Before the Los Angeles rock band Warrant was signed, Prince gave them $5,000 or so to make a demo tape for his label, Paisley Park Records. The caveat was Prince had first right of refusal.
Prince had released his epic “Sign o’ the Times” double album, and L.A. rock bands like Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Poison were making the sky rain money. Guns N’ Roses were starting to get hot, too. This was fall 1987.
Warrant got connected to Prince through Jamie Shoup, the band’s manager back then. Warrant made a three-song demo that included “Down Boys” (later redone for Warrant’s debut album) with Ed Cherney, a studio wiz who’d worked with Iggy Pop and Bonnie Raitt.
Recorded in L.A., the demo was sent to Prince. Prince then asked to see live video footage of the band, who sent him a VHS tape of a local club gig. After seeing the video, Prince lost interest because, as late great Warrant frontman Jani Lane used to tell it, “that white boy can’t dance.”
“He passed on us, dude,” Warrant bassist Jerry Dixon recalls during our recent phone interview. “So we asked our manager, ‘Could you ask Mr. Prince if we can use the demo to shop to another label?’”
Even though Prince had paid for the recording, he did the band a solid by giving his blessing. “We used the demo, and we got a deal,” Dixon says. “He probably laughed about it. He liked us, but maybe breaking a rock band wasn’t his label’s forte, I guess. There were a lot of those along the way.”
Warrant, also featuring drummer Steven Sweet and guitarists Erik Turner and Joey Allen, inked with Columbia Records, whose roster included stars like Judas Priest, Billy Joel, LL Cool J and Cher.
The band’s 1989 debut album, “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich,” jumped with energy and hooks, starting with opening track “32 Pennies.” Singles like pop-metal gems “Down Boys” and “Sometimes She Cries” and white-leather ballad “Heaven” lit up MTV and soundtracked Fieros.
Well before the album’s release, Warrant caught the eyes, if not the ears, of an even bigger star than Prince. “We were getting some leather stuff made for the album cover, I believe,” Dixon recalls. “We finally had a budget. You know, they’re like, “OK, take your street clothes outta here. We’ll make you look like a band.’”
The band worked with local leather craftsman Al Bane to come up with different, badass, black leather jackets and pants for each band member. After that, as told in the great ‘80s rock oral history “Nothin’ But A Good Time,” Bane was mysteriously summoned to Universal Studios via limo.
After going through a security pat-down, Bane entered a large soundstage. A hooded, robe-clad figure descended from the stage and then pulled back the hood. It was Michael Jackson.
The “Thriller” megastar pulled out from his pocket a Warrant gig flyer and asked Bane in Jackson’s signature elfin voice if he’d made the band’s clothes. Jackson and Bane went on to fashion Jackson’s look for his 1987 “Bad” album cover and title track video using that pre-signed Warrant image as a touchstone.
Around this time, Bane also sold his wares out of a booth at Reseda rock venue The Country Club. “And Michael Jackson, somebody in their camp for like $25,000 bought this guy’s entire booth. So that was that. We were all honored. Imitation’s flattery they say.”
This wouldn’t be the last time Jackson took visual cues from Warrant. The “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” album cover artwork featured the image of a corpulent showbiz manager type, created by artist Mark Ryden. The cover of Jackson’s 1991 album “Dangerous” also featured artwork by Ryden.
Dixon, now 56, has been the bass player in Warrant since he was just 16. He drew early inspiration from Geezer Butler’s basslines on Black Sabbath’s debut album, and Bob Daisley’s playing on early Ozzy Osbourne solo recordings.
A dead ringer for a rocker version of movie star Matt Dillon, Dixon’s look in a local record store ad helped land Warrant management early on. Almost 35 years since Warrant’s debut album released, Dixon remains a charismatic and upbeat chat. It’s no accident he and Lane were often dispatched as a duo to do interviews on behalf of the band on MTV and other outlets.
Warrant had more than tunes, guitars and looks going for them. Like many bands that arose during the Sunset Strip’s heyday, Warrant hustled. In rehearsals and studios, they put in countless hours in to make the show and songs shine.
