Stephen Pearcy was a scrawny, horny, thrill-seeking teenager with an electric guitar who had graduated from backyard parties in San Diego to half-empty dives in Los Angeles before he and his band broke through at Whiskey a Go Go. Cranking out metal just as metal got hot, Ratt was the perfect band at the perfect time, and their hit single "Round and Round" became a top-selling anthem.

The bigger Ratt got, the more excessive Pearcy and his "pussy pirates" became. There was nothing these guys wouldn't snort, drink, bed, or break. And the fans were just as bad, as husbands and mothers offered up nubile wives and daughters as tribute to their rock 'n' roll idols. On a journey that could happen only in America, Pearcy met everyone from Michael Jackson to Drew Barrymore (at age 12, at a New York nightclub, at two a.m.) to Rodney Dangerfield. His infamous partner in crime, Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby, a blond Viking with an unsurpassed appetite for drugs and women, cuts a towering and tragic figure throughout.

As Ratt scrambled up a wall of fame and wealth, so they experienced the gut-wrenching free fall after too many hours in buses, planes, and limos; too many women; too many drugs; and all the personality clashes and ego trips that marked the beginning of the end.