Tales Of A RATT (39 page)

AC/DC did it with Brian Johnson after Bon Scott died.

But, who else? Not many, that's for sure. Black Sabbath was never the same after Ozzy left. Skid Row became exactly that after losing Sebastian Bach. Journey without Steve Perry? Talented, but not “it”.

The reason is simple. The frontman is the voice of the band. The other guys are usually colorful, and interesting, and all that, but the frontman is the guy in the band who talks to you. They communicate with the fan. As soon as you hear Stephen Pearcy sing a note, you know that it's RATT.

The singer is the identity, but that isn't to say that the sum isn't as important. It certainly is.

That's not to say the singer is more important. When a singer leaves a band, they seldom thrive outside of it. David Lee Roth didn't. David Coverdale didn't. Sammy Hagar did, but then Sammy was a solo artist before he joined Van Halen.

And, Stephen Pearcy certainly struggled without RATT.

So, it's a double standard. The fans want the original band. The REAL band. But, to do that, the bands have to co-exist, which is really difficult to do, sometimes.

John found that out when he joined Mötley Crüe and replaced Vince Neil. It was a lesson learned the hard way, because John is a talented guy.

I'd known John for a while, and he was always an easy going, laid back kind of dude. I knew he could write, and was a great singer, which worked well on the backup parts, and he was really easy to work with.

John became our new rhythm guitarist. He played great, looked great, sang incredible. With his backups, it sounded like the records again, with all these backup vocals.

We started a tour on July 29, 2000. The first show was the House of Blues in Hollywood. It was RATT / Warrant / LA Guns.

This tour actually got booked in a lot of big places! We did Pine Knob Amphitheater in Detroit, which is an 18,000 seat venue, which we drew 11,000 people. There were a number of those kinds of places on this tour. It was really successful.

It gave us a huge sense of optimism. We were going…okay, this is a trip. Maybe we CAN do this without Stephen.

Jizzy got drunk and started being a fucked up weirdo on the bus, and I lost it. I told the bus to pull over and I got in Jizzy's face.

"Drunk, or not drunk, you can get the fuck off this bus right now! If this is how you act, get the fuck off! We don't need you.”

There was no way I was putting up with this whacked out singer bullshit again. No way.

He had gotten all ripped up on red wine, which he had only done a couple of times. But Jizzy was not a good drunk. He was really combative with people who were working for us on the bus. He deemed himself "Jizzilla" when he would get like that, which admittedly was very rare.

After that confrontation, he made a point to never be like that on tour again. He was really flabbergasted that I talked to him like that. But after eighteen years with a kooky singer, there was no way I wanted to relive it. I wanted to be very clear. No way.

That tour went through October.

It got real weird out there, because at one point, LA Guns wasn't able to sustain themselves on tour with the money they were making. Traci Gunns, who I'm not a big fan of, went to Robbie Crane and said that they needed us to kick some money down to them every night so they could survive.

Robbie came to me and said something about it.

I just started laughing. What did they want me to do, write them a personal check? And, where is this money supposed to come from? If they can't afford the tour, they need to scale back their travel expenses, and per diems, all of it. It's none of my business, and I don't want to know about it. It certainly wasn't my job to support those guys, although I liked the band.

Warren agreed with me on it. This is business.

I'm out here to take care of it. I've got bills and responsibilities, and they have nothing to do with Traci Gunns. We operate our tour on a very tight budget, knowing exactly what goes out and what comes in. I make a budget, and Warren makes one. Those budgets are usually very similar, and almost always land dead on in price.

To "kick them some money" because they can't take care of their own business would mean that it came out of my personal pocket. No. That's my mindset. I'm sorry. Our hands were tied. For them to be pressuring the other band on tour for a bigger piece of the pie was ludicrous. They've been around this business long enough to know how it works.

I knew what was coming down the pipe, and there was no room for RATT to be throwing them $1500 a night, or whatever they were asking, to keep them out there on that tour. We knew our bills, and we planned everything around them.

That was that.

They left the tour about a week later. I talked to Steve Riley after that, and was going, "Dude, this isn't a personal thing. I love you, you're a great guy, but there's nothing we can do to help this.”

"I unda-stand, Bob. I unda-stand.” With his thick, Boston accent.

When we finished the tour, about a month later, I ran into Traci Gunns at a place called Paladino's; a rock club out in Tarzana, California. I'm walking by, and he's passing me. So I go, "What's up, dude?”

He blows. "Don't fucking 'what's up, dude' me! I don't fucking like you!”

I'm a little taken aback. A little. "What, is this a joke?”

"No, it's not a joke, Blotzer. You left us hanging out there!”

I'm a guy who isn't quick to anger. I've got a pretty long fuse, and will let a lot of shit slide, even when I shouldn't. However, I get home that night, and Gunns is just eating at me.

Enter one of my nemesis. DRUNK DIALING! I called Gunn's cell phone and unloaded on the little shit.

I saw this kind of shit from him a few years earlier when I did the Contraband record in 1990 with him, Michael Scheneker, Sher Petterson from Vixen, and Richard Black from Shark Island. He pulled this sort of shit, then. I didn't know anything about it at first, but he threw his little temper tantrums and Hitler moves.

Since then, we've seen each other a couple of times. We're civil, and never let this thing go to war. That's smart on his part. Smart on mine, too, because I don't have time for that kind of bullshit.

When I got back, we had made some money. Not a lot of money, but enough that I could breathe for five or six months. Or, until our next tour because, that tour was done.

