Tales Of A RATT (28 page)

So, Matthias gets in his rental car and comes in. We decide to go to Newport. It's Matthias, my brother Michael, my dog, Gemstone, and me.

Matthias gets there just before sunset. So, we had this incredible sunset to drive through. I had the top down on the boat. There was a canvas top with fiberglass sides that would pop up or down as a whole system, so you could be open to the sky, or enclose the boat if weather was bad, or you were storing it or something.

But, it was summer. So, I unzipped the top and rolled back the three-foot wide section directly above the helm, so I could stand up if I needed.

We go to dinner at Newport, and have a ton of cocktails. We're telling stories and laughing our ass off the whole time. Just having a ball. That's how it always was on the boat trips. Beer, stories and laughing our asses off.

So, we're driving out there, and there's flying fish everywhere. They're a seasonal fish, so they only come around once a year. And, I'm like, "Woah! Did you see that flying fish?” Matthias is looking at me all perplexed.

He says in his dense German accent, "Vlying vish? Vhat do you mean? Vish do not vly!”

I'm like, "Matthias, you mean to tell me you've never heard of a flying fish?” And, you can tell he absolutely doesn't believe me.

"Come on, man. Vish dat vucking vly?”

So, I'm laughing, and the more I laugh, the less he believes in flying fish.

Finally, I'm like, "Bro, do me a favor. Just stare out over the water. Just for a little bit. I'm sure you'll see one.” You see them every 20 minutes. I do, anyway, because I'm looking for them.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Matthias sees one, and he is just blown away! It is a complete trip when you first see one. Because, they'll come up about 20' from the edge of the boat. They'll come up out of the water, with you going at 20-25 miles an hour. These damned fish are flying parallel to you for 100' or more! They pop up, cruise next to you, and then dive back down. With them matching your speed, you can see; IT'S A FUCKING FISH! AND IT'S FLYING!

It's completely bizarre. I trip on it. I still trip on it when I see them. They are amazing.

On the way home, Matthias and I are talking about everything on the planet. Michael is sitting in the seats behind us with my dog Gem. It's nighttime, and I've got all my running lights on; my interior lights, and the deck lights. It's beautiful out. Amazing trip. The boat at night looks bitchin', all lit up.

All of a sudden, Michael loses his fucking mind!

He screams, "Jesus Christ, man!”

My gut reaction was to immediately grab the throttle and pull it back. I whipped around and was like, "What the fuck?!? You scared the shit out of me! What the fuck is up?”

He's like, "Didn't you see that fucking flying fish fly between your guys heads, Bobby?!?”

Matthias and I were sitting on the bench at the helm. Maybe two feet apart. There's no way, right? I go, "Dude, there's no fish that flew…”

"Fuck that. Look!”

And, sure enough, there's a flying fish lying on the deck. It's about the size of a bonita, and has wings. It keeps buzzing around and shit. Gemstone, my lab, is losing her mind barking at the thing. It completely freaked us out.

Matthias looks like he just saw a ghost.

Michael goes, "That thing just flew right between your heads. I don't know how you could have missed it.”

I gathered the thing up, and we tripped on it a second or two before I put it back out in the water. I didn't want to hurt it or anything.

Had that fish hit one of us, we would have been fucked. As fast as I was going, and that fish coming head first at us, that would have made that fish going like 40 miles an hour. It could've killed one of us. It was so fast, we never saw it go between us. I thought for a while that it might have gone over us, but Michael swears he saw it pass right between us.

Matthias was playing at the LA Coliseum the next day and, I was going to go see them. So, we get back to may place, and we're just completely jazzed from the trip. We played guitars, drums and jammed all night. I had my friend Brit come over with some blow. Needless to say, we were wired! Before we knew it, it was getting blue outside. The sun was coming up.

I'm like "Matthias, bro, you've got a gig in a few hours.” They were playing Monsters of Rock and it was a day gig, at that. Those festival shows can get you going pretty early. One o'clock most of the time. So, I got him out of there. We're still drunk and krelled out, and he gets in his car, and is off to his hotel.

I got out on the street, and it's alive with birds chirping with a perfect morning about to happen. I've never had such a "Oh, fuck, It's morning" moment in my life. I'm blazing on coke. There's no way ... no way I'm getting to sleep! And, I'm supposed to go to the show.

