Tales Of A RATT (40 page)

I was proud of all the time Jeni and I had been together. We moved in together in late 1976. While we were on top of the world in the 80's, there was never a time I would have considered destroying my family for something I found on the road. There were a lot of beautiful people out there, but this was my family.

Jeni was smart enough to know the Pi-RATT's life we were living on the road. After all, she came out there and saw it all first hand. I think she just turned a cheek to it. She knew what that was all about, and while there were jealous episodes, they were few. I'd see my family at least once a month while I was on the long tours. Off tour, I'd see them every day.

I've talked about the damage done during my divorce from Jeni. During the breakup, Michael and Marcus suffered more than I ever thought they would. My thought was, "I went through a breakup when I was a kid. You'll be fine.” I know they saw the battles that Jeni and I had, and they were smart enough to figure out how that would end.

But, Michael lashed out at the world. He was on crystal meth, and was very fucked up in very short order. I had to kidnap him and take him to the airport. I sent him back to Pittsburgh to be with my younger brother Michael, and let the kid clean up.

He's been clean since then, thank God. The guy has got a good heart, but that really fucked with him a lot more than I thought it would. I was sorry it happened like that. The boy defends his mother, and he thinks I fucked her over. I can dig that, but he'll understand one day when he has to deal with a breakup.

No one wins, and no one is innocent.

Marcus was a little different. When Marcus was a boy, he had clubbed feet. Both feet turned in sharply and he had to wear braces on both ankles in an effort to straighten them out.

Poor kid.

We struggled and struggled with that, trying to help straighten him out. At one point, we were going to have the surgery where they break his legs and reset the bones in an effort to straighten them. It's a brutal, extremely painful procedure, and I hated the fact I was going to have this done to one of my sons.

On the eve of the operation, at the hospital, some random doctor was talking to me in the hallway. He goes, "So, what's your son here for?” I told him about the surgery, and that we were going to have his feet straightened, because they were turned in so badly.

The doctor seems a little surprised, and goes, "This boy here?” He turns to Marcus and watches him for a second.

Then he goes, "Marcus, do me a favor. Go to the end of the hall and run toward me.”

Marcus kind of grins, and then goes to the end of the hall. As he's running, the doctor is staring at Marcus's legs and feet.

"Okay, Marcus, now walk to me.” Marcus does.

The doctor sort of looks at me, and starts to say something, but then goes, "You know, nevermind.”

I look back at Marcus, then at the doctor, and go, "Wait a minute. You can't say 'nevermind' and then walk off! What were you looking at?”

"I'm just thinking, if he was my kid, I wouldn't do it.”

"Seriously? Look, man, he goes in for surgery in just a couple of hours. You need to tell me what's going on.”

He goes, "Do you know who John Elway is?”

"Of course, I do.”

"When Elway was born, he had the same feet. The guy is a superstar quarterback today. When Marcus gets older, they'll straighten out on their own. There's no need to break them. He'll always be a little toed in, and he'll always have weird wearing on his shoes, but it won't slow him down.”

That threw me into an emotional whirlwind. I immediately went in, packed all of Marcus's stuff up, and took my boy home. I'm really glad I did, too. That was going to be a brutal surgery. He was going to be laid up for a really long time. They had a party for him at school, and everything.

These are the things you deal with when you are a parent. There's an endless assault on your child from the moment they are born, and you're the only thing out there that can protect them.

Even then, things are going to happen. That's just the way nature works.

Marcus drowned in our Jacuzzi at home, in 1985.

I was coming home from getting my haircut, and an ambulance flies past me at full speed with it's sirens blaring. As it did, I got this profound feeling that something wasn't right. This was way at the top of my street.

When I get down to my house, Jeni comes running out to the street, crying. I'm out of the car in a flash, going, "Woah! What the fuck is going on?” I was in a total panic mode.

She goes, "Marcus fell in the Jacuzzi! He drowned! They had to resuscitate him!”

