Tommyland Read online

  At seventeen I got my first tattoo: Mighty Mouse flying through a bass drum at the top of my right shoulder, where it still is today. That was the clincher because by then my parents knew I was just going to go and do whatever I wanted. He might not have liked the direction I was heading, but my dad was so fucking rad. He did everything in his power to help me, including giving up his work space to fucking build me my first studio. We didn’t have a big house—we had a two-car garage and pretty much the average middle-class suburban American layout. He started parking the cars in the driveway so that our garage could be my practice room. He soundproofed it and built a door so that my band and I could do our thing. It had everything you need in a garage studio: insulation, drywall, and a pressed-board door. It was the ultimate sacrifice for an engineer to give up the only place in the house where he could build shit. He just did it and didn’t say much about it. He just told me, “Tommy, go nuts, play all day if you want. Just stop by ten o’clock.”

  When I started playing out with my first band my dad built us pyrotechnics. He had a little switchbox, four flashpots, metal pipe, and a piece of wood with spikes coming through the bottom, all tied together with guitar string. There was a little filament in the bottom of each flashpot, into which he poured gunpowder and then hit the switch. Boom! The neighbors must have thought he was fucking mad. He made us a lighting system too. It was made of cardboard and wood, and it was real Neanderthal—it only had an on/off switch, but it was something that the other high school bands did not have.

  I can’t say it enough: For a former army mechanic to give up his garage and tool area to build his hyperactive, hooky playin’, maybe gay, wannabe rock star son a studio—that is a cool parent. If I can just be half the man my dad was I’ll be all right. I’ve always realized the example he set, but after he died, like everyone else who loses someone, I started to see it more clearly. My dad was the silent type, but he sent me the right messages. As my life got crazy and as I got involved with the opposite sex, he was probably relieved yet also concerned that I’d get someone pregnant. Back when I was growing up, getting a girl pregnant was all you had to worry about. In the eighties everyone dropped their clothes and had sex when they wanted, how they wanted, where they wanted. No one thought about condoms, and no one was worried about diseases, though we should have been. It was about one thing: as much play as you could get. That’s when Dad and I had “the Talk.”

  WORD! AHH, SEX, MY FAVORITE SUBJECT. LET’S TAKE A BREAK

  AND GO HAVE SOME.

  He told me to be careful in such a beautiful way that I’m not sure anyone else but those of us who knew him can truly appreciate it. He said “Be careful, son. Be careful where you dip your wick. Your thing there, it’s like a candle. And you can get burned.”

  BURNING BAD. SEX GOOD. MMM, YESS.

  At my craziest moments, though, I’ve wondered how I could have grown up in my parents’ wonderful, grounded household and become such a maniac. I always conclude that I’m still around, and that I’m happy and am what I consider to be some sort of a decent person simply because of them.

  Now that I have two children of my own, I’ve tried to follow my parents’ example as much as I can. I don’t think parents should make rules; I think they should act as they wish their kids to be, as much as they possibly can. All parents want their children’s lives to be perfect, and in this world that’s a tall order no matter who you are or how much money, freedom, or foresight you have. Do your best and remember that you are the living lesson they are learning from each and every day.

  I’m lucky. It was so rad to grow up watching my mom and dad because they were so in love with each other for their entire lives. I’d watch my dad pinch my mom’s ass and blow her kisses across the room, or get up suddenly just to go over and give her a hug. Only one time during my childhood did I ever see my parents fight. Just once, and it was over money. (Hell, money will make anyone fight.) Times were tight and my mom thought my dad wasn’t being straight with her about what he was earning. She thought he was spending his cash somewhere else instead of bringing it home for the family. When she confronted him, my dad pulled his wallet out, threw it at her, and told her to look in it and see how much money he had. He told her to take everything in there. I’ll never forget it.

  My parents were so in love and that’s what I learned. They had the kind of love that makes life worth living. I saw what a relationship between a man and woman could be and should be. It is what I’ve always compared my relationships to and I thank them for that. It is a lesson they never could have told me, but one they could have only showed me. And they did.

