Tales Of A RATT (10 page)

I told him, "Well, I don't even have a car, and I don't have money for a taxi!”

He goes, "Hey! How would you like to be in jail with your buddy, David Lee? You think that would be cool?” He wanted to put me in a cell with that fucking Neanderthal and his partner? Thank you, too, asshole!

"Are you kidding me, dude? You're threatening me with jail? After all I've done to come down there and testify?”

"It's against the law to refuse to come down and testify, Robert.”

I told him, "I'm not refusing! I don't have a means of transportation. You want me down there, then send a car to get me!”

I was pissed off, but not so much that I wanted to go to jail. They sent a court car to get me, and down we went. I went back in for the last day of testimony, and bottom line, those two guys got sixty years each for that, and I hope they forgot my name, because that was thirty years ago. Parole is going to be an issue soon.

There you have it. Rock N Roll.

After Rocket 88, I left and joined a band called Romeo with this guy named Roger Romeo. He had been the lead guitar player for Legs Diamond in the mid-70's. It was me, Roger, and Juan's brother Tom Croucier on bass. It was like a power pop band, that thing was. We did shows around LA, and cut a demo.

It was a good time, and I enjoyed playing it. I had known Tom since I was a kid, because he was Juan's older brother. Tom was a great musician; great singer. He was one of the guys who never got his due in this business. He just wrote amazing songs and was always trying to chase the deal.

I was in Romeo for that whole year. 1980. Which was the hottest summer I've ever seen. Hell in August would have been cooler. We played gigs all over town, sweating like whores in church the whole time, completely miserable from the heat. Cars littered the sides of the road at any given time, all overheated and baking in the south California sun.

I remember when I met Roger. I hooked up with him through an add in The Recycler, a local Los Angeles magazine that you can put adds in for various items or services. Musicians who are looking for new gigs use it all the time, because it's free.

I went up to Roger's house in Hollywood, and he answers the door wearing these big purple sunglasses, and this ridiculous mini-skirt looking bathrobe kind of thing.

I was thinking, "What the fuck is this?” I had my kit in my van, so I brought it in and we jammed. We clicked, so the next day we had the bass player, this guy named Liberty come in and join us. That was the band at first; Roger, Liberty and I. Then we got rid of Liberty and got Tom.

It was a great fit. Tom and Roger played and sang really well together.

Once again we were off to conquer LA.

Things were really starting to get lean for Jeni and me. At least on the music front.

I was finished in Rocket 88, and while Romeo was still gigging, it just wasn't enough to pay the bills. I had to find a job, and soon. I had done it before. Pizza delivery; painter; I started to work with a steam cleaning company in 1977, and eventually bought a couple of machines. A friend of mine, Chuck Daw, and I worked them, but it was never meant to be my "real" income. For the first time, I had to sit down and seriously consider the immediate future.

Then I got the opportunity, through Chuck Daw's mother, Iris, to go to work in Manhattan Beach at the Ford dealership. Let me just say, I love Iris Daw. She's like a second mother to me. She really cared for me, too. It's like I was one of her kids.

At the time, Manhattan Beach was a pretentious, "too-much-money" kind of place. Still is, actually. There is a kind of hierarchy to the beach communities of southern California. It starts to the south, in Long Beach, and then moves through Palos Verdes. Those places are pretty loaded. Then you get into the "middle beach / family beach" areas like Redondo and Hermosa. Then, Manhattan Beach is the next community north.

North of Manhattan Beach just gets richer and richer. El Segundo, Marina Del Ray and the Venice Beach Boardwalk, then there is Santa Monica and on up into Malibu. But, regardless where you are, if you're on the beach, money drips everywhere. I've just always felt that Manhattan Beach thought a lot higher of itself than it should have.

If you want to make money on the straight, you gotta go where the money is. So, the beach communities were it to me. Manhattan Beach had one of the strongest dealerships in the country at the time. Manhattan Beach Ford. And, with Iris as my ally, I was able to meet with the management of the place. I knew I could do that job, and do it well.

