ERIC STACY Our first records came out on almost the same day. Appetite for Destruction and Faster Pussycat. July of 1987.
RIC BROWDE I think Guns N’ Roses entered the charts in the seventies. We entered at, like, eighty-six. Somewhere in that vicinity. And Philbin gets this call from Bob Krasnow, who goes, “Have you dropped Faster Pussycat yet?” And Peter is like, “No. Aren’t you glad? They bumped into the charts at eighty-six. That’s pretty cool!” And Krasnow says, “Drop them. They suck.”
PETER PHILBIN No. That’s wrong. But Bob and I did have many conversations about Faster Pussycat. And we actually had a falling out about it. Because after the band had sold a couple hundred thousand albums I was going, “Why are we arguing? We’re making money!” But Bob, for better or for worse—and I loved him for it—he had an aesthetic. And if something didn’t meet his aesthetic, he didn’t want to be involved.
TAIME DOWNE The month after our album came out we did a week-and-a-half tour with Guns N’ Roses in Europe—a couple shows in Germany, one in Amsterdam, and then like five in England.
ALAN NIVEN Taime had a decent relationship with Axl, so, you know, that’s how that played out in terms of the convivial politics of the tour. But from my point of view I was led to believe from Geffen that we might have a chance of getting a little more support from WEA on our second trip over there if we had another WEA band on board. What I found interesting was Warren Entner, who was their manager [after Vicky Hamilton] and was glowing with his success earlier with Quiet Riot, had kind of persuaded the, um, cognoscenti of the companies in Germany and the UK that Faster Pussycat were the shit. You know, despite the fact that they were the opening band. Of course, come the day of the show, anybody could see that they were not superior to Guns N’ Roses.
GREG STEELE Guns were ahead of us in popularity because they had been to England two months before. Plus, they had the label over there pushing the shit out of them. And our label was just like, not. But I remember that we had a fucking killer double-decker bus and they had a van. And they were fucking pissed.
ERIC STACY Even though we were friends in L.A. and we hung out at the Cathouse at the same time and stuff like that, the bands weren’t, like, buddy-buddy best friends. We were both new bands on our first record. Everybody was just focused on working hard and trying to make it. But I think the feeling in Guns N’ Roses was that they were like a better band than us. Better musicians. And I don’t think that’s wrong to say. Faster Pussycat were a different kind of band than Guns N’ Roses.
ALAN NIVEN Bottom line is, go and see a Guns N’ Roses/Faster Pussycat show. And you tell me which is the band.
GREG STEELE I know that there’s been a couple things written in different books about a couple things that happened on that tour.
ERIC STACY There was a lot of partying going on, a lot of drinking going on. I remember we were in Hamburg, Germany, the first night and I took a walk down to the train station to try to find a pay phone to call America. And when I came walking back to the hotel I see … actually I didn’t see it at first, I heard it. But our drummer Mark was up on the sixth-floor balcony of our hotel room, pulling the drunk rock star thing, you know like throwing all the furniture off the sixth-floor balcony and tossing it into the subway station down below, creating this huge commotion. So when I got back to the hotel, the manager of the hotel had our band manager at our door and he had Mark there and basically what he was saying was either this guy leaves the hotel now or I’m gonna call the cops and you guys can all get kicked out.
GREG STEELE It’s like, Dude, who goes to another country and fucking causes so much trouble that you can’t even get back into the hotel?
ERIC STACY So Mark basically just walked away with a bottle of vodka in his hand. And I guess he ran into the Guns N’ Roses guys and then later they went up to one of Guns N’ Roses’ rooms. Mark was so fucked up that he passed out in one of the beds. And I guess Duff was trying to tell him, “Hey man, get the fuck out of the bed!” But Mark was just laying there, all drunk and shit. So finally Slash and Duff said, “Well, fuck this guy.” They took him and wrapped him up in duct tape, covered him in shaving cream, and they were in the process of carrying him down the hall to the elevator and they were gonna toss him in the elevator and hit “Lobby” and just leave him there. And I guess he kind of came out of his drunken stupor and he got his hands loose and he just started wildly swinging. I think he hit Duff in the face.
ALAN NIVEN To my memory Duff and Slash took him down the elevator and dumped him in the street. And it was getting a bit cold. But I think he’d overstayed his welcome, shall we say.
TAIME DOWNE And that was the first fucking night! We were laughing about it the whole tour. It was funny as fuck.
GREG STEELE After I found out I was like, “Well, yeah, I would have done that, too.” You’re fucking drunk, you’re high … I mean, we’re trying to get somewhere as a band! And if you have a guy who’s doing drugs all the time, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. You fucking get sick of it after a while. Get your shit together, you know?
TAIME DOWNE At the beginning of the tour for the next album Mark had fucking heroin sent to him.
