Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands.
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Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands. |
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THE FOUR HORSEMEN: HOT TO TROT: RIP Magazine, August 1992 By Laurel Fishman "The first rule is, ignore Frank," cautions drummer Dimwit of the Four Horsemen, taking a seat on the airplane in Los Angeles next to his singer Frank C. Starr. "The second rule is," he adds solemnly, "see rule number one!" Dimwit is dead serious, and rightfully so. Soon the entire planeload of Albuquerque-bound passengers and crew understands precisely what he's talking about. "Ouch!" yells Frank as someone with too many pieces of carry-on luggage knocks him in the shoulder. The passenger turns and bumps him again, "Ouch twice!" Frank protests. He jives the stewardess, "How come you get the fancy double-strap seat belt, and we only get one?" She replies, "Because I'm more important than you are." "Well, you are the reproductive unit," Frank concedes. He spies a passenger up and about in violation of the fasten-seat-belt sign and shouts, "Sit down." "You'd be good at this," the stewardess tells him. "Yeah, but I'm better when I'm bad!" She eyes a tattoo on his arm, a falling star with his name on it, a reminder that nothing lasts forever. "Did your tattoo hurt when you got it?" she asks, unaware that she's opened a Pandora's box. "Which one? I got 'em all over," Frank leers. "All over." 'Oh, no," says the stewardess, as it dawns on her that Frank does indeed have tattoos on that part of his male anatomy. 'He's got eyes!" Frank proclaims gleefully. "This is gonna be a long flight," Dimwit sighs. Three hours, to be exact, with Frank walking his usual fine line between crass obnoxiousness and the engaging charisma of a leading man. He alternately insults his fellow passengers and plays with a baby across the aisle who mirrors his exaggerated facial expressions. "You'd think Frank was running for president!" says bassist Ben Pape. Frank hustles the crew for goodies to give the infant until it's time to land. "Strap yourself in," he booms out to the pretty stewardess. "If you need any help, call me!" He hits the call button and hangs out his tongue. Not now!" she says, smiling broadly. As the plane taxis to the gate, she struggles out of her seat. "How are you with fur-lined handcuffs?" Frank wisecracks, his bags blocking the exit. "Hey, Frank, you're holding everybody up," says guitarist Dave Lizmi. "If I was holding everybody up, I'd have a gun!" Frank snaps back. "Normally we have a formal written apology for Frank," British rhythm and slide guitarist Haggis (formerly of Zodiac Mindwarp) remarks dryly, "but we ran out. He's not even at full throttle yet," In the jetway he and Frank fall into their usual routine. "You wanted me to be in this band!" Frank shouts menacingly, his voice resounding through the hall. "Every time he gets unbearable, he says that," Haggis explains. "It's the omnipotent end of all arguments." Boarding the connecting flight to Dallas, Frank objects to the departure of the female flight attendant. "Oh, shit, you're leaving?" She responds flirtatiously, "There are others who'll take care of you." The two grin at each other coyly until Frank has to be pulled away by his band. After taking his seat, Haggis leans over the empty one next to him. "Here's how we'll keep anyone from sitting here," he says mischievously. He dribbles saliva down his lip, a finger squirming in his ear. "Ear-picking is always good," he advises, "and then you go like this." He pretends to wipe his finger on the light controls directly above. The ploy works. No one wants to go near him with a ten-foot pole! Frank imitates the flight attendant's emergency-exit/seat-belt routine. When she gets to the part about what to do in case of a loss of cabin pressure, she says, "Put your oxygen mask on first, if you're seated next to a child or," she adds pointedly in Frank's direction, "if you're seated next to someone acting like a child." Frank is so busy hitting on the female passenger behind him that he doesn't catch the joke at his expense. Everyone sitting near him does, however, and laughter fills the cabin. Frank turns around, dumfounded. "One day we're going to be on an airplane," Haggis comments, "and after the stewardess is done speaking, she'll say, 'And, by the way, Frank is a prick!'" Meanwhile, Frank is pulling his "Want me to strap you in?" bit on another stewardess, who stifles a giggle. Despite the uproarious start, Frank somehow controls himself for the rest of the short flight. The bandmembers rendezvous with the crew at their tour bus, which is parked outside the night's venue, The Basement. Haggis points to the band's chill-out area, the back lounge of the bus, a red-lit, vibe-y Zen den. The front lounge is the "fornication fortress," site of poker games and other illicit activities. Ben looks out the window at Judge Bean's, a restaurant named for a famous hanging judge of the old West. He alleges that his father told him that after the Pape family came from France to settle in the Midwest, some of them became horse thieves. "And apparently some of them got hung for it," he says. Vancouver-born Dimwit adds that his family ended up in Canada because they were also caught stealing horses! It seems as if Ben's and Dimwit's backgrounds may have destined them to be outlaw rockers in today's Four Horsemen. You know, that whole karmic horse thing. Texas loves to rock, and there's no one better to rock 'em tonight than the band that defines Southern rock for the '90s. Backstage, Frank ritualistically