Hard-Rock Life

This story was originally published in the April 3, 2003, issue of “Rolling Stone.”

JACK RUSSELL MIGHT have piled on a few pounds, but his blues-rock band Great White, twenty-five years old, was thriving in the winter of 2003. Guitarist Mark Kendall had quit drinking — which had nearly killed him — and returned to the group. Russell had beaten back booze and cocaine, and he’d also come to terms with the death in 2001 of his father, John. He’d taken up gardening at his new home in the California desert. The reconstituted group, Russell felt, was “the most potent lineup Great White has ever had.”

The Play On 2003 Tour kicked off in January. The outing was going to take Great White to thirty clubs, followed by some European dates in April and shows with fellow Eighties-metal heavy-weights Warrant and Slaughter in May. “The bands get along now,” says Erik Turner, guitarist for Warrant. “All our egos have been deflated. We’re not walking around as gods anymore. We’re just out there together trying to make a living.”

And a good living it is. Marquee bands such as Great White collect $3,500 to $5,000 for a club show, and as much as $15,000 for an appearance on a package tour with bigger bands. “They make great money,” says Nancy Sayle, a publicist for metal bands and tours. Most Great White shows sold out. Founders Russell and Kendall took larger shares of the proceeds, sources say, than did hired guns like the late guitarist Ty Longley, who earned from $200 to $500 per concert.

Great White, in the strictest sense, had never been a hair-metal band. Their makeup wasn’t quite as elaborate, their music not as histrionic. Great White were more a boogie band, a party band, with one secret weapon — a sweet-piped singer who sounded like Robert Plant. “Jack won a genetic lottery,” says a friend. “He was gifted with a remarkable voice.” Great White released an album of Led Zeppelin covers in 1999, and Plant/Page tunes were a highlight of their live show. And while other metal musicians worked day jobs, Great White never stopped touring.

Russell personified metal’s abandon. First arrested at fourteen for having sex on the roof of his high school, according to publicity material, Russell had a rap sheet that grew to fifty-three entries, including a bust for shooting his drug dealer’s maid and for misconduct in hotel rooms and on airplanes. He dallied with porn stars, that metal-musician’s birthright. The singer became known by the nickname Mista Bone.

“Everybody likes Jack, and everybody likes the band, because they’re sort of the people’s band,” says Los Angeles metal promoter Jimmy D. “There are a bunch of idiot bands out there, like Quiet Riot, who are the biggest dicks in the world. For them, I had to go shopping for low-cal mayonnaise and low-cal yogurts, specific brands. They didn’t do any meet-and-greet or any signings, and pissed people off.”

Great White long ago put away any diva tendencies they may have picked up playing before crowds of 60,000 in 1990. Russell visited tattoo parlors along the circuit for new body art. Recently, he sang the national anthem at a New York Islanders hockey game. He answered questions on morning radio and signed autographs at bookstores. Backstage, the same modesty was in evidence. Great White’s post-show requirements: Nine “Subway-style” sandwiches, two large pizzas and a large bag of potato chips. No booze, not even beer.

Generous as he was with fans, Russell could be a tightwad with Great White and its small entourage, which traveled by tour bus. They stayed at Red Roofs and Quality Inns. In restaurants, Russell insisted on separate checks. “I believe there was one meal that the band paid for in ten weeks on tour,” says former guitar tech Erick Kirkland, who toured with Great White in 1996. “They were trying to keep costs down as much as possible.” To make them last longer, bass strings, expensive at thirty-five dollars per pack, were boiled, a common practice among musicians on a budget.

Money became an issue in other ways, too. “I worked almost this whole year for free,” complained drummer Audie Desbrow after being fired from Great White in 2000 following fifteen years with the band. “I’m separated from my wife and son because my wife got tired of seeing me let other people take advantage of me.” Desbrow portrayed Russell as greedy — except under certain circumstances: “Jack might let you have a bit of his 3 A.M. triple helpings of Hostess cupcakes.”

Guitarist Ty Longley, who died in the Station fire, played with Russell off and on during the last three years, supplementing his income by playing in a Journey tribute band, giving guitar lessons and doing clerical work for a San Fernando Valley porn company. “Ty wasn’t a flashy guitarist, but he was a solid player,” says Nick Menza, a former drummer for Megadeth. “Dependable, which is a big plus. It’s hard to find people in L.A., anywhere, really, who aren’t flakes.” Says Longley’s friend, hard-rock drummer Anthony Biuso, “Ty had no ego whatsoever. He had none of the entitlement issues that some people have.” Longley often answered fan e-mail on Great White’s Web site.

Longley wanted to expand his musical world, but in the winter of 2003 he found limited options. “It was a steady check, and he had nothing else to do at the time,” says the guitarist’s pregnant girlfriend, Heidi Peralta, who lives near Chicago.

The whole Play On 2003 Tour, with Longley aboard, almost never happened. Russell broke up Great White on January 1st, 2001. After a “farewell performance” in Santa Ana, California, the singer swore never to sing “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” Great White’s biggest hit, again. Jack Russell was officially a solo artist. “Jack said, ‘I want to make a pop record, not a Great White record,’” recalls Bob Kulick, who played guitar on and co-produced Russell’s solo album, For You. “He wanted to be accepted as something other than the singer from Great White.” It was not to be. Great White fans, apparently, lived for the band, not its jovial singer. For You sold poorly.

Soon, Russell was playing with Kendall again. Last November, with some new musicians onboard, a band called Jack Russell’s Great White hit the road. As before, it would be Russell and Kendall on the same club circuit, playing the same songs, promoting a newly released Great White live album. The band turned twenty-five this year.

Although he wrote lyrics for many Great White songs, Russell never seemed to exhibit great passion for the craft. “Sometimes I think that people try to be too hip lyrically, where they go beyond what other people can understand,” he once said. “I think it’s important that we keep telling ourselves the same stories in our own way.”

Those same stories, told in Great White’s way, still resonated. And the band appreciated it. On this tour, as always, the band members hung out with their fans. “They came out before the show, they came out after the show,” one fan recalls. “Jack Russell was there for two hours after one show I saw on the East Coast, with his fans, until they closed the club. They never hid in their bus until it was time to come out on the stage.” For the last time, that tour bus pulled into the parking lot of the Station, in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on the afternoon of Thursday, February 20th, 2003.