Tales Of A RATT (25 page)

He goes, "I am never drinking with you again!”

"Yeah! I'm the bad influence in this. You're the one who drinks tequila, bro. I was drinking tequila with YOU! That shit was YOUR fault.”

So, we had a big laugh about that. Then, all matter-of-factly, he goes, "Hey, I'll be right back. I've got to go up there and jam with these guys.”

The bastard! Go ahead and rub my face in it!

About ten minutes later, Steven Tyler is bringing him out on stage to jam.

These are the ways and days that we lived at that time. Life was a fairy tale, written by the Brothers Grimm!

There's really not much to talk about on the Dancing Undercover tour. It was just another tour. We had a good time, with Cheap Trick and Poison opening for us. There's some good friendships from that tour, but while it was well attended, it was becoming mundane. It was our life; almost our entire life. We set them up with a huge stage, a giant lighting truss and all the bells and whistles, but, we had been crushed under touring and recording.

We were numb.

After Dancing Undercover, we made a point with management. DO NOT BOOK A THING! NOTHING! WE WILL TELL YOU WHEN WE ARE READY! After the deposit fiasco at the studio for the Dancing Undercover record, we weren't going to deal with that again. That's why that album was so forced. That's why it doesn't really fit with the rest of RATT's catalogue. We had to throw it together overnight because our dumb-ass manager dropped a giant deposit on a studio. We were nowhere near being ready.

This band is not a band that writes well on a tour. I don't know why that is, but it is. Warren has to sleep during the day, because he stays up all night on the bus. On the road, it's always, "Oh, my head's not in the right place to write.” That makes no sense to me. Get your head on straight. Let's get on it, and make shit happen. We could bring a studio on the road. We could be totally self-contained. Again, artist VS. businessman. It's a volatile combination. I don't understand why it can't happen, but it doesn't with these guys. I don't push it.

The next album was "Reach for the Sky," and it was the same old same. RATT was slowly spiraling down. We went to a new producer, thinking that would cure our woes. Mike Stone had worked with Queen and Journey, and a bunch of others. He, unfortunately, had a pretty bad alcohol problem, but he was still getting really good sounds in the studio. But, Stephen did the same thing again. He took these songs and wrote some really weak lyrics.

When we finally heard what he did, we were in shock! We were in trouble. The situation was bad enough that Atlantic made us go back and rewrite it all, with Beau Hill taking over the production helm. Stephen had no choice. For once, it wasn't the band criticizing him. I'm sure he felt like the whole world was ganging up on him, and it was, to a sense. But when Doug Morris, the president of Atlantic tells you that your work isn't good, so do something, you do it, or you likely won't get a chance to do it again.

Around 1989, I built a studio in my house, and started working up my own material to bring in for the "Reach For The Sky" record. There were a handful of ideas I brought in. But, it's hard when you have those four guys writing songs. First off, there's a greed factor involved.

Originally, the band split everything five ways. That's the way it stayed until 1984, when the other four guys got together and voted my split of the writers share out. From that point on, we split all publishing five ways, but publishing would only account for 50%. The remaining 50% was the "writer's share".

I'd do a ton of arranging on the songs. I've got a gift for arrangement. We'd all contribute to that, but there was never any writing credit for working up the music.

Warren would be against it from the start. "That's an arrangement. Not writing.” But, when you write the song out on a chart and compare it to what it was before the "arranging", clearly my parts are in there, contributing to the writing of the song.

It's a sore spot, especially for me.

They didn't consider me a writer, and I had no say in the matter. That's the bitch about a democracy. You can get ganged up on. They didn't want to split up that song writing pie, and from that point on, I made half of what everyone else in the band made.

For my part, I just wanted to make records I could be proud of. I'm not saying our stuff was getting bad. It wasn't, but when you've got to look for reasons to like something, it usually means it's not good enough. In 1989, I had to look for reasons to like what RATT was doing.

We did what we were told, and "Reach For The Sky" was completed. The only problem was, we still didn't have a good single on it. Nothing that was radio friendly, with a great hook.