“It was like a year or so of rehearsal and preproduction,” Dixon says. “Now it’s backwards. People want to hit the record button, and then write songs. We didn’t do it that way. We made sure everything was good. We had fun but it was work -- like, if the bass was boring, we would just all stop and say let’s try to make it [the bassline] walk here.”
Bands like Warrant would plaster telephone poles on the Strip with self-made flyers. Many young bands today simply tap on a smartphone to make a social media post to promote gigs. “Flyering” required legwork, time and drive. “We used to hand out flyers in the parking lot during Van Halen shows and during Guns N’ Roses shows,” Dixon recalls fondly.
Formed in 1984, Warrant went through some changes before finding their classic lineup. Ohio natives Lane and Sweet made their way to Hollywood via Florida. Allen was from Indiana. Turner, from Nebraska.
“We were all from small towns,” Dixon, a Pasadena, California, native says. “Sometimes you just get put together with the right people and that’s what was cool about Warrant. Jani was obviously the dude, but obviously the dude wasn’t the dude without his guys, so it was a group. None of us are really great players, but together…that’s what a band was.”
Born John Oswald in Akron, the future Jani Lane was both a standout high school quarterback (good enough to receive a scholarship offer) and gifted singer/songwriter. He chose the latter path. After some time as a drummer, Lane focused on writing rock songs and being a frontman.
Warrant’s toured extensively in support of the debut album, opening for the likes of Mötley Crüe. “Dirt Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” went double-platinum.
Next, Warrant recorded an even better sophomore album. It was completely finished, and to be titled “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” after a swampy anthem the band recorded. The LP also had “I Saw Red,” a blue number Lane wrote after walking in on his then-girlfriend and his then-pal.
“The album was finished,” Dixon says, recounting a well-known subplot to Warrant’s “Behind the Music” episode. “We were done recording, but I think they had to mix it. Then, the president of CBS [Columbia], Donnie Ienner, called Jani and said, ‘This record’s great, but we need one more song. I just think we need an anthem, like [Queen’s] ‘We Will Rock You.’” [Other accounts have it Ienner gave Aerosmith’s “Love In An Elevator” as an example of what he wanted.]
It took Lane only minutes. “Jani went home and wrote goddamn ‘Cherry Pie,’ dude,” Dixon says with a laugh now. “We were all kind of pissed off because we had to bring everything back and set the whole studio back up.”
With its knuckle-dragging lyrics, “Cherry Pie” made Kiss sound like a feminist folk group by comparison. The vastly superior “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was swapped out in favor of “Cherry Pie” as the new album’s title track. Cartoonish cover art and marketing images followed.
The dudes in Warrant had no illusions of being Rush-like virtuosos or Bob Dylan-style poets. But they weren’t this either. “We weren’t a ‘Cherry Pie’ band,” Dixon says. “I’m glad people loved it, though. That’s better than them saying it sucked.” That said, anyone who takes “Cherry Pie” or the song’s over-the-top video as a serious afront instead of just big-dumb-fun needs to exhale. Or maybe inhale.
Sonically, the best thing about “Cherry Pie” is the neon-spinout guitar solo, courtesy of Poison’s C.C. DeVille. The musicians in Poison and Warrant were buds.
“We all kind of hung out,” says Dixon, who recalls Warrant kidding DeVille if he played guitar on the track Poison would have to take Warrant out on tour. “And C.C. just came down and did it, and we ended up getting a [Poison] tour. It’s just a fun solo, not somebody’s opus – just like, dude, have fun.”
The song “Cherry Pie” became a top 10 hit, and the album, like Warrant’s debut, went double-platinum.
An accompanying music video for the song was filmed starring a blonde model from Louisiana named Bobbie Brown. Brown had recently appeared in “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” the video for the band Great White’s hit Ian Hunter cover. Warrant and Great White, also an L.A. band, previously toured together.
On the strength of the “Cherry Pie” clip, Brown entered the rare air of “video vixen,” joining the ranks of Tawny Kitaen from the Whitesnake vids. Brown and Lane wed in 1991. The couple had a daughter together before divorcing in ‘93.
