literally, you'd pull up to gigs we were playing and there would be lines clear around the corner. We'd sell out two shows a night, that sort of thing.

  Like most things in this business, when you start making a little noise, you tend to draw a lot of attention. We made a lot of fucking noise! Before we knew it, we started having agents, and managers sniffing around us, looking for that next big band. Mötley Crüe was already a monster on the club circuit, and we were right on their heels. In fact, we were becoming fast bros with those guys.

  We got a call from Marshall Berle, Milton Berle's nephew. Everyone on the Strip knew who Marshall was. He was Van Halen's manager when they got their deal, and through their first couple of tours. And, now, he was managing the Whisky a Go-Go.

  Marshall wanted to manage the band. He thought we were really good, and he and a partner were going to put some money up for an EP. Robbin, Stephen and I took that first meeting with him.

  I never really had a good feeling about Marshall, and I told Robbin and Stephen about it.

  "I don't know if I trust this guy.”

  Marshall would never look you in the eye when he talked to you. That's always a bad sign. A person's eyes reveal too much, so if they're hiding them, that's bad news. But, like so many young bands, we were so eager that we signed a shitty deal. Marshall and his partner basically owned everything on the EP.