I've always been a good salesman. It didn't matter what, really. I did it in the steam cleaning business. Always upselling the add-ons, like Scotch Guard, menthol, and conditioners.

The next thing I knew, I was a moonlight rocker, selling cars in one of the richest communities in Southern California. I would put a little gel in my hair, slick it back to make it nice and tight, and no one was the wiser. You'd have thought I belonged!

That job was going well. I was making money, and they gave me a demo car. A brand new, 1980 Mustang. After having my 1966 Dodge Van, and every other piece of shit car I had owned up to that point, that Mustang was awesome! Believe me.

At that time, Jeni and I still lived in the apartments on Vanderbilt Lane in north Redondo; The same place that Juan and his psycho chick from Palos Verdes were staying with us in.

Nice cars, good house, plenty of cash, but that doesn't do it for you when you're still chasing your dreams. I hadn't made it as a player. I was playing gigs every once in a while, not making a lot of money at it, and I wasn't getting any younger. At twenty-one, I was almost as old as Don Dokken was when I met him. And that's too old, when you haven't been discovered yet!

Something had to give.

Romeo was still playing gigs, but they were coming fewer and fewer. Roger Romeo is a great guy. A really good friend. But, at this time, Tom and I were getting very itchy. Romeo just didn't seem to be advancing.

On December 8, 1980, I had gone to work like normal. Sales were still really good, and I was driving a nice, new Mustang demo car.

It was sometime late-evening, only a few minutes before we closed, and I was on the showroom floor, working with an elderly couple. We got a lot of elderly who would come in late, and just look around. They were bored. So, they would come in and just grill you about different things on the cars. They weren't really there to buy, just to pass the time. But, I approached everyone as if they were going to buy, even at ten minutes to close.

They were asking me questions about an LTD. The car stereo display was about 15 feet away, and it was on. No one ever paid any attention to it, really. But, then it said: "We interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking news.”

That immediately grabs everyone's attention.

"We are receiving reports that moments ago, outside of his New York City apartment, controversial music icon, John Lennon, was shot.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was stunned. My gut immediately wadded itself into a fist, and was struggling to punch its way out of me. I've never felt quite like that since, and I don't think I've ever been the same.

It was time to close, so I took my cue. I asked the elderly couple to come back the next day, and I went home. I had the radio on the whole way. I'm dialing through stations trying to find out what happened. Initially, they were saying that he was shot by a pregnant woman, which was disturbing. What the hell did he do? Knock some groupie up? Have an affair? What?

Up to this point, no one knew he was dead yet. The stations were only reporting that he had been shot. Then, I turned to a station, and they were playing "Imagine.” I knew then, he was gone. I got home, and Jeni and me were watching TV on this the whole night.

To say that John Lennon and the Beatles are icons doesn't do it justice. Lennon and McCartney were the teachers. Not just for me, but for everyone. They taught how to write classic, beloved songs the whole world over. They taught me music through every Beatles record I'd had since I was five years old. I'll challenge anyone to come up with another band, other than the Beatles, who have had more of an impact on modern music. And, who among the Beatles or any other band was more powerful than Lennon, other than McCartney?

I'm always irritated when I hear the media compare someone or some band to the Beatles. Especially Nirvana. But, we'll get into that more, later.

It sickens me when someone comes along and compares something like "The Back-Door Boys" or the "Spice Whores" to the Beatles. Anyone that musically retarded should be hog-tied and beat with a bamboo cane!

It's almost like they are forcing these others on us in an effort to replace what was probably the greatest musical force since Mozart. It's fucking asinine! There is only one Beatles. Only one John Lennon. Only one Paul McCartney. Only one Beatles! There will never be another, so deal with it and stop trying to shove some other second tiered talent down our throats. We're big enough to make our own judgments about who is genius and who isn't.

Lennon, McCartney and the Beatles were genius. Jimi Hendrix was a genius. He transpired talent, and completely changed the way the electric guitar is played. Led Zeppelin was genius. Again, few modern rock bands are untouched by Zeppelin. Maybe The Rolling Stones. Maybe Aerosmith.

