Stairway To Heaven (40 page)

The tour with Lita was strange because for the first time in many years I was not with the headline band (Lita supported an old friend, Ted Nugent, for part of her tour). But at least I was working and I was very grateful for the job. Times had changed in other ways, too. There was no trashing of hotels and dressing rooms—it just wasn't tolerated anymore. With Zeppelin, I knew from the beginning that the band would become one of the greatest ever, and would never have to visit the small venues and clubs where we started, so I never worried about having to return to places that we had razed and ruined. But with Lita and other acts with whom I soon worked, it seemed sensible to keep on the good side of promoters. At the same time, because I was now sober my ego was not out of control, so it really didn't matter to me that we weren't staying in the best hotels and the fanciest suites in town. Frankly, in 1988—so many years after Led Zeppelin's last concert—it was enough of a treat just to be out on the road again.

Meanwhile, Sharon turned out to be one of the best managers in the business, providing the show contracts and then letting me get on with the job without any interference. Since my last U.S. tour with Zeppelin, however, there had been dramatic changes in the music industry. MTV had become a powerful vehicle for selling records, replacing much of the constant touring of the sixties and seventies that (along with radio promotion) was necessary to build up a fan base.

Midway through Lita's tour, her album turned gold, and its hit single, “Kiss Me Deadly,” was flooding the airwaves from coast to coast. But unexpectedly, the tour ended abruptly for me. Two days after returning from a concert in
Montreal, Sharon told me that Lita no longer wanted me as tour manager. The reason? Lita claimed that I was too strict to work with. But Sharon assured me that the dismissal had nothing to do with the quality of my work, and that she would help me whenever she could.

 

I was crushed by this unexpected news, and I wasn't sure what my next move would be. But while I pondered my future, I needed a job—and went back to life on the seat of a motorcycle, delivering messages to pay the bills. Before my despair became too intense, however, Sharon called again.

“Ozzy really wants to get sober,” she said. “He asked me if you would fly to London to hang out with him, keep him company, and go with him on his European press tour to promote his new record.” She also wanted me to accompany Ozzy on his American tour down the road.

I was thrilled. It was like being catapulted out of a deep, black hole.

A few days later, Ozzy and his driver, Tony, picked me up at Heathrow Airport in London, and we drove to his beautiful house tucked away behind a high brick wall in the Buckinghamshire countryside. Tony showed me to my room, which had a lovely view of the manicured gardens and the Osbournes' private deer park in the distance. Then we enjoyed a delicious lunch of roast lamb and baked potatoes.

I spent several months working out of Ozzy's home, flying from London to various cities throughout Europe to escort him to press interviews—and attending sobriety meetings with him. Ozzy seemed to be enjoying his new sober life, and I was certainly enjoying working for him.

Before long, Sharon joined us in London (their children were already there with Ozzy). It was a chance for their family to spend time together before we had to return to the States to rehearse for Ozzy's 1988 American tour. When Ozzy and I finally flew to Dallas for a week of rehearsals, he was still committed to staying sober. Every afternoon, just before the rehearsal began, we would attend a sobriety meeting together to put us in the proper mindset for the day. When the week was over, we headed for Pensacola for the opening date on the tour.

That Florida concert was the first time I had ever seen Ozzy perform—and he was quite a showman. His music was masterful. He exploded with energy. He put on an unforgettable concert. He gave the audience everything he had, from the opening moments to the closing number.

We traveled by bus—a new Prevost with nine bunks and elbow room to spare, particularly since the only occupants on the bus were Ozzy, Tony, and me (plus Sharon and the children when they spent a few days with us). Again, this style of touring was different than the Zeppelin days, when we would
place our food orders with the pilot of our plane before each show. But on Ozzy's tour, the wardrobe girl would give us a selection of menus to order from, and then the food was waiting for us on the bus as we rode through the night from one city to the next. It actually worked out fine, except that Ozzy and I often ate out of boredom—by the end of the first week, neither of us could zip up our pants, thanks to the weight we had gained. Those extra pounds didn't sit well with Ozzy, and he ordered a Lifecycle (and some barbells) to be placed in his dressing room throughout the rest of the tour. He exercised conscientiously, and dropped the weight in no time. We also canceled the postconcert meals, and he adopted a low-calorie, low-fat diet that kept him slim.

