C H A P T E R  S I X

well now...the worm has turned, has it not? all of a sudden things have changed...guys that weren't popular are now CUTE, all of a sudden Jizzy finds himself batting off pussy like a prize pig, all of a sudden jizzy and Skid find themselves invited to the "A" parties. doors that up to now had been closed are NOW OPEN. that happens in this town, Hollywood . people will shit on you and treat you like dung until you get a record deal, then all of a sudden THE DUNG TURNS TO GOLD. I was still the same person, a disheveled drunken lead singer/character --but now I found myself transplanted into a whole new world. the first thing we did with our money was go to Hawaii, Skid, Joe, Joe's friend Ross, and I. the 4 of us went to Kauii, rented a condo, and just basked in the glow of our success. I think this was the best time, because we still had all our fantasies intact, we ate lobster dinners every night, we drank expensive wine, I laid on my back on the beach and let the gentle waves caress my tip-toes. I remember Ross asking me" what's it feel like?", the feeling of true utter contentment, I wish I could have stayed on that beach forever--THAT'S how it felt. I tell bands that just got signed to enjoy it while it lasts, THAT  feeling, take each day at a time ...ooh , and  SAVE YOUR MONEY  even though you never do...save , that is...I didn't . Skid blew a literal fortune---BUT YOU CAN'T HELP IT--if love/hate had gone gold or platinum the outcome would have been the same--all the $$ would have been squandered...you know why? because, and this is the fallacy, because once you score your first record deal you feel like YOU'VE  MADE IT, you feel like YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORK ANYMORE---you just don't realize...the money runs out--anyway, immediately after we signed our deal who should come out from under his rock but our old friend G. sxxxx. you see we had signed a 3-year management contract with this fucker and we were technically still bound to it...technically he was STILL OUR MANAGER, we owed him 20%...he sued us, and we in turn sued him....Jon and Skid didn't want to be a part of this Day-to day litigation, so it was up to Joe and I to go to the Lawyers Office and hash it out with the Drunken Psycho Maniac...at first it was fun, getting this idiot to admit that all his gold records were just cocaine mirrors--but at $250.00/ hour our fun was getting a little Xpensive...at the end we ended up with a $42,000.00 lawyer bill....OUCH!! can you believe it, 42 GRAND!!  we eventually settled out -of - court, but in the end we paid almost $200,000.00 to the wonderful management team of G. and G.. if you think this sounds excessive, rest assured this kind of shit HAPPENS ALL THE TIME--- L.A. Guns got sued, everyone gets sued , it happens...just a part of life when you're a rock 'n' roller.  

so.....T. Wxxxx....how did we get him as producer? he had heard about us about 3 weeks before we got signed proper....we did a showcase for him and his daughter Julia at some big sound stage. he then invited us to his house to talk  "business". there we were, in his den, surrounded by all his gold and platinum records ( REAL ONES!!) Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent, Motley Crue, there were 100's of them.....this was his ploy, don't you know, like a spider to a fly he sucks bands into his den of gold , he wanted to sign us to a production deal with his company, had we done that he would have made all the $$$---but Ron Oberman one-upped him, Ron Oberman signed us before we signed with Wxxxx. the proviso was that we would make the first record with Wxxxx...we didn't care...sure, whatever.              

what did T. Wxxxx do ? not much...he sort of blew our perception of what a producer does, we thought this guy was gonna turn the magical handle , breathe untold life into our music...but in the end he really didn't do squat, his engineers did most of the real work. to be honest there wasn't much difference between our 4-track demo and the "Blackout " record---it just sounded better, sonically. 

we didn't care, though. this was OUR FIRST RECORD. the first of many...we enjoyed it---  I was actually the one who thought of the "Blackout " cover--Skid had painted this  portrait of the band maybe a year before, the label was giving us all these STUPID concepts, you know, some art director's idea of what ROCK  should be, and I saw this painting hanging in Joey's room and I just cut out some letters LOVE/HATE and I just glued them to the top and that's how we ended up with that cover....and it's a rad cover, the best cover for the best record. I personally think Blackout was our finest hour, we captured a moment  in our lives, a truly hungry desperate energy that was never to return--- 

even though at the time I thought "Wasted in America " was a great record, and a good progression , I can see in retrospect that it wasn't. what happened was we started getting a LOT of Money, we got a huge merchandising deal (t-shirts ), Skid got a HUGE  publishing deal, I mean really huge. we all got a share, I got $20,000.00 , but Skid got the lion's share, and why not? he deserved it. but money has a way of CHANGING YOU  ....you're no longer the hungry street urchin you once were, now you've got a Corvette and a nice apt. and beautiful furniture and YOU'RE CHANGED. what I mean to say is that it probably would have been better for the band if we had started off with a SMALL deal, you know, like Metallica, start off slow and build up over time....we weren't allowed that luxury, we were expected to go multi-platinum right out of the gate--IT WAS EXPECTED OF US ...you see, the record label puts out a shitload of money for you and they like to see a return on their investment, they're really cool and real supportive as long as they think you're gonna make them $$$$---now more than ever, it seems, I know of bands that don't even get their debut record released, it's like the record company isn't even confident that you're gonna sell ANY RECORDS AT ALL...so they just shelve your ass...and your dreams are shattered. at least that didn't happen to us, we got the BRASS RING FELLAS, WE GOT THE 'E' TICKET MOTHERFUCKERS, WE GOT TO RIDE THE FUCKING PONY---most bands don't get a bus, we got BUSSES GALORE, we got the best of everything...

hedonism at it's best...ladies and gents...let me tell you all a little story about four horny guys and touring...