It was June 1982, and I was living in a tiny room at the Portobello Hotel, Notting Hill, London, W10. A few weeks earlier, I had gone through a strange changing of the guard in my personal life. I had broken up with my childhood sweetheart, Laurie, who had moved to London to be with me, when I had gotten my first solo residence on Stratford Road, Kensington, London, W8.
That apartment was a cool two-bedroom pad in a good part of town; there were always people coming and going, staying over. It was on a quiet street and near both Earls Court and Kensington High Street. The hospital at the end of the street was the one where Hendrix died. I found something cool about that rock factoid and would point it out when anyone came over.
I had somehow wound up with a piranha as a pet. Some artist friend had made a backdrop of the Vatican that I stuck to the back of the aquarium, and the fish became known as the Pope. I had tried to put one of those little bubble-blowing mermaids and treasure chests into the tank with him, but he just tore them all up. He was 100 percent hunger, rage, and destruction, but he was low maintenance, as I could dump a dozen live goldfish in the water and he would eat them over the course of a week when I went away. I had a neighbor who liked to party and would take care of him if I was gone longer. Countless hours of enhanced heightened enjoyment were had by all, watching me feed the Pope live goldfish while we blasted rockabilly and blues records. I would feed him strips of bacon, the trick being knowing when to let go. Actually, that’s a good message for the whole time period. I had the party act with the Pope down to where he would bite right up to the tips of my fingers and make a little splash as I dropped the last piece of bacon fat into the water.
True pal Joel Brun from Paris and his wife, Helen, would come and stay for a couple of weeks at a time. Joel was a cool guy, a founding member and secretary of the French chapter of the world’s most famous motorcycle club. He was also an original French rocker; he saw Gene Vincent play in France and was the number-one biggest Stray Cats fan. We met Joel when we performed on a legendary live broadcast concert show and interview program hosted by the number-one French telejournalist and host Antoine de Caunes from the Palace in Paris. This program featured an interview segment cut during the afternoon and inserted in between the songs from the gig that night. This one show launched the Cats into superstar status in France. It was a huge break where a whole concert was shown live on national French TV. The band, as always, delivered the goods. We, of course, didn’t quite realize the magnitude of the opportunity and just went out and nailed a gig and interview. We really looked like tattooed children on this one. Antoine was just starting his career, too, and he looked as young as we did. He was a true early fan and helped us a lot. He’s a good guy and is now one of the biggest stars in France. Joel can be seen sitting behind us during the interview segment, just smoking and looking cool the whole time.
In the future, we would do whole tours of France; we went to every city and town and did a lot of French television. I have very positive memories of those times. If I had learned to speak French and life had turned out slightly different, I would have happily lived in Paris. The Cats were and still are a legendary, huge act in France.
Joel would travel on the road with us and learned how to speak English by listening to us talk in the backseat of the car. This was before the days of tour buses in Europe. Brian went with the tour manager and his minder in the nonsmoking car, while Lee and I traveled all over Europe, top to bottom, thousands of miles, in a big Mercedes with true pal and ex–British soldier and bodyguard/driver Derrick “Captain Apollo” Unwin at the wheel. Joel and I had hundreds of adventures together, including seeing how many days in a row we could stay up. I think we made it to nearly five, definitely three. Another involved Derrick and Joel stepping in and protecting me from an overzealous store detective in Montpelier, who pulled out a gun when he thought I was stealing a pair of socks. When the statute of limitations runs out, I will include more of those stories in volume 2.
I had hooked up with Sarah-Jane Owen from the all-girl band the Belle Stars. It was my first taste of minor indie celebrity, as her band was known and played around England and Europe. People recognized us when we went out in London; a few of the rock papers had noticed and made small mentions. We had our picture taken a few times at gigs. She used to dress up in vintage western movie, dancehall girl–style clothes and looked good. At the time, like anyone else, I thought each of these relationships was important. Each one has a hand in shaping you, in some way, for the future.
