1980’s glam metal icon Stephen Pearcy has had a very illustrious career to say the least.
Known most as the trademark, raspy voice of glam metal band Ratt, his career has spanned nearly five decades. He has a book, “Sex Drugs Ratt & Roll”, out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble as well as an active, solo music career. Heather Williams sat down with the vocalist to discuss his past, present and future.
Stephen, thank you so much for this interview. There is so much to cover that it is impossible to get it all. You have been a member of Ratt for nearly 40 years or is it more?
From 1983. I decided to call the band Ratt in 1982 but that was not with the original members. We got that from 1983, so yeah it’s been almost 40 years.
You’re so recognizable that when people think of Ratt, they think of you.
I just happen to be the founder, the singer and the writer guy who created the monster.
Who was Ratt before the five of you?
The name of the band was Mickey Ratt when I was in San Diego and started taking music seriously. I previously took trips to L.A. to hear local bands up here that were huge since I was in San Diego. The band was Mickey Ratt in San Diego from, I think 1977, and then when I moved to Los Angeles in the beginning of 1980, I decided I was going to work Mickey Ratt for a little bit and then cut the name down to Ratt. Mickey Ratt to M. Ratt to just Ratt. But I was making that change. I kind of introduced Ratt gradually as we were making a name in L.A.
Why did you want to drop Mickey and go to Ratt?
Because I’m like an art director kind of guy and I created the logo. I wanted a logo to be like Kiss, very identifiable, just four letters, and so I figured ok let’s go with Ratt! R.A.T.T. It’s one word, it’s an attention getter, it’s colorful, it’s bold. I told Gene Simmons one time; I traded my logo kind of after his because I wanted it to stand out. Then I designed the logo and it just took on its own character.
What did he have to say to that? Did he think you were copying off them?
No, actually he was saying that’s smart, and I’m like “of course”! Red, black and white you know?
Ratt tunes have been on MTV, major mainstream radio stations around the globe, movies, commercials, most recently a Geico commercial. Have you or Ratt ever been in a commercial or is that the first one? I guess it was nerve-racking for Jordan (Riff, the current Ratt guitarist) to be on TV for the first time for the Geico commercial.
That was my first one and I wish it would have been with the original guys but so be it. It was a great opportunity and it just so happened that we did that before the COVID- thing. At least that commercial was out doing its thing and keeping us out there because we were about to go on a tour and that got squashed. The commercial was a great experience, it got us out there, and the song charted again. “Round And Round” actually re-entered the charts and it was a beautiful thing! We’ve never done that, so it was good, it was cool.
My take on these guys, and I’ve said it before and will always repeat it, when Robbin left the band and had all of these troubles and stuff, I knew it was the end of Ratt. When Robbin passed, I knew we were pretty much done because he was very much a part of keeping this band together and as everybody knows it’s been dysfunctional ever since. And unfortunately, we get these guys you know, and we’re just going through motions. It’s cool and it’s pretty much a business thing, it’s marquis value. But these guys that sit in and there have been a few, I really kind of try to keep them out of the mix. But we needed a band and I wish it was the original guys in the Geico commercial, but it wasn’t.
You’ve sold millions of records. Has Ratt ever gone gold?
Ratt has had seven consecutive gold albums. Worldwide, we’ve probably got close to..who knows. We’ve gone gold in Japan, Canada, wherever else. I think we’re one of the only bands who have had six or seven consecutive gold and platinum albums or multiplatinum albums.
What about your solo projects? Are they getting played mainstream on the radio?
Yes, they’re getting played when I do spots and things. Radio is so universal now because there are so many streams. I’ve said this before, so many bands are very lucky that their songs are getting played more now than they ever were on mainstream radio because of all the internet stations. I’m very fortunate that my stuff can actually be heard.
When I did my first side project, Arcade (with Cinderella’s drummer Fred Coury) in 1993, that record did very well. It didn’t reach gold status but that’s when the whole music scene changed. People were discovering internet. These guys like Napster and all that stuff were going on, so I don’t think many bands who came out at that time, including myself, even until now, have had any chance of having a gold record. Your stuff is so bootlegged and so copied there is no reason to really buy. Unfortunate for the artist, but hopefully that will change.
