ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MARCH 25, 1999
By Steve Newton
I still remember the first interview I did with Mötley Crüe, back in March of 1984. I called Nikki Sixx at a Toronto hotel, and our introductory chitchat led to talk of the frosty, subzero weather in T.O. But then Sixx said something astonishingly crude that has, unfortunately, stuck with me ever since.
“It’s gonna get hot in here, though,” he enthused. “There’s some scum coming over to fuck me and Vince in about five minutes.”
I couldn’t believe anyone—not even an oversexed glam-metal bassist aiming to shock—would talk like that. But as the interview progressed, Sixx went on to explain his band’s creative bent—“We think with our dicks, basically”—and it became clear where his head was firmly located.
A year or so after that conference from the gutter, the Crüe headlined the Pacific Coliseum on its Theatre of Pain tour and I felt obliged to take my rebellious, metal-crazed teenage nephew, who screamed himself hoarse whenever singer Vince Neil hollered “fuck”, which was about once every minute.
Although I had second thoughts about it, I led my starry-eyed charge backstage after the gig, and there, amid a barrage of platinum-blond bimbos, Sixx signed an autograph for the impressionable kid.
His inspiring message? “Do drugs—Nikki Sixx.” Thanks again, Mr. Sixx, if, indeed, that is your real name.
Fifteen years later, Mötley’s on the road again, having reunited with Neil, who left for a while in the early ’90s to pursue a solo career that went nowhere. Mötley Crüe also failed without him; not even hotshot producer Bob Rock’s handiwork on the 1994 Mötley Crüe album could help sell the nonoriginal lineup.
This time around, the Crüe member on the phone is guitarist Mick Mars, who doesn’t seem as eager as Sixx to burden me with news of impending groupie trysts. Besides, if I wanted to see the boys in action, I’d seek out the porn videos available on the Net, featuring Neil and drummer Tommy Lee making the sign of the two-humped whale with their respective porn-star ex-girlfriend and TV-star ex-wife.
I’m not even in any rush to talk about Mötley Crüe, whose bacchanal crotch-rock—apart from that on the punk-edged debut, Too Fast for Love—has never really thrilled me. I’m more interested in Mars’s contribution to the new Alice Cooper tribute CD, Humanary Stew, on which he and Neil join the likes of bass god Billy Sheehan and drum great Simon Phillips for a wicked version of “Cold Ethyl”, my fave tune from Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare album of ’75.
Turns out Mars went into the studio with tribute producer–rhythm guitarist Bob Kulick and cut the lead-guitar track for “Cold Ethyl” blind, without even knowing the song.
“I just plugged my guitar in and started playing,” boasts Mars from a San Jose hotel, “and [Kulick] was just like amazed at the stuff that I was doin’.”
Just as ’70s-rock nostalgia brought on the recent tribute to Cooper—who will also have a four-disc retrospective of his career released on Rhino Records next month—the ’80s-rock revival (yechh!) is what’s gotten Mötley back in the spotlight.
Although the band has sold more than 35 million units in its 17-year career, it has gone from playing packed arenas to mostly small theatres. For some reason, however, it is booked to play GM Place when it makes a local stop this Sunday (March 28).
“With the departure [of Neil] and all that, and being out of the limelight for a while, it’s a rebuilding process,” explains Mars, “so we wanted to play the smaller places. I guess in Vancouver that the tickets blew out so quickly that we upgraded. That’s what I was told.” (When I explain to Mars that there was never any “blowing out” of ticket sales in Vancouver, or upgrading to a larger venue, he sounds surprised, but not overly concerned. “Is that right? Aha! So I was lied to. Nice!”)
What should help make the show interesting to local hard-rock fans is the appearance by Vancouver’s Noise Therapy, which has been touring with the Crüe for about six weeks. The fast-rising quartet scored some umlauts of its own with the new Mytön Lowrider CD, produced by Mike Plotnikoff at Bruce Fairbairn’s Armoury Studios in Kits.
And then there’s the Loving Dead, who beat out four other local bands in the finals of the Kick Start Your Career competition, earning the right to warm up the crowd as the opening act. As well as the immediate in-concert exposure, there are some other potential perks floating around for the Loving Dead.
“We have our own label now,” explains Mars, “so the Kick Start thing gives us an opportunity to hear local talent and a chance for us to go, ‘Wow, these guys are hot; let’s sign ’em.’ ”
Assuming that they don’t get blown off it by the younger, hungrier locals, when the headliners finally take the stage they’ll likely focus on tunes from their top-selling release, Dr. Feelgood, which was recorded here in ’89 at Little Mountain Sound, with Rock at the controls. Rock also helmed two cuts for the band’s current greatest-hits package, “Bitter Pill” and “Enslaved”.
So what makes Mötley Crüe keep coming back to Rock?
“I don’t really like to put it this way,” muses Mars, “but he has a way of making a song more radio-friendly, I guess. And he has a way of pulling out the best performances from each one of us. So when you look back and you hear ‘Dr. Feelgood’ and some of those things, you go, ‘Oh, yeah, Bob Rock makes this band sound fucking great!’ ”
Assistance from proven knob-twiddlers like Rock helped vault Mötley Crüe into the ranks of the platinum headbangers, but you have to wonder: would it ever have gotten there in the first place without all the ’80s accoutrements of makeup, hair, and leather? That query draws a heavy sigh from the 48-year-old Mars, whose spandex-wearing days are long gone.
“Umm…I think so,” he ponders. “That was just more of a theatrical thing thrown on top of what we’re about, musicwise. It’s like, ‘Oh, did you see that weird fuckin’ thing that Nikki was wearin’?’ as opposed to standin’ up there in torn Levis and a T-shirt. That’s where I’m at today, though. Ha!”
And what about Sixx’s old “We think with our dicks” idea? Does the band still think that way?
“Maybe he does,” replies Mars. “I don’t. My compassion, everything that I am about, goes into my music. I’ve always been the guy to say, ‘Skip the shit; this is what counts.’ So the music is number one for me.”
To hear the full audio of my 1999 interview with Mick Mars–and my 1985 interview with him as well–subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with the legends of rock since 1982.