Tales Of A RATT (44 page)

So, that's the way it happened. When I went on the road, I told her, "We're done. While I'm gone, find a place to move.”

Three months. But she wouldn't leave. She would not move out of the house while I was gone. I had to eventually get a friend of mine, Mike Smith, to go over and stay at the house. She couldn't stand Mike, and I knew that. He was my drinking buddy, so he was guilty by association, and I knew having him at the house was going to drive her crazy.

It worked!

Misty moved out the day before I got back from tour, and left the house completely trashed. I was really disappointed in her with that. We're friends these days, but that was a bad time for us. I'll always love her.

I love all of my ex's ... even if I hate them. That's just me.

While I was out on the road, I ran into a good friend of mine, who’s name we’ll call Misty2.

I met Misty2 in 2000 while we were out touring with Warrant and LA Guns, down in Austin, Texas. Misty2 and two of her friends were on Warrant's bus after the show. One of the friends was a guitar tech for Warrant. I was on the bus talking to Mike Fassano. These girls walked on, and I introduced myself as Bobby.

She has a smooth confidence about her, like she's been there before. She sort of laughs, and goes, “I know who you are, Bobby. My name is Misty.”

To make things even stranger, they almost had identical last names. At least I wouldn’t have to have worry about saying the wrong name at the wrong time or changing their luggage tag or Christmas card list.

At the time, I was with Misty, and I didn't mess around on her. Misty2 was married, and there was nothing going on between us. We were just good friends who hung out whenever we rolled through town. It was completely innocent.

In June of 2005, the tour got to Texas. Misty2 and I had been keeping in touch over the years. I knew she was going through a divorce, and she knew that Misty and I had split. But, she also knew Misty and I had split before, and then got back together, after a three months separation.

When I saw Misty2 in Dallas at the Smirnoff Amphitheater, I looked at her a little differently. She and a girlfriend picked me up at the hotel, and I was thinking, "Damn. She looks pretty fucking good right now.”

I knew that since she had broken up, things were a little different. We had always been a little flirty. Not even that, just really friendly, but we never crossed the relationship boundaries. Never spoke of it.

Now, the gloves were off, and it was a different world. So, that night after the show in Dallas, I kidnapped her and took her on the bus. I took her to the mall the next day and bought her some clothes, and she went to Oklahoma with me on tour. We did a couple of shows, and then I flew her home. She started coming out, and we were a couple pretty quick.

When I got home from the tour in 2005, I started doing my closing gig again. But, the whole thing with Misty was really fresh, and it was everywhere I looked! Meanwhile, Misty2 was spending more and more time in California, and I was spending more and more time in Texas. It was coming to a place where we had to decide who was going to move, because the relationship had gotten to that point.

I finally decided to sell my house.

I had been looking around in Houston, and discovered something absolutely amazing about Texas. You can buy a huge, mansion of a home for $300,000. I'm talking four thousand square feet on an acre of land. Not only could I sell my place in California and live in a mansion in Texas, buying it outright if I wanted to, I'd still have money enough to start a business.

So, that's what I did.

I moved out to Houston, and bought a forty two hundred square foot home in Cypress, Texas with a giant yard. I loved that place. Cypress is a suburb of Houston, so I was right in a major metropolitan area. It was time to open my recording studio!

I had already met all of Misty2's friends, just in the time I had been hanging out in Houston, and I loved them all. They are a great bunch of people, my Houston crew.

Texas isn't all fun and games, though.

I got another DUI down in Austin, Texas July 6, 2006. Texas cops on a DUI are brutal. Totally lame. It's like that movie, "Smokey and the Bandit", only they don't have Jackie Gleason's comedic timing.

Trust me, Texas cops have NO sense of humor.

I was just leaving the 6th street area, which is the premiere party area in the entire state, and was sitting at a red light in 3 lanes of traffic waiting to get on the freeway.

The cop rode by on a bike, looked at me, and then doubled back. I wasn't wearing my seatbelt, which, in Texas, is the driving equivalent of clubbing baby seals.

I told Misty2, "I'm going to jail, so listen. Here's the checkbook, find a lawyer.”

We'd been on Lake Travis all day, and out playing all night. I know that I shouldn't have been drinking and driving. I know that. But, in all my years of doing it, I've never had a fender bender. Nothing. I'm rock steady behind the wheel.

I've learned from it, to a degree. I just don't drink hard liquor anymore. They took me in, and it was all over the radio the next day. Nice. Really ugly. So, that was another ten grand in legal fees to make that go away.

This time, I didn't keep the weed. There wasn't any.

Somewhere along the way, I had met a guy named Gregg Gill. Gregg had a recording studio at his house, and he invited me over to look at all of it.

I had originally planned to do the studio at my house, because I had all of this expansive room. I had two full rooms set-aside for it. But, Gregg's stuff was pretty cool, and he seemed to really know his stuff. The down side, for him, was that he had a kid, and his place wasn't huge, so running a recording studio out of his home had become a bit of a drag. He had people there all the time, and it was kind of funky. He really wanted to get out and get his own place for the studio. So we started talking about putting something together.

