These fuckin’ guys.
And I’m not ashamed to say, I near-on pissed my jeans.
Tim’s behind the kit so that means Nicky’s standin’ there and this is what he didn’t fuckin’ say all the times he told this story.
He had to hose down our garage floor after, yeah?
And he went home in a pair of my jeans, gym shoes and shorts and it wasn’t just piss he tied up tight in that trash bag and put in our bin, you know?
Pissed himself, shit his pants.
And Nicky is not my favorite person in the world, all these years, his big, fat mouth, you know why, and that shit is not ever gonna change.
But like I said, I nearly lost it too, these scary motherfuckers walkin’ right up to my friend in my own goddamned garage.
“Where’s Ricky?” they said.
And that was when it happened.
We were all so freaked by these motherfuckers showing up, we didn’t pay any attention to Preacher.
“Get gone.”
That was what he said.
Didn’t leave his place behind his mic. Didn’t take his guitar off his shoulder.
Just stood there, looking at them, and told them to, “Get gone.”
“We want Ricky,” they said to him.
“Don’t give a fuck what you want,” he said back. “He ain’t here. Get gone.”
They didn’t get gone, as you know.
They tightened up on Nicky, one of them lifting his hand to point a finger in Nick’s face, and I figure this was about the time he shit his pants.
And then Nicky crashed into the cymbal, the floor tom, big racket, and Preacher was in their space.
He had his guitar slanted on his back and a look on his face…
[Trails off]
[Leans forward, puts elbows to his knees]
I’m taped, what are you writing?
[Off tape]
Things people can’t hear. Like you just leaned forward. Or when you smile.
Right. Why?
The story will be richer.
[Pause]
Right.
Go on.
You heard “Bad Bad Leroy Brown”?
Yes.
Ricky was a high school drug dealer. He’s in the joint now, never learned. Three strikes was the worst thing that could happen to him. He had about twenty of ’em before that program rolled out and he got his “third.” Now, he’ll never get out.
It started back then. Dealin’ weed and blow to high school kids.
[Shakes head]
And these three guys supplied him.
I do not know their beef. To this day, I do not know what Ricky was pullin’ to piss them off.
What I know was, Preacher McCade got up in their shit, and when he did, he did not speak a goddamn word and they still knew that they did not come to my parents’ driveway, walk up to their fuckin’ garage and ask for Ricky.
They got a load of Preacher and they turned and walked away.
We never saw them again.
I asked about that Croce song not because Ricky was Leroy Brown.
Not because those dudes were.
Because Preach was.
[Off tape]
What happened then?
Nicky got himself cleaned up, hosed down the garage, was ready to take off, but Preach caught him at the end of the driveway before he went.
You heard Nick tell it. I wasn’t there. I was standin’ in the garage by the door to the house, pissed as shit that Ricky was such an asshole and wanting his twin brother outta my sight, even if that might mean I’d never see my jeans back.
Nick Pileggi, ex-rhythm guitar of Zenith as told to Tune magazine:
“He said Ricky was out.
I told him it wasn’t his band.
He said Ricky was out.
And this was Preacher.
So, Rick was out.”
Jesse Simms:
Rick wasn’t missed.
And like Preach said from the beginning, he sucked.
It was Preach who found Dave [Clinton, drummer of Zenith and Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters].
Dave was a year older than Tim and me in high school. By then, he was already graduated.
We didn’t know him, but we knew him, you know? The way it is in high school.
Didn’t know he played the drums, though. Just knew he was a pothead.
[Laughs]
And shit, [smiles, laughs, shakes head] even I didn’t know how bad Ricky was until we had Dave.
Suddenly, I kid you not, the first song we did with Dave, “Start Me Up.”
[Smiles again]
Dave.
[Shakes head]
He was nineteen, man. He sings “You make a grown man cry,” with the rest of us, it was like we’d been on the road together for twenty years.
Dave was the shit.
Wild man.
Christ.
Dave.
[Smiles and keeps smiling]
[Off tape]
Will you talk about what happened with Nick Pileggi?
[Stares silently]
You don’t have to.
It isn’t shit nobody knows, you know? Because he has a big, fat mouth. Fuckin’ asshole.
[Long pause]
Preacher—
Yeah, back then, Preacher took care of his ass. But the damage was done. Nothin’ Preach really could do.
[Taps with fingers on arm of armchair]
One thing in my whole life that my mom and dad were in accord on was what Preacher did to Nick, you know?
Nicky stayed with the band after Ricky was out. Few months. Heading into graduation. Preach and Dave were already at work finding us gigs. Real gigs. Paying gigs. At bars and clubs all over the Midwest. Anywhere that would take us, they got us on the schedule.
I did not apply to colleges, neither did Tim.
Mom was pissed.
Dad got it.
Neither of Timmy’s parents gave a shit.
We were takin’ it on the road.
Preacher had songs before he came to us, worked them out with the band. They were good. You know ’em. Everyone does.
“Give Then Take” was a hit before it was an actual hit, and we all knew it. Angsty, dark, pissed-off rock ’n’ roll. So dark, man. Deep in a pit, pitch black, sister.
Band defining, you know?
This was before Guns ’n Roses really hit. If you weren’t Petty, Springsteen or Mellencamp, rock was hair bands. Mötley Crüe trash. Thinkin’ they’re badass because they put dots over vowels. What the fuck? I mean those guys were imbeciles, assholes and imbeciles. Clowns. Serious.
That is not rock ’n’ roll.
Ratt. Poison. Cinderella. Warrant. Okay, maybe some talent, mostly hair.
Best of the bunch? Bon Jovi. Dudes had heart as well as hair and didn’t think solely with their dicks. Put that heart in their music. That’s why they’re still around. And that’s why they were authentic rock. Take them out of the decade where the likes of Crüe pissed all over the genre, they’d still have respect.
And then there’s Def Leppard.
Now that’s a band who knows brotherhood. They stood by Rick Allen and he worked his ass off not to let them down.
And they pulled no punches they didn’t want to change the world with their music, they just wanted to have fun and make others do the same. And they did. The lyrics to “Pour Some Sugar on Me” are not gonna hit any poetry books, but to this day, that song comes on, no matter what I’m doin’, I turn it up.
Now those guys, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard?