SECONDS
Issue #48 - 1998

Mötley Crüe

by Steven Blush

yesterday…     &     today

The name MÖTLEY CRÜE is synonymous with the Heavy Metal experience. Period.

You certainly remember the nasty cast of characters: VINCE NEIL — auto racin’, lady chasin’, bleached blond frontman; NIKKI SIXX — trashy, flashy bass player and band creator; TOMMY LEE — hard-hittin’, tight-fittin’ snakeskin cowboy on “lead drums”; and MICK MARS — the ol’ guy on guitar who keeps the band together. Scrappy JOHN CORABI from The Scream even sang in the band for a moment.

Back in the Eighties, people used to live and die for the fucking Crüe. Shout At The Devil was the apex of Eighties Rock outrage and back in the day, these guys had it all — sloppy riffage, pyrotechnics, and Satan.

Crüe never dressed like girls, they dressed like true Rock dudes! They wore warpaint, not makeup; chains, not bracelets; spiked heels, not high heels. Mötley was never some drag show; they were the kings of the Sunset Strip glitterati. They had the looks that killed (but over the years, the hairstyles and stagewear have been changed to protect the ignorant). In the Mötley stew, denim and leather still go together.

As lame as some of you Punker types may think the Crüe is, they’ve inspired more anti-authoritarian behavior among American working class youth than Marilyn Manson, MaximumRockNRoll and Chairman Mao put together. We’re talking drunk and disorderly arrests, vandalism of schools, and public urination.

Mötley Crüe’s rap sheet is indelibly etched in Rock lore. Neither the felonious, hot-headed Gangsta Rap thugs of today nor the bloated dinosaurs of the Seventies can rival da Crüe in terms of deviant sex, drug excess, homicide, overdose, frivolous lawsuits and flippant attitude. The interviews herein document a wonderfully chequered past.

Man, I still dig the Crüe. I don’t care if their new album Generation Swine (Elektra) ain’t as good as the last one or the one before that (or the one before that or the one before that …). I don’t care if they’ve jumped off the very bandwagon which made them rich and famous. What matters is what they represent — a loud, brash, snotty, sassy, sexual (and ultimately stoopid) joyride back to daze when the excesses of Rock Stars were fun and enjoyable for fans and foes alike.

SECONDS: Talk about the Crüe today.

LEE: We’re experimenting a lot, which we haven’t done in the past, because in the past it was all about getting in, recording the record and getting out. Another approach was that we didn’t come near a recording studio on this record. We started recording at my house and finished it over at Nikki’s place. We’ll never ever see another studio if we have anything to do with it. Trying to write a song in there at a grand a day? Fuck that. That’s not the right way to make music.

SECONDS: Do bands develop bad habits in the studio?

LEE: Yeah, and huge recording costs. Fuck, the previous record Bob Rock did cost three million dollars to make. This one didn’t even cost a million dollars! We did it ourselves and I think it’s fucking amazing.

SECONDS: How did you deal with your vocalist problems?

LEE: You mean with Vince and John Corabi? How did that work … we started this new record with John and all of a sudden he was having some problems singing the songs. Nikki, [co-producer] Scott Humphrey and I looked at each other, going, “Fuck! What’s happening?” John was overwhelmed with pressure. Our last record didn’t do so well and he felt it was all his fault. He felt like he was slowly bringing down the Crüe. When negotiations came to bring us back together with Vince, John was relieved and overwhelmed with joy — “Dudes, I learned a lot being in this band for a couple of years but I don’t need this kind of pressure in my life. You’re all good guys.” We explained to him, “Dude, it’s not your fault, it’s just that our fans have a lot of history with us — seventeen years of music. People got laid for the first time to our music. Lots of history, dude. You were here for one record. You can’t expect to catch up.”

SECONDS: What went down between you and Vince and where does Vince Neil fit in with Mötley Crüe at this point?

LEE: We had just come off our biggest-selling record, Dr. Feelgood, and we had just done a best-of compilation, Decade Of Decadence, with a new track, “Primal Scream.” We were rehearsing to make a new record, and I don’t think we were getting along that well. Everybody was making a bunch of money and Vince was taking racecar driving lessons, helicopter flying lessons … I remember we were trying to rehearse and he said, “Dude, I can’t make rehearsal. I’m on this racing circuit.” I said, “Dude, we’ve got to rehearse. This is all we love to do — music.” His priorities changed and we were thinking about a new lead singer. He came down and we said a bunch of things I guess he didn’t want to hear. He got pissed and said, “Fire me then” and split.

Everyone around us was freaking out — “Dude, I can’t believe this is happening!” At the same time, we were like, “Now we can get somebody that just wants to sing.”

SECONDS: How would your characterize your relationship with Vince now?

LEE: Everybody realizes what it is that got us here. For Vince, it certainly wasn’t driving race cars and flying helicopters; it was Mötley Crüe. All four of us got us here. Now that he’s done his solo thing and we did a record with Corabi, we all know that there’s a special magic with the four of us. There’s only one Crüe, you know what I mean? There’s no other version of the Crüe. You’ve got to go out and fail miserably to realize it. I’ll tell you, when we went out on tour with Corabi it was like, “We’re not playing the big ol’ arenas and selling out everywhere. What up?” We got a big fucking wake-up call.

SECONDS: What happened to Metal in the Nineties? A lot of the bands deserved to die, but also, everyone ran away from Metal. All of a sudden, people were afraid to rock.

LEE: Absolutely. It’s those stinky titles like “Heavy Metal,” “Rock,” “Alternative” … I saw a thing on the freeway the other day that said, “alternative talk radio.” What does “alternative talk” mean? It’s a fucking talk show! At some point, Alternative Music was the alternative to loud Guitar Rock — but it’s the same thing. I don’t see it as being any different.

SECONDS: Talk about your earliest days. The first time I heard about the Crüe was playing at The Starwood.

