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 Don’t Change That Song!
Interview with Eric Stacy
April 19, 2007
By Tracey L.
Don’t change that song! That is it the resounding sentiment heard loud and clear from Faster Pussycat fans worldwide. With this is mind and in soul, original members Brent Muscat, Brent Bradshaw and Eric Stacy have come together to fulfill their fans request.
Glam Metal provided Eric with a pleasant diversion from his drive home from a hair cut appointment in Santa Monica, CA the other afternoon to get the scoop on what the boys have planned to date, upcoming tour dates and plans for a brand new FP record. We join Eric as he sits patiently in his car somewhere along the L.A. freeway around 5pm, so obviously, we have plenty of time to chat…and here’s how it went…
Eric, how are ya?
I’m doin’ great thanks.
You recently got married, congratulations, was it a rock ‘n roll wedding?
Well, it was a combination of both. We didn’t play or anything, for the sake of the older folks there. My wife and I told the DJ what we wanted played, like old Aerosmith and G’n R. He had a decent variety of tunes, even some Faster Pussycat. Brent was my best man. Brett, our drummer, was there and some other old friends from bands were there. It wasn’t necessarily a rock ‘n roll wedding, but it had it’s moments and was pretty cool ya know. Our first dance was to a Velvet Revolver song, “Loving the Alien.”
It’s mine and my wife’s song. We just love that song.
Was Krash (Eric’s doggie) there? Was he in the wedding?
No, we wanted to take him. We really, really did! We talked about it, cause we always take him everywhere with us, even when we go to Vegas. We stay at a hotel that allows pets. But we went for four days and stayed at Mandalay Bay, that’s where we got married, and they don’t allow pets. But we were talking about how cool it would’ve been if he could’ve walked down the aisle with the rings, but we couldn’t bring him.
Well, I saw that he has his own MySpace page, that’s so funny.
Krash, he is so cool, he’s a rock ‘n roll dog for sure.
Tell us the story real quick about how he came into your life.
At the time, I was living up in the Hollywood Hills with this guy named August who used to be in a band called Johnny Crash, a friend from back in the school days. It was around 2003, he has a company that sells tattoo inks, and I was out that day selling ink for him, going from tattoo shop to tattoo shop and I was driving down Sunset Blvd. I guess Krash was a homeless stray at the time. Out of the right side of my vision, I saw this little dog running out into the street. I was like shit, this little dog is not gonna make it, but he went for it and he got hit by the car in front of me. I was like, oh my God! I saw it happen, and I just love animals, so when I saw Krash being spit out the other end of this car and laying in the middle of Sunset Blvd. I was like, Oh shit! I thought he was dead. Just so no cars could run over him or hit him again, I parked in front of him immediately. I got out & checked him out and saw that he was alive, and he was in shock, so I took him to an animal hospital where they kept him over night. Miraculously he had no major injuries or broken bones, just a few cuts and bruises. I adopted him the next day and took him home. Then, about month after that, I was living in the Hollywood Hills and there’s coyotes up there. One night I had let him out to pee real quick, and within a second I heard a growl and then a yelp and he was gone. The people next door had moved out so there was like just this black backyard covered with all these old trees and shrub brush. So I started running through the woods yelling his name, making all kinds of noise, and I guess I scared the coyotes, cause they must’ve dropped him. Two hours later, I never gave up hope, he came walking out of the woods, but he was all bit up and bleeding. He made it back in the dark up this hill. He came out of the woods, looked at me and then just collapsed. So I rushed him to the animal hospital again. THEN, a month after that, August had two pits that lived with us, and everything was fine, but this one time I had turned my back for a second and when I turned back one of the pit bulls had Krash in it’s mouth and was shaking him. Krash’s eye was all hanging out near his jaw and he was all bloody and screaming. I kicked the pit bull just to get him out of his mouth. I took him to the hospital again, this was really serious, he had to have surgery and he lost one of his eyes. But he survived, and soon after that I moved in with Suzie, so she kinda adopted him and became his Mom. Ever since then he has lived with us and has been a happy guy. He’s very spoiled. Gets a lot of love, a lot of treats and walks. And hopefully nothin’ bad will ever happen to him again.
Well, shit, you gotta tour and put out a record just to pay off the vet bills!
It was a fortune, believe me!
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Okay, that’s your personal family, let’s talk about the Faster Pussycat family. How did the reunion come about and what did you do to find a singer that would fit the bill?
