Tales Of A RATT (32 page)

Today, these kids are un-fucking-believable musicians. They went through years and years of curriculum, and, myself, Mitch Perry, Don Dokken, we all had our hand in writing material for them. We were doing our best to show them the business while they were still kids, because, remember, this business eats it's young.

Dan started paying us to do this, which everyone was appreciative of. By this time, we were all VERY interested in anything that pulled in a little extra money. We all needed the extra income, and Dan was loaded to the nines, so compensating us for our time and expertise was a no-brainer to him. The band was called Beyond Control originally, but then they signed with Warner Brothers and changed to Dry Cell.

Shawn Brown and I will always be friends. He's like my little brother. He and Rickey Salazar. Tom Morgan. They were my brother's crew, so they came to be like family. I've been hanging out with them since they were little.

But, back in 1993, I was the only musician of concern in my life. We weren't destitute, mind you, but I've never been the kind of guy to let my family struggle. Not for any reason. So, we had flowers, steam cleaners, and finally...candy.

My third business, which I ran simultaneously with the steam cleaners and the flower shop, was a vending company. I bought 75 candy machines. Vending machines.

I had 70 locations, all around LA, with vending machines in them. The way I would run it, I would only have to work them three days a week. I would collect on a third of the machines, and load a third of the machines each day for three days. If you break up your territory correctly, you can maximize your work and still have plenty of time left over to dick around and do whatever you want.

I had those things in hair salons, gas stations, tire places. It wasn't bad. You'd go down to some of those spots, and the machines would be almost empty, so you'd know you had a shitload of quarters in there.

Thinking back on it, I would run around doing that and have bags and bags of quarters with me. I'd have thousands of dollars in coins. I'd run into CostCo and buy my candy, and then make my rounds for the day.

It was a good, little cash money business.

I didn't finish high school, much less have a college business degree, but I've always had a business mentality. Logic will tell you what will and will not work. It was slapstick entrepreneuring, but it did the trick. Those businesses brought money in. All of them.

When I bought the steam cleaning business in 1993, it was with the intentions of running it from afar, and having someone else work it for the day to days. But, like so many things in life, it didn't work out like that.

It was very sobering. I was a platinum selling rock star. But here I am, cleaning carpets. I was banking good money, but it didn't make it feel that much better. Honestly, I'm happiest with a couple of trees in my hand, beating the shit out of a kit in front of ten thousand people.

That's my home. That's where I can live. Steam cleaning was about survival. Nothing more.

Once RATT got back together at the end of 1996, I was like, "Thank God!” In 1997, I made about $250,000 in RATT, and it was like money from Heaven, let me tell you. But, who's to say? Am I a rock star who did some steam cleaning, or am I a steam cleaner who used to be a rock star?

It's a fine fucking line, my friend. Trust me.

To be honest with you, my friend Harold Hawthorne, who I learned guitar from, has been a steam cleaner for 25 years. Yeah, it's not glamorous, but he pulls down around $100,000 a year. Honestly, if you know what you're doing, you never make less than about $100 per hour. A one-bedroom apartment was $55, and it took you a half hour. And, that was back then. I don't know what it would run today, but there's money made in that business.

It's just humbling to do it after you've sold 12 million records, you know?

I worked with a property management company that kept me swamped with jobs, cleaning their vacant apartments. It was always a quick in and out, with no one there. Easy money.

They had complexes all over the place in Lawndale and Hawthorne. I could go in there and bang those things out all day and make $300 or $400 a day. It was really lucrative.

One day, they give me a call to go take care of some apartments they just acquired over in Inglewood. I really didn't want to go to Inglewood, or Ingle-Watts as we called it. It was a favor for them. I get over there, and damn it if it isn't a three-story building with no elevator.

Fuck me.

I had a method of carrying the hoses and buckets and everything, so I start lugging all this stuff up the stairs. I get to the apartment they needed me to take care of, and pull the key out. I open the door, and holy shit!

That place was just nasty, trashed out carpet. It stunk. The whole apartment stunk. I was like, "Shit.”

I didn't want to do it, but Mr. Jenkins really needed me to take care of it. Jenkins Property Company was a big client, and I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. Nothing!

So, I get to work on it.

I'm cleaning this disgusting, nasty assed carpet in Ingle-Watts with the door open. My steam cleaner is outside the door, and I glance out toward it.

In the distance, over the top of the cleaner, I can see the LA Forum, and it hit like a sledgehammer between the fucking eyes! We sold the Forum out, with Bon Jovi opening up for us, in 1985. Here it is, 1993, just eight years later, and I'm steam-cleaning carpets.

That was a low point. That was my "where the fuck is my Jack Daniels" moment. I was as depressed as I've ever been.

But, I had to do what I had to do to take care of my family and my responsibilities. A lot of people would make fun of that situation, maybe even talk about how pathetic a fall from grace it would be to them, and they might be right...

... but, you do what you have to do.

I had been able to shave about five grand off my monthly nut. My expenses went from around twelve grand to just over seven grand per month. And, with the three businesses, I was able to hit on that...most of the time.

The pisser of this time was my house. I could have paid that place off several times. But, my accountant kept telling me, "No, don't do it. You need the tax write-off.” I've regretted that ever since, because I wound up having to refinance my house, getting on a variable interest.

My house payment jumped to $4300 a month. But, things were tight, and I had to refinance the place and pull some money from it.

To complicate matters worse, the band was in a real situation with the label and our merchandise company.

