Stephen Pearcy

In his early teens, Pearcy aspired to be a top fuel race car driver and expressed no desire to pursue a career in music.[3] He listened to music and occasionally went to concerts in the 1970s; however he had not so much as played a note in his whole life. Fate intervened in the form of a hit-and-run driver who struck Pearcy while he was riding his bike one night during the summer of 1970. While he was in the hospital for six months recovering from his accident, somebody gave him an acoustic guitar. After fiddling around with the guitar for a short time, Pearcy decided to shift his vocational focus from driving race cars to playing music, while never losing his love for the sport. He created the bands Firedome and Crystal Pystal until creating and writing original music for a band that he named Mickey Ratt (created in San Diego in 1977). Pearcy moved his band to Los Angeles in 1980 after seeing a local band, Van Halen, at The Whisky a Go Go.

After Pearcy and the band moved to Los Angeles in 1980, the band's name was shortened to Ratt in 1981 and the original lineup was solidified in 1983. Playing clubs like The Troubadour, The Roxy and The Whisky, Ratt amassed a large local following. After releasing an eponymous six-song EP in 1983 that sold 200,000 copies, Ratt released its breakthrough album, Out of the Cellar, on Atlantic Records in 1984. The band opened arena shows and tours for ZZ Top, Ozzy Osbourne and Billy Squier. "Out of the Cellar" went five times multi-platinum, and the band headed its own arena tours around the world for the next ten years. After releasing four multi-platinum records and three gold albums with Ratt, Pearcy left the band in February 1992.

Pearcy and former Cinderella drummer Fred Coury formed the band Arcade in 1992. Arcade released a self-titled album in 1993 and another album the following year. In 1996, Pearcy dabbled in an industrial metal band called Vertex (with Megadeth's Al Pitrelli and drummer / electronic producer Hiro Kuretani). Pearcy reunited with Ratt in 1996 only to leave the band for a second time in 2000 on the eve of a tour due to differences over financial allocation amongst band members.

Pearcy has recorded four solo records under his own indie label Top Fuel Records. The latest, "View to a Thrill", was released on Frontiers Music/Top Fuel Records in November 2018; the music from the album was written by Pearcy and guitarist Erik Ferentinos.

On April 24, 2014 it was announced that Pearcy had quit Ratt to work on his label Top Fuel Records and other music activities. His first book, "Sex, Drugs & Ratt n' Roll", was published in 2014.

A new lineup including Jordan Ziff (lead guitars) and drummer Pete Holmes (from the band Black and Blue) performed a handful of shows in late 2018 and embarked on a world tour starting in May 2019. Pearcy and bassist-singer Juan Croucier begin writing new Ratt music for the tour in 2019. The band is scheduled to headline a tour beginning in August 2020.

In April 2020, Pearcy and his band appeared in a GEICO insurance commercial where new homeowners lament that they "have a Ratt problem."[4]

Pearcy is divorced, and lives with his girlfriend Kristi Adair. He has a daughter from his first marriage.

• Stephen Pearcy Official Website