Motley Crue was one of the most recognized heavy metal bands of the '80s, and they have sold over 100 million albums worldwide. They burst onto the heavy metal scene with their first two albums "Too Fast for Love" and "Shout at The Devil" before becoming one of the first bands to hop on the glam metal route that defined the '80s.
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00:00Has there ever been a more dangerous band than Motley Crue?
00:04Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, these glam rock trailblazers redefined what it meant
00:09to be a rock star in a way that's still unrivaled.
00:11Here is the untold truth of Motley Crue.
00:14You wouldn't expect members of one of the filthiest, wildest groups in the history of
00:18rock and roll to be particularly concerned with their public image, at least not beyond
00:22making sure that all their makeup and teased hair were picture perfect.
00:26But Motley Crue are reportedly highly protective of their legacy, and what a legacy it is.
00:30Um, you said that the more records we sell, the more drugs we get, and the drugs are fantastic
00:37at the time.
00:40According to Blabbermouth, band members are extremely selective when it comes to merchandising,
00:45and they're unwilling to simply emblazon Motley Crue on every t-shirt, coffee cup, iron-on,
00:49and jacket that comes their way.
00:52Bassist and chief songwriter Nicky Sixx can be believed, the band doesn't want to cheapen
00:56their legacy by selling out.
00:58He said that he and his fellow bandmates don't want Motley Crue to become a group that, quote,
01:02were cool once.
01:03Here's a perfect example.
01:05According to Sixx, the band thought that the central concept behind Rock of Ages was basically
01:09Mamma Mia with electric guitars, so they wanted absolutely nothing to do with that project
01:14whatsoever, neither the Broadway production nor the 2012 movie.
01:18Judging by the reviews that film received, it's safe to say that was a wise decision.
01:24Although the core members of Motley Crue are often perceived as a loyal, tight-knit group
01:28of men, there have definitely been a few shake-ups in the lineup over the years.
01:32You'd be forgiven if you didn't know the name John Corabi, but he was in Motley Crue once.
01:36In fact, he was even the lead vocalist of the group for a spell.
01:40As Louder reports, Corabi replaced Vince Neil as the frontman on the band's self-titled
01:441994 album.
01:46As Ultimate Classic Rock notes, he was promptly booted from the band when his vocals for the
01:501997 album Generation Swine didn't live up to expectations.
01:55Corabi was reduced to a footnote when Vince Neil ultimately returned to the fold in 1997.
02:00As he told Rock by Wild in 2012,
02:03"...I was in Motley, and I never knew that they were gonna bring Vince back, you know,
02:07so things have a way of just, life just has a way of working itself out."
02:12In fact, Neil is reportedly on friendly terms with Corabi, and guitarist Mick Mars has even
02:17collaborated with him on some side project stuff.
02:20Meanwhile, Nicky, 6, seems to have less-than-fawn memories of Corabi, and has even described
02:24him as
02:25"...the biggest piece of s**t to roam the Earth."
02:29Every gunslinger knows that one day they'll cross paths with someone who draws faster
02:33and shoots straighter.
02:34As Ultimate Classic Rock reports, Motley Crue met its match in 1984 when the band toured
02:39with Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness himself.
02:42Osbourne was spiraling out of control following the death of his guitarist and friend Randy
02:46Rhodes in 1982.
02:48He mostly toured and made albums because of sheer inertia.
02:52His wife Sharon feared that things would get even worse if he stopped.
02:55This was the deranged man that Motley Crue ended up going on tour with, and the war stories
03:00from that time are beyond debauched.
03:02The Oz-man soon showed the LA kids that they had a whole lot to learn when it came to the
03:06art of self-destructing.
03:08"...we'd always have these crazy parties backstage.
03:11He would come onto our bus and say, I'm riding with you guys to the next city!"
03:15In the 2001 Motley Crue tell-all The Dirt, Nicky Sixx recalled the day Osbourne allegedly
03:21ran out of cocaine, so Sixx jokingly suggested that he snort a line of ants off the sidewalk
03:26instead.
03:27He put the straw to his nose and sent the entire line of ants tickling up his nose with
03:31a single monstrous snort.
03:33"...all these snorting ants one day, apparently drunk, snorting ants on his thing, I mean,
03:38crazy stuff."
