With hair-metal legends(?) Ratt playing Warehouse Live this evening, Rocks Off decided we'd take a look back at the definitive document of that era of metal in Los Angeles: Penelope Spheeris' rockumentary The Decline Of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years.

Ratt isn't featured in the film, but plenty of the band's contemporaries are. Poison, Faster Pussycat, and W.A.S.P. perform, and legends like Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy Kilmister, Alice Cooper, members of KISS and a then-newly sober Aerosmith are interviewed. By far, KISS' Gene Simmons comes off as the most lascivious, almost lizard-like.

The best interview, other than the segments where Ozzy pontificates while making breakfast one afternoon, is W.A.S.P.'s Chris Holmes. He is shown pouring what is supposed to be vodka down his throat while his mother watches from poolside.

"Heavy metal saved rock and roll for the '80s" - Alice Cooper

"It doesn't matter what size your pencil is, it's how you write your name" - Dave Mustaine (Metallica/Megadeth)

"I'm just a drummer man, I don't bang my head. I beat off" - anonymous metal drummer

"If you think you got what it takes, shove it out, run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it" - Lemmy Kilmister

"Metal, dude! Fucking Metal! K-N-A-C!" - random metalhead