LEE: I knew Doug from The Knack and “My Sharona” was fucking huge. Now that I’m older, I see what happens in the music business when something becomes popular. When something is successful, the record companies go out and sign every-fucking-body that looks and sounds similar. That’s what stinks the music world up. As soon as The Knack got huge, all my friends were cutting their hair, putting on a tie, and they got the little fucking Telecaster. We didn’t want to do that. We stood our ground and after we came around, there were all these cheesy versions of us. Then came Nirvana and all those cheesy versions of Nirvana. With anything, the creators always rise to the top.

SECONDS: When you hooked up with Vince, wasn’t he in a Cheap Trick cover band?

LEE: They did lots of stuff — Ramones, Cheap Trick … yeah.

SECONDS: I understand that your first demo was funded by a guy from a construction company.

LEE: Yeah. His name was Alan Kaufman. He owned a construction company and I think he was doing it because his two daughters loved us. He gave us enough money to make two thousand 45s and when we played gigs, Vince would be firing them out into the crowd like frisbees. It was a way to get our music out because we weren’t getting on the radio.

SECONDS: You were huge in the clubs for years before you even hit the charts —

LEE: Nikki had a band called London that had been working it pretty good in Hollywood for awhile. These guys were a freakshow. Everyone would come to see how weird their hair and make-up was. Nikki had a pretty large fanbase going in Hollywood and Mötley Crüe was his next project.

SECONDS: What was it like putting out an indie Metal record back then?

LEE: Uh … fuck, man.

SECONDS: People in bands just waited for a record contract —

LEE: Yeah, I know. Off the success of that 45, we started selling out Friday, Saturday and Sunday at The Whiskey and The Starwood. It started becoming big. I thought, “We did a single. Now let’s do a record. We could record these songs cheaply and get someone to distribute it.” Once we did that, the record companies were going, “Fuck, these guys are doing it without us.” I remember at the Santa Monica Civic Center, someone from Elektra, Tom Zutaut, came down and saw us and that’s when they wanted to sign us. We were making a bunch of noise without anybody’s help.

SECONDS: Why was Shout At The Devil so big?

LEE: Shout At The Devil was the first time we got to go on a major tour — with Ozzy. We had the opportunity to play for forty minutes and destroy with the best tunes we had. That’s probably why the record sold. That was the beginning.

SECONDS: Were you serious about the teachings of Dr. Anton LaVey?

LEE: Never. The record’s called Shout At The Devil, not Shout With The Devil.

SECONDS: What went on behind the scenes when Razzle of Hanoi Rocks got killed in that car accident with Vince Neil?

LEE: Yeah, that was fucked up. We were having a party at Vince’s house. We were just starting to make some money and he had bought a Pantera 427 four-speed. We’re all fucking partying and of course: “Hey dude, check out my new sports car.” “Fuckin’ rad! Take me for a ride!” I remember them saying, “We’re going to get some more beer.” An hour later, I’m like, “The liquor store is down on the corner.” Then I hear massive sirens, fire trucks, all this shit, and I’m like, “Uh oh.” I’m thinking, “Those guys were fucked up when they left …” I ran down the street, up a couple blocks and over, and there they were. Vince was on the curb fucking crying and his car — they were coming around the corner and the car spun out and came on to oncoming traffic. I remember it like it was yesterday, looking at Vince and seeing he was okay and seeing the passenger side smashed in. I can’t see Razzle but it looks like he’s obviously been hurt and one of his shoes is out in the middle of the street. I think, “When you die, you lose all your bodily functions and your shoes come off because you’re so relaxed.” There it was, man. He wasn’t dead in the car. He went to the hospital and they arrested Vince. We all went to the hospital and waited to hear if he was going to be okay and they came out and said he didn’t make it. Then, a massive amount of sorrow. We were buddies, you know? Then Vince got out on bail and he had to do some community service and this and that. It’s a long story, I don’t know the whole outcome.

SECONDS: How decadent had the band become by Girls, Girls, Girls?

LEE: That was the full-blown peak of decadence. As full-blown as it gets. That one probably took a few years off my life. There was massive amounts of insanity. Finding all these crazy doctors on the road and telling them, “I’m having a real tough time sleeping,” but not telling them you’re having a tough time sleeping because you were up doing Blow all night. So he prescribes you Halcyon, a really strong sleeping pill. So we’re doing Blow all night, taking Halcyons, and then going out to start drinking for the evening. People are passing out and not waking up — O.D.ing on Heroin. All these fun little decadent details I could go on about for hours. That was the peak, man.

SECONDS: What’d you learn about yourself?

LEE: How stupid I was.

SECONDS: These were the full-on days of sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll. That classic groupie scene doesn’t exist anymore —

LEE: Yeah, not with AIDS. I remember it being so natural for there to be fifty girls in any city naked backstage. No one would think twice about any of it.

SECONDS: What was the most decadent sexual encounter you remember?

LEE: How far some women will go to actually meet a Rock Star. This girl comes backstage and grabs me. She’s like, “Oh my God! Oh my God! I want to fuck you!” I said, “Hold on a second — ” She says, “I want to fuck the whole band!” Me being fucked up, I set a bottle of champagne on the ground and said, “Take off all your all clothes.” You think you’ve got some God-like power over this person. I told her to sit on the bottle with her pussy on the bottle and don’t move because, “I’ll be right back but if you move the deal’s off and you ain’t getting any of the band.” I came back an hour later and she’s still there waiting. You think, “Doesn’t this person have any sort of couth? Is it worth it?” Those days, people didn’t really give a fuck.

SECONDS: Did that “power” twist you?

LEE: Yeah, you start making people do weird shit just for your own psychotic entertainment on the road.

SECONDS: Who was Matthew John Trippe?

LEE: The word “fan” is short for “fanatic,” right? This guy was a Nikki Sixx fanatic and he had gotten every single tattoo of Nikki’s on him, identically copied from photographs. This guy truly believed he was Nikki. There was correspondence back and forth and photographs and it started freaking everybody out, especially Nikki. Then came him suing us for back royalties, saying, “I was in the band.” Eventually, Nikki had to go to court because of this guy. Through all the fucking madness this guy created, he just wanted to meet Nikki. They shook hands in some sort of a deposition setting and he dropped everything and walked out of the room. He put Nikki through hell with lawyers and all this bullshit just to meet the guy.