Everyone else is a copy, or a variation of what those guys did. And, just because you can play like Hendrix, does not make you Hendrix. If you mimic a genius, it doesn't make you a genius by association. You're a fucking Doppelgänger, bro. And, if you don't know what that is, go look it up, learn from it, and then go out and be something original and brilliant.

Maybe, then, we'll call YOU a genius.

But until then, shut the fuck up with calling someone the next Beatles, or the next John Lennon. Give me a break with that shit.

When I heard that Lennon was dead; that he had been murdered by a cowardly bag of shit like Mark David Chapman; I was crushed deeper than anytime in my life. What this miserable fucker did was steal one of the beacons of music from us. From everyone. He's a miserable, urine stained shit-streak on the face of humanity, and I can only hope that some dude in prison takes a barbell in his hand and does to Chapman what they did to Dahmer. Bust his goddamned head in. This guy deserves it, on behalf of the world.

How could something like this happen? Where is the rhyme or reason to it? None of it made sense. The whole event shook me to the foundation, all with the radio still droning on about Lennon bleeding to death in his wife's arms.

The next day, I was due back at work. And, I couldn't get out of bed. No other figure, beyond my own family, was more important to me than Lennon. He and McCartney were more important to me than the President or the Pope.

I called Jeff, my manager and told him, "Listen, Jeff. You've seen the news all over the place. John Lennon was murdered. I just can't come in today, and try to concentrate on moving units. I just can't.”

Jeff was one of those 50's kind of guys who grew out of that, and into someone with no real understanding of music. He had been to a couple of Romeo shows, and once you got a couple of drinks in him, he knew how to have a good time. But the next day, it was all about the car lot. That was who he was, and it was who he expected me to be. Needless to say, he really didn't get it.

"Bobby, you're a good salesman. I know you're a musician and everything, but you've got a future here. I really need you to come in, and I can't give you the day off because of this. You need to decide where you're purpose lies. I need you to come down here and work.”

"I can't do that. So, where do we go from here?”

"I just need to tell you, Bobby. Either you come in to work today, or your job is on the line.”

Wow. I couldn't believe they were going to do that to me on the day John Lennon was assassinated. So, I got in the car and went down there.

I dropped the keys to the demo on his desk. No hesitation.

"See you later. Beatles forever.”

Then, I walked the three miles back home to Jeni, where we spent most of the next week in near total seclusion, mourning the loss of one of our heroes in life. John Lennon.

Don McLean wrote a song in the early Seventies called "American Pie.” It was a tribute song to Buddy Holly, who had died years earlier in a plane crash in Iowa. In that song, he referred to that moment as "The Day the Music Died.”

I've heard that statement used several times over the years when talking about other events. Hendrix. Morrison. Joplin. Most recently, I heard it used to describe Hurricane Katrina and it's destruction of New Orleans.

But, for me, that statement will always be best used for the day Lennon was assassinated. I just couldn't imagine music going on without him at the epicenter of it.

But, I was wrong.

In the midst of this social and emotional funk, I got the phone call that started everything changing.

Don Dokken called me and said, "There's this project that Dieter Dierks is putting together with Vic Vergat. They need a rhythm section. You and Tom interested in auditioning for it?”

I didn't know that much about Vic, but I'd heard a little of his stuff, and it was pretty good. Plus, the guy was recording in Germany with Dieter Dierks! Dierks is a legend of a record producer. He's most famous for being the guy who did all the Scorpions albums, and for working with Accept. The chance to do some recording with that guy at the board was too good to pass up. So, Tom and I went down and auditioned.

We saw a lot of the usual suspects there. Frankie Banali was waiting in the wings for his turn, as were a number of other LA noticeable. Tom and I did the audition, which went really well.

I was still really down over the loss of Lennon, so I can't say I had any real good vibes that week, but on December 12, four days after the worst news of my life, I was told that Tom Croucier and myself were the new rhythm section for Vic Vergat.