It wasn’t happening. I crashed around 1:00 or 2:00, and I couldn't get up. I had planned to be there when it started, because I wanted to catch all the bands and shit. Matthias gave me four tickets and passes, and I was going to go. It was terrible. I no-showed my bro.

I talked to him later, and he was like "Bobby, you should have fucking made it, man. It was great. It was tough as fuck at first, but then it was huge!” He was all up and jazzing on the day.

I'm all, "Matthias, I couldn't move. I couldn't sleep.”

He's like, "Yeah, me neither.” But he was in tour mode, and you can do that sort of shit in tour mode. You have an extra battery, or something. I was in home mode, and I just couldn't make myself move. That was that.

Enter, Jack Russell!

Jack Russell is the singer for Great White had been on Ramboat a ton, and completely loved it. He really wanted one. I brokered a deal between a guy named Wolfgang, who owned a boat down at the Marina and wanted to sell it, and Jack.

I had talked to Jack, and said, "I know a guy who's selling his boat, out at the marina. It's expensive, but what are you wanting?”

"I want the whole fucking deal!” He wanted something bigger than mine. Fishing, the whole thing.

Mine was big, but not like his. With mine, you walked down into the cabin through some L-shaped stairs, and there was a kitchen, bathroom, and a couple of bedrooms. That kind of thing. Jack's boat, you walked through sliding glass doors into a huge living room, and then you walked down into the cabin from there. It was quite a bit bigger.

Jack was a certified nut on his boat. He'd be up for days at a time, drunk, on coke and fishing. Days at a time. I remember he called me up one time, and went, "Dude, I'm going fishing. You gotta come out. I'm on compass heading 160 going southwest, just go about 10 miles out from the Palos Verdes point and call me.”

Barry Edison, a friend of mine from Phoenix, came in to visit. When I met Barry, he was a security guy at one of our gigs. We're still friends to this day. I look at Barry, and say, "We're going out on the boat. We're gonna go meet Jack. Get your shit.”

We took the boat out there at night. We had the radio, and we'd talked about what channel to look for each other on. Channel 11 was the Coast Guard, so we always went 1 channel up. Channel 12. I called him. "Jack! We're on our way. Be looking for us.”

It took us a little time to get there, what with it being 10 miles out from the point and all. It wasn't foggy, or anything, I just couldn't spot his lights. Finally, we see them, and it's absolutely crazy. He's out there partying with all these guys.

They're "fishing.”

They've got shotguns out and are shooting sharks with them! That's right. The crazy bastards were fishing for sharks with shotguns. Jack is a fucking freak!

He's the kind of guy who would take the bait and just chew into it to get a reaction out of somebody. He'd pick up a piece of squid and stick it in his mouth. Then just laugh the funniest fucking laugh in the world.

That night, the swells were rocking the boats a bit. Too much to tie the boats together without damaging them. So, I dropped the anchor and tied a long line off to Jack's boat. It was far enough away that my boat wouldn't bang into his, but we could pull it in if we needed to.

And Barry, God bless him. We had been drinking all day, and he was hurting. I'm like "Barry, you gonna go on Jack's boat?”

He's all, "Not right now, buddy. I think I'm just gonna hang here for a bit. I'm really buzzing.”

"You sure? Alright. I'm gonna go over. Give me a yell if you need anything.”

Jack was a complete train wreck that night! He was blasting away with this hand-howitzer of his.

Finally, I'm like, "Bro, put the fucking shotgun away. Do it, or I'm splitting.” I could tell he had been up for God knows, and he wasn't quite all there. I've partied with the guy for years. I know the guy. This wasn't the time to have the shotgun out!

He's just laughing his goofy laugh, and puts it away.

After that, we were cool, and the party continued. Barry is still sitting on my boat. He's sitting at the helm, with his back to us, and he's kind of slumped over.

Jack's like, "Dude, Bobby, what's up with your boy? Is he coming over, or what?” Then he yells out to Barry, "Hey, dude! Fucking get over here and party! You're missing it!”

It was weird. He wouldn't look at us. Finally, I'm like "Barry! What's up? You okay?”