SECONDS: What happened to Mötley Crüe when your manager, Doc McGhee, got popped for dealing Pot?

LEE: Well …

SECONDS: Am I wrong to say that the Moscow Music Peace Festival show was his sentence — to spread the anti-drug word?

LEE: Yeah, one of the ways for him to get out of doing time was helping spread the word and donating money to charity. We were guinea pigs for that. At the same time, we wanted to go play in Russia. It was like, “Fuck, let’s go.” We helped him, he helped us. He’s a smart businessman, obviously.

SECONDS: Weren’t there problems between you and Bon Jovi at that show?

LEE: Doc was managing them too. The one thing Doc did really well was be a schmoozer. One of the reasons why we left him is because he’d make deals with people and forget to tell us about them. So he tells us we’re going to play third on the bill and we fly all the way to fucking Russia. We get there and we’re fucking fifth or sixth or something. So that was one lie, right? We wanted to bring our pyro guy but we couldn’t because “pyro’s illegal in Moscow” or some fucking thing. He promised it all to Jon Bon Jovi. Here’s Johnny doing his show and there’s fucking lasers and pyro. I lost it. I’m watching this from the side of stage thinking, “That’s it. Fuck this.” That’s when we got rid of Doc. I didn’t hit him but I pushed him down on the ground and said, “No one fucking does this to us, dude. You lie your fucking ass off and we keep busting you. This is our fucking career you’re messing with!”

SECONDS: Early on, wasn’t he bringing Jovi around to hang with you guys so that Jon could catch the vapors?

LEE: Yeah! We were on tour and Johnny had just put his first record out and he didn’t know anything about the road, so he was on our bus for a couple of weeks. “This is what it’s like? Fuck, no way! This is fucking great.” Just checking it all out, breathing in the vapors.

SECONDS: In 1990, you were arrested in Augusta, Georgia for a sexually explicit act. What was it?

LEE: You know what, I probably just pulled my pants down. They don’t dig that in some parts of the Bible Belt areas. You can pull your dick out in Paris but in Georgia they take you to jail for showing your ass.

SECONDS: And in 1994, there was a firearms charge. What happened there?

LEE: I got called to New York for some press thing, or mastering our record … I had been at this girl’s house and I’d been carrying a gun with me in my bag because I was driving everyday from Malibu into Hollywood. My guitar player’s wife at the time — a couple of Black guys came up to her at a stoplight and pulled a gun on her and told her to get out of the car — she was driving Mars’ brand-new ’Vette. They opened the door and she just fucking punched it. She got to the studio, hysterically panicking. After that happened I said, “I’m going to start packing.” It was just one of those things where I had my gun in my bag and I’m like, “I gotta get to the airport.” I grab my bag, go right to the airport and I forgot the gun was in that bag. It was no big deal.

SECONDS: So, are you really the sexual beast described in the tabloids?

LEE: Sexual beast! [laughs] I don’t know, dude, you’d have to ask my wife that.

SECONDS: What kind of sexual tips can you offer our undersexed audience?

LEE: Cunnilingus. Got to eat lots of pussy. Women like that, man! Some don’t, though …

SECONDS: Many men still don’t realize that if you don’t your woman off, you haven’t done your job.

LEE: Yeah! Some guys are just too impatient but I think half the fun is playing with them. With my wife, she’s got beautiful feet. I massage her feet and the rest of her body and it’s such a cool way to get started. Take a while to get the whole vibe going. Put on some music, light some candles and chill. I guess “Let’s just get in there and fuck!” is cool, too. We definitely power-fuck. We’ve had to go in a few bathrooms. Recently, my wife took me to the Playboy Mansion for New Year’s Eve and we just ducked into a bathroom real quick. It was fun but most of the time I like to play with her. She digs it.

SECONDS: So, is Pamela Anderson all that?

LEE: Yeah. She’s amazing. So fucking amazing. Just about every guy on the planet would love to play with her. It’s scary, man. I’m married to her, I see her every day. She’s the mother of my son. Then we go somewhere and I see it all. She’s beautiful.

SECONDS: She took you back, too, after some serious marital problems.

LEE: I know, I know. That was really cool. I just pulled a Tommy and refused to put my adolescence in a closet. I’m a dad; this is phase two of my life. I can still fuck around but drinking like a madman every day is just not cool. I don’t want my son to see me like that. I was scared to be responsible and all that shit. Now, I’m finally happy in a relationship. I have a beautiful wife and a son. I’ve wanted kids for a long time. My last marriage, I wanted kids and she didn’t. I was like, “I’m definitely with the wrong person. What am I doing here?” Now, I’ve got everything.

SECONDS: People don’t realize that a Rock Star-Movie Star relationship has the same problems —

LEE: Exactly the same. I have to give tons of props to my wife for not pulling the full-on ultimatum thing that most women do to guys, like “It’s either the booze or me!” She didn’t do that. She said, “You don’t have to quit drinking. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. I just don’t want this little guy into it.” Her and I have partied like motherfuckers, but now that Brandon’s here, it’s not what I want to do. He deserves to be in a peaceful world at home.

SECONDS: What’s the biggest misconception about Mötley Crüe?

LEE: All the stupid shows on TV … “gun-toting rocking tattooed wildman …” It’s never mentioned in there that I’m a songwriter and one of the best drummers on the planet. I wish I received more props for what it is I actually do in life, rather than for knocking out some idiot that’s been following me for three days with a camera.

SECONDS: Who are your drumming heroes?

LEE: There’s three guys for three different reasons. John Bonham for his groove, Phil Rudd of AC/DC for his solidness, and Terry Bozzio for his melody. Those three guys sum it up for me.

SECONDS: How would you like Mötley Crüe to be remembered?

