[11] He was an all-city shortstop playing baseball at Portland's Madison High School, and won an athletic scholarship to Mount Hood Community College, but dropped out to focus on music.
[12] His first professional band, the Malchicks, scored some local success and gained attention by quickly throwing together permits for a public tribute performance the day after John Lennon was shot, but broke up over musical differences and over lead guitarist Lenny Rancher, Billy's younger brother, being too heavy a drinker at the time even by the standards of a hard-drinking crowd.
[17] By the end of the summer they were playing several nights a week, at various venues, and had established themselves as the city's best band,[18] making a major dent in the Seattle scene as well.
[19] Go-go dancers, glam makeup and outrageous costumes (leopard-skin prints, pajamas) stood the Unreal Gods in contrast to the "punk..., skinny-tie new wave..., and macho working-class rock'n'roll" bands that otherwise dominated the Portland scene.
[20] They scored a gig warming up for reggae star Peter Tosh at Seattle's Paramount Theatre, though it proved to be one of the rare times they completely failed to win over an audience, who did not appreciate their theatrics (including a giant simulated spliff and fake onstage gun violence) and their white-boy take on ska.
However, the relationship quickly soured and they headed east with no firmed-up gigs, just places to crash with keyboardist Alf Ryder's New Jersey family, the Delias, several of whom had minor music-industry connections.
More precisely, Arista had signed Rancher as an individual, but he already had an earlier contract with the band members that was intended to prevent a lineup shuffle in such an event.
[29] Signed to a label, the Unreal Gods could no longer make major decisions for themselves, and they performed only occasional Portland shows while Arista decided what to do with them.
He patched up his relationship with Karen Sage, underwent chemotherapy, and successfully fought off a $25 million lawsuit by one of the band's former managers, William Gladstone.
[37] Although most of this material remains unreleased, there were at least two official album-length releases (the self-released Boom Chuck Rock Now in 1982 and the Locals Only-released Made in Hong Kong in 2000) and there is extensive footage of the Unreal Gods in Jan Baross's KOIN-TV documentary Rocky Road about Billy Rancher.
[52] After surgery, he got back together with his brother Lenny and others to form a self-described "white boy reggae" band called Flesh and Blood.
[53] The band debuted April 19, 1985 and immediately began gigging regularly in Portland clubs and other Pacific Northwest venues, though not to as much acclaim as had attended the Unreal Gods.
[55] Arista wasn't interested, and gave the band a waiver to "record up to five songs for inclusion on an EP that will be released only in the Northwest United States.
"[56] His girlfriend Karen and his mother Astrid helped form a corporation called Karactor Records so that Rancher could focus on his music rather than the business side.
[58] Although he tried to keep up a clean diet and a healthy life,[59] according to his brother Lenny, Rancher intermittently backslid at least briefly into drinking and using cocaine at this time.
[60] Efforts at recording the EP (working title: Thinkin' Zebra) were cut short by a relapse of a different sort: Rancher still had cancer.
[67] Between then and his death on December 2, 1986, he was involved in several musical collaborations, mostly with people he'd played with in the past, but also with other Portland musicians such as trombonist Tim Tubb of the Crazy 8s.
[73] When the cancer recurred in the summer of 1985, Rancher at first attempted a "holistic" treatment, consisting entirely of diet and exercise,[74] but on September 18, 1985 he allowed himself to be admitted to Portland's Good Samaritan Hospital.