Tales Of A RATT (17 page)

Authors: Bobby Blotzer

We finished the Japan tour, and shot the RATT Longform Video over there, you know, us on the bullet train and stuff. It was a platinum video.

It was a great way to end the tour. The band immediately took a sabbatical to Hawaii where we ran and hid in Maui. We all had these condos on the beach, and a little portable recording studio. Our job was to write the "Invasion of Your Privacy" album.

These were tough times. None of us were given a chance to relax from the tour, and we were already back into the mix with a new album. Management was really cracking the whip on their platinum recording show pony, believe me.

Little rifts were already forming in the band. Mostly between the band and Stephen, but a little with Robbin as well. Of course, we brought our families, otherwise we would hardly see them before we went back out on tour with the new album. I think that created more tension in the band, because, instead of working, we took a lot of personal time. That's too bad, but what did they expect? It's our families.

We were in this little restaurant in Lahaina one night when I get a tap on the shoulder, turn around, and there Billy Squire.

I was like, "What the fuck are you doing here?!?! Are you following us?” We got a big laugh out of it, and hung out with him for a few days, having a good time.

Maui was where I learned to play golf. Kapalua. Our manager, Marshall, was leaving every day to go play golf, and one day I was like, "Hey, let me go with you.”

He's goes, "You ever played before?”

"I've played baseball, dude. Golf is baseball for fags. I think I can fucking handle it.”

So I went to one of the greatest courses in the world to learn to play. I bought the shirt, shorts, shoes, hat, glove the whole fag uniform. I didn't buy clubs over there, though. I rented clubs. But, immediately I was hooked. For life!

Hawaii was where "Invasion of Your Privacy" happened. We went out there together, with the intent of hammering out the new tunes and getting back to the mainland for recording. But getting Stephen to show for rehearsal was virtually impossible. He was simply never available. Too much sun and sand, maybe, but I'm amazed anything happened beyond that second album.

The fracturing was already starting to form.

Of course, it did happen for us. When we got back, we immediately started recording the record at Rumbo Studios with Beau Hill producing us again. There was absolutely no time off, but if you’ve got to do it, do it when you’re young, right?

We were young, in more ways than one. We had just become multi-platinum recording sensations, and none of us knew the "rights and wrongs" to the business, yet. We were all too naive to realize we were being severely overworked. By the time we caught on to that fact, it was much too late to stop the nose dive.

During the recording of Invasion, things seemed to gain their focus again. Stephen wasn't yet at the point he would be after the coming tour, and he showed to the sessions pretty consistently, and he sang along as we were tightening things up. So, it wasn't bad…yet.

Consequently, we literally got this record done and out in four months time.

For all the huge, grandstanding groups that came out of southern California in the early and mid-eighties, we were still a very tight community. We all knew each other, and most of us had played in other bands together; and were really good friends, with very few beefs. There were exceptions, most of which involved the various lead singers, but for the most part, we were all bros.

So, I'm both nostalgic and mournful with a lot of the stuff I'm reading in other books and bios of the time.

A lot of these rockstar bios are hitting close to home. I'm sure that this one won't be much different for the guys who read it. Those guys were friends, or at least, good acquaintances. Tommy's book, "Tommyland.” Slash's book. Motley's book, "The Dirt.” Even "The Heroin Diaries" that Nikki put together.

I've never had a real great love for Nikki. I respect his business acumen, and his song writing skills, but, he's a difficult person; a complete egomaniac. Stephen and Juan pale in comparison to Nikki's ego.

His book, "The Heroin Diaries"... Jesus. I read a few chapters, and it really started to feel real. It was really unsettling in my gut. I was close to them when all that shit was going on. I've seen those guys amazingly fucked up. That first tour with them is a big example of that.

There are a lot of memories that I've kept buried, but, that book conjures all that shit back up. Sixx wrote a very dark tome, and I was in that circle of darkness at that time. I can really relate to a lot of that shit. I had a hard time reading about the total meltdown of a guy I once ran with. It's depressing as hell.