I almost fell out, right there. My boy had died, and then been brought back by a paramedic. Jeni went on to tell me that she had fallen asleep on the couch. Marcus got up while she and Michael were sleeping, and had made his way downstairs and to the back door.

He had only been gone for a minute when Jeni noticed it. She went looking for him, and when she found him, his stuffed bear was floating in the water. The water had been ice cold. If it had been warm, there would have been nothing they could do. Marcus would be dead. It was the dead of winter, and the water was near freezing.

I was always watching out for him. Precious little Marcus.

I remember one time, I was laying on the couch watching TV. I heard this sound, this sort of wailing sound that was getting louder. I muted the TV, and bolted up on the couch.

I ran outside, and here comes Marcus, crying. He had been riding in the street, and cars would come flying down that thing at fifty or sixty miles an hour. He came close to some car, and laid his bike down.

His tooth was stuck in his hand! He was scraped up and bleeding. It was a nightmare.

Again, that's what happens when you are a parent. You fight through the pitfalls and challenges, and if you're lucky, your children come out into adult hood with a healthy frame of mind.

Today, Marcus is full-time employed in the medical industry. He's gearing up for school to become an X-Ray technician.

Michael is a drummer. Michael is an incredible drummer. "A Chip Off The Old Blotz," is what we call him. They just fired their singer, and then the guitarist quit, so he's back to square one. He works a day job with a friend of mine at a company called Emergency Service. Dan Hartwell's company. He's making $2500 a month during training. But in about a year, he'll get his own truck. The guys doing that are all pulling in $100K a year.

Hopefully, he gets there really soon.

Both of those boys are the world to me. They are really tight, and really protective of one another, and absolutely convinced that the other son is my favorite!

That's another common theme with parenthood, and I've had to deal with that their entire lives. Marcus would know how to get Michael in trouble. Michael would know how to get Marcus in trouble. Then, when you bust them, it's all, "Yeah, dad. That's because Michael / Marcus is your favorite! You've always loved him more!”

"Look, I love you both equal, and you both drive me crazy equal. Now, who wants the belt first? You're both in trouble on this one.”

Much to Michael's disbelief, I'm absolutely proud of them both, and it is a pride that I will carry with me all the way to my grave, and beyond.

I love my boys. I really do.

By the end of the 2000 tour, Warren, who was emotionally exhausted, told me that he wasn't sure he wanted to go back out and tour anymore.

I just couldn't deal with it. I became like, "Fuck this! Fuck musicians! I'm getting a regular gig, and I never want to see this shit again!”

That's when I went into the real estate business.

I wanted to become a real estate agent. I took a course for seven weeks, passed with flying colors, and by the time I got all of that done, Stephen was suing us.

In 2001, we found out that Stephen Pearcy was going out as RATT, and had filed a lawsuit making all of these ridiculous claims against us; misappropriation of corporate funds, unfair competition, breech of fiduciary duties, all bullshit.

When Stephen left this band, and left us losing all that money that we were going to make with the Japan tour, he stuck us with $6000 in incidental bills that he had run up and not paid for. Our tour manager had to pay for that out of the receipts of the tour, i.e., Warren and I paid for them.

So, battle lines were drawn. Worse, this was something that neither Warren, nor myself were expecting. Needless to say, we had to prepare for this on the fly. It was shaping up to be a knock down, drag-out fight.

It was Stephen and his disciples; his agent and his lawyer, who were putting this all together. Knowing the situation, it was probably Stephen's disciples that were pushing for the whole thing in the first place. They saw the bucks disappearing with him no longer a part of RATT.

Warren and I were in a position of "Where's all this money going to come from to fight a lawsuit?” So, we started having to gig, not only to survive, but also to pay for this fucking thing.

And now, things had to change.

There was no compromise to it. We had a lawsuit to fight, not only that, we also had to counter-sue and establish the reality of what was REALLY going on! Stephen walked out and left us holding the bag, now he's going to go out and promote himself as RATT? He's going to make the bucks? Nah. Don't think so. Not after he's quit the band.

