BOBBY BLOTZER I went down to Hollywood to see Ratt play the Whisky and I wasn’t quite into the band. I was waiting for this other gig to open up, in a band called Bruzer. They were amazing. But with Ratt, I saw that there was potential in the band, but I wasn’t really fond of Pearcy as a front man, you know? But by this time months had gone by and these Bruzer guys were fucking lingering.
JUAN CROUCIER Bobby called me one day and said, “Hey, I wanna go jam with the guys from Ratt.” They had a rehearsal space in this garage in the backyard of this house … I think the lady’s name who lived there was Mrs. O’Neill. So Bob goes, “Can you take me up there?”’Cause I had a little pickup truck. So I said, “Yeah, no problem. Maybe buy me a burger and I’ll give you a ride.” I don’t think he ever bought me the burger.
BOBBY BLOTZER So in March of ’82 I joined Ratt, just to play.
JUAN CROUCIER Then about two weeks after that he calls me and he goes, “Hey man, I need you to help me out. I can’t play with this bass player. I’m gonna kill him. Can you come down and jam with us?” And, you know, I was a starving musician. So I go, “How much is the band making?” “I think we make about fifty bucks a gig.” And I went, “Fifty bucks? I’m in!” That was groceries for a week. And so Ratt began basically from there.
BOBBY BLOTZER We rehearsed in that garage in Culver City for, like, a year and a half, maybe. And that’s where we wrote a lot of that stuff.
WARREN DeMARTINI Ratt was starting to do better, and what happened was DeeDee, who was booking the Whisky, had seen Ratt and she had an idea that it could be something. So Saxon was playing the Whisky and I think the opening act couldn’t make it or something like that. But I remember it was very quick, like that day: “You’ve gotta get your stuff to the Whisky.” We got a chance to play, and they were doing two shows in one night. Totally packed and sold out. And we got up there and played and it was the first time we’d ever played to that many people and got the response that we got. That was a turning point.
STEPHEN PEARCY Eventually we became a house band at the Whisky. Just like Mötley.
DEEDEE KEEL I tended more toward the pretty boys. I liked a band that would go up there and put on costumes. I loved the circus. So as soon as I heard about Ratt, I got them into the Whisky as fast as I could. And I really thought they had great tunes. They didn’t take off or get the attention as fast as Mötley Crüe, but if I had to score them they’d be number two, for sure. People were coming, particularly girls. And Stephen, have you ever met him? My girlfriend was with me once and she said, “Oh, my god, this guy just exudes sex.” He touches. He’s all over. And particularly if he wants something.
STEPHEN PEARCY We didn’t really eat but I had girls taking care of us, feeding us, giving us stage clothes. Bailing us out of jail.
BOBBY BLOTZER And then it started getting big. I was starting to trip out. I was really getting a buzz off it. We were packing the Whisky. Sellouts, two nights at the Troubadour, everywhere we played around SoCal.
WARREN DeMARTINI But even though things were doing better we never really got paid, you know? There was no manager or anything like that. I remember one night at the Troubadour, this was after that Saxon gig, and it was like we’d seen with Mötley Crüe, where there’s a line going around the corner. We did two shows, both totally full, and when we were done it was like, “Where’s the guy with the money?” When Marshall started managing Ratt that stuff didn’t happen anymore.
BOBBY BLOTZER Marshall was managing the Whisky at the time. And I knew who Marshall Berle was. He was somewhat infamous. He had been on the scene since the ’60s and shit. He worked with the Beach Boys. He worked with Creedence. He was, like, legendary.
MARSHALL BERLE (manager, Van Halen, Ratt) I go back to 1960, when I started at the William Morris office in the music department. I signed the Beach Boys. I brought Van Halen to Warner Bros. I had an office at the Whisky, and one of the girls there told me about Ratt.
DEEDEE KEEL That would have been me.
MARSHALL BERLE They had some great songs and they had a huge following already. I personally liked them. But I always go by what the people see, you know? So cementing the relationship and wanting to sign them was based on the reaction of the audience toward them.
DEEDEE KEEL When Marshall got his hands on Ratt, he got involved pretty heavily. And Stephen Pearcy was the kind of guy who would walk on people’s shoulders to their head to the next lily pad, if you will. So you could see that coming a mile away. But I can remember telling Stephen, “Ride that pony as far as it takes ya.”
STEPHEN PEARCY If I’m correct, we were doing a Whisky show and Marshall just came up and introduced himself. He said, “Hey, I used to manage Van Halen.” We go, “Van Halen?”
MARSHALL BERLE I didn’t bring Van Halen to Warner Bros. I brought Warner Bros. to Van Halen! I had a relationship with Ted Templeman, and Ted Templeman and Mo Ostin and one other guy from Warner Bros. came to the Starwood. I told the band I was bringing some people down. And it was pouring rain. Of course, David Lee Roth likes to tell it different. I don’t want to get into all that. The bottom line is I did my job. I did what I said I was gonna do.
