Ratt are Back! Pearcy, DeMartini and Croucier Boot Blotzer from Group

UPDATE, Dec 1, 9:48am EST: Ratt have announced they’ll headline the 2017 edition of the M3 Festival in Columbia, MD, which will take place on April 28th and April 29th. More details here. No info yet on who besides the three Ratt name stakeholders mentioned below will participate.

Original Post:

Drummer Bobby Blotzer has been raping and pillaging Ratt’s legacy for the past year, misleading Ratt fans by using the band’s name to tour with a group consisting of himself and a bunch of nobodies.

But no longer! The other three members of the Ratt business entity — Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini and Juan Croucier — have won a legal battle over the rights to use the Ratt name, and they’ve booted Blotzer from the partnership.

DeMartini filed a suit against Blotzer in September of 2015, and while it initially seemed the courts were favoring Blotzer the law finally came to its senses.

You can read about the details of the ruling at Blabbermouth; it’s complicated. But here’s the takeaway: Pearcy, DeMartini and Croucier are once again going to be touring as “Ratt” — great news already! — while Blotzer and his band of scabs won’t be able to do so (he can still say “formerly of Ratt,” however). Those three previously performed together as surprise guests on the Monsters of Rock Cruise West with ex-Quiet Riot shredder Carlos Cavazo on second guitar (he played on 2010’s Infestation and participated in the subsequent touring) and Jimmy DeGrasso (ex-Megadeth, Y&T, White Lion).

So maybe we’ll get a follow-up to Infestation in 2017? We can only hope: it was my favorite album of 2010!