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Mötley Crüe was formed on January 17, 1981 when bass guitarist Nikki Sixx left the band London and began rehearsing with drummer Tommy Lee and vocalist/guitarist Greg Leon.[4] Lee had worked previously with Leon in a band called Suite 19[5] and the trio practiced together for some time with Leon eventually deciding not to continue. Nikki and Tommy then began a search for new members. Sixx and Lee soon met guitarist Bob “Mick Mars” Deal. Mars was quickly auditioned and subsequently hired by Sixx and Lee. Although a lead vocalist named O’Dean was auditioned,[6][7] Lee had known Vince Neil from their high school days at Charter Oak High School in Covina, California and the two had performed in different bands on the garage band circuit. On seeing him perform with the band Rock Candy at the Starwood in Hollywood, California, Mars suggested they have Neil join the band. At first Neil refused the offer, but as the other members of Rock Candy became involved in outside projects, Neil grew anxious to try something else. When Lee made one final appeal to audition, Neil accepted and was hired April 1, 1981. The newly formed band did not yet have a name. While trying to find a suitable name, Mars remembered an incident which occurred when he was playing with a band called White Horse, when one of the other band members called the group “a motley looking crew.” He had remembered the phrase and later copied it down as Mottley Cru-. After modifying the spelling slightly, “Mötley Crüe” was eventually selected as the band’s name, with the stylistic decision suggested by Neil to add the two sets of metal umlauts supposedly inspired by the German beer Löwenbräu, which the members were drinking at the time.
The band soon met their first manager, Allan Coffman, “the thirty-eight-year-old brother-in-law of Mick’s driver friend Stick”.[8] The band’s first release was the single “Stick to Your Guns/Toast of the Town”, which was released on their own record label, Leathür Records, which had a pressing & distribution deal with Greenworld Distribution in Torrance, California. In November 1981, their debut album Too Fast for Love was self-produced and released on Leathür, selling 20,000 copies. Coffman’s assistant Eric Greif set up a tour of Canada,[9] while Coffman and Greif used Mötley Crüe’s success in the Los Angeles club scene to negotiate with several record labels, eventually signing a recording contract with Elektra Records in late spring 1982. At Elektra’s insistence, the debut album was then re-mixed by producer Roy Thomas Baker and re-released on August 20, 1982, two months after its Canadian Warner Music Group release using the original Leathür mixes, to coincide with the tour.
During the “Crüesing Through Canada Tour ’82,” there were several widely-publicized incidents. First, the band was arrested and then released at Edmonton International Airport for wearing their spiked stage wardrobe (considered “dangerous weapons”) through Customs and for Neil arriving with a small carry-on filled with porn magazines (considered “indecent material”); both were staged PR stunts. Customs eventually had the confiscated items destroyed. Second, while playing Scandals Disco in Edmonton, a spurious “bomb threat” against the band made the front page of the Edmonton Journal[10] (June 9, 1982); assistant band manager Greif and Lee were interviewed. This too ended up being a staged PR stunt perpetrated by Greif. Lastly, Lee threw a television set from the upper story window of the Sheraton Caravan Hotel. Canadian rock magazine Music Express noted that the band were “banned for life” from the city. Despite the tour ending prematurely in financial disaster, it was the basis for the band’s first international press.[11]
In 1983, the band changed management from Coffman to Doug Thaler and Doc McGhee. McGhee is best known for managing Bon Jovi and later KISS (starting with their reunion tour in 1996). Greif subsequently sued all parties in a Los Angeles Superior Court action that dragged on for several years, and coincidentally later re-surfaced as manager of Sixx’s former band, London. Coffman himself was sued by several investors to whom he had sold “stock in the band”, including Michigan-based Bill Larson. Coffman eventually declared bankruptcy, as he had mortgaged his home at least three times to cover band expenses.
Rise to international fame: 1984–1991After playing the US Festival, and with the aid of the new medium of MTV, the band found rapid success in the United States. The band members were as well known for their backstage groupie antics, outrageous clothing, extreme high-heeled boots, heavily applied make-up, and seemingly endless abuse of alcohol and drugs as for their recordings. Their mixture of heavy metal and glam rock stylings produced several best-selling albums during the 1980s, including Shout at the Devil (1983), Theatre of Pain (1985), and Girls, Girls, Girls (1987), which showcased their love of motorcycles, whiskey and strip clubs, and which told tales of substance abuse, sexual escapades, and general decadence.
The band members have also had their share of scrapes with the law and life. In 1984, Neil was driving home from a liquor store when he was in a head-on collision; his passenger, Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley, was killed. Neil, charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter, was sentenced to 30 days in jail (though he only served 18 days). The band would later release two box sets entitled “Music to Crash Your Car to”.
