It’s not too often that we’ve had the privilege of witnessing Bob Dylan just hanging out and shooting the shit. Which is a shame, because the singer-songwriting icon, folk-rock revolutionary and Nobel Prize recipient has not only a way with words, but also, apparently, small talk. Take this 1986 clip shot in a car park in Hamilton, Ontario, during a break in filming for the box-office bomb Hearts of Fire (which also starred, it’s worth noting, rocker Fiona), in which Dylan, in sunglasses and flannel and leaning against the bumper of a Lincoln Town Car, discusses music with two pre-teen boys who tell him they’re into heavy metal.
“Heavy metal? Like who?,” Dylan asks.
“Judas Priest, Ozzy, Mötley Crüe…” responds one of the boys.
“Oh yeah?,” Dylan counters quickly. “You like Ozzy?”
And then he lays it down: “How ‘bout Ratt?”
While the clip has been circulating for years, Metal Edge has never been aware of anyone in Ratt commenting on it. So we reached out to Stephen Pearcy to get his thoughts.
“Someone actually just brought it to my attention recently,” Pearcy responded with a laugh when we asked him about it. “It’s wild.”
As for what might have possessed Dylan to mention his band? “I guess he had heard of us and probably liked some of it,” Pearcy continued. “I don’t know. He probably just liked the name! ‘What about Ratt?’ You know, ‘It’s 1986, they’re big…’ ”
And since Dylan clearly had Ratt on his mind, what does Pearcy think of Bob? “I can dig some of his stuff, the ‘Highway 61’s and that shit,” he said. “Because back in the day when I really started listening to music, I was quite diverse. I wasn’t just a rock guy, you know? I would listen to everything and anything. I still do.”
No word yet on whether Dylan is more an Out of the Cellar or Invasion of Your Privacy kind of guy…