The Cats were getting ready to come back and do our first tour of the USA. We had finally gotten a release date for the record on EMI, and our records would be available for the first time in the USA. They had previously been available only as imports, even though we were Americans. Our first record contract was what was called an “excluding USA deal”—it should’ve been called just “plain stupid.” Even though we had just had multiple hits in every other market, there was still doubt among the brass at the USA parent company about whether this band was for real or not. It proves that even legendary record company geniuses don’t really know anything.
We had just parted ways with the original manager whom we had come to London with two years earlier. I had let the lease on my apartment go, put my few things in storage, and was going to stay with Sarah-Jane until the situation was more settled. The party friend, my neighbor, had taken possession of the Pope. I don’t think he cared—being a piranha, as long as he got fed, he seemed happy. Where to go and what to do were two things very much up in the air, though not much time was spent worrying about it. It was definitely the last period in my life that I could totally live for the band and be in the moment. It’s also a luxury of youth to behave that way. I miss it. The most important thing was that the Cats were going to America. A band cannot truly say they’ve made it without cracking America. Everybody knows this, and we knew it, too. It was time to go back to the States and do it all over again from scratch.
Through circumstances that were probably my fault, although I can’t remember all the details, I wound up by myself with nowhere to live—from two girls and two places to stay to no girls and nowhere to stay in one move. I thought I was upset about it, but I was twenty-two years old and had been on the road, around the world, with a successful, highly visible band for the last three years, and I wasn’t really paying attention to much else. Things were constantly in flux, and I just went with the flow.
I had a few weeks to kill in London, so I moved into the Portobello Hotel. I had stayed there before during times between rental flats in the past. It was a very rock-and-roll boutique hotel in a trendy part of town. Everyone stayed there, and you’d always see someone you knew. It had the only twenty-four-hour liquor license in town, with a little pub and restaurant in the basement. In the late hours, they didn’t mind you serving yourself drinks, and I’d always remember to write it down on my tab. I have a good memory from that basement of staying up all night with Lemmy, along with tragic true pal and founding member of the Pretenders, Pete Farndon, and a few others, playing poker. The place opened for breakfast to the regular guests at 7:00 A.M., who found us still there with a tableful of empty pilsner bottles and an overflowing ashtray. Marc Almond from Soft Cell, in full bondage gear, came clunking down the steep wooden stairs at 7:05 and politely refused to sit in for a couple of hands.
From the outside, it was an old Georgian-style house, while inside it had been converted into a hotel. No two rooms were exactly the same, and each one had unique antique furnishings. The small lobby led to a sitting room with full-length floor-to-ceiling french doors that opened up to a back garden. It had decent showers with strongish water pressure, which for England in the 1980s was a rare, welcome amenity. It was the first hipster bed-and-breakfast but had an old-world charm and seemed to be completely staffed by nice British women. I came and went during rock-and-roll hours and would just take the key from a cubbyhole behind the front desk when it was late and the night manager was taking a nap on the couch in the lounge.
I had stayed there for a few weeks at a time, three or four different times, over the past two years, but I never had a credit card and cannot recall ever paying the bill or signing anything. It must’ve been sent to the little office we had on Wardour Street and must’ve been paid because they kept taking me back. Ignorance of the way money really worked was another sentimental part about that time of my life. Besides having enough cash in my pocket to buy some drinks, a little blow, and taxi fare, I never knew of or thought about finances. When I needed an airline ticket, I called the office. We were pretty much always on the road, and it wasn’t private jets, but I lived without ever seeing or thinking about a bill. This way of life comes back to bite you, but like the rest of it, it was great, youthful fun while it lasted. Until just a few years ago, I would get a Christmas card from the Portobello Hotel every year, sent to my parents’ address in Massapequa. In 1982, I still used it as my permanent address because it was the only one I could remember.
This time, I was staying at the hotel because I had nowhere else to go. On a number of nights during this stay, true pal and character Michael Corby would crash out in the extra bed in the room after a night out in the clubs. There were always more or less harmless rock-and-roll hijinks going on around me. Corby founded the glam rock band the Babys and was a real rock star whom I had numerous adventures with. The hotel had given me the small room behind the front desk that really just consisted of two single beds and a bathroom. One funny side story involves Corby waking up in the middle of the night after thinking he heard something outside our door. He went out to check, and the door closed and locked behind him, stranding him the hallway. I was passed out and didn’t answer the door despite his urgent whispering. He decided to sneak out to the front desk and look for a spare key. He, of course, slept naked and picked up a large potted plant to hold in front of his privates while he roamed the hall. After a minute or so of looking through the drawer and cubbyhole slots behind the desk, he looked up to see the two girls who acted as night managers quietly sitting on the couch in the little lounge, right next to the desk, watching him and giggling. One of them walked him to the room and let him in with the pass key. Corby, once the game was up, probably walked back to the room with his head held high like Charles I on his way to the chopping block.
