Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

drives, and came to explore each other’s personalities. It was the way it is supposed to be done. We also both attended twelve step programs. This was exceedingly important to Megan. She also had no right to question my relationships with other women because she was removing herself from her ex-husband and another boyfriend.
    She had, on the day I met her in Kmart, two sons from two different fathers, but the boys in the basket were not her children. Turns out she was babysitting. Well, two of the three were not hers. The little child with the blond hair, the chicklet teeth and deep blue eyes was her son, Ian Edward Beals. Her older son with the same deep blue eyes, Thomas Emmanuel Beals, was not there that day. Tom was old enough to be in school. Her boys were three and seven when we first met and I would end up raising them. Eventually.
    Back on the band front, Barry George went on to control a band that would do a long run with me, but this band never had, in spite of some remarkably good performances, an opportunity to record together. The exception was Barry, who appeared on
La Gash
. Eventually Barry brought in his brother Bobby on guitar, a new keyboard player, “Rico,” and after Badanjek came and went again he was replaced by Tommy Clufetos. Tommy left for a better gig with Ted Nugent, was stolen from Ted by Alice Cooper, and finally ended up with Rob Zombie. Barry then, on a temporary basis, brought in his brother David, who remained our drummer for some years. But the man who ended up, on and off, serving the most time with me was Robert Gillespie.
    When I realized I could not tour Europe any longer and meet the demands of the band’s asking price, I began looking for a German band of quality, and I hit the jackpot. I did, however, for a number of years, take either Robert Gillespie, Joe Gutc, or Steve Hunter along as my American guitar player because I believed, on guitar anyway, that you couldn’t beat an American guitarist, especially when it came to the rock ‘n’ roll songs we included. Robert was special in many ways, but I swear to you the thing I respect most about Robert is that the man has never told me a lie. That’s hard to say about a relationship of over twenty years.
    Engerling is a funny sounding name for a band but it was the name of the band I was now beginning a very long relationship with. All East Germans. All could read and write music. That in itself was different from most of the American musicians. Morethan anything, was Engerling’s gratefulness at being given the chance to perform with me. Our exploratory rehearsal was unforgettable. Gert Leiser, who managed Engerling, gambled that his boys would be good enough to do a tour with. I walked into an old, small youth center in the still undeveloped East Germany, and came face to face with all of the players. I think everyone was a little afraid. I didn’t want to do a tour with a band that sucked, and they didn’t want to fall short of their innate abilities, which were, I discovered over the years, quite remarkable. I knew I had to make this work, because we had already accepted the tour and I was relying on Gert’s assessment of his boys’ talent. By the end of the first rehearsal I had come to two conclusions. One, they were indeed talented, and two, I wouldn’t want to have been a paying customer as this young group of strangers began trying to figure out their destiny.
    “My boss is talking, but I don’t speak English so I just keep smiling.” That became one of Engerling and my long-standing jokes about their first drummer, a guy named Peter who lasred just two days. Band leader Bodi Bodag (keyboards and harmonica) and guitarist Heiner Witter were the only two remaining members of the original group. Bassist Manne Pokrant, now my co-producer on all of my European recordings, finished off the quartet. Additionally, Bodi’s son Hannas and Vincent Brisach have also both played brums for the band.
    There are two lasting impressions about Engerling that I love. They are so worthy of any effort I make to help you understand the intensity and caring I hold so deeply in my heart for them, and for the German public I have served for so many years.
    The first impression comes from a story about the next recording I made. It was an artistic breakthrough for me as a writer and producer, and the album was called
Rite of Passage
. Engerling, Joe Gutc, and I all settled into the recording studio to create the CD. On one of