LOS ANGELES — At 63, Jizzy Pearl can still sing his ass off. 

He is in his second stint with legendary rock band Quiet Riot — you need real pipes to pull off a respectable version of “Cum On Feel The Noize” — while still active with Love/Hate, plus past high-profile gigs with Ratt, L.A. Guns and an early version of Adler’s Appetite.

Pearl has scratched out a rock and roll living, and he is also known as a novelist, having published three books that are about to be re-released in soft cover. Plus, he is writing a new one.

With live music coming back, Pearl is touring this summer with Quiet Riot. In the meantime, he hooked up with Metal Sludge for this revealing interview. 

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1, METAL SLUDGE: You’re re-releasing your old books. Can you talk about this project?

JIZZY PEARL: Fans and friends have asked me for years: “When are you going to re-issue your books in softcover?” Some of these old softcover books have gone for $200 or more on Amazon. 

So with the Covid lockdown and everyone basically having to sit on their arse for a year, I decided it was time to re-issue them. All three books are available at JIZZYPEARL.NET. I also wrote and recorded a new record to be released on Golden Robot Records. 

2, The first chapter of “Unhappy Endings” about being a porn writer on anal sex is beyond weird — and graphic.

JIZZY: Yes the stories are pretty crazy, not your usual ‘rock book.’ by any stretch. If you like the Black Mirror series, the Twilight Zone, Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, Bukowski & Rollins, there’s definitely something for you here. 

They are a collection of fictional short stories and real life stories from my Sunset Strip days during the Guns N’ Roses era. 

I was there and navigated those troubled waters, six-pack of beer and condom in hand. People always ask me: “What was the Sunset Strip like in the 80’s?” Well you can read about it in my books. 

3, What are your 3 best memories from early Love/Hate?

JIZZY:
!) Getting the million dollar Love/Hate record deal from Sony. in 1989. We got signed in December 1988 at the Whisky, and believe me, that ruined a lot of other musicians’ Christmases for sure. My band got the last Wonka golden ticket. 

2) Opening for AC/DC in the States. In 1990 we released our BLACKOUT IN THE RED ROOM record and in 10 short months we went from playing clubs on our own to opening for Dio in sheds and finally opening for AC/DC on their Razor’s Edge tour in arenas and stadiums. Crazy time, Being on a bus, wielding Thor’s Hammer every night, all the usual adjectives apply. 

3) Being famous for a while in the UK. We did OK in the States, but for a few years we were actually kind of famous in the UK. Magazine covers, TV appearances, we did sold-out tours of 2,000 seater venues on our own. I still get to go to the UK every year (or at least I did) based on that fan loyalty. That is something, really something. 

4. I was young and just starting out as a journalist around the same time Love/Hate formed. You guys were always hanging out at Rock City News, smoking pot during the day.

JIZZY: Rock City News was huge for us back then. When you’re broke and can’t get anybody from a record company to come see you, sometimes the only thing that kept you going was having that dumb picture in that local magazine. It made you feel that there was still a chance, that you hadn’t pissed your twenties away on some pipe dream. 

5, RATT was a good step for you. You got to play for big audiences every night particularly on tour with Poison. Was that a great gig?

JIZZY: In 1999 I was in L.A. Guns and they decided to get Phil back, so I was between gigs. I heard through the grapevine that Stephen Pearcy had left RATT and they were holding auditions. I auditioned for them and initially didn’t get the gig, Robert Mason did. They played for John Kolodner at the Viper Room in an attempt to get another record off their Sony deal but that didn’t happen. 

Robert for some reason decided not to continue with them, so they called me back, and I got the gig. It was awesome being on stage with Warren DeMartini every night, and we did some solid touring, 6 1/2 years in all. 

ALSO, because Stephen never talked shit about me during my time in RATT (or I him) we have stayed friends. He knew that it was just a gig for me, that’s what being a musician is, it’s about WORK. 

It’s not about Facebook status (or Myspace status back then), it’s about supporting yourself through music. And here it is 2021 and I’m still doing that — that’s my definition of success. 

6. Quiet Riot has “Cum on Feel The Noise” and “Metal Health.” Most bands in all the world don’t have such fame and popularity, agree?

JIZZY: I’ve been in several 80’s bands and I can say with some degree of expertise that having a song like ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ is a huge thing.That song is recognizable all over the world. My optometrist can sing it, Eskimos in the Arctic can sing it, it’s iconic. 