In later years, Lane lamented being forever branded “the ‘Cherry Pie’ guy.” Eventually, he came back around and appreciated making a song many people liked. To date, “Cherry Pie” has been streamed almost 200 million times on Spotify.
Grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam basically just put mopey lyrics, drab clothes, worse guitar and louder bass on hard-rock the previous decade glammed-up.
Unprecedented backlash/bias against “hair bands” -- the pejorative that completely devalues the songs, stagecraft and musicality of ‘80s bands -- followed.
The ‘80s didn’t really end in 1989, though. “Cherry Pie” was released in 1990. Hard-rock and metal bands like Metallica, Skid Row, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne and Guns N’ Roses all had huge albums in ‘91. Even though the floor soon disappeared beneath ‘80s bands, some went on to make good records after grunge hit.
It was 1992 when the blade really fell on ‘80s-associated acts. Even for bands like Warrant that only released one album during the ’80s.
Back in 1989, Warrant played a headlining show in Seattle and a local band called Alice In Chains was the opening act. A few years later though, when Lane visited Columbia Records offices -- in a story Lane often told interviewers -- an Alice In Chains poster now hung on a lobby wall where Warrant’s poster was before.
In ‘92, Warrant released an album that’s arguably aged better than their famous first two. That aptly titled third LP, “Dog Eat Dog,” opened with the switchblade riffs and convincing menace of “Machine Gun.” Other essential cuts include: talking-guitar jam “The Hole In My Wall”; operatic “The Bitter Pill”; and soul-metal ballad “Let It Rain.”
Producer Michael Wagener, whose resume includes mixing Metallica’s “Master of Puppets,” helped give Warrant’s third album its edge. On the choruses to “All My Bridges Are Burning,” when Lane sings “down in flames, can’t even remember my name” you believe him.
“That was the first record we had a little time to digest everything,” Dixon says. “The first two records, it was two or three years touring, records, studio. It was like 10 years sucked into those records. ‘Dog Eat Dog’ we felt was more like what we want it to be.”
Although “Dog Eat Dog still sold 500,000 copies, it was a big drop in business. The tour promoting the album came to an abrupt stop when Lane left the tour claiming throat issues but was also eyeing a solo career. Eventually, Lane returned. By then, reeling from his divorce he was abusing substances more heavily. Other band members were indulging more, too.
Fearing for his life, Allen left the band and began a career in computer IT. Sweet departed also.
Guitarist Rick Steier and drummer James Kottak, of Zep-echoing band Kingdom Come, who Warrant toured some with earlier, joined Warrant. During the next few years, several different musicians would shuffle in and out of the band, with Dixon as the constant and Turner a near-constant.
Warrant kept trudging forward. They band reunited with Beau Hill, who’d produced their first two LPs, as well as Ratt, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, etc.
The result was “Ultraphobic.” The album opened with a potent, flannel-hued one-two of “Undertow” and “Followed.” If this 1995 album had a different band name than Warrant on the cover it might’ve been a hit. But it had Warrant on the cover.
Warrant’s next release, “Belly to Belly” was more alt-rock cosplay. On the song “Feel Good,” Lane even does Trent Reznor style hushed-telephone vocals. The band’s true talent still shined through, on tracks like garage-y anthem “Letter to a Friend.”
“Probably half of Jani’s career, we played clubs,” Dixon says, “and nobody gave two shits about him or Warrant for a long time. That’s what cracks me up about people who tear-up about Jani. Where were you in 2001? Or 2005? There’s like 10 years of a blackhole that nobody acknowledges. We lost our homes. Dude, we lost everything -- twice -- and that’s with Jani Lane singing every night.”
In 2003, Lane released his first solo album, “Back Down to One,” showing a panache for Cheap Trick style guitar-sugar. Around 2004, singer Jaime St. James of Black N’ Blue -- the band that also produced future Kiss guitarist Tommy Thayer -- replaced Lane in Warrant. Allen and Sweet returned. This lineup cut Warrant’s seventh studio release, 2006′s “Born Again.” Songs like “Dirty Jack” found the band adding Southern boogie to Warrant’s signature sound.