ERIC STACY Mark and I had been partying together on and off for like a year. And he had arranged to have something sent out to him on the road. So we played Kansas City one night and we had the next day off and then we were playing Omaha. And Mark wanted to get to Omaha and pick up that package. And I remember saying to him, “Dude, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” But he was like, “No, I’m gonna go ahead with the road crew on their bus. See you in Omaha.”
GREG STEELE We get to Omaha and our drummer’s in jail and they took our bus driver with him. And it’s “Ah, fuck…”
ERIC STACY We go to the venue to do soundcheck and Mark doesn’t show up. So the tour manager called the hotel and he found out that Mark had gotten arrested. And then through association everybody started looking at me. But we gave Mark so many chances. We didn’t wanna kick him out. He was our drummer. But by then it was like, You fucking idiot …
TAIME DOWNE They wanted to arrest the whole band at the hotel, but we weren’t there. We had gone from Kansas City right to the venue. Thank god. Otherwise I would’ve fucking really killed Mark.
GREG STEELE Mark was a fucking total drug addict. In Germany the duct tape thing was one incident, and then Mark had another one later on.
ERIC STACY Two days later in Amsterdam Mark and Steven Adler and myself and one of the other guys in the band, I forget who, we were all running out the back door of a Holiday Inn and going out and partying, getting in trouble. Me and Steven went to a whorehouse together. That was back when both bands were at their wildest and craziest. That was just the way it was back then. Rock ’n’ roll was still rock ’n’ roll.
GREG STEELE My whole thing was I wanted to do music. I wanted to go on tour. That was the most important thing to me. I was like the only dude that wasn’t getting drunk and high. I wanted to succeed. This is my dream. You know what I mean?
ERIC STACY Two days after we got back from Europe we shot our part for The Decline of Western Civilization. I think we got back on a Sunday and then that Tuesday we were at the Cathouse doing the interview and the live part.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS (director, The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years) I did the first Decline, about punk rock, and there was a certain, what shall I say? Well, you know what punk rock is—it’s just that whole aggressive “everything sucks” attitude, and I was really attracted to that music at that point. And then time went by and everything went from, you know, no hair and combat boots to cowboy boots with jewelry on them and hair down to your waist. And there were so many people on Sunset Boulevard. Like, you couldn’t even drive right around the Roxy and the Whisky. And I thought, What the hell is going on here? I’m actually more interested in documenting social behavior than I am in the music. But I used the music as a backdrop.
ERIC STACY As a matter of fact, in those early days of Faster I ended up hooking up with Penelope Spheeris’ daughter, Anna. We dated for a while.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS Okay, so here’s the deal. No parent wants to talk about who their daughter dated. But since we started this, what about the fact that my daughter went out with Nikki Sixx during that time. Okay? That was such a bummer. Eric is a very nice guy. Nikki? Ahh … no.
ERIC STACY So I would go and hang out at Anna’s house, and one time I was playing demos for the first Faster Pussycat record and Penelope was saying how she really dug them. I wasn’t sure if she was just being polite. But then she put one of our songs in a movie she was doing called Dudes. It starred Jon Cryer, and Flea was in it. If you ever see the movie, there’s this scene where three punk rockers get in a fight at a bar, and the song that’s playing in the background is “Bathroom Wall.” So I guess she was really sincere when she said she liked what she heard. And then lo and behold, a year or two later we were being cast as one of the main bands for The Metal Years.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS Well, I loved the band. I loved the music.
STEVIE RACHELLE Decline was a big thing. It’s kind of one of those cult classics that people still look at today. They talk about it. There’s a lot of people on there that look stupid, meaning the younger bands that were like, “No, but I’m going to make it!” And I remember, as much as I might have been scattered or young and not knowing all the answers, I know we got asked some of those hard questions. But I also know that I was smart enough to not completely put my foot in my mouth, you know? I’m going to be a star! I’m going to be bigger than Robert Plant or I’m going to kill myself! We never said that.
JENNIFER PERRY (L.A.-Based Booking Agent) You know Penelope Spheeris’ movie The Decline of the blah blah blah? The singer in Odin made that big thing about, “If I’m not a rock star I’ll kill myself.” He’s doing construction in Pasadena. Which is kind of funny.
JEFF DUNCAN For a while when I saw that movie I was like, “Oh, god, look at us.” But Odin weren’t too different from any other band on the Strip at the time. We just got filmed doing it. You watch that movie, and everybody in it is saying, “I’m gonna make it.” Well, what if you don’t? “I’m gonna.” That was the mentality.
JANET GARDNER There was a lot of “Well, what’s your backup plan?” “Well, we don’t have one.”
