Tales Of A RATT (31 page)

Kurt Cobain was a talented, tortured poet, but he was no John Lennon.

When I look back now, certain songs will always remind me of certain periods in people’s lives. You can smell and taste where you were when you first heard that song. That's why I listen to the oldies stations, because I was a freak with the radio my whole life. I knew every song. I listened to AM radio, and I love those Sixties tunes. When I hear them, anything from the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties, it immediately takes me back to that period.

That's why bands, not just ours, but all bands from those time periods, are still out touring. People want to be taken back to that.

So, that was that.

RATT broke up in 1992, and walked away until we reformed again in 1997.

The early Nineties became a HUGE wake-up call for me, especially financially. Everyone was out of work! And, not just RATT. I mean EVERYONE who had been a player in the 80s metal scene.

When the band broke up, the phone quit ringing. I wasn't hearing from our management, agents, or other guys in this MULTI-PLATINUM RECORDING BAND! Virtually no one gave the time of day. Suddenly, we didn't seem to matter to the music industry. They didn't care how many records we had sold.

I'd run into my rockstar brethren around town in the various nightclubs, or restaurants. They would all have the exact same look. It was a "deer in the headlights" kind of thing. Everyone was in old-fashioned survivor mode.

"Blotz, can you believe this shit, man? Can you believe what's happening to us? What the fuck is going on?”

It was stomach turning. I had to stop going out, because what was once a lot of fun, was now one of the most depressing things I've ever encountered.

One of the most valuable lessons I could teach about being a rockstar is this; PREPARE! Because, one day the phone stops ringing, and the money dries up. If you are not prepared, it will eat your ass alive!

In very short order, I discovered that I was living WAY beyond my means. Things were going to have to be sacrificed, and I wasn't going to like sacrificing some of those things.

The first to die on the altar of financial burden was the beloved and worshipped "Ramboat".

The thing about Ramboat is that, while she was a good boat, and ran well, I'd be gone for long periods of time, and it would just sit there in the slip. The salt water of the ocean can be incredibly corrosive, and just eats away at the engine parts over time.

If Ramboat just sits there, it's really bad for the motor.

That boat didn't have a fresh water-cooling system, like a car does. You didn't have a radiator and coolant that cools your engine. Ramboat pumped water straight from the sea to cool everything; so salt water had permeated everything in the guts of that boat. I didn't have a means of flushing the system out, unless I was taking the boat out of the water, which is a monumental pain in the ass.

As a result, I was getting a lot of mechanical problems with that boat. At a time where I couldn't be dumping tons of cash into constant maintenance, I was forced to sell her. I was sick of fixing things all the time, anyway.

So, in 1993, I had Ramboat detailed. I had everything working tip-top, so I put the word out. Drew Bombeck and I went golfing one morning, and then planned to spend the rest of the day on the boat down at the marina. I had two guys coming down to check out the boat later in the afternoon.

After our round, we stopped and bought a 12-pack, and headed to the docks.

The first guy came down to look at the boat. He came on board, listened to me fire it up and rev the engine so he could hear how well it was purring. He really loved it. Told me he would get back to me real soon.

I asked him if he wanted to take it for a quick little spin, just outside the breakwall. He turned me down, and said he could tell it ran great.

"Let me get with my wife, and we'll see what we're going to do.”

Okay. No problem. I still had another guy checking it out later in the day.

The next guy shows up an hour later. He's like, "Yeah, this is really nice!” I offered him a beer, which he happily accepted. We're standing there, drinking beer, and talking over every little detail about the boat.

I go, "So, you wanna take it out for a spin?”

It was a beautiful day, with water like polished glass!

He goes, "Yeah! Hell yeah.” So, I pull the boat out of the slip, motor out past the breakwall at the Portofino Marina, and head out into the bay.

All of a sudden, the engine was revving up faster than the boat was moving. Something wasn't right. The engine raced higher, but the boat was actually slowing down. I pulled the throttle back into neutral, and I'm thinking, "Shit. What's wrong with this thing, now?”

I tried to put it back in gear, but the thing wouldn't move.

"Son-of-a-bitch!”

Damn it. I was going to lose the sale. This fucking thing was going to take more cake to fix, which was going to put me further in the hole on the deal. Imagine that!

You wanna know what "BOAT" stands for?

B-REAK, O-UT, A-NOTHER, T-HOUSAND!

I get on the radio to Vessel Assist, which is like AAA on the water. I told them where I was at, and they said they were in Santa Monica at the moment, so it would be a while before they got up there. About two hours later, they show up and tow us in.

It was frustrating. I'd been going on and on all day about how the boat was in pristine condition, and there were no problems with it at all, then it promptly takes a dump in the ocean, miles from the marina, with a potential buyer on board.

I told the guy, "Look, I don't know what this could possibly be, but it will be fixed. Give me a call tomorrow.”

He goes, "Sure. I'll do that.”

I'm thinking, "Shit! No way I’ll hear from him again.” The pisser was, he really liked the boat. I had told him some of the more colorful stories about trips and things, and he was completely into it.

I took Ramboat in, and it cost three grand to get it fixed! I knew it was pointless, but, I called the guy and told him, "Hey, it's running like new. Now you have a brand new outdrive to go with your boat!”

Of course, I was thinking the guy would never want to buy it. But, in a surprising twist of irony, the guy came down, and Ramboat had a new captain.

I bought Ramboat for $65,000, and sold her for $25,000, seven years later.

Much like cars, boats DO NOT hold their value, I'm sad to say. That was the end of Ramboat, although the memories that thing provided will last forever for me and my friends and family.

