Mötley Crüe

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Mötley Crüe (pronounced as 'mott-lay crew') is an American heavy metal/Glam Metal band whose members include Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, and Vince Neil.

Contents

History

1980s

Mötley Crüe was formed in 1981 , in Los Angeles, after bassist Nikki Sixx left the band London, (a band he and Lizzie Grey started in 1979 when he was fired from Blackie Lawless' band Sister). The band London would also be the first band for the later Guns N' Roses guitarists Izzy Stradlin and Slash and for Cinderella drummer Fred Coury.

Sixx asked London bandmate Greg about musicians interested in joining a new band. Leon recommended the drummer Tommy Lee of Suite 19.

According to Mick Mars, it was he who thought up the band's name. While in his former band, White Horse, one of the band members walked in and called the group "a motley looking crew." Mars copied the name down on paper, with the original spelling Mottley Krue. The name was later applied to the band he was to join in 1981 with Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee.

They had met guitarist Mick Mars through a classified ad in an L.A. music newspaper reading "Loud, rude, aggressive guitarist avaliable." Nikki's first reaction was, "I can't believe it! Here's another one like us!" Mars's equipment was quickly set up and, shortly after he was played the opening riff to "Stick to Your Guns," Mars proceeded to, according to Tommy Lee, "play the shit out of his guitar." After getting drunk and jamming for an hour, Mars fired the band's former guitarist, a musician known only as Robin (a pansy according to Tommy).

Tommy Lee and Vince Neil originally knew each other in high school. They had performed in different bands in the garage-band circuit. Mars suggested Mötley Crüe hire Neil after seeing him perform with the band Rock Candi.

Neil at first rebuffed the band when they asked him to audition. Then, as fate would have it, Rock Candi dissolved; Neil broke down and agreed to audition for Mötley Crüe after Tommy called him once more.

Now the four original members were together. They played in Los Angeles and Hollywood for a while, catching fire wherever they went. They soon met their first manager, Allan Coffman, who was a Vietnam veteran. The band's first release was the single "Stick to Your Guns / Toast of the Town," which was released on their own label, Leathür Records. In November, 1981, their debut album Too Fast for Love was self-produced and released on Leathür, selling 20,000 copies. Their success in the Los Angeles club scene earned them a recording contract with Elektra Records in early 1982. The debut album was then remastered by producer Roy Thomas Baker and re-released on August 20, 1982.

In 1982, the band changed management, from Allan Coffman to Doug Thaler and Doc McGhee. McGhee is best known for managing KISS, starting with their reunion tour in 1996.

After playing the US Festival, the band took the United States by storm, known as much for their hedonistic lifestyle and seemingly endless abuse of alcohol and drugs as for their music. Their mixture of metal and glam rock stylings produced several massive-selling albums during the 1980s, including Shout at the Devil (1983), Theatre of Pain (1985), and Girls, Girls, Girls (1987).

The band has also had their share of scrapes with the law and life, first with Vince Neil's auto accident in 1984 (which had a fatality: Razzle Dingley, drummer of Hanoi Rocks); then in 1987, when Nikki Sixx clinically died and came back to life after a heroin overdose. The band's decadent lifestyle almost shattered the band, until Doug Thaler and Doc McGhee pulled an intervention. Shortly after, all the band members underwent rehabilitation, except for Mars, who cleaned up on his own.

After finding sobriety, Mötley Crüe in 1989 reached its peak popularity, with the release of their fifth album, Dr. Feelgood, on September 23, 1989. On October 14 of that year, it became their only No. 1 album and stayed on the charts for 109 weeks after its release.

Doc McGhee was fired in 1989 after breaking several promises to the band in relation to the Moscow Music Peace Festival.

1990s

Changing trends in music and the temporary departure of Neil from the band in February 1992 caused a decline in Mötley Crüe's commercial success, although a self-titled 1994 release with new frontman John Corabi (formerly of Angora and The Scream) made the top ten. Doug Thaler would manage the band alone until 1994, after the band did a mass-firing when their album, Mötley Crüe, failed to meet commercial expectations.

The band reunited in 1997, after their current manager, Allen Kovac, and Vince Neil's manager, Bert Stein, set up a meeting between Neil, Lee, and Sixx. Agreeing to "leave their egos at the door," the band recorded Generation Swine. Although it debuted at #4, and despite the band's performing at the American Music Awards, the album was a commercial failure, due in part to their label Elektra Records' lack of support. The band soon left Elektra and created their own label, Mötley Records.

In the 1990s, Mötley Crüe was perhaps better known for the women married by three of its members. Both Lee and Sixx married former Playboy Playmates and stars on the TV show Baywatch, Lee to Pamela Anderson and Sixx to Donna D'Errico. Not to be outdone, Neil married former Playboy centerfold Heidi Mark. However, only Sixx's marriage has endured the test of time.