RIC BROWDE Remember the kid with the two-color hair, and Penelope goes, “What happens if you don’t succeed?” “Well, I’m gonna succeed.” Things like that? That guy was rehearsing right next to us when we were doing the Pussycat rehearsals. And he was just, like, trying to get anybody to come into his room. It was just, “Come play with me. I’m gonna be a star.” I can’t even remember what the guy’s name was.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS Gabe? Gabriel? That guy’s in jail now. He scammed a bunch of people down in Texas.
RIC BROWDE He would be in there with the door open, holding a guitar in front of a mirror. And making poses. You know, like while he was bending notes. And that was what L.A. was. You had bands like Odin. O-din! O-din! That was reality. All those bands, they were just like that. And it was damn fucking embarrassing. Penelope Spheeris captured it better than anybody. You know, Tuff, Warrant, all of them.
JOEY ALLEN We were shameless promoters. And I remember we wanted to get in that movie. I don’t even think we had a record deal at the time. But it didn’t matter to us. We were just like, “Yeah, we wanna do it!” I think we wanted to do it and we didn’t get picked.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS Warrant wanted to be in it and I feel really bad that I didn’t put them in it. Jani, he was a sweetheart. But I could only shoot so many bands, you know?
ALAN NIVEN In an empty club, during daylight hours, Penelope Spheeris tried to persuade me to involve my bands in her Decline of All Aspects of Sanity movie. And since neither appeared, I suppose something about Ms. Spheeris must have triggered my protective reluctance.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS We had the set all ready to go and Alan decided at the last minute he didn’t want Guns N’ Roses to do it. That’s why I got Megadeth. So, thank you, Alan.
ALAN NIVEN Oh, damn, you mean Slash coulda played the Chris Holmes part?
PENELOPE SPHEERIS Chris Holmes, it’s not my fault he was that drunk. I didn’t want it to look like that, either. I told the cameraman, “We gotta set this up again and shoot something we can use. Because the guy was just a total fuckup and we didn’t get anything. So when are we going to reschedule this?” And they said, “Well, we don’t have enough money to shoot this again.” So I went into the editing room and tried to cut it together and I was grimacing the whole time, going, “Oh, my god.” And then it turns out to be the scene that everybody talks about in the film.
JAY JAY FRENCH I go to the Rainbow one night, and Chris Holmes is there. He’s at the table, drunk as shit. I walk over and someone says, “Jay Jay, it’s Chris Holmes.” He puts his hand out, and as he puts his hand out he rolls off the table and falls facedown onto the floor. I’m looking at this scene, going, “Is this out of Spiñal Tap?” This was just too stupid. I said, “I don’t need to meet people this stupid.” I liked the guys from Ratt a lot more.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS I saw Chris in a bar [later on] and he said, “Hey, you fucking bitch! You owe me five hundred bucks!” He yells it across the bar. And I’m like, “Dude, you were too drunk to remember. We paid you.”
RIKKI ROCKETT We had a lot of fun with that movie.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS I thought Poison were hilarious. C.C.’s so fucking funny. And Ozzy’s hilarious. I tried to do a movie with Ozzy called Shooting Stars in the mid-’80s, before I did The Metal Years, and everybody that I went to for the money for the film, they would say, “He’s not funny.” I’d say, “Ozzy is hilarious. Could you please just listen to me? Ozzy is hilarious.” Nobody would listen to me, you know?
SHARON OSBOURNE Penelope said, “Okay, Ozzy, you make breakfast and I’ll interview you.” And that’s what happened. That was it. And that’s what you got, you know, that’s Ozzy.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS Well, if you’ve ever seen the first Decline, you’ve got Darby Crash making breakfast. If you’ve seen the third Decline, you’ve got Eyeball from the Resistance making breakfast. It’s a common theme.
OZZY OSBOURNE I was fucked up when I did that.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS He put butter on the bacon!
SHARON OSBOURNE People always try and take something away from Ozzy. But there is nobody like him. Nobody. And when you see him, when he’s at his purest like that, people are always, “No, that must be fake. That’s really not Ozzy.” Well, that’s fucking Ozzy.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS I staged the orange juice thing. Common knowledge. But that’s it.
OZZY OSBOURNE Penelope, I got on with her very well. She’s a nice lady. A bit crazy, but we’re all a bit crazy at times.
STEVIE RACHELLE My guess is the movie came out in the spring or summer of ’88.
RIC BROWDE The movie debuted at the Cinerama Dome. It’s that big, round theater in Hollywood. The kid with the two-color hair, he hired a limo to come to the movie. Because he thought he was gonna be a star. He was so sure he was gonna be a star. The look on his face when he saw that movie and realized what a klutz he was. At least he had a limo to go crawl into.
STEVIE RACHELLE I remember a couple guys from Poison were there. I know Gene [Simmons] was there. I’m pretty sure Dave Mustaine was there.
TAIME DOWNE I remember fucking Chris Holmes was there with his mom. It was fucking great. And the jokes were flying when Chris came on the screen…’cause he’s sitting there with his mom and shit, they were right in front of us. And we were right in the middle of the whole fucking theater.