It’s funny how random people can play such huge roles in a life. A friend from LA was in town and got in touch with me. It was Roger Klein, the manager of the Roxy. He was a good guy, and I had hung out with him a lot when the Cats had been in LA in 1981. On that first West Coast visit, I had pretty much made my camp at the Rainbow, and Roger had shown me around some cool, historic, under-the-radar spots around Hollywood. He was one of those Anglophile types, friends with a lot of the English bands, but he had never traveled to London before. This was his first trip there, and he called me when he arrived. I asked him to meet me at the hotel for a couple of drinks and we’d go out from there. He asked if he could bring another friend of his who lived in London, and I said, “Sure. The more the merrier.”
The friend he was talking about was Britt Ekland, who would turn out to be one of the most important people in my life.
Being the manager of the Roxy meant Roger also worked directly for the club’s owner, Lou Adler. I had met him when the Cats played the Roxy the year before. Lou is a music mogul and cool guy who had dozens of hit records as both manager and producer starting with Jan and Dean and the Mamas and the Papas through Carole King and Cheech and Chong. He put on the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and was also a partner in the Whisky and the Rainbow. He’s famously the guy with the beard and hat who sits next to Jack Nicholson at the Lakers games. In the years to follow, Lou and I would become part of what I call “an LA extended family” and hang out on many, many occasions. I got to sit in those Lakers seats a few times—there’s nothing like it; if you’re any kind of sports fan, it’s the best thing. Thanks, Lou. I like the guy, still see him, and am happy to have known him. I had also met Jack, briefly, after he danced throughout that whole LA show and came to the dressing room after the gig to say hello. It was another one of those “I was in Massapequa High School a year ago” pinch-yourself moments.
Britt and Lou had been together in the 1970s and had a son, Nicholai, who was nine years old when we met. So Britt knew Roger, and he knew me, and we would all become very close.
I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight, but I definitely believe there is connection at first sight. When Britt came down the stairs and we were introduced, I knew something was different about her. We had an immediate, deep connection. She was older than I was, but I was only twenty-two, so most everybody was older than I was, it seemed. I didn’t notice this immediately. She looked like what she was—a glamorous European movie star. I have always said and still say now that our age difference was never a factor until much later. She was stunning, gorgeous—I remember she was dressed in elegant, trendy, but still rock-and-roll clothes that suggested the classier end of the Kings Road. She spoke perfect English with a Swedish accent and got things slightly wrong in translation. I had no idea who she was, just that she was a movie actress, and she had no idea who I was, just that I was a guy in a band. It was supposed to be a regular night out. It turned out to last a lot longer.
We decided to go to the Camden Palace. Roger had some other people to see in town, so he left us at the hotel, and it was just Britt and me. She had a tricked-out MINI Cooper from the 1960s and wanted to drive. I don’t think I had ever known a woman who had a car before, and certainly not one like that, so the adventure was getting better all the time. The Camden Palace is a well-known old venue in Camden, London, NW1. It’s been there for fifty years and has seen every type of event imaginable. I think it’s still going as a dance club and occasional live venue. The neighborhood has become trendy, but back then, it was still a bit rough.
My friend and superstar scene maker Steve Strange promoted a club at Camden Palace, and when Steve did a night, it was always the best thing going on in town. Steve was a flamboyant, genuinely original character who just about single-handedly invented the new romantic movement. He was the singer in the band Visage and always looked fantastic—he took the hipster alien look as far as it could go. He ran legendary clubs—Blitz, Club for Heroes, and many others. His nights were always the place to be on any given week. I knew him very well from around club land, and he was thrilled to meet Britt. Steve Strange recently passed away, and there’s been much outpouring from everyone who was around London in those years. I really cared for and tried to stay in touch with him. He really liked to party and had trouble getting away from certain behavior. He would become good friends with Britt, too, and we’d hang out every time we were back in London. Steve thought it was “fucking brilliant” that she and I were together, and it always helps a club promoter when famous people turn up together on their nights.
