Brian Wheat - Son of a Milkman

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

Son of a Milkman:

My Crazy Life With Tesla

2020 by Brian Wheat

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-64293-615-5

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-616-2

Cover art by Cody Corcoran

Interior design and composition, Greg Johnson, Textbook Perfect

All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory. While all of the events described are true, many names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

To my mother, Amelia, the greatest woman I ever knew.

Set List

Foreword
by Joe Elliott

I t was 1986, and Def Leppard was in Holland working on the album that would become Hysteria . Our manager, Peter Mensch, came over to the studio one day with a cassette and said, I want you to hear this new band we just signed. It was Tesla. I remember standing there with Phil Collen, listening, and we look at each other and agree they sound great! I remember thinking, Wow, they even remind me a little bit of us! Then the cassette ends, and it automatically begins playing the B-side. All of a sudden were hearing a board tape of an Alice Cooper show, and it sounds absolutely incredible. I mean, at that point we knew we would soon be looking for a sound engineer, and what made this Cooper show so incredible was that the vocals just sounded huge. And Kip Wingers voice sounded like twenty people! We knew our new album would be a challenge to replicate live, and whoever that sound engineer was, well, we had a feeling he was our guy! So all of a sudden we go from, Wow, Teslas great! to Who is the sound engineer? and We have to have him!

Cut to 1987, and Teslas name came up as an opening act for us when we were getting ready to tour the UK and Ireland. We thought back to that cassette and thought, Oh yeah, those guys are really good, yes! Great stuff! Now, in this book youre reading right now, Brian says that I ignored him on that tour. Bastard! For the record, I have no memory of that, but I will say I may have had my head up my ass at that point because we finally had a hit album in our own country. After ten years! Thats longer than the Beatles were together! So, yes, maybe I was not paying attention to everybody backstage with all the attention that was on us back then, but honestly, the main reason I hardly ever saw Tesla was because more often than not, when they were on stage playing we would just be arriving to the gig, and by the time we started playing, there were usually gone! It never occurred to me that there was a lack of bonding with Brian and his bandmates. But hey, this is Brians book, so Im going to let his version stand as is!

But I do remember distinctly that our connection started right before the first gig on the American tour in October 1987. We were starting in Glens Falls, in upstate New York. We were staying in this chalet kind of ski resort hotel, and after we finished sound checking at the final rehearsal, we went back to the hotel. Tesla sound checked after us, and so they got back later. Brian was staying in the room next to me, and through the walls I could hear him playing all of these songs by The Beatles and Wings. Now, in Def Leppard, Im the guy whos truly the biggest McCartney fan, and as I learned that night, in Tesla, Brian Wheat is the guy who is absolutely the most McCartney-mad. So I knocked on the door to see if I could hang out, and in his room that night, singing songs from Ram , Red Rose Speedway , and other classic McCartney albums, we bonded over our love of all things Macca! Like me, he knew everything, from the bootlegs to the studio recordings and everything in between. Thats the night our friendship was really born. From that point on, we hung out whenever we could. And without fail, we would bust each others balls, just having fun and becoming friends. I remember one show in Toronto at a baseball stadium where we would be playing after the baseball game was over. Earlier in the day the stage was wheeled out onto the field where it would be later so we could do a sound check. Out there in that empty stadium I remember first racing model cars with Brian and then, after months of good-natured banter, we finally did a hundred-meter dash because he was convinced he would trounce mewrong! Yes, its Wheatys book, but this truth stands!

For Brian and me, its more than music; its kinship. I know he thinks of me like his big brother, and thats why we can poke fun at each other, and we do! I never had a little brother, so hes my pretend little brother, and he takes the brunt of everything I never got to do to a real one. Having said that, though, Brian is somebody I have total respect for because hes worked very hard for all he has and has contributed so much to why Tesla is still out there playing shows all these years later. Now, back in the 90s when a lot of us struggled when music changed, he managed to keep both his head and band above water. He never gives up, and I give him lots of credit for that. While we can be very sarcastic with each other, we also trust each other. I have the kind of relationship with him where, if hes down, I can be brutally honest with him, and he doesnt fall out with me because of that. He trusts me because he knows I really care about him. Thats why he calls me up in the first place if he needs council. He knows hes not going to get bullshit from me. Im going to say, Listen motherfucker, you need to take care of this, you have to have a really good think about what you just said and what it really means. Weve had so many conversations over the years where he would say to me, I know, I know, I know, but ! Then I would step in and say, Theres no but s here! Whether it involves his health issues or band matters, Im always going to be forthright and honest with him because of how much I care about him. Brian has shared many dramatic incidents that have happened in this life with me because he knows theyll be discussed with a lot of humor, love, and respect. He knows that no matter how brutally honest I might be, its coming from a good place because, again, I truly care about him. In a way it reminds me of how Def Leppards producer, Mutt Lange, was with me when I needed advice, and he always tried to help me. You learn from that. You pass that knowledge along when you make a friend that you care about.

Brian has written an open and very honest book that I think you will thoroughly enjoy. Im proud of how he has dealt with a lot of the things he struggles with, but Im equally proud of the great music he and his band have made over the years. Love you, man!

Joe Elliott

May 2020

A couple of things about my book. When you write a memoir, they tell you its important to figure out what your voice is. I think what Ive learned in putting this book together is that my voice is all over the map. Its just my personality. I jump around a lot. Part of it is that I have a lot of things going on in my life at all times, but part of it is just my personality. As you will learn in these pages, I have a few issues. I struggle on a daily basis with general anxiety disorder, occasional depression, a bit of OCD, and a host of autoimmune diseases that can make life really tough sometimes. I think I struggle day-to-day in ways that most rock stars dont. But hey, thats part of the reason I wrote this book. Maybe some of you out there will find me more relatable. Maybe some of the things that I say will help you cope with whatever disorder or issue that you are experiencing. The bottom line is, this is how I talk. I am what I am, and I wasnt about to try and make it all pretty just because I was writing a book. Just like you are you, this is me. Cool? OK, lets get on with the story.