LIZZY BORDEN (singer, Lizzy Borden) When you see Chris in the pool, it was fun and games, we were all laughing and having fun and no one was thinking about what this could end up being. But Chris is still alive, so it’s all good.
GREG STEELE It was awesome just seeing yourself on a big screen like that, people laughing and stuff like, “This is cool!” I thought some of the local guys, I’d never even heard of any of those bands or seen any of those people. I didn’t know where they found those people but they weren’t part of the scene at all. I’d never seen those people in my life.
STEVIE RACHELLE The Wet Cherri guy, I mean, all of them at some point were on the Strip. Meaning, people would be hanging out and in a band. But those bands would last for like three or four shows and then somebody would go to jail or decide they were going to be a plumber or move back to Colorado or wherever they were from, you know?
RIKKI ROCKETT I don’t think that most of the bands that were interviewed were that important for the scene at the time, quite frankly. I didn’t think Odin was particularly important. So I think Penelope hit the mark in painting the spirit of that time, but she missed the mark of which artists to interview, in my opinion.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS The whole premise of Decline, in case nobody noticed, is the fact that the movies were made to spotlight unknown bands. And that’s why unknown bands, relatively unknown bands, were performing. And the older guys that have already been established, like Poison and, you know, Ozzy and Aerosmith, those guys were just commenting on the time and not performing. It wasn’t ever my intention to spotlight them. It was more about the unknown bands.
LIZZY BORDEN There was a massive big party across the street afterwards that everyone went to.
PENELOPE SPHEERIS The LAPD helicopters got real low on the party. Everybody’s long hair was swishing around.
STEVIE RACHELLE At the party Penelope comes up to me and she goes, “Stevie, Gene Simmons wants to work with you.” I go, “Huh?” She says, “I sat with Gene and as soon as you came up on the screen he said, ‘Who is that?’” And she goes, “I told him, ‘That’s Stevie from the band Tuff,’ and he was like, ‘That kid’s gonna be a star…’” But at this point Kiss was already kind of old and washed up and fifteen years removed from their height or whatever. So whether I was being arrogant or just stupid I was like, “Oh, that’s great. Awesome. Whatever.” You know? If she had said, “C.C. DeVille wants to work with you,” I would’ve been fucking ecstatic.
ERIC STACY I could see how some people would watch it and go, “Oh, that’s a joke.” But you can’t really say “That’s a joke” about a movie that has Kiss and Alice Cooper and Aerosmith. So I felt it was a great thing to be a part of. To this day I think it’s a great piece of rock ’n’ roll cinema.
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE (actress) Originally, my character of Kelly Bundy on Married with Children was kind of like a tough little rebellious biker kind of chick. It kind of evolved, or devolved, if you want to call it that, after I saw this girl in this documentary [Decline] and I went oh my god, that’s it. That’s her. So we kind of changed her up to be sort of a product of the ’80s, of this generation of girls that felt they needed to use their bodies to get further in the world, and the music was heavy metal. And there was a girl in the movie who had just won Miss Gazzarri’s. And she was sitting there in, I believe, a white minidress, which I had never really seen anyone wear. And they asked her what she wanted to do after winning Miss Gazzarri’s, and she said, “I want to continue with my modeling and my actressing.” And I went, That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And literally the next day, I went to the wardrobe people and to everyone and I said, “We’re changing this up.”
PENELOPE SPHEERIS See, what I try to do, I don’t make films like Michael Moore, where he’s got an opinion and he wants to push it off on everybody else. My favorite documentarian is Frederick Wiseman, and if you don’t know his work you should see it because the whole point is to not have an opinion about it. And with Decline, I didn’t have an opinion about it. I was just showing you what was there. Because back then I was really one of the few people shooting it. So I wanted to document it and say, “This is what it was like.” I did not mean to say it was good or bad. I just wanted to say, “There it is. You figure it out.” And some people love it and some people hate it. They all have the right, you know?
LIZZY BORDEN When I talk to kids today about the movie, they really love it. And I’m like, “Okay, if you know some of these people who tried and failed and you know how hard it is, even if you climb to the top, you know, there’s a big fall.” I think it shows that. But it’s interesting how the kids are perceiving that film now, I think that they’re looking at it as a fun celebration, which is what I thought it was to begin with.
STEVIE RACHELLE I did go to a screening of it a few years ago, like a twenty-fifth anniversary screening. A bunch of us were there—Riki Rachtman, Penelope, Rikki Rockett, Nadir from London, one of the guys from Odin. There’s, like, ten or eleven of us that were in the film, and at the end of it we went up and did a little panel and just talked about the movie. And people loved it. I still get little comments here and there online where people reach out and say something about it. That movie struck a chord with people. It definitely made an impact, you know?