The Viper Room

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Coordinates: 34°5′25.7″N 118°23′4.8″W / 34.090472°N 118.384667°W / 34.090472; -118.384667

The Viper Room
Viper Room.jpg
The Viper Room on the Sunset Strip
Address8852 Sunset Boulevard
LocationWest Hollywood, California 90069
United States
TypeNightclub
Genre(s)Rock
Capacity250
Opened1986
Website
www.viperroom.com

The Viper Room is a nightclub and live music venue located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, United States. It was established as The Viper Room in 1993[1] and was partly owned by actor Johnny Depp. The other part owner was Sal Jenco who starred in 21 Jump Street with Depp.[2] The club became known for being a hangout of the young Hollywood elite, and was the site where actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on Halloween night in 1993. In early 1995, Australian singer and actor Jason Donovan suffered a drug-induced seizure at the club and survived. In November 1997, Australian rock star Michael Hutchence played his last public performance in the Viper Room, a week before his suicide.

The Viper Room has undergone several changes in ownership, and continues to host music of multiple genres, including metal, punk rock, and alternative rock.

While predominantly known as a music venue, the Viper Room also hosts a lower level below the stage and audience area, which is home to a large whiskey bar.

History[edit]

The location was originally a grocery store, from 1921 into the 1940s. In the 1940s it was converted into a nightclub called the "Cotton Club", entirely unrelated to the Harlem original. This was soon replaced by "The Greenwich Village Inn", the "Rue Angel" and finally "The Last Call" during the 1940s. From 1951 to 1969, the location was a bar called "The Melody Lounge". In 1969, it became "Filthy McNasty's".[3] In the 1980s, it became a jazz club called "The Central".[4][5] This nightclub was close to shutting down before Chuck E. Weiss, who had performed there for years, suggested to Depp that he should revitalize the spot and rename it "The Viper Room".[6] Tom Waits also had a hand in redeveloping the spot.[7]

The venue[edit]

Despite the death of Phoenix the year the venue opened, the club became and remained a hangout for Hollywood's most popular young actors and musicians. Adam Duritz, the lead singer of Counting Crows, worked as a Viper Room bartender in late 1994 and early 1995 to escape his newfound fame.[8]

Ownership[edit]

As part of the settlement of a lawsuit involving the disappearance of co-owner Anthony Fox in December 2001, Depp relinquished his ownership of the Viper Room in 2004.[9] The club changed hands multiple times between 2004 and 2016; the club is currently owned by Viper Room Holdings, Ltd. CEO James Cooper and Silver Creek Development.[10][11]

Intellectual property and lawsuits[edit]

A nightclub located in Cincinnati, Ohio, was formerly called "The Viper Room". The club changed its name to "The Poison Room" on January 1, 2006, after they were told by the West Hollywood Viper Room to stop using the name.[12] Another "Viper Room" in Portland, Oregon, has also been told to stop using the name under threat of a trademark lawsuit, with the Viper Room's former owner claiming "Every dollar they make is the result of using our name."[13] Additionally, there is a legal brothel in Brisbane, Australia called "The Viper Room". There is also a nightclub in Stockholm, Sweden, "as well as ones in Harrogate, UK, Vienna, Austria, and another in Sheffield UK similarly named." Until February 2009 there was a nightclub with the same name in Melbourne, Australia; it was closed down due to a spate of violent incidents that included two shootings as well as license breaches and the arrest of a co-owner on drug charges.[14] On April 16, 2011, a nightclub named "The Viper Room" opened its doors in the city of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The club is named after the club in Hollywood and is decorated in the same style as the American club.[15] In 2016, The Viper Room began issuing cease and desist notices to bootleg merchandise sellers on eBay and other online storefronts.

Performers[edit]

At Depp's request, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed on the club's opening night.[16] The Viper Room continues to frequently host metal and punk rock bands.

Johnny Cash performed at the venue, debuting material that would later appear on American Recordings (1994).[17] In 1997, the Viper Room was also a place of a few early solo live performances by John Frusciante at the time of his bad physical condition caused by drug abuse. The Pussycat Dolls performed there from 1995 to 2001.

Other performers include Neurotic Outsiders (featuring Duff McKagan, Steve Jones and Iggy Pop), Keanu Reeves (who performed there with his band Dogstar in 1997), The Cult, Slash, X, Julliette and the Licks, Concrete Blonde, Hole, Tenacious D,[18] and The Strokes.[19]

In film[edit]

In the 1983 film Valley Girl, the building (then housing a nightclub called The Central) was used for scenes featuring the new-wave band the Plimsouls.[citation needed] In Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), the building was used as a filming location for scenes depicting the London Fog, also of West Hollywood. London Fog was a lesser-known nightclub halfway up the same block from the Whisky a Go Go where the Doors had their first regular gigs for four months in early 1966.[20]

The 2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle "Pink Panther Dance" scene was filmed at the club,[citation needed] though the club's name was changed in the film to "The Treasure Chest".

