Robbin Crosby (Robbin Lantz Crosby), the axeman of Ratt, was a symbol of both glam metal’s promise and its pitfalls.
4 August 1959 – 6 June 2002
Robbin Crosby left the band and fall into heavy heroin use. When Ratt regrouped in the mid-’90s, he was already living with HIV, a diagnosis he made public in 2001.
He joined Ratt in 1981 and quickly established himself as a creative cornerstone, working closely with frontman Stephen Pearcy during their rise. But the more successful the band became, the more fractured Robbin Crosby’s role grew. From Dancing Undercover onward, his influence faded, and by the late ’80s, drug addiction had taken hold.
Best remembered for his work with Ratt in the 1980s, he co-wrote several of the band’s biggest hits
“Round and Round,” “Wanted Man,” “Lay It Down” etc. make his name into glam metal’s golden era.
[stating he’d been infected since 1994. It was a brave, bleak confession from a man already on borrowed time.]
Post-Ratt, he attempted a new project with Perry McCarty (Warrior, Atomic Playboys), a rekindling of their early band Secret Service. But it never took off. Robbin died in Los Angeles in June 2002 at the age of 42, the cause: complications from AIDS and years of substance abuse.
Robbin Crosby’s death wasn’t just another tragic rock ‘n’ roll statistic. It was the death of a sound. The 1980s LA scene, all teased hair, tight riffs, and tighter jeans.
we lost one of its original architects. But his legacy is etched in vinyl, in riffs, in eyeliner-soaked memories.