A Stray Cat Struts (5 page)

Bill had gotten a little quiet, as Mick had interrupted his talk with us, and he stood off to the side puffing on his cigarette. Mick seemed to notice Bill's annoyance and walked over to him. He reached out as if to ask for his hand in dance and started to do a mock waltz with Bill as his reluctant partner. Bill brushed him off and gently pushed him away. We all stared at this very spontaneous, very rock-and-roll moment happening in our unadorned dressing room with most of what we owned in the suitcases on the floor. Outside the door was the circus that accompanied a big rock show that was about to go on.

“C'mon, Bill, lighten up,” Mick chided him. “Why did you come all the way to Cedar Rapids, I-O-W-A?”

“Certainly not to dance with you!” Bill answered in his very cool, relaxed South London accent. It was great stuff.

Mick went on to tell us to use the whole stage as much as we could and to say the name of the town as many times as we could squeeze it in. He had just demonstrated this to us in the dressing room. Maybe he was practicing a little while reminding himself of where the show was that night.

We hadn't seen too much of Keith or Ronnie in a few days. On one night, Keith looked a bit wobbly as he was being led up the stage stairs, one step at a time. I remember thinking,
He's not gonna make it. What are they gonna do?
None of the other guys in his band seemed concerned as they walked up the gangplank and put their instruments on. Charlie spun his sticks, and Mick jumped up and down, getting the blood flowing. The lights came down, and the big cheer happened. That might be the best part of any show. Whether I'm playing or watching, it's my favorite moment. When Keith hit the stage and his roadie strapped his guitar on him, he came to life and stormed into the first number. They opened that tour with “Under My Thumb”; Keith would go over to the drum riser and exaggerate the downbeats with his guitar as he and Charlie would hang on the opening riff until they all got steady on the rhythm.

Charlie came in a few times, too. Charlie Watts is truly a gentleman. He's a fine rock-and-roll drummer with a natural swing, and has been an influence on my playing. I enjoyed the time we spent together, and he has always been friendly whenever I've run into him.

The pointers Mick gave that night on working the huge stage and talking to an audience of that size was helpful. His advice was spot-on, and it still works today. Big gestures and simple stage talk always work best. In that regard, doing a club or theater is different from an arena or stadium show. We had never traveled in Middle America before; we had played in Paris but not Pittsburgh. This was pre-MTV, and we hadn't been on the radio in the USA. The success in the States was still over a year away. Since then, I've learned how much those Stones shows helped us. It added to the crazy story and legend that was building around us, but at that point, we were still unknown, still strange looking and strange sounding to the average American audience. No one knew about rockabilly, and the closest thing they knew to the blues was the Stones. They thought we were British—anything that weird must have been from England. The attitude was like the one we had left behind in Massapequa, but by the end of each show, we had won over the audience. On one of the shows, Mick led us onstage wearing his full stage outfit and announced us to the audience, telling them that we were the real deal and how this was American music and they should really give us a chance. The Eddie Cochran classic song “Twenty Flight Rock” was part of the Stones set list on that tour, and Mick dedicated it to us at all the shows that we were on. They didn't need to do that. It was another gesture of support from these guys. We still didn't have any money, and as great an opportunity as this was, we got paid virtually nothing for the actual gigs. We played a few stand-alone shows at very small clubs on days off along the way, and they have become part of the tale, too. Every town will always have a certain small number of hipsters who follow the UK music scene, and they came out for these gigs, which helped get us to the next big show.

After the Stray Cats gig on the European tour in Nice, France, we all went back to Bill's luxurious, rock-and-roll, cool cliffside mansion at the end of a winding, dangerous road. It was the first time I'd ever been to that kind of Mediterranean, real South of France rock star mansion. We partied with some of his local friends, and he showed us some rare footage of old Stones TV appearances. The lady of the house and Bill's longtime companion was Astrid Lundström. She was a spectacular, animated, beautiful Swedish model. She and I became close friends, and she treated me like a younger brother. I was really fond of her. Astrid was around a lot, and I always felt comfortable talking around her. She gave me advice about girls and being on the road in general. She spoke frankly and was there for a lot of famous events, including Altamont, where she can be seen in the well-known helicopter scene at the end of
Gimme Shelter.