BOBBY BLOTZER Marshall, he’s a little old-school shifty, you know? But god bless him.
STEPHEN PEARCY All we heard was “I was Van Halen’s manager for two tours. I can get you in the studio.”
MARSHALL BERLE Even if I hadn’t worked with Van Halen, here’s a bunch of guys on the street. You offer them a record deal, I’m sure they’re going to take it no matter what.
STEPHEN PEARCY We talked. Because everyone was getting signed at that time, but we still had nothing goin’ on.
JUAN CROUCIER Marshall had a label called Time Coast and offered Ratt sort of a production deal. And back then, it was just a different world. Oftentimes groups that really had nothing going on were offered these deals that were maybe not the most lucrative deals. But when you’ve got nothin’, you know, you’ve got nothin’ to lose.
BOBBY BLOTZER So we did this EP in one week in November of ’82. I forget the name of the studio. It was on Melrose.
STEPHEN PEARCY I think that record only cost something like three grand.
BOBBY BLOTZER I remember walking out of that studio Thanksgiving morning, after mixing that record for a day and a half straight. And I had to go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. I was so fucking tired. I got in my [Datsun] B210, pulled the seat back, put my feet outside the window, and went to sleep. But the record sounded killer!
STEPHEN PEARCY The artwork was Robbin and I throwing live rats on Tawny Kitaen’s legs, at Neil Zlozower’s studio. She was Robbin’s girlfriend.
NEIL ZLOZOWER These weren’t wild rats that we found in the gutter or something like that. They were rented from, as Stephen called it, a place called Rent-a-Rat. I’m like, “Dude, they got a place that rents rats?” He goes, “Yeah.”
STEPHEN PEARCY It was just some weird idea—“Get some rats, throw ’em on her legs, it’ll be kinda creepy.” So we did. And Tawny was a little squeamish but she went with it. She was a trouper! The only thing was, we rented five white rats. But if you look closely at the cover, there’s a sixth one. Black. Don’t know where that came from.
JUAN CROUCIER That was one of the things we were always kind of laughing about. Like, “Hey, man, didn’t we have five? How come there’s six in there now?”
NEIL ZLOZOWER I’ve gotta be honest with you. I’m an animal lover. Probably the best pets I ever had in my life were pet rats. I loved them. So I don’t know whose idea the whole thing was, but it wasn’t mine.
MARSHALL BERLE I hired some promotion men to get the EP some legs in L.A. and it took off like crazy. I did what any record company would do. Which was, number one, get some airplay. We got it into heavy rotation.
BOBBY BLOTZER KLOS and KMET, in an unprecedented move, they were both playing “You Think You’re Tough.”
JUAN CROUCIER It was like, “Whoa! We’re on the radio!” I’m driving down Prospect Avenue in Redondo Beach, and here comes “You Think You’re Tough.” And I thought, Oh, yes! And you know the fans picked up on it, we sold somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand copies on our own, as an independent band, and that’s what helped to bring about the Atlantic deal.
MARSHALL BERLE My experience after Van Halen and before Ratt was that there was a lot of independent record activity going on. I was helping out the Go-Go’s and I saw how all the bands were promoting themselves. That’s what needed to be done to get interest from the labels. But you sell forty thousand, fifty thousand units, somebody’s gonna jump all over that.
BOBBY BLOTZER And that led us to the Beverly Theater, July 27, 1983. That’s when we got our deal.
STEPHEN PEARCY Lita Ford was also supposed to play, but she pulled out because she didn’t want to open for Ratt. We said, “We don’t care. We’ll just play alone.” And that’s what we did.
BOBBY BLOTZER She was trying to show up late and fuck with us somehow, this is the story we were told. But we just went on. We said, “Fuck it.” She showed up but it was too late.
STEPHEN PEARCY And that’s when the president of Atlantic came down with a couple of his guys.
BEAU HILL (producer, Ratt, Kix, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, Warrant, Winger) I had worked on a Sandy Stewart record for Modern Records, which was a subsidiary of Atlantic. And one day I got a call from [then Atlantic Records president] Doug Morris. He said, “Are you willing to go to California with me to look at a band? Because if you’ll produce them, I’ll sign them.”
WARREN DeMARTINI I remember a feeling that it was this or nothing, because my memory is that every label had passed on us and Atlantic was the last big one that hadn’t seen us yet.
STEPHEN PEARCY Marshall had been instigating meetings, having labels come and check us out. Major labels. And a lot of people didn’t wanna deal with us.
BEAU HILL So we flew out and we saw Ratt play at the Beverly Theater and the place was packed. There were two thousand screaming kids and they’re going completely nuts.
STEPHEN PEARCY And then it was done. Next thing you know we’re signing contracts with Atlantic Records.
MARSHALL BERLE Doug and Beau came backstage after the show, bing, bang, boom, that was it.