I had just finished this real estate course, ready to dive headlong into life without RATT, but now Warren and I had this drama to deal with. So, the real estate thing had to go to the side. I just didn't have the time to do it. We immediately had to start booking gigs and touring again, as RATT.

Stephen had really stirred things up. He not only sued us, but he sued Tim Hyne, our manager, which was completely wrong! Tim Hyne did all kinds of things for Stephen, personally. Tim was good to us, as a band, so, for Stephen to sue Tim was a whole new level of betrayal. He sued Troy Blakely and APA, our agency. He was completely sue happy. Him, and his lawyer and his manager.

Then we got into the mechanics of mounting and defending a lawsuit. It was un-fucking-believable, the work, energy and pain that went into this thing. For three fucking years!

None of it was easy. Pearcy's camp started calling gigs that we were playing and threatening the promoters with lawsuits if they played us. It created such turmoil for the brand name in the marketplace that no one knew who to trust. Depending on who you talked to, we each took turns being the bad guy while everyone else was the victim. No one knew who to believe, and no one wanted to be sued, yet we were all trying to book our 2001 shows as RATT.

It was a total cluster-fuck, but we did manage to book some good gigs. Before it was all said and done, we played a ton of shows, and made a bunch of lawyers a lot of money.

We started out over in Scandanavia with Dio and Alice Cooper. That was a lot of fun, and really charged up the band. We'd never been over there before, and we were all really into it.

All along, I kept telling Warren, "Let's do some recording.” But, he couldn't get into it. Not until we got all the lawsuit shit behind us. Which made sense. No need to record a new album, and risk having the profits tied up in court because Pearcy's delusions of grandeur were being manipulated by his handlers.

After Scandanavia, we embarked on a club tour in the U.S., which ran through the entire year of 2001. It was really hard to keep a steady, fully booked tour going, because as soon as we booked something, Pearcy's guys were on the phone to them, threatening a lawsuit.

It was that bully tactic bullshit behavior that cost Stephen in the courts. We wound up getting a court injunction against him that forbid him from contacting our promoters and venues. We also had the courts stop him from using the name RATT until the trial was over. We went back and forth for months with these injunctions, and it was a pure Hell on Earth.

We're out on the road, riding around in a bus and doing shows. Some of the shows were fantastic. Some of them sucked. But, at the end of the day, we were having fun with it the best we could. The tour was paying for our legal costs, and giving us just enough money to get by.

Unfortunately, we had to play a lot of shows that were beneath RATT. Stuff we would never play normally, dotted our itinerary throughout 2001.

In March of 2002, we went to trial, but it had been a long road getting there. The trial lasted a month.

The first attorneys we had were a complete joke, man. They just kept taking our money and not doing shit! So, we got this guy, Kyle Kelley, this little Irish drinking machine! Kyle was a bulldog in the trial, and just beat the shit out of Pearcy and his lawyer the whole time.

I remember being in the deposition of Stephen Pearcy. I was sitting there and listening to this, and it literally made me nauseous. He wouldn't look at us. He sat on one side of the table, and we were on the other. I just looked at him, and he would never make eye contact.

He would simply answer our lawyer's questions.

He did the same thing at the trial. He would just look straight out and answer, never over at us. I know. I watched him the whole time to see if he would.

I was sitting in the deposition, listening to him, and just feeling more and more disgusted.

All I could think of was the five of us up on stage at Madison Square Garden, playing our guts out to 15,000 screaming fans; or on the various stages on the Strip here at home, back when RATT was just finding itself; or the days in the garage above Dennis O'Neil's mom's place. The moments we've had. The good times. All I can think is, "What the fuck, man? What is this? Why is this happening?”

I literally got up and said, "I gotta split. I can't sit here and listen to this. Mr. Irish Drinking Machine, get shit done. Whatever you need from me, let me know and I'll be there. This is bullshit, and I can't deal with it.”

We won the case.

We were there everyday for a little more than 3 weeks. Almost a month. I could tell that the judge liked me, and the lawyers could too.