puts on several crosses of wood, onyx and silver, including one with special sentimental value, a gift from his grandmother, whose name is the origin of Frank's middle initial. The saints must be with Frank and the band, because the audience is wild from the moment they take the stage. Frank tells the fans, "We've been up for 48 hours. We shot our video in L.A., and we haven't slept, but we're gonna kick your butts!" The Horsemen do their latest single, "Tired Wings," then a bluesy, half-time version of the soul classic "Can't Get Next to You." Dave cranks out an emotive guitar solo, and Frank asks, "Who says it's too loud? Who says it's not loud enough? Turn that f?!ker up!" "Hot Head" jerks the show into high gear. This outfit is tight, and the crowd is totally primed for the Horsemen's anthem, "Rockin' Is Ma' Business." On "I Need a Thrill" Dave breaks a string but keeps on blazing through to the end. Haggis also shows his talent, not just on slide guitar, but in his perfected saliva ejection technique--20 feet and counting. The fans thrust their arms out in the "four" sign, the band salute originated by Frank, four fingers extended with thumb in palm. The sweaty set ends with the raunchy rocker "Lookin' for Trouble." Fans surround the band outside the tour bus. Haggis climbs aboard to search frantically in the cooler for a beverage--any beverage--that isn't Dr. Pepper. He reaches critical mass as he removes Dr. Peppers by the dozen. Much to everyone's amusement, he jettisons the bottles and cans one by one out the window, and they explode against the parking-lot wall. The next show day in Houston finds an equally manic Haggis on the freeway, bound for a shopping spree. "Toys 'R' Us! Toys 'R' Us!" he chants, passing a mall. "I remember when I was little and would want a toy," he says, "and it would cost two pounds forty. Now I can go and spend $300 on any kind of toy submarine I want." He talks about how he and the Cult's lan Astbury used to spend "vast fortunes" all over the world, searching military stores for them. But his mission today is to find funky stage clothes, including a Confederate jacket in case he feels the need "to whip the audience into a frenzy by yelling, 'F?!k the North,' and, 'Who gives a shit about the Yankees!'" "Okay, I'm ready," Haggis announces, entering a vintage clothing store. "Give me your finest bell-bottoms and your most magnificent stack-heel shoes!" He finds a pair of navy-blue-and-white striped bell-bottoms to match his railroad engineer's hat, but he's overestimated his slender waist size by a good five inches. "Paul Kossoff of Free used to wear knitted tank tops his mother made for him onstage," Haggis says. "It's like wearing this stupid f?!kin' train driver's hat. I could be wearing a piss-pot on my head. It's the epitome of being a rock 'n' roller to wear anything the f?!k you want and do anything you want and get away with it on every level, from your songs to how you present yourself. "It's true of anything," Haggis philosophizes, "as long as you believe in it, believe you can do it, and present it in the right way. If you feel self-conscious, it doesn't work. Cool is a state of mind. We'll do anything the f?!k we want as long as we believe in it. The Horsemens' motto is, 'It's so wrong, it's right.'" At an Italian restaurant for dinner, Frank tries to prove that point by creating a precarious leaning tower of capuccino cups after drinking no less than five in a row. The caffeine only serves to make Frank even "more Frank," and he threatens a repeat performance of a dinner in Amsterdam, where he found his ravioli to be "like Chef Boy-Ar-Dee" and threw it against the wall! He says he never drinks water "because fish f?!k in it" after the rest of the table asks for some. Not surprisingly, no one is too disappointed when he decides it's close to gig time and takes his food to go. Most of the crowd at Houston's Backstage nightclub starts out behind the rail of an elevated section of tables and seats, but two bars into "Moonshine" they all hit the dance floor. Frank forces a little audience participation by spotlighting Dimwit on "Wanted Man." "Do you keep time good?" he asks. "Do you keep time, as in putting your hands together and clapping? Do you see this big guy back here? Well, he's gonna play, and you're gonna clap; and if I think you're doing a good job, we'll go on with the song!" The fans gladly comply and rise to the occasion when he goes on: "Dallas made more noise than you guys! Do you think you can outdo Dallas? It's gettin' there. Keep goin'!" At the encore the club gets to hear a work-in-progress, "Something new to help you guys deal with life the way we do," as Frank introduces it. "This one's called 'Borrowed Time.'" The audience digs the free-flowing piece, a strong finale to the show. After the gig the guys go out for a little five a.m. snack and talk about how "Borrowed Time" went over. "We make it up as we go along each time," says Dave. "We're each handed our own tube of paint to squirt on the canvas." Adds Haggis, "It's like painting by numbers, but nobody tells you what colors to paint." Ben joins the party and shows how he spent his free time, rolling up his sleeve to reveal an elaborate tattoo of Shiva, one god of the Hindu trinity. It's a powerful mystical symbol, but Ben hasn't neglected to give the image a touch of the old Four Horsemen humor: One of the dancing, multiarmed deity's hands holds a dripping ice-cream cone. It's so wrong, it's right, all right, just like a few crazy days on the road with the few crazy guys who invented the motto. Buy Four Horsemen CDs: |
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