European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 04, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Story and photos by Anita Gosch staff writer he scene is los Angeles. Heavy Metal is at its height. Van Halen quiet riot. Motley Crue and countless other bands have rocked their Way to the top. Somewhere in the bowels of the City trouble is brewing. A hard rocking pack of rodents called rail is determined to gnaw its Way out of the club circuit and infest America with Ratt n dangerous but Worth the risk is rail s philosophy. Says guitarist Robbin Crosby. Of you be got to do it. Do it. Because you Ain t Gonna be Happy if you Don what rail did was More than anybody expected. In just three years the rodents scurried to super stardom. Their debut album out of he cellar with the hit single round and round billeted to the top of the charts reaching double Platinum status and their world infestation tour sold out concert Halls from coast of coast. The american Rock scene proclaimed 1984 the year of the Ratt was t about to Retreat. The band s second album invasion of your privacy also shot to the top 10. Where it s been nestling comfortably for the past 10 Wei is. Flats just want to have fun says Lead Singer Stephen Pearcy. With their Good looks and their teen Appeal Peircy Crosby guitarist Warren de Martini bassist Juan Croucier and drummer Bobby Blotzer no doubt have More than their share of fun on the Road. But for de Martini life in t merely a big cocktail he takes his guitar playing seriously and he s Well on the Way to becoming Rock s hottest guitarist since Eddie Van Halen. In an interview following rail s performance at the Castle Don legion festival in England last month de Martini proved that he s one Ratt the Rock world will have to watch out for. Can you explain Ratt a overnight Success i Don t really know the cause of it. Maybe everybody was ready for a new thing. I just did what i always did which is play guitar. We did a lot of hard work a lot of hard touring. I be tried to rationalize it and the Only thing that i can come up with is that if you have what it takes you just have to be yourself and do it. Be willing to live under not real Good circumstances for however Long it takes because that s usually the state you put yourself in if you want to be successful in music. You Don t have anything All you have is your instrument and you either make it or you Don t. Did you Ever expect such Success it was always such a faraway thing Lor me. When i joined Ratt i was 18 years old. I m 22 now. It has been everything but Normal for me so i have a very distorted View of the whole thing. I never really even got into adulthood before i achieved Success. I have to go through that whole scene and Deal with Success at the same time. That Mutt a difficult. It is. People think it s a big cocktail party. It can be if that s what you make it. It in t for me. It is difficult of do it but i m willing to do it. It s what i be always wanted to do. I always wanted to be in a career where nobody could Tell me what to do and still continue to be the Way i was when i was at Home you know kind of Carefree. Rock n Roll had always been my closest favorite thing Ever since i can remember. I come from a Large family so i was around music my whole life. Rock music stones the who Hendrix stuff like that. And i always admired that they could express themselves 100 percent and people had to either accept it or they did t like it. That really appealed to me. Ware you influenced by a guitar playing not so much 60s guitar playing but the 60s feeling. I tend to like the older bands the British the really substantial deep bands like the stones. Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix influenced me. But More so now because my playing is changing a bit. Expressing More feeling. I can play really fast. I could play fast before i could play slow. How about Eddie Van Halan a guitar style not so much Edward Van anymore because he never played slow. He s never anything but Eddie which is great but. I listened to Eddie and now i Don t. I went through my phase. Gary Moore s great. He s a great example of being an 80s player with a 60s feel. He s a very rounded player. He s got chops that will stand up to anybody but he has an authentic 60s English approach which i Admire quite a bit. How do you coordinate your guitar playing with bobbin1? i la show him the part and hell play it or hell play a version of it. We Don t really work things out that much. Well come up with a Riff and Well just Start playing it. It s always spontaneous. Unless we want to work something out. Then Well sit Down and go Over things. We re very compatible players. To gives me space and he gives the band a lot of depth and i have a lot of attack. It s a Good balance. Now that you re Start Are there any ego problem in the band no. There Aren t. Before Ratt came out i d met a couple musicians who i really admired and they d have these ego problems. That disillusioned me. I d go Home and not want to listen to their music anymore. That s Why i Don t want to meet any famous musicians. I d rather just listen to their music without knowing what the musicians Are like. And i decided that if i Ever got big i d just continue to be myself and not have any ego problems. With bands coming and going at Breakneck Speed these Days How Are you going to ensure rail s Success i Don t really think Tco much about things like Success. That does t really concern me. All i Ever wanted to do is play the guitar so if Ratt should break up some Day i la just keep on playing somewhere else. 4, 1985 the stars and stripes Page 1s
