At first, it was 1981 and bassist Nikki Sixx left London, the glam steel band he’d shaped in Hollywood three years earlier, to begin a brand new mission with drummer Tommy Lee. Then, they pulled in guitarist Mick Mars, who responded to the duo’s categorized advert for a “loud, impolite, and aggressive guitar participant,” and ultimately persuaded singer Vince Neil, a former classmate of Lee’s, to go away his band Rock Sweet for Mötley Crüe.
From its begin with 1981 debut “Too Quick for Love,” Mötley Crüe lived as much as its mismatched epithet, from its diabolical breakout “Shout on the Satan” in 1983 to the late ‘80s with its most commercially profitable launch, “Dr. Feelgood.”
Addictions, near-death experiences, hiatuses, departures and reunions — Mötley Crüe survived all of them. Every step on its musical journey is commemorated on “From the Starting,” an album that features the band’s first single “Dwell Wire” by means of its most up-to-date observe, “Canines of Warfare,” launched 43 years later. The band additionally revived a Mötley Crüe basic with a newly recorded model of its “Theatre of Ache” ballad “Residence Candy Residence,” that includes Dolly Parton, which reentered the charts in 2025 at No. 1, 40 years after the unique recording’s launch.
“Mötley Crüe and Dolly Parton collectively is the last word clickbait,” says Sixx, with amusing. He beforehand performed bass on the nation legend’s 2023 “Rockstar” album. “I suppose it’s a part of that wow issue that has been a part of the Mötley Crüe material for a very long time.”
Proceeds from the brand new recording of “Residence Candy Residence” profit Covenant Home, the nonprofit with which the band has partnered for almost 20 years by means of its Mötley Crüe Giveback Initiative. Sixx first labored with Covenant Home across the publication of his 2007 memoir, “The Heroin Diaries,” and helped develop a music program on the Hollywood middle. In October 2024, the band additionally performed a collection of intimate membership exhibits, dubbed Höllywood Takeöver, on the Troubadour, the Roxy and Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, which helped increase $350,000 for the group.
“These children are every little thing,” says Sixx. “These children are the long run. They may find yourself altering the world. What if one in every of these children can treatment most cancers and so they simply didn’t have a shot?”
Enjoying these smaller exhibits in 2024, which additionally included the Underworld in Camden, London, and the Bowery Ballroom in New York Metropolis, is the bare-bones sound, very similar to rehearsals, that Sixx has at all times cherished.
“One in all my favourite components about being in a band is rehearsal,” he says. “There’s nothing prefer it. It’s uncooked, simply bass, drums, guitar, and vocals off the ground. Then, you add all of the bells and whistles as you go alongside. Once we can do issues like that, it simply jogs my memory who we’re.”
It’s additionally a part of what retains Lee excited at this stage of the band’s profession, which incorporates its third residency in Las Vegas in 13 years, which kicked off final week and runs by means of Oct. 3 on the Dolby Dwell at Park MGM. (A portion of the ticket proceeds from the 10-show residency will profit the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth.)
“I’ve been married to Nikki and Vince for over 44 years,” says Lee. “Like with any marriage, you gotta create methods to make it thrilling, to maintain it enjoyable, or else you discover yourselves on the breakfast desk, along with your face within the paper saying ‘Move the butter.’ So Vegas in Dolby Atmos, new music, membership exhibits, loopy movies, Dolly — we’ve at all times been attempting totally different stuff to make the viewers and us go ‘Oh, f— yeah.”
For Mötley Crüe, Las Vegas has almost grow to be a second dwelling because the band’s first residency on the Joint on the Exhausting Rock Lodge in 2012 and its “An Intimate Night in Hell” a yr later.
“We’ve acquired this nice physique of labor that you simply don’t actually understand till you get this far,” says Sixx. “However now, we’re in a type of attention-grabbing locations the place, if we don’t play the hits, we get
s—, and if we do play the hits, we get s—.”
“From the Starting” is Mötley Crüe’s new compilation album.
(Chris Walter)
Some deeper Crüe cuts value inclusion within the set embody “Stick with Your Weapons,” a non-single on “Too Quick for Love,” and a track that the Runaways’ ex-manager, producer Kim Fowley, requested a then-teenaged Sixx to jot down for Blondie in 1979.
“I used to be 17 years outdated, and we recorded that track, and since no file firm would signal us, we began our personal label and acquired a distribution deal,” Sixx recollects. “Once we lastly joint-ventured up with Elektra Information in ’82, they stated we wanted to take a track off because it made the vinyl sound thinner, so ‘Stick with Your Weapons’ acquired reduce, however I’ve at all times cherished that track.”
Sixx not too long ago revealed that Weapons N’ Roses as soon as thought of overlaying the early Crüe observe.
”Now I get individuals saying, ‘We need to hear, “Stick with Your Weapons,” ’ “ says Sixx, laughing. “There’s like eight people who know that track. That’s a great way to close down an enviornment.”
