The Motley Crue thread - everything about them discussed here

[John Daniels]

D, the dirt is full of lies and shit that you can smell from miles away. how in the hell they could even remember the things with all that drugs that were involved referring to this book. It's not only with the tommy telling lies.

And how would you know this?

oh comon, even the crue guys are complaining about who's telling the truth and real story.

[Malcolm]

M?TLEY CR?E drummer Tommy Lee recently spoke to goTriad.com about the group's "Red, White, and Cr?e 2005...Better Live Than Dead" tour and his upcoming reality TV show, among other topics. Several excerts from the interview follow:

goTriad.com: I've heard this [tour] could go on for three years. Is there any truth to that?

Tommy Lee: "No, that's a little crazy. More like a year and a half I think."

goTriad.com: Do you feel like this is a farewell tour, or how are you looking at this?

Tommy Lee: "We're just taking (expletive) one day at a time. I don't think we're really looking at it as anything. We're just having a good time and doing what we do. Looking to far ahead sometimes and it kind of spoils it."

goTriad.com: You can't be surprised that "Red, White, and Cr?e" has gone platinum.

Tommy Lee: "Yeah, that's awesome. I'm actually more surprised about how many people are coming to the shows. That's really surprising me."

goTriad.com: Really?

Tommy Lee: "Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. I've been out of the band for like six years, and I really didn't know what to expect. All these arenas have been completely sold out to the rafters and I'm like, 'Holy (expletive).'That's crazy. That's what's really surprising me."

goTriad.com: Are you guys working on a new album?

Tommy Lee: "Well, Nikki [Sixx, bass] and I both have recording studios on our buses and we both are writing stuff. At some point? it just depends. When you're a songwriter, you write stuff all the time. Sometimes it sounds like it could be a M?TLEY song. Other times maybe it's a solo song. Maybe it's a song for another artist. We're just doing the writing thing and we'll see what happens."

goTriad.com: You've got a solo album in the works too. Is that done?

Tommy Lee: "That's complete. It's gonna come out at the same time as the NBC TV show in the fall."

goTriad.com: Are there plans for a solo tour when the CR?E things winds down, or are you thinking that far either?

Tommy Lee: "You know what? I'd love to go do that. That'd be really fun. So maybe when the CR?E thing slows down I'll go do that. Or, maybe when there's a break, what I'd like to do ? because there's a ton of special guests on the record - my dream would be to just, like, ? I'm sure it would be a scheduling nightmare with so many different artists ? I think it'd be really fun to do seven shows in seven major cities and that way you could get the other guest stars to commit to a week and do seven shows in seven cities and (expletive) nail it."

goTriad.com: I have to ask about some of your relationships. I mean, how are things between you and Vince [Neil, vocals] at this point? Are you guys cool or are you just looking at it as a business thing?

Tommy Lee: "No, we're totally cool, man. A few years have gone by, which is always good. Time passes, people change, people grow new respect for each other. We're definitely having a good time. There's no funk out here right now. I think too, that in the earlier days we were all smashed together on a bus or a plane ? no one really had their own space except when we'd get to a hotel. We've just got it set up so people have some space and each guy can kind of do his thing. That's what happens when you're around people a lot. After a while, the way somebody crunches on their cereal (expletive) bugs you. You know what I mean?"

goTriad.com: Yeah.

Tommy Lee: "That doesn't get a chance to happen. We've sort of made it so that everybody has their own space and is comfortable. If you're going to have any kind of space on a tour that's this long, you kind of have to do that, otherwise we'd all be at each other."

goTriad.com: I'm not asking for details, but there was talk when this tour started that, "Tommy's the only single guy, so he's going to have the best time." Is that the case?

Tommy Lee: "That's absolutely the case. (laughs) I'm constantly calling all my friends back home and telling them, 'Listen, you've gotta come out here and visit me. I need some help. I can't do this all myself.' (laughs) 'And by the way, bring your (expletive).' (laughs)"

goTriad.com: Do you think there's a different vibe. When you were on the top of the charts, people were coming out because you're on the radio all the time. Do you think there's a different vibe - people coming out because they want to see you and career-long fans?

Tommy Lee: "We're on the radio now, it's just that we've been doing this for 20-something years, so we put in a lot of time with a lot of fans. It's bizarre though. I see 8-year-old kids on the shoulders of their dad, you know? All the way to 45- and 50-year-old people. All the way up - the 14-year-olds to the 38-year-olds. They're everywhere. The 22-year-olds. You look out and it's awesome. It's such a smorgasbord of people. I'm like, 'Wow, check this out. New ones, medium ones and old ones."

goTriad.com: Have you guys had to change the songs up at all to keep it fresh for yourselves?