03:39"...snorting ants f----- licking up each other's b----, and I'm like, dude, let's just go to
03:43the f----- room, let's just chill out, come on."
03:46Are you annoyed by the constant comebacks and semi-annual final tours of old bands that
03:50never seem to know when to quit?
03:52Apparently, Motley Crue feels your pain, so they've taken steps to ensure that they don't
03:56become eternally touring dinosaurs.
03:59As Rolling Stone reports, band members are attempting to preserve their legacy through
04:03a quote, "...cessation of touring agreement."
04:05The legally binding contract reportedly went into effect after their aptly named final
04:10tour at the end of 2015.
04:12Here's how Tommy Lee described their reasoning to Fuse News.
04:15"...how can we confirm this in writing, like, that this is no joke?"
04:19"...and like, we had, like, went to corporate lawyers."
04:22Sounds pretty serious, but that's not to say there aren't a few loopholes.
04:27After all, this is Motley Crue we're talking about.
04:29Nothing in the contract prevents them from still being a band, and the agreement says
04:33precious little about individual performances.
04:36As Global News reports, the band has already, quote, "...risen from the dead to record new
04:40material for the Netflix biopic The Dirt."
04:42Really, it's anyone's guess whether we'll eventually see a Motley Crue tour called,
04:47"...just 151 off concerts in a row and not a tour, honestly."
04:52Some bands stay together for decades in order to develop and evolve as a group, but some
04:56members of Motley Crue have floated in and out of the project, or at least they're more
05:00than happy to try their hand at various side projects.
05:03According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Vince Neil was the first band member to stray.
05:07He temporarily left the band in 1992 and released a solo album the next year.
05:11As he told MTV Rockline,
05:13"...there's still a lot of things that I haven't accomplished in my life that I still want
05:17to do, and you have to work to achieve any of those goals."
05:23While Neil did his best to keep the party spirit high as Motley Crue struggled with
05:26murky grunge and misplaced aspirations of growing up, he ultimately realized he was
05:30far more effective at his day job.
05:33According to Loaded Radio, Tommy Lee isn't terribly fond of his own solo stuff, nor his
05:37work with Methods of Mayhem.
05:39In fact, he even says solo albums are a waste of time.
05:42Meanwhile, Nicky Sixx has his 6AM supergroup, which may or may not be on hiatus, according
05:48to Loudwire.
05:49Even the ever-elusive Mick Mars has dabbled in solo projects.
05:53Although he hasn't released an album yet, he's said he has some interesting things coming
05:56down the pipeline.
05:58Because don't we all?
06:00You wouldn't expect the 5'6 Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich to start picking a fight with
06:04the towering rhythm section of Motley Crue.
06:07And to be fair, Rolling Stone makes it clear that picking a fight with the Crew Boys wasn't
06:11one of Ulrich's better ideas.
06:13In 1982, Motley Crue was busy hatching the glam rock revolution on the Sunset Strip.
06:18Meanwhile, Metallica was still playing thrash metal in venues scattered throughout Los Angeles.
06:23This reportedly led to some bad blood between the two groups, and the situation allegedly
06:28came to a head one night when Ulrich was standing outside the Troubadour and saw Nicky Sixx and
06:33Tommy Lee on the street.
06:34As Ulrich tells it, his immediate reaction was to shout,
06:37"[Bleep!]
06:38Motley Crue!"
06:39Well, apparently that turned out to be something of a mistake on Ulrich's part, even if his
06:43heart was in the right place.
06:45"...Nicky Sixx started chasing after me, and the one thing I could do, because, you know,
06:495'6 of me, I could, like, run faster than he could in his 16-inch platform boots."
06:55The members of Motley Crue have spent a lot of time together over the years.
06:58As such, they reportedly weren't too keen to spend the last stages of their touring
07:02life hunched together in the back of a minivan.
07:04According to Blabbermouth, the band traveled together in name only, as each member had
07:08his own separate tour bus.
07:10So what was the reasoning behind this arrangement?
07:12Does it mean they don't like to hang out with each other anymore?
07:15Depends on who you ask.
07:16Mick Mars has accused Vince Neil of distancing himself from the rest of the group.
07:20Meanwhile, Neil says everyone's still great friends, and claims they made that bus arrangement
07:25simply because they could afford to travel in luxury.
