part 1

"The story of how I got into Ratt is pretty much beat. More interesting is the truth about what really went down and how it went down," reflects a pensive Robbin.

When we started everybody was friendly and we worked our asses off. We did (I think) an incredible 320 shows in 14 months on the Out Of The Cellar tour. It was a real burn out, but it was fun. Little did we know that we were being worked too hard. We just thought, "We're on tour" and we were digging it. Physically and everything there's only so much you can take, but it didn't even begin to faze us at that point. When we got home, we took a little time off and then the whole band went to Maui. Everybody got their own little room, or condo and I hate to say this, but that was the beginning of the end. Everybody took their girlfriends, wives and kids, but in my opinion it was a time to work. I had no qualms with all their wives, but some of them thought so because I wanted the guys to do what we needed to do and not kiss butt with the old lady.

Part of the problem was, that you take a 24-year-old guy who's never had anything and you hand him this huge wad of money and responsibility and tell him "Hey, you need to buy a house and some cars for tax reasons and this that and the other." You know my hand was up and everybody else's was too. I didn't come from a poor background, but we all lived together in a one-bedroom apartment basically.

Anyhow, back to the whole Hawaii excursion, at that point everybody was already doing their own thing. We were supposed to write together, but Warren had his wife and a new baby that he hadn't seen in months. Juan same thing. Stephen had his own place. I just remember feeling really alone. Nobody ever came over to my place. We all wanted to get some time off, but if we went surfing or fucked around for a day the manager was there saying, "Well. when are you guys going to get together and write?" If Warren would come up with a riff, I would turn it into a tune with Stephen. Warren had great guitar riffs, but they weren't really songs per say. It was like pulling teeth.

This was for Invasion, that tour and everything could have just been a mindblower. I'm telling you this 'cause it's the truth. I'll probably be more exiled than ever from now on, but I don't give a shit. If they really searched their souls they'll realize it's the truth too.

To me, everything from my childhood dream had come true. I had money, guitars and everything that you ever wanted. Then we go out on the Invasion tour with Bon Jovi opening. Stephen was hesitant. He claimed that Bon Jovi gave him the "I'm badder that you vibe," whereas, in reality it was probably vice versa. So, the tour begins, or should I say the nightmare begins? I'm going to get the "traitor" routine, but it felt that way. Those guys (Bon Jovi) were so nice and they all got along so well together. Johnny, in my opinion, is a great guy and I would consider him a real good friend.

Every night, they all had a great time in their dressing room before the show, but go into our dressing room and everybody is bitching at each other. They'd be sitting around trying to read a magazine, but in reality it was like, "What's the matter with this soup? The soup sucks every night and we got the wrong booze in our dressing room." Just bitching and moaning about everything. Every fucking night, Stephen would go out, watch about two seconds of their show and would come back in just raging pissed that Johnny was ripping off his shtick. It was like "Stephen, you don't have a shtick to rip off. You're not David Lee Roth. You don't say anything special. You barely know what fucking city we're in. So, what do you mean he's stealing your shtick?"

So, it just became the feud of the century. Every night, he'd wanna cut some of their lights or cut some of their stage or this that and the other and he would do it without talking to us. He'd go straight to the production manager. We'd find out and say, "fuck that," so there was animosity there. Stephen felt that we weren't backing him up, but it was just Stephen being Stephen. It got pretty weird. He didn't have a girl for a while and he was drinking a bit, so was I and doing a lot of drugs.

I spent all of my time in Bon Jovi's dressing room. Before they went on and after they came off, they were all high energy. I'd get all hyped up being around them. Then I would go into our dressing room and everybody would literally just be moping around. It's was like, "Ok guys, let's get ready to go," and they'd be like "ok" and grab their guitars and mosey on out there. I thought we were a great band and kicked ass, but Stephen had his problems with being in tune on stage. I'm not here to bad rap anybody, but if you were to ask any of them, this is exactly how we all felt. The Bon Jovi thing just got absolutely ridiculous and I got turned into Benedict Arnold with everybody because I spent time with them (Bon Jovi). Sometimes, I'd go on their bus and on days off, I would go over to their hotel. It was just like fuck anything to get away from those guys and their bitching and moaning. That went on all tour and it just got worst and worst.

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