Tommy Lee: "You know what, for me, I'm always about keepin' it fresh. So, we've done some stuff with a few of the arrangements just to update 'em. Whether it be the arrangement or a little funkier beat or a little heavier beat, because when that stuff was recorded, everybody played a certain way and now people are, of course, much better players."

[Timothy]

M?TLEY CR?E's outrageously successful "Red, White, and Cr?e 2005...Better Live Than Dead" tour, which has sold out arenas across the country since its launch in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, on Feb. 17, will be captured for posterity to be distributed on TV as well as DVD this fall.

Featuring the reunited band's original line-up of Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Tommy Lee for the first time on a concert for DVD, playing their biggest hits, the show will be filmed when the band goes to Grand Rapids, MI, on April 27, for a show at the Van Andel Arena. Clear Channel Entertainment, who are promoting the concert, will produce and distribute the TV show and the DVD on their home video label, Clear Channel Entertainment Home Video, from Clear Channel Entertainment TV.

Acclaimed, award-winning director Hamish Hamilton, who has previously shot concerts by U2, MADONNA and PETER GABRIEL, will be helming the shoot.

"This will give our fans a chance to see this f***ing incredible show from the safety of their living rooms," said the band's Nikki Sixx. "And let them experience the CR?E in concert without ever leaving their couches."

M?TLEY CR?E management Tenth Street Entertainment's Jordan Berliant, who helped broker the deal, said: "The level of interest among distributors was unprecedented, but we're thrilled to have Clear Channel Entertainment Television and Home Video as our partner."

The spectacular concert featured a three-ring circus of freaks under a huge big top set, including a fire-breathing midget, sultry acrobats, flying drum kits and enough pyro to light up a small city.

"Clear Channel Entertainment TV is excited to be working with M?TLEY CR?E and Tenth Street Entertainment for the worldwide distribution of this incredible show via digital cinema, TV, DVD and other visual mediums, especially with the CR?E taking the world by storm as they are now," said the company's Senior Vice President Steve Sterling. "The DVD will bring the M?TLEY CR?E show to fans in a way that will prove what DVD is all about."

The band's Hip-O/Island/UME "Red White & Cr?e" album, featuring three brand-new songs, debuted at #5 on The Billboard 200, and was recently certified platinum.

The DVD will be released on the Clear Channel Entertainment Home Video label, and distributed domestically by Ventura Home Video.


http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=35672



this should be cool.

[Malcolm]

ContactMusic.com is reporting that M?TLEY CR?E singer Vince Neil has a custom-made chopper with a replica of his tattoo tribute to his dead daughter, Skylar, on the gas tank.

The rocker insisted on the special artwork so he had a permanent reminder of his little girl ? who lost her battle with stomach cancer a decade ago, aged five ? when he's riding around his Las Vegas home.

Neil also has a painting of Skylar hanging in his lavish Vegas abode

[Timothy]

M?TLEY CR?E singer Vince Neil has told the Journal Star that the band will definitely release new music in the not-too-distant future.

"We are going to put out another studio album," Neil said. "Then we'll take a little time off, and then we'll probably tour in support of that album."

Neil suggests CR?E might keep going out of a sense of duty to rock 'n' roll. He can't find anything good on the radio anymore.

"I don't listen to anything (recorded) today," he said. "There's nothing today that inspires me. There's no true rock 'n' roll bands anymore. There's all pre-fab boy bands and girl bands."

As previously reported, M?TLEY CR?E will be filming their April 27 concert at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, MI for an upcoming DVD, to be distributed on TV as well as DVD this fall. Clear Channel Entertainment, who are promoting the concert, will produce and distribute the TV show and the DVD on their home video label, Clear Channel Entertainment Home Video, from Clear Channel Entertainment TV. Acclaimed award-winning director Hamish Hamilton, who has previously shot concerts by U2, MADONNA and PETER GABRIEL, will be helming the shoot.

The DVD will be released on the Clear Channel Entertainment Home Video label, and distributed domestically by Ventura Home Video.

The band's Hip-O/Island/UME "Red White & Cr?e" album, featuring three brand-new songs, debuted at #5 on The Billboard 200, and was recently certified platinum.



http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=35753

[Malcolm]

M?TLEY CR?E bassist Nikki Sixx recently spoke to John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press about the group's outrageously successful "Red, White, and Cr?e 2005...Better Live Than Dead" tour, which is scheduled to hit Grand Rapids, MI on April 27.