07:28Since several band members have their families on the road with them, it's not like there's
07:31too much room for the kind of rock band nastiness they were once known for.
07:35According to Louder, Nicky Sixx claims that the other members of Motley Crue are, quote,
07:39"...not enemies, but not friends."
07:42Would you ever take business advice from Motley Crue?
07:45According to Fast Company, there are way worse people to analyze when it comes to vocational
07:49success.
07:50The band might look like a messy affair, but their debauched antics hide a surprisingly
07:54savvy business plan.
07:56Nicky Sixx says he understands why an outsider might have a tough time understanding why
08:00the band still exists anymore.
08:01However, he points out that Motley Crue have been operating like a well-oiled machine for
08:05years.
08:07That's thanks to their manager, Alan Kovach, who joined the crew back in 1994 and helped
08:12orchestrate a formal, structured business attitude in the group.
08:15That doesn't mean they can't mess around.
08:17It just means there's a core foundation in the business plan that guarantees all the
08:20important decisions are made.
08:22You know the D.I.R.T., that sordid 2001 tell-all that was adapted into a Netflix biopic in
08:272019?
08:28Well, that whole project is part of their band's marketing strategy.
08:32By collaborating with the book's author, the band was able to control the narrative, and
08:35they even dropped a Greatest Hits album near the publication date to maximize profits.
08:41Motley Crue isn't as much of a boys' club as you might think.
08:43In fact, they even used to have a female drummer.
08:46According to NRK, the band's new tattoo tour in 2000 was plagued with spinal-tap levels
08:52of drummer trouble.
08:53Tommy Lee wasn't in the band at the time, and his replacement Randy Castillo became
08:57ill and was unable to take the stresses of touring.
09:00In their search for a replacement, the boys in the band turned their inquiring eye to
09:03Samantha Maloney, the former drummer for Hole.
09:06In a fix, Nikki Sixx reportedly contacted Maloney, who immediately jumped on the plane
09:11and proceeded to play the rest of the tour.
09:13During the band's 2000 appearance on Live!
09:15With Regis, Regis Philbin asked Maloney the question weighing on everyone's mind.
09:20My gosh, what's it like to be with these guys?
09:22It's insane.
09:23Yeah?
09:24More insane than being with Courtney Love?
09:27It's a different insanity.
09:30The members of Motley Crue were extremely courteous with Maloney, and the band took
09:33her in as one of their own.
09:35Vince Neil was even visibly proud of her during concerts.
09:38However, she was certainly well aware of the band's checkered history.
09:41In fact, writer Neil Strauss was following the band around and interviewing them for
09:45the dirt, so she got to hear quite a few sordid stories straight from the horse's mouth.
09:50In 2009, she admitted that she was avoiding reading the book because she didn't want it
09:54to affect the way she thought of the crew guys.
09:57If you're looking for non-stop debauchery, look no further than Motley Crue's early years.
10:02The music is great.
10:03Motley Crue, bro!
10:04Look at their dress.
10:05They're cute.
10:06They're awesome.
10:07Totally babes.
10:09Nikki Sixx confessed to doing something quite unseemly to a police car in those heady days.
10:14I didn't smash the pop car window, I peed in the pop car window.
10:19And on one occasion, the band reportedly invited everyone in the audience to party at their
10:23place after a gig.
10:24The apartment they lived in at the time wasn't any great shakes, either, to put it lightly.
10:30According to The Dirt, members shared an apartment near the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go, a venue
10:34they played often.
10:35There was a mountain of beer cans outside.
10:38There was one plant in the corner, it was dead.
10:40It was pretty destroyed.
10:41The apartment was gone.
10:43According to Ultimate Guitar, those early parties were beyond nuts.
10:47People got utterly wasted, and there were orgies.
10:50Lots of them.
10:51Wall-to-wall girls.
10:52Blonde.
10:53Big tits.
10:54Little clothing.
10:55They all wanted Nikki Sixx.
10:57They weren't wearing their own house naked in there.
10:59I hated it.
11:01According to Rolling Stone, people would pour inside the crew place to party, and many of
11:05those visitors were future rock stars who would later find success in bands like Rat
11:09and Wasp.
11:10So, just how raunchy were these parties?
11:13We would have never survived with this, with social media.
11:16We would have tweeted things.
11:17None of us are throwing eggs at houses.
11:19Take that!