RATT DRUMMER BOBBY BLOZTER TALKS TO EDDIE ABOUT ALL THE DRAMA SURROUNDING THE BAND
Ratt drummer Bobby Blozter was a recent guest on Eddie’s Sirius/XM’s shows, Eddie Trunk Live where he discussed touring without any of the original members of the band and the legal battles over ownership the band name. Excerpts from interview appear below as transcribed by blabbermouth.net.
On continuing to tour as Ratt without any other members of the band’s classic lineup:
Blozter: “I’m very proud of the band and the success of the band and the whole thing, ’cause, trust me, in doing this out of absolute frustration and anger, because I was the only person, and have been so many times in Ratt, trying to rally the band. You can’t take five years off, especially when you’re Stephen Pearcy’s [formersinger] age, and my age. He’s the older one… He’s only a year and a half older than me, but I’m just saying. Next month I’ll be 58, and I’m conveying this to these guys: ‘What do we got here?’ Seriously. Fifteen years? You see a lot of guys touring into their later years this day and age, but not with the aggressive style of music that Ratt plays.
“I’m ready to keep going. I’m playing really good. I think I’m playing the best I’ve ever played, frankly. We work hard at this, and everybody’s real dedicated. So, I’m just so happy to be out there playing the catalog, and bringing Ratt N’ Roll out there; [the fans] still want it. And they don’t really… I hate to say this… They wanna hear it done with great integrity, conviction, performance, show… everything. They just wanna hear the music and have it sound like the records. And I’ve seen other bands that have one, two, three [original members]… whatever, they go out and I look around and I’m, like, ‘Wow, [the fans are] f–king loving it,’ and they don’t really care if Joe Smith is on bass, or whatever.”
Talking about the criticism he has received for touring without any other original band members:
Blozter: “I don’t go on the Internet and I don’t read all these freaky… I’m not gonna read that junk, because you know what? Every night, when I walk on a stage, and there’s five thousand, six thousand… We’re playing big gigs, man. There’s some smaller ones in there, but they’re fifteen-hundred seaters, or whatever, but you’ve gotta keep working and keep spreading the good word. I walk out and see those faces and feel that love and give that love. It’s, like, it all fades… all the negativity. I don’t listen to it. I don’t care. F–k you, guys. You don’t like it? F–k off.
Not everybody is on MetalShit.com and BlabberFace.net. Who cares? There’s such a small amount of people, really, that do that. Because [we’re playing to] people [who] have no idea about [the drama that is reported on] those sites…”
Discussing the legal battle between him and [guitarist] Warren DeMartini over the rights to the Ratt name, with the guitarist filing a lawsuit last fall claiming that the drummer was falsely advertising his “tribute band” as the real thing:
Blozter: “He’s not moving forward, he’s moving backwards, and it’s gonna be a year and a half soon [since he filed his lawsuit], and this thing [the court case] ain’t gonna see the light of day — if it makes it to the light of day — ’till, I don’t know… ’18 or something stupid. I’m not a litigious kind of guy. I’m not looking for f–king lawsuits; I hate it. I hate it. Rate has been embroiled and tangled… Since Out Of The Cellar came out, we always were being sued, and we were always paying fortunes to fight things and settle things instead of paying the lawyers…
I was willing to give up my ownership of the name. I wanted to give them [Pearcy and Croucier] their portion of the name that they wanted, that Warren didn’t wanna give. He didn’t wanna give it, but he didn’t wanna play unless it was the original band. Basically, he was just putting us in f–king no man’s land. We’re not moving; him and I own a hundred percent of nothing; these guys are on strike, so the band will sit, sit, sit. And in that time, we age, age, age. And I just had to make a move, man. And it was a big one. And it’s doing great.
Warren has been breaching fiduciary duty for years. Him and I, as members of the band and just officers of the [corporation], we have to perpetuate business for that corporation; that is our duty. I have been doing that all along. I’ve always been pushing Ratt: ‘Let’s go. Let’s work. Let’s work.’ I mean, that’s what I wanna do. I’m a businessman and an artist/musician. I wanna play and earn for my family. It’s real simple.
