Vintage Spotlight on RATT Part 2

Read Part 1 Here

Our vintage spotlight artist this week is RATT. As one of the sleaziest of hair metal bands back in the day these guys had quite a reputation for debauchery. When the band began coming apart at the seams it was hard to watch and was terrible for fans of the band. The early 90s were not good for RATT.

At the end of 1991, just months after their album “Detonator” came out, American rock band Ratt, released the final single of their career, with all 5 members of the band. “Nobody Rides for Free” which was featured on the soundtrack for the movie Point Break.
Each of the 5 band members fought demons such as alcoholism, drug addictions, unprotected sex, just a plethora of bad habits. It’s quite understandable why, after some time, they fell apart.

• In 1992, Stephen Pearcy left the band and went on to form another band, Arcade, with former Cinderella drummer, Fred Coury. After Arcade, Pearcy went on to other bands such as Vicious Delites in 1995 & then onto Vertex in 1996.     
• Warren DeMartini left the band right after Pearcy’s departure and went on to play with Whitesnake in 1994. In 1995, he released a solo project,  the single “Surfs Up” then in 1996, put out a full length album, ‘Crazy Enough to Sing to You”.
• Robbin Crosby went off to form a band with bassist, Krys Barrato in 1993. He also lent his talents to Rumbledog’s self titled album.Shortly thereafter  Robbin  was diagnosed as HIV positive which later turned into full-blown AIDS.
• Juan Croucier continued producing underground music from his studio, “The Cellar”. In 1994, he was given a lifetime achievement award in L.A. 
• Bobby Blotzer went on to work for a carpet cleaning company. Before eventually launching a legal battle to use the name RATT. 

Throughout the years, the band would bounce back and forth from hiatuses to reunions but never performed again collectively, with all 5 members. With people coming and going, there were a lot of hard feelings amongst the members which led to the two versions of Ratt and even more problems. After Pearcy’s 2nd departure, DeMartini & Blotzer temporarily replaced Pearcy with Robert Mason (Lynch Mob) and also added guitarist, Keri Kelly. Neither of the replacements lasted very long. Mason was only in it if there was going to be a major label deal & Kelly left to join Slash’s Snakepit. John Corabi was then the replacement as singer & guitarist.
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In 2002, former Ratt guitarist, Robbin Crosby, died from a heroin overdose. People suspected if was from complications of AIDS, but on May 11, 2006, the band was a featured profile on VH1’s, ‘Behind the Music’ it was the first time it had been publicly announced that he did, in fact, die from an overdose.

We’ll be back with one more post about the iconic metal band RATT later this week!
Until then keep rockin!
~Misti