Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy said his band would have deserved a slot on Motley Crue’s Stadium Tour if they had reunited — but he speculated that the headliners wouldn’t have wanted to follow their opening act.
When asked in a new interview by AllMusic‘s Greg Prato whether a reunited Ratt should have taken part in the 2022 trek — which also featured Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett — Pearcy said: “Of course. But I’m not the one … if it was a vote, of course not – I don’t think Motley would want to play after us. And that’s how it would have settled up.
“We still have some kind of competition out there, y’know?” Pearcy continued. “We would consider it like, ‘What? We’re going to open up for you?’ So yeah, we should have. It would have made sense. I mean, I don’t care if you put us third, fourth, whatever — our motto was, ‘Go out there and beat your ass, anyway.’ And if they know you’re playing first, they’ll come and see you first, second, third, or whatever.”
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Stephen Pearcy Has Attempted to Reunite Ratt’s Classic Lineup
Pearcy said he’s tried to reunite with surviving classic-era Ratt members Warren DeMartini, Juan Croucier and Bobby Blotzer in recent years, but his overtures were unsuccessful. (Pearcy and Croucier toured under the Ratt moniker in 2021, but Pearcy later said the lineup “just doesn’t cut it.”) The absence of guitarist Robbin Crosby, who died in 2002, has also impeded any potential reunion progress.
“I had made those attempts. And some of my guys, they’re complacent and some of them … it’s not even a matter of not needing to financially,” he said. “It’s a matter of … some of them don’t have the drive that I do. And without Robbin Crosby — who was really important in keeping the band together and keeping us directed — he was the guy who pretty much directed us. I created it, he directed it. I made attempts.”
In the meantime, Pearcy has been playing the Ratt catalog on solo tours, but he hasn’t abandoned all hope of a reunion. A 40th-anniversary reissue of Ratt’s debut album Out of the Cellar arrived last month, and he hopes that would motivate the band to take part in a future iteration of the Stadium Tour.
“It will go down again, and we’ll see,” Pearcy mused. “Like I said, I tried to get the original guys. We attempted it once, and it was just like, ‘Whoa.’ … At the end of the day, I’m the guy left standing, going, ‘OK, that’s cool. That’s the way it should be: 40-year anniversary.’ And what I’m doing [on my solo tours] is playing the [whole] record live. The original band never even did that!”
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