[Warren] is suing me. But the funny thing is that, while he’s doing that, he’s calling our business manager, going, ‘Am I getting a check?’ It’s, like, ‘No. Drop the frivolous lawsuit and then yes.’ But maybe not then, because I haven’t had my chance at him yet. I won’t get into that portion of it. But this thing has gone on and on. It’s not gonna see the court now until next spring, and then from there on, probably ’till ’18, if it doesn’t get thrown out [before then]. It has no merit. It’s a frivolous bulls–t lawsuit and I don’t know why he’s perpetuating it, other than maybe the head of the household, his wife, is pulling the strings. I don’t know. I wish he’d cool it. ‘Come out and play some shows, Warren. [Laughs]”On his legal battle with former bassist Juan Croucier:
Bobby: “The problem with the others that got involved, like with Juan using the Ratt logo [for his new band Ratt’s Juan Croucier]. Well, it turns out that Warren gave him the right to do that. He can’t do that. I mean, that’s a big thing for this case for him. I’m surprised that he actually did that, ’cause that’s just unbelievable. ‘Cause Juan Croucier, I said, ‘Please take that down. Take the logo down. Don’t get into this mess.
He’s escalated now on his third attorney. He’s trying to suggest now, as a last-ditch effort, that he didn’t know WBS, since 1987, was the corporation in which Ratt did their business, because he didn’t wanna go out on tour, so he was expelled from the [corporation]. We closed the old [corporation], and opened WBS. We did it to the letter of the law, with a legal team advising us. So at this point now, he’s trying to allege — and it’s just absolute lies — to the court, and they see this, that he never knew that WBS was an actuality of the company, even though he accepted certified letters years and years ago — back to ’97, ’98. He said he never knew about it ’till about a year ago. Well, he admitted under oath that he did know about it in 2001. I mean, this kind of craziness is going on, and I’m just sitting there watching it, going, ‘Oh my God! This is unbelievable.’
I went after [Juan] to stop [him from] using the RATT logo. He doesn’t own it; Warren and I own it. He [has since] augmented it. He had the Ratt logo. It said Ratt with the logo and then a little ‘S’ at the end: Ratt’s Juan Croucier. For him to be doing this, I can’t understand the recklessness in it, because he stands to really… The judgment that could come down could be very, very serious to him and for us at WBS, Inc. So the fact that Warren gave him — and Juan, he said this under oath, under the penalty of perjury, and he’s got the e-mail — that Warren gave him the right to use the Ratt logo.”
What about his current relationship with [former Ratt singer] Stephen Pearcy?:
Bobby: “Well, Pearcy, I’ve been talking to him over the last year or so. I called him and we had minor texting or e-mailing or whatever going on, and I said, ‘Smart move, man, to keep your nose out of this mess.’ He knows all along who the culprit of this has been — it’s been Warren, who’s stopped everybody from working ’till he gets his way. Then all of a sudden, the dynamic changed and Juan’s not gonna play and he got Stephen to not play unless they get the name. I’m open to giving the name. Who gives a s–t about the name? As long as everybody gets what we get… I want everybody to get for life… Even if you can’t play, you broke your back… whatever. But you’ve gotta put your time in and not do two tours and then quit and think you’re gonna walk out owning the name. That’s the position I came from. Give seven years of solid touring with no f==kups and you get what you want, and we all get what we want, which is to play together.”
Speaking about the recent photo that surfaced of Pearcy, Croucier and DeMartini at a Los Angeles birthday party, fueling speculation that they could form their own version of Ratt to rival his version of the band:
Blozter: “Well, it’s absurd. It ain’t gonna happen. Warren can’t do that. If Warren was to join up in that thing, he would be in competition with his own band and corporation — Ratt, WBS… Ratt. He would be kicked out on his rear end so quick… They’d have to call it something else; they couldn’t call it anything but something else….”
additional source: blabbermouth.net
