Mötley Crüe (pronounced "") is an American heavy metal band formed in Hollywood, California, in 1981 by bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, with guitarist Mick Mars and lead vocalist Vince Neil joining right after. The band has sold over 100 million records worldwide. They have achieved seven platinum or multi-platinum certifications, nine Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart (including 1989's Dr. Feelgood, which is Mötley Crüe's only studio album to reach number one), twenty-two Top 40 mainstream rock hits, and six Top 20 pop singles.
The members of Mötley Crüe are often noted for their hedonistic lifestyles and the wild, sometimes androgynous style they maintained. Following the hard rock and heavy metal origins on the band's first two albums, Too Fast for Love (1981) and Shout at the Devil (1983), the release of its third album Theatre of Pain (1985) saw Mötley Crüe joining the first wave of glam metal. The band employ elaborate live performances, which include flame thrower guitars, roller coaster drum kits, and the use of pyrotechnics such as fireworks and lighting Sixx on fire. Mötley Crüe's most recent studio album, Saints of Los Angeles, was released on June 24, 2008. What was planned to be the band's final show took place on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2015. The concert was filmed for a theatrical and Blu-ray release in 2016.
After 2½ years of inactivity, Neil announced in September 2018 that Mötley Crüe had reunited and was working on new material. On March 22, 2019, the band released four new songs on the soundtrack for its Netflix biopic The Dirt, based on the band's New York Times best-selling autobiography of the same name. The soundtrack went to number one on the iTunes All Genres Album Chart, number three on the Billboard Top Album and Digital Album sales charts, number ten on the Billboard 200, and Top 10 worldwide. The autobiography returned to the New York Times Best Seller list at number six on Nonfiction Print and number eight on Nonfiction Combined Print & E-Book. Mötley Crüe embarked on its first major tour in seven years during the summer and fall of 2022, co-headlining a North American tour with Def Leppard.
The band has experienced several lineup changes over the years, leaving Sixx as the only consistent member; these included the introduction of lead vocalist John Corabi (who was Neil's replacement from 1992 to 1996) and drummer Randy Castillo, who filled in for Lee following his departure from Mötley Crüe in 1999; the latter rejoined the band in 2004. In October 2022, after 41 years of service, Mars announced his retirement from touring with the band, with John 5 (formerly of David Lee Roth, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) replacing him.
History 1981–1983: Early history and Too Fast for Love
The nucleus of the group first came together in early 1981, when former Suite 19 guitarist/lead vocalist, and one-time member of Quiet Riot and Dokken, Greg Leon and drummer Tommy Lee decided to form a new band. They attended the farewell gig of a popular local band called London, and Lee was already impressed by the image and stage presence of their bassist, Nikki Sixx. Even before meeting Sixx, Lee claims he had posters of London on his bedroom walls. "Tommy just loved how Nikki looked", recalled Leon. "He was gung-ho about him, saying, 'This is the guy we should get'." Sixx auditioned twice but Leon felt he was "awful", telling Lee "He looks great. He's great on stage. But he can't play bass at all."
Lee subsequently became friends with Sixx and went to his Hollywood home to listen to new material he was working on. The music had been rejected by his London bandmates for being too heavy, and Lee says he immediately began banging on the table in time with the music and "everything just seemed to mesh". Lee subsequently hired Sixx for the new band, prompting guitarist/vocalist Leon to quit in protest. "I never played a show with Nikki Sixx. Tommy and I played together many times, but I was gone as soon as Nikki entered the picture. But they couldn't find a guitar player or singer initially, so they kept calling me. But I refused," Leon has said of his time in the band. Sixx and Lee began a search for new members and soon met guitarists Robin Moore (Jeff Gill) and Bob Deal, better known as Mick Mars, after answering an advertisement that he placed in The Recycler that read: "Loud, rude and aggressive guitar player available". Mars auditioned for Sixx, Moore and Lee, and was subsequently hired while Moore was fired at the same session according to the band's biography The Dirt.
