I also couldn't understand why he continued to dangle the carrot in front of me at home about possibly recruiting me into his band. We were, after all, supposed to still be friends. Ricky never intended to actually hire me and I knew it. He'd told people as much and they'd confided in me. He'd found it easier to "divorce" himself from Savvy as long as there was some kind of problem between the bands. It was as if feeding off the drama somehow made him stronger. It gave him a reason to want to compete with us, and to try to ultimately make us give up and get out of the game. He had, after all, tried to get me to quit a month earlier without being able to provied any explanation. There was talk around the house about RLP having set their sights on making Savvy's Nightclub their own base of operations, but to do that, they'd have to get Savvy out of the way first. 

We were room mates still, and there was a sense of competition in the air. At first, my guys would have settled with just surviving, but things were coming together much better than we'd anticipated, or at least our friends and fans were leading us to believe so. It wasn't long before our egos had been pumped to the point we felt we could possibly even compete with Ricky at his own game. Naively, we thought it was going to be a friendly, fair game. (We should have remembered that there is no such thing in the music business.)

My stress over the situation was compounded by the fact that I had to live with him. Granted, we didn't see much of each other anymore because of our schedules, yet I still knew that every day he could be coming in at any moment. At any time I might have to look him in the eye as we passed in the hallway. We would eventually have to cross paths in order to settle up finances for rent and bills, and I was dreading it. But on top of that, I now had come to feel that he had no respect for any of us. He had quit, but he hadn't really left yet.  A single question burned in my mind. Did he send Hud to try to hire Dave Davis because he simply wanted a better soundman? Or was he doing it because he wanted to sabotage us from moving ahead too quickly. Simple logic dictated that for him to be successful,  he had to at least do better than the band he'd quit, but how far was he willing to take this? Something didn't add up. Marty had just walked away from Savvy to go with Ricky without giving it a second thought. How would he have felt if he'd known Ricky was already looking to replace him? Or had the interest in Dave just been a mind game? There were a lot of questions that would likely never be answered.  

In my overly-creative way of coping, I tried to put a spin on things that would allow me to avoid the hassle of moving out of the house on Lester. I imagined Ricky in the role of a young super hero who had just learned about his super powers and was abusing them by accident, not realizing his own strength. Then I tried applying the "giant hyper puppy" analogy.  I thought of Ricky as a young, large breed puppy that was cute and loveable, yet would proceed to destroy everything in the house and dig up the entire yard. All the while, everyone stands around and smiles with a twinkle in their eye at how cute the puppy is - except for the person who actually owns the house. 

After all those covert phone calls I'd screened for him for the past year from all over the country, I had expected him to resurface with a SUPER GROUP made up of players who were all of the same caliber as him. But that didn't happen. He had a seasoned player or two, but he also hired a couple of rookies. They were all fine players, but it was not a SUPER GROUP by any means.  Ricky wouldn't have been happy in a super group anyway. Ricky was the Super. Everyone else was the GROUP. That's exactly how he wanted it. That's one of the main reasons why he left Savvy.

A special band meeting was called to try to determine where Dave Davis stood on all this. He was, after all, a grown man and talented professional. If he wanted to go to work with Ricky we were prepared to wish him well, but behind the smiles - we were frantically praying that he would stay. So far, almost everything had been going Ricky's way, so we were conditioned to expect to lose Dave too. But when Dave finally spoke up at the meeting, we were elated to learn that he had no interest in going with Ricky. In fact, Dave brought something new to the table that was sorely needed. He was calm, sensible, direct, and best of all, he wasn't caught up in wanting to be in the limelight, or needing to develop some sort of fake rock and roll alter ego.  Dave was just a regular guy who wanted to mix sound for a band he enjoyed listening to. When he finally spoke up, even though he spoke in a matter-of-fact,  near monotone way, and showed little emotion, his words put us all at ease. He said, "Don't worry. This is nothing new. This is a better 'band' and a better situation and I think Ricky is starting to realize it. And I think he's starting to realize he made a  mistake by leaving here. I like my job with Savvy and I don't want to work for Ricky. I'm not going anywhere."  Finally, a stroke of luck for our side.