"If you're spending 50 bucks to go to a concert, you take a date, and you wanna buy a T-shirt, a few beers and parking ? for $150-$200, you better get your (expletive) knocked in the dirt," he said. "It's not a passive thing. It's not like sitting in a movie theater and going, 'This is an enjoyable experience.' You gotta walk out of there covered in sweat and spit."

The bassist claims 70 percent of M?TLEY's audience is too young to remember the band's MTV and commercial radio dominance. In that context, the CR?E members are elder statesmen of rock excess, the leather-clad professors of rock-show bombast.

"We're educating them on decadence ... on what rock 'n' roll truly is supposed to be," he said.

The band plans to write and record a new album after its extensive world tour wraps up by the end of 2005. But is he worried the songwriting will suffer, what with the band members actually seeing eye-to-eye these days?

"Oh, we can go to the vaults," he said. "We've got some (expletive) stored up. Let's just say all the baggage wasn't left at the door."

Addressing the topic made Sixx's tone of voice sway from serious to silly without notice.

"For me, there's no baggage with the guys. I've always been the good one," he said, laughing. "You talk to the other guys, they'll say, 'Nikki's been a piece of cake for 25 years. He's never been a dictator. He never really had a drug problem.' "

He's joking, of course. Sixx recently finished work on a book, "The Heroin Diaries", a chronicle of his days as a junkie during the late '80s, when an overdose caused his heart to stop until doctors revived him.

But now, he's clean, sober and happily married to former Playboy playmate and "Baywatch" actress Donna D'Errico.

For those reasons, he's shying away from any extracurricular shenanigans on tour.

"I'm actually behaving myself," he said, his grin coming through in his voice. "Mick is single, and Tommy is single, and they're tasting all the fruit. I'm endorsing it highly. Me, I'm sort of like Charlie on 'Charlie's Angels'. I'm the designated driver."

[Gunner80]

M?TLEY CR?E bassist Nikki Sixx recently spoke to John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press about the group's outrageously successful "Red, White, and Cr?e 2005...Better Live Than Dead" tour, which is scheduled to hit Grand Rapids, MI on April 27.

"If you're spending 50 bucks to go to a concert, you take a date, and you wanna buy a T-shirt, a few beers and parking ? for $150-$200, you better get your (expletive) knocked in the dirt," he said. "It's not a passive thing. It's not like sitting in a movie theater and going, 'This is an enjoyable experience.' You gotta walk out of there covered in sweat and spit."

The bassist claims 70 percent of M?TLEY's audience is too young to remember the band's MTV and commercial radio dominance. In that context, the CR?E members are elder statesmen of rock excess, the leather-clad professors of rock-show bombast.

"We're educating them on decadence ... on what rock 'n' roll truly is supposed to be," he said.

The band plans to write and record a new album after its extensive world tour wraps up by the end of 2005. But is he worried the songwriting will suffer, what with the band members actually seeing eye-to-eye these days?

"Oh, we can go to the vaults," he said. "We've got some (expletive) stored up. Let's just say all the baggage wasn't left at the door."

Addressing the topic made Sixx's tone of voice sway from serious to silly without notice.

"For me, there's no baggage with the guys. I've always been the good one," he said, laughing. "You talk to the other guys, they'll say, 'Nikki's been a piece of cake for 25 years. He's never been a dictator. He never really had a drug problem.' "

He's joking, of course. Sixx recently finished work on a book, "The Heroin Diaries", a chronicle of his days as a junkie during the late '80s, when an overdose caused his heart to stop until doctors revived him.

But now, he's clean, sober and happily married to former Playboy playmate and "Baywatch" actress Donna D'Errico.

For those reasons, he's shying away from any extracurricular shenanigans on tour.

"I'm actually behaving myself," he said, his grin coming through in his voice. "Mick is single, and Tommy is single, and they're tasting all the fruit. I'm endorsing it highly. Me, I'm sort of like Charlie on 'Charlie's Angels'. I'm the designated driver."

Shit I don't want songs from the vault, they need to write fresh shit for the new album.

[Dead N' Bloated]

Fuck Yeah December 3 Sydney Entertainment Centre

Motley Crue

Motorhead

Rose Tattoo

[D]

M?TLEY CR?E bassist Nikki Sixx recently spoke to John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press about the group's outrageously successful "Red, White, and Cr?e 2005...Better Live Than Dead" tour, which is scheduled to hit Grand Rapids, MI on April 27.

"If you're spending 50 bucks to go to a concert, you take a date, and you wanna buy a T-shirt, a few beers and parking ? for $150-$200, you better get your (expletive) knocked in the dirt," he said. "It's not a passive thing. It's not like sitting in a movie theater and going, 'This is an enjoyable experience.' You gotta walk out of there covered in sweat and spit."