On this subject, I never saw Nikki or Robbin doing smack. Come to think of it, I've never seen heroin. I knew something was probably going on with those guys, but again, I sort of exist in two worlds; my family world, and the band world. Luckily, I never really partook of the lowest of lows like some of these guys have. I never hit the extremes one-way or the other. Not very hard, anyway. The responsibilities of one side always trumped the other. So, I never noticed those guys were doing that shit.

We worked as a democracy as a band, but that was about to become very difficult. We had to fire Robbin on the Detonator tour. He was so buried under alcohol and heroin that he began to really fuck up on stage. Shit like, putting the wrong guitar on and playing the whole song out of key. It was horrifying.

It was at the Sun Plaza, in Tokyo. He just didn't change guitars between songs, and we started into "Lack of Communication" with him playing completely the wrong chords. We actually had to stop the show and make him change. That was the end.

I missed some big signs with King. He was always throwing up on the side of the stage. I just thought it was nerves, you know. I didn't know he was smoking heroin!

I don't remember when it finally clicked for me and I learned of Robbin's problems, but it was late. Really late. Like I said, at this point in the game, we were all leading decidedly separate lives. From the beginning, the core debaucheries were a little outside my world. I had my wife and kids going. They were the priority in my life, and while I would party with the best of them, my responsibilities as a father made me look at my professional life differently than the other guys.

It was probably after the 1989 tour that I realized what he was doing. That shit was scary, man. To watch Robbin go out like that. Supposedly, Robbin had been an addict since 1985.

To say that Nikki Sixx introduced Robbin to heroin, I don't know how true that is. I wasn't there. But, they roomed together early on, so, I guess it's possible.

In the end, Sixx turned out not to be a real friend to him. Robbin, in his last days, turned on Sixx. He didn't like him at all. Sixx wouldn't come see him. And, those two were really tight bros for years.

Robbin was in the hospital for almost two years, and Nikki stayed away. He didn't even go to Robbin's memorial down in La Jolla. That friendship didn't end well.

I never see Nikki anymore. I think he heard I went out in an interview and blamed him for King's death, but that's bullshit. I never said that. King decided to do heroin. It didn't matter if he got it from Nikki or Joe Smith the midget. King killed himself. He could not conquer his demons. Seeing that, Nikki is lucky to be alive, himself. Everyone knows that. Him most of all.

Nikki has a problem with me, but he's also got a problem with all the 80's bands. He tries to remove Crüe from that scene, but he can't. They are the center of the 80s metal universe. With their Theater of Pain album, it was Nikki in fucking polka dots and Vince in pink chiffon and shit. They were the originators of glam metal.

A lot of people look at those years, and knowing that I ran with that, they aren't going to believe me when I say I didn't know. Maybe it's denial. I'm not sure. But, when I finally heard the stories about Nikki, and saw the horrible results with Robbin, I was genuinely surprised.

Heroin scared the fuck out of me. I was too smart to get sucked in to that. But, the guys in Mötley, that's a different story. They lived the most depraved, ragged edge existence of any band in the 80s, possibly any band in history. I don't know. They were so desperate to get loaded, that they would drink cooking sherry if they had to. They snorted Halcions, for Christ's sake!

Mötley Crüe was an incredible display of reckless debauchery. I'm amazed any of them made it out of the 80s alive. They all came really close to punching the clock; Nikki most of all. When you hit drugs so hard that you are periodically declared dead, it's gone to far.

Mötley were way more over the top than RATT was. We weren't one of the big drug bands. That was Mötley and Guns. We were all pretty harmless with drugs. Stephen and Warren smoked weed; Stephen, almost constantly. Hell, everybody smoked weed! Everybody snorted blow after the show, and no one thought anything of it. It was just something you did.

Even Robbin, who wrecked himself with smack, did his fix on the sly. We weren't privy to it. It was his dirty little secret.

It was the invulnerability of youth and wealth. We weren’t the poster boys for it, but we certainly hung out with those who were.