Ratt - Out of the Cellar
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 17.02.1984
“Livin’ in L.A. is so much-a . . . fffuuuun!”
The 1980s. Los Angeles. The Sunset Strip was the place to be if you wanted to soak in a wild, euphoric atmosphere packed with rock bands, especially glam rock. As the saying goes, it was “music from a time when men were so masculine they weren’t afraid to look feminine.”
Of course, the metalheads of the eighties did not invent the wheel. Just ask Jim Morrison and his The Doors, who became the house band at Whisky a Go Go. And no, we are not talking about the pub in Tel Aviv, but its legendary namesake on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Even Led Zeppelin made sure to build and strengthen their reputation on the Sunset Strip long before that eighties scene exploded.
Alongside the music came darker moments. There were ugly power dynamics between male rock stars who looked like women and the devoted groupies who followed them everywhere. And of course, there were the addictions. "Mötley Crüe" frontman Vince Neil described it best: “We would get drunk, do insane amounts of cocaine, and walk around in stiletto heels, stumbling everywhere. The Sunset Strip was our sewer."
If we set aside, just for a moment, all the debauchery, the drinking and the addictions, and focus purely on the music, we discover a golden era for several American rock and glam metal bands. "Faster Pussycat", "L.A. Guns", "Poison", "Guns N' Roses", "W.A.S.P"., "Mötley Crüe", and their close friends "Ratt", whose debut album “Out of the Cellar” was released on February 17, 1984.
The origins of “Ratt” actually trace back to the mid-seventies, when the band originally formed under the name “Mickey Ratt”, a tongue in cheek play on Mickey Mouse.
In 1973, Stephen Pearcy, later known as the frontman of “Ratt”, formed a short lived band called “Firedome”, which dissolved about a year later. Undeterred, Pearcy returned in 1974 with a new group named “Crystal Pystal”. The name eventually evolved into “Mickey Ratt” and was later shortened simply to “Ratt”.
Pearcy, born in July 1956 in Long Beach, California, did not initially dream of rock stardom. As a teenager he aspired to become a gas station attendant for race car drivers. At fourteen, however, he was involved in a hit and run accident while riding his bicycle. Recovery took months, and during his hospital stay a visitor gave him the item that would change his life forever, an acoustic guitar.
After leaving the hospital, Pearcy devoted himself to music. Nearly a decade later, he attended a show by Van Halen at Whisky a Go Go, a performance that convinced him to relocate “Ratt” from San Diego to the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
In the heart of the exploding glam metal scene, Pearcy found the lineup that would define the band’s ascent. Cuban born bassist Juan Croucier, guitar virtuosos Warren DeMartini and Robbin Crosby, and drummer Bobby Blotzer all joined between 1981 and 1982. DeMartini was only eighteen when he joined. At the time he was studying at college in San Diego and hesitated to drop out for a band that had achieved only limited success. Guitarist Mark Torien briefly replaced him before DeMartini returned in time to record the band’s first EP later in 1982.
The EP was a significant success, reportedly selling around one hundred thousand copies independently. The band subsequently signed with Time Coast Music, managed by Marshall Berle, nephew of Jewish American comedian Milton Berle, who would later appear in two of “Ratt’s” music videos thanks to that family connection.
“Ratt’s” popularity continued to grow, eventually leading to a contract with Atlantic Records. The band immediately began recording their debut album.
The songs on “Out of the Cellar” flow in a lively, groove driven hard rock style, carried by Stephen Pearcy’s blues tinged, raw vocal delivery and the powerful twin guitar attack of DeMartini and Crosby. “Back for More”, written by Pearcy and Crosby, tells the story of a woman who repeatedly returns to a toxic relationship with her upper class boyfriend despite his disrespectful treatment. The song originally appeared on the earlier EP.
The music video featured Crosby’s then girlfriend, Tawny Kitaen, who also appears on the album cover. Kitaen would later become widely known for her appearance in "Whitesnake’s" hit “Here I Go Again”, at the time when she was romantically involved with David Coverdale.
The band’s signature “Ratt ’n’ Roll”, as they liked to call their sound, is also fully realized on “Wanted Man”, a song reportedly written in an abandoned building around the romanticized idea that everyone wants to be a cowboy. And then there is the massive hit “Round and Round”, essentially the band’s own autobiography, as Pearcy declares: “Out on the streets, that's where we'll meet…”
The album soared commercially, eventually selling approximately three million copies in the United States alone.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music