The bassist claims 70 percent of M?TLEY's audience is too young to remember the band's MTV and commercial radio dominance. In that context, the CR?E members are elder statesmen of rock excess, the leather-clad professors of rock-show bombast.

"We're educating them on decadence ... on what rock 'n' roll truly is supposed to be," he said.

The band plans to write and record a new album after its extensive world tour wraps up by the end of 2005. But is he worried the songwriting will suffer, what with the band members actually seeing eye-to-eye these days?

"Oh, we can go to the vaults," he said. "We've got some (expletive) stored up. Let's just say all the baggage wasn't left at the door."

Addressing the topic made Sixx's tone of voice sway from serious to silly without notice.

"For me, there's no baggage with the guys. I've always been the good one," he said, laughing. "You talk to the other guys, they'll say, 'Nikki's been a piece of cake for 25 years. He's never been a dictator. He never really had a drug problem.' "

He's joking, of course. Sixx recently finished work on a book, "The Heroin Diaries", a chronicle of his days as a junkie during the late '80s, when an overdose caused his heart to stop until doctors revived him.

But now, he's clean, sober and happily married to former Playboy playmate and "Baywatch" actress Donna D'Errico.

For those reasons, he's shying away from any extracurricular shenanigans on tour.

"I'm actually behaving myself," he said, his grin coming through in his voice. "Mick is single, and Tommy is single, and they're tasting all the fruit. I'm endorsing it highly. Me, I'm sort of like Charlie on 'Charlie's Angels'. I'm the designated driver."

Shit I don't want songs from the vault, they need to write fresh shit for the new album.

I dont think he meant songs in the vaults, he meant they have some issues with each other stored in the vaults that they can go to at any time. he was talkin about them not seeing eye to eye and then said that about the vaults

so.. they will write brand new material.

[Malcolm]

M?TLEY CR?E have announced that they will match the reward fund being offered for information on the whereabouts of a Baltimore County woman who has been missing since early March when she failed to meet her friends at a CR?E concert.

"We hope our involvement helps bring more attention to this case, and anyone with information will step forward," Nikki Sixx, the group's bass player, said in a statement.

Tracey Gardner-Tetso, of the 7800 block of Bluegrass Road in Rosedale, was reported missing by her husband after she did not show up to meet friends at a CR?E concert in Washington.

Gardner-Tetso is described as white, 5 feet 4, 130 pounds, with long blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen driving a 1996 black Pontiac Trans Am, with tinted windows and Maryland tags LRN 534, according to The Baltimore Sun.

A $10,000 reward is being offered by the Victims' Rights Foundation of Gaithersburg, Metro Crime Stoppers and Aggregate Industries, which employed Gardner-Tetso as a dispatcher, and the band is offering to match that amount. Anyone with information should call Baltimore County police at 410-307-2020.

[Malcolm]

A M?TLEY CR?E management representative has spoken to John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press about the group's plans to film Wednesday's (April 27) concert at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, MI for a DVD to be released later this year. A production crew for the group ? reunited with original members Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars ? is shooting live footage in Grand Rapids. The tour is in support of platinum-selling greatest hits album "Red, White and Cr?e".

Although the group already has a three-ring-circus stage set complete with pyrotechnics, acrobats, a flying drum kit and a fire-breathing human, the band has special plans for Wednesday.

"They have some tricks up their sleeves," said Katie McNeil, a representative for M?TLEY's management company, 10th St. Entertainment. "They felt that Grand Rapids would be a great crowd (for filming the DVD)."

The CR?E ? known for its hard rock hits in the 1980s and its off-stage antics ? is headlining one of the most popular concert tours in the country. The band has been selling out numerous venues since hitting the road in mid-February, and has dates scheduled through October.

Tickets for Wednesday's show are still available, but arena manager Rich MacKeigan expects it to sell out.

"It's unique from a production and talent perspective," he said. "Grand Rapids is lucky to be seeing something that not everyone else is seeing."

[Malcolm]

Stephen Kiehl of The Baltimore Sun has issued the following report:

M?TLEY CR?E was about to go onstage in Portland, Maine, on Saturday night when bass player Nikki Sixx checked his e-mail. There was a message telling him about a fan from Baltimore County who was last seen on her way to a concert by one of her favorite bands ? M?TLEY CR?E.

"I showed it to the band and we were like, 'We've gotta do something,'" Sixx said Tuesday (April 26) in a phone interview from London, Ontario. "We knew a $10,000 reward had been put up, and we decided to match that. But what we really could do was get it national exposure."

