Kickstart My Heart
My lost weekend with Motley Crüe
This has to start in 1989 on the Sunset Strip, where, as a twenty-two-year-old Artist and Repertoire executive for Elektra Records, I ran into C., an A & R rep for a rival label, and disappeared into the night with her — a couple bottles of Jaegermeister and some bad intentions our only other companions.
Although, I suppose I could make an argument to begin in 1980 at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY, where, as a fourteen year old Van Halen fanatic, I screamed for two hours while the band, on the North American leg of their Party Til You Die tour, ripped through their first three albums at Spinal Tap volume. I left the arena that night on fire, heavy metal an obsession that would dominate my life for the next four years.
Or I guess I could go back to 1985 at Tufts University, where, as a 19-year-old college sophomore, I stumbled upon Tracy Chapman singing and strumming “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution,” and made the decision to find a way to get her music to the world.
But how about if I start now, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where, as a forty-eight-year-old husband, father, filmmaker, using an ironing board for a standing desk, my years in the record trade long behind me, I try to render accurately and without any extra romance or drama, one lost week at the end of the 80s that began in LA and ended in Vancouver, Canada where I spent the weekend with Motley Crüe, while they were recording their masterpiece, Dr. Feelgood, and I was fighting, very hard, to hold onto whatever dignity I may have had only five days earlier, in the seconds before I collided with C. on the Strip.
I was, to be totally honest, already on a date. Her name was N. She was sweet, open and pretty and had badly mistaken my affability for kindness. I think I may have helped that impression along. And I may have been confused about it myself. Regardless, N. had no idea that over the past three months I’d been on a quixotic mission to make C. look at me as more than just another twenty-two year old kid who wanted to take her to bed.
So there we were, right across from the Roxy: N. accompanying me while I scouted bands, arms around each other’s waists, walking west on Sunset. And there was C., walking east, about ten yards in front of us. When she saw me, C. half-smiled, which was the best anyone got from her back then, and in that almost smile I saw that this was my moment, and that if I didn’t move, right then, it would be gone forever.
I’m not proud of this next part.
I told N. to head across to the Roxy, that her name was on the list.
This was true.
Then I told her I was going to catch up with C., for a sec, about a band we had both seen recently, and that I’d meet her inside.
This turned out to be untrue.
I watched N. get to the other side of the street, turned back, and C. was inches from me. She was twenty-nine, smoky, sleepy eyes, skin somewhere between olive and caramel. Her face always made me think of Carly Simon but with a body that was much more Patti Smith or Nico or even Iggy Pop. She was like those people in other, darker ways too.
And now, she was leaning in, saying something, which, at first, I missed, lost in her smell — a melange of whiskey, cigarettes, coffee and hair that hadn’t been washed for days.
“Let’s go.”
I got it when she repeated it.
“Where?”
But she had already turned and begun walking away. I hesitated for a beat, as if giving real consideration to the moral implications, before leaping forward to join her.
We stopped at a liquor store to pick up those bottles of Jaeger and ended up at: 1) her office, which was also on Sunset, in one of those towers just past Doheny, where we drank the first bottle together 2) some kind of party a songwriter friend of hers was throwing, and 3) her house in the Hollywood hills, where another songwriter, F., sat in the middle of the mission style living room, strung out, a Martin guitar in her lap, speaking really smart, deep thoughts every twenty minutes or so before slumping back down against the Martin.
I remember, and this is important, that I was wearing jeans and a grey athletic t-shirt when all this started.
Three days later, C.’s house phone was ringing. There weren’t cell phones then, really, so house phone was the only possibility. It was my assistant. She had figured out where I was somehow, and wanted to put me on a conference call with the president of the record company. Before I could stop her, I heard his voice commanding me to go to Vancouver for the weekend, to check on the progress that Motley Crüe was making in the recording studio. Then he was gone. And my assistant was back on the phone, explaining that a car was on its way to pick me up, take me to the airport, that she would meet me there with the plane tickets.
I sat up. I was alone in the house. I had gotten, maybe, thirty minutes of sleep in the past seventy-two hours. And I was still wearing the grey athletic t-shirt. I found my jeans, walked to the kitchen and looked out the window to see C. and F., standing by C.’s pool, drinking coffee, sunglasses and longish sleeveless t-shirts their only visible clothing.
I didn’t want to leave, but, as the previous night came back to me, I remembered that C. had made it clear that, although I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted, on her couch or floor, our special time together was coming to a close. She had her own bands to see, her own demons to chase, and, maybe most importantly, her actual boyfriend coming back from New York. It was really probably best for me to be on my way.