Thus is the story of the demise of Ramboat.

RATT along with Atlantic Records Staff and Producer Beau Hill (far right) getting platinum awards 1984.

This was the beginning of a very lean time during the Nineties.

I had an intense need to downsize, because my monthly expenses were significant, and it was becoming an issue to juggle everything. I had my mom's mortgage, my mortgage, credit card payments, which is how I paid off the remodel of the house after Stephen quit and the band broke up.

After we finished the "Detonator" tour in September of 1991, I started the remodel, with the knowledge that we would be back in the studio in a few months, and it would be business as usual.

I had budgeted $50,000 for the remodel. But, like a lot of things in life, it quickly escalated. By the time it was over, I had spent $120,000. Some of that overage was put on my credit cards, because I had huge limits on them.

To make this matter worse, when Stephen quit in 1992, we had already taken a big advance on a new record for Atlantic. The advance was for $350,000, half of the $700,000 we were getting per record at that point. But, it was an advance for a record that never got made.

Things like that don't go over too well with record labels.

I spent the first year after the break-up just relaxing and doing recreational stuff. I'd snow ski in the winter, Lake Havasu in the summer, and I golfed a lot. If you figure probably thirty days on the slopes, sixty days on the lake, countless golf rounds...the money was going really quickly.

That was much needed time off, believe me. Everyone was worn down to nothing. We had spent the whole of a decade on a constant, bullet train styled career.

I was tired, man. Dog dead tired.

But, I wasn't getting any calls for any work. No one was. Tired and broke wasn't an option.

After two years, I kept thinking the band would get back together. Meanwhile, I was spending $12,000 a month nut, just to pay my expenses. I was eating through all my money really quickly. Do the math, and after two years, I was hurting pretty bad.

I decided it was time to do something to generate some money, and fast.

So, in November of 1993, I decided I was going to go the entrepreneur route. None of the guys in the band were doing shit. Actually, none of the bands from the 80s were doing shit. Even Guns N Roses were pretty much done by that point.

So, as I sat, anxiously watching my bank account deplete, I decided I needed to explore career alternatives. You know, just in case!

Panic wasn't the exception at that point. It became the norm.

I bought a flower shop in Palos Verdes that my wife Jeni was going to run. It cost $90,000, and did really well, but it wasn't going to be enough to sustain us, should RATT never exist again.

It was a great little business, but you always ran one month behind on your bills vs. receivables. So, you had to keep a constant base of about $40,000 in the bank to operate on and keep things rolling tight. Jeni was good with it.

Funny story. I traded my Paiste gong to a good buddy of mine, Mikkey Dee, the drummer for Motorhead. The gong is a giant cymbal that you put on stage and hit with a mallet. I traded him my gong for this van that he had. We were going to use the van for deliveries for the flower shop. The very first day we had it, Jeni is driving it for a delivery, and the damned thing catches fire. It burnt to the ground.

So, Mickey, you still owe me a gong, ya cunt, ya!

Jeni eventually got sick of the flower shop, and finally sold it. We sold it to some people who defaulted on some of the loan. I had carried part of the note for them, another thing I wouldn't recommend. I wound up having to sue them to get the money, which I did, but it took a really long time to collect.

Thinking back, while I had a lot of jobs early on, the only one that I had for a really long time was a steam cleaning company.

It was a fairly easy, and profitable gig. You'd go into a place, and spend maybe an hour or two, and make a couple of hundred dollars for a three or four bedroom house. I knew it was easy money, especially if you could sell them "extras".

When I used to steam clean, I would sell them Scotch Guard for stain protection; pre-treatment for the carpet to eliminate pet stains; menthol for that "fresh" smell; the whole Canoli. I would go into a $149 job, and walk out with $250 or $300 because of all the extras.

There was an array of different things you could up-sell, most of which was a load of bullshit. Stuff smells good at first, but then wears off in a snap. But, that was the business I was in, and you sell the extras if you want to make any real money.

So, people, the lesson here is to never buy the extras from the steam cleaner.

It was an easy decision that one of the other businesses I was going to start during that 1993 period was a steam cleaning business.

I was looking for existing businesses for sale. Then, I found one out in Lawndale, California. Dan Hartwell, who was a good friend of mine for a long time, owned the company. He had 12 machines, which was much bigger than I was looking for. I was looking for something that would allow me to still golf, ski, go to the lake, but augment my income.

I would always receive my RATT catalogue royalties from my publishing and CD sales. That wasn't going to be enough, in the long run, but it doesn't mean I was looking for a sixty hour a week job. I just wanted something that would pay the bills. My royalties would run around $30,000 to $40,000 a year, and my monthly bills were twelve grand. You do the math. I don't want to think about it.

I wound up not buying the steam cleaner business from Dan, and opened my own, instead. His business was huge, and established. It was a lot to bite off in one shot. He was getting out of steam cleaning all together, telling me, "I'm going into the water damage business. That's where the money is at.”

And, dude, did he know what he was talking about, or what?

Dan is this millionaire several times over. He owns "Emergency Service", specializing in water damage, and it's going balls to the wall. He's all over the place, now; San Diego, Frisco, Arizona, now he's moving into Texas. They're everywhere! He's really got this keen business savvy. The guys probably making a couple of million a month.

Dan's son was in a band with the son of another friend of mine, Shawn Brown. The boys were good kids, and for a while, I worked with them, showing some of the business ropes, and tweaking their musical style a bit.

They came to my studio at the house and recorded some stuff.