Posted on 06/10/2002 1:59:16 PM PDT by GeneD
Filed at 4:21 p.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock guitarist Robbin Crosby, a founding member of the 1980s heavy-metal ``hair'' band Ratt, has died after an eight-year battle with AIDS, according to the group's official Web site. He was 42.
Crosby, who went public with his illness in a radio interview last July, saying he had contracted the disease through heroin use, died on Thursday.
The band's Web site (http://www.therattpack.com) carried a photograph of the guitarist performing in concert beneath the words, ``In Memory of Robbin Crosby.'' The site's ``forum'' section posted dozens of messages of condolences from grieving fans.
Crosby co-founded Ratt in 1983 with vocalist Stephen Pearcy, and after adding guitarist Warren DeMartini, bassist Juan Croucier and drummer Bobby Blotzer, the Los Angeles-based group became one of the most popular rock acts of the mid-1980s.
The band released its self-titled debut independently in 1983, leading to a major-label recording contract with Atlantic Records, which issued the band's breakthrough LP, ``Out of the Cellar,'' in 1984. The album featured the huge radio and MTV hit ''Round and Round,'' which like many of Ratt's songs was co-written by Crosby.
Three more platinum-selling albums followed, starting with ''Invasion of Your Privacy'' in 1985, but the band's popularity waned after the 1990 release of ``Detonator'' as the alternative rock movement took hold, and the band broke up in 1992.
In keeping with the band's raucous, free-wheeling image, Crosby's indulgence in drugs took its toll as the musician's lavish lifestyle dissolved into a maelstrom of addiction.
``Robbin had everything kids dream of growing up,'' his brother-in-law, Bill Decker, told the San Diego Tribune. ``He was married for a while to a Playboy Playmate, he had a Ferrari, a Laurel Canyon house with a pool that overlooked L.A., a personal assistant. ... But then he started getting heavily into drugs, and his marriage started to fall apart. He lost his way.''
In July 2001, Crosby disclosed in an interview with the Los Angeles radio station KNAC that he had full-blown AIDS, a disease he said he believed he contracted when he began using heroin in the mid-'80s as a member of Ratt.
``Basically, it's killing me,'' he said at the time. ``I've been in the hospital for eight straight months, and in and out for over seven years.''
Ratt reunited without Crosby in 1997 to release another two albums. Last year, Blotzer and DeMartini launched a tour with several new members, and are due to play this summer's Rock Fest tour with other 1980s glam-metal acts.
It IS banned! That's what makes it so cool.
Are you certin the band wasn't named GERBIL rather than RATT?
". . . Be not deceived: neither fornicators, . . . NOR EFFEMINATE, . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God." - 1 Corinthians 6:9
http://www.av1611.org/stryper1.html
"As a matter of fact, the band was one thing that was making us turn and walk the opposite direction from Christianity. . . If you're doing something you like doing, and God says not to do it then you're not going to pay attention." ---Robert Sweet
http://www.av1611.org/crock/crockex2.html
Sorry the bad links above. Here they are again:
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/washing/t1106.htm
http://www.av1611.org/crock/crockex2.html
Don't give me that crap. That site is one of those nutso-frige sites that says anything other than gospel is inherently evil. A SOUND is evil...yeah...OK...next! Whatever. I once watched "Highway to Heaven" while listening to "Highway to Hell." Does that mean I'm going to hell?
Would ya get a load of this guy?
Not sure where he's going there........
See 165. That's the most I could make of it. He's one of those "rock and roll is eeeevil and you will all burn in hell for listening to it" types.
Alice Cooper baby!! Dark effeminate shock rocker, now conservative. Probably always was. I idolized the guy when I was a pup. I doubt I'm gonna roast for it.
I can only think of a few bands that are really into the dark side for more than superficial shock value. Speed metal band Deicide, maybe.
Do you beleive that listening to any music that does not praise God is sinful?
Even Slayer is conservative.
He does.
Not at all. I never actually made referrence to any music as specifically sinful? I generalized a particular music style as harmful. Are there any music styles that you deem as harmful, bad, destructive, etc.?
I had a hard time getting my mind around the fact that the guy who wrote 'I love the Dead' was golf partners with Bob Hope.
Lots of RAp, Hip Hop. Also, some metal. I can seen why people unfamiliar with Metal might think its harmful, but 95% of it is all just sort of fun and games.
Why was this re-posted from 1992? I am confused.
(If you've been out of reach travelling on the Space Shuttle, the first one was Myron Floren, who played the squeeze box on the Lawrence Welk Show. Ah won, ah too, ah tree, it's the honky tonk, honky tonk, women! Gimme, gimme, gimme, your honky tonk blues!)
Elvis?
So just "some" of a music form that commonly promotes sex, drugs, gender crossing, satanism, etc.?
"I can seen why people unfamiliar with Metal might think its harmful, but 95% of it is all just sort of fun and games."
So what if a hip hop fan says that he can see why people unfamiliar with rap might think its harmful, but 95% of it is all just sort of fun and games?
DAMN! Talk about bringing a thread back from the dead!
That's alright though. I can always talk about guitars!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.