In the past few days, news of the disappearance of Tracey Gardner-Tetso has swept the nation. The 33-year-old Rosedale woman was last seen March 6, before she failed to meet friends at a M?TLEY CR?E concert at the MCI Center in Washington. Her car was later found in the Glen Burnie area, and her family has focused search efforts in that region.

M?TLEY CR?E's involvement has raised significant interest in the case from national media. The band paid to have Gardner-Tetso's photo distributed on news wires, and the TV show "America's Most Wanted" may feature the story. It's exactly the result the band had wanted.

"It's lit a fire," Sixx said. "I know there's a lot of people who are very motivated. Everyone's pitching in and it's good karma and hopefully we'll find her alive."

Gardner-Tetso has worked for the past five years as a dispatcher in the Laurel office of Aggregate Industries, a producer of construction materials. Since her disappearance, about 40 of the firm's employees and clients have spent their weekends searching for her. They said she was a big fan of live music and had been excited about the M?TLEY CR?E show. A friend had bought her tickets as a birthday present.

"When she didn't come to work that Monday morning, I knew right away," said her supervisor, Monika Barilla. "Tracey loves rock and roll and loves M?TLEY CR?E. She would not have missed it for the world."

Police say there is a record of Gardner-Tetso's car passing through the southbound tube of the Harbor Tunnel about 8 p.m. March 6. Her last outgoing cell phone call was about 3 p.m. that day. Friends who tried to call her later that night said her phone had been turned off.

Gardner-Tetso is described as white, 5 feet 4 inches tall, 130 pounds, with long blond hair and blue eyes.

Her mother, Cathy Gardner of Glen Burnie, said the family has been touched by the outpouring of support from the band, from friends and colleagues, and many others.

"Her father and I have been out [searching] and we've had many, many volunteers who don't even know us who have come out Saturdays and Sundays in rain, shine, cold," Gardner said yesterday, after returning from searching in Baltimore County. "Keep searching. That's it. Keep searching."

Read the rest of the story at The Baltimore Sun.

[Malcolm]

One hip replacement, four tour buses and plenty of plastic surgery

It took a lot of persuasion to get rock's most notorious band, M?tley Cr?e, back on the road. Was it worth it? Sylvie Simmons reports It was all going so well until the dwarf got arrested. "That was a bit Spinal Tap," says Nikki Sixx, shaking his head. "I mean, how can you have a Rock'n'roll Circus without a midget?" Especially one who juggles, blows fire, rides a unicycle and a motorbike, emcees, wears bondage leather and gets his bottom spanked by scantily dressed dancing girls. Homeland Security took objection to his Canadian passport when the Red White and Cr?e tour slipped over the US border, and held him in jail for a week. But he's back now. "And everything else," insists Sixx, "is going great." This, to put it mildly, is a miracle. Of all the 1980s band reunions least likely to be a success, M?tley Cr?e's had to be up near the top. For so many reasons. One member recently had his hip replaced (guitarist Mick Mars). One member recently had his face replaced (frontman Vince Neil). And at least three of the four members have recently declared their hatred for another member of the band (more often than not, Neil). Each travels separately in his own tour bus and has individual dressing rooms backstage. Interviews are done separately, too.

Then there's the matter of their image and music - big hair glam metal and the excessive lifestyle that accompanied it was enormous in the 1980s but a laughing stock in the 1990s after alternative rock, then nu metal, kicked it aside. For a while, M?tley Cr?e were reduced to playing clubs, braving it out to the press, saying it was just to get "close to the people". The press, meanwhile, were interested only in Tommy Lee's and Sixx's Baywatch wives: Pamela Anderson (no longer married to drummer Lee) and Donna D'Errico (still married, eight years on, to bassist Sixx). Solo projects failed to match their early glory; Lee was in jail on a domestic violence charge; Neil was bloated from drink; Mars, crippled by ankylosing spondylitis, was addicted to opiates.

And then along came The Dirt. The band-sanctioned biography swiftly earned the reputation of the most notorious rock book ever. Led Zeppelin's once-untouchable Hammer of the Gods read like Heidi compared with M?tley's tales of experiments with groupies, telephones and egg burritos (you don't want to know). It was a huge bestseller. Film rights have just been sold. Remarkably, judging by the young women hanging around in the hope of backstage passes, the book seems to have attracted rather than put them off.

"We lost perspective," says Sixx. "We almost didn't survive. But isn't that what's exciting about us? That we almost didn't survive?" He puffs on a cigarette - these days, his only vice. In the 1980s, famously, he died for two minutes after a heroin overdose; the band's hit record Kickstart My Heart referred to the Pulp Fiction-style shot in the heart that revived him. He still goes to 12-step addiction meetings on the road.

