"Down Boys" - Warrant

Whoa, can we rewind to where we've been

In eighth grade, it took me a little longer than most to really get into Hair Metal. Originally Guns and Roses didn't really do it for me. What hooked me was Warrant. I should probably be ashamed to admit it, but it is true. Harmless, yet catchy, rock and always a few power ballads thrown in, No one did it better than Jani Lane and the boys.

Unfortunately my love of Warrant and grunge have a tragic intersection. Jani Lane told a story about walking into the record company office and seeing a giant poster for Cherry Pie above the receptionist desk. He knew he had made it, he knew that they were on top. A year later he goes back in to discuss press for the next album and above the receptionist desk is a poster for Alice in Chains album Dirt. His time on top was over, and he and the band never recovered. Looking over my mixtape I see far too many artists who died long before their time. Some in the bottom of a bottle of pills, some, like Jani, in a bottle of booze. Why tortured souls are the ones who make the best artists I will never know.