When we arrived in Los Angeles for a New Year's Eve show at Long Beach Arena, I was able to see Claire and Lea Anne, with whom I had not been able to spend time since starting to work with Ozzy four months earlier. I attended plenty of sobriety meetings during those days in L.A., leading and speaking at some of them, and going to sleep clean and drug-free each night. My continuing sobriety was the best holiday present I could have given myself.

Ozzy's tour resumed after the Long Beach concert, taking us to Houston, Shreveport, Dallas, Kansas City, Albuquerque, and San Francisco. When we hit Reno, Ozzy put a silver dollar in a slot machine, and won a $1,000 jackpot. I hoped that was an omen of good things to come, but in Seattle, all the traveling seemed to be taking a toll on Ozzy, and he appeared exhausted. He somehow got through shows in Seattle and then Salt Lake City, but by that point, he was too worn out and sick to carry on. A doctor examined him, and advised Sharon to reschedule the remaining dates, which she did. Ozzy flew to London to recuperate, and I headed back to Los Angeles—and called Marcus to get my messenger job back.

 

When I wasn't on the seat of a motorcycle weaving through L.A.'s traffic to deliver one envelope or another, I spent as much time as possible in the gym and on the beach—and at sobriety meetings. By mid-1989, I got a gig with Three Dog Night, serving as the group's tour manager through the end of the year. By that point in the band's evolution, there were only two vocalists, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton, but their sound was still there. In the Zeppelin days, we had actually done a couple shows with Three Dog Night, so they weren't altogether unfamiliar to me. At one time, in fact, Danny was Jimmy Page's first choice for the singer for Zeppelin, before Jimmy finally found and settled on Robert Plant.

I returned to L.A. just before Christmas to enjoy a bit of time off. But on my way back from Warner Brothers Studios, where I had met with a friend
who wanted to become sober, the unthinkable happened. While riding my motorcycle home, a car speeding in the opposite direction veered into my lane, heading straight at me. I didn't even have time to panic, but instinctively managed to turn my bike to the right, although not fast enough to avoid a collision. The car hit me full force on the left side of my bike, turning both me and the motorcycle into airborne projectiles. The bike and I soared twelve feet before hitting the road, and then I flew another eight feet as my bike split in half nearby. A witness who watched the violent accident told me she couldn't believe that I had survived.

Fortunately, I never lost consciousness. I remember opening my eyes and carefully moving my body to see if all my limbs were intact. Amazingly, although I was wearing only jeans, tennis shoes, and a leather jacket (with no helmet), I had no broken bones or head injuries. But I was terribly battered and bruised, and shaken badly. When an ambulance arrived, it shuttled me to Santa Monica Hospital, and because I complained of pain in my right foot, they took X rays, which revealed that I had a broken toe. The motorcycle didn't fare as well. It was a total loss. In fact, the tow truck driver who picked up the pieces of the bike was stunned to learn that I was alive and not on my way to the morgue.

I considered myself very blessed to have survived. When I left the hospital that night, I limped to a sobriety meeting to count my blessings. Meanwhile, Lea Anne had to fly to Oregon to see her ailing grandmother, and Claire and I decided to spend some time together in Santa Barbara, where I was able to spoil her a little and celebrate the Christmas season with my precious daughter—while also letting my wounded body heal a little.

 

More than a year later, in February 1990, I returned to working for Ozzy. With Sharon spending time in her London office, I moved into Ozzy's home in the hills of Los Angeles for a couple of months, keeping him company while he wrote and began recording his next album. Shortly thereafter, Sharon asked me to take over as tour manager for her new band, the London Quireboys, who were starting an American (and then a world) tour in mid-May that would last until the end of the year.

I didn't know much about the London Quireboys, except that they had been quite successful everywhere in the world except the U.S. I had heard that they were a wild bunch, and frankly, I was a little uneasy about touring with a band who liked a drink now and then. By this point, I had four years of sobriety under my belt, and remaining sober was my highest priority in life.

