Hair Metal Heaven: How a Pretty Boy Rock Singer Became the Online King of Heavy Metal Gossip

Stevie Rachelle was 21 years old when he arrived on the Sunset Strip in 1987. “I got here a few weeks before the first Guns N Roses record was released,” he remembers. “Everybody was talking about them.”

The heavy metal scene was on fire, and with a thin, athletic build and long blonde hair, Rachelle fit right in. The vocalist joined Tuff, a band of his own that wouldn’t look out of place next to Poison, Ratt or Warrant. They played around L.A. and quickly drew attention.

“We did some showcases and met with record label people,” says Rachelle. “But a lot of it was ‘we don’t hear a hit’… ‘there’s already a Poison’… ‘there’s just too many of the blonde-haired singer guys’… ‘maybe you should get another guitarist’… ‘did you ever think of changing your name?’… ‘tone down the makeup’… ‘add makeup.’ So we went through all of that.”