All musicians remember their first band. My first band was a cover band in the late 70's-early 80's, we played Led Zep and UFO, Ted Nugent and the Scorpions. We weren't so good, but we weren't so bad either. We played San Fernando Valley backyard parties during the hot summer months, charging two bucks a head. There was always a keg of beer or two. The poor owner of the house, gone for the weekend or on vacation, had given his child license to open up the entire estate to the butcher's block that was the Mob and the Mob would invariably destroy the house and surrounding grounds in the Name of Rock. So many houses, so many beers, so many sour notes, an endless summer of going to the beach by day and screeching vocals by night. My best friend at the time was my bass player Larry D., we were real close. He was my pot-smoking buddy, my beer-drinking buddy, we listened to music together, he tried to teach me guitar. He had a white Chevy van back when vans were Cool. We shared a house together and did all the things friends do but eventually we grew apart in our 20's and saw less and less of each other. At some point we lost touch altogether, I heard he moved to Tucson and I never saw him again.

Flash forward to 1990. Love/Hate had finished what would be the Blackout record and Sony offered to put us out on the road for two weeks in a Winnebago. The record would not be released for another two months but the label wanted us to get a little road seasoning for the eventual long-ass tour and career to come. We were overjoyed, it was the band's first real road trip and even though we were still unknown we were ready to get in that RV and drink and drive. I looked at our short two-week itinerary and saw that one of our stops was Tucson and I thought…hmmm? I wonder if Larry is still there? The tour had been out for a week or so and finally when we drove into Tucson I got a phone book and looked Larry up. He had an unusual Russian last name so I assumed if he were still living there he would be easy to find. I opened up the book and there he was! How weird. So… I called the number and Larry himself answered, just like that. I laughed out loud, he sounded the same as he did 10 years ago, he couldn't believe it either, all the years fell away as old friends talked and laughed. I told him that I was in town playing and he agreed to meet me at the club, a little shithole called Mudbugs.

It was about 10:00 o' clock and I was sitting at the bar of this club when in walks Larry D. He looked essentially as I'd remembered him, long straight hair, moustache, he had a bit of a potbelly but we were older now so no worries. We talked a bit, he asked me about a few people from the past, people I had also lost touch with, we drank, we laughed and I remarked how strange it was that we were both together again. Then it was time for L/H to play. We were two months away from our first record being released so there was only about 20 people total in the house (sounds like a Bad Boys of Metal show) We did our Thing, Skid waved his drunken cross, I did my best Anthony Kiedis impression and the show ended.

" What did ya think?" I asked him after the show. He thought it was great, yadda yadda. I toweled off and he and I decided to go out after the show for a couple more drinks.

We went to a local Tucson bar and right off the bat I noticed his drinking habits had changed. Larry had always been a bit of a lightweight and 2 or 3 beers was usually his limit but here he was downing shots of tequila like they were nothing. He started getting drunker and his laughter got louder and he got louder but I chalked it up to the booze and said nothing. As the shot glasses piled up he began to tell me of his life. He hadn't done anything musically, a few failed projects. He was separated from his wife who was a recurring heroin addict. He had no money and he was in a dead-end job. I sat back and listened and thought of the irony of it all. When we were young Larry had it all, a good job, nice car, great gear, lots of chicks and I was this lanky goofy dude with a Sammy Hagar T-shirt who couldn't even play an A chord. I guess I always thought he was going to make a big deal out of himself, musically or otherwise; he just put off that aura. He was a genius when it came to cars, he could take apart any car, the entire thing, engine, axle, transmission and put it back together again, no shit. Many nights I had sat stoned in amazement in my garage while Larry built and re-built engines and transmissions from the ground up. He could have had his own pro shop, he could have made NASCAR engines, anything, but here he was in Tucson, drunk, shiftless, bouncing off a failed marriage with a drug addict. Contrast that with me, my first record coming out, million dollar record deal, dreams still intact, tours with Dio and AC/DC a few months away---TOP OF THE WORLD MA…my head was spinning, MTV, tour buses, a Rolodex of chicks waiting to be ravished…

We left the bar and went back to his house. On his walls, dusty, were a lot of the old instruments I remembered him playing back in the day, custom Rickenbacker guitars and basses, all in mint condition. He pulled a mandolin off the wall and began to strum it and we both laughed. I pulled an acoustic guitar off the wall and began to play chords with him, I thought nothing of it. When Larry saw me playing he stopped and gave me this shitty look- "I thought you said you couldn't play guitar!" he said, angrily.

I didn't know what to say, I was unaware I had done anything wrong so I stammered out, " Uh…well I'm not very good." I kinda laughed it off but something had changed, Larry put down the mandolin and grabbed his car keys. " Let's go." He said.

I got in the car and we drove in silence for a while, him drunk, staring straight ahead, me wondering what the fuck had just happened. I could see in his face that he was pissed off, the booze and my half-ass guitar accompaniment had triggered an overflow of bitterness and pent-up jealousy. For some reason as long as he thought he was still a better musician than me then his superiority was safe and my success was OK. The minute I could play guitar too his little kingdom collapsed. We started arguing, he started yelling at me, your band sucks he said, you stink you can't sing, your songs are shit, you're a joke. I sat there sort of flustered; I didn't know what to say. I figured it was just the booze and waited for it to pass. Then things got weirder… "Fuck you." He said under his breath, " I should just leave you out here..."

"What?"

He got louder. "I should just leave you out here in the desert, you'd never find your hotel!"

He was right, I had NO idea where I was, I had neither a card for the hotel or a phone number, we were going about 75 MPH down an unlit road, desert on either side, no buildings, just cactus. I was drunk and had about 4 bucks in my pocket…

So I sat there and said nothing. I could have reached over and punched his lights out, the thought had occurred to me but that still wouldn't have helped me get home. I was not prepared for this, he was driving and muttering to himself, all the hate, all the anguish that he probably didn't even know was there came bubbling to the surface. I had triggered something, something from the past, all the hopes, all the backyard party fun, the freedom, the stumbling first attempts at songwriting, the glory, the Sun, deep down there was such an unfullfilable longing, I was a winner and he was a LOSER, I was on my way up and he wasn't going anywhere but home, back to his stinking Life in Bumfuck, AZ.

After about a half hour we got to my hotel, he seemed to have calmed down a bit as we pulled into the parking lot. I didn't even wait for the car to stop before I had that door open and he looked at me and smiled-- "I'm gonna be rich someday…" he said.

Anyway, I never saw him again after that night, I hope he's well…actually, I really don't give a shit at all.