Jeff Kerby from KNAC.com spoke to former RATT frontman STEPHEN PEARCY recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts follow:

KNAC.com: How hard was it to keep anything in perspective though when there were so many enablers out there feeding your ego and willing to fulfill basically any request you may have had at the time?

Pearcy: "It did happen, and it happened quite a lot, but I think you’ll find that people in any field who are successful have that same problem."

KNAC.com: True, but how many of them are playing to twelve or fourteen thousand people at the age of twenty-two? You know, and then being given thousands and thousands of dollars while being told 'don’t spend it all. It won’t last forever.' What guy in his early twenties in that situation wouldn’t think it would last forever?

Pearcy: "There were only a few who actually knew what they were doing while most of the rest were in the back of the bus going “heeey, man, I pissed this all away.” I was one of them actually.(laughs) Then again, I was doing my own trip and in rock and roll there is no night and day - it just is what it is."

KNAC.com: There has to be that understanding that there is going to be some good with the bad. I’m sure that although 'Round And Round' was completely huge, there is a danger with anything that gets that big.

Pearcy: "Fortunately, we didn’t tag ourselves that silly to have that large of a backlash. Our music was new and original, and we worked really hard doing it."

KNAC.com: And in fairness, Ratt obviously had more than one song and more than one album of material.

Pearcy: "Yeah, we weren’t a one-off. There is never an end to anything either - at least I don’t think there is. You actually see it on the Behind the Music, and you literally see where it starts to crack, but to me, they still didn’t get the real story….and I’m not about to tell them. There are some things that are just our lives and out of respect for Robbin (Crosby - guitarist) and myself and everyone else that we don’t need to go into. It shouldn’t be about “fuck that guy! And, oh yeah, he’s a prick too. Next!” That was about as far as we needed to go while still respecting the situation. That’s a hard thing too because in rock people tend to take things personally. That kind of animosity can be the death of anything. It’s like, let’s put it behind us and move on. We did prove something back then, you know, Ratt was one of the last bands to get signed out of Hollywood at the time. Even though we were as good as we thought we were or as different as we thought we were, they grabbed everyone else who was more goofy or colorful first. We proved that given the opportunity, we could do it as well or better than those who came before."

KNAC.com: How large of a sense of frustration was building within you guys while all of that was happening? Was there always this sense that good would triumph over evil anyway?

Pearcy: "I’m glad Doug Morris was smart enough to go, 'grab that!' It’s all fun though. I always look at it as a survival of the fittest or just survival. No one gets any extra bonus points or brownie buttons - hanging out in the business this long is lucky. We’re all lucky - let’s just keep playin’ the tunes."

To read the entire interview head to this location.