C H A P T E R  F O U R

so, the year is 1987, we are broke, of course, manager-less, thanks to our boy Sxxxx we are a laughing stock in the record industry....so ...what to do? where to go? nowhere, you go nowhere, you act naturally, you write another batch of songs, you GO ON. when you live together, as a group, there is peace in that...you JUST KEEP GOING---the best advice I could give any struggling group. 

we bought more bad dope, we recorded more songs, etc. at this time we had tired of the whole "drum machine " thing--the strip was alive , bands like Guns n Roses and Faster Pussycat and L.A. Guns were making their presence known and , of course, we got influenced. I always credit Guns n Roses with helping us get a record deal ---they started the whole ball of wax moving. it was weird. bands were getting record deals left and right. we were jealous and envious but you always had to suck it in , smile, congratulate people--- when inside you just felt rage -- why weren't WE chosen? 

well, as you know, we WERE , eventually...thank god. so, anyway, we decide to lose the drum machines, this is a big step for Joe because now he has to ACTUALLY PLAY THE DRUMS, not just follow the clickity-click of the drum machine. Joe turned into a great drummer as we all know, but in those early days he struggled a bit.. no matter. enter a new "Messiah of the Month" , J. xxxx from XXX. Him and Jon E. Love had been friends for years and he had a "hankerin'" to try his hand at producing young bands. so ONCE AGAIN our boy G. xxxx ( we had forgiven him for the whole Sxxxx thing) raised a bunch of money and we went into a studio with J. producing. we were J.'s first production, a guinea pig of sorts, he changed things , he dictated, he ordered, he promised record Deals with XXX's label Atlantic , he...was a pain in the ass. now we had always recorded songs quickly, 1st or 2nd take, I still do., I don't believe in taking 2 hours to sing two lines of a vocal, if you're not good enough to deliver a PERFORMANCE... then you're just not good enough. J. had us in there, hour after hour, line after line, laboriously sucking all the life and soul out of our music---making it completely pitch-perfect, but totally sterile. early versions of "dope" and "she's an angel" were part of this batch of songs. it was awful, just awful...some of this material did emerge , however, on the soundtrack to a "Critters" movie, and "Angel" was on the "Nitemare on Elm St. 4" soundtrack, we got a little bit of $$$, nothing more....oh, around this time we got a second guitarist, a guy named Tracy G.---you may know him from Dio, well, WAY BACK WHEN he played rhythm guitar for Love/Hate .for about a month, that is... Jon was flaking, just not showing up to rehearsal, so we decided that a second guitar player might "shake him up " a bit. it did. for a couple weeks Jon was THE FIRST guy at rehearsal, for a couple weeks he WANTED to play, then of course that changed too. Tracy quit, he hated Jon, he left....I want to include one item to end this episode, it has to do with me...we had a gig opening up for L.A. Guns at the Scream club. there were hundreds of people there...I was drunk, fucked up , as usual, we took the stage ...turns out someone had videoed the gig---we went to our pal G. xxxxx's house one night to watch the video, we had planned to give Jon a "dressing down" for his multiple guitar changes and "rock star " attitude on stage. we were all set to ream him a new asshole...but ...the video.. MY PERFORMANCE....I watched it in stony silence, I was looking at a fucked -up drunk idiot singer, off-key, saying stupid things, the very very opposite of cool--not many people can remember a particular day that had such a complete profound impact on the rest of their lives but I can... that video...changed my life. I KNEW that if I didn't get my shit together, if I didn't become KINGJIZZO, then I would be doomed to mediocrity. the Rock Gods WERE SPEAKING TO ME, through that horrible hideous video, they were saying to me WISE UP MOTHERFUCKER--FIND THE LITTLE AMPLIFIER ON YOUR BODY AND PUSH THE "BETTER" BUTTON---DO IT NOW---well, I took it to heart, I practiced , hour after hour, day after day, in the mirror, refining, editing, calculating, I spent months in that godamn mirror turning myself, transforming myself into a STAR,....it sounds corny, I know, but if I hadn't done this your humble narrator might be working at UPS now, loading boxes onto boxes, for eternity. this story doth get boring---next episode is the best time of all--when we got our record deal