Tales Of A RATT (30 page)

“Who?”

He’s like, “Take a guess.”

“Barney Fife! I don’t know. Who?”

He goes, “Dude, O.J. Simpson in warming up. He waiting to get out. He wants to play the course today.”

I’m blown away. “What?!? O.J. is going to play Los Verdes?”

I jump into my golf cart and run over there, just to get a glimpse at the animal, you know? Sure enough. There he is. The Butcher of Brentwood, in the flesh, warming up on the putting green, with his other three, class-act standouts that make out his group.

I’m thinking, “Wow…look at that. It’s the monster!”

Being right after the trial, he wasn’t allowed to play private courses anymore. So here he is on my course, Los Verdes, in a very affluent community of Rancho Palos Verdes, with it’s picturesque ocean views, but it’s a county course.

I head back to the tee-box, and we continue our round. O.J. and his cronies are maybe 5 or 6 holes behind us. It was November or December, I’m guessing, and by the time we finished and hit the bar, it was starting to get dark. Really dark.

So, we’re sitting in the bar, and they’re about to close the place down. EVERYONE in the place is talking about O.J. being out there. I’m looking at the bartender, going, “Wait, wait! Don’t shut down yet. Let see him walk through.”

It’s completely dark outside, and O.J. and his group come walking up the door. I guess they just barely got their 18th hole in before you couldn’t see anything anymore. He tries the door leading to the parking lot, and it’s locked. I immediately look to my boy and go, “Get that guy in here, man! We can’t pass this up. Get him in here.”

He runs over and waves them down. They come to the door, and he opens it up, letting the Juice and his Monster Squad come inside.

At this point, it’s just me, a couple of my buddies, O.J. and his tribe in the bar. They’ve already turned out the lights, so there’s only a couple of lights over the bar area still on. The place is dark and moody, and in the presence of a cold-blooded murderer, it’s pretty damned creepy.

The bar is an L-shaped bar, with the long leg facing the room, and the short leg off to one side. I’m sitting on the short leg. He’s sitting on the long leg.

I’m thinking, “This is just fucking weird.”

People from the kitchen are coming out, and getting autographs and shit. Everyone is treating him like a novelty, and I’m completely repulsed by it. Everyone knows this fucking Frankenstein killed his wife and her friend! You’d think we’d be chasing his ass out of the room with torches and pitchforks! But, no. Everyone wants to get a picture, or an autograph, or talk to the guy.

Human nature. It’s a macabre thing. What can you do?

I decide I’m going to make a move. I’ve got to talk to the guy, for some sick, fucked-up reason. I blame peer-pressure.

I have this good friend, Greg Begodee, who used to work for a moving company back before all the O.J. shit happened. One afternoon, he finds himself moving O.J. and Nicole Simpson out of their condo in Laguna Beach.

So, that’s my in.

“How you doing, O.J.?”

He goes, “Hey, how are you?”

I said, “I just wanted to come over here and say something to you.”

“Yeah? Okay.”

“It’s odd, but we’ve got a couple of acquaintances in common.”

“Yeah? Who would that be?”

“You might not remember his name, but my friend, Greg Begodee, helped move you and Nicole out of your Laguna Beach condo. You went out and got footballs, and autographed them for him and the guys that were doing the moving. You wrote ‘Peace to you’ on it.”

“Oh, yeah, man! How he doin’?”

“He’s good. Doin’ fine.”

Now he’s all personable and shit, so I decide to lob the coup-de-gras at him.

“Yeah, the other person is Tawny Kitaen.”

His total demeanor changed! There were some dark clouds brewing, let me tell ya. I could see him sizing me up, thinking, “Who the fuck is this guy? What’s this all about?”

I go, “I’m the drummer in the band, RATT. Tawny was on a couple of our album covers, and in a couple of our videos, and I know you guys went out for a while.”

He completely clams up.

So, now, I’m wondering what his next move is going to be. He didn’t get violent or anything, but he sure as hell got weird. Really fucking creepy. And, just like back at that Long Beach trial where I was the prosecutions star witness, I found myself locked in a dark, cramped area with a cutthroat killer type.