At the last minute, "Way Cool Jr." was brought in and worked up off a riff that Warren had been fooling around with. It was a song we had worked on before, but it hadn't gone on the record. Beau heard the riff and got onboard with Stephen and Robbin writing the lyrics. We had our single.

The "Reach For the Sky" tour consisted of us, Kix and Brittney Fox. When that tour wrapped, we got into working with Desmond Child on writing. During the writing sessions, he quickly saw the dysfunction in this band. Helen Keller could have picked up on that! It was really a hard time, creatively. Stephen can be hard to work with, especially when he isn't happy. And, Stephen hadn't been happy in a long time.

It became impossible to get things done. Add to it the fact that the rest of us were developing some serious burn out issues, and our personalities were starting to reflect that. You can do the math. RATT was on life support.

Once we got famous, Stephen had his own dressing room on tour, while we were all in another dressing room. It turned into an "us against him" sort of thing. Lead singers, man. They call it "L.S.D.” "Lead Singer Disease.” They are a breed, almost without exception. Singers are not normal people. And, in truth, they can't be. It takes something beyond the normal thought process to stand in front of a crowd of people and perform with only your voice.

There are exceptions to this, though rare. Sammy Hagar is an exception, but then Sammy is a guitarist as much as a singer. He's got a good balance. But the others...

Our recording process changed significantly over the course of those first five records. When we put out the first EP, with Liam Sternberg producing, he really didn't do what most producers do. He would tell us that we sounded great, and he might make a tiny suggestion here or there, but he wasn't anything like Beau Hill. We already had the arrangements for the music. I don't remember him contributing anything there.

But, with Beau, it was completely different. He would have everything all charted out. He was just way more meticulous. You know? Making sure every bass drum pattern was the same. Just way more attention to detail.

With the EP, we did it all in two weeks. "Out of the Cellar" took two months. Originally, when we would record, it was me, Juan, Robbin and Warren, just working out trying to get a drum track. Once you had the drum track, you would go back, and set everything up in the room to do real guitar tracks.

It was just easier that way. In that studio on the EP, there wasn't really isolation rooms for the guitars. It was just a wide open space. There was just the iso-room for vocals. So, they would plug into the board and I could hear them for the parts. We did that for "Out of the Cellar," too.

On the Invasion album, I started playing alone. It was a lot faster, and I was just really good at remembering arrangements with no one else playing. Just me and a click track.

Beau Hill loved it. So did I. I was in and out of the studio in a week, and my work on the album would be done! It was great. It was days less of having to stop and restart because someone fucked up a part, or the groove wasn't working, or some shit like that.

Once I was done, I was done. I didn't have to come back in to record. Everything was built off of what I had done in the first week. I would drop by once in a while to listen, usually when I was heading uptown or during the day if I was bored. But, I'd just hang back and listen to whatever was going on. I had no responsibilities at that point. It was great.

I recorded in that manner all the way up until "Detonator.” On Detonator, we all went in and tracked together. That album was a lot more about trying to spark some unity with the band. We all saw what was coming, but I don't think anyone knew how to stop it. Try as we might, I think the damage had been done.

Then on "Detonator", I had a lot of good ideas. Desmond Child saw that and wanted to do some of the tunes. "One Step Away" was going to be a single, and that's my song. Unfortunately, it never got to the stage. The times hurt us to the point that it never got off the ground. It was all about grunge. Radio wouldn't play anything but grunge, and 80s metal was brutally shoved to the wayside. Our fans were all still out there, and eager for bands to keep recording, but the radio stations abandoned us. The Seattle sound was the only thing getting play, so "Detonator" struggled as a result.

With Detonator, I brought my studio out to rehearsal, and we demoed all of that album at the rehearsals, with Desmond Child and Sir Arthur Payson. Sir Arthur Payson was this kooky New York engineer that Desmond made us use. And then we had Mike Shipley do the mix. Shipley had done AC/DC and Leppard and a lot of huge bands.

