RATT FRONTMAN STEPHEN PEARCY ON WHY GUITARIST WARREN DIMARTINI IS NO LONGER IN THE BAND, “[HE] JUST DIDN’T WANT TO [TOUR]”

Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy was a guest on Eddie’s Sirius/XM radio show, Trunk Nation, on July 9th. Excerpts from the interview appear below (as transcribed by Blabbermouth.net).

On why guitarist Warren DiMartini is no longer in the band:

“Warren just didn’t wanna go out there, and when you have a corporation, or a company, that company doesn’t cease if the majority wants to move forward. We wanted to clean house, and that’s it, and go out and enjoy ourselves for once. ‘Enough drama. We’ve been through enough. I’m just moving forward — [bassist] Juan [Croucier] and myself — and just trying to keep some legacy involved. It’s very simple — you either like what you’re doing or you don’t and we do. But it has to be with the right people. It’s not like we need to hire Jimmy Page or somebody. We’re gonna work with people that we have a great time with.”

Discussing whether DiMartini was fired:

“Warren was not fired — he wasn’t fired at all. He just took it upon himself to not be involved, but I’m not gonna dwell on that subject anymore either; it’s not worth it.” He added, that he and Juan “thought things were going copacetic” with DeMartini “but later found out there were other things going on with this guy, and he just didn’t wanna partake in these shows. And that’s just how it turned out. Hey, all I know is we didn’t fire the guy. I don’t tend to dwell on things, so it doesn’t bother me. I just move forward, and that’s what we did. We wanna go out and have a good time and celebrate. It’s no big deal. Warren is no longer in the group — his choice; not ours. The company is one thing, the corporation is another, but being in a band, that’s a whole another world.”

Talking about how they found their new band members:

‘We went through auditions — many people — and we invited a lot of people to come down. We move forward; we don’t waste time — or at least Juan and I don’t…So we auditioned all these people and decided on guys that we thought would hang around for a bit and grow and hopefully see a few more years out of this… And it wasn’t a simple task, by any means…”

On guitarist George Lynch being asked to join the band:

‘If we wanted to get a big name, it would have went down and that would have been that. But it’s all scheduling, what bands they’re in, what they’re doing — it involves quite a lot of things. I don’t know if they’re on the road, if they’re with other bands, if they’re in the studio. So we had to take all of these things into consideration.

With George, it was one of my first… I brought it up first. And we got hold of him. And with much respect, it just didn’t gel. I mean, not with him playing, ’cause he’s re-recorded some Ratt songs with me before and things were great. So with much respect, I think George is a phenomenal guitar player. It just didn’t work out…We wanna do things that we haven’t been able to do in about a year or two.’ And that was the bottom line. But much respect to George. I mean, he’s phenomenal. It’s not like we don’t know each other and we haven’t played with each other.”

Discussing rumors that Jake E. Lee was also considered for the guitar position:

“”No, he wasn’t approached. We love Jake. He goes back to [Stephen’s pre-RATT band] Mickey Ratt, before the original guys, with me, so, of course, that would have been a great contender. But no, we never went there. Like I said before, they have other bands, they have other projects, records, they’re doing this…they’ve gotta pull out and do their solo stuff or they’ve gotta do their bands. That’s not gonna work.”

Ratt’s new lineup is:

* Stephen Pearcy – Vocals
* Juan Croucier – Bass
* Jordan Ziff (Razer) – Lead Guitar
* Chris Sanders (Britny Fox, Knight Fury) – Rhythm Guitar
* Pete Holmes (Black ‘N Blue, Ratt’s Juan Croucier) – Drums

Share :