Whether you dig the band or not, you have to recognize the power of having a song like that. Songs like that can keep a band working, it has kept this band working for 40 years. We have Johnny Kelly on drums, Type O negative, say no more, awesome band. Alex Grossi and Chuck Wright have been the rhythm section in QR for almost 20 years, 20 years is a Lifetime in Rock. Chuck Wright did play on the Metal Health record, yeah, he did. 

As for me, I’m not trying to be Kevin Dubrow, I’m just trying to be the best I can be, that’s all you have at the end of the day. There are no more big record royalty checks, all that is gone, all you have is that constant YouTube Eye following you around every time you get on stage. 

I did come from the same Sunset Strip Hollywood scene that Kevin and Frankie did, I used to see them play the Troubadour in 1982 when they were called Dubrow. I came up through the ranks like L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat did, playing the Whisky and the Roxy. I’m like an old combat vet, me and Taime Downe and Tracii Guns, we’re like old war buddies, we fought and scratched our way through, and unbelievably we’re still here. 

7. Is Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll in the proper order?

JIZZY: No more drugs, no more booze even. I’ve been sober for almost three years. Before the Internet you could be a drunken idiot but times have changed and people have no tolerance for Fools anymore. I do have sex but only with my wife. Thank God I still have music, otherwise I might have ended up being one of those annoying leaf blowers waking you up outside your house at 7 a.m. 

8, You used to live in that Hollywood apartment in the early 90s just up the road from Dennys. Local band Queeny Blast Pop lived there, too. You remember that time period well? 

JIZZY: Skid and I did live right down the street from Sunset Dennys, I used to eat there every Goddamn day. A lot of Rock Guys lived in our building, a few male hookers as well. At night they’d unscrew their patio light and screw in a red light to show that they were ‘open for business.’ 

One of our friends who lived upstairs was a bass player who used to be in a local L.A. band called Imagine World Peace. He told me the story of how they almost had a record deal with Capitol, and allegedly their lead singer went to the label behind their backs and tried to get a better deal for himself. He wanted a Corvette, more money, the works. I guess the Capitol people were so turned off by this guy that the Almost-deal became a NO-deal. How would you like to be in a band with that guy and find out you just got fucked? 

9, One question nobody asked you about the Hollywood sign incident on TV —  did you get a million calls in the aftermath from surprised onlookers from your past like your family and old friends from school?

JIZZY: My step-dad lived in San Diego at the time, he saw the footage and called my brother asking if I had mental issues and did they need to schedule an intervention? 

The cops who arrested me thought it was funny, they got it. Their higher-ups however didn’t think it was funny and kept me in jail the whole day. They made me visit the police psychiatrist and the guy asked me “Why did you do it?”

I answered–“It was a plea to the Rock Gods!” 

The psychiatrist sighed, shook his head and said “Jizzy, there are no Rock Gods!” 

Well FUCK HIM, what did he know! The Rock Gods do exist, they are a capricious lot and like the Rolling Stones song they don’t always give you what you want but sometimes they do give you what you need, in my case, employment for thirty-plus years. 

10. And finally, what have you learned after watching the world crack for the past 16 months?

JIZZY: I’ve learned that musicians have to diversify, hence my JIZZYPEARL.NET website and the re-release of my three books (and the writing of a FOURTH BOOK, as yet untitled). Musicians have always been able to go to the apple tree and pick a few apples when we needed money. We could always scrounge up a few gigs to keep the lights on. Covid has shown us that tree can be taken away, quite abruptly. 

So that begs the question…what are guys like me supposed to do? Work at Home Depot? Be serious. Try your hand at podcasting? There seems to be a lot of Born-Again podcasters lately, we’re all asking each other the same dumb questions over and over. Be a Stage-it guy? Dance like Bojangles for a few extra dollars every week? 

Hopefully we can all get back to the job we DO know, playing music on stage live for the fans. 

11, Anything to add?

JIZZY: If you’re interested please go to my website JIZZYPEARL.NET and check out one or all three of my books. They are really quite good, real writing, not the usual– ‘Rock guy tapes what he can remember about his career into a microphone to be later transcribed by someone with a dubious English degree.”  These books are like nothing you’ve read before, they really have shock value. they’re weird and wonderful…like me!



Jizzy Pearl @ WebSite – Twitter – Instagram – Facebook – YouTube – Store

Love/Hate @ Spotify – Amazon – Shows – Apple Music – Wikipedia

Quiet Riot @ WebSite – Twitter – Facebook – Instagram – Shows

Gerry Gittelson can be reached at gerryg123@hotmail.com