Stephen Pearcy - Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll: My Life in Rock

Thank you for downloading this Gallery Books eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

I dedicate this book to my loving mother, Joanne (RIP): youre now dancin with the angels, walkin on the clouds.

Robbin King Crosby (RIP), brother: gone but never forgotten.

And to all my dear friends lost since the party began,
youre forever in my heart.

And to all the hard-core Ratt n Rollers out there
for making my trip so far a dream come true.

NO HUMAN SHOULD HAVE to remember fumbling drunkenly over his newborn baby daughter in Beverly Hills Hospital in Los Angeles, California, trying and failing to cut her umbilical cord with surgical scissors, pushing the scissors back and forth, booze and pills playing hell in his stomach. Wanting to do this worse than anything hes ever wanted to do before, yet unable to get a good enough grip on the steel handles to do the job.

Go ahead, Mr. Pearcy, the doctor urged.

I tried again, gaping in total wonder. My daughter squalled, her face bright red, her body covered in goo. I stifled a mouthful of acid reflux.

These are surgical, right? I mumbled. I sawed the blades back and forth, the umbilical cord twisting slippery and red, bulbous and veiny. The enormity of the event was causing my nerves to go haywire.

I made my thumb and forefinger like rods. I am the greatest cord cutter in the world, I promised myself. I can do this.

I sliced through my daughters umbilical cord. She cried especially loud for a moment, and it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my entire life. Beautiful enough to make you cry, want to get clean, become pure again, surf. She was the most beautiful jewel, angel I have ever seen. Changed my life forever after that.

My brain should have been a smoking ruin, hole eighteen at the 1945 Hiroshima Golf Classic. I was on hydrocodone and weed and heroin and Budweiser and strange trim for most of the major events of the last five decades. But somehow, glimmering moments of my rock-and-roll journey splash out at me like fireworks in my cerebral cortex, at times when I least expect it.

I may be taking my dog, Puppy, to the veterinarian. We sit together in a leather-chair-filled office in Van Nuys, both of us quiet and docile. Im leaning over the counter to take a look at the papers, and then suddenly its 1983, and Im driving a Datsun B-210 north on Hollywood Boulevard, listening to KLOS, swerving from lane to lane, licking barbecue sauce off my fingers. Then, with no warning at all, Ratts first single comes on the air. Im so fucking stunned and elated, I almost drive into oncoming traffic.

Then the memory is gone. Its just me and Puppy again. Im staring into his black eyes, and hes staring right back. One of us has a skin condition; the other smokes too much.

For such a long time, I tried not to remember any of this. Threw a blanket over everything, courtesy of booze, dope, pills, rage. But the past didnt go anywhere. It sat there, stubborn and pissed off, waiting for me to come home.

IN 2009, I PACKED myself off to rehab in Pasadena, California, in an attempt to wean myself from that nagging booze/pills/grass/heroin habit Id picked up over the last several decades. There was an initial period of hell, better known as withdrawal, followed by a long stretch of a much more annoying kind of torture: therapy.

Its the price of getting clean, I guess. They help you ditch the drugs, make it so your bandmates no longer have to stick mirrors underneath your nostrils to see if youre still alive when you go into one of your increasingly frequent nods in the recording studioand then you have to sort of humor them when they say, What else about you can we clean up?

I was assigned a decent, flabby therapist named Dr. Harold Roberts, who had the nerve to imply that I might have a few other addictions to my name, too.

What Id like to ask you, Stephen, is, have you ever considered yourself a sex addict?

I laughed. How would I even know?

A sex addict might, for instance, spend the majority of his waking hours trying to procure sex.

Im a rock singer, I said. If you have to try to get laid, then theres definitely something wrong.

Did you ever have a period of your life when you went from partner to partner, without due regard for their personalities?

Yes. The 1980s.

Okay. Dr. Roberts laughed. All right. Humor can be a defense mechanism. How many partners might you have had? He said it casually, but I could see his interest was growing.

You know that guy John Paul? I said. Lives in Italy?

The Pope? Dr. Roberts asked.

More than him.

Again with the humor, said Dr. Roberts.

My stamina in the mid-80s was unparalleled, I began. I was tearing down three chicks a day when we were on the road, under ideal conditions.

Three? But I dont even see how thats possible.

Its possible when youre organized. Its possible when you have a team.

They were well-trained and faithful soldiersPhil, Joe, and Road Dogeach one ready to scout the hottest trim around and slap passes in those girls hands. Theyd continue throughout our show, scanning the audience, knowing my type perfectly. After the encore, there would be twenty-five giggling blondes lined up, all incredible tits, flat stomachs, and golden asses. I just had to pick.

But of course youre exaggerating, Dr. Roberts said.

Now, I continued, if you want to throw down on tour, you have to learn how to do it right. You space out the trimone before the show in your dressing room, one midshow, during the drum solo, and then obviously, one at the hotel that night.

A momentary silence filled the room.

Or on the bus.

The doctor was writing something down in his notebook.

But you must stay organized. For instance, always make sure to take a Polaroid of each of your girls. Write her phone number on the back with a Sharpie. Then hand that off to your security guy to stick in his Rolodex, so that you have it for next time you come through Jacksonville or Corpus Christi.

Mr. Pearcy, this is compulsive behavior, dont you agree?

No, its smart behavior. I grew up with this, man. I was at Van Halen shows for a long time before my band broke, and I knew the best bands had their systems down. I always told my guys when we got big, wed do it right.

The doctor and I stared at each other for a while. It was nice and quiet in that office. You pay through the nose if you go to rehab, at least if you go to some of the posher places. The one I went to, embarrassingly, is the place where Dr. Drew filmed his celebrity rehab show. I liked the cleanliness and general high production value of the whole place, though.

Back in the day, I used my itineraries to keep track of every single chick I ever met or put myself into. I kept them my whole adult life. Had stacks and stacks and stacks of them. They got burned by my super-pissed girlfriends. Id just write the girls name, her phone number, the city I met her in, and a rating. You know, seven, eight, maybe a nine. Once in a while, a true ten. And if we had sex, Id mark it with three xs. And if we did something else, Id write that. Then Id try to add some sort of signature description, like see again. Or fly out. Or kinda funky.