  I miss you Dad. I love you Mom.

  5 STATE OF VALEDICTORY

  a.k.a.

  MOM, DAD ...I GOT IT

  My parents were definitely cool about my passion for music, but soon they were fucking scared. It wasn’t a good day when I told them I was going to split high school my senior year to be a musician full-time, as the drummer for Mötley Crüe. We had a record deal, yet it wasn’t anything much—we were far from made in the shade. Maybe my parents sensed that, but it didn’t matter to me. A record deal and a band that was ready to kick ass was all I needed. High school didn’t stand a chance. They sat me down and said, “Tommy, just graduate. Why are you doing this?” And I said, “I gotta do this. I gotta. Because I know it’s gonna happen. I don’t care about a fucking diploma. I’ve got a record deal, and I’m gonna tour the world.” They were being good parents, so they kept telling me I needed something to fall back on if it didn’t work out. And all I kept saying was, “This is gonna work. Trust me, I’m goin’. Mom, Dad, I got it.”

  My timing couldn’t have been worse—I was two months away from my diploma and all that they saw was their son at a crossroad, choosing music as his only viable occupation. I’m sure in their minds they saw the worst-case scenario: me and my drum kit living in their garage for the rest of my life.

  Again, my dad was supportive while all of this seemed like a hobby and I was still in school. I didn’t play sports, I played music, so like a good dad watching all his son’s games, he showed up at my gigs and was even a roadie for all my early bands. I was in a few bands—U.S. 101, Dealer, and my most successful outfit, Suite 19. None of those groups made any money. U.S. 101 was a cover band that played mostly at high school dances. The guitar player was a surfer and a huge Beach Boys fan, so our set was tons of that shit. Just think too much Beach Boys and all the horrible covers a band in the late seventies would play: Styx’s “Come Sail Away,” Frampton, ZZ Top—you get the picture. I just couldn’t wait until it was drum solo time. I’d light my sticks on fire and enjoy myself for a minute.

  Dealer was a better gig. When I went to audition, all of us took mush-rooms before we jammed. I remember sitting there, trying my best to play while reminding myself that everything was okay and that what I was seeing was not what I was hearing. The entire world was jerky, there were trails coming off everything, and we sounded like shit. Anyway, I got the gig and thank God they played original music because I was into that. I hung with that band for a while and it was pretty good—until I fucked the keyboard player’s girlfriend. Sorry, Mark.

  I had to leave after that and she came with me. She showed me something that I’m a huge fan of to this day. She was a squirter—or I should say a female Peter North. She could really blast it out. I was bummed when I learned that every girl didn’t do that. I was eating her pussy and pulling at her clit and then...it happened. It was like pee and cum at the same time—and I fucking loved it. When it was time for an explosion, she’d shoot it right in my face and when she was done, we looked like we’d entered a wet T-shirt contest.

  I had my van by then, which is where we usually hooked up—a lot. You already know it squirted Jack Daniel’s. It was also baby blue with a mural painted on the side and tinted teardrop windows in the back corners. That mural was wack: It was some Grand Canyon scene with horses running through rivers. It belonged on the side of
Willie Nelson’s tour bus—it was bunk as fuck. But it was the love machine, I’m telling you, man. It had Center Line rims on it and the whole back was a padded bed. I realized my girl’s whole squirting thing was a problem though, when I gave my mom a ride one day. She was like, “Tom, it smells weird in here. What is that?” I said, “That’s just the way the van smells, Mom.” But I knew what it was. Fuck, everyone who set foot in that van knew what that smell was—except my mom. My ride reeked of sex.

  The Squirter was my first real girlfriend and she was older than me—I was sixteen and she was twenty. Lucky for her the statute of limitations is up on that relationship.

  Anyway, sorry I can’t keep my mind off sex.

  DON’T EVER APOLOGIZE FOR THAT. THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU, TOMMY.