LEE: It’s cool to be known for your excess as well as your music but songwriters always want to be known for the music they make. Our songs have always been youthful anthems. And our live presentation — the money we’ve made we’ve put right back into the next tour. I’d like to be remembered for giving people their money’s worth. I was a Kiss fan when I was growing up. I’d have cardboard boxes out, playing drums to Kiss Alive and that was the fucking bomb. I always liked that over-the-topness. God bless them for doing it again, getting all made up and being all stupid again. It’s way cool.

SECONDS: Were they influences on Mötley Crüe’s earliest dress styles?

LEE: A lot. I always dug fuckin’ black leather, man. I remember seeing Hellbent For Leather, a Judas Priest album, and thinking, “Those dudes are tough!” Also, the New York Dolls for their androgynous weirdness. I like that too.

SECONDS: How long did it take you to prepare for the stage back then?

LEE: It probably took us about an hour to get it together.

SECONDS: What would you have to do to yourself?

LEE: Put on some whiteface, put some shit on the eyes, black eyeliner — in those days, I had the two trademark stripes like warpaint. I wouldn’t wear many clothes because I can’t really play in clothes because they’re too restrictive. So I’d put on a pair of shorts, throw some shoes on, tape up the fingers, tape up the blisters from the night before, go warm up for a half hour, and then go play.

SECONDS: Will we ever again see the kind of spectacle you gave us back in the Eighties?

LEE: Absolutely. That’s our mission. Nikki and I were just talking about that. Our music is one of the big reasons people come to see our show, but the other big reason is the spectacle. You know what I mean? Every tour got bigger and bigger. More lights and more … it got to be fucking bananas, man. People always ask me, “Dude, when you guys go on tour, are you going to have the crazy-ass spinning drums?” That’s what they want — so let’s give it to them!

SECONDS: Tell us about Generation Swine.

SIXX: Have you heard it?

SECONDS: Yeah, awesome record.

SIXX: What do you think?

SECONDS: I think it’s killer. Seriously.

SIXX: Cool.

SECONDS: On the past couple of records, we’ve seen the Crüe merging with modern technology —

SIXX: Any band I have respect for is conscious of evolution. On any level — intellectually, lyrically, musically, visually, entertainment-wise … we’ll continue to form and break molds and not be pigeonholed. If people say, “Well, this album doesn’t sound like the last album,” I say, “Alright, we did that right thing.”

SECONDS: How do you balance artistic growth with the demands of the marketplace?

SIXX: The marketplace is fine. I understand the business but I’m constantly at war with my creative side. A lot of times the creative side doesn’t want to know about certain things. I don’t really have respect for record labels because they’re not dealing in art, they’re dealing in marketing. That’s where I clash with them.

SECONDS: What are the obvious differences between the marketplace when you guys first broke and today?

SIXX: There was more payola in those days, which we never got involved in because we broke the band by playing live. We started playing live and then we recorded and then we played live to showcase the music that we recorded. We weren’t a band that was so much a recording band as a live performance band. It wasn’t until Girls, Girls, Girls that we became “recording artists.” Before, we were just bashing out riffs. On Girls, Girls, Girls, we started getting more into the technology. We started using triggers, samples, and sequences to break new ground. The bigger we got, the more we were limited by narrow-minded critics. The critics run the ship unless you go to war against them. It’s a constant tug of war between us and the critics because the critics want to pigeonhole you, and you want to do what you want to do. If you don’t stay on your toes, they can say you’re something you’re not.

SECONDS: What were the critics saying that was off base?

SIXX: You see, Mötley Crüe is an interesting band. It’s a band that didn’t fit together personality-wise and yet in a lot of ways we’re absolutely perfect for each other. Our roots are Seventies Punk — New York Dolls, Mott The Hoople, Sex Pistols, and I call Aerosmith’s first two records Punk. I never really dug Hippie Rock. Mick, on the other hand, is a real Blues nut. We’ve got a drummer who’s into Funk, Techno, Hip Hop, Industrial — anything with rhythm drives Tommy. And Vince has just recently started to experiment vocally but he’s always been more of a linear-type Rock singer, yet it always came off a little Punkier. You try to pigeonhole a band like us and call us a Rock Band, you piss me off. Call us a Punk Band, you piss the guitar player off. Call us a cheesy Whiteboy band, it makes the drummer cringe. In ’87, I said, “No videos, no interviews. Fuck everybody. Let’s just make music.” Later on, when Pearl Jam did that, it was critically acclaimed.

SECONDS: What year did you leave Seattle?

SIXX: I don’t know, ’77, ’78 —

SECONDS: What was going on Seattle at that time?

SIXX: Absolutely nothing. That’s why I left. That and a drug bust.

SECONDS: Were there any roots of an underground Rock scene then?

SIXX: Absolutely not. There was Heart and that was it.

SECONDS: When you got down to L.A., what were you doing? There was the group London —

SIXX: There was a group of us in Seattle that used to hang out and we used to listen to The Stooges, old Sparks, and we were freaks. The music I was attracted to up there — I came down to L.A. and it was here. I formed a band called London and we were a baby Mötley Crüe, I guess, but the edge wasn’t there. I really needed Mick Mars and Tommy Lee to add the “umph” to my vision. Then Vince came in with his snarly, ratty voice and it rounded everything out. Vince visualized our Pop sensibility.

SECONDS: Those early days at The Starwood were when Metal and Punk hadn’t totally split up.

SIXX: There would be bands like Mötley Crüe playing one night and the next night would be Fear and the next night it would be The Go-Go’s. We were the only band at that time who made it out of The Starwood. Most of the bands were either full-on Punk or Glam — though not as Glam as us. We were like Punk Glam — we didn’t fit anywhere. We had this hard guitar with Pop songwriting and we were drawing Heavy Metal fans. We started drawing fans from all different genres.

SECONDS: I remember seeing a television interview with Vince where he drew a line in the sand and said, “We are not Punk.”