On December 23, 1987, Sixx suffered a near-fatal heroin overdose. He was declared legally dead on the way to the hospital, but the medic, who was a Crüe fan, revived Sixx by giving him two shots of adrenaline to the heart, bringing him back to life. His two minutes in death were the inspiration for the song “Kickstart My Heart”, which peaked at #16 on the Mainstream U.S. chart, and which was featured on the 1989 album Dr. Feelgood. From 1986 to 1987, Sixx kept a daily diary of his heroin addiction and eventually entered rehab in January 1988. In 2006, Sixx published his diaries as a best selling novel: The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, and in 2007 Sixx’s side project band Sixx:A.M. released The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack as a musical parallel to the novel.
Their decadent lifestyles almost shattered the band, until managers Thaler and McGhee pulled an intervention, and refused to allow the band to tour in Europe, fearing that “some [of them] would come back in bodybags”. Shortly after, all the band members except for Mars underwent drug rehabilitation; Mars cleaned up on his own.
After finding sobriety in 1989, Mötley Crüe reached its peak popularity with the release of their fifth album, the Bob Rock produced Dr. Feelgood, on September 1, 1989. On October 14 of that year, it became a No. 1 album and stayed on the charts for 109 weeks after its release. The band members each stated in interviews that, due in no small part to their collective push for sobriety, Dr. Feelgood was their most solid album musically to that point,[citation needed] and indeed, it was their best selling album to date. The title track and “Kickstart My Heart” were both nominated for Grammys in the Best Hard Rock Category.[12] The band did find some success at the American Music Awards, as Dr. Feelgood was nominated twice for Favorite Hard Rock/Metal Award, losing once to Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, but winning the following year, beating out Aerosmith’s Pump and Poison’s Flesh And Blood. Mötley Crüe was also nominated twice for Favorite Hard Rock/Metal Artist.[13]
In 1989, Doc McGhee was fired after breaking several promises that he made to the band in relation to the Moscow Music Peace Festival including giving his other band, Bon Jovi, advantages with slot placement. Doug Thaler then soldiered on as sole band manager.
On October 14, 1991, the band’s first compilation album, Decade of Decadence, was released. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It was reportedly designed as “just something for the fans” while the band worked on the next “all new” album.
Years of turmoil: 1992–2003After Decade of Decadence was released, Neil left the band in February 1992, at a time when other bands in the ’80s glam metal scene (Ratt, Stryper, White Lion, Winger, Europe & Britny Fox) also broke up because of the rise in popularity of Grunge/Punk revival. A controversy exists to this day over whether Neil was fired or quit. Sixx has long maintained that Neil quit the band. However, Neil disputes this and insists that he was fired. Neil was replaced by John Corabi (formerly of Angora and The Scream). Mötley Crüe’s commercial success waned throughout the 1990s, although their self-titled March 1994 release made the Billboard top ten (#7). Thaler would manage the band alone until 1994, at which time the band did a mass-firing when their album, Mötley Crüe, failed to meet commercial expectations.
The band reunited with Neil in 1997, after their current manager, Allen Kovac, and Neil’s manager, Bert Stein, set up a meeting between Neil, Lee, and Sixx. Agreeing to “leave their egos at the door,” the band released Generation Swine. Although it debuted at #4, and in spite of a live performance at the American Music Awards, the album was a commercial failure, due in part to the band’s label’s lack of support.[citation needed] The band soon left Elektra and created their own label, Mötley Records.
In 1998, Mötley Crüe’s contractual ties with Elektra Records had expired, putting the band in total control of their future. This included the ownership of the masters of all of their albums. In announcing the end of their relationship with Elektra Records, the band became one of the few groups in history to own and control their 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, live, instrumental, and previously unreleased tracks.
In 1999, Lee put his role in the band on hold to pursue a solo career due to increasing tension with frontman Neil. He was replaced by Randy Castillo, who drummed on several Ozzy Osbourne albums. Randy died of cancer on March 26, 2002. No replacement had been named, which sent the band into a hiatus following a 2000 tour in support of their studio release, New Tattoo. New Tattoo charted at #41 and sold fewer than 200,000 copies. Former Hole drummer Samantha Maloney filled in on the tour to promote the album. The Salt Lake City performance of the tour is featured on the DVD Lewd, Crüed & Tattooed.
Within the following six years, Sixx played in the bands 58 and Brides of Destruction, while Lee formed Methods of Mayhem and performed as a solo artist. Neil continued touring on an annual basis as a solo artist, singing mostly Mötley Crüe songs. Mars, who suffers from a rare hereditary form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis,[citation needed] went into seclusion in 2001.
A 2001 autobiography entitled The Dirt packaged the band as “the world’s most notorious rock band”. The book made the top ten on The New York Times Best Seller list and spent ten weeks there.
