So this brings us to '84 or so. Music was blowin' up all around us. Most of the bands mentioned in the previous post were honing in on what we know them as today. Metallica's "Ride the Lightning" came out and changed the game for me. Heavier, angrier, yet more melodic. You could see Cliff Burton's influence really start to take hold. The playing improved 1000% from the first album, and the songs were getting more complex. My life followed right along with those complexities. I went from "experimenting" with certain things to just flat out wanting to get fucked up at every moment. The home life sucked, I kind of felt lost in the shuffle, so I found a way to escape that reality I guess.
Girls really started to come into the picture at this point, and I was a typical 15-16 year old, trying to figure it all out. Music played an important part here as well. Feeling like an outcast put you into a group of like-minded people, who understood what you felt, what you liked, and were into the same things you were. Almost 30 years later,, the kids I met are still some of my closest friends. We share a bond that most people might not understand, and that's o.k. with us! We comiserated often with a fifth of Bacardi, and whatever beer
we could get our hands on. Smoked a ton of weed as well. We were lost, but we were lost together, and we didn't want to be found. I remember my grandfather's second wife seeing us walking down the street and saying "they walk around with no expression on their faces", like they were some gang of Zombies. It was just the look of despair, kids who felt like they fell through the cracks. Maybe we did, or maybe we just wanted to. Depends on who you ask.
Most of us were highly intelligent, and that might have contributed to where we were heading. Too smart for our own good.; for a few life was much more simple, not as deep of thinker's as we were. I think we might have envied them a bit; they didn't seem to have many cares. Life was just easy for them, do what you want, when you want. No repercussions, no regrets. Of course some of them are still doing the same shit in their mid-forties. I'm not so envious of them now.
Around this time the scourge of hair-metal was just gaining some traction. I'll admit it: I liked a few of these bands, even though I don't consider them "hair-metal" at all. Motley Crue, Ratt, Dokken, these bands had something more than a stupid gimmick. They either had great players or great songs. Too Fast For Love is still one of my all-time favorite albums. Raw and nasty, it sounded the way we felt at that time. 14 and pissed off, ready to fuck or fight. We just needed a reason. There's one band that had this HUGE buzz around this time. We heard about them long before their debut album came out. The most notorious band of the Sunset Strip heyday. W.A.S.P. We heard about these legendary shows, meat, blood, torture, and a frontman who played with the New York Dolls. I still remember vividly, a friend of mine seeing them in some club(I can't recall which one), and him coming by the next day saying "I got Blackie's blood on my shoes". He had white Vans on, with the toes stained this reddish-brown color. Legendary.
As all this was going on, I was getting deeper and deeper into partying. Life at home worsened to the point that I left right after finishing summer school classes(which I had to take to make into the 11th grade). I literally left the next day. Moved to Ojai to live with my mother and her roommate. I was on my own for the first time. All she really provided me was a place to stay and some food. I took care of myself. I worked, made my own money. Registered myself in school. And completely spiralled out of control...
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