Several scenes in the 2005 John Travolta film Be Cool were set at or in the club,[21][22] although only the exterior of the site was used in the shoot.[23]

The Viper Room is also featured in the 2004 documentary Dig! when members of the band the Brian Jonestown Massacre began brawling with each other on stage while performing.

The Viper Room was once the base of an underground poker ring, reportedly founded by actor Tobey Maguire. The ring often included other actors such as Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon. The poker ring inspired the 2017 movie Molly's Game, starring Jessica Chastain.[24] The Viper Room’s latest feature has been in the new hit series ‘Pam & Tommy’ (featuring Lily James and Sebastian Stan), which details an altercation between Tommy Lee and two other bathroom goers, confirming the bar’s popularity amongst the rock scene in the early nineties which still continues through to this day.

In popular culture[edit]

  • The Viper Room is featured in an episode of paranormal series Ghost Adventures as one of their lockdown locations, where they investigated the building for two days.[25] In 2019, BuzzFeed Unsolved Supernatural filmed an episode in the club.[26]
  • The Viper Room basement is the setting for the initial set of poker games Molly Bloom hosted.[27]
  • In 2019, the music video for the song "Blow" by Ed Sheeran, Chris Stapleton, and Bruno Mars was filmed at the Viper Room.[28]
  • In 2021, the Viper Room was the feature of season 1, episode of Vice Media's Dark Side of the 90's entitled "The Viper Room: Hollywood's Sanctuary."[29]
  • Outsider musician Wesley Willis' song "The Viper Room" (found on the Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 compilation album) is about the club. Willis' performances at the club and the death of River Phoenix outside the venue are referenced in the lyrics.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Mulraney, Frances (July 15, 2021). "Inside 90s club The Viper Room where celeb died & A-listers played in poker ring". The US Sun. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  2. ^ Strauss, Neil (December 28, 1997). "The Young And the Restless". The New York Times.
  3. ^ "Filthy McNasty, LA club owner of lore", LA Observed, April 21, 2016
  4. ^ "Filthy McNasty, Icon of the Old Sunset Strip, Has Died", Whoville, April 23, 2016
  5. ^ "The History (and Future) of the Sunset Strip’s Viper Room", West Hollywood, July 5, 2018
  6. ^ Tom Waits Library - Extras Archived 2011-09-30 at the Wayback Machine. Tom Waits Library. Retrieved October 11, 2011.
  7. ^ Ten Things You Never Knew About Tom Waits. Clashmusic.com (also featured in the August 2011, issue #64 of Clash). Retrieved October 11, 2011.
  8. ^ Biography of Adam Duritz at IMDb
  9. ^ "A Christmas Murder In Hollywood, Part Three: Another Tragic Anniversary" by James Ridgway de Szigethy, published December 2004 on AmericanMafia.com
  10. ^ "WeHo residents oppose Viper Room project". Park Labrea News/ Beverly Press. March 20, 2019. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
  11. ^ "Business Search - Business Entities - Business Programs | California Secretary of State". businesssearch.sos.ca.gov. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
  12. ^ "Viper Room Changing Its Name Jan. 1..." Archived 2006-08-19 at the Wayback Machine on CincyMusic.com (December 2005 forum post by club owner-manager)
  13. ^ "Nightclub coils to strike in trademark infringement suits" by Amanda Bronstad, Los Angeles Business Journal November 21, 2005
  14. ^ "The Viper Room" in Stockholm
  15. ^ "The Viper Room" in Nijmegen
  16. ^ Tom Petty at The Viper Room
  17. ^ How Johnny Cash became an even bigger star after his death
  18. ^ Editors, Esquire (June 29, 2021). "24 Rare Photos of Celebrities Inside L.A.'s Infamous Viper Room". Esquire. Retrieved January 24, 2022. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  19. ^ Saperstein, Pat (August 3, 2018). "Viper Room Sold on Sunset Strip; Site Could Be Redeveloped". Variety. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  20. ^ "Filming Locations for The Doors". Archived from the original on November 26, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2006.
  21. ^ "I heard you were at the Viper Room".
  22. ^ "Be Cool-The Viper Room".
  23. ^ Be Cool » Movie Juice - Movie Rants
  24. ^ Kaplan, Michael (April 4, 2020). "The real 'Molly's Game': Inside Tobey Maguire's high-stakes underground poker ring". New York Post. Retrieved January 25, 2022.
  25. ^ "The Viper Room | Ghost Adventures". TravelChannel.com. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
  26. ^ The Hollywood Ghosts of the Legendary Viper Room. BuzzFeed Unsolved Network on YouTube. October 11, 2019. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  27. ^ Bloom, Molly (2014). Molly's Game. New York: HarperCollins. p. 43. ISBN 9780062838582.
  28. ^ Krol, Charlotte (July 8, 2019). "Watch Ed Sheeran's gender-flipped video for 'Blow', featuring Bruno Mars and Chris Stapleton". NME. Retrieved July 27, 2019.
  29. ^ Topel, Fred (July 22, 2021). "Adam Duritz Went Back to Tending Bar at the Viper Room After Counting Crows Hit It Big". Showbiz Cheat Sheet. Retrieved September 27, 2021.

External links[edit]

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