Back for More

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew has got that classic Ratt n' Roll cranking out of the speakers right now with Back for More, the one off Out of the Cellar that just keeps bringing everybody back around for another spin. Stephen Pearcy has talked about this track in interviews as something that goes way back, a late seventies idea he was already working up when he was still fronting Mickey Ratt down in San Diego, long before the move to Los Angeles. It became a staple in those early sets, the kind of song the crowds knew and expected every time the band hit the stage. Pearcy has said he always preferred the longer version that showed up on the independent Ratt EP in 1983, calling that one the live version, the one that stretched out a bit more before they tightened it up for the album. Even after the Atlantic re-recording, the band stuck with the extended take when they played it live, and Pearcy has pointed out that it has stayed in the set forever because it just works every single time.

The lyrics come from that same place, with Pearcy describing them as being about somebody who is always going to be back for more, whether the situation is good or bad. He has wondered out loud if the person likes it or is just a glutton for punishment, and that edge fits right into the Sunset Strip world Ratt was coming out of. There is also a writing credit detail that does not show up on most of the album notes. Pearcy has explained that Matt Thorr, who played bass in the Mickey Ratt days alongside Jake E. Lee and is now in Pearcy's solo band, actually has a piece of the writing on this one that a lot of people never knew about. The official credits list Pearcy and Robbin Crosby, but Thorr contributed to the main riff and chorus structure during those early development days, and Pearcy has made a point of giving him the nod in conversations.

The video for the track, directed by Matt Rezyka, packs in a bunch of those early eighties cameos that still get talked about. It opens in a fifties diner where Tawny Kitaen drops the song on the jukebox and summons a couple of the Ratt guys for an adventure. Kitaen was dating Crosby at the time, she had already appeared on the Ratt EP cover with those live rats tossed at her legs during the shoot, and she is the one crawling out of the cellar on the Out of the Cellar sleeve. Later in the clip the band and the girls get pulled over, only the cops turn out to be Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe, the same crew that had helped Ratt land their Atlantic deal. At the end a motorcycle crashes into a Ratt show and the rider is Milton Berle, the uncle of the band's manager Marshall Berle, who also turned up in the Round and Round video. Pearcy has recalled how Berle just walked in and created his parts on the spot for some of those shoots. The whole thing helped push the album past three million copies even though Back for More never got released as a proper single.

That brings it back to how the whole Ratt story got rolling in the first place. Pearcy started the thing in San Diego around 1977 under the Mickey Ratt name, after earlier bands like Firedome and Crystal Pystal. He had been into race cars as a teenager and a bad bike accident steered him toward music instead. The band cut demos, played around, and even put out a single called Dr. Rock that they handed out at early shows. In 1980 they packed up and moved to Los Angeles to chase a real shot at a deal, shortening the name to Ratt along the way. Lineups shifted, Jake E. Lee came through on guitar before heading off to Ozzy, and then Warren DeMartini stepped in as the replacement while he was still a teenager. Robbin Crosby joined on the other guitar, Juan Croucier came over from Dokken on bass, and Bobby Blotzer locked in on drums. That classic five-piece settled in by the end of 1982.

They hammered the clubs on the Strip, the Troubadour, the Roxy, the Whisky, building a local following while sharing stages with the other bands coming up at the same time. In 1983 they put out the six-song Ratt EP on their manager's Time Coast label, and it sold strong enough, around two hundred thousand copies, that Atlantic came calling after a showcase at the Beverly Theater. Doug Morris signed them on the spot. Out of the Cellar followed in 1984, named after their rehearsal space, and it shot up the charts on the strength of Round and Round plus tracks like Wanted Man and this one. The album went multi-platinum, the band opened for ZZ Top, Ozzy, and Billy Squier, then started headlining their own tours. Pearcy has said some of the songs on that record were ideas he had been carrying since the late seventies, the stuff they had worked for their whole lives.

You can dig deeper into the Ratt n' Roll world on the official Ratt website, where they keep the history and the latest going. Catch them on Facebook, follow the photos and posts on Instagram, and check the updates on X. The Zoo Crew will keep spinning these deep cuts and the stories behind them for all the Zoo Freaks listening in on THE ZOO.