Besides, it wasn’t my decision. I was only in LA because Elektra records wanted me there. If they wanted me in Vancouver next, Vancouver was where I was going. I walked outside, towards the pool, and C., and the next thing I recall is my airplane touching down in Vancouver.
On my way to the studio, I thought about how going to a Motley Crüe recording session was the fulfillment of a teenage dream.
But it was a dream coming true a few important years too late. After the Van Halen concert at Nassau, I spent all of junior high and high school listening to metal, following metal acts around, promoting metal shows at local clubs, managing really bad high-school metal bands. And there were few bands I dug more than Motley Crüe. Their first album, on Leathur Records, basically invented modern glam metal, led to thousands of hair metal bands, was both metal and punk at the same time, and, you know, kicked all sorts of ass. Exactly what I needed at 15.
I also read all the metal mags from England and out of LA and collected rare and hard to find metal albums. This was way harder to do pre-Internet. In order to really get into the whole scene, find the great records and unknown bands, I had to call mom and pop record shops all over the country, write letters to journalists at fanzines, bother managers of various bands to get backstage passes. I did all of that, and it worked. I had access, made connections, was fully plugged in to the hard rock and heavy metal scene in America in 1983.
But midway through freshman year of college, I stopped listening to metal. Gave it up pretty much the moment Sammy Hagar joined VH. My older college friends played Dylan for me and R.E.M., and that music spoke to me in a different way. I started reading different books too. Started actually thinking a little bit. I got active in campus politics, fought against investing the school’s endowment in companies doing business with Apartheid-torn South Africa, organized admin building protests, became very, very earnest. It was during all this stuff that I first saw upon Tracy and convinced her to let me get her career started.
That whole ride is a story for another time, but the important part for now is that it ended with me, at twenty-one, getting hired by Elektra. My job was supposed to be to find them more artists like Tracy. But that’s not how it turned out.
In my first days working for the record company, I found myself getting phone calls from all the people who knew me in the metal days. And in an instant, I became the metal guy at the label. And since Motley Crüe was on the label, I became the Motley guy.
When I entered the recording studio, Little Mountain, I found the entire band hanging out and working. Mick Mars was standing by the mixing console, recording his guitar part to “Don’t Go Away Mad.” Tommy Lee and Nikki Six were on a couch in the control room, guiding him, along with producer Bob Rock.
Vince was playing pinball in the lounge.
It’s funny how the stuff that matters to you at fourteen still has power. I hadn’t listened to them for pleasure in years. But seeing them — good God — this was Motley Fucking Crüe, and they were all in full make-up, full outfits, full everything. Vince had just had his car accident, Nikki had just OD’d, so they were trying to be sober. Still, the atmosphere was a long way from mellow.
Tommy asked me if I had seen Heather in the airport. Then he remembered that she wasn’t coming until the next day. And then he said this: “I can’t wait for that __ to get here. I’m gonna __ her in the __ the second she gets to my hotel room, just ___in’ __ on her, then I’m gonna __ her in the __. Then I’ll say hi.”
I sort of laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. He was just talking. To some kid he had never met before, about his WIFE! I wish I could tell you I played it off, or told him to show some restraint, but I couldn’t. I sort of staggered over to Nikki who said, “hey, let’s take a break, go have lunch.”
We all went outside and there, parked in front of the studio, were three Ferraris and one Lamborghini. Nikki leaned in to me and asked if I wanted to ride with him, but then Vince grabbed me by the shoulder and put me into his passenger seat. Now, I knew he didn’t have a license anymore, and that we were in a race car, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was tired, stinking, hung over, still wearing the grey athletic shirt, by now darkened with sweat and smoke and who knows what else. I had no will of my own. I was barely hanging on.
So I got into Vince’s car. One of the Ferraris. And we raced off. Do I even have to tell you that we went to a strip joint for lunch?
As soon as we walked into the place, the ladies went nuts. They brought over special cases of Moussy non-alcoholic beer and plate after plate of food. They offered lap dances, but the guys said no. They also said, “we’ll see you all later.” Seemed innocuous at first.
We ate. The strippers stripped. The band told me stories.
If you want to hear them, go buy Neil Strauss’s Motley classic, The Dirt. It’s worth it.