Bill had a vast film library of vintage blues and rock and roll and was eager to show us some cool stuff we hadn't seen. He was an authority on all sorts of blues, R&B, and rockabilly, and he also really understood and liked what the Cats were doing. He knew I was a bit of a fanboy for Keith Richards and would ask me what I liked about him. I didn't have a clear answer—probably something about how I thought he was cool. Bill busted my balls a little in jest then and would tell a few tales that painted Keith in a more ordinary fashion. I see now that it was meant in a way to keep me grounded, like a “drugs aren't cool” message. I myself have been in that conversation a thousand times, being on the receiving end of the “What's your lead singer really like?” question. Bill smoked and drank vodka and tonics, but I never saw him do drugs. I would go off to the bathroom once in a while for a bump, but he never did. I'm sure he was around it a lot and had his chances to get into it but never did.

There were some great nightclub times with Bill at Tramp, a famous members-only basement club in Jermyn Street, Mayfair. There were always a few people you knew there. The Italian waiters were all characters, as was the coat-check woman, Julia, who had the final say on who got in. Like most clubs, it looked pretty grim in the daytime, but at night with low lights, candles, and the right amount of boozy atmosphere and stargazing, it was a fantastic, exclusive place. The owner was Johnny Gold, gregarious, handsome, dressed up, and there every night. He had the real club operator talent of making every customer feel like a big shot while you paid for your own drinks. The club had been there from the 1960s onward and was always considered an in-the-know place. If you were a member, you had arrived. Everyone in show business aspired to hang out there. The punk rockers would have frowned a bit, because it represented old-time showbiz and rock star excess, but I didn't care. Bill put me forward for membership, and at age nineteen, for a whopping seventy-five pounds, I became a member. I went there with Britt all through the 1980s and kept the membership current until the early 1990s. I bet my name is still on the register somewhere.

Bill and I sat there quite a few times drinking until closing time. I asked a lot of questions about legendary Stones and other music history that he had witnessed and got a lot of insider answers. He knew I was genuinely interested. He was honest, and I related to his man-in-the-band point of view. Like me, he was an equal member of a famous band that had a very strong front man. I had the feeling that we shared the belief that we loved our lead singers and were happy that they were there but didn't really want to talk about them too much. We all sat in the van and shared bad road food, and once you've seen a guy naked enough times, it's hard to take him too seriously. In New York, we'd say, “What am I, chopped liver?” I'm sure there is an English equivalent. I'm sure the singers all have their own opinions on us, the humble rhythm sections. It's all part of the dynamic that makes for a good rock-and-roll band. Bill was always careful not to bad-mouth anyone and just answered the questions honestly. I still adhere to that myself; I try to never say anything disparaging about my band members to outsiders.

I was honored to play drums on the B side of Bill's solo hit single “Je Suis un Rock Star,” a track called “Rio de Janeiro.” It was another one of those moments when I thought it was all a bit unreal. I was in Massapequa six months earlier, and now I was in the studio recording with one of the Stones. During the dinner break at the session, Bill took the engineers, guitar player, and me to a nice French restaurant. He was a kind of gourmet rocker and ordered food and wine for everyone. A few people joined, and it was always a cool little gang around any of the Stones.

