Has there ever been a more dangerous band than Motley Crue?
Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, these glam rock trailblazers redefined what it meant
to be a rock star in a way that's still unrivaled.
Here is the untold truth of Motley Crue.
You wouldn't expect members of one of the filthiest, wildest groups in the history of
rock and roll to be particularly concerned with their public image… at least, not beyond
making sure that all their makeup and teased hair were picture-perfect.
But Motley Crue are reportedly highly protective of their legacy… and what a legacy it is.
"You've said that 'the more records we sell, the more drugs we get…'"
According to Blabbermouth, band members are extremely selective when it comes to merchandising,
and they're unwilling to simply emblazon "Motley Crue" on every T-shirt, coffeecup, iron-on,
and jacket that comes their way.
If bassist and chief songwriter Nikki Sixx can be believed, the band doesn't want to
cheapen their legacy by selling out.
He says that he and his fellow bandmates don't want Motley Crue to become a group that, quote,
"were cool once."
Here's a perfect example: According to Sixx, the band thought that the central concept
behind Rock of Ages was basically Mamma Mia! with electric guitars, so they wanted absolutely
nothing to do with that project whatsoever - neither the Broadway production nor the
2012 movie.
Judging by the reviews that film received, it's safe to say that was a wise decision.
Although the core members of Motley Crue are often perceived as a loyal, tight-knit group
of men, there have definitely been a few shake-ups in the lineup over the years.
You'd be forgiven if you didn't know the name John Corabi, but he was in Motley Crue once
- in fact, he was even the lead vocalist of the group for a spell.
As Louder reports, Corabi replaced Vince Neil as the frontman on the band's self-titled
1994 album.
As Ultimate Classic Rock notes, he was promptly booted from the band when his vocals for the
1997 album Generation Swine didn't live up to expectations.
Corabi was reduced to a footnote when Vince Neil ultimately returned to the fold in 1997.
As he told Rock by Wild in 2012:
"I was in Motley and I never knew they were going to bring Vince back.
So things have a way…
life has a way of just sort of working itself out."
In fact, Neil is reportedly on friendly terms with Corabi, and guitarist Mick Mars has even
collaborated with him on some side-project stuff.
Meanwhile, Nikki Sixx seems to have less than fond memories of Corabi and has even described
him as
"...the biggest piece of s--- to roam the Earth."
Every gunslinger knows that one day they'll cross paths with someone who draws faster
and shoots straighter.
As Ultimate Classic Rock reports, Motley Crue met its match in 1984 when the band toured
with Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness himself.
Osbourne was spiralling out of control following the death of his guitarist and friend Randy
Rhoads in 1982.
He mostly toured and made albums because of sheer inertia - his wife Sharon feared that
things would get even worse if he stopped.
This was the deranged man that Motley Crue ended up going on tour with, and the war stories
from that time are beyond debauched: The Ozzman soon showed the L.A. kids that they had a
whole lot to learn when it came to the art of self-destructing.
"We'd always have these crazy parties backstage.
He'd come onto the bus and say…
‘I'm riding with you guys onto the next city!’”
In the 2001 Motley Crue tell-all The Dirt, Nikki Sixx recalled the day Osbourne allegedly
ran out of cocaine, so Sixx jokingly suggested that he snort a line of ants off the sidewalk
instead.
"He put the straw to his nose and... sent the entire line of ants tickling up his nose
with a single, monstrous snort.”
"I was snorting ants, I was probably drunk and snorting ants, crazy stuff…"
"...snorting ants, f---ing licking up each other's p---, and I'm like, 'Dude, let's just
go to the f---ing room, and let's chill out, c'mon..."
Are you annoyed by the constant comebacks and semi-annual "final tours" of old bands
that never seem to know when to quit?
Apparently Motley Crue feels your pain… so they've taken steps to ensure they don't
become eternally touring dinosaurs.
As Rolling Stone reports, band members are attempting to preserve their legacy through
a, quote, "cessation of touring agreement."
The legally binding contract reportedly went into effect after their aptly named " Final
Tour" at the end of 2015.
Here's how Tommy Lee described their reasoning to Fuse News:
"How can we confirm this in writing that this is, like, it's no joke!"
"Yeah, like, we went to CORPORATE lawyers."
Sounds pretty serious.
But that's not to say there aren't a few loopholes… after all, this is Motley Crue we're talking
about.
Nothing in the contract prevents them from still being a band, and the agreement says
precious little about individual performances.
As Global News reports, the band has already, quote, "risen from the dead" to record new
material for the Netflix biopic The Dirt.
Really, it's anyone's guess whether we'll eventually see a Motley Crue tour called "Just
150 One-Off Concerts In A Row And Not A Tour, Honestly."
Some bands stay together for decades in order to develop and evolve as a group.
But some members of Motley Crue have floated in and out of the project, or at least they're
more than happy to try their hand at various side projects.
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Vince Neil was the first band member to stray: He
temporarily left the band in 1992 and released a solo album the next year.
As he told MTV Rockline:
"There's still a lot of things that I haven't accomplished in my life that I still want
to do, and you have to work to achieve any of those goals."
While Neil did his best to keep the party spirit high as Motley Crue struggled with
murky grunge and misplaced aspirations of growing up, he ultimately realized he was
far more effective at his day job.
According to Loaded Radio, Tommy Lee isn't terribly fond of his own solo stuff nor his
work with Methods of Mayhem.
In fact, he even says solo albums are a waste of time.