There was plenty to organize for the London Quireboys tour (we used two buses and a tractor trailer in the U.S. leg). When I finally flew to Daytona
Beach for the opening concert, I was in for a pleasant surprise. As I mentioned in chapter 57, touring with the London Quireboys turned out to be a joyous experience. Yes, the band members could drink in amounts that were reminiscent of my own boozing in previous times (our bus carried enough alcohol to stock a large nightclub!). And they loved to chase the girls. But I earned their trust and respect, they followed my instructions, and the tour went off with very few hitches.

The only time the band and I were at odds was one night when I became concerned that the rigors of touring might be pushing them to the brink of exhaustion. I knew they had to be in top shape for a pending flight to London, where they were scheduled to play in a huge outdoor festival with the Rolling Stones at the Newcastle football stadium. For the guys, it was the dream of a lifetime, and I was determined not to let them sabotage it. So to help preserve their health, I poured out all the hard liquor that they had accumulated. While the bus was parked, I dumped bottle after bottle down a nearby drain. Midway through the process, two of the band members, Spike and Guy, saw what I was doing, and went berserk.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Spike shouted. “Have you gone nuts?”

The booze continued to flow down the drain, which was more than they could handle. They were absolutely livid, and I was becoming a bit concerned.

Finally, to calm them down I suggested, “Why don't you call Sharon and tell her what I've done?”

They had fire in their eyes, but my comment silenced them. They knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to complain to or mess with Sharon, so they dropped their heads, turned, and walked back to their hotel rooms. All the while, they muttered obscenities about me under their breath.

 

More than 50,000 people attended the outdoor concert with the Rolling Stones. Since I knew the Stones and their security, I arranged for the Quireboys to meet Mick Jagger and pose for pictures with him. The boys said it was one of the most exciting days of their lives.

From England, the Quireboys headed back to the States, then on to Canada, and finally to Europe, Japan, and back to the U.S. But just three days after returning to the States for a concert in Houston, Capitol Records unexpectedly pulled the plug on its support of the tour. Instantly, the remaining concert dates on the U.S. itinerary had been canceled.

The band members were heartbroken, and I wasn't feeling too good myself. But all was not lost. The Quireboys had already earned a gold record in Canada, and their record company there was convinced that additional touring north of the border could turn the album platinum. So two weeks later we
flew to Toronto for a series of concerts, including one on Victoria Island in a club that I had last played with the New Vaudeville Band in 1968, long before McDonald's was a prominent feature on the picturesque island. Sure enough, before leaving Canada the band picked up its platinum record in Vancouver, where Sharon had flown to see the last concert of the tour.

After I returned home, I received photographs taken at the platinum record presentation in Vancouver. I placed those photos next to the pictures taken at the band's gold record presentation six months earlier, and I could see just how much wear and tear all the touring had caused us. We all looked like we had aged a few years—a moving testament to just how brutal touring can be.

 

When Sharon and Ozzy decided to travel to Switzerland for Christmas, they invited me to spend the holidays in their rented home in the Beverly Glen section of Los Angeles. It was a wonderful Christmas present, and with Sharon's permission, I threw a party for all my sober friends to celebrate my five years of sobriety. I also celebrated the holidays with Claire, buying the biggest Christmas tree I could find and decorating it with her help.

 

Once I had moved out of Ozzy's home in early 1991, I rented my own apartment in Venice. I didn't have much music memorabilia left to decorate the walls—about a dozen gold and platinum records from Led Zeppelin, a few original Yardbirds and Zeppelin posters, and a couple of photographs—but it was a start and I was excited about having a new apartment. Work was scarce for a few months, and I began to write this book. Then I was hired to tour with a New York band, The Throbs, in the U.S. and England for six weeks, and in 1992 I watched over Alice in Chains for Columbia Records as the band's companion during the recording of a new album. Next, my phone rang to go on the road with Eden, a band whose members included a son of Frankie Avalon and an offspring of one of the Everly Brothers. Eden was a new act on Hollywood Records, and the tour's small budget forced a lot of cutting corners. But at about that time, I had decided to move my career in a new direction—into music management—and with Claire in private school, the Eden tour was an opportunity to add a few dollars to my bank account.