SIXX: With Mötley Crüe, there’s so many contradictions because you have four different guys that are adamant about how they feel. I tried to turn Mick Mars on to Suede and Garbage — he doesn’t get it.

SECONDS: What does he listen to?

SIXX: He listens to the Blues and that bores me.

SECONDS: Who are Mick’s influences?

SIXX: [to his son: You can have water, that’s all. Ryan, I’m on the telephone. I don’t want you to whine anymore.] I know he likes Jeff Beck a lot and guys like Jeff Baxter from Steely Dan. It’s weird we’re even in the same band together. He’ll mention bands like Alex Harvey Band and I’ll know who they are but I don’t really know what he’s talking about. I’ll have a vision of what I want and it will be based on the feeling of “Chatterbox” by the Dolls with Johnny Thunders singing it. By feeding it through Mick, it comes out totally different — and better. Then by feeding it through Vince, he’s got his own thing. That’s how bands are.

SECONDS: Wasn’t your first demo funded by a guy who owned a construction company?

SIXX: Yeah, we couldn’t even afford to eat. That guy actually ended up being the manager, a typical Spinal Tap story.

SECONDS: Who was Leathur Records?

SIXX: That was us. We couldn’t get a record deal so we formed our own mini-label.

SECONDS: Who was the distributor?

SIXX: Initially, it was just us walking it around from music store to music store. Later, Greenworld got involved and then they got bought out by Elektra.

SECONDS: Who were your contemporaries in the Southern California Rock scene?

SIXX: I know Quiet Riot was floating around but Randy [Rhoads] had left for Ozzy. Ratt had just been getting started. I remember walking with Robbin Crosby to The Troubadour and him telling me that this band wanted him to join. I don’t think there were any other bands like us, really.

SECONDS: There was Y&T.

SIXX: Yeah, but they weren’t around here. They were actually around before we were. That was one of the first bands we opened for. They were headlining clubs and at the time we thought they were huge. I just liked hanging out and drinking all night and writing songs all day. It was a pretty simple time for me. I got to do what it is I do: write music, drink, hang out and get laid. It was a real adolescent time.

SECONDS: Why do you think Shout At The Devil was so huge?

SIXX: [to his son: Hey, hey, don’t talk — I’m on the telephone.] Why did it spark? It definitely wasn’t because we were trying to fit in. It was because we didn’t care. We had really good songs and they were even more aggressive than the first album. [Ryan, stop, please!] These are questions that will never be answered. Why did we get the Ozzy tour? Because every kid was talking about us? You don’t ever get to know why you get caught on that cog —

SECONDS: Let me ask you: were you ever serious about Satanism or the teachings of Dr. Anton LaVey?

SIXX: It was us thumbing our nose at everybody. We don’t really take anything too seriously. We’ve always been a politically incorrect bunch.

SECONDS: What happened with the Razzle incident?

SIXX: Vince was doing no worse than anybody else I knew. We were all getting smashed and driving home from clubs drunk. An accident happened. It’s always sad when somebody loses their life — unless they choose to do it themselves, then I don’t think it’s sad. It was a trying time, yet it made the band closer.

SECONDS: How decadent had things gotten by the time of Girls, Girls, Girls?

SIXX: At least two band members were strung out on Heroin. [Ryan, if I have to ask you again, you’re going to get a time out.] Theater Of Pain was a hodgepodge of recording. A couple of songs on there did good but the rest of the album is a pile of crap because we were strung out.

SECONDS: And you almost died.

SIXX: I had so many overdoses …

SECONDS: Who was this guy Matthew John Trippe?

SIXX: He went and got my tattoos and said he was me. I don’t like to do interviews or even be in the public eye when I’m not promoting my music. I like to recharge my batteries. I want to hang out with friends and live life. I want to experience things so that I can write songs on a charged battery. So I got a phone call asking me if I wanted to do an interview about this guy who says he’s me. I’m like, “Don’t bother me with this stuff.” I didn’t do the interview and Kerrang! picked up on it and started making it into a “Paul Is Dead” thing. Then everybody starting running with it and it gained speed.

SECONDS: Tommy said all this guy wanted to do was meet you —

SIXX: All he wanted was to meet me. It was sick, you know? I just feel sorry for the guy.

SECONDS: How did things change when Doc McGhee got arrested?

SIXX: I thought it was good for the band. Bon Jovi wasn’t very happy. [laughs] It fit us to the “T,” didn’t it?

SECONDS: I always got the idea there was beef between you and Jovi —

SIXX: Bon Jovi is everything corporate about Rock & Roll that we don’t respect.

SECONDS: How would your characterize your relationship with Vince Neil these days?

SIXX: It’s cool. Everybody thinks we’re supposed to hate each other but we’re having a good time, man.

SECONDS: What went down, in retrospect?

SIXX: I prefer to live in the past or the present but not in that little interim time when we were getting the band back together. I’m not ready to talk about it.

SECONDS: What are you proudest of, in terms of Mötley Crüe?

SIXX: That we like to change, and we do change. We don’t listen to anybody; we know exactly what we want to do when we want to do it. That sums up Rock & Roll. If more bands rolled the dice, we’d have a more exciting environment for music.

SECONDS: People are scared to go all the way.

SIXX: Totally scared, bro. This is a fear-driven industry, sad to stay. When Vince left, we rolled the dice and put out an album with an unknown singer. We changed our logo, our hairstyles, our clothing, our musical direction — it’s a constant change. We do things and as soon as they become in fashion, we abandon them. We feel a responsibility to evolve and take the fans on a journey. A linear band should be shot. The Ted Nugent syndrome of writing “Cat Scratch Fever” five thousand times is not cool. You can write a hit song and then repeat it for a few albums and people will go, “Oh yeah, man, have you heard that new song? It kinda sounds like the old song. It’s cool.” If you’re going to be around twenty, twenty-five years, take some chances. In the end, you look at ten albums and see a thread of similarity but they’re all different. When I’m laying there and it’s all said and done, I don’t want anybody to ever say I was scared.

