MAX ASHER (drummer, Quest, Warrant) Me and Adam Shore, Warrant’s original singer, were elementary school friends, and then in junior high, we had a band called Quest. In the beginning it was me, Adam on bass and singing, Scott on guitar, and then Rami Jaffee, who is in the Foo Fighters now, on keyboards.
RAMI JAFFEE (keyboardist, Quest, the Wallflowers, Foo Fighters) They were all one year older than me, so I was the underdog and super stoked to play with the dudes. I brought in cue cards from my dad’s office to rehearsal with markers and tried different fonts to feel out if Quest was the right choice. I did the same when we changed it to Quadrant but was never really there when they went on to be Warrant.
MAX ASHER We played a graduation party because we were all leaving for high school, and we were planning on breaking up after the gig.
RAMI JAFFEE The set list, as were all of Quest’s sets, was all covers. Mainly classic rock ranging from “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley” to newer bands like the Cars, Pretenders, and the Police.
MAX ASHER Adam saw a classified ad that was like, “Randy Rhoads, Eddie Van Halen, whatever whatever, call me—Josh.”
JOSH LEWIS I put an ad in the Recycler, which was a classified-ad magazine, and Adam Shore answered it. Then we set up a meeting, we were from the same neighborhood kind of, and he stole his mom’s car to come pick me up. I think he got in trouble for it later.
MAX ASHER I came up with the name Warrant right around that time. We were huge Ratt fans, and the name Warrant comes from Warren DeMartini. I’m thinking “Warren” and “Warrant” and I pitch the name and everybody likes it.
WARREN DeMARTINI I remember that I was at the intersection of Franklin and Highland at a red light and this kid was putting up flyers on telephone poles and he’s like, “Are you Warren DeMartini?” I said, “Yeah.” He hands me a flyer and goes, “My name’s Josh, I like your playing. I’m in this band Warrant and we named the band after you.” I was totally blown away.
STEVEN SWEET (drummer, Plain Jane, Warrant) Jani Lane and I grew up in rural towns that were about forty minutes from each other in Ohio, south of Cleveland. The first time I met him was around 1982, long before we moved to Los Angeles and joined up with the guys who had started Warrant out there. He was playing drums in a band with my brother.
AL COLLINS (bassist, Plain Jane) The band was called Crack the Sky. They let Jani sing one or two songs from behind the drums. I was a fan, so I introduced myself to him at a show and found out he lived around the corner. I started going over to his house pretty regularly with my bass, and we’d do these epic bass and drum instrumentals in his garage.
STEVEN SWEET Jani was a good drummer—a natural player. He was one of those guys that did a little bit of everything. In high school, Jani was into musical theater and music, but he was also on the football team. He was, like, in the non-cool circuit and the cool circuit.
AL COLLINS We were in his house and there was an acoustic guitar in the kitchen. And he said, “Hey man, I’ve written some songs. You want to hear ’em?” So he played some songs for me, and I thought, Wow, these are really good …
JOHN MEZACAPPA (road manager, Plain Jane, Warrant) Jani’s songs, even being raw, had amazing hook lines. You could imagine listening to them on the radio as you’re driving down the road.
AL COLLINS I thought we should try to put a band together to do those songs, and that eventually became a band called Dorian Gray.
STEVEN SWEET I think we had like one rehearsal together with Jani singing, myself playing drums, my brother playing guitar, and Al Collins on bass.
AL COLLINS This was Jani’s first attempt to come out from behind the drum kit. I don’t think it lasted more than a couple weeks before he told us he wasn’t ready and we needed to get a lead singer. So that’s what we did. It’s hard to believe, but at that time Jani was really kind of shy.
STEVEN SWEET I wound up graduating high school and I moved to Connecticut with my family. My brother stayed with Dorian Gray in Cleveland, playing the circuit there with Jani playing drums. They stayed there for a year, and then they moved to central Florida.
AL COLLINS We hired a singer that Jani really liked and started playing cover material. And then when the band told me they were moving to Florida, I left.
STEVEN SWEET I spent a year woodshedding in Connecticut, and Jani, who was in Florida, decided he was going to quit Dorian Gray to work on his own material and be a lead singer. He said he wanted me to be the drummer for that band.
AL COLLINS Jani called me up, asked if I could come to Florida and audition for his band. We decided to try to put another band together and do his songs with him coming out from behind the drum kit. He was ready.
STEVEN SWEET I had my drums already shipped out to Florida by freight, and the night before I was set to come down from Connecticut, Jani calls me and says, “Oh, we found another drummer, don’t bother coming.” I should have taken that as a real sign of his true colors, but I didn’t. My brother, who happened to be visiting with me in Connecticut for Thanksgiving said, “Well, just keep your plane ticket, come down with me anyway. I’m sure you’ll find a band in no time.” I joined a band down there called Los Angeles, and after Jani saw us play, he realized that I was the drummer he actually wanted.
AL COLLINS We just worked day jobs and got this demo together, and then we decided to move to California.
STEVEN SWEET We were looking at Hit Parader and Circus magazines and all the bands that were getting signed were bands that we really liked, like Mötley Crüe, Ratt, and Great White, and we were just like, “Man, we ought to get out of Florida.”
JOHN MEZACAPPA I had stayed back in Ohio, and Jani called me and said, “We’re going to go to California and I’m going to put the band together, and I want you to put the crew together. Let’s make it happen.” That band was Plain Jane.
AL COLLINS I had an old Cutlass Supreme, like an early-’70s, mid-’70s vehicle that I had gotten from my grandmother. We pulled a trailer with that, and we broke down probably in just about every state. By the time we got to California, we didn’t have any money.
STEVEN SWEET For the first week we wound up living off of baloney and bread sandwiches and sometimes just mustard; we’d get mustard packets from the drive-thru of a restaurant and just put it between bread, because it would keep in the dresser drawer of the hotel room.
JOSH LEWIS I never would have imagined that the original Warrant lineup, with all the success we were having, would soon lose two core members and have them replaced by a couple guys from Ohio.