After about an hour, Nikki said we needed to go back to the studio. This time I rode with Tommy who told me more crazy shit about what he had done and was then going to do to Heather. I was so fried that I could barely make sense of what he was saying. But I must’ve nodded or laughed in the right places because when we returned to Little Mountain, Nikki pulled me aside and said the following, which I still remember word for word and which taunts me to this day: “Here’s the deal. It’s our manager Doug’s birthday today. So tonight we are having a real blowout party here at the studio. We got Doug a real rare guitar. We’re gonna give it to him, and then the girls are going to come over. We all decided this afternoon that you can come too. It’s gonna be Doug, the four of us, Bob (the producer), and you. And all the girls we know or want to know in Vancouver. They are going to have to shut the fucking strip clubs tonight, cause all the girls are going to be here. And these are girls who know how to have fucking fun.”
Nikki turned and walked back into the studio. I sat down on the couch in the lounge. This was it. Everything Motley Crüe had promised on the Leathur Records album. And I was invited. Holy. Shit.
Then I looked down at my grey t-shirt. Felt my unshaven face. Smelled myself. And I knew what I had to do.
I went into the studio, told the guys I’d be back in a couple of hours and went to get myself cleaned up. Bought clothes — new shirt, jeans, toothbrush, deodorant. Then checked into my hotel. Showered. May have even flossed. The whole time imagining the night ahead of me, picturing what it would be like when studio doors opened and all those girls walked in.
I still had about an hour before I had to be back at Little Mountain. So I decided to lie down for two minutes to collect myself.
Two minutes later, I opened my eyes. And it was THE MORNING! I looked at the clock and saw it immediately. I had slept for 15 hours. Missed the party, the strippers, the whole thing. I stared at the ceiling, actually alert for the first time in a week. And I cursed. Loud and long.
Take a second, just a second, to think about what I missed.
Now shake it off. Okay. Proceed.
When I showed up at the studio that afternoon, the Crüe looked at me with disgust. Told me I blew off a party that was so good, their ‘hair hurt.’ I could see they had lost respect for me. Still, I had a job to do. So I sat in the producer’s chair at the center of the console, and they played me their album in progress.
It was astonishing. They were making the record of their career. And it was obvious on first listen. After the last song played, I knew there was nothing at all I needed to do except get out of there and let them finish what they were doing.
I left for the airport an hour later in the car that had dropped off Heather. And I never spent any time with the members of Motley Crüe again.
I have to end it there, with the picture of me alone in that Town Car, headed back to LA, showered but empty, another soulless record exec without even the memory of once-in-a-lifetime debauchery to keep me company.
Or, maybe, I could end it a week later, when I tracked down N., apologized to her, told her the entire truth, asked for mercy, and promised her she was way better off to be done with me before we even really started.
Instead, I’m gonna stop right here, standing and typing at this ironing board, looking off into the kitchen where Amy, a novelist, whom I married three years after my weekend with the Crüe, is writing at the counter. She’s brilliant and deep and has a heart so kind that sometimes it hurts just thinking about it. Amy is the person who told me I was a writer and filmmaker before I knew I was, who insisted that I try despite the odds, who promised that even if it meant years of struggle, she was in, as long as I worked at it every day.
New York City office.
His “Six second screenwriting lessons”
are a Vine sensation.
photo by Ben Lazar
I can’t believe how lucky we are to have the life we have now. How lucky I am. We have two children, one of whom just started college, the other in high school, and we all genuinely like each other.
Once in a while, I’ll tell the Motley Crüe story to someone. And they’ll ask if I regret that I fell asleep and missed the night of my life. They’ll ask if it haunts me. The joke answer is: “months go by when I don’t think back to that night. But never years.”
But here’s the secret thing: I think I fell asleep on purpose as a way of pulling the rip cord, stopping the free fall, coming to my senses.
I don’t like who I was in those first years out of college. I don’t like that I was the sort of guy who would stroll away without giving a thought to the person I left, alone, in some rock club, to find her own way home. I don’t like that I allowed Tommy to talk about his wife that way. But I do like that I fell asleep. Because that might have been the only way out. Maybe somewhere inside, even then, I knew I needed one.
Music was, for a long time, the thing I held most precious in the world. And when I was a kid, I thought that working in the business would be a way to honor that, to celebrate it, to nurture it. But just like thousands of people before me, I got caught up in the lifestyle surrounding the music and let the music become a soundtrack to the absurd shit that I was really doing. It could’ve kept on that way for years. And, if I had gone and spent that night with the Crüe, I really think it would’ve.
So, no, I don’t regret falling asleep. Because falling asleep might’ve been the very thing that allowed me, finally, to wake up.
Follow Brian Koppelman on Twitter @briankoppelman.
Don’t miss a beat! Follow Cuepoint:
Twitter | Facebook | mailing list | main page