More tragedy would hit the band in the 1990s. In 1994, Neil suffered his perhaps most crushing blow: losing his daughter Skylar Neil to cancer. Neil (along with former wife, stripper and mud wrestler Sharise Ruddell) would later sue the company Rocketdyne for dumping cancer-causing chemicals near his former Simi Valley home. Lee, on the other hand, would soon after go to prison for six months, after being accused of abusing his then-wife Pamela Anderson.

In 1998, Mötley Crüe's contractual ties with Elektra Records had expired, putting the band in total control of their future, including the ownership of the masters of all of their albums. In announcing the end of its relationship with Elektra Records, the band becomes one of the few groups in history to own and control its publishing and catalogue of recorded masters. In 1999, the band re-released all their albums, dubbed as Crücial Crüe. The limited-edition digital re-masters included demos and previously unreleased tracks.

In 1999, Lee left to pursue a solo career (Due to increasing bad tension between himself and frontman Vince Neil (read Tommy Lee's autobiography Tommyland for more details); he was replaced by Randy Castillo, drummer on several Ozzy Osbourne albums. Castillo died of cancer on March 26, 2002. No replacement had been named, sending the band to hiatus following a 2001 tour in support of their most recent studio release, New Tattoo. New Tattoo charted at #41 and sold less than 150,000 copies. Drummer Samantha Maloney filled in on drums during the tour for this album. Maloney is perhaps best known for her work with Courtney Love. She replaced original Hole drummer Patty Schemel in 1998; then, she later toured with Love in 2004 in support of the latter's solo album America's Sweetheart.

2000s

Within the following six years, Sixx played in the bands 58 and Brides of Destruction, Lee in Methods of Mayhem and as a solo artist, and Neil touring on an annual basis as a solo artist, singing mostly Mötley Crüe songs. Mars, who suffers from a degenerative back condition called ankylosing spondylitis, went into seclusion in 2001.

A 2001 autobiography entitled The Dirt told their full story. The book made the top ten on the New York Times best-seller list. It also introduced the band to a whole new generation of fans. The Dirt has become a sacred text and “bible” for rockers all over the world and will soon become a major motion picture through MTV and Paramount Films. A later book, Tommyland (which was written by Tommy Lee) was released in 2004.

A promoter in England, Mags Revell, started the ball rolling for Mötley Crüe's reunion, when he started a promotion that basically revealed how fans wanted the band to reunite. After meeting with management several times, in September 2004, Sixx announced that he and Neil had returned to the studio and had begun recording new material. In December 2004, the four original members announced a reunion tour which began February 14, 2005, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The band's latest compilation album, Red, White & Crüe, was released in February 2005. It features the band members' favorite original songs plus three new tracks, "If I Die Tomorrow," "Sick Love Song," and a cover of The Rolling Stones' classic "Street Fighting Man." Red, White & Crüe charted at #6, and has since gone platinum. The tour would become one of the biggest in 2005, taking many people in the media by surprise. The band had to add a second leg of sixty additional dates to meet fan demand. This ongoing tour included performances at the KROQ Weenie Roast and Live 8. A live DVD called Carnival of Sins, filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan is due to be released on October 25th 2005. Nikki Sixx's long-awaited book The Heroin Diaries is also set to be released in 2005.

Members

Former Members

Discography

Studio Albums

Compilations

Live

Other

MÖTLEY CRÜE

Singles

  • 1981 "Stick to Your Guns / Toast of the Town"
  • 1981 "Live Wire"
  • 1983 "Too Young to Fall in Love"
  • 1983 "Looks That Kill"
  • 1985 "Smokin' in the Boys' Room"
  • 1985 "Home Sweet Home"
  • 1987 "Girls, Girls, Girls"
  • 1987 "Wild Side"
  • 1989 "You're All I Need"
  • 1989 "Dr. Feelgood"
  • 1989 "Kickstart My Heart"
  • 1990 "Without You"
  • 1990 "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)"
  • 1990 "Same Ol' Situation"
  • 1991 "Primal Scream"
  • 1991 "Anarchy in the UK"
  • 1992 "Home Sweet Home ('91 remix)"
  • 1994 "Hooligan's Holiday"
  • 1994 "Misunderstood"
  • 1994 "Smoke the Sky"
  • 1997 "Afraid"
  • 2001 "Hell on High Heels"
  • 2005 "If I Die Tomorrow"
  • 2005 "Sick Love Song"
Year Title Chart Positions Album
US Mainstream Rock
2005 "Home Sweet Home" (feat. Chester Bennington) #40  ??

See also

External Links

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