DON DOKKEN Anybody I met at that time, Poison and all those guys that were struggling on the Strip, I’d ask them, “Where’re you from?” They’re, like, from Ohio. Nobody was from L.A.
GREG STEELE (guitarist, Faster Pussycat) When I moved here, I thought, Fuck, this place is amazing! Because where I was from, I grew up in Northern California, a place called Foster City, and the scene … there wasn’t a scene, actually. So I moved down to L.A. in August of ’85. And I just thought it was amazing, all the music and stuff. And then I met Taime and he knew a lot of people and it just started from there.
TAIME DOWNE My birth name’s Gustave Molvik, which is my dad’s name and my grandfather’s name. But I was kind of pissed at my dad so I just changed it. Taime, it was a nickname when I was little from my grandma, because she couldn’t pronounce je t’aime. ’Cause she was Italian. But her assistant was French. She used to import clothes in Seattle from Paris, for, like, Bon Marché and Nordstrom and shit.
In high school I was in a band for a short period of time called the Bondage Boys. It was just fucking dirty … kinda glammy, makeup, like a mixture between the Misfits and Mötley. We were all just up in Seattle, underage, couldn’t get into bars, trying to figure out what we were gonna do. We played a skating rink out in, fuck, what was it called? I can’t remember. That’s where I first got to be friends with Mike Starr from Alice in Chains. But I went to California when I was a kid a couple times and it was just always where I wanted to live. And then the whole scene with Mötley started, Ratt, all that stuff. I was a teenager, late teens, and I was like, “It’s where you gotta be! Get in the clubs, get booze and get pussy!” When you’re fucking eighteen that’s all you wanna do—drink and fuck and play rock ’n’ roll.
TRACII GUNS When Taime first came down from Seattle, I had met him somewhere … I don’t remember where. But I had a girlfriend named Candy and I stayed at her house in Covina half the time and then half the time we stayed at my grandma’s house. And Taime lived with me wherever I went for a little while. So he would stay at my grandma’s or stay out in Covina with me.
TAIME DOWNE I came for a weekend excursion with some people, found a free place to live, we pulled a scam at the Palladium, scammed like eight tickets off the guest list, fuckin’ sold ’em and found a free place to live that night. Had some cash, got to see Metallica. A good weekend. Been in L.A. ever since.
TRACII GUNS He was this real, like, glammy, alternative … you know, he could’ve went either way. He could’ve been in Poison or he could’ve been in Jane’s Addiction. He had the two-tone black-and-white hair, he was skinny, he liked to wear fishnets onstage. He was into Specimen and these kind of avant-garde bands that weren’t really great but the vibe was really cool. He really liked stuff like that. Same with Mick Cripps.
MICK CRIPPS (guitarist, L.A. Guns) I had just come over from London. I was living in England and I was playing in different bands with some of the guys from the London Quireboys—Griff and Spike and Nigel Mogg and all those guys. And the name of one of the bands I was playing in in England was Faster Pussycat, based on the Russ Meyer movie. So I came back to L.A., just to check out the scene, and I met Nickey Beat and Tracii and Axl and all those guys. And one of the other guys I met was Taime. I said, “Hey, you know, this is a great name for a band. Why don’t you use it?” And he ran with it.
TRACII GUNS I remember Mick telling me that name. Because at first it was called Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Like the movie. And I was like, “That’s a movie! You can’t be in a band that’s called the movie.” And Mick would always use the excuse, “Well, Black Sabbath…”
MICK CRIPPS I was trying to figure out if I was gonna stay in L.A. or go back to England. And I got a job at a shop on Melrose called Let It Rock. We got all these great clothes from the King’s Road. Johnson’s suits and everything. We had a lot of music people coming in, like the guys from Stray Cats, Roy Orbison, big-name stars. A lot of people didn’t have that stuff in L.A. A door or two doors down there was this gay porn theater on the corner, and they had converted it into a bar and a couple stores or something. And that’s where Retail Slut was.
TAIME DOWNE I got a job at Retail Slut and doing lights at the Troubadour on the same day. In the meantime, I’m just meeting people all over, doing the social shit, ping-ponging, trying to get into clubs that I wasn’t old enough to get into. Izzy was actually my first friend in L.A. And then I got to be friends with Axl through Izzy. We were at the Rainbow and I go, “Hey, who’re you here with?” And he says, “I’m here with that guy over by the pay phone.” And that was Axl. He had cool hair and a fuckin’ pink biker jacket. All beat-up, punk rock. We just hit it off. And Tracii, I went to see him with Guns N’ Roses at their first show, at the Troub, and that was right before I started working there. Then Mick started doing something with Tracii and I was already in the mindset with Faster. I liked the name. And I just started putting the shit together. I met Greg, he came into Retail Slut. He was like, “Yeah, I just moved here. I play guitar…” So I started shooting the shit with him and we exchanged numbers and we just started working on shit.