Literally, within two weeks, we were on the drawing board. We had a place on Langfield Road, which was an industrial park there in Houston, and we were going to share the place with another friend named Jeff Diamont.

Jeff was starting an amplification company called Diamond Amps. It was going to be a real cheap date between what Jeff needed, and what we needed. It was a 5000 square foot space, and we had two full studios; Studio A & B. We got an architect to design the place, then had it all built within seven weeks.

We had a full studio, as well as the amp manufacturing facility. I decorated the place, which I have a flair for doing, and the business came out of the box really hot!

I started bringing bands in, and producing. Gregg was doing the mixing and engineering work, and Jeff would push his amps. It was a good combination. The property management company that ran the place gave us a buildup account of $25,000. We spent another $20,000 on top of that, and then I spent another $25,000 on equipment, in addition to the things Gregg already had.

We stocked up on stuff. There was a full, state-of-the-art Pro Tools set-up, and suddenly we were the hot new ticket in town.

Diamond Studios was born.

The first record we recorded at Diamond Studios was my Saints of the Underground record, which I produced, and sounds amazing. My production skills, which I was very proud of, hadn't slipped, and our studio sounded fantastic. I was bringing in bands that were digging it, and I was having a good time with it all. We were making good money, and I love Gregg like a brother. He and his wife, Alison and his child, Stone, were like family to me.

We opened doors in May of 2006. That's how quickly this all went. We had a great summer that year. But, in fairly short order, I started getting this vibe from Gregg. It wasn't really envy, at least I don't think, but it certainly had a dissension to it that I couldn't understand.

We were using my name to attract business, and I was getting paid well to produce records. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe that served as the root of jealousy that started driving the wedge in. At the time, I just chalked it up as growing pains.

I was making between $1500 and $3000 per song to produce. Then, on top of that, I was negotiating the rental fees for the studio, which he and I would split. Gregg might have seen that as double dipping, though he never uttered those words. But, he started getting really short tempered and such. I started feeling really weird when we were working together. I was producing and calling the shots. He was doing the engineer work. There were moments when I would wind up doing some of the writing for these bands; writing parts, and bringing out parts.

Gregg is a great engineer, and is really good to work with. He would sometimes contribute good ideas to the production, as well. The artists really liked him, and like working with him. It was shaping up to be a win / win deal for everyone.

Provided we could work our way past the dissension I was picking up from Gregg.

In late 2006, the RATT reunion started to become a serious consideration.

I was spending a lot of time on the phone with Stephen and Warren, along with our management, trying to get this thing done. This process was a good month and a half of daily phone calls, three or four hours at a time. It just went round and round ... no pun intended.

With Stephen, RATT's tours are doing very well. We're making really great guarantees per show as a band. Without him, we don't make as much. It's the same for him. His solo stuff doesn't go over very well, but with RATT, he's a king again. A twilight king, true, but a king nonetheless.

Simply put, we needed each other, and we all knew it.

RATT isn't RATT without Stephen, and Stephen has a huge hole he's dug for himself that RATT can help him climb out of financially. It was time to let bygones be bygones.

Juan was approached, as well. However, bygones were too much to get past for Juan. He was demanding things that simply couldn't be given. He should have been thanking the forces that be, Stephen, Warren, and myself, that we were even approaching him with this. He hasn't done shit, musically, since RATT broke up way back in 1992. My opinion on it was, "Juan, you want to go out and be a rockstar again? You want to go make some money? Then chill out, cap the ego, and let's go. Just play bass, sing, get along, and reap the rewards of the work we did back then.”

He just kept stringing us along. Finally, I couldn't take anymore. I was like, "Guys, I'm not getting on anymore phone calls. This is the deal. He's getting even money. ONLY. That's all I'm going to offer. He'll get his part of the ownership back, but like with Stephen, we're not going to just give it to him. He has to prove that he's going to be a team player. He's going to get along.”

Of course, Juan proved himself to not be those things before we got into a rehearsal room. THANK GOD! Because, I know how Juan is, and the problems he perpetuates. This thing would have imploded a month into the tour, if it even made it out of the rehearsal rooms.

So we moved ahead without him. We signed with Sanctuary Management, Carl Stubner and Jamie Talbot. They're a respectable management company, who handles Tommy Lee, ZZ Top, Fleetwood Mac, and several others. We signed onto the 2007 Poison tour, which turned into one of the best things we've ever done, and we're working out the details for our 2008 tour.

RATT is back.

RATT doing the Rockline radio show, 2008.

RATT playing Sweden Rockfest in front of 40,000 proper, 2008.

I'm definitely a co-dependent person. A lot of people mistake that as a weakness, but it's not.

My friends always go, "Dude, why don't you just be single for a while? Go out and fuck chicks. Live it up.” But, I don't want that! I've done that before, after I split with Traci, and it just isn't my thing.

I'm the kind of guy who wants to come home, have my chick waiting there for me, watch TV shows (there's a lot of shows I really like), and just be normal for a while. I like having someone to go to movies with. I don't want to be dating and shit. It's not my scene. It's too much hassle.