BREAKING: Ratt Singer’s Book Is Good
This fact may blow your mind, but Ratt vocalist Stephen Pearcy’s new memoir is really great! So weird, right? Why is that so unlikely, u ask? Well, recall that your love of awesome Ratt music has always been undermined by the awful men of Ratt, whose vibe is marked by self-aggrandizement, bickering, feet-dragging, and thinly-veiled contempt. As such, u own Ratt albums but wear no Ratt shirts, and u can play every Ratt riff but can’t be bothered to attend a Ratt concert: The Ratt guys don’t inspire that kind of love.
But still, let’s imagine that Pearcy’s book has landed in your hands. It’s still seems improbable that u will end up liking it. First u notice its fucked-up title, Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll (he probably means Sex, Drugs, and Ratt & Roll). But as u breeze through its first pages, it strikes u that against all odds, SDR&R has a fluffy, upbeat tone, and a subtle wit. (Pearcy?! Subtle?!?!) Pearcy and co-author Sam Benjamin don’t applaud their own jokes, or hammer at single-entendres like in Ratt music and interviews. A reader kinda has to stay sharp to catch their humor. Inconceivable, right? I mean, what’s next, the sun explodes?
Now sure it is a post-Dirt rock memoir, so SDR&R definitely aspires to shock and canonize. But its most shocking stuff isn’t Pearcy’s pussy stats, or tales of late guitarist Robbin Crosby’s collapse into addiction and disease, or the rest of Ratt’s narrative of in-fighting and credit-hogging.
What’s really shocking is that airhead Pearcy comes off as the victor of his ancient feud with Ratt drummer Bobby Blotzer (1986 — At a Sumo match, Pearcy to Blotzer: “Hey Bob look! That guy’s even fatter than you!” lol); what else is shocking is that Pearcy represents the American Dream of a no-talent finding success via good timing and stamina; also, u may be shocked that SDR&R is totally comprehensible and only once causes the reader to do a whiplash double-take (hint: Pearcy boasts of his road crew’s crazy riggers); and like me, u will be shocked that Pearcy was nursing a heroin habit for the creation and promotion of Infestation, the 2010 Ratt reunion album that was so crucial to their future. But there’s more! Take a weekend and read it!
Stephen Pearcy’s Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll: My Life in Rock is out now. Buy it here.