GREG STEELE He already had a bunch of guys that he wanted to get a band with, like Mark [Michals, drummer] and Brent [Muscat, guitarist]. We didn’t have a bass player at the time. But he said, “Let’s have a rehearsal.” So we started rehearsing and we just kind of went from there. Really simple like that.
TAIME DOWNE We played a show at the Central, which is now the Viper Room. Our first show ever.
GREG STEELE It was a battle of the bands. There was not that many people there, but there was this dude … this guy who was dancing just like Axl does. And … it was Axl! I kinda thought the guy was just fucking around, making fun of us or something like that. But I guess he was kinda into it. And Axl knew Taime, and he was like, “Dude, we’re playing”—I think they were playing the Whisky a few months later—“and I want you guys to open.” He told Vicky, who was managing Guns at the time, “I want Faster to open.” She was like, “I don’t know…” He told her, “Fuck it, they’re gonna open.”
VICKY HAMILTON Axl was my roommate at the time. And he came in with a Faster Pussycat logo and said, “This is who I want to open up for us at the Whisky.” And I’m like, “Well, we’ve already booked the Unforgiven.” “Well, this is who I want.”
TAIME DOWNE We played the show at the Central and then we did one at the Music Machine. And then our third show was at the Whisky with Guns N’ Roses. And our fourth show was with Poison at the Country Club. I remember those because they were our first four shows. After that I have fucking no idea.
VICKY HAMILTON So I begrudgingly went to see Faster Pussycat. Taime was kind of a scenester then. He was working at Retail Slut. You know, everybody kind of knew him. I really didn’t have any plans on managing them or anything like that but we became friends. He kept calling me: “How do I get a record deal?”
TAIME DOWNE I remember Izzy going, “Vicky’s not managing us anymore, we kinda fired her. But she likes you guys.” And anybody that liked us, we were like, “Cool!” Because we were fucking like a week old. I was like a little hustler back then trying to get everybody into our shit. I was pimpin’ flyers and shit before we even had a full band, when I was working at Retail Slut during the day. We had a whole posse—Mick and other people down at Let It Rock, my buddy Jimmy, people at Flash Feet [of London], Jet Rag … we had a whole little scene down there on Melrose.
GREG STEELE I think at that show at the Whisky with Guns we threw a bunch of incense out. We kinda looked like gypsies onstage and we had incense burning and shit like that. And I remember throwing the incense out and burning people.
TAIME DOWNE We had it in, like, little tin cans onstage, and we’d kick ’em over. Fucking stupid shit we wouldn’t do now, especially with the shit that happened with Great White and clubs burning down. But we wanted to be fucking dirty, Stones-y, gypsy, Hanoi … just the shit we grew up with. Pistols and Cheap Trick, whatever. We wanted to be degenerates but not super-complete fuckups, you know what I mean?
VICKY HAMILTON I took them to Peter Philbin at Elektra. I started that whole thing.
PETER PHILBIN Frankly, they were one of the worst bands I had ever heard. They were terrible. They couldn’t play. They didn’t have songs. I didn’t care at all. Okay? I heard the music, I met the guys, I saw them play. I’m not interested. Have a nice day! I passed.
VICKY HAMILTON Well, I don’t know if he actually said the word pass. But in his mind he passed.
PETER PHILBIN I passed on this band in no uncertain terms. The first time I met them, Vicky brought them up to my office. She wanted me to hear the music while they were there. Boy, that’s always fun! And I heard it and I went, “Guys I have no interest in this. I pass.” They were very clear that I passed.
VICKY HAMILTON At that point Faster Pussycat was really inconsistent. They either played a great show or a terrible show and there just, like, didn’t seem to be any middle ground.
GREG STEELE We were out playing decent-sized gigs right off the bat and we sucked. So, you know, the first impression of people was like, “These guys fucking suck.” And that first impression kind of sits with you. But the first few shows we had this guy on bass, he was just not into being in our kind of band. Basically didn’t want to succeed at all. We wanted to succeed. We wanted to get signed. This guy was the opposite of all that. Then after that dissipated we got Kelly.
VICKY HAMILTON So I end up managing the band, and Kelly Nickels, the bass player … I had moved down into this house on Santa Monica Boulevard, and I had this housewarming party and all of Faster Pussycat came. They had a rehearsal later that night, and Taime and Kelly had ridden their motorcycles and I think Greg and Mark and Brent were in a car. And they left my party to go to a rehearsal. And then I get this call from Brent and he’s, like, crying and freaking out. Kelly was involved in a hit-and-run accident and his leg got broken in several places below the knee.
HEIDI MARGOT RICHMAN (costume designer) Taime and I left the party and we were driving in my Jeep. We were literally right behind Kelly and we saw the whole thing happen. I’m pretty sure we were at Sunset and Highland, or we could’ve been at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland. But it was a huge mess. I hope you never have to see somebody lying anywhere, but in this case it was the middle of a huge intersection in Hollywood. He was laying there with his leg wide open.
TAIME DOWNE I held Kelly’s leg together with my hands in the street. It was scary shit. We were kids, you know? It was fucked.