And then it hits me!

I could do more for RATT, in this very moment, than any publicist, record company, tour or new album could EVER hope to accomplish! All I’ve got to do is reach over that bar, bust a fucking glass, then jam that thing in this son-of-a-bitch’s throat!

That’s how fucked up I am! All I’m thinking about is how many records we could sell if I ended this asshole. Obviously, I didn’t do it…but I sure would have been a hero to America if I did!

Meanwhile, all my buddies are in the back of my mind, goading me on.

“Dude! Show him the OJ Club! Show him the OJ Club!”

Some of these golf tournaments are pretty interesting. They get these strippers and shit to come out and visit you on the course. They're wearing dental floss bikinis and a smile. Pretty hot.

Those are always fun to do.

I've never done one of the Pro-Am tournaments, but I don't really want to, either. You can't bump the ball!

When we play, I don't care if someone bumps it or rolls it an inch to get a better lie. It's not the PGA, you know. But, sometimes you get stuck in games where the other players are Nazis with their enforcement of the rules. Especially if there's money on the game.

I used to have a crew of guys down in the south bay, at Los Verdes. They wound up being one of the reasons I moved. The first was my divorce. I needed to distance a little bit. The second was that our golf crew had become a gambling nightmare.

There was a lot of money being slung around, which made everyone follow everyone's ball. You'd go to take a back swing, and there's one of these guys in your hip pocket watching everything your doing.

It would be, "Get off my shoulder, man!”

It got out of hand really quickly. It was just too much money. Money darkens the game up so much that it can kill the enjoyment of it. I don't need the money that bad.

It's one thing if it's a friendly wager or something. It gives the game a little more interest. But these guys just got out of their minds.

Bobby Suer and this guy Jamie would play $100 or $200 a hole, and then they would have these little side bets. You couldn't enjoy your game, because they were always fighting with each other.

But, on the whole, there is very little down side to a good round of golf. It's relaxing, therapeutic, and, on occasion, they send out a hot chick wearing dental floss and a smile, carrying booze.

Golf life is good!

To call the transition to Nineties music a "surprise" is like calling Vegas a "party town".

I didn't realize what a maelstrom the grunge movement was going to be to the 80s bands, because when grunge was breaking, we were breaking up.

RATT was crashing and burning, and grunge had very little to do with it. Interestingly enough, Detonator still sold 800,000 records, even though Nirvana and those guys were dominating the radio.

Those numbers are a little off the mark, so I don't want to say grunge didn't have an effect on us. It certainly did. RATT always did between a million and three million plus in unit sales on each album. So, it was a bit of a letdown.

Atlantic was coming to hear the demos for Detonator, and they were loving it. They were saying, "Guys, Detonator is going to be your Dr. Feelgood. This thing's going to sell five million copies.” That kind of optimism was comforting, and absolutely encouraging.

In the end, it just didn't hit the mark.

"Detonator" was released in 1990. That's about six months too late, because by the time it came out, the tides of music were changing. Had that record come out in 1989, we would probably have had our "Dr. Feelgood".

"Detonator" was a strong record. Musically, tune wise, lyrically; it was great across the board. "Giving Yourself Away" was going to be our huge ballad hit; something that RATT had never had before, and the label was really excited to have that to market.

We had always taken a lot of heat for not playing the power ballads on our albums. RATT was about the sex, not the love. So, here we go! A fucking fantastic ballad. It was too little, too late. The musical landscape changed so fast that none of the 80s acts had a chance to stop the bleeding.

Eighties metal slowly bled out, and by 1993, it was all but dead.

Good-bye, 80s Metal. Hello, Nineties Grunge. It became the world of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, and Soundgarden. All these bands started flooding in. From a musical standpoint, it was like grinding the gears on a hot rod that you've driven for years! You know the thing inside and out, and in the middle of the race, you slip the clutch.

Suddenly, you're out of the running.

The Seattle movement really upset me. I mean, I liked some of the songs that were coming out, but those guys put us out of work, so they became adversaries. And, I took a very adversarial position.