  IT’S THEM. THEY ARE ALL TOO UPTIGHT.

  Where was I? Oh, yeah, music. After Dealer I joined Suite 19 and they were the best of my early bands. We were a power trio and had an amazing guitar player named Greg Leon, who was a little Eddie Van Halen. The music was cool, Greg wrote the songs, and since he was a huge Marc Bolan fan, we sounded like a heavier version of T. Rex and Slade. We used to do some covers like “Ray’s Electric Farm” by Axis. We were a full-on hard rock trio who played loud as fuck. Suite 19 was my first experience playing real clubs—we played the Whisky A Go-Go, the Starwood, and the Troubadour, among others. We were good and had a lot of interest from labels. I felt like I’d finally found the group that I’d make it with.

  During that time, Nikki Sixx was in a band called London* that was big on the scene. When their drummer left, Greg, who was friends with Nikki, told him to call me. I knew who Nikki was because I’d seen him play. I didn’t know a ton about their music, but I thought London looked rad—they had crazy hair and they looked like the New York Dolls. I even had a poster of them in my room.

  Nikki and I finally met in the front room of his Hollywood home where he played me some new music he was working on. It was harder than the poppy stuff that London was doing and he told me the other guys in his band weren’t into it. I started pounding on his living room table to the music and everything just seemed to mesh. The rest is history. We found our guitar player, Mick Mars, through an ad he’d placed in the paper: “Loud, rude, aggressive guitar player. No bullshit. Call Mick.” He came to Nikki’s house and he didn’t even have to play. We opened the door, and he’s standing there looking like Cousin Itt from The Addams Family. I turned to Nikki and said, “This is our guy. He’s perfect—he’s disgusting and scary.” Soon after that we poached our singer, Vince Neil, whom I’d gone to high school with, from another band on the scene, Rock Candy. It was simple: He looked rad and he did the best Cheap Trick covers of any singer we knew.

  When we got the Crüe together, I knew it was on. I was a totally fucking insane seventeen-year-old maniac drummer and I was not going to be stopped. We played the circuit and got a devoted fan base real quick. We earned it: Nikki and I would drive around stapling posters on every fucking tree, telephone pole, and anything that didn’t move in Hollywood. At the time, selling out the Whisky A Go-Go for three nights was the shit. I was so green that I thought we had made it and had no idea it could get bigger than that.

  From the start, we did everything ourselves to get the music to our fans. We got the money together to press a few thousand forty-fives—and instead of trying to sell them in a store, we’d throw them out into the audience at our shows. We had success in sight and did it our way.

  In less than a year, we were selling out everywhere and soon enough the record companies came sniffin’ around because they smelled a profit. They were like, “Oh, fuck, they’re doing all this without us.”

  * * *

  Our little world got bigger real quick at the dawn of the eighties. I’ll take you back to the first whiff I got of it. I was still in high school at this point and I’m driving to rehearsal, and I hear our first single, “Live Wire,” on the radio. I fucking freaked out, made my drum tech, Clyde, pull over, and I jumped out and ran to the pay phone to call my parents. I couldn’t believe it—oh my God! That’s me on the radio! My mom was home and I’m yelling down the phone, telling her to put on 94.7, KMET. She’s all confused, but she finds it and says, “Oh, Tom, that’s great.” I hung up real quick because I could hear it in the car, because all I wanted to do was get back in there and fucking crank it. I can’t tell you how much of a fucking rush it is to be in a car and hear yourself on the radio for the first time, and rock the fuck out. All of a sudden, there I was, on the radio, sandwiched between bands like Van Halen and Rush. It was completely surreal: It was everything I’d ever wanted, coming to me through the speakers in the doors. Be careful what you wish for.

  I knew we were set to go right then—I got it—but for me, our success only became real when I saw my parents get it. Today, any parent can switch on MTV or VH1 or read Time magazine for God’s sake and then tell their kid that the new White Stripes album is an instant classic. Whatever. It wasn’t like that when I came up. The average adult was pretty alienated from what their kids were into. Youth culture just wasn’t on tap, making money for all kinds of media outlets the way it is now.