SECONDS: What are the highlights and lowlights of Mötley Crüe?

SIXX: The highlights, there have been many and there’ll be many to come. The lowlight was when Vince left and we were in a defensive position. It became very trying. In this business, if people see you start to slip, they like to pull the ladder out from underneath you. MTV turned on us, radio turned on us — the industry turned on us like rabid dogs. Now I’m seeing them do the same thing to Alternative and it’s really uncool. Now the thing is “Rock Is Back!” but how about just “Good Music Is Back!”

SECONDS: I’m sure you guys learned a lot about yourselves after the last album.

SIXX: The four of us are really close right now. Communication’s really good and the music’s really good. I’m having a good time.

SECONDS: Did that little bit of career downturn do you good?

SIXX: I think so, dude. All mistakes are good if you learn something from them — then they’re not mistakes. That’s the Mötley outlook. If it wasn’t for my Heroin addiction, maybe I never would have delved into some of the things I did musically. When I overdosed on Smack, I think it was a positive thing. I wrote “Kickstart My Heart,” a classic song in Rock & Roll history, and I connected with why it was I was trying to dust myself the previous ten years. I’m happier and more focused on what I want do musically. Everything’s got a positive side. We’ve been associated with symbolism throughout the years, whether it was the Pentagram on Shout At The Devil, the masks on Theater Of Pain, and on our last tour we had huge twenty-five-foot-tall Swastikas onstage. People were saying we’re Nazis, but those were Buddhist peace symbols. If you look a little deeper than the surface, you’ll see what we’re trying to do is educate you a little bit. For everything black, there’s something white, for everything white there’s something black. On the surface, we’re one band; on the interior we’re another. Same with our record. On the surface, “Afraid” is a Pop song but if you dive in deep with headphones and smoke a J, you’re going to hear a whole different song. It’s pretty deep, man.

SECONDS: I think I’m gonna try that right now.

SIXX: You should, dude. You’ll trip out.

SECONDS: How ya doin, Mick?

MARS: Good, how are you?

SECONDS: Good. What’s happening?

MARS: Just hanging out, working out guitar solos.

SECONDS: A few questions here. First, how would you define your role with the Crüe these days?

MARS: My role? Uh … let me see … my role with the Crüe … I don’t know, I never really thought about it. I just play my guitar.

SECONDS: Are you less of a songwriter these days?

MARS: I’m not any less of a songwriter. I write a lot of songs. Sometimes they’re good for the band, sometimes they’re not. I don’t know, that’s another hard question.

SECONDS: You’ve seen a lot of Rock guitar players come and go over the years. How has guitar playing changed since you began?

MARS: It’s gotten back to raw and basic good guitar playing. Not a whole lot of flash and speed; I’ve never been about that. I got a lot of — for lack of a better word — grief in the Eighties for not playing like a virtuoso speed guy but it all comes around. It’s all good.

SECONDS: What do you come out of? The Blues?

MARS: My roots lie in Sixties guitar players — Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Alvin Lee, Jeff Beck, Michael Bloomfield, Leslie West. That kind of music is still very dear to me.

SECONDS: What were the first Rock songs you ever played?

MARS: A lot of Allman Brothers stuff — I learned slide from Duane Allman’s style on “Statesboro Blues.” Let’s see, “Tell Mama” by Savoy Brown — I’m boring, huh?

SECONDS: No, it’s cool.

MARS: I guess I come from a different planet.

SECONDS: What are you listening to today?

MARS: Current bands like Matchbox 20, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, but I still listen to old stuff — Joe Cocker, Zeppelin, Hendrix.

SECONDS: Tell us about your bands before the Crüe.

MARS: They weren’t much of anything. Just a learning process. I learned how to play and write songs.

SECONDS: Were these cover bands?

MARS: Pretty much Top 40 cover bands.

SECONDS: What songs were you doing? Your work with the Crüe reveals a real range of influences.

MARS: In the last band I remember we were playing a lot of Redbone and Funk. Sly & The Family Stone and things like that.

SECONDS: You’re a bit older than other guys in Mötley Crüe, right? How has your experience helped you in the band? It seems like you’re the wise man of the band.

MARS: That’s cause I’m geezed. [laughs] I’ve sat back and watched them grow. I really dig what they’re doing.

SECONDS: I talked to your bandmates about their past scandals and arrests. How have you remained clear of controversy — or have you?

MARS: I got arrested one time way back around Theater Or Pain, or maybe even Shout At The Devil. We were new to touring and into alcohol and drug abuse and all that crap. Anyway, Tommy was streaking through the hallways of one place, I think in Colorado. Some old lady poked her head out and called up the management and they called the police. They knocked on my door and the old lady said, “That’s him!” because I had long black hair like Tommy. So I got arrested for it but that’s about it. Trouble to me … I don’t know … I don’t want to say it’s childish, but it is.

SECONDS: Who is John Corabi and why was he singing for Mötley Crüe?

MARS: After Vince departed, we had boxes and boxes of tapes. Nikki heard John with his band The Scream. We thought he had a great voice and settled on him. I think he’s a good guy inside but he personally let me down. I probably would have folded under the pressure, too. After fifteen years of us playing together, it was hard for him to catch up.

SECONDS: So he folded?

MARS: From what I can see, I would say “yeah.” I’ve been on the edge of folding too, you know? All of us are guilty of that. You set certain goals and times you have to deliver things by; there’s a tremendous amount of pressure.

SECONDS: Is John Corabi suing the band?

MARS: Yeah, he decided to sue us. Stand in line. I can go outside and get sued by the guy next to me because I’m breathing too much air. It’s crazy.

SECONDS: What do you make of his caim that he wrote eighty percent of the music on Generation Swine?

MARS: To be honest, the material he wrote for the album he got credit for. There were a lot of songs he collaborated on but they’re not on the record.

SECONDS: Sounds bitter to me.

MARS: I think it’s more lawyer-oriented. Lawyers have a way of winding you up. Actually, after I’m done with the band I want to become a director. I’ve got an idea for a movie about the future where everybody’s a lawyer.

