bros with those guys.
We got a call from Marshall Berle, Milton Berle's nephew. Everyone on the Strip knew who Marshall was. He was Van Halen's manager when they got their deal, and through their first couple of tours. And, now, he was managing the Whisky a Go-Go.
Marshall wanted to manage the band. He thought we were really good, and he and a partner were going to put some money up for an EP. Robbin, Stephen and I took that first meeting with him.
I never really had a good feeling about Marshall, and I told Robbin and Stephen about it.
"I don't know if I trust this guy.”
Marshall would never look you in the eye when he talked to you. That's always a bad sign. A person's eyes reveal too much, so if they're hiding them, that's bad news. But, like so many young bands, we were so eager that we signed a shitty deal. Marshall and his partner basically owned everything on the EP.
The recording of the EP was a whirlwind. We did all six cuts on the record in five days, working an average of eighteen hours each day. The engineer was a guy named Liam Sternberg, who is most noted for his work with The Bangles during their "Walk Like An Egyptian" days.
The EP was released on Time Coast Records, which was Marshall's record label. He had ties with Alan Niven, who was working for Enigma Records at the time. Enigma's distributor was Greenworld Distribution, so the deal was made and Greenworld distributed the record for us.
It was such a blur while recording for that record, that we really didn't have a chance to fuck it up. It couldn't be over-produced, because there wasn't time. There were no marathon runs of retakes, because there wasn't time. We couldn't risk screwing up and having to do it all again, because, you guessed it, there wasn't any fucking time!
As a result, the work on the EP is one of the truest representations of RATT that there is. It was raw, lean and nasty, just like the band. That's probably why it did so well, and put us on the map. It didn't have time to be pretentious. It just "was.”
We finished that record around 8:00 am on Thanksgiving morning, 1982. I remember walking out into the morning sun, feeling like I was being released from a solitary confinement prison cell; emerging into the light after years in inky darkness.
We each crawled off in our various directions. My day was just beginning. I got home, got a shower, and helped Jeni get the kids ready. Then we were off to Jeni's parents house, as we always did on holidays. I spent the whole of that day sleeping in the back seat of the car with my feet out the window. I was a daylight zombie.
But, we had an EP in the can, and it was a kick in the balls! I could hardly wait.
When the EP came out in 1983, we had a single being played on KMET and KLOS at the same time, which was very rare. Usually, it was just one or the other. KLOS had a show called "Local Licks", and they started playing "You Think You're Tough". They got such a response for it, they put it into rotation. I heard it on the radio while driving my Datsun B210, and had to pull over to the side of the road, I got so excited.
There was an immediate reaction in LA We started selling a lot of records. One thing I can promise you; when you sell a lot of records on your own, the labels that didn't want anything to do with you suddenly come around and started bidding.
RATT was on the edge of breaking in.
But, the dysfunction that would prove our undoing in later years was already starting to bubble up. Juan was still playing with Dokken. He had signed some stupid deal that kept him bound to that band in return for a slave wage regular paycheck.
Dokken had signed with Electra, but they weren't doing anything. So, it became like a race. Who would break first? RATT or Dokken? Juan was playing both against each other, not wanting to leave one and commit to the other.
We got into the studio first and recorded the RATT EP. Juan played on it, but he still wouldn't leave Dokken. The thing with
We got a call from Marshall Berle, Milton Berle's nephew. Everyone on the Strip knew who Marshall was. He was Van Halen's manager when they got their deal, and through their first couple of tours. And, now, he was managing the Whisky a Go-Go.
Marshall wanted to manage the band. He thought we were really good, and he and a partner were going to put some money up for an EP. Robbin, Stephen and I took that first meeting with him.
I never really had a good feeling about Marshall, and I told Robbin and Stephen about it.
"I don't know if I trust this guy.”
Marshall would never look you in the eye when he talked to you. That's always a bad sign. A person's eyes reveal too much, so if they're hiding them, that's bad news. But, like so many young bands, we were so eager that we signed a shitty deal. Marshall and his partner basically owned everything on the EP.
The recording of the EP was a whirlwind. We did all six cuts on the record in five days, working an average of eighteen hours each day. The engineer was a guy named Liam Sternberg, who is most noted for his work with The Bangles during their "Walk Like An Egyptian" days.
The EP was released on Time Coast Records, which was Marshall's record label. He had ties with Alan Niven, who was working for Enigma Records at the time. Enigma's distributor was Greenworld Distribution, so the deal was made and Greenworld distributed the record for us.
It was such a blur while recording for that record, that we really didn't have a chance to fuck it up. It couldn't be over-produced, because there wasn't time. There were no marathon runs of retakes, because there wasn't time. We couldn't risk screwing up and having to do it all again, because, you guessed it, there wasn't any fucking time!
As a result, the work on the EP is one of the truest representations of RATT that there is. It was raw, lean and nasty, just like the band. That's probably why it did so well, and put us on the map. It didn't have time to be pretentious. It just "was.”
We finished that record around 8:00 am on Thanksgiving morning, 1982. I remember walking out into the morning sun, feeling like I was being released from a solitary confinement prison cell; emerging into the light after years in inky darkness.
We each crawled off in our various directions. My day was just beginning. I got home, got a shower, and helped Jeni get the kids ready. Then we were off to Jeni's parents house, as we always did on holidays. I spent the whole of that day sleeping in the back seat of the car with my feet out the window. I was a daylight zombie.
But, we had an EP in the can, and it was a kick in the balls! I could hardly wait.
When the EP came out in 1983, we had a single being played on KMET and KLOS at the same time, which was very rare. Usually, it was just one or the other. KLOS had a show called "Local Licks", and they started playing "You Think You're Tough". They got such a response for it, they put it into rotation. I heard it on the radio while driving my Datsun B210, and had to pull over to the side of the road, I got so excited.
There was an immediate reaction in LA We started selling a lot of records. One thing I can promise you; when you sell a lot of records on your own, the labels that didn't want anything to do with you suddenly come around and started bidding.
RATT was on the edge of breaking in.
But, the dysfunction that would prove our undoing in later years was already starting to bubble up. Juan was still playing with Dokken. He had signed some stupid deal that kept him bound to that band in return for a slave wage regular paycheck.
Dokken had signed with Electra, but they weren't doing anything. So, it became like a race. Who would break first? RATT or Dokken? Juan was playing both against each other, not wanting to leave one and commit to the other.
We got into the studio first and recorded the RATT EP. Juan played on it, but he still wouldn't leave Dokken. The thing with
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