What Would Journey Do?

Its following includes plenty of men. Allen Tesch accidentally caught the band in North Olmsted and has been following it ever since. But Tesch knows that it's women who fuel the Breakfast Club's success. "As long as it gets the girls pumped up, that's all that matters."

Another young man, lingering near the stage at a recent show, summarizes the scene by pointing to a slim young woman gyrating on the dance floor. "Like that right there," he says. "It's happy rock. It gets them dancing. It loosens them up. That's what draws the guys."

Even when the man-to-woman ratio is a dreaded two-to-one, as it was at Put-in-Bay, the minority rules.

"'Jesse's Girl?' I wish I never had to play that song again," explains bassist Brian Dossa. "But the girls love that song. You take that song away, and half the girls don't show up. '867-5309?' I've been playing that song for eight years. I hated it eight years ago. But the girls love that song."

Gretchen Shirk, a speech therapist from Hudson, has seen the Breakfast Club around 75 times. Of course, she could still see many of the bands it imitates. Journey still tours, albeit without Steve Perry; so do Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe. But why pay $40 when she can hear them for free? Why wade through Bon Jovi's whole songbook when she can skip right to "Livin' on a Prayer?" Especially, she says, when the quality's the same.

"When you hear Brooks sing 'Separate Ways,' if you close your eyes, you can't tell that Journey's not on stage."

Brooks does have a powerful voice -- falsetto pipes that reach every corner of a bar. And he's a showman. In the '80s, he scraped together money for a wireless mic, so he could escape being tethered to the stage. The act was a hit -- especially the time he fell off the bar and into an open wine cellar.

Hands fluttering and hips swiveling, he now stays on the stage -- but never in one place. The band plays almost the same set every night, but every time Brooks raises his hand near his head, you honestly believe his solemn oath: "Any way you want it, that's the way you need it."

Of course, the Breakfast Club isn't the only Cleveland band making money off the '80s. They may not even be the most popular. The Spazmatics, who dress like nerds and play a more eclectic brand of pop, charge even more than the Breakfast Club. They're managed and marketed out of California by a sort of tribute-band chain store with outfits in several other cities.

"They're like the Wal-Mart of cover bands," Dossa hisses about his archrivals.

"I bet the Spazmatics can't drink tequila like us!" Morris hollered at a recent show.

The quip may have been shtick, but the Breakfast Club does bring to its shows a certain authenticity -- a sincere devotion to partying and sex, and a committed suppression of more serious notions. "It's all about excess," says Tesch. "That's what the '80s were all about."

Before almost every song, Brooks screams, to the crowd's delight, "This is a fuckin' love song!" Then he refines his definition of love, changing lyrics to match his own adolescent horniness. AC/DC keeps "the motor clean." Brooks keeps "the pussy clean." The Ramones "wanna be sedated." Brooks wants "to see you naked." Even bar names aren't immune to the frontman's wordplay: He refers to McCarthy's Ale House as "McCarthy's Tail House."

It's not the most sophisticated improvisation, but it apparently works. Superfan Tina says she's met many Breakfast Club regulars who have proudly announced they were sleeping with Brooks.

Still sipping her chocolate martini, Tina is careful to point out that she does not have sex with band members. "I have a career to protect," she says.

But she will admit that Brooks "smells hot."

"It's like a sex smell," she explains. "It makes my sex glands swell."

She believes Brooks is almost 40; it's pointed out that he may be closer to 50. "I still think he's hot," she says, then adds, "I hope he gets health insurance."

The bassist, Tina says, is also very hot. "I would totally jump his bones." But she soon learns that, unfortunately, Dossa is married, with three kids. "He probably has health insurance," she notes.

Brooks' voice suddenly fills McCarthy's: "Hey hey hey hey." By the time he starts pleading, "Don't you forget about me," Tina is already shaking hands and heading to the dance floor.

Dave Brooks walks into the Hi-Fi again, only this time, there are customers inside. Billy Morris, the bar's owner and Breakfast Club guitarist, recently launched a new Ladies' Eighties Night, a regular Thursday party devoted to two of his favorite things: women and '80s rock. This breezy night in May is the inaugural party.

Brooks is sleeveless and in sunglasses again, but this time he carries a brightly patterned duffel bag, where he keeps his accessories: body glitter, pomade, apricot lotion, highlight spray, and the bulge-accentuating pants he got at Hot Topic. He also carries this bag because he has no idea where he'll sleep tonight.