Like many people, Lane struggled with alcohol abuse. He struggled when his career nosedived after years of hard work building it up. He struggled with his weight, which led to an appearance on a weight loss reality TV show with a terrible title. An excellent cook, Lane made a go of a new career as a chef for a bit. He reunited with Warrant for live performances in 2008 before they parted ways again.
Counted out by many, Lane made one last stand as a great rock singer but for another band. In 2010, he toured as a replacement singer with Great White. Original Great White frontman Jack Russell’s bluesy powerful vocals are no joke, but Lane rose to the occasion.
In a 2021 interview, Great White guitarist Mark Kendall told me, “Jani, it was no secret that he had battled alcohol and stuff, so we had that in common. I’d been sober for years. We spoke a lot about that and he told me, ‘You know, people don’t realize that I want to be sober more than anything.’ He did about 10 shows with us. Always a pro, he didn’t drink. People were saying he sounded better than he had in 20 years. He was trim and looking good and singing great, and I don’t know what happened but the demons overcame him.”
Unfortunately, on August 11, 2011, Jani Lane died alone in a Los Angeles-area Comfort Inn hotel room from acute alcohol poisoning. He was 47.
The surviving Warrant members had met talented singer Robert Mason on the road during Mason’s time with Lynch Mob, a band featuring Dokken guitar great George Lynch. Mason had also made a cult-classic Southern rock album called “Diamonds & Debris” with ‘90s band Cry of Love.
Most intriguingly, Sharon Osborne hired Mason to sing offstage on tour with Ozzy Osbourne to achieve the double-tracked-vocals sound of Osbourne’s studio recordings.
Dixon says, “All of us bands from that genre, it’s kind of like a family. People think there’s big rivalries between bands like football teams, but it’s not. We toured with Lynch Mob, and Robert would be on our bus. [Then around 2008] it was Rocklahoma, I believe, and Jani was not feeling well. It was like the second or third last show we ever did with him. Robert’s band was there, and we just bumped into him and got his number. You could just tell Jani wasn’t well. When things like that happen, you’ve got to have your eyes open. You protect Jani first and then there are 9, 10, 12 people who rely on one to make a living.”
About a week later, Mason came out to L.A. to jam with Warrant. He sang “I Saw Red” and the band got goosebumps.
Dixon says, “And the cool about Robert was that he was friends with Jani, and he loved Jani as much as we did. He loves his songwriting. He’s very true to the stuff.”
Warrant's Robert Mason and Joey Allen perform during the IEBA 2013 Conference - Day 3 at The Omni Nashville Hotel on October 22, 2013 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for IEBA)Getty Images for IEBA
Mason’s now been Warrant’s singer for 15 years. That’s longer than Lane believe it or not. With Mason on the mic, Warrant’s cut two albums, including 2011′s “Rockaholic” LP produced by Keith Olsen, who’d made classic Foreigner, Whitesnake and Fleetwood Mac albums.
In 2017, the band released their most recent effort, “Louder Harder Faster,” with Dokken/Foreigner bassist Jeff Pilson producing. Highlights include a raucous cover of Merle Haggard’s country classic “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.”
Warrant is currently writing their next studio album. A documentary about the band is also in the works. “We’re digitizing all our old videotapes, stuff from like the first and second album,” Dixon says. “We have so much stuff.”
Diehards have been there the duration. But in recent years, Dixon has seen a resurgence of mainstream appreciation for ’80s rockers like Warrant, he says.
“People are willing to put money into it again. And one thing I’ve noticed about rock bands is we work. We eat shit for a few years and play clubs if we have to. You don’t see rap people on the road or Justin Timberlake on the road -- they play awards shows, but you don’t see them on the road. Rock and roll rules the highways.”
On Oct. 12, Warrant plays a concert at Toyota Field, a minor league baseball stadium in Madison, Alabama. Advance general admission tickets are $30 via mlb.tickets.com. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. and show starts at 7 p.m. For band updates and more info, visit warrantrocks.com.
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