This photo shows that once we came back as a five piece, we moved the drums back to the middle.
When Ricky was with us, the drums had been on the left and the keyboards on right.  (photo by
Lloyd Jones)

Just as one Ricky-related crisis was put to bed, another one popped up. At some point, Pantego Sound's Charles Stewart had made mention in passing about Ricky receiving a large sum of money in royalties for the "Made In Texas" album. While it was true that Ricky had the publishing rights to all the songs on the album, those rights should only amount to large royalties if the songs were in heavy rotation on many radio stations. A few of the songs had been played semi-regularly on a handful of Texas radio stations, but not enough to add up to much. The airplay was relatively short-lived.

Stewart's comments struck interest on our part, and we wanted to know what kinds of deals, if any,  had gone on behind closed doors or under the table with Ricky. I confronted Ricky about it at home, but he denied ever receiving any funds for the album project beyond what the rest of us had been paid. I certainly expected that he had more coming to him than we did, but we just wanted to know how the deal had played out, and how a deal had even been made without us being part of it. With Savvy, everything was supposed to divided evenly, or at least the business was supposed to be out in the open. That was something Ricky eventually had problems with. He felt it was unfair for him to be considered an equal with the rest of us. To his credit, instead of making an issue of it, he simply split and put together his own thing where he could name his terms from the outset. 

Dan Kostura decided to pay Charles Stewart a visit in an attempt to get to the bottom of the album finances. According to Charles, it was worse than an IRS audit. In fact, Charles was so annoyed with Dan that he would only agree to discuss the issue again if we were all there together. We'd begun to sense that the entire MIT album deal had been put together for Ricky's benefit - rather than for the good of the band. It wasn't that hard to imagine after the way things had been going. And frankly, it wasn't that difficult to get over. We were all just really sick and tired of all the crap and controversy. All we wanted to do was start over and do our own thing. We were "Ricky-ed out!" 

It seemed like every time a controversy arose, it opened the door for another one. The next one would come from within our own ranks. Just when things were settling down from the Dave Davis and Charles Stewart ordeals, RJ decided to make one last desperate attempt to bring in Raising Cane's guitarist, Tim. The very fact that he was bringing it up again told me that RJ wasn't truly happy with the reformed band. I saw that as an indication of things to come, and I didn't want to go through all that again. I'd learned a long time ago that when RJ wasn't happy, everyone is miserable. He made damn sure of it. Just when I thought we were coming out of the fog, and happy days were on the horizon again, RJ was there with his full bladder, positioned and ready to urinate on the parade.

As soon as I could arrange it, I met with Rick Miller in private to discuss the "Tim" situation. I'd had it with the changes, the politics, the lies, and all the rest of it. My position with Rick was simply that until we made a firm and lasting commitment to something - anything - we were going to be constantly plagued with problems, indecision, and nobody would ever feel like a part of the "team" again.  I told Rick that if we didn't make such a commitment, I would have to leave. My nerves couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't enjoy the job if there was always going to be a plot to bring in someone better. There were bands that changed members all the time, and there were bands who stuck together. We needed to decide which one we were going to be. Rick agreed with me. That's all I needed to hear. RJ's scheme had been diffused in a handshake.

The Ft. Worth Star Telegram music reporter mentioned Ricky's broken collar bone in his column. What wasn't mentioned in the article was that Ricky had developed a blood clot as a result of the injury. His entire arm was swollen and discolored and he was also in a lot of pain. He took off to Longview so his mom could nurse him back to health, which was probably the sensible thing to do. A strange girl approached me during a break at Savvy's and mumbled something to me about Ricky's injury being a result of a curse that she'd put on him. She was definitely either mentally ill or on serious drugs. Then again, maybe she really was a witch. Either way, it creeped me out. On November 11th we rehearsed at the club and worked up "Foolin'" by Def Leppard. 