Brent moved to Vegas a couple years ago. Brent and I were good friends while we were in Faster, and had remained friends and been in other bands together over the years. So I think it was as long ago as 1999, while we were in The Liberators, when we started talking about doing Faster Pussycat again, maybe doing a record, and if Taime doesn’t want to do it we could bring in a different singer to do each song, maybe get Jizzy (Pearl) or Kenny from Blackboard Jungle to sing a few. It started becoming a pattern, where at least once a year, he would call me and we would talk about getting the band back together, but then nothing would come of it. We would have all these ideas and plans, but another year would pass. But, this past December Brent called me and he told me he might have a Faster Pussycat show in the works for Vegas. When he said Faster Pussycat, I wasn’t exactly sure what that entailed. Was it with Taime and the whole band or what? He said, “No, not with Taime, but ya know the thing that we’ve been talking about all these years. I talked to Brett and he’s up for it, and I have these two guys here in Vegas that are amazing musicians. They’ll make you sick, they are amazing players, amazing singers and they look great. So I said, “yeah sounds great!” Then a few days passed and nothing happened. So I said, look if we don’t do this now, we’re never gonna do it. He said well, it’s kind of a small club, I don’t want you to get here and be bummed that it’s such a small club. I was like, I don’t care what the size of the club is. We’ve been talking about this for years and nothings ever happened. If we’re gonna do it, let’s do it now, or just not talk about it again. Let’s just do it! So he made the calls and booked the show!
It went from there. We all learned the songs at home because Brent, Todd and Kurt live in Vegas, I’m in L.A. and Brett is in Palm Springs, so Brent and I picked the set list over the phone and everyone practiced ‘em at home. We decided we’d just book some rehearsal time before the gig, and once I got to Vegas it was weird how great it sounded when we all got together for the first time. A day before the show we ran through about 11 of the songs and it sounded like we’d been playing together for years. I remember Brent and I just looking at each other, smiling, we were both like, man, this sounds amazing. So, that weekend while we were out there, Brent contacted Chuck who became our booking agent, he told him we just got done rehearsing and the band sounds amazing. Chuck was like, can I start working on booking you guys in Europe? Brent said, “Yeah!”
So, after the one rehearsal, we played the next night and the fans loved it, hearing the songs the way they were written. That was the beginning of the new line-up. Really it was suppose to be a small, unannounced show. We were just supposed to go up and see how it went but word started getting out, and the club ended up pretty packed that night.
We went back a month later, played the same club and announced it, and the place was packed to the gills! People were going nuts. It snowballed from there. After I got back from that second show, that week our booking agent was already sending us early itineraries in Europe and Japan. I don’t think any of us expected it to take off that fast, but it did.
I was talking with Stacey Blades the other day, he says “Hi” by the way, and they have a similar situation going on in the LA Guns camp as you guys do with Taime Down. So what is the dirt?
Well, as far as LAG, Tracii Guns and Steve Riley each legally own 50% of the name. In our case, when the Faster Pussycat name expired a few years back, Brent being the business man that he is, went out and immediately bought the ownership to the name, so Brent Muscat 100% legally owns the name Faster Pussycat. We have every right in the world, if we wanted to, to serve an injunction on Taime that says he cannot use the name. Being Taime, he would still go out and try and use the name. Then, if we wanted to be real assholes, we could serve an injunction on every club he tried to play at under the name Faster Pussycat and they would stop the show because they don’t want to get sued. It’s only because Brent is trying to be cool to Taime and is letting him continue to use the name, that’s why there’s two Faster Pussycats. So, it’s kinda different from the LA Guns situation, where they both own the name, but in this case, Brent owns it 100%. I support his decisions. Brent has contacted an attorney and has paperwork drawn up. There is an injunction written up should we ever decide to serve him with it, but that’s Brent’s call.
I really don’t know why Brent is being cool about it. I mean, we don’t want to be assholes. No matter what Taime may say on blogs and what kinda stuff he may talk, or what his other band mates might say, that doesn’t mean we have to lower ourselves to that and act that way too. We’ve tried to take the high road through this whole thing and not get into a war of words with them and BS in the press back and forth. We are just trying to do our thing, and be left alone. Whatever they say and do, that’s their trip, really.
Have you guys written any new stuff, if not do you plan to?
We did plan to, but this thing is so new and we have so many dates lined-up. But we have talked about doing a new record and we have spoken to a producer in Vegas who has a great studio and is willing to take us in, record the record for free, and get money when there’s money to pay him, like when a label picks it up. So we will be doing a new record. Plus, we’re leaving for Europe Tuesday, and my hopes are since we’ll be in close quarters for three weeks, in hotels, planes and tour buses together I’m hoping we can take advantage of the time to start writing together. I’m hoping we come back from Europe with 5-7 new songs, then whether we go in and do a full length record or an EP where its like 6 new ones and a few old ones re-done, we will be going in the studio. We haven’t thus far written any, and that’s just because it’s hard cause we’re all geographically spread out.