For Lee, there’s one thing extra paternal across the band’s prolonged catalog.
“I do know each artist says it, however our songs are like our youngsters,” he says. “And over time, they develop up and so they develop [their] personal personalities and character. Some keep fairly near dwelling, quiet down, and begin their very own household. Others exit on a Thursday night time and are available dwelling on Sunday with no footwear and a shaved head, however we love all of them the identical.”
With each track, Lee says, the band members perceive one another extra. “We all know how you can push one another slightly additional, and hopefully get the best out of one another.”
Whereas there’s at all times room to make new music, Sixx, who has been the band’s chief songwriter since its inception, prefers the tempo of releasing singles.
“It’s only a totally different panorama now,” he says, “so to create one or two concepts, or co-write three is manageable, and it’s additionally digestible for the followers.”
So many issues have modified, and he’s additionally conscious of some misconceptions concerning the band. “The music is Mötley Crüe — Mötley Crüe just isn’t ‘The Dust,’ ” says Sixx, citing the 2019 movie primarily based on the band’s 2001 tell-all memoir. “Folks have it confused as a result of we have been so sincere and it grew to become such part of the material of us that they neglect concerning the riff on ‘Kick Begin My Coronary heart’ and simply bear in mind the resort that we tried to burn down in Ontario.”
One other false impression, Sixx says, is the band’s break up with Mars in 2022. After issuing a press release that Mars had retired from touring attributable to his ongoing battle with ankylosing spondylitis, the guitarist sued Mötley Crüe in April 2023, alleging that he was pressured out of the band and that his bandmates tried to chop his 25% possession stake. Guitarist John 5 — who has stuffed in on lead guitar duties since October 2022, previous to the lawsuit — continues to tour with the band.
“[Mick] got here to us and stated, health-wise, he couldn’t fulfill his contract, and we let him out of the deal,” recollects Sixx. “Then he sued us as a result of he simply stated that he can’t tour. We have been like, ‘Nicely, in case you can’t tour, you’ll be able to’t tour.’ I’ll most likely come to that too sometime.”
Though there was no ultimate settlement in courtroom between Mars and the band, a Los Angeles choose dominated in 2024 that the band failed to supply paperwork to Mars in a well timed method and was ordered to pay his authorized charges, Loudwire reported. The underlying dispute relating to the band’s enterprise and Mars’ potential ousting went into personal arbitration.
The arbitration remains to be ongoing however within the first part the arbitrator dominated in favor of the band and in opposition to Mars. The arbitration remains to be ongoing however within the first part the arbitrator dominated in favor of the band and in opposition to Mick.
Mars’ claims across the band’s use of backing tracks have been one other level of competition and one thing Sixx has continued defending. He says the band began taking part in round with audio enhancements in 1985 and cites the “Ladies Ladies Ladies” observe “Wild Aspect” as a “excellent instance” with its sequenced guitar components. “Something we improve the exhibits with, we really performed,” he says. “If there are background vocals with my background vocals, and we have now background singers to make it sound extra just like the file. That doesn’t imply we’re not singing.”
Mars, who’s at the moment engaged on his second solo album, was contacted by The Instances however declined to remark for the story.
Sixx calls Mars’ accusations a “loopy betrayal” to his legacy and to the followers. “Saying he performed in a band that didn’t play, it’s a betrayal to the band who saved his life,” provides Sixx. “Folks say issues like, ‘Nicely, in case you guys are actually taking part in, then I want remoted tracks from band rehearsal.’ … It’s ludicrous.”
One other battle the band has discovered itself in includes Neil’s well being issues and the criticism he’s confronted following latest performances. Initially scheduled to carry out in March and April, Mötley Crüe postponed its Las Vegas exhibits so the lead singer might endure an undisclosed medical process. “He wanted time to heal, and he’s been working actually exhausting,” Sixx says.
“You may inform he’s working up the stamina, and lots of people are like, ‘Oh, man, he’s not kicking ass like he used to,’ but it surely takes a number of braveness to have a physician inform you you’ll most likely by no means go onstage once more and to struggle by means of that. If he’s acquired some imperfect moments right here and there. They’re getting erased as the times go together with rehearsal.”
Again in Las Vegas, Lee has regarded ahead to connecting with followers once more, even when these of their teenagers and 20s have been turned on to the band through “The Dust.”
“Our objective is similar for all: to present them an unimaginable present,” he says, “to go away all of it on the stage.”
Now, greater than 40 years into Mötley Crüe, it might have been a patchwork journey of feelings for Sixx, however he wouldn’t change the expertise for something.
“We consider on this band,” he says. “It’s been 44 years. We’ve been within the band longer than we weren’t within the band. We’ve seen every little thing — every little thing. I suppose that’s why it was a film.”
