Packaged in the 2001 autobiography ‘The Dirt’ as “the world’s most notorious rock band,” Mötley Crüe is a Rock ‘n’ Roll divinity; legendary for their whip cracking music, extreme stage antics, shocking wardrobes, and heavy make-up; and infamous for their long spells of drug and alcohol abuse, universal debauchery and outrageous sexual exploits. Their piercing music style of Heavy Metal infused with Glam Rock, along with their love for women, strip clubs, whiskey and motorcycles has produced a number of best selling albums such as Shout at the Devil (September 26, 1983), Theatre of Pain (June 21, 1985), and Girls, Girls, Girls (May 15, 1987). And after going sober in 1989 they released Dr. Feel Good; their musical Gatsby which became a No.1 album and stayed on the charts for an incredible 109 weeks. Today The Backdoor brings you some of the raunchier and lesser known secrets of Mötley Crüe.

1

They rocked Canada. Hard!

In 1982 the boys from Crüe decided to conquer Canada with their ‘Crüesing Through Canada’ tour. And they made sure that their stay was less than pleasurable for their hosts, through a series of highly publicized and brilliantly decadent antics; starting off with riling the officials at Canadian customs for possession of ‘dangerous weapons’ and ‘indecent materials.’ The said materials confiscated? The bands spiked wardrobe and Vince Neil’s carry-on suitcase filled with pornographic magazines. And as if this wasn’t enough of a stir for the media circles, they went on to have a reported ‘serious bomb threat’ against the band which again turned out to be another outrageous PR stunt propagated by band manager Eric Greif. Despite the tour ending prematurely due to financial woes, they would go out in a grand style that would have made Led Zeppelin proud i.e. When Tommy Lee threw a television set from the upper story of the Sheraton Caravan Hotel.

2

They sued NBC

After an appearance on a highly publicized New Years Eve special episode on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Mötley Crüe were banned from NBC for the use of profanity on air, when just after midnight Vince Neil turned to Tommy Lee and said “Happy fucking New Year Tommy!” While viewers in Americas West Coast only saw a taped and censored version of the show, the viewers from the East Coast were treated to an earful of Vince. When most of today’s celebrities would have meekly issued an apology or maybe doughtily defended themselves for their “mistake,” Mötley Crüe went on to sue NBC since they felt that the ban impeded their right to free speech and harmed album sales. “We meant no harm, but it feels that we’re being singled out unfairly,” Nikki Sixx, the band’s bassist, told the Times. “This is a discrimination issue, pure and simple”. Yet the FCC in a ruling against Crüe, issued in 2006, stated that profanity should never be used on Air.

Trivia- As kids, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil both showed quite a flair for ballet, tap-dancing and ice skating. Quite the disparity from the rock ‘n’ roll legends with a love for motorcycles and eccentric sex they grew up to be.

3

Vince Neil has killed a man

Vince Neil and buddy Nicholas “Razzle” Dingely from the band Hanoi Rocks, met with a fatal car accident when Neil’s car, on the way back from a beer run to a liquor store, hit a patch of water and careened  onto oncoming traffic. The head on collision from which Neil emerged practically unscathed, left the passengers in the other car with serious bone damage and Razzle dead on the spot. While Neil was charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to 30 days in prison (of which he only spent 18), the band would later use the incident in true outrageous and ‘Mötley’ fashion by releasing box sets titled “Music to Crash Your Car to.”

4

Nikki Sixx has been dead for two minutes

Nikki Sixx who is known better for his panache for hard partying, outrageous sex and drug addictions, than his skills as a bass player, took the hard life a step too far on the 21^st December of 1987 when he suffered a near-fatal Heroin overdose. Declared legally dead on the way to the hospital, a paramedic riding in the ambulance who happened to be a die-hard Mötley fan, refused to let him die in his ambulance and managed to revive him with two shots of adrenaline to the heart. Nikki Sixx in a fashion that no one else but him would be capable of, awoke to find himself in a hospital, ripped off the tubes attached to his nose and escaped from hospital to the parking lot dressed only in his leather pants; from where he hitched a ride with two female fans and went home to shoot up again. Passed out from his second tripp he woke up the next day to find the needle from his near-fatal overdose still dangling from his arm. This particular episode would later inspire him to write the song “Kickstart My Heart,” and later publish his diaries of heroin addiction which he kept from 1986 to 1987 until he entered rehab in 1988, as the best selling novel titled ‘The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star.’

Trivia –Nikki Sixx did not know how to play bass guitar when he was desperate to start out in a band. He stole his first guitar by walking into an instrument shop with an empty guitar case, asking the shop owner for a job application, and packing in a guitar into the case while the shop owner had gone out back for the application. He later learned from a guitar playing friend that he had stolen a Les Paul instead of a bass guitar.

5

The Spaghetti Incident

During Mötley Crüe’s peak as the gods of Glam and Hard Rock, band mates and mad-men in tandem Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx decided to make an outrageous wager, which we at The Backdoor think is one of the most brilliantly conceived in Rock ‘n’ Roll history; despite the nausea it may cause in some. The wager was to test which one of them could survive the longest without washing, showering or cleansing in any way, with the catch being that they had to keep sleeping with groupies each night without any of them falling sick or bailing out on them. The bet went on for an incredible two months, with both Lee and Sixx sleeping each night with up to four groupies each, but ended spectacularly when a fine young lady fellating Nikki took ill during the act and vomited her dinner of pasta all over his nether regions; hence the name The Spaghetti Incident.