Today the music industry is just coo coo in my opinion with all the bootlegging and stuff, it’s chaotic and weird. It’s unfortunate.
Somebody asked me the other day – Eddie Trunk maybe – is Ratt ever going to put out any live videos or concerts and my answer was they are already out there! There’s nothing that I can package now that already hasn’t been packaged and out there available. Our motto back then for Ratt in the 1980’s was if we wanted you to see us live we wanted you to be a part of it. Not to buy a VHS or a DVD later on and we never did. We’re glad we stuck to that. It’s kind of like the Led Zeppelin approach. You want to see the band, come see it live, experience it. There’s nothing like it! I’m about to do a stream concert in L.A. If that’s what you’ve got to work with right now, that’s what you’ve got to work with to reach the people. You don’t share your music until we get live concerts back one hundred percent.
I have the first concert Ratt ever filmed live in 1983 and that’s when we played with Ozzy Osbourne and Mötley Crüe. It’s been out there forever. I have the first VHS copies, so go figure, I don’t know how it got out there. They could have just filmed it right off the television and put it out there!
You were in a Ford Fairlane movie.
I wasn’t in the Ford Fairlane movie, I was up for a part. It was between Vince Neil and me, he took the gig. I passed on it. I wasn’t ready to do the acting thing yet. It was so open and available for everybody in the eighties or late eighties to do it. I decided to wait. Later on, I did a b horror film called Camp Utopia, years later, around the time Robbin passed I played a cult leader, killer guy. That’s when I really tried to act but I was so messed up doing it. I was just so shocked about Robbin, I just kind of took the gig to take my head out of what was going on. So that was my first acting thing and since then I’ve done host spots like MTV or VH1 but I never really did acting. I’d like to do it now though. I would really like to get into more serious kinds of acting parts. I’ve done a bit in a movie and a TV shows and I played a door guy at the Whisky a Go Go in a club scene, so I do a little bit here and there.
I can picture you being in stuff like that now. You still have the It-factor.
Well thanks! I try to keep myself in the market. I like the business. I don’t like some of the business, I don’t like the funny business, put it that way. But I do like the business. I have an independent label; I release my stuff under that. I license my own stuff. I’ve learned stuff, it wasn’t all party and games for us. You’ve got to learn something, and I did. I learned independence is going to be coming up real soon, and sure enough it’s back to being independent. I knew that back in 1995 and I’ve tried to keep myself out there. I love writing. I write music and record every day. I learned that through hanging out with Desmond Child, writing with Diane Warren, having an opportunity to work with these heavy weights and see how they work. I can sit and write with anybody. I just like writing music. I’ve written since day one for Ratt. I’m not just a singer guy, I write those songs.
That was another thing I thought was neat because to me it’s as if you are writing from experience, very well written lyrics.
Thanks. Ratt is a different character. That’s why I love my solo stuff and then when you mentioned Arcade, well that was a great thing. It was just straight ahead rock and that comes with the people I’m writing with. Ratt music is its own thing. It has to be fun; it has to be not all girls and race cars but I know what it is and I know what it was. I don’t try to emulate it, I just try to keep it in that same lane, and then when I do my solo stuff, then I can really get into what I like to do. Just being creative and trying different things and not just being this rock-singer guy in a band called Ratt.
Everyone needs to read your book “Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll”. It really gives great insight into everything that went on with you, but I would say that you were kind of living that lifestyle way before Ratt. You were driven from the start and I really admire your tireless, driven, relentless pursuit to attain success for the band. It’s pretty clear you were in love with the guitar from the start too. You suffered a horrific bicycle accident back in your youth and were laid up in the hospital for months. That’s when you started writing songs.