Another small-world part to this is that the Camden Palace was the first place that the Stray Cats had ever appeared on a stage in England. We had come to see a band called the Fabulous Poodles in June 1980. We had met them in New York City when they played CBGB and befriended them. They said, “If you’re ever in England…” We actually turned up. They invited us to play a couple of numbers with them; it just so happened to be at this same place.
The night that Steve Strange put on this time at the Camden Palace was the best nightclub I ever remember going to. It took place right smack in the middle of the new romantic era; punk and rockabilly influence was still lingering, and this made for an eclectic mix of music and especially fashion. Everybody got dressed to the nines to come out to Steve’s clubs. Some of them looked like they had been getting ready all day to come to the club that night. The girls were dressed up like a cross between Marie Antoinette and Anne Boleyn, with a little Debbie Harry thrown in for good measure. The boys were in full-on Beau Brummell–meets–Adam and the Ants gear. Again, rockabilly and especially the Stray Cats were accepted by all the different tribes. On one occasion, I remember standing in the top-floor bar with Joe Strummer, Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, and most of Spandau Ballet—everyone was tooled up all the way, respected each other, and was having fun. I was a little surprised to hear the Spandau guys with regular North London accents. In those new romantic outfits, I always expected to hear a posh, Oscar Wilde accent coming out of whoever was wearing it. We were all pretty friendly. I recall a girl walking by looking like Madame de Pompadour with punk rock–style makeup and Joe scoffing at her, which sent her away in quiet tears.
Steve treated us like royalty that night. There were a few paparazzi normally camped out there, and I think there are some early photos of us going in and out. We were wined with champagne and me with whiskey and beer. Everyone took turns going to the bathroom for powdered refreshment.
Sometime around closing, we decided to leave. I would get dropped off at my hotel, and Britt would carry on home to her house in Chelsea. There was never a feeling of a one-night stand here. It was more serious and felt like it was a buildup toward the inevitability of getting together. On the way back, we decided to try to find a place to eat something. While slowing down to look for a certain street address, we were pulled over by the police. The cops made us stand out in the pissy London rain while they searched the car and took us both in. Britt was in more trouble than I was because she was driving. We rode together in the back of the police van like a couple of prisoners. At the end of the day, Britt is actually very old world, and I’m sure she was mortified by this whole thing. It was happening quickly in that slow-motion way. She was led into the back of the station house in Camden; I waited in the lobby like Paul’s grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night. She was booked for driving under the influence. The car had been towed to the station by then. In an odd twist, the cops told me that I could drive her home. I had been holding a packet the whole time and was totally wasted, but they never searched my person, and I must have looked well enough to drive but couldn’t imagine how. I was wearing fuzzy leopard-skin boots, a black bowling shirt with the sleeves cut, a red cowboy scarf around my neck, and a black leather jacket. I told the sergeant that I had left my international driver’s license at the hotel. I of course didn’t have one, but I had to say something.
In silence, Britt and I took a taxi back to my hotel. Britt had her girlfriend staying back at her house and didn’t want to bring this whole scene back there at 4:30 A.M., so we each crashed out in one of the two tiny twin beds in my little room, off the lobby of the Portobello Hotel. That had been quite a first date.