SECONDS: Who’s idea was it to split up and then get back together with Vince Neil?

MARS: It was mutual in both cases. It’s like having an argument with a family member. It was a good break. Both entities grew in that time. Vince’s abilities grew from being away and I think we grew too.

SECONDS: Are you glad to have Vince back?

MARS: Yeah, I really am.

SECONDS: What were the high points and low points of your career with Mötley Crüe — I should say, what have been the high and low points?

MARS: The Dr. Feelgood tour was a good high. The last album brought the four of us back down to reality. That was the low point. It was a good album but the fans really want to see the four of us and no one else.

SECONDS: What’s been your most decadent Rock Star moment?

MARS: I don’t think I’ve had one. Really. [laughs] I just stay to myself. I’m kind of a boring guy.

SECONDS: With a name like Mick Mars, I have to ask if you’re an astronomy buff?

MARS: Oh yeah, I like astronomy quite a bit. It was a hobby for me for a while. I had some big telescopes I was goofing around with.

SECONDS: What’s your view on extraterrestrial life?

MARS: I don’t think we’re alone. There has to be different civilizations out there. But as far as being visited, I highly doubt it. I don’t believe there’s no alien invasions going on.

SECONDS: I think we would have seen them if they traveled so far to come visit us.

MARS: I think so too. Or you would think they would be smart enough to camouflage themselves so they wouldn’t be seen. They know how ignorant humans are and how everything we don’t understand we want to destroy.

SECONDS: How would you like the Crüe to be remembered?

MARS: As one of the greatest Rock Bands of all time.

SECONDS: So, tell me about this gonzo Mötley Crüe vs. The Earth tour?

NEIL: We’re back in the arenas. Got a bunch of cool things. Tommy’s drum thing is going to blow people away. We’re taking Cheap Trick with us and we’re taking a DJ with us. We’re going to turn it into Club Crüe. We’ll have giant screens everywhere and lights going on from the second you walk in the door. It’s going to be a full night of entertainment.

SECONDS: Are the ladies into the Crüe as much as ever?

NEIL: I hope they are. We haven’t been out on tour yet. It’s always a mixed crowd, you know? I think that there’s always an appeal because we’re always in the limelight. Our names are always mentioned somewhere and people come to check us out.

SECONDS: Are you totally behind the band’s use of Industrial rhythms and distorted vocals?

NEIL: Did you listen to my last solo record? That’s what was on mine. There’s not a whole of lot of Industrial stuff on Generation Swine but when we first got this thing together we wanted to make sure our heads were in the same place and I played them my last solo record, Carved In Stone.

SECONDS: How was it working the Dust Brothers? Would you work with them again?

NEIL: The Dust Brothers are a piece of a crap. They had no clue about vocal harmonies, no clue what a Rock & Roll song is. Rock & Roll is not their element. They were a pain in the ass.

SECONDS: What happened with you and Steve Stevens? It seemed like a perfect fit.

NEIL: We finished the Exposed tour and I didn’t plan on doing anything for a while. Steve’s the kind of guy who likes to stay busy. There was nothing for him to do with me and he went off and did other stuff. By the time I was ready to work again, he was busy with something else.

SECONDS: Tell me about this non-alcoholic Mötley Brüe.

NEIL: We’d seen these Skeleteen drinks like Fukola and thought they were cool. We always wanted to do some kind of drink and they had the coolest stuff so we put our drink together.

SECONDS: What are your vices these days, Mr. Neil?

NEIL: Same as always. Car racing, boat racing, mainly music.

SECONDS: Are you still racing cars?

NEIL: No. I miss racing but I’m still very much involved in Indy cars. I actually sponsor Richie Hearn and I’m doing a charity thing with Penske for a track opening.

SECONDS: Is there a Rock & Roll aspect to racing?

NEIL: The whole vibe is. An Indy car tour is just like a Rock tour. You storm into the city, take it over, and leave a trail of dust.

SECONDS: Do you ever think about Razzle?

NEIL: No.

SECONDS: What did you learn from that experience.

NEIL: Nothing. It messed me up for life.

SECONDS: What are proudest of on the new record? I see new directions but the song “Generation Swine” also reminds me of classic Crüe.

NEIL: Everybody hears something different on this record. A lot of people hear classic Crüe stuff. A lot of people think it’s Pop-oriented, some people think it’s too heavy. It’s very diverse and there’s something for everybody.

SECONDS: One more question: Dude, will the Crüe live on 4-ever?

NEIL: Absolutely. Even if something happens to us, we’ll still live forever in the hearts of all Rock & Rollers.

SECONDS: Tell us about this new project with Bruce Kulick.

CORABI: It’s great. The band’s called Union and it’s going really good. Bruce and I obviously have the same history, as far coming from bigger bands. We get to do what we want and there’s no limitations. It’s exciting, you know?

SECONDS: How did you guys hook up?

CORABI: I had met Bruce a few times at Nikki’s house. My wife used to cut Bruce’s hair so I’d bump into him. He seemed like a really nice guy and I guess Nikki had told him, “When this thing goes down with Vince, you should get together with John.” Bruce gave me a call and we started talking. We were a little apprehensive at first. I was considering doing my own solo thing but I went and wrote with Bruce and I was like, “This is really easy. He’s got no ego at all.”

SECONDS: Did the rejection you both share fuel your music?

CORABI: It give us a kick in the ass but we’re not sitting around saying, “We’ll show those guys …” I appreciate bands that don’t get locked into a formula. As much as Mötley wants to say they change every album, there’s a lot of things they wouldn’t do — there’s a lot of things they can’t do because they’re Mötley Crüe.

SECONDS: Joining Mötley Crüe must have been a very difficult situation. Did you feel it was a no-win scenario?

