BEAU HILL I flew out to L.A. to see Warrant with their manager, Eddie Wenrick, who was working for Tom Hulett at the time. It was at the Country Club in the Valley. I walked in this place and there was, like, over two thousand kids all singing the words to “Heaven.” That was it for me. As soon as I heard it, I said, “Yeah, I’m in. Let’s go.”
JERRY DIXON Beau despised “Heaven,” which at the time was a mid-tempo rock song more like “Down Boys.” We had to fight to keep that song on there. We were like, “Dude, this is our bread and butter live. This is our fan favorite.” He’s like, “Ah, I just don’t hear it.”
STEVEN SWEET He didn’t like the song at all to begin with, so he said, “Let’s just slow it down, see how it feels.” And that’s when it took on the big power-ballad feel.
BRET HARTMAN I think the guitar solos were played by some session guys, and then the band members had to learn how to play those improved guitar solos.
BEAU HILL We were in pre-production for Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and I went to their manager, Eddie, and I said, “Look, we’ve got a problem with the guitar players, because we’re in an era now where it’s Eddie Van Halen and Warren DeMartini. These guys, they’re sweet and they’re good rhythm guitar players, but they can’t play solos to save their souls. I’d like to consider bringing somebody else in to do it.”
MIKE SLAMER (session guitarist) Beau Hill had produced my band Streets with Steve Walsh of Kansas, and we got along like a house on fire. I got a call from him saying, “I’m working with this band and it’s sort of a touchy thing, but is there any chance that you could work with the guitar players for me?” So they would come up to the house and work on parts for the songs.
BEAU HILL It has been misreported a zillion times that I went in and recorded solos privately. I called a band meeting. Everybody sat there and I made my pitch. I said, “I think that we can do better with the solos if we bring in a guy.” They listened and I don’t think they liked it, but to their credit, they were gentlemen and they were businessmen, and they trusted me, I guess.
MIKE SLAMER Beau called me and said, “Look, how would you feel about doing the guitars on this record as a ghost player?” And I said, “If it’s okay with the guys, then it’s okay with me.”
JOEY ALLEN Beau would take the shortest route possible. I mean, there are solos on Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich that are all me: “Big Talk,” most of “Heaven.” So, if you’ve got three-quarters of the solo, why don’t you just work on the last ten seconds with the actual guitarist in the band? And it wasn’t some consensual thing. It was more like, “This is what’s gonna happen.”
BEAU HILL The good part of the story is that these guys liked Mike so much that they started taking lessons from him before the record came out and he taught them the solos.
JOEY ALLEN I’m like, “Okay, if I need to get my shit together here, if I’m not good enough to play all the solos on this record, I’m gonna learn from this guy.” I’d go over to Mike’s house four or five days a week and sit down with him and say, “Teach me, man.” And we got a great relationship out of it.
Look, I don’t fault Mike Slamer for any of that. It’s all on the producer. That was a bullshit move.
STEVEN SWEET We finished the record but it wasn’t going to come out for like six months, so we got a little bit of money from the record company, got on a crappy outdated bus. Suddenly, you’re playing all originals to crowds that have never heard a lick of your music. It was a little bit harrowing.
JOEY ALLEN The first tour was a co-headlining tour with D’Molls, who were on Atlantic. And we flip-flopped every night. Then we went back through with Britny Fox because they were on our label.
STEVEN SWEET We also opened a Paul Stanley solo tour. Funny thing is, he never spoke to us, not a word, until I think the last night where he just said, “Thanks.” So we wound up playing in Hartford, Connecticut, and my dad and mom were living in Danbury at the time. I walk out of our dressing room and I see my dad down the hall, chatting up Paul Stanley. And I’m like, “He hasn’t said a word to anybody in the band, and yet my dad is talking his ear off!” It was just crazy.
ERIK TURNER We lucked out in our first single, “Down Boys.” MTV played the crap out of it and it got tons of ads at radio. The song was a hit. I don’t remember where it landed in the single charts, somewhere in the Top 40.
STEVEN SWEET I remember we were in Cincinnati playing a club in a cold basement in December. And our manager walks in and says, “The record just went gold.” And we were like, “This is what it feels like?”
BRET HARTMAN They went with “Down Boys” for the first single because they didn’t want to go straight out with a ballad. But everybody knew that “Heaven” was going to be a huge hit. “Heaven” was probably the one that really sealed it.
JOHN MEZACAPPA Once “Heaven” came out, we couldn’t even go to the mall without security.
STEVEN SWEET Jani just seemed like he was always trying to be on, always trying to put on a show for everybody. I think that’s a lot of what got him in the end, that he felt like he had to act like he was cool to everybody. He would say things in interviews like, “I don’t want to be one of those guys that just gets offstage and hides in his dressing room.” Looking back on that now, I see that what he meant was “I’m not going to be one of those guys who actually takes care of his health and does the right thing for himself.” So he felt the need to go out and show everybody that he’s cool and that he’s normal. But going out and drinking a gallon of tequila every night with everybody is not normal behavior.
JOHN MEZACAPPA Jani and I had an agreement that I was going to keep his ass grounded, and I did. If he was drinking too much, if he was getting too out there or getting too headstrong, then I was the one who could honestly tell him, “You know, you’ve got to chill out. This is a run that you’ve dreamt about your whole life, and we’ve got to stay focused.” He wanted to be Mötley Crüe, he wanted to be the Rolling Stones, he wanted to be Pink Floyd. He wanted to be around forever.
ERIK TURNER Jani could have a hurtful sense of humor sometimes. He’d be joking around and say, “Warrant’s my stepping-stone for my solo career.” We’re like, “If we didn’t ask you to join our band, you’d be playing covers in Florida.”
JOEY ALLEN We did the D’Molls tour, then we did the Britny Fox tour, then we did two weeks with Eddie Money at colleges on the East Coast. And god bless Eddie, love him to death, I think we broke him of his sobriety once. Then finally Mötley comes out with Dr. Feelgood and we did, I think, four, five, six months out of the gate with them.
JERRY DIXON When we went out with Mötley Crüe on the Dr. Feelgood tour it was like, “God, I can’t even believe this!” You had to remember, I had never left California in my life. I’d never traveled, I’d never flown, I’d never done anything.
STEVEN SWEET It was just amazing to see how big everything was: the attitude, the presentation, the staging, the million-guy crew, and all the buses and the trucks. I felt like, if it doesn’t go past this, at least I made it to a place where I’m in a league with this machine that I admire.
JOEY ALLEN I remember one time we fucking trashed our dressing room in some city. The next day we walked into our dressing room and there was no catering, no beer, there was nothing. And Tommy Lee came to our room with a plate. And he had shit on it. And he goes, “Here, I heard you guys were hungry. Here you go!” I don’t know if they ended up paying the bill for us or if they got shit for it, but it was kind of like, “Don’t do that.” That’s funny shit, right? Because it could’ve been, “Look, we’re clipping ten minutes off your set,” or “You don’t get any lights or sound.”
STEVEN SWEET Honestly, even though they were supposed to be sober, those guys in the Crüe never stopped partying. I just think they stopped doing heroin.
JOEY ALLEN There was a night, at the Cheetah in Atlanta maybe, we all went out, it was Vince, Tommy, myself … I don’t think Nikki went out. And I remember T-Bone just going, “Dude! Dude! Order me a drink!” And I was like, “Fuck you, dude, you’re sober!” But he kept at me, so I’d order him a drink and bring it to the bathroom and he’d come running in and have a shot of Jack. ’Cause there were handlers, you know?