The next day, we went back to retrieve the car from the Camden Town police station. On the way back to my hotel, we stopped off to have something to eat at the same place we had been looking for the previous night. Anyone who lived in and around Kensington or Chelsea at that time will remember Witchetty’s on Kensington High Street, near the corner of Earls Court Road. It was a trendy restaurant that was missing the roof off the top floor. The roof garden part of the restaurant was built around the rubble. The story I had always been told was that it was bombed during World War II; I’m not sure if this was true, but the place was missing a roof. When it rained, they moved the tables inside, but when it was nice out, it was a fun place with a great atmosphere and good food. That day, my plate was too close to the edge of the table, and when I put my fork into the lamb chop, I springboarded the whole meal onto my lap. I just salvaged what I could off my pants and ate the rest of my lunch. There was no way to look cool after that. The situation was already way beyond that; we’d already been through a memorable, embarrassing adventure and had only known each other twenty-four hours. We spent the rest of the day walking around Kensington High Street and in Chelsea. She showed me her house in a cul-de-sac next to the Stamford Bridge soccer ground, where Chelsea played its home games. I was going to New York City the next day to meet the band and start the American conquest. We made some type of plan to see each other again, but I don’t remember exactly how we left it. I didn’t have a place to live, let alone a phone number. I think we both knew this wasn’t the end of our association. I spent my last night at the Portobello alone, packed my extra pair of boots and hair grease, somehow got to the airport the next day, and went back home to the USA.
The next few weeks were very busy and hectic. We started on the East Coast and worked our way west. It was the first time we’d ever had a tour bus, and I loved every minute of the whole rolling circus of characters. We were all working for the same goal and truly thought we deserved all the success. I still do. We were playing every night; at one point, we did eleven straight overnighters with shows and partying every night. We were doing clubs, every show was beyond sold out, and it was the hottest ticket wherever we played. There was genuine excitement for the music and the band. I found the after-hours clubs and punk rock strongholds in every town. When it got too crazy in some places, I brought the party back to the hotel. We did interviews and visited all the independent-leaning radio stations that were playing us in the afternoons most days before the gigs. It was the first time I’d ever traveled in the USA with the exception of the 1981 trip to LA and the shows with the Stones the year before. I’d been to Paris but never Pittsburgh, Tokyo but never Topeka.
The real game changer had been MTV. The Stray Cats were tailor-made for it. Rockabilly and the Cats were still too weird for the FM stations of the day. No matter what they say now, most radio station program directors across America in the early ’80s were still stuck in the lame parts of the 1970s and did not embrace punk or new-wave music until MTV made it safe. We had a couple of videos that we had made in England with genre-defining pioneer filmmaker and friend Julien Temple in the late part of 1980 and early 1981. The “Stray Cat Strut” video still stands up; there is a lot of charisma in that little film. Early videos were made for pop music–type programs and shown when the band couldn’t make the appearance at the station. It was a way to be in a few different places at once. They had been around for years but never had a platform like MTV. I believe that Ricky Nelson had the first one with “Travelin’ Man.” His father made it to be played at the end of their 1950s TV show. Believe it or not, in the early days MTV needed content. Luckily, we had two excellent videos in the can, ready to go. They got on heavy rotation, and it put us on the map. Music plus images really came together in the world of early MTV. We had had both since the beginning, and now the world was coming around to our way of thinking. We were perfect for MTV and it for us. Radio followed when it could no longer ignore the popularity of this new music. We would go to the studio and go on the air spontaneously. It was a fun time but changed very quickly. Everything at some point becomes political, and MTV was no exception. I’m very happy and proud to have been there at the start of it all.
We were socially friendly with every one of the original veejays—JJ Jackson and Martha Quinn, especially, but at the time, I considered Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, and Mark Goodman all to be friends. Martha’s boyfriend was true tragic pal Stiv Bators, singer in the Dead Boys and Lords of the New Church. Punk legend Stiv had stayed a lot with Lee and me in our crazy punk rock flat on Gloucester Terrace in Bayswater, London, W2, in late 1980 into 1981. We were close friends.
Even small towns that didn’t have national cable TV had local after-school video programs. We went to every one of these Wayne’s World–style little shows to be interviewed and then to the local radio station. Rock video was now a household term, and the Cats are a part of that story. We worked it every day and then did a full-on rocking show every night. We were the hardest-working, best rockabilly band ever. Anyone who was at a show on that first Cats tour remembers it; I still hear it all the time. I know it was historic good and am not shy anymore about saying it.