Yeah, I was pretty rambunctious. I was either going to be a race car driver or so be it, I ended up being into rock and roll. Rock and roll wasn’t a choice, I didn’t want to be a rock singer guy. That was the furthest thing from my mind. I knew about bands and I went to concerts, that kind of stuff but I didn’t really take to music until somebody gave a me a guitar as I was recuperating and I started going “wow I can do this”, I can write songs, then I got into it. I just started singing and playing. I fell into the singing thing, I actually wanted to play guitar. That’s how I met Eddie Van Halen in early 1978. I met them, I took a trip to Los Angeles and I met Ed at the Whiskey. We became friends and I told my band: “wow!, you got to see this band Van Halen, it’s the next thing!” Sure enough they blew up and I told my band we’re going to L.A. In 1980, Van Halen was already huge. I saw them, not the backyard parties, because I did the same thing, but I saw them first playing the Whiskey and all of that and it was great. It was such a learning experience. I saw Led Zeppelin, the original band, and forget it , it was all over, I committed to music.
You say you didn’t want to be a singer, but you were driven and relentless in your pursuit to do that very thing!
I went to join a band and they go “we have a guitar player, we need a singer. You look cool, you got long hair, can you sing?” And I go, “I guess!”. So, I just started learning songs and singing. Then I was singing in a couple of bands and jamming. Then I decided, well, look I play guitar, why don’t I just do both? I’ll sing and play guitar. So I adapted to that very well and wrote my original songs since day one. A lot of them are on the Ratt EP that I wrote in Mickey Ratt in the 1970’s. Then I moved to L.A. and saw these great guitar players. I was hiring great guitar players in my band and they didn’t want a second guitar player, especially Jake E. Lee. He didn’t want a second guitar player, so I didn’t play guitar. That’s why he left the band, but I just sang. I just got into the role. I think I just needed to be a singer. I can do this, I can just be the singer guy, write songs. My guitar players are too good! So that’s how I fell into being a singer guy in 1982.
The accident you had was horrible! I can literally feel the pain myself; I could only imagine what you were feeling. I was cringing.
I’m in the middle of doing a docuseries with ASYTV on me, and we actually went back to that accident. That was a trip. We went back to the old house where Mickey Ratt started, and I could feel the pain again. I was looking at that street going “man, I haven’t been here in ages”. When I was recuperating and stuff, I was just really getting into music, going wow! There’s the San Diego Sports Arena, I’m going to play there one day. Then I did!
I think a lot of people give up on their musical journeys.
They do, and I know many people that have done that. It’s too bad because I’ve known many great guitar players who just stop and it’s like “wow”.
I had a fellow rock star of yours tell me a little story of how you guys were on the same bill at the Atarfe Metal Festival in Spain. It took place in a bullring. Ratt were the headliners. On the plane going back home, you sat next to your colleague and told him the story of how you were in a car accident which in turn prompted you to start writing songs in the hospital. Do you remember that?
Yeah, I do actually. That story is true. I started writing immediately. I got a guitar in the hospital. As soon as I learned chords, I was writing right away. Somebody gave me an acoustic guitar and I had found out that the guy that I was a pit crew team with said I wasn’t going to drive, and the doctors were like: “you’re never going to drive, you broke your legs really bad, you would just crumble so get another occupation”. So somebody brought me a guitar, and I don’t, to this day, know who it was. I just started playing it in the hospital and then I just took interest in it, it’s the craziest thing.
Are any of those songs on the Mickey Ratt -album or any of your other records?
Plenty of them are on the Mickey Ratt -album. There’s still so many I haven’t released that I have to this day, multiple copies. I recorded all the time. It didn’t matter if it was on a cassette deck, two-track, four-track. I recorded every which way you can. Early Ratt-songs from the EP like “Tell The World”, “Back For More” and “Sweet Cheater” – those songs are all Mickey Ratt -songs. They got written in the hospital around that time. My recuperation took a year and a half. I was in the hospital for like six months, then you do the wheelchair for another three months. I was on crutches, throwing back yard parties, trying to play.
People are going to read this and say oh man! That is just amazing. It’s these little things that don’t really get talked about.
You’re right. I’m actually in development of a show called Back Stage Passed and what it does is cover the legacy of not just me but other artists, and nitpicking their legacy going back to exactly what you’re doing, you know, finding out the little, tiny things that made things click that nobody would ever, ever know, so this is a great interview!
Interview: Heather Williams
Photos: misstruthadare & Coallier Entertainment