So everyone’s healthy? Brent’s feelin’ okay?
Yeah, everybody’s really doin’ great. Brent’s good, he survived cancer. He’s healthy. I’ve been training three times a week, Tai kickboxing because I saw the itinerary for Europe coming up and it starts with like 10 nights in a row. I remember when we were 22 and 23 and doing like 13 shows in a row…that kicked our asses. I’m 42 now, and the thought of starting the tour with 10 nights in a row is gonna be brutal. About a month ago I said I better start getting in shape. I hired a personal trainer, and I’ve been trying to live healthier. We’re not in our twenty’s anymore where we can just go out on tour and eat what we want, do all the drugs we want, sleep all we want, get up and play and kick ass, ya know? Now in our early 40’s you really gotta work hard to stay in good shape. Plus I wanna put on a good show. I want the shows to kick ass, so I’m putting out a real big effort to get in good shape beforehand.
Not that you didn’t kick ass before, but mostly everyone in the crowd was as fucked up as the band, so they weren’t that critical as opposed to the people who may come out and see the band now.
(Laughs) You’re right. Even the original Faster was out on tour for the better part of seven years, we’d be out for a year straight, and we were in our early to mid -twenties, and I remember even one time doing 13 or 14 nights in a row and even at 23 that kicked our butts so, when the current tour was being booked we had plenty of days off in between gigs, but as dates filled up, our days off got fewer and fewer. Now we are doing like 10 dates in a row, so I knew if I didn’t seriously do something to get in shape, I was gonna be frigin’ dead.
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Any plans for a summer tour package?
There’s been talk. Offers come into our booking agent, but when Brent & I decided to do this Faster Pussycat 20-year reunion, we wanted to keep it to select dates, to keep it really special. We are doing it for the fans. They were the ones who really asked for it. Where we’re at in our lives and at our ages, like Brent has a new baby, I just got married, I don’t think either of us, when we started talking about this thing, were really interested in going out for three straight months on a tour bus with nine other guys with farting and smelly feet and whatnot. There have been packages, but what we want is to hit each part of the country and make each date special. We don’t want to get burnt out. Without naming names, there are bands out there that completely over saturate themselves they’ll play every market, every year. Personally, it’s gotta take some of the special-ness out of it.
Although, in July we are doing the Rocklahoma thing, which is gonna be cool, but then after that we are gonna hole ourselves up and work on the new record. I mean you can go out and reach 10,000 people a night doing a show or you can go in and reach a million people with a record.
I think the world is definitely ready and waiting for a new Faster Pussycat record without a doubt.
Well, thanks! I think so too. Without getting into the whole war about who said what, let me just say I don’t think there’s been a good new Faster Pussycat record out there in fifteen years and I hope that we can bring that to the fans this year.
Any parting words Eric?
I know that there’s a lot of people and fans who think we can’t pull it off without Taime, but what I say is look, before you make judgments, just come and see us and give it a chance cause you’ll be very happy and very pleased. I know that the fans that have come to see us thus far have all loved the shows and they love the new line-up. Todd and Kurt are really amazing! We have the possibility to do a lot of stuff. We’re not out there re-united to be malicious, or to get into any war of words. Were not out there to get into it with Taime, he’s just chosen to do his industrial-goth thing and that’s cool, that’s his deal. But Brent, Brad and I got together, 3/5’s of the original band, to give the fans what they wanted, Faster Pussycat the way it used to sound and look. That’s why we’re out there, nothing more. Not for the money, but because we love playin’ rock ‘n roll.
I’m really proud of this line-up, I hope we can make it to wherever you live, if not hopefully you can travel a little bit.
Well I have a feeling people will, and all of us here at GlamMetal will support you anyway we can.
Thank you. As Joe Perry once said, “Let the Music do the Talking,” so there you go.
That seems like a perfect place to wrap it up, so get home safely!
I’m tryin!
BRENT MUSCAT-GUITARS
KURT FROHLICH-VOCALS
ERIC STACY-BASS
TODD KERNS-GUITARS
BRETT BRADSHAW-DRUMS
Check’ em out at: http://www.myspace.com/fasterpussycatrocks
Also:www.myspace.com/basskat
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