At 17, Rolle Love was a hard-rocking bassist with a crash pad in North Park. “I’m from Bird Rock. I grew up with [Ratt guitarist] Warren DeMartini. He’s my best friend. When he was first going up to L.A., I would go with him. We were in high school, and we would always end up in Mötley Crüe’s or David Lee Roth’s apartment off Sunset.” His hair metal fixation didn't last long.
After seeing his first rockabilly concert, “The first thing I did was to go to Hillcrest and find a barber who would cut my hair rockabilly style.” Debbie Scott worked some pompadour magic on Love, just as she’d done for East County guitarist Bernard “Buddy Blue” Seigal. It was 1981. Scott arranged for the two to meet. Blue asked Love to join his Rockin’ Roulettes.
Later, Love would follow Blue to a new band called the Beat Farmers. According to Love, “Buddy got picked up by Country Dick [Montana] and Jerry [Raney]. They pulled him out of the Rockin’ Roulettes.” Love soon joined Blue's new band. “The original bass player in the Beat Farmers, he didn’t dig it...at the time, I was playing only upright bass. I had seen the Paladins.”
The Rockin' Roulettes also included Mark Williams, recently split from a punk band called the Products and roommates with Penetrators bassist Chris Sullivan. "Mark said that we could get gigs opening for the Penetrators," says Buddy Blue in an online interview. "That was the selling point to me." The band was filled out by sax player Dana "Kid Tater" Garrett.
The band went through several membership shifts, eventually including players such as Jim Poole, Tim McCarthy, Randy Ross, and Chris Sullivan. Several Rockin' Roulettes songs were later redone by the Beat Farmers, including "Goldmine" and "Lonesome Hound."