Motley Crue

0:24Doug was that when I was typing some stuff on my phone it auto-corrects Motley Crew with the U-Muts. Yeah, isn't that great? The phone knows. Yeah, somebody programming that thing is a rock fan. We get paid every time they put those U-Muts in there. Yep. Is that the face you want? Is that the awe? Is that a joke? Is that it? That's a joke. That was a joke. So yesterday when I heard, or not yesterday when I heard about this, but when I was praying for this interview, I originally thought this was the other round. I thought you guys had made a country record. This makes a lot more sense to what's happened here. But if Motley were to make a country record, maybe I'll start with Vince, what do you think would be the first song you guys choose to cover? First of all, I think that they would need to get another singer. You don't think you could do country? I've been a rock singer my whole life. I love the people's voices and stuff, but Motley I think would have to have a girl's

1:12singer. I can enjoy that. Yeah, you can. They have to get a new bass part too. This would replace us with all girls. With all girls. We need a new name then. Right. I wish I had a suggestion. I don't know what song. All these songs have their own life with everybody's stamps on them. Justin Moore's version of Home Sweet Home is, you can't get much better than some of these cuts that these guys did. I was actually going to ask you that, Nicky, last year when we spoke on the phone, one of my questions is going to be a song like the one Carrie did. What other Motley songs would lend themselves to country arrangements and it looks like most of them kind of do. So was Motley a country band without realizing it or has country just shifted to a more rock and roll sound? Like do those arrangements just lend themselves to any genre? Motley is a band where, and I think Vince will attest to this, is how many songs did

2:04I bring in and just on an acoustic guitar? That was always. Like Shout at the Devil. I think it was like, you know, just like this or Live Wire. Most everything just comes off an acoustic guitar. That's the easiest guitar to carry around with you. And then, you know, Vince is like, whoa, that's cool. Mick plugs in, grabs the riff, Tommy jumps behind the drums. You know, we'd make some arrangement changes. Vince dives into it. Next thing, it sounds like Motley Crue. But I guess the point is any song that can be taken down to just the simplest format can then be put into any genre. You take any Rolling Stones song, it could be electronic to country to bluegrass. And I think it's the same. I've heard like crazy renditions of people's music.

2:52And this is a great example of that. And I think for a band, it makes us feel proud that our songs have stood the test of time and were able to be stripped down and then rebuilt back up. I wrote Timeless beside Don't Go Way Mad. Like that, it worked. If it was in the 50s, if it was in the 60s, it wouldn't matter. Like it's a timeless tune. Yeah. No question on that. Yeah, absolutely. It's a compa. What's the crazy thing? Yeah. Yeah. It's your interview, sorry. I have a feeling I know the answer to this one after listening to the record, but which one surprised you the most listening to the different arrangements? I think the Mavericks, for me, I think it's for everybody. I mean, listening to that song, what they did with it, it made it so cool. I mean, who thought Motley's song would be Calypso, Latin, country, you know?

3:41They did an amazing job with that song. And like, it's one of those songs that you just can't get out of your head after you hear it. Is that going to end up in the arrangement for this final tour? You guys going to be a country-fying couple of tunes? Probably not. I think some pissed off fans. I think the Cassie Pope, Robyn Zander, what they did with Animal and Me, that song's amazing. It's almost alternative. Even without you, with the two, you know, the duet, you know? And I thought that was really clever and cool. But that song lent to that, you know? Just never thought about it. Leon Rhimes took Smokey and the Boys Room and just brought her. Yeah, Blue Z. Blue Z. That's one of my favorite songs. Sounds like that song belongs in a strip club. I'd be really surprised to not see some girl on a pole dance into that.

4:27Yeah. I'm just going to picture that for a second or two. There's even a Canadian. The Simple Plan wrote one of the songs on the record, which I thought was really cool. And you kind of switched it around a little bit? Is that what I'm originally? If I Die Tomorrow. Yeah. I started writing with those guys. It was like a little leftover piece they had and kind of dug into that. Which was a surprise because it was an idea that was floating around and we cut that song and it was never really a big hit for us. We liked it. It's a great song. So it was cool for someone to dive into that and attack that. And they did a great job with it too. Yeah. Maybe we'll just go through some of the songs because Aaron Lewis does a freight. Obviously, Stane was probably heavily influenced by Monley back in the day. And now he's taking his career in a whole different direction. Well, that song is the most country of all the songs and it's the most uncountry guy singing it. Oh, there was a Spanish version of that?