Contraband 1990 Michael Schenker, Share Pedersen, Richard Black (chair), Tracii Guns, and Me, 1991. Photo courtesy Neil Zlozower.

I'd actually met Misty out on tour in 1999, but I didn't remember her. How that happened, I don't know. Because, this chick was certainly memorable!

I ran into her again at the Baked Potato when I was out on a date with a nurse. It was pretty funny. The nurse was completely loaded, and had no idea that I was checking out Misty.

I gave Misty my number that night, and told her to call me. I could tell that she was interested, and she was so fucking gorgeous! We just stared across the room at each other all night. When I first came in, we were looking at each other, and I'm mouthing to her "I want to talk to you" behind this nurse's head when she's not looking.

I didn't hear from Misty for weeks. I figured it was a bust. The next time I heard from her, I actually had Tamala back out from Kansas City.

I was starting to get pretty burned on her. She was getting to where she wanted to move out here and move in together. I flat didn't want to do that. Besides, there was something that just wasn't right. She was unbelievably gorgeous. We had such a great chemistry. But it didn't seem to be there for the boyfriend / girlfriend angle.

I'm mulling over all these things about Tamala, when Misty calls. I was out at the Coconut Teaser with Tamala, and the phone rings.

It took me a minute to realize who it was. I was like "You fucker! Finally! Where have you been? I thought you would have called the next day. I would have bet money on it!”

In fact, I came home that night with the nurse, and I saw Tim. I was getting ready to go and do my thing with the nurse, and I told Tim "I met this girl tonight. Misty. She'll be calling tomorrow, for sure.”

And, then she never called. Typical.

Misty had moved out from West Virginia with her girlfriend. Her girlfriend liked me as much as Misty did, which caused them to get into this big rift. When I started dating Misty, her girlfriend got pissed. About a month after Misty and I started dating, the girlfriend left, and went back east, leaving Misty there by herself. She had no car, no furniture. Virtually nothing.

So I rescued her, and pulled her in with me. I was still renting Tim's guesthouse at the time, and that's where we lived. We were together.

I had to go back out on the road, so I told her "When I get back, we'll start looking for a place.”

That whole time I was out on the road, Traci kept coming to mind. We started calling each other again. It was infuriating and enticing all at the same time. She would always keep in touch with phone calls and emails. I would catch myself saying that I loved her. People were saying that I was obsessive, but Robbie heard some of those calls, and he knows. Traci knew exactly what she was doing, because she went out of her way to keep that in me. She just wouldn't let me grow past her.

We almost got back together in the summer of 2000.

She was calling me all the time, going, "I still love you. I just want to hear your voice", all kinds of shit like that. The worst part is, it was working.

Traci made me understand the concept of addictions. You hate what you want, yet are powerless to stop wanting it. That relationship was an awakening for me.

She wanted to date for a while. My thought was, "I am not going to date. We've dated. We know what there is to know. If we do this, I want to pull in together and immediately go to the next level.”

In the end, she still wouldn't do it. She simply wouldn't commit that far. I told her to forget it.

When I got back from the road, I got an apartment in Encino where Misty was going to move in with me. But, Traci was still trolling around, and as sick as it was, I wanted to get back with her.

I told Misty to hold off until I could get my head around what was going to happen. "Things are transpiring here. I think that Traci and I might try to get back together and try to work this out.” I didn't want to hurt Misty. But, bottom line was, I wanted Traci back.

It was a very conflicting time, because I was really into Misty, too. I wanted to move on. I wanted to get past Traci, but I just couldn't seem to do it. It doesn't make sense when you sit and read this kind of shit, but believe me, when you live it; you completely understand the inner turmoil. On one had, I had this great new girl. On the other, I still had a chance to save the love that I had for Traci.

So, we went out and did the tour, and when we got back, I got an apartment out in the valley. I'm out in the valley again, because Traci and I were going to be "closer".

Shit went south immediately with her. She was stubborn, and overly independent. That same independence that was such a killer the first time around. The first several days I was back and in the apartment, Misty kept calling.

"I really can't talk right now, Misty. You're staying at Tim's. Just keep renting that place from him. Give me a little time to get my head around this.”

She obviously wanted to keep things going.

I went out with Traci on a date, and she came back to my apartment to spend the night. It was a really odd night. Even though I was greatly tempted to get back with Traci, I still felt the burn from her fucking around on me. As weird as that sounds, I wouldn't do it.

The next morning, I'm lying in bed, and I hear the door open. I jump up and run out there.

Now, to preface this, Misty and I went and looked at apartments before I was going to move to the valley. The apartment that I was living in was in one of the buildings we had looked at. So, she knew where I lived, and came down to the building that day. Somehow, she convinced the manager that she was my girlfriend, and had lost her key to the apartment, so the guy gives her a key.

I hear the door opening, and it's Misty coming into the apartment. She was like, "I haven't heard from you in days. I thought something was wrong.”

"You can't just fucking do this, Misty.”

She wanted to come in and talk, and finally, I'm like, "Look, I'm going to just be honest with you. Traci is in there.”

It wasn't cool, but as I told her then, and reiterate now, nothing happened that night with Traci. However, there was a pretty strong rivalry that started that day between Misty and Traci.

I found that really exciting, to tell the truth.

Shortly thereafter, the Traci thing was done. It was actually done when Misty dropped by the apartment, we just didn't acknowledge it.

I moved Misty in, and Traci was gone. Misty and I were together for five and a half years. Eventually, I bought a house over in Canyon Country.

I was going through a revolving door of women before I met Misty. And, during that whole time, I couldn't figure out what I was missing.