I would go and check out some of the acts when they would come into town. I went to an Alice In Chains show, and those guys were hailing RATT and Motley! I was completely surprised when guitarist Jerry Cantrell and vocalist Layne Staley were talking to me about it.

"We played your stuff in the clubs for years! It's great to meet you!”

I was like "Thanks.” It was very conflicting, because they were nice guys.

I guess it was late 1991 when I saw Pearl Jam at the Troubadour. Had no idea who they were. I was on my way to meet Roger Romeo. We were going to meet at the Troubadour to have a drink, and then we were going to go to the Rainbow.

I don't remember why we were meeting there, because I hadn't been to the Troubadour in years. There was this big bouncer guy named Ron that worked the door for years. He was there when we were in the circuit, and ten years later, he was still manning the door.

Ron was all "Hey, what's up, brother?” He was genuinely happy to see me again.

We were taking some time to catch up, and I asked him what was going on there that night.

He's like, "I don't know, some band called 'Pearl Jam'.” And, he made the jack-off motion with his hand.

"Pearl Jam? Okay. That's very nice.”

I hadn't heard of them at that point. I went in and checked them out. They were okay. Nothing I would have fallen out over. I couldn't imagine some girl throwing her panties on stage to it. But, whatever, you know? I didn't get it, wasn't really into it.

Suppose that's why I'm not an A&R guy?

I watched Eddie Vedder try to stage dive, and people just moved out of the way and let him hit the floor! It's not like the place was packed, or anything. There were maybe 150 people standing in front of the stage. He dove. They moved. He slammed face first into the floor.

I couldn't help but snicker a little when it happened. That was pretty funny.

In the end, I was way wrong about the new music. Those bands got huge, almost overnight, and we were out of a gig. It was very upsetting. A very distraught time in life for not only me, but the rest of the bands of the 80s era.

I think it hit the big guys like Mötley a lot harder, you know? They were the pinnacle of the scene for so long, and for it all to come crashing down like that? It's a long fucking way to fall when you've lived above reality for your entire career.

We were all king shit for years. Then, suddenly, everybody's broke up, and no one is doing fuck all. It was a bizarre time.

As I look back at the grunge thing now, I can respect it. It was a passing of the guard to a new generation of music fan. The Seventies had their fans; my kind and me. Then the 80s had their followers. When the Nineties happened, that was just the kids of the time finding their own.

It was the music that spoke to them, and I can completely get that.

One more thought on the 90's.

When I think of Kurt Cobain, I always think about how so much of the world was looking at him and his legacy as being the second coming of John Lennon.

...uh, oh...here I go again...BEATLES FOREVER!

Brother, let me tell you, that is a FUCKING JOKE!

It is a complete joke to me for him to be mentioned in the same breath as anyone in the Beatles. It's ridiculous. "Nevermind" had a few really good, really catchy grunge pop songs. I can see how the kids were latching onto it, because it was a different movement. A new generation was coming in, and this was their music.

The guys who were fifteen to seventeen years old when we were hitting it were now in their mid to late twenties. They were maturing, getting careers and families, and not buying albums and concerts as much, anymore.

For the new fifteen to seventeen year olds, this was their turn. This was their trip to a musical identity.

But, any talk of Cobain being on the same level as Lennon just drove me crazy! There is no comparison. To this day, I couldn't sit through a whole Nirvana record. By and large, I thought it was pretty obnoxious stuff, really. Everything sounded the same. It was all just too similar, song-to-song.

Some of my opinion comes from my personal taste in music, but there's a lot more to it than that. Lennon, McCartney and the Beatles changed music. Forever.

I'm sure that Nirvana has people they influenced, and music did change significantly after their music hit. But it wasn't a lasting thing. Grunge was all but gone just a few years later. It was like the disco movement in the Seventies. It had impact while it lasted, but once the novelty wore off, it was dead.

By comparison, you would be hard pressed to find a segment of modern music that hasn't been influence by what the Beatles did in the Sixties, and what Lennon did into the Seventies.