5:13Is that true? You could have made a Spanish version of that record? Oh, of Afraid? Afraid? Yeah, we wrote that whole swine record, right? We started going down that road. I think we did glitter. It was glitter because I actually remember having this Spanish girl come and give me Spanish lessons with that song. So I was going to just record it. And she's pretty attractive. My wife would come home and I'm sitting on the couch with this girl. Who the hell is this? It's my vocal coach. That's my Spanish teacher. My Spanish teacher. That sounds like such an excuse, that's awesome. Oh, yeah, right. Wildside, you said that this is some of your best writing. Thank you. You said it, not me. Oh, I have? Yeah. Okay, I agree.

5:58I'll agree with you. No, I think the Wildside, I think that song lyrically was a real step towards what I always wanted to be for this band as a lyricist, which was stepping into the territory where Springsteen and Dylan live, where it's like true storytelling. I think nailed it 100% like on Dr. Feelgood. Wildside was taking the Lord's Prayer and kind of deconstructing it, rebuilding it through the lifestyle that we were living at the time. And almost being newsworthy, a lot of the lyrics, it was talking about what was going on at the time. So for Gretchen to dig into that thing, it's not a gentle song,

6:43and she just bit down on it. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. I'm just like, I didn't know she could sing like that. She almost sounds like you live it at times, which is crazy. Yeah. I wanted to ask you this last time on the phone. We never got a chance. This was a four-minute interview in no time. But I'm so curious, because on Howard's Dream, you were talking about how on Behind the Music you talked about your death experience, and you regretted saying what you said on Behind the Music. Can you explain anything about that? You know, it's a weird thing. We've been through so much stuff in our lives as friends and brothers and family members, and I kind of always kept that to myself. It was a crazy time, and then I just kind of talked about it by accident.

7:30It just kind of took off. And then I found out it's happened to so many people, that near-death experience where you kind of see things. I'm a little tired of talking about it, because I don't actually want to glorify it. But yeah, it's like one of those things where it kind of gets out of the bag, but it was almost like a spiritual kind of slap in the face. We know what you're talking about, then. No, it's okay. I'm just curious. You know, talk to many people that have died before. I do want some stories, though, because you're coming up to Canada, and one of the last shows on this tour is in Edmonton, which I thought were banned for life from the 80s. They banned us, but led us back here. That was a lesson like six months later. Yeah. What kind of ban is that? What if that's going to happen to Sterling with the Clippers?

8:16Six months ban. Six months. We hope not. We hope it's longer. What can you tell me about the dirt? I mean, it's, you know, we went over the script. The script is great. Did a table read with a bunch of actors to make sure that the script was where it needs to be. And, you know, we'd take it to the next step. You know, it was just casting and getting all that stuff done. But it's on its way. The train's moving, man. The train's moving, you know. And there's a lot of moving pieces to something like that. And it's our first experience in that, you know, there's finance, and as Vince said, casting and, you know, location and budget. We don't want to make a lifetime movie. This is going to be a real movie. Real actors not fluffed over, you know, junk that you see,

9:06like some of these rock and roll movies are. And so we're excited about that. It's almost not a rock movie. It's a sort of survival, a gang. Yeah. To be honest with you. And for us, we've always said we would like it to feel and smell and even look more like Goodfellas or Boogie Nights, train spotting. So if you, you know, you hear those kind of references and you know the band's history and you know what Vince is saying, you know it's not Rock of Ages. Even with the Wall Street. Yeah. You know, those true stories, you know, that's what we want. That's where we want to be. And we're willing to go that far. The opening scene on the script. We'll see if that makes it. We'll never make it. Never make it. Well, now I want to know what it is.

9:53You're not going to tell me. I've got to let you go anyway. Can we tell him? Yes, please. Let's do it. Yeah, we can't tell him. So we've got to do something before we get there. Okay. Five quick questions. One word answers. Nicky, you've done this before. Road or studio? Oh, road. You can answer as well. What was it? Road or studio? Oh, road. Lennon or McCartney? McCartney. Lennon. When you hear a song, what usually hits you first? Lyrics, melody or rhythm? Melody. Lyrics. If someone's never heard Motley Crue before, what song do they start with? Kickstart. Kickstart. In one word, Motley Crue. Gone. What was it? Gone.

10:38Gone. Dead. And more ways than one. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Cool. Last time you said dirty. Dirty and dead. Dirty and dead.