By the time we hit LA, it was really taking off. We were extra popular there; the Built for Speed album would go gold in California. After the show in San Diego, I had the bus drop me off at the Roxy while the others went to the Sunset Marquis to check in. It was already late. I was stoked to be back in LA and wanted to see if there was any action on the Strip. We had a three-night, sold-out-in-advance engagement at the Hollywood Palladium starting the next night. I rang the buzzer for On the Rox, an intimate, very small, very private club located on top of the Roxy Theatre on Sunset and was let in. When I got to the top of stairs and looked in, I was a bit disappointed. On first glance, there was nobody there. After adjusting my eyes to the darkness, I focused in, and there she was, standing right there, talking to Louis the bartender. Our paths had crossed again. After a little small talk, we drove back to Britt’s house on Stone Canyon Road, Bel-Air. My life was never quite the same again.
I woke up the next day in the later part of the afternoon. I was in a beautiful Victorian bedroom in a large brass bed with art nouveau paintings and furnishings. There was a deck that looked out over a yard and pool. I had never been in a place like this before. It was Lou Adler’s house, where Britt lived in LA with their son, Nicholai. It’s a historic rock-and-roll house: Lou’s friend John Lennon lived there during his famous “lost weekend” year in LA until he had to move out to make room for Britt and Nicholai. She had split up with Rod Stewart and needed a place to live. I made my way downstairs and met a housekeeper and two large Norwegian elkhounds. Everyone got along. Britt was out, and I needed to get to the gig. Fortunately for me, the Cats rarely sound checked. All my luggage had gone to the hotel, and I had no clothes. Britt came back, and we quickly did my laundry so I had something to wear at the gig. It was late at that point, and I was starting to worry about the gig. The others had no idea where I was. We all partied, things were always kind of loose and anarchic with the Cats, but we always made it to the show, sometimes cutting it very close. All bands want to make every gig a special occasion and want to think each one is just as important as the next, but this one really was a very important one. As a rule, shows in LA, London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo have a little extra pressure; everybody feels it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Stone Canyon, we couldn’t wait for the dryer to finish, and my black Johnson’s zipper jeans were still damp. So I sat in the front seat of Britt’s 1977 Porsche Turbo Carrera with a towel around me while holding the pants out the sunroof to dry while we drove. I borrowed a shirt from Britt and, as always, had my punk rock, standard-issue trusty Schott Brothers Perfecto leather jacket. Britt knows how to drive a sports car, and we were speeding down Sunset Boulevard, then screeched up to the stage door, and I made it to the backstage of the Hollywood Palladium for the first time, with Britt Ekland in tow.
We had an amazing show and blew the roof off the place. It was the early stages of the brief time when rockabilly became a mainstream style. It would soon be possible to buy bowling shirts and creepers in your local shopping mall. The Stray Cats and all the hard work we put into it are responsible for that pop culture moment. This is our lasting contribution to rockabilly music and style.
After the show, I introduced everyone to Britt. After a little reluctance and the suspicion that this was one more short-lived wacky thing from Slim Jim, everybody became friendly.
I went back and stayed in LA after the tour. The others went back to New York. We were constantly on the road and making records for the next couple of years. We recorded the next album, Rant and Rave, at Maison Rouge Studios just off Fulham Road in London. I stayed at Britt’s house on Billing Street and walked to the studio every day. Brian and Britt became pretty close; I was happy about that. It was important to me that everyone got along. My connection and relationship with Britt was then and is now genuine, not a rock-and-roll stunt, and has stood the test of time. Even when we split up, there was no animosity and no ugly legal action.
When there was a long enough break in everyone’s schedule, Britt and I got married in 1984, on my birthday, March 21. We set up a tent in the backyard at Stone Canyon and had a few dozen friends and family in attendance. Glenn Palmer made me a pink tie and tails. Judge Ronald M. George, the judge who had just finished the Hillside Strangler case in LA, performed the ceremony. He told me that I was about to get a longer sentence. Lee and Brian stood in as my best men, Lou was there, too, and Nicholai was my newest, closest little buddy, and he stood next to me. Britt’s daughter, Victoria Sellers, acted as her maid of honor. I had three small rock star wants: a vintage Corvette, a saltwater tropical fish tank, and a pool table. I had all three at that house, where we lived for four years. People came over on most weekends, and there were always willing pool players. Then we bought and moved into our own house at the top of Doheny Drive, moving in the fish tank, pool table, Corvette, and Pepe the Spanish dog, where we spent seven solid years together, living between London and LA, having adventures along the way.