  I’d like to take a moment to apologize to all the parents I scared. I’m sure one day I’ll be tripping about some band my kids are into. But I’ve already got the answer: I’ll sit down with them and listen to the music. I’ll do my best to understand it and I’ll ask them what they like about it. Even if I think it’s shit, who am I to tell anyone what to like? It’s a personal choice that everyone is free to make. My parents felt the same way, so I’ll follow their lead, with one difference—I won’t ever tell them to turn the volume down.

  My parents were encouraged when they heard my band on the radio, but they weren’t convinced that it meant anything until they saw what they couldn’t deny. I’m jumping ahead to prove a point but hold up and let me set the scene for you: When Mötley Crüe opened up for Ozzy Osbourne at the Long Beach Arena in 1984, it was at that very moment that I knew I’d made my parents proud, which is one of my greatest achievements. I was up on my riser at the back of the stage, and my parents were at the soundboard out in the center of the arena. They were out there, smack-dab in the middle of the crowd. They’d never been to a concert and had no idea that that world existed. When the bright lights came on, I saw my parents looking around, amazed, and their expressions said it all. I could tell that they knew it was all worth it: all their hard work making ends meet, all the music lessons they paid for and the life lessons they taught me, the garage my dad gave over to me, all their doubts, all their love, and, most of all, the wisdom they had to let me chase my destiny. They had given me everything, from life to feeding and bathing me, to letting me grow up my own way. And right then, all their worries about me making a living were blown away by what they witnessed.

  That arena was full of 18,000 people going fucking crazy, pumping their fists and shouting along with us. At that moment, I remembered all those nights practicing in the garage, all those times my parents told me to turn it down and that when I got my own car I could listen to whatever I wanted to (I always hated that). Well, there I was: I was finally in my own car, with the volume on stun, my parents riding shotgun with their earplugs in, and 18,000 of my closest friends in the backseat going bananas.

  Here’s what happens at a big rock show when the aircraft landing lights get turned on: You can see everything. And I did. I could see all the way out to the soundboard in the middle of the arena. My mom is there wearing some rad little miniskirt looking like she’s twenty years old, completely hot—just way too fine. She’s doing her thing, she’s got her hair all done up, and for a second I’m just like, “Mom, what up?” My dad is next to her, wearing this crazy Hawaiian shirt that he only wore for special occasions. He’s smoking a cigar with Mom on his arm, just chilling. I am playing the fuck out of my drums that night and in the middle of all the insanity, there’s my dad watching me with this look on his face that says
, “That’s my boy.” I’ve had many moments of satisfaction in my life but that one won’t be topped. My parents finally saw what I was talking about, and they were just like, “Whoa. Okay. He’s got it.”

  6 STATE OF MATRIMONY

  a.k.a.

  MY DEAR HEATHER

  I was married very briefly to a Penthouse pet from Canada, whose pet name was Candace.

  No, not that one!

  You lost me, buddy. Not that one? Well, which one are you thinking of? The OTHER Penthouse pet from Canada I married? I don’t remember a lot of shit, bro, but I do remember who I married.

  Until Britney Spears was married and divorced in fiftyfive hours, I thought I held the record for the shortest marriage ever. We were married and annulled in thirty days, and the easiest way to sum up why we were together is 1) I was nineteen, and 2) she was hot. Candace was the perfect wife for me then: She partied as hard as I did, she hung with the guys, and she always looked good. When I introduced her to my parents, my mother looked like she’d seen a ghost and my father just looked the other way. They weren’t happy but they wished me the best. And everything seemed to be okay for the first and only month or so we were married—until Candace called my mother a cunt. It was obvious that my mother didn’t like her, but Candace wouldn’t let it go. I told her not to call my mother a name like that. But she did—again and again. And I won’t stand for that. No one calls my mother a cunt. I kicked Candace to the curb like yesterday’s trash.*