I was the youngest one there, wearing my usual outfit from those days of sleeveless T-shirt, black boots with chains around them, leather jacket, and bandana around my neck. No one ever suggested wearing a tie or batted an eye, even in a chichi place. As with a lot of things, I'd be more conscious of these types of things now. The idea of being in a fancy restaurant with the sleeves cut off my shirt is a little horrifying, but in that moment I never thought of it once. However, my upbringing in Irish-Catholic New York had provided me with excellent table manners. We were never wealthy or went to many restaurants, but my mother and nana had really stressed proper etiquette. Even if it had been learned by a jab under the table or a stabbed elbow, I was prepared for this. I may have looked a little wacky, but I was very polite and knew which fork to use for the salad and which spoon for the soup, but when the appetizers came, I had no idea of what to do with an artichoke. Bill sensed my mild panic and embarrassment. He slowly peeled off a leaf, dipped it in the sauce, and ate the bottom of the leaf. I followed his lead, and although I thought it was a lot of work for a little payoff, I really liked it. When it came to the heart, I watched again and quickly mastered the art of the artichoke. Still to this day, it's one of my favorite things to order at a restaurant, and I have Bill to thank. Like Mick in the office with the coke, Bill never let on that he knew, never busted me. It's a very admirable quality in someone. We went back to the studio, finished off the track, and had a good session. I've got my name on the record sleeve of a track by one of the Stones. One more crazy accomplishment that I never counted on.

 

4

LA to Tokyo

I don't know if Mick and Keith would have been able to produce the Stray Cats record as had been discussed. It seemed hard for the two of them to get to the same place at the same time, and the whole thing was moving very slowly. We eventually signed with Arista Records with Dave Edmunds producing. Dave was a well-respected singer and guitar player who had a big worldwide hit with “I Hear You Knocking.” He produced and played all the instruments on his own records. He was in Rockpile with Nick Lowe. He was maybe better known in Europe but had a cool cult status everywhere. He turned out to be the perfect choice.

The record did very well, and we had lived up to all the hype. We toured the UK and Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand to sold-out, rowdy crowds, and positive reviews followed everywhere. There was a strong buzz about the Cats all over the world.

We were playing a show at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool in 1981. This is a classic, faded-glory, old venue that has hosted every type of showbiz event, from Victorian dance hall vaudeville to punk rock shows. It definitely saw its share of Beatlemania. I was happy to be there. It was our second tour of England; we were in the charts and riding high.

The next day, at the same theater, there was to be a taping of the long-running British game show
3-2-1
. It was a typical old-school quiz show with regular couples answering questions for money and prizes. An early culture shock observation was the difference between the prizes on American game shows and UK ones. On the American ones I had grown up on, the prize could be a car or a vacation to Hawaii with $10,000 to spend. In England, the contestants were battling for a mini refrigerator, a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, and fifty pounds to spend on the holiday. The questions on the UK show seemed harder, too. This show featured celebs of the day in little sketches between the question rounds and singers miming along to current hits. There was a TV crew there preparing for the next day's show. Everyone stayed out of everybody else's way.

The mascot and costar of the show was Dusty Bin. He was a crude robot in the shape of a garbage can that looked like the little rolling robot in
Star Wars
. I can't remember exactly, but I think he was operated by an off-camera puppeteer with remote control. I do remember thinking he was pretty lame. The fact that thirty-five years later, I'm still referring to it as “he” is definitely lame. I know now that he was a beloved character and a national treasure. Dusty arrived on our show day with his own handler and was put in one of the dressing rooms. At the time, I made fun of everything that wasn't Gene Vincent or Eddie Cochran. This is pre–
Spinal Tap,
so maybe those guys experienced a similar thing. I thought it was amazing that a large puppet had a personal roadie and dressing room. So, for a laugh, I decided to kidnap Dusty Bin. I didn't think too much about it. There was no ransom demand or terms for release. I just put him in a different room on a different floor. At the time, for me, it was a mild prank. No one was getting hurt, and it wasn't booze or drug fueled. There were no girls involved.

After the sound check, there was a big kerfuffle in the wings. I saw the TV people and theater staff standing around the tour manager. It didn't look friendly. Our whole crew and band were ordered to assemble on the stage. The old boy theater manager, flanked by two fossils in moth-eaten usher uniforms, had summoned us. He sternly stated the crime and told us there would be no show, that the police had been called, and prosecutions would arise if Dusty Bin was not immediately returned, unharmed. The theater manager was right out of central casting. He had a pointy face, had tufts of wild hair around the side of his head, wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and shook his pipe at us when highlighting his point. He reminded me of the mad scientist from
Bride of Frankenstein.
This was his turf. He meant business. I got it.