HEIDI MARGOT RICHMAN It’s like, “Oh my god get the cops get the paramedics get whatever!” And then they took him to Hollywood Presbyterian on Vermont and Fountain.
VICKY HAMILTON I met Taime at the hospital. They wanted to amputate Kelly’s leg, and they wanted to talk to a family member. I think somebody rifled through his apartment and finally found his parents’ number and stuff. And I never knew that Kelly’s last name was not really Nickels. Taime and I were like, “What the hell’s his real name?” It kinda saved his leg that we didn’t know his real name. We’re like, “We’re not family. You can’t, you know, take his leg off.”
TAIME DOWNE I didn’t want to kick him out of the band. But finally it was, “We need to get a record deal. We’re young, and who knows if this opportunity will ever come back?” But we always remained friends, me and Kelly.
VICKY HAMILTON That’s how Eric ended up in the band. I was at the same time managing Darling Cruel, and Eric was the bass player. So he ended up in Faster Pussycat.
ERIC STACY (bassist, Faster Pussycat) Originally I don’t think they knew how long Kelly was going to be out. So it was, “Can you fill in for Kelly for a short time?” “Yeah, no problem.” So I was doing double duty with Darling Cruel and Faster Pussycat. I played a show with Darling Cruel and had a few drinks and started partying and next thing I know it’s like, “Oh, shit, I’ve got another show to do!”
TAIME DOWNE Eric was a better bass player. But Kelly was my buddy. I didn’t really care about technique and any of that shit. But the label thought we were a better band with Eric in it.
ERIC STACY The first gig I did with them was at the Roxy. October ’86. And the band had only been around since early ’86. So it wasn’t that long into it. And afterwards Peter Philbin came up.
PETER PHILBIN This is about five months after I had passed. I show up at the Roxy to see another band and, gee, guess what? They go on late. How shocking is that? And I’m there, and another A&R guy, a guy named Michael Goldstone, he was at Geffen Records, he’s there to see the same band. I can’t remember what band that was. And Michael says, “Let’s go next door to the Rainbow and have a drink.” And I go, “You know what? I’m gonna stay and see this other band.” And that band was Faster Pussycat. I thought, Why not see how much these kids have grown up over the last five months?
So I watch their show and it’s a lot better. And they have a song that I don’t remember hearing before: “Got Your Number Off the Bathroom Wall.” And the hook line is “Boy I’m lucky I didn’t use the other stall.” Wow. Now that’s deep! Not about my life. Not about what I care about. But it’s a cinematic lyric. I mean, you can visualize a lot. And I’m going, “These guys are actually doing something…” It’s still not “I’ve found the future of rock ’n’ roll.” But I thought I should at least go backstage and say hi. So I go back and Ric Browde’s there. And I know Ric. He’s a viable guy who can make a record for nothing.
TAIME DOWNE Ric was cool. He did Poison’s record.
RIC BROWDE Nobody believed that I had done Poison for $23,000. People just didn’t think that that was possible. So Peter was talking to me, going, “Really, you didn’t do the album for $23,000.” And he said, “Well, I like Pussycat, I like the look. But I really don’t think they can do anything. They really kind of suck.” And I said, “Well, why don’t you give me some demo money and let me make a demo with them?” He goes, “I’ll give you $25,000.” And I went, jokingly, “Why don’t you give me fifty and I’ll give you two albums?” You know, just being a brash asshole.
PETER PHILBIN Ric might have this memory of he told me he could make two albums for fifty grand. That’s insane. They didn’t have two albums’ worth of songs! Two albums of what material? My memory is I went backstage at the Roxy to basically say, “You guys keep getting better.” And Ric’s there and Taime’s going, “We’re gonna make an independent record.” I go, “Ric, how much is that going to be?” He says twenty-five grand. “Really? You can bring it all in for twenty-five grand?” Now my wheels are turning. I’m gonna do this for fun. I’m not serious. To quote Bruce Springsteen, “I’m not here on business, I’m only here for fun.” So I say, “Guys, why don’t we have lunch tomorrow?”
So the next day they come up to Elektra. This is like me going to Vegas. “Okay, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna make you an offer. I’m gonna offer you seventy-five grand. And here’s how that’s gonna go. Twenty-five grand to make the record. There’s five guys in the band, that’ll be five grand for each of you. And then twenty-five grand for you to buy new instruments.” Because if they had actual real gear, they might play better. And we make that deal.
TAIME DOWNE We’re just like, “We don’t know, we don’t care.” Whatever. I’m twenty-two and I’m on the same label as Mötley Crüe and the Doors and the fucking Cure. I was tickled.
PETER PHILBIN I think that for all the attitude I had about “Hey, I love Bob Dylan,” and “Oh, I have such great taste,” and blah blah blah … one thing I always understood is that rock ’n’ roll should be fun. And I could see that Taime and Brent and Eric and Greg Steele and all these guys, they’re out hustling girls, they’re working the world. And they’re having a great time doing it. And I’m going, God, if they’ve grown this far in five months, where are they going to be next year?