In 1990, we had taken a million dollar advance against our merchandise sales for the 1991 tour; a tour we wound up coming home early on. Business wasn't good. We weren't getting along. And, when I say business wasn't good, we went from selling thirteen thousand tickets a night, to selling six thousand.

It was a fucking nightmare to look out there every night and see that. Almost half of the arena was empty.

Now, mind you. This day and age, selling six thousand tickets would be unbelievable, for most any band. It's just harder, now.

When Stephen quit, we still owed $750,000 on our merchandise deal. We had signed that deal in 1990. We all took our part of the advance and went off with it.

Winterland Productions was our merch company, and they were saying, "Alright, guys. You guys owe us this money.” Now, it was time to pay.

We had fired Marshall Berle in late 1989, and Alan Kovac was our new manager. We found out that Marshall went to the label and took an advance on our behalf, then used it for something. We have no idea what he spent it on.

We fired him, and took, for life, his cut of any RATT royalties on anything. Alan Kovac was managing Richard Marx at the time, and now he manages Motley. He is a heavy hitter manager. But, he's also one of these guys who just wants to get the dollars now, take his commission, and not care whether things are going to be not as good next year, as a result. Get the money now, was his thing.

Alan gets us a publishing advance of a million bucks; a merchandising advance of a million bucks; we cut it; then Stephen quits and the band breaks up.

Now, the door starts pounding. I'm calling Del Ferrano on the phone. Del was the President of Winterland, and I'm going, "Del, listen, you guys have made millions. Millions and millions off of merchandising on RATT since 1984. This money will come back to you. You just have to be patient, because I'm not in a position right now to give you.”

Each guy’s cut was $150,000, that we had to pay them. "Just hold tight, Del. The band will get back together, and we'll make this good.”

They hung tight, but only for about 9 months. Then they started sending us letters.

Legal letters.

Then they started proceedings. They were going to sue us.

I was backed into a corner. I had Winterland coming after me, putting liens on my house, thank you Stephen Pearcy. Atlantic stopped paying our royalties, because we took an advance on a record that never got started. So, till that was paid off, we didn't get a penny from them.

That took some time.

It was horrendous. I was led into a bankruptcy situation. I was advised that since I still had the credit card debt, the Winterland thing, Atlantic, mortgages, all of it, I had to declare bankruptcy. Not to mention my construction debt. I had torn out walls to put another story on the house, and I had to put it all back the way it was.

The house was a two story, built into the side of a hill, and I was going to put a third story on it. I had already done all of this work to it. Gone to the city counsel to file for a hillside ordinance because some of the neighbors didn't want me to build. I won, and the work had already begun when our whole house of cards came tumbling down.

Now, here I am, trying to hold all the pieces together, and there's just no possible way to do it.

I had to file for bankruptcy. It sucked. It was extremely humiliating.

My friend, Jay Freidman, my attorney managed to get me out of this thing with flying colors. I even kept my toys. My house, cars, our businesses. That pretty much wrote off about $212,000 on my slate.

All because Stephen quit.

Now, let me preface that by saying I paid Winterland about $30,000. Ten here, five there, trying to nickel and dime this thing down. Finally, I'm like, "This is ridiculous. I can't do this anymore. I don't have $150K to give them.” Unless we get RATT back together and start making the real money that we were used to, forget it. So, bankruptcy was the way out.

I didn't want to do a BK, but it was a necessary evil.

The early and mid-nineties simply sucked balls.

My mom Lois, Jeni, Me, my sister Carol after a RATT show in Pittsburg 1984.

The mid-nineties were a crushing blow to any faith that the groups from the 80s had of continuing careers. Some of the groups, like Bon Jovi, adapted their style and continued on with mixed success. But, even the mightiest of 80s icons became casualties for about a five year span. Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Guns N Roses, the list went on and on.

After filing bankruptcy, life got a little easier for me and mine. After all, I was still a rockstar. I just didn't have a band. I was a vagabond king; a wandering Pi-RATT without a crew. But, make no mistakes. A Pi-RATT without a crew is still a Pi-RATT!

Family recreation was always our escape. We had to get away, even if it was for only the weekend, and no matter what, Havasu was our haven. It was our secret port in the middle of the desert.

I bought a couple of Wave-runners. They were hardly an adequate replacement for the Ramboat, but they were fun as hell, nonetheless.

We had started spending weeks and weeks out of the year hanging out at Lake Havasu, a huge lake on the Colorado River, right on the California / Arizona border. It's an incredible, awe-inspiring oasis in the middle of a desert.

We tore that lake up on the back of those Wave-runners, just soaking in that arid climate and partying our asses off.

The first time I went out to that lake was in 1975. I was fifteen or sixteen years old, and I went out there with Chuck Daw and his family, Iris and Debbie and the others.

Lake Havasu was founded by Robert McCulloch of McCulloch chainsaw fame. He used to go out on the Colorado River to go fishing. When they dammed up the river at various points, they made all these lakes; Lake Mead; Lake Mojave; Lake Havasu. What he did, when they were getting ready to start damming everything up, was buy all of the land up that was going to become the Havasu shoreline.

He was a smart cat, I'm thinking.

There's a population of around 200,000 people out there, now. When I first started going, way back in 1975, there were a couple of hotels, maybe a couple of gas stations, NOTHING like it is today.

McCulloch dredged out a canal, which created a huge island on the lake. That's where they have the London Bridge. That's right. THE London Bridge. He went to London, to an auction, and bid on the London Bridge from the nursery rhyme, "London Bridge is Falling Down.” It was all brought over, brick by brick, and reassembled to span the gap between the mainland and the island on Havasu.