CORABI: No, not until the record came out. When I first joined the band, they were hellbent on being the complete opposite of what they were. They didn’t even want a singer with blond hair. The first three days I was in the band we wrote “Hammered” and “Misunderstood” and I loved it. They thought it was killer, completely different than old Mötley. Nikki, Tommy and Mick were like, “We don’t care how many records this sells. This is what we’ve always wanted to do.” We weren’t going to have a big fancy logo on the album. We were just going to have a black album cover with the name “Mötley Crüe” across the front. And the tour was going to have no pyro, no drum solo, we were just going to let people know we could play. Then, the album didn’t sell, Elektra wasn’t behind it, the tour wasn’t doing well, and they realized, “If we want to continue as Mötley Crüe, we need to make some adjustments here.” That’s when the problems started.

SECONDS: Do you like the album you made with them?

CORABI: I think it’s amazing.

SECONDS: What happened on the tour you did with them? The New York City show was canceled —

CORABI: To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you. I never saw anybody from the label, I never met any agents. I believe we were hung out to dry. I remember being in Europe before the tour and Doug Thaler came over; he was the manager of the band then. He goes, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The album entered Billboard at #7. MTV’s into the band. They added ÔHooligan’s Holiday.’ You guys are fine.” We were freaking out, “Man that’s great!” Nikki and Tommy were sitting there saying, “We’ve been out of the limelight, changed singers, and our record entered at #7! Corabi, by this time next year you’re going to have more money than you know what to do with.” Then Doug Thaler said, “Well, I didn’t give you the bad news yet. The bad news is Elektra’s disappointed because they wanted the album to enter at #1 and they’re pulling the plug.” The album was only out for ten days and they pulled the plug.

SECONDS: Did the record company view you as yesterday’s news?

CORABI: No. You’ve got to understand the WEA group is owned by Time Warner and at the time Bob Krasnow … what happened is Mötley Crüe sold forty million records and Bob decided to give them a better contract. But he also gave one to Anita Baker, Natalie Cole and I believe a fifteen-million dollar deal to Anthrax. Before our record came out, all these others he gave big contracts to came and went. Their albums didn’t do well. Mötley Crüe gets their big deal and a month later they fire Vince. Time Warner came to Bob and said, “If this Mötley record doesn’t sell well, you’re done.” We didn’t come in at #1 and he was like, “Whatever, I’m pulling the plug. I’m not even going to bother.” Someone was pulling his strings too.

SECONDS: Did you enjoy your tenure with the Crüe?

CORABI: Absolutely. From a professional level, I think we did an amazing record. There’s a lot of firsts on there for Mötley Crüe. There’s some acoustic stuff, Mötley Crüe got to use a sixty-three piece orchestra on “Misunderstood.” We worked really hard. Those guys cannot say that was a bad record. I got to go to places I’d never been to before. I went to Europe, Japan, met a lot of great people, played in big places. It was a good experience. From a personal point of view, I have a son that’s a diabetic. At the time I was in The Scream I wasn’t making much money. I can’t say I wasn’t taking care of him but I wasn’t taking care of him right. Mötley Crüe helped me to make sure he had insulin and things like that. My kid’s got a nice house to live in and he goes to a decent school. He’s not hurting.

SECONDS: What’s the gist of the lawsuit you’ve brought against Mötley Crüe?

CORABI: It’s my word against theirs, basically. Put it this way: I’m not upset that I was fired. I can totally understand why they got Vince back in the band. I’m not stupid. I’m upset at the way I was fired. I wasn’t told. Whether I win or lose the lawsuit, I know what I was told. I was out with Tommy the night before I was fired. We talked about the tour we were going to do, we talked about the album, we talked about the songs. The next day, I went to rehearsal and they said I was out, that they were bringing Vince back. I can’t say “they,” because the only one that was at the meeting was their manager and Tommy. When I left the band, they promised certain things and they didn’t come through with anything. I believe I was hung out to dry. As much as they want to deny it, I was up at their houses — even a month after I was fired — and helped them finish Generation Swine. Then I had to go out and buy the record myself — I was never sent one. They told me they erased my guitar parts off the record and replaced them with Mick’s but I’ll sit here and argue till I’m blue in the face that I hear my guitar parts on the record. Like I said, it’s my word against their word. I don’t even have any tapes to prove it because at that point they weren’t giving me tapes to take home. Even if they erased my parts and had Mick play them, I still think I deserve a thanks and there was no acknowledgment. It insulted me and that’s the point I decided to … I didn’t want to sue them. Like I said, they promised there was going to be x amount of songs on the record that I contributed to. There was even talk of me being a fifth member and going out on tour with them. The manager’s words to me were, “You’ll make more money being out of the band then you would be if you were in the band.” It didn’t come close to being the way they said it was going to be.

SECONDS: Isn’t the main question how much songwriting you actually did for Generation Swine?

CORABI: Mind you, a bunch of the songs didn’t make the record, but the way the Mötley was set up, it didn’t matter who initiated the song. If you look at the record I did with them, it didn’t matter who initiated the song, the publishing was split equally. I worked on Generation Swine with those guys for a year and a half. There’s fourteen songs that we’ve all contributed to. Whether I wrote them or didn’t write them, we all sat in a circle and put our two cents in. We all recorded them, re-recorded them, wrote lyrics, re-wrote lyrics — we all contributed. If you look at the credits of Generation Swine, it’s basically Tommy and Nikki. I think Mick’s only got two songwriting credits.

SECONDS: And how many do you have?

CORABI: I have two, but publishing is weird. It goes in percentages. The funny thing is, everybody asks me, “Are you mad at the guys?” and I say, “No.” I went and did depositions with their lawyer and their lawyer asked me, “Do you like the guys?” Of course I like the guys, I spent five years with them! I’m not mad at them personally, this is a business thing now. I don’t know if it was them or their manager or their label pulling the strings. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do business and I don’t think it was done as smoothly as it could have been done. It’s funny, Tommy and Nikki do interviews and say, “We’re not doing this reunion for the money.” The fans are going, “Are you kidding? This is the best thing you could have done for the money!” At least Gene Simmons is honest about it.

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