I wanted to take a break from works focusing on the Middle East in between SFF reads, so I went looking for books similar to Mötley Crüe and Neil Strauss'
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band. That one turned out to be my favorite reads of all time, so I decided to download a bunch of rock and roll biographies. Hard rock, glam rock, heavy metal, whatever label you want to put on these records, hair bands were the thing during my teenage and young adult years and they have shaped my life in various ways. Hell, I still listen to most of that music today and it's no guilty pleasure. The 70s and 80s produced the very best music the world has ever seen and I'm just glad I was around to experience it!
Surprisingly, Stephen Pearcy's memoir is the book that came up the most when I was looking for suggestions for similar works to
The Dirt. I was never a big fan of Ratt back in the day. Not a Ratt and Roller by any stretch of the imagination. They were okay and part of all hard rock compilations that were released every year or so, and I did get a few of their albums from the Columbia House promo thingie where so many of us got cassettes and CDs in the 80s and the 90s. So I knew of them and enjoyed a few of their songs, chief among those being Round and Round, which played on the radio and around the clock on MTV and Much Music during the mid-80s. But though Ratt got big and scored four platinum albums in a row, they never made it to superstardom the way Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, and Guns N' Roses ultimately did. Hence my surprise that
Sex, Drugs, Ratt and Roll: My Life in Rock would be pimped like it was when I was looking for my nex rock and roll book.
I mean, it's 2024 and I can still name a couple of Ratt tunes, yet I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the band's lead singer. But what the heck? I told myself that if it's only half as good as
The Dirt, I was in for a treat!
Here's the blurb:
The jaw-dropping tell-all from the lead singer of 1980s supergroup Ratt—and the dirty details of the riotous era when big-haired bands ruled the world.
Women. Spandex. Drugs. Hair spray. . . . Welcome to heavy metal rock ’n’ roll, circa 1980, when all you needed was the right look, burning ambition, and a chance. Cranking out metal just as metal got hot, Ratt was the perfect band at the perfect time, and their hit single “Round and Round” became a top-selling anthem. The bigger Ratt got, the more excessive lead singer Stephen Pearcy and his “pussy pirates” became. There was nothing these guys wouldn’t snort, drink, bed, or break. But as Ratt scrambled up a wall of fame and wealth, so they experienced a gut-wrenching free fall. Pearcy’s stunningly honest rock ’n’ roll confessional, by turns incredible, hilarious, and lyrical, is more than a story of survival—it’s a search for the things that matter most.
Let me begin by saying that
Sex, Drugs, Ratt and Roll: My Life in Rock is nothing like
The Dirt. It's still a fun and interesting read, but there's very little in terms of content. Sure, it's a tale of neverending excess and debauchery. There's a lot of name-dropping and Pearcy and his boys did a lot of crazy shit with other famous people. But there's only so much sex and drugs one can take and maintain interest.
The most fasinating stuff has to do with everything that went on during the time Ratt was created and tried to make it. It's fascinating because basically all the musicians that formed bands that came out of the Sunset Strip and its infamous venues pretty much all knew each other and played with one another before making it big or not. I had no idea that the guys from Ratt were so close to the Crüe, even before the band was signed. Or that Pearcy was close enough with Eddie Van Halen that the legendary guitarist would hide booze at Pearcy's place so he could come and drink without his wife finding out. There are a lot of anecdotes like that and they make the book a worthwhile read. I couldn't help laughing when Pearcy, for whom Duran Duran was a big fashion influence for Ratt's wardrobe, tried to get his picture taken with Simon Le Bon at one of Hollywood's most exclusive clubs, only to have the other refuse. Or Pearcy's awkward meeting with Michael Jackson at a similar club. In addition, I wasn't aware that Ratt was one of the first big bands to give Bon Jovi a shot to open for them and they were the first to take Poison on tour with them.
What I would have liked was a bit more information about the creative process for each album and the tour that followed. Alas, we get a paragraph or three and that's it. Like many of those popular rock bands, Ratt self-destructed on its own, mostly due to big egos and various conflicts between members. But it was interesting to see that the principal factor that led to Ratt's demise was that Atlantic Records kept them on the road constantly, with only short breaks to record a new album and then send the band back on tour. Say what you want of these guys, they were machines. 222 shows in 15 months to promote their first album, Out of the Cellar. Nearly 250 shows in a year to promote their recond record, Invasion of Your Privacy. And remember that this was in the days of tour buses with bunk beds, not private jets flying you to the next city. No wonder the guys were stoned out of their minds the whole time.
Stephen Pearcy doesn't deserve any pity or sympathy. Like most of his contemporaries, he was an arrogant asshole. Given the amount of booze, drugs, and pills that went through his body, and the heroin addiction that followed later on, it's a wonder the man survived to this day. Not to mention AIDS. How he dodged that bullet given all the nookie he indulged in, I'll never know. There is a poignant moment when he describes his heroin problem, which makes you feel for the poor sod. But though it's extremely difficult to show any empathy for a tattoed millionaire who owned a collection of black Porsche cars and lived it up like a king for a while, it's still sad to think that that permanent drug haze seems to imply that he doesn't quite recall headlining mythical venues like the LA's Forum and NYC's Madison Square Garden, or playing in front of enormous crowds as part of the Monsters of Rock festival in Europe. After four platinum albums and two gold records and ten million copies sold worldwide, over a thousand shows played around the globe, it's too bad that so little of that success appears to be left down the line. Pearcy's relationship with guitarist Robbin Crosby is another highlight of the book. Too bad it ended the way it did, with Crosby becoming addicted to heroin, coming down with AIDS, and dying of an overdose.
Like so many rock and roll stories, Ratt's own rise and fall comes with its own unhappy ending. The good thing is that Pearcy now has a daughter he loves and seems to have cleaned up his act. Good on him if that's true. In the end,
Sex, Drugs, Ratt and Roll: My Life in Rock is worth a read if you were a Ratt and Roller or if you were into hair bands during the 80s. Nothing groundbreaking per se, but an entertaining read nonetheless.
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