Although a lead vocalist named O'Dean Peterson was auditioned, 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. Upon seeing him perform with the band Rock Candy at the Starwood in Hollywood, California, Lee suggested they have Neil join the band. At first Neil refused the offer. On the same day as Mars, lead vocalist Michael White, who previously played with Nikki Sixx in London, joined the band.The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, by Mötley Crüe and Neil Strauss (pp. 36–37), But White eventually ended up leaving. As the other members of Rock Candy started to think about moving in more of a New Wave direction and became involved in outside projects, Vince Neil grew anxious to try something else. Lee asked again; Neil was hired on April 1, 1981, and the band played its first gig at the Starwood nightclub on April 24.
The newly formed band did not yet have a name. Neil has said that he told his bandmates that he was "thinking about calling the band Christmas". The other members were not very receptive to that idea. Then, while trying to find a suitable name, Mars remembered an incident that 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 slight modification of the spelling, "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 its first manager, Allan Coffman, the thirty-eight-year-old brother-in-law of a friend of Mars's driver. The band's first release was the single "Stick to Your Guns/Toast of the Town", which was released on its own record label, Leathür Records, which had a pressing and distribution deal with Greenworld Distribution in Torrance, California. On November 10, 1981, its 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,1982, Chronological Crue . Retrieved October 2, 2009. 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 early 1982. The debut album was then remixed 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.
In September 2023, Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy told AXS TV that only a small number of bands had "really kickstarted things" on the Sunset Strip, naming Roxx Regime (later Stryper), Dante Fox (later Great White), W.A.S.P., Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt as the core group.
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 on June 9, 1982; Lee and assistant band manager Greif were interviewed by police as a result. This too ended up being a staged PR stunt perpetrated by Greif. Lastly, Lee threw a television set from an upper story window of the Sheraton Caravan Hotel. Canadian rock magazine Music Express noted that the band was "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.
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 resurfaced 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.
1983–1991: International fame and addiction struggles
In January 1983, Swedish teen music and pop culture magazine Okej described Mötley Crüe as "a mix of Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Kiss, New York Dolls and Judas Priest — who knows, maybe that's exactly the right combination," characterising the band as "the new American supergroup from Los Angeles" who "can best be described as the kind of friend your mother warned you about hanging around with." The band became better known in the United States after playing at the US Festival on May 29, 1983. Their second album, Shout at the Devil, was released on September 26, 1983. The album represented the band's mainstream breakthrough in America and would eventually be certified 4× platinum. The album was mentioned by an ABC news reporter in a piece on conservative Christian groups complaining about modern Satanism. They gained the attention of Ozzy Osbourne, and became a support act on his 1984 tour for Bark at the Moon. The band members were developing a reputation for their backstage antics, outrageous clothing, extreme high-heeled boots, heavily applied make-up, and seemingly endless abuse of alcohol and drugs. In December 1984, Neil crashed his De Tomaso Pantera, killing his passenger, then-Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley. Neil, charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter, was sentenced to 30 days in jail (although he served only 18 days) and subsequently was sued for $2,500,000. The short jail term was negotiated by his lawyers, enabling Neil to tour and pay the civil suit.
The band's third album, Theatre of Pain, was released on June 21, 1985, and dedicated in Dingley's honor, and it started a new glam metal phase in the band's style.Harrison 2011, p. 40. Theatre of Pain was commercially successful, reaching number 6 on the Billboard album charts and eventually being certified quadruple platinum. However, the recording of the album was fraught with tension in the wake of Neil's accident and Sixx's growing addiction, and members of the band have said that they consider it a creative disappointment. Mötley Crüe spent most of the next year on a world tour in support of Theatre of Pain. In February 1986, while in London, England, Sixx suffered a near-fatal heroin overdose, and the person who sold him the drugs dumped his unconscious body in a dumpster. The incident inspired Sixx to write the song "Dancing on Glass" for their next album.