Ex-RATT Frontman Talks About Acoustic CD, 'Behind The Music' Special

Jesse Capps of RockConfidential.com recently conducted an interview with former RATT frontman Stephen Pearcy. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

RockConfidential.com: The new live acoustic CD is out now. There was a quick turnaround on this one — wasn't it just recorded in March?

Pearcy: "Yeah. During the acoustic tour I did with VH1, I brought up the idea to do a record like this. I've got my own label so I decided that I was gonna go do it! I threw it by the label guy who was handling the VH1 thing and he approached me towards the end of that tour and asked if I still wanted to do it. Yes! For the fact that it's never been done by the RATT band or myself. It was a challenge to go in there live...I got a couple of guys and went into rehearsal. We didn't have much time but we jumped in to see what would happen. I got the CD the other day and I'm actually stoked about it. It sounds better than I expected. So much shit was going on that day, man! That ended up being a great gig, though."

RockConfidential.com: A lot of times a rock song may be written on acoustic and then electrified for the final product. Were any RATT songs written on acoustic first?

Pearcy: "'Back For More' was a MICKEY RATT riff from 1979 or around there. That was a treatment on acoustic. 'Mother Blues' was definitely acoustic. 'Round And Round' — man, back in the days when we were writing songs we didn't give a shit what we were writing on! The way we would write songs, we'd have a tape recorder and we'd tape down a song idea. Then we'd throw down on another tape machine the other guitar parts and vocal ideas while we played the first tape machine. It was great how stone age our technique was. It reared songs like 'Round And Round' and the EP songs. Most of the EP songs were MICKEY RATT songs. A lot of them from back in the day were acoustic because I only had an acoustic to work with. I was trying to find the right electric AND not have a day job!"

RockConfidential.com: I know the "Ratt: Behind The Music" has been in the works for a long time, man. What was the delay?

Pearcy: "Due to non-closure of some legal matters, which were finally resolved, they had started it and VH1 shelved it. They did get Robbin [Crosby] on there and I believe he's speaking honestly in it. It's a terrible scene there, but it's reality. I can't take anything back from that. I was part of that scene. You live it and learn it. It's an eye opener. They've got the 'Pantera: Behind The Music' the same evening."

RockConfidential.com: When did they start finalizing this version of the show?

Pearcy: "They started finalizing this about eight months ago. Everybody entertained it. That's the first thing you have to do. We all got involved. It's like going back in life, even though you don't remember some of it. It's the strangest thing to sit and watch what you've lived, how you've lived — whether you survived it or not. Most people really don't get the particulars about being in a band that had the consistency that RATT did. You live with these people. You think it's 'all for one, one for all'. You think it's a fairy tale that you read growing up. Then you find out the real reality. There's business, there's real life, there's danger, there's excitement. There's always a payoff. It's good and bad. For me to sit there and check it out made me put things into perspective. It takes care of business and that's good. We're talking - the ex-members, the originals, the members, the founders. At least we're on some kind of speaking terms. This show is coming out and presenting us as one of those premiere bands that were involved in that scene. We're not on there beating each other down and that's kinda cool, ya know? Either eat it up or give it a big fuck off! It's part of history, ya know? I may finish the story off with my book 'Rat Tails' at the end of the year."

Read the entire interview at www.rockconfidential.com.