Every now and again, we’d have a spontaneous urge to just do something. A few times while living in London, we’d get into the 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III, drive to Paris, and check into the same little hotel. Sometimes we’d go out and other times just buy easy food from a local market and eat in the hotel room. We’d go to a classic celeb-driven place like Régine one night and the next night go see a rock-and-roll show at a place like Bains Douche. We were welcome at both types of clubs. Sunday or Monday, we’d drive back to London and resume whatever was going on there.
Britt is Swedish and maintained close ties to her roots. We’d fly to Sweden every Christmas and during the crawfish season in the summertime. We’d split the time between staying in town with one of Britt’s brothers and her classic Swedish seaside country house in Dalarö. A real quaint town about an hour outside the city, it’s like the Hamptons for Stockholm. The house had been in her family for a very long time. She rescued it and bought it in the 1970s. I was very friendly with Britt’s three brothers, and they still come to all the shows I do in Stockholm. I was especially close with her brothers Carl and Bengt and their wives and children. We would visit with and go to shows by any number of friends when they played Stockholm and we were in town. A good in-the-know rock-and-roll secret is to go see a big band in a place that is not London, LA, or New York. The bands have room on their guest lists and are not so stressed out. The artists are usually happy to see a friendly face in a smaller setting.
We saw and hung out with the Boss at the Grand Hotel and at a few of his shows at the original Olympic Park on the Born in the USA tour. He liked the Stray Cats and had once gotten onstage at a club in Jersey and played the encore with us. Through good buddy Nils Lofgren, we’ve been to a lot of Springsteen shows. As part of those shows, Bruce would bring out a girl from the audience and act out a little sketch during the song. On one of the shows, the Boss brought Britt out as his foil on the number. She is a die-hard Springsteen fan, and it was a good moment for her. He really is the Boss and does a special one-of-a-kind show. I had a carte blanche on the Tunnel of Love tour and saw five shows at the Sports Arena in LA, bringing a different friend as my plus-one every night.
One memorable show from the Born in the USA tour was at the LA Coliseum. Britt and I were in a VIP-type area in an early version of a skybox before the show. The elevator opened, and out walked Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson. He was in his full 1984 regalia, sequined military jacket and big mirrored shades. She was definitely a movie star and carried a big presence. Even a backstage room full of jaded Hollywood types stopped, quieted down, and checked it out.
I’m a big fan of both of these true stars. I may be in a minority, but I believe MJ was innocent of the charges against him. He was an odd character, for sure, but a really talented guy—maybe the best ever—and it seemed to me that he was a genuinely gentle soul, incapable of hurting anyone.
Michael Jackson surveyed the room and walked straight up to me and said in his gentle whisper, “I really like that song you guys do about the cat.”
I was speechless. I think I softly croaked out a “Thanks, man.”
They did a lap of the room, stopping to chat a little with a few people, and then left again. I don’t think they stayed and watched the show. That was a good one.
Back in Stockholm, we saw everyone from Prince to Def Leppard play at the Globe, a fantastic venue in Stockholm that everybody likes playing at.
In 1988, we welcomed a son, my best pal ever, TJ. Britt was forty-five years old when TJ was born. She already had two kids, and I will forever appreciate her giving me a son. We continued to travel to London and Sweden, putting TJ in a cardboard crib behind our seats on the plane. The trick was to get the last two seats in the upstairs premium economy section on the TWA flight. TJ has a very strong connection to Sweden; he speaks Swedish and stays in touch with some of the gang he met there. We lived a type of gypsy, hand-to-mouth, jet-set life in a normalish way. We didn’t let not being wealthy stop us. The trick of actually earning and saving two cents is one of the hardest ones in showbiz. Life of any sort is an expensive thing to keep going. There is little financial security in both the rock-and-roll and the acting professions. We lived well but were always hustling up and juggling money. To this day, we all continue to be very close.
So in just a few short months, I had gone from two girls and one place to live, to no girls and no place to live, to one girl with two places to live.