RATT's STEPHEN PEARCY On Being Called A 'Hair Metal' Band: 'It Doesn't Bother Me In The Least'

In a new interview with Dennis Wood of WOKW 102.9 FM's "Back To The 80s", RATT singer Stephen Pearcy was asked what he thinks it was about the 1980s that made that era so magical. Pearcy said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Forty-plus years later, I call it the 'Sunset Strip Experience'. It was so new, refreshing and it was open to anybody — DURAN DURAN, VAN HALEN, MÖTLEYs [CRÜE], RATTs — and anything went. And there was no discrimination, there was nothing. It was just pure color. Everything was new. Everybody got a shot at it. But it wasn't even just the decade of decadence. It was a decade of color, excitement, danger. That decade is — it was just so colorful and new. And that's what I think people are discovering now, the new generations, the new, whatever you wanna call it. It's not just this angst and this bummer stuff that everybody had to deal with in the '90s. Granted, there were great bands that came out of that whole, what they call the Seattle scene. Well, let me tell you, the Sunset Strip Experience scene will never go down. It's more alive than ever before."

He added later in the chat: "It's a decade that'll never be repeated. The '80s were a very special, special thing. A time, a place — it was just an era that it'll never be duplicated. So, of course, everybody wants to relive it. It was a great thing. It was a good feeling. So everybody's embracing it. And it's good to see. For me, seeing my peers who were starting to fall victim to, like, 'Ah, we can't do this.' 'Ah, we don't wanna do that.' Now they're embracing it. Of course, you should embrace it. It happened once. If you can keep it going and have fun with it, do it. Why not?"

Pearcy was also once again asked for his opinion of the label "hair metal," the pejorative term which was coined in the late 1990s as a way to disparage acts thought to have been all flash and no substance. He said: "You had to be labeled, and now it's 'hair metal'. It doesn't bother me [in] the least. Some guys are bothered by it. To me, it's, like, hey, look, come on. They've gotta label you. What do you wanna be? So, it doesn't bother me personally, as long as they keep sending in the checks, you know what I mean? And I've gotta tell you, some of these bands, they're being played on radio and stuff more now than they ever were then. So there is a plus side to this whole hair metal, whatever you wanna call it. If they wanna pigeonhole you in that, great."

Earlier this year, Pearcy was asked by LifeMinute if he was ever bothered by being called a "hair metal" band. Stephen said: "You know what? When it first pretty much started, [they] were starting to introduce our bunch of bands as that, I thought it was funny. Everybody's all uptight. And I'm, like, 'It's kind of cool,' I go, 'because you're gonna be played now on a lot of places and be identified with the '80s scene just being called hair metal. So do something with it.'

"I have a friend, and there's this band called HAIRBALL," he continued. "They dress up like Alice Cooper and they have three singers. It's like an act that tours. They're insane. So HAIRBALL, cheers… I go out there and sing with 'em once in a while. But it's funny."

The use of the term "hair metal" became widespread after grunge gained popularity at the expense of 1980s metal.

One musician who has been very vocal about his dislike of being called "hair metal" is Sebastian Bach. In July 2020, the former SKID ROW frontman said that "When I 1st aspired to be a vocalist of a band it was called rock n' roll Heavy metal Heavy Rock Hard Rock Glam metal Nobody in the 80s ever started a hair metal band."

He added: "Being labeled something that I never set out to be labeled gets under my skin. It's a pain when people try to rewrite history. Believe me none of us ever set out to be in a hair metal band that did not exist in the 80s."

That was not the first time Bach reacted negatively to the term "hair metal." In a 2012 interview with The New York Times, he famously said: "I am the man who put the hair in hair metal. I also headlined Broadway musicals. I acted in millions of TV shows. I didn't get to star in 'Jekyll And Hyde' on Broadway because of my haircut. My voice has gotten me everything in my life, not my hair."

In August 2020, TWISTED SISTER's Dee Snider addressed Bach's Twitter tirade in which the former SKID ROW frontman took issue with being called "hair metal". Dee told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk": "[I've been doing my radio show] 'House Of Hair' [for more than two decades], and it resonates with people," Dee said. "For the fans, they don't find it offensive. Whatever it is, it's just a term.

"I didn't name 'House Of Hair'. I got shit about it. But to me, I just say, you know what? You're fighting a losing battle. Sebastian's losing shit. Life's too short.

"I'm the original hair farmer. Whatever. As long as they remember me."

Elsewhere, TESLA bassist Brian Wheat said that he found the term "hair metal' "condescending. What does fucking hair have to do with the music?" he said in an interview with "The Cassius Morris Show". "Should we be called 'cock metal' because we all have big dicks? Seriously, it's, like, 'hair metal' — what does that have to do with [anything music-related]? It's condescending. It's a putdown. It's almost like saying, 'Well, the music's not valid. They just had good hair.' That's what it's like.

"I don't like it," he reiterated. "Just talk about the music, because that's what what matters. Not about the hair. If you wanna call it anything, call it '80s metal — call it 1980s rock. 'Cause that's what it was — it was rock that came out of the '80s and early '90s. THE BLACK CROWES came out a year later than TESLA, and they're not called a hair metal band.

"Why call us a hair metal band when all we were doing was imitating AEROSMITH?" Wheat added. "I think we're very parallel to an AEROSMITH. I think, personally, if you can't go see AEROSMITH and you wanna see a good version of AEROSMITH, go see TESLA. They're very similar. I mean, Jeff Keith looks like Steven Tyler; he sings like Steven Tyler."

Back in April 2021, legendary DOKKEN guitarist George Lynch told the "Cobras & Fire" podcast about the "hair metal" label: "Generally, it's not a genre that you look at too seriously. It was the one that allowed me to have a career. So I respect it in that sense; it's what got me here. There are bands from that genre that I really, really like — RATT being one; I like RATT. I love their songs, and I love Warren [DeMartini, RATT guitarist], and I just like what they do, and what they did back then. So, I don't know — there's a few things that I like about it. But generally, I'm a product of the '60s and '70s, and that's where my heroes are from — from those eras."