Stephen Pearcy - Early Career

Early Career

In his early teens, Pearcy aspired to be a top fuel race car driver and expressed no desire to pursue a career in music. He listened to music and occasionally went to concerts in the 1970s, however he had not so much as played a note in his whole life. Fate interfered in the form of a hit-and-run driver who struck Pearcy while he was riding his friends bike one night during the summer of 1974. While he was in the hospital recovering from his bike accident, somebody gave him an acoustic guitar. After fiddling around with the guitar for a short time, Pearcy decided to shift his vocational focus from a race car driver to playing music. He started a band which he named Mickey Ratt, a take on the Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse, in San Diego during the late 1970s. After he and the band moved to Los Angeles in 1980, the band's name was shortened to Ratt and the original lineup was solidified. Playing clubs like The Roxy and The Whisky, Ratt amassed a large local following. After releasing an eponymous six song EP in 1983, Ratt released their breakthrough album Out of the Cellar on Atlantic Records in 1984, and it went multi-platinum. After releasing one gold and four platinum albums, Pearcy left the band in February 1992. Pearcy and former Cinderella drummer Fred Coury formed the band Arcade in 1992. Arcade released a self-titled album in 1993 and another album the following year. In 1996, Pearcy dabbled with an industrial metal band called Vertex (with Megadeth's Al Pitrelli and drummer / electronic producer Hiro Kuretani). Pearcy reunited with Ratt in 1997, only to leave the band for a second time in 2000 on the eve of a tour due to differences over financial allocation amongst band members.