Chad Bowar: Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot) has been with you for about a year now. How did he come to join Ratt?
Warren DeMartini: It was an idea I got a couple years before it happened. We were in a situation where it looked like we would need to replace the guitarist, and I thought Carlos would be perfect. That blew over and everything was fine, then a couple of years later we were in the same situation. I saw Vinny Appice at a club in L.A. one night, and he told me had a weekend project he was doing with Carlos, and I got his number. I put it in my phone, and didn’t use it for two years. Then when it was for sure we were looking for someone, he was the first person I called.
What’s the status of your next studio album?
For this one we decided to do something different than we’ve ever done in the past. We packed up and went to the East Coast. The producer we decided to go with (Michael "Elvis" Baskette) has a studio on the Chesapeake Bay, and it’s really nice. It’s a different approach than we’ve ever done. It’s more of a combination of touring and recording, as opposed to recording in your hometown where you go home every night and have the usual barrage of phone calls. With this, everybody went to the studio and stayed, lived there. It was amazing.
We’re about halfway through. We’ve got 12 songs recorded. By the time we had to hit pause (to go on tour) we were just about to start the lead and background vocals.
Is there a release date yet?
It’s looking like it will be released in either February or March of 2010. You never know how these things are going to turn out, but if the atmosphere is any indication, it should be really good. We've had an incredibly good time making this record.
As an artist, is it important to you to have new material to play live, instead of having to play all old stuff?
It does keep things fresh. It’s a different show for the audience every night, but it’s the same show for the band. You have to do things to keep it interesting. New material keeps us sharp. On this tour we don’t have that problem because we’re playing Out Of The Cellar in its entirety. We haven’t done that since it came out in 1984. That has been just an incredible journey into the past for the band and fans alike.
Were there songs from Out Of The Cellar that you hadn’t played live before, or in a really long time?
I don’t think “She Wants Money” ever made it to the live stage, and if it did it was only for a few weeks on that first tour. “Scene Of The Crime” and “In Your Direction” we haven’t played since that 1984 tour. We probably played about 250 dates on that one in 1984 and 1985. It started out as a club tour. Then the “Round And Round” video came out, and it turned into a 250 date experience. It was an unbelievable year.
Was it fun to go back and relearn and rediscover those old songs?
Yes. We were learning like any other band would learn a cover song. We had kind of an idea of how it went, but were definitely going back to the record for the reference.
Ratt has had some personnel changes and turmoil over the years. How is everyone getting along these days?
It’s really, really good. It’s sort of come full circle. We’re seeing a new enthusiasm for rock that was probably always there, but it’s more prominent now. We’re seeing a lot of young kids with our t-shirts.
As you look back at Ratt’s catalog, are there any albums that you think are underrated or didn’t get the attention they deserved when they were originally released?
Ratt got so big so fast that there wasn’t any time to learn anything about controlling our own schedule. It took on a life of its own. Looking back and listening to some things, I feel like it would have been better if we could have taken a season off. It was just record, tour, record, tour for five or six years in a row. It was hard to find the time to do everything properly. You do 175 shows with no break and then you go into the studio. You learn quickly, but most of it was pretty close to the mark.
Ratt was featured in a Behind The Music episode a couple years ago. Were you satisfied with how the band was portrayed?
I really missed the story of how we got anywhere. They went to a lot of trouble to shoot the disc jockey that broke the band in L.A. on a show called Local Licks, which basically created a platform for all the bands that didn’t have record deals. Friday at five o’clock they would play someone that wasn’t signed. That was how Ratt got the attention of Atlantic Records. For a documentary, I thought it was a really important chapter in the story, and was really suspicious when the final cut didn’t have that in there. It was more about when the genre changed to grunge and rock wasn’t drawing. I was disappointed that you didn’t get the whole story.
Do you have any interest in doing an official, band sanctioned documentary or book?
I would like to see a more neutral, documentary style story about the history of Ratt that would also include more of the good stuff, as opposed to just the stuff that every band had to endure.
Is there any way to prepare for the instant fame the band got?
What you don’t know you learn pretty quick. With a group like Ratt it was about having a good time, but not spending too much of the next day doing it. That’s something the young bands figure out as you go.
Life on the road isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
It’s a glamorous art form, but it’s not a glamorous process. When the lights go out and you hear the crowd, that’s the reset, that’s the reason why we got into it in the first place. That never changes. When the other part gets hard, that’s what keeps you in the game.