I like "Detonator.” I loved the drum sound and think it's a kick ass record. Although, some of the others didn't seem to be into it. Especially Robbin, but by that time, Robbin's activity outside the band was catching up to him.

So, before "Detonator," I would wind up with tons of time on my hands during the recording of a new album. And, I'd do wacky shit.

I became the king of the giant impulse buy. I was a rockstar with money and time on his hands who didn't have a major drug problem. It's an interesting combination, because when you have time AND money, I guarantee you will discover your vices.

I was living the life, man. We were recording, finishing tours, I bought a Porsche, boat, koi pond, waterfall, just spending money. It was cool. But, in hindsight, I would definitely have managed my money a lot better, because it would come back and bite me in the ass, big time.

We made a lot of money in RATT. Over the course of my career with RATT, I've probably made over $3 million with them. Now, mind you that in the 80s, for every dollar I made, my accountant would take out $.55. That was a 50% tax bracket era. If you made that much money at that time, you paid 50% to the government. After your tax write-offs and everything, you probably walked out paying 35%.

I just remember getting checks in the mail, and having to send half to my accountant. Then, at the end of the year, you'd get back whatever was left over, and we'd start the whole thing over the next year.

But, to keep it in perspective, take that three million dollars and average it out over twenty years. After taxes, it isn't really that much. It's weird. We never really had a consistent, predictable income. I think the biggest check I ever got was $450,000.

That was a crazy day. My friend Tom Gonzalez, who I had moved in with when my family broke up in 1975, was at the house the day that check arrived. He was over, just hanging out, when a messenger showed up at the house with a package. I signed for it, opened it, and it was a check for $450,000. I showed it to him, and he just about fell over.

Here was a guy that I had hung out with all through my formative years. As a kid, and a young adult. Not so much after RATT, because I was just always on the road, in another world. But, I can remember the two of us being starving guys, going out in 1977 looking for a job. Getting dressed up and going "We gotta get a job!” It was insane. He sees that kind of thing, and simply can't believe it.

We had six guys in the pot when it came to money; the five in the band, and Marshall Berle. Our budgets on tours were in the neighborhood of $130,000 per week. Now days, that money would probably be around $250,000 or even $300,000, I don't know. We used to have to work for three days in a week, just to pay for the production costs. There was a crew of 48 guys; 5 semis; 4 tour busses; it was a massive, expensive thing.

While we made a lot of money, and came home with a lot of money, it wasn't like when Mötley hit it in 1990 on the Dr. Feelgood tour, and were selling out multiple nights at arenas. That's when you're doing it. When you have a record that sells 5 million and you do multiple nights at an arena, you don't have to worry as much about set-up costs and travel expenses. You go home, and you have millions of dollars in your bank account. I had hundreds of thousands at all times, but never millions. I've never had, at one time, $1.3 million cash sitting in the bank. But, I'm proud of what we did. It would have been nice to have that, for sure. But, not very many people were at that level. Very few guys were in that echelon. Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard. That was about it.

For some reason, I always judged our success against the guys in Motley. They were my litmus test. They always had about 20%-25% more success than we did. That's how I always looked at it; the number of records they sold; what they did in arenas; all of that, tended to be about a quarter more than what we would do. And, it was that way, pretty much until Feelgood happened. That record was a behemoth for them. That's when they all got into the mansion era.

It was odd to look at it, but when we started out, RATT and Mötley were pretty much equals. Over the years, we watched the gap slowly widen. It was confusing at first, but the older I got, the more I understood it.

Nikki pretty much ran the show in Mötley Crüe. He was the driving force that kept them moving. So, when it came to decision-making, there was only one real factor. Nikki Sixx. For RATT, we had five decision makers, all with different visions, and different drives. Too many cooks spoil the pot, right?

RATT was a democracy, but a flawed democracy. Mötley was a dictatorship. It allowed Mötley to surge higher than the rest of us. Dr. Feelgood blew the roof off for Mötley Crüe.