"People came to the car race hoping they would see a car accident, but it doesn't mean that the race itself - meaning our music - wasn't exciting. But this is us. It's our dirt - our dirty laundry. But what's really taken us by surprise is you can hardly read a review of the band now that isn't just amazing. There are a few digs but it's mostly, 'This is just what we need.' We're really doing the same thing we were doing in the beginning, and back then it was, 'Oh my God.' It's gone from that to, 'Thank God.'"

In another dressing room off the long, concrete corridors backstage at a sports arena in San Antonio, Texas (a big heavy metal town, a big military town, too), Vince Neil suggests why the band is being so well-received: "I think music right now is very dull and too formulated. It's all boy bands and girl bands, there's really no rock bands. And there's no showmanship. It's not really entertainment. I think that's why they're into us."

Neil's new wife (his fourth), Lia Gerardini, is sitting next to him. She's just flown out to join him on the road. "Nikki has had his wife and kids come out, too," says Neil, "and Tommy's had his kids. All having our own buses, it makes it easy. I had a bar built in mine. Me and Tommy both love wine and we share a couple of glasses before and after the shows."

A strange picture, considering that the relationship between Lee and Neil almost led to bloodshed on the last reunion tour. And that US men's magazine Blender just quoted Neil as saying: "I don't like Tommy and Tommy doesn't like me ... You still do your job, huh? The secret is to think of the Eagles. They toured forever and they fucking hated each other."

"I don't remember doing that interview," Neil says with a shrug. "You know, we hadn't gotten along in a long time, but we get along great now, better than ever. Me and Tommy, we've been friends for 30 years. That's a long time - and in 30 years, you're going to have fights, but it's just like brothers, you know? Brothers fight and then you make up." Gerardini squeezes his hand. They married three months ago in a Las Vegas ceremony at which MC Hammer officiated.

Hammer is Neil's castmate on the US TV series Surreal Life. Neil has become better known, though, for another TV series, Remaking: Vince Neil. It followed the overweight singer as he went to behavioural therapists, a personal trainer, wardrobe and hair stylists, and had liposuction and a facelift. "It was great," says Neil, grinning. His face looks normal, still on the chubby side. "I remember getting this call when we were in South Beach, Florida, having cocktails, and it was my manager saying VH1 has this new show and they want to remake you. I said that sounds like a great idea, because I wasn't really doing anything - my [solo] band's tour was just ending - and you have a beer gut from drinking all the time. And this show - you couldn't fail. If after three months you look the same, you're going to look like an idiot."

Asked if guitar-player Mars (53, but looking much older) considered a makeover, Neil laughs heartily. "No. Mick's like the old trusty car that will always keep running. It might be a little rusty on the outside but the engine still works good. Anyway, he just had an extreme makeover. He had his hip replaced. He's doing pretty good."

Mars is sitting alone on his dressing room couch. At the start of the tour he was hit with a $10m palimony suit by his last girlfriend. He is thin and painfully frail, dressed all in black, from stacked shoes to sunglasses and hat. There were reports in the music press that Dave Navarro, sometime guitar-player with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction, was waiting in the wings to step in if Mars couldn't cut the tour. "There's no way if this is, like, a reunion tour you can have someone else on guitar," he says, softly. "I don't know who started that rumour. It didn't hurt me, it just pisses me off. I mean, I have this shit to deal with - I call myself Quasimodo, I make light of it - but I don't know where it's going to take me."

[Malcolm]

On his tour bus, there is an adjustable, electric hospital bed and an assistant "to watch that nothing too bad happens. Because I could break very easily. But I wouldn't turn to alcohol or opiates or anything again. It's not worth it. Those stupid little tabs - I had to use them, that's the only way to treat this, and it turned into an addiction - they wrecked my life for three or four years."

Was there any trepidation about committing himself to a two-year world tour when the stress, or the issues between Neil and Lee, might drive him back to drugs? "I never thought about it that way when they asked me. At the time, I was pretty fucked up on opiates and hip replacements and all that kind of crap to think about anything else. Of course Tommy and Vince had issues, but I think it was all aired out and taken care of, just talking among ourselves, talking with managers. And people wanted to see us back together, so it was time to do it." How much money will they earn from this tour? "I have no idea."

