Excerpt: Stealing Fame

Youth Gone Wild

Link had his own place above a chicken restaurant. He's from Indiana, moved here in 81. Dude claims that he gave Axl Rose his name. We were never sure if he was telling the truth about that one, but he did introduce me to Izzy Stradlin one night. Most drummers I've known are just a bit crazy, but Link is nuts. Told me about how he nearly lost his eye when a drumstick broke while he was playing. “A chunk of the wood came flying right at my face! Got this piece stuck in my left eye, and it started shooting out this liquid. Had to go the emergency room.”
“Dang bro, can you still see out of it?”, I asked, my eyes squinting at the thought of it.
“Yeah man, just not that good at night. Don't let me drive home after gigs!” We loved Link's stories.
We decided we needed to start playing gigs around town pretty quickly. Steve had a few connections, and Link was in good with a local promoter. He got us some photos and we learned really quickly the art of plastering walls with them. Poison would put up theirs, then we would cover them up with ours. Then Warrant would cover up ours. It was fun. We would all end up in some after hours place and yell at each other over our beers.
The hottest places were the Roxy or the Rainbow Room. We played at Ralph's Bar and Grill for the first few months. The stage was so small, I usually was not even on it. Bass players get no respect in this town. And we get the last pick of the girls, too. Link just laughed and said it was part of paying dues. There was this one chick Mandy who was pretty cool. She let me crash at her place for about a month. She kept saying I should meet her folks, but I was not really ready for that kind of thing. I mean sure, we had a lot of fun. But I wanted to make the scene really bad. I kept a pocket notebook with me at all times, writing as much as I could. So we split up after a while. Whenever we would run into each other at a club or walking around town it was a little awkward, but eventually she was with some college looking guy. So I guess that turned out for the best.
Honestly, I like my position in the band. I come up with some great song ideas, and provide that heavy end sound that is somewhat missing in a lot of metal bands. And I was never really comfortable being the lead man. Mostly I sit back and watch the action. When it comes to decisions for the band, like where we were going to play, or the set list, I loved making those. Guess you could say I'm more of a delegator.
Man, we threw some great parties. The warehouse was fixing to be bought out by another company, so Steve's cousin told us to pack our crap and hit the trail. The night we did that, we called as many people as we could. Girls were all over the place, booze was flowing freely. Luke hooked up with some chick who had more tattoos than the four of us combined. The rest of us referred to her as the human canvas, or as Link said, the human mattress. Like I said, dude is crazy. The next morning we just took our stuff and left all the trash and bottles and God knows what else there. Steve-O said his cousin was so pissed and threatened to call the cops on us.
Luke told him, “Listen man, if he does, we can tell them about that stash of coke he keeps in his office” We about died over that one.
Drugs were everywhere. Our group never really got into it. A little pot every now and then, but nothing major. Link said he got off coke because it was affecting his personality too much. I had to ask him if he is this crazy off drugs then we should probably never let him get near any again. Mostly it was beer that fueled our engines. I really liked Budweiser, Luke was into some imported stuff. Whenever we'd do a gig somewhere we made sure that the beer was free for the band. In the Blues Brothers movie they have a scene where they have to pay a tab that was more than what they made that night. Luke and I saw that flick and decided we never wanted that to happen. Money was a little tight for a while.
Bobby Dall from Poison taught me about the Loser's Lunch. It was ham on hand, since we could not afford bread. I had maybe five shirts and 3 pairs of jeans, along with some silk shirts and a couple of leather pants that were for the stage only. Luckily, I have always had a really skinny waist, so I stole some clothes from some girls we were friends with. I did not really want to be in a glam band, but it was the easiest way to go, I think. Mandy had taught me how to put on makeup, and the other guys decided to start doing the same. We figured, hell, it worked for Crue and Poison. Link looked like one of the guys in Twisted Sister. Ugly guys are made uglier by makeup, I think.
There were so many guys in almost total drag on stage at every club in town. I swore that one band, Vixen really were girls. Which turned out to be true. Still, though, it was kinda weird. Aerosmith's “Dude Looks Like a Lady” must have been about the club scene at the time. Hitting on bar chicks was like a crap shoot. I must have grabbed three guy's asses before I learned my lesson.