Mötley Crüe (continued)
But the shit hadn't stopped hitting the
fan just yet and following a jail term - the result of a
“little family fight” between Tommy and Pammy,
always a tempestuous relationship, as you can still see from
the tapes on the internet - Tommy quit the band to go solo. Cue:
rock-rap leftovers Methods Of Mayhem and another period of
“lost years” during which former Ozzy drummer Randy
Castillo took Tommy's place before the four finally all saw
sense and put the band back together - again. “I know I
said I would never write any more 'pussy' songs,” laughed
Nikki, “but I didn't take my Prozac that week!”
Which brings us, more or less, to where
the story currently resides today. Having seen their reputation
rescued - following the disastrous New Tattoo album which
barely scraped into the Top 40 - by the publication in 2001 of
The Dirt - a Top 10 hit on the New York Times best-seller list
and almost certainly the greatest, certainly filthiest rock
biography in history - there is now a movie of the book planned
for release in 2009, with Christopher Walken as ant-snorting
Ozzy Osbourne and Val Kilmer as 'Diamond' David Lee Roth. There
have also been sequels to the book in the shape of Tommy's own
autobiography, and Nikki's harrowing Heroin Diaries.
And although the band is now all straight,
they're still Mötley fucking Crüe which means they'll
never be that straight. “Hey, Oklahoma!” yells
Tommy from the stage, wielding what he calls his titty-cam.
“Come on, let me see some motherfucking titties!”
Letting the audience in on the joke by broadcasting the
resulting pictures on the giant screen backdrop.
Damn it, there has even been more music,
and though latest album Saints Of Los Angeles, released last
summer, is still not a patch on Doctor Feelgood, it is, as
advertised, the best thing they've done since then, helping
bring the band firmly into the 21st century with the title
track also made available as a downloadable track for the game
Rock Band.
But, hey, it was never really the music of
Mötley Crüe that enthralled us so much as the story.
Just don't be stoopid enough to write the words The End on it
yet, dude.
As Nikki says, “In the end me and
Mick Mars know how to put together one hell of a fucking song
and when Vince sings it sounds like Mötley
Crüe.” Then adds: “I do regret all the people
I hurt along the way. I have tried to make all my amends. I had
to buy a paper mill to write them all down. But I can't live in
the past and I can't live too far in the future so I just try
to stay present and be as centred as possible. I stay out of
ego and believe everything I put out there comes back in a good
way. I still play loud as fuck, cuss and spit and blow shit up.
My balls have not shrunk but definitely grown. I know they have
dropped... but that's an age thing.”