However much it is, Lee deserves it. Every night he's hoist into the air on a single cable tied to his trousers and swung between two high-altitude drum platforms. "I pray to God every day that the cable never breaks. I almost fell the other day." Their insurance costs the earth; one reason why Lee is not allowed to drive his own tour bus. "I asked but they won't let me." His is the "party bus". Lee is single these days. "Super single. I'm the only single guy on tour - well Mick is, but you know, with his health - so I get to play with all of the girls. I keep calling my friends. I'm like, guys, you've got to come out here and help me, there's way too much fun going on out here, I can't do it all by myself."

Like Sixx, Lee also travels with recording equipment. There are plans to record an all-new M?tley Cr?e album when the tour is over - which at this rate looks like 2007. The UK leg begins in June - as opposed to the three bonus tracks recorded for their latest two-CD retrospective, Red White and Cr?e.

Although Sixx folded his band, Brides of Destruction, Lee, like Neil, is keeping his solo career going. An insurance policy against the inevitable M?tley implosion? "The only thing people ask us about is if we're getting along. Of course we get along. Time heals - it's been six years. People change, grow up. I think we all have the attitude now that if we could just fucking get along instead of fucking with each other, we could continue to do this for as long as anybody wants to. It's all about communication. I learned that [in therapy when] going to jail for spousal abuse. I wish that had never happened to me, but I learned something, so it turned out to be OK. And right now this is where I want to be, and I'm having a fucking blast."

Towards the end of tonight's show, after the evil clowns, blood-spattered roadies, the prodigal dwarf on his mini motorbike, Mars getting set on fire while guitar soloing, Lee flying through the air, strobes, explosions, dry ice, aerial pole-dancing, an animated M?tley film, the Bic-waving, singalong ballad, and the "tit-cam" (that old 1980s arena rock staple, where women are encouraged to bare their breasts on screen), Sixx declares, before closing with new song If I Die Tomorrow: "This is not a fucking farewell tour." Or as Neil puts it succinctly: "We're M?tley Cr?e, motherfuckers. We're back."

? M?tley Cr?e's UK tour starts at Glasgow SECC on June 14

[Malcolm]

Glen Burnie of The Baltimore Sun has issued the following report:

Maryland's Missing Persons Network is seeking volunteers to help search tomorrow (April 30) for a 32-year-old Baltimore County woman who has been missing since March 6 when she failed to meet friends for a M?TLEY CR?E concert in Washington.

Tracey Gardner-Tetso (photo) of the 7800 block of Blue Grass Road in Rosedale was reported missing by her husband after she did not meet friends at the heavy metal band's show at the MCI Center. Her car was found March 17 at a Days Inn parking lot in Glen Burnie, and her family has focused search efforts in that region, said Kylen Johnson, founder of Maryland's Missing Persons Network.

The woman's disappearance has drawn national attention, in part because M?TLEY CR?E has paid to have Gardner-Tetso's photo distributed on news wires. The band has also ? along with Gardner-Tetso's co-workers, relatives and friends ? pledged a $22,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.

Search volunteers are to meet at 10 a.m. in the Home Depot parking lot on East Ordnance Road. The group plans to search a nearby landfill, Johnson said.

For more information: 410-320-5416.

[Malcolm]

Chad Heilman has sent in the following message:

"Just got home from the M?TLEY CR?E concert at the Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois on April 28th. They told us they were recording stuff for the upcoming DVD. Don't know if they are adding this footage to the stuff they already recorded in Grand Rapids or if they actually decided to redo the whole thing in Peoria."

As previously reported, M?TLEY CR?E filmed their April 27 concert at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, MI for the upcoming DVD, to be distributed on TV as well as DVD this fall. Clear Channel Entertainment, who promoted the concert, will produce and distribute the TV show and the DVD on their home video label, Clear Channel Entertainment Home Video, from Clear Channel Entertainment TV. Acclaimed award-winning director Hamish Hamilton, who has previously shot concerts by U2, MADONNA and PETER GABRIEL, helmed the shoot.

The DVD will be released on the Clear Channel Entertainment Home Video label, and distributed domestically by Ventura Home Video.

[Malcolm]

Jeri Rowe of goTriad.com has issued the following report:

Let's call her Katie. She was standing near me last week at M?TLEY CR?E's show at the Greensboro Coliseum when drummer Tommy Lee aimed his video camera toward the delirious crowd and asked women to show their essentials.

Well, quicker than you could sing the refrain from "Girls, Girls, Girls", the arena went Mardi Gras. So did Katie. After downing her fourth screwdriver, she flipped up her shirt and showed 9,000 screaming fans the Indian tribal sign that snakes from her ribs to her collarbone ? and everything in between.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Lee screamed from the stage.

And why, you ask?

"I just like being the center of attention," said Katie, a 21-year-old stripper from Greensboro. "And he said it was a titty cam."