It's been like this for much of Brooks' life. He has an uncanny ability to fend off money. In Los Angeles, his days consisted of waking up late, going to rehearsal, working out for a couple hours, and going out to get wasted. He ate a lot of ramen noodles and frozen vegetables. He slept, for the most part, wherever he landed -- often in the beds of excessively young and beautiful women. Off nights would find him on couches or closet floors.

Little changed when he came back to Ohio. The Breakfast Club is his only job. During the week, he mostly stays with an old friend in Cuyahoga Falls, a woman he took home after a gig 25 years ago. On weekends, there's a bed waiting at the Lakewood apartment of another old friend. And there are other people -- mostly women, but old band guys too -- who will gladly open their doors to him.

"For a while there, he didn't have a car," Dossa says, sounding dumbfounded. "He would call me for a ride . . . I'd be like, 'Are you gonna need a ride home?' And he'd say, 'Nah, don't worry about it. I got it.'"

Over the last few weeks, he's slept at least at eight different places, often in the beds of women he's just met. "It's good to be the singer," he acknowledges.

Earlier this year, he was dating one of his superfans, an aspiring actress named Leah. She was 23 when she discovered the Breakfast Club last February. She started showing up every weekend, and before long she was dating Brooks. But she was "living with the rents" at the time, so they sort of "floated together," crashing at his friends' houses after shows.

"An adventure is a good way to describe it," Leah says. You can now find her at Ladies' Eighties Night, behind the bar -- unless she's on top of it. "I can't not dance when I hear 'Talk Dirty to Me,'" Leah says.

Brooks' lifestyle awes his friends.

"Half the time I think he wouldn't care if he got paid, as long as he got laid at the end of the night," Dossa says. "Sometimes I think, 'How can he not settle down and get a house and that sort of thing?' Other times I think, 'What a great life.'"

"If you don't have to have a day job, how fucking great is that?" friend Matt Cleary adds. "What else do you want out of life? Money's one thing, but having money is just our way to get chicks. We're all just animals who want to eat, sleep, and fuck. If you're not hungry and you're not tired, what else is there?"

Or as Gladys drummer Steve DeBoard puts it: "He's like David Lee Roth that never got famous."

Brooks is just as awed. He thought his career as a sex-and-booze rock star died with Slammin' Gladys. But it turns out, he was just waiting for the world's sorority girls to discover the pure, uncut joy of "Don't Stop Believin'."

But Brooks sometimes seems conflicted about the frolicking life he's carved out. He lugs around CDs he's recorded over the years, funky tracks with thoughtful lyrics that very few people have ever heard. He still slaves at music, writing at least a song per week and furiously recording originals with local musicians. Those endeavors cost him money and earn him nothing, save for the occasional self-inflicted case of goose bumps. "I don't think I worked hard enough," he says of his career. "I'm kind of lazy by nature. I didn't try hard enough. But I'm still trying."

He recently cut a new record with two local musicians. It's called Blood Moon.

"It's a really good record," he says. "And it might get picked up. You never know."

Brooks realizes his history with women is the sort of thing therapists dream of. After all (he finally admits), he's almost 48 years old.

"I just don't know what to do. When you get girls throwing pussy at you, it's hard to turn it down. I know that sounds like a pig thing to say, but . . . I don't have any malice. I never did."

Even the obvious joy his work brings people doesn't always please him. After the Put-in-Bay show, someone pointed out that his singing had just made a lot of people genuinely happy.

"So does McDonald's," he said dryly.

But Brooks, like his fans, is very easy to cheer up. All it takes is some Corona, some tequila, and a little Billy Idol.

The HiFi's inaugural Ladies' Eighties Night attracts just a modest crowd, but when Holobinko kick-pedals the show into motion, the dance floor floods. Young women sing into Bud Lights and grind their butts into boyfriends, who respond by shredding some air. Brooks jumps around like he's playing "Your Love" for the first time. "Can we get some Corona and Cuervo up here?" he pleads from the stage.

After the set, Brooks locks himself in the dressing room with a petite and gorgeous woman half his age. Later, he climbs into a slightly worn stretch limo idling on Detroit Avenue. His new companion, along with an old roadie friend and another young woman, join him. They pull away at 2:30 a.m., headed God knows where to do God knows what.

"It's ridiculous," Brooks said earlier in the night. "I know it's not 1985 or 1988. It just feels like it on Friday and Saturday nights in Lakewood."