My brothers gave me a radio controlled airplane kit as an early Christmas present. They were really into the hobby, but I'd never had time or patience for it. The thought of spending weeks, or even months building a beautiful scale model of an airplane and then going out and crashing it, didn't appeal to me. Yet they were doing just that every chance they got. Along with my dad, they all got very good at rebuilding them after crashes. I finally decided to try to build the one they'd given me. I really had no intentions of really flying it, but I enjoyed building things from kits. It was coming along quite well, actually. On November 14th, my youngest brother turned 25 years old! The family got together at Wyatt's Cafeteria for dinner. 

I was having a bit of trouble with my throat again. It was sore, and I was very hoarse. That was bad timing because I had an important McDonald's appearance scheduled with Mayor Bob Bolen of Ft. Worth. I sucked on Hall's lozenges, drank hot tea with honey and lemon, and got through the event without any problems. On November 17th, Ricky's band played at Matley's Phase II in Dallas, and Savvy played at Savvy's in Ft. Worth. Rhonda and I weren't getting along very well. Ricky and Laurie were fighting again too. 

 
Mayor Bob Bolen tries to figure out what a "Grimace" is.

At our next band rehearsal, we worked up a song by Quiet Riot called "Come On Feel the Noise." It was a head banging, screaming, balls to the wall rock and roll song. We did an okay job of it, but I don't think we looked completely comfortable with the genre. In 1983, we didn't have the benefit of knowing that Kieth Richards, Mick Jagger, and Steven Tyler would still be rocking out in their 60's. We had the gnawing feeling that this was a young man's game and we weren't all that young anymore. Still, we played what we had to play to put the butts in the seats and to fill the dance floor. We pulled it off most of the time, but it got to the point that when business was slow, Rick Miller would get depressed and worried about finances. And when Rick was worried, we all knew about it.

On one particularly slow night, Rick was obviously worrying about business slacking off and he started hitting the Turkey and Cokes pretty hard. By the second break he was in the dressing room freaking out over the lack of customers. Sitting, with his drink in his hand, he ranted on for a minute to nobody in particular, and then collected himself and announced, "Guys, I don't know what to tell you.  We just aren't HAPPENING." That was a wake up call to the rest of us, and the next two sets might have been the best we would ever play again. Yet even though the band had kicked it up several notches and was sounding great, it had turned into another depressing night because emotions had been expressed.

Savvy shooting rounds of tequila at Savvy's Nightclub.

Then during the last few songs, the whole band started doing rounds of shots of Tequila to take our minds off of Rick's words. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a hot tub with Rich and two girls. We were indoors but I wasn't sure where. It was dark and I recognized Rich's girlfriend Tammy across from me. Tammy's long black straight hair was covering her chest, reminding me of a cross between Lady Godiva and Cher, so I didn't yet realize she wasn't wearing a bathing suit. I didn't have a clue who the other girl was. She was a pretty blonde who was sort of nuzzling up against me. My head was splitting and spinning and I could only really see out of one eye. There was a crash of thunder and.... 

I woke up in Rick Miller's sister's back yard, but I wouldn't figure out where I was for a few more minutes. It was pouring down rain, and I had a sudden fear of being struck by one of the massive lightning bolts that were flashing across the sky. Rich was staying with Jan and Wayne - Rick's sister and brother-in-law. It was their hot tub I'd found myself in earlier, but I wasn't sure how I ended up in the back yard. It was still pre-dawn, and luckily, the next lightning flash illuminated a path to the gate at the side of the house. I found my car out in front of the house. It was November and I'd just slept outside in the cold and the rain.  As soon as I was in the car I cranked up the heater, knowing full well that it would take the Volare' at least twenty minutes to produce any real heat. I would be home long by then. With the lightning no longer a threat, I began to pray I didn't get pneumonia! 

It seemed that someone or other in the band was always having to voice a problem or bring up a negative issue. When that happened, it would ruin the illusion of the fantasy world that we'd been able to live in back in the Ricky days. Suddenly, reality was nipping at our heels at every turn -- and it bit hard. It became more and more difficult to realize anything good coming from what we were doing with our lives. No matter. I was still addicted to the nightlife, the spotlight, and the attention. I wasn't going anywhere just yet. 

CHAPTER 53: GOODBYE TO A BAD YEAR

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