Welcome to M?TLEY CR?E's April 21 concert, the most decadent rock show I've ever seen. They carted in five truckloads of equipment and turned the arena into a sexy big top, complete with a fire-eating dwarf, stage hands in scary clown masks and three female dancers in thigh-high boots and second-skin bustiers.

In the middle of it all was rock's most notorious bad boys, a band whose lifestyle offstage had become the ultimate pop-culture clich?: sex, drugs and rock ?n' roll. Watch VH1's "Behind the Music" special on the band. Or read Neil Strauss' excellent book "The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band". It all makes you wonder how they survived.

But here they were, playing the coliseum for the first time in eight years. They performed for nearly three hours ? two sets, two encores ? plowing through more than two decades' worth of music. The crowd went berserk.

Like the bespectacled kindergarten teacher from Durham in the third row, Gretchen Locker, 28, an admirer of CR?E bassist Nikki Sixx. She stood the entire concert, holding a sign, "All I Want Is Sixx," which she made from supplies in the teachers' workroom.

Sixx saw her. Or at least she thought so. He smiled at her after spewing water onto fans and yelling, "Let's keep rockin' until the day we die."

[Malcolm]

 It's now official! The original members of M?TLEY CR?E, the raucous rulers of the sex-and-drugs-fueled nightlife on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and one of the world's most infamous rock bands, will bring their "Red, White & Cr?e Tour 2005" to Australian shores in December.

The tour is announced to coincide with the promo visit by drummer Tommy Lee, the VIP guest at the May 10 Jack Awards in Sydney.

Joining the CR?E to make this a hellishly hard rockin' night will be evergreen U.K. band MOT?RHEAD. Celebrating 25 years since the release of their debut "Ace of Spades", Lemmy and the boys got the best reviews of their career for last year's fantastic "Inferno" album. This year they were awarded a Grammy for Best Metal Performance and are in rip-snorting form.

Winning the eagerly-sort after Aussie opening spot are THE CASANOVAS, well on their way to being one of the best live acts in the country. With a great new single, "Heartbeat", and a lengthy tour upcoming, by December they will be red-hot.

M?TLEY CR?E, MOT?RHEAD and THE CASANOVAS tour dates:

Dec. 03 ? Sydney, AUS @ Superdome
Dec. 04 - Brisbane, AUS @ Entertainment Centre
Dec. 06 - Melbourne, AUS @ Vodafone Arena
Dec. 08 - Adelaide, AUS @ Entertainment Centre

Tickets for all shows go on sale Monday, May 23.

[Malcolm]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7287562/motleycrue?pageid=rs.NewsArchive&pageregion=mainRegion&rnd=1115575590421&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1059

Thanks To Norway for the article

[Malcolm]

 When M?TLEY CR?E took the stage at a recent concert, the band received some startling news. Just weeks before, one of their devoted Baltimore fans had simply vanished on her way to their March 6, 2005, concert in Washington, DC. Her friends say that she wouldn't have missed this concert for the world. Loyalty means a lot to the band and especially to Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx, so they decided to team up with "America's Most Wanted" to find their missing fan. They're offering a $10,000 reward to bring this woman home. Tune in as M?TLEY CR?E joins the "AMW" crew to help find a missing rock 'n' roll fan on "America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back" Saturday, May 14 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT) on Fox.

Tracey Gardner-Tetso never made it to the March 6 concert, and when her friends tried to call her cell phone, it was turned off. On Monday, March 7, Tracey's friend, Christian, who she was supposed to go to the concert with, called her office to see if Tracey had shown up for work. Tracey's supervisor and friend, Monika Barilla, told Christian that Tracey wasn't in yet. Christian told Monika that Tracey had never made it to the concert. "Tracey is a fun-loving person. She loved rock-n-roll and M?TLEY CR?E was her favorite," Tracey's friend Monika told "AMW" producers. By Tuesday, March 8, Tracey was still missing and no one had heard from her. Her friends decided to call the police.

Police immediately questioned Tracey's family and friends. But no one has seen or heard from her since 3:05 on March 6. Then, cops tracked down a small piece of the puzzle. Police say there is a record of Tracey's car passing through the southbound tube of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel at 7:48 p.m. the night she went missing. Her last outgoing cell phone call was at 3:05 p.m. when she phoned her friend, Christian, who had bought her the M?TLEY CR?E tickets for her birthday.

According to officials, Tracey's car was later found in the Glen Burnie area at a local Days Inn. So far, police have few leads as to Tracey's whereabouts and are hoping with national attention, someone might come forward with the clue they're looking for.