Meanwhile, Nikki Sixx has his Sixx:A.M supergroup, which may or may not be on hiatus, according
to Loudwire.
Even the ever-elusive Mick Mars has dabbled in solo projects.
Although he hasn't released an album yet, he's said he has some interesting things coming
down the pipeline, because don't we all?
You wouldn't expect the 5'6" Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich to start picking a fight with
the towering rhythm section of Motley Crue.
And to be fair, Rolling Stone makes it clear that picking a fight with the Crue boys wasn't
one of Ulrich's better ideas.
In 1982, Motley Crue was busy hatching the glam rock revolution on the Sunset Strip,
while Metallica was still playing thrash-metal in venues scattered throughout Los Angeles.
This reportedly led to some bad blood between the two groups, and the situation allegedly
came to a head one night when Ulrich was standing outside The Troubadour and saw Nikki Sixx
and Tommy Lee on the street.
As Ulrich tells it, his immediate reaction was to shout:
"F--- Motley Crue!"
Well… apparently that turned out to be something of a mistake on Ulrich's part, even if his
heart was in the right place.
"Nikki Sixx started chasing after me, and the one thing I could do, y'know, all five-foot-six
of me, I could run faster than he could in his sixteen-inch platform boots."
The members of Motley Crue have spent a lot of time together over the years.
As such, they reportedly weren't too keen to spend the last stages of their touring
life hunched together in the back of a minivan.
According to Blabbermouth, the band traveled together in name only, as each member had
his own separate tour bus.
So what was the reasoning behind this arrangement?
Does it mean they don't like to hang out with each other anymore?
Depends on who you ask.
Mick Mars has accused Vince Neil of distancing himself from the rest of the group.
Meanwhile, Neil says everyone's still great friends, and claims they made that bus arrangement
simply because they could afford to travel in luxury.
Since several band members have their families on the road with them, it's not like there's
too much room for the kind of rock band nastiness they were once known for.
According to Louder, Nikki Sixx claims that the other members of Motley Crue are, quote,
"not enemies but not friends."
Would you ever take business advice from Motley Crue?
According to Fast Company, there are way worse people to analyze when it comes to vocational
success.
The band might look like a messy affair, but their debauched antics hide a surprisingly
savvy business plan.
Nikki Sixx says he understands why an outsider might have a tough time understanding why
the band still exists anymore.
However, he points out that Motley Crue have been operating like a well-oiled machine for
years.
That's thanks to their manager Allen Kovac, who joined the Crue back in 1994 and helped
orchestrate a formal, structured business attitude in the group.
That doesn't mean they can't mess around.
It just means there's a core foundation in the business plan that guarantees all the
important decisions are made.
You know The Dirt, that sordid 2001 tell-all that was adapted into a Netflix biopic in
2019?
Well, that whole project is part of their band's marketing strategy.
By collaborating with the book's author, the band was able to control the narrative, and
they even dropped a Greatest Hits album near the publication date to maximize profits.
Motley Crue isn't as much of a boys' club as you might think.
In fact, they even used to have a female drummer.
According to NRK, the band's "New Tattoo" tour in 2000 was plagued with Spinal Tap levels
of drummer trouble.
Tommy Lee wasn't in the band at the time, and his replacement Randy Castillo became
ill and was unable to take the stresses of touring.
In their search for a replacement, the boys in the band turned their inquiring eye to
Samantha Maloney, the former drummer for Hole.
In a fix, Nikki Sixx reportedly contacted Maloney, who immediately jumped on the plane
and proceeded to play the rest of the tour.
During the band's 2000 appearance on Live with Regis, Regis Philbin asked Maloney the
question weighing on everyone's mind:
"My gosh, what's it like to be with these guys?"
"It's insane."
"More insane than being with Courtney Love?"
"Uh, it's a different insanity."
The members of Motley Crue were extremely courteous with Maloney, and the band took
her in as one of their own.
Vince Neil was even visibly proud of her during concerts.
However, she was certainly well-aware of the band's checkered history.
In fact, writer Neil Strauss was following the band around and interviewing them for
The Dirt, so she got to hear quite a few sordid stories straight from the horse's mouth.
In 2009, she admitted that she was avoiding reading the book because she didn't want it
to affect the way she thought of the Crue guys.
If you're looking for nonstop debauchery, look no further than Motley Crue's early years.
"The music is great!"
"They rock!"
"They'll kick your ass!"
"They're cute!"
"They're awesome, you know?"
"Totally babes."
Nikki Sixx confessed to doing something quite unseemly to a police car in those heady days.
"I didn't smash the cop car window.
I peed in the cop car window."
And on one occasion,the band reportedly invited everyone in the audience to party at their
place after a gig.
The apartment they lived in at the time wasn't any great shakes, either - to put it lightly.
According to The Dirt, members shared an apartment near the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go, a venue
they played often.
"There was a mountain of beer cans outside."
"There was one plant in the corner; it was dead.
It was pretty destroyed."
"The apartment was a dump."
According to Ultimate Guitar, those early parties were beyond nuts.
People got utterly wasted.
And there were orgies… lots of them.
"Wall to wall girls."
"Blonde, big t---, little clothing, they all wanted Nikki Sixx."
"They were all half-naked in there.
I hated it."
According to Rolling Stone, people would pour inside the Crue place to party, and many of
those visitors were future rock stars who would later find success in bands like Ratt
and W.A.S.P.
So just how raunchy were these parties?
"We would have never survived with this, with social media… we would have tweeted things.
None of us are throwing eggs at houses."
"Take that!"
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