While other members have alluded to RATT going on hiatus, frontman Stephen Pearcy recently confirmed it during a radio interview with Philadelphia’s WYSP. “I’ll be taking care of some solo stuff until Ratt takes care of its business, and then we’ll probably or hopefully start working on another record,” Pearcy said. “We’ll go on hiatus for a while, and everybody will do their own thing, and then we’ll take it from there.” While Pearcy did the interview to promote a solo show he’s doing, that’s not all he’ll be doing in his time off – he’s also playing with a side project, Battering Ramm, as well as working on a book, Ratt Tales.
On the subject of books, Pearcy definitely wasn’t happy with drummer Bobby Blotzer’s book, the very similarly-titled Tales of a Ratt.
When you have your drummer constantly and deliberately on his own agenda, and not doing things for the band, you know, he was out there, doing this book thing and making it a priority. He was alienating his audience. Me, I don’t have any time for that. When you deliberately plan it to take advantage of what we’re doing as a group, it defeats the purpose. That’s one thing that rubbed everybody the wrong way. Not that I care, or I’m telling everyone to rush out and grab this thing (the book), but there are a lot of things that aren’t truthful.
As for now, Pearcy has his solo band, as well as Battering Ramm, which he doesn’t even sing on. “It’s way heavy, I’m playing guitar, I’m not singing,” he said. Meanwhile, bassist Robbie Crane is playing with The Lynch Mob, Warren DiMartini is apparently playing in Dee Snider’s Christmas band, and Carlos Cavazo is doing another side project. Will Ratt eventually patch things up after putting out the pretty awesome Infestation earlier this year? In the words of Pearcy, “We’ll see when the next chapter of Ratt and Roll is, but for right now, I’m gonna put up my horns and move on.” The full audio interview can be heard here.