All he would do is just wave his hand in the air. But he wouldn't turn around. What the hell is he doing? Then I noticed him slumped, so I went down and started pulling my boat in to check on him.

I get him in, and I could tell he was in trouble. I'm like, "Barry? You're turning green, dude.”

He goes "I'm sea-sick, dude. Bad.” Then it hits me. This guy lives in the damned desert. This has to be a new experience, or at least an uncommon one. And now, he's going to puke all over my boat.

I'm like, "Oh, shit. Okay, man. Hang in there.”

He was a ghost; as pasty white as I've ever seen another person be. So I looked at Jack and said, "I gotta get him back, dude. I gotta go.”

So, we split. Barry didn't get sick on the 10 mile ride back to the mainland, but when we got in, he let go all over the place. He said he was still sick a week later! He could still feel the rocking of the ocean a month later, he told me.

I knew what he was talking about. I would go out on the boat for four or five days at a time. You'd sleep with that rocking motion, or cook dinner, or fish. Whatever you did, you'd be rocking back and forth. So, when you got home, or were up in Catalina playing golf at Avalon, you'd still feel yourself rocking back and forth. It's a trip.

My boat was certainly one of the "blessings" from RATT. I loved that thing. Every time I went out on it, there was a new memory, a new story to tell. It was great.

I couldn't help but to flash on the possibility, though. Particularly some of the grim possibilities, of what would happen is something had gone wrong on one of those Catalina trips.

Take, for instance, the trip with Tommy, Steve and Phil. I mean, the three bands with members on that boat, at that time represented probably 70% of the hard rock music industry profits.

I couldn't help but ponder, "If we go down, how much publicity would that bring to the bands?” Not that anyone would have died, or anything. But, what kind of story would that have been? If something HAD happened, and we went down, it would have been Buddy Holly, Richie Valenz, Big Bopper kind of shit.

You're talking three of the top five bands at the time! It was huge.

There was a clique within the docks down at Redondo, composed of people who lived on their boats down there. They felt that even though we all paid the same amount of money in slip rental, that they had some kind of superiority to the rest of us because they live down there. Not all of them, but it's definitely there.

One day, I had some friends down. We were out all day, having a great, great time. We get back and there's a bar at the marina. So, we go in and have a few drinks, put the boat away, just winding down a good day.

As we're in the bar, we look out. The sun is sliding toward the horizon, and it's just unbelievable, too good to not get back on the boat and just drive right into the mouth of it.

We get in the boat and go back out. When we were in the bar, people knew who I was. They knew I was in a big band, and the RATT thing was buzzing around all over the bar. This is where being famous as a rocker doesn't help. You could call it one of the "curse" moments.

Someone in the bar called the harbor patrol on us, and told them we were all in the bar drinking. We were all drunk, and we just went back out on the boat. So, after the sunset, we were pulling back into the slip, and the Redondo cops were standing there waiting on us. They were waving us back in.

I stop the boat, and I'm like, "What's up?”

They're going, "Bring the boat in. Bring it in right now!”

"I'm not saying I won't do it, but I'm just curious as to why?” The whole thing was confusing to me.

"Get the boat in here, right now!” It was obvious that they weren't interested in a Q&A period.

As soon as I went in, they gave me the sobriety test, which I failed. I got popped and had to go down with them. I had to go to jail. It wasn't a DUI, on the water, like it is now, but, it was similar to that. I forget what the thing was called. I told the cops, "I'm getting out of this,” and, I did. I got a lawyer and it cost me a chunk, but I walked without so much as a slap on the wrist.

They didn't go on my boat, thank God! Because, when I went down the next day to pick it up, one of my friends had spread out weed all over the table. I was like, "Oh, my God! If they searched this thing? Fuck!”

I can't believe they didn't go down in the cabin, and at that point, they knew who I was. They were talking about RATT, and about Vince Neil and the wreck, he had down there on the Esplanade in Redondo where Razzle from Hanoi Rocks died. So, to them, I was a scumbag rockstar who thought he was better than the world. So, fuck me, right? I still can't believe they didn't search the boat!

...of course, I kept the weed...

If I've ever had an addiction to anything, it's to this crazy, frustrating, humbling game called golf.