Mötley Crüe – Generation Swine – Interview

Mötley Crüe

Generation Swine (Elektra)
An interview with Tommy Lee
by Scott Hefflon

When and how did you and Vince Neil get back together?
We started recording this record with John Corabi (who sung on the last record), and we’d done about 23 songs or so with him singin’. And after a while, he just wasn’t singing all that well. We were like, “What’s up, John? What’s wrong?” He was all stressed out because he thought he was dragging our careers down. He said, “You guys should get Vince back. The fans don’t want to know about some other version, they want the four of you guys in Mötley Crüe. They don’t want me.” He started taking on all this guilt and shit, and Nikki and I are just like, “Man, what are we gonna do?” John just couldn’t bring it home in the songs. I remember this like it was yesterday; our court case with Vince was about to start, ’cause, ya know, he was suing us for the usual shit, royalties and all that. It probably didn’t start with Vince, it was probably a bunch of greedy lawyer clowns telling him he was entitled to a bunch of shit but he’d have to sue to get it. So it was really getting ugly and we were about to go to court, and Nikki called up Vince to come by the studio, check out what we were doing, and just hang out a bit. Vince came by and checked out the stuff, and he really dug it. He went into the vocal booth and just started singing along with the tracks, and we were like, “Fuck, dude!” Immediately, we knew what was missing. Just like any relationship, you don’t really realize what you had, what that person contributed, until they’re gone. And if you’re lucky, when that person comes back. The second he sang, we were like, “That’s the fuckin’ Crüe, bro!”

And Vince’s solo career wasn’t exactly breaking records.
No. Both of us had made a mistake, but we were doing our own thing. It was kinda like we needed to take a vacation from each other. We’d been together 17 years, bro. We needed some breathing room. So we told John we were going to put the original Crüe back together. And dude, his eyes got so big, he was so relieved. So we’re still all good friends, he comes by the studio and hangs, him and Vince are buds. I can’t believe how well it all worked out. There’s no animosity, and no weirdness.

John has a really strong voice, much heavier than Vince’s, and it really worked on Mötley Crüe, but it sounded like a different band.
When Vince left, we figured we’d get another singer and we’d still make a kick ass record. We made a heavy, badass record in the ’90s with Corabi singin’, and we’re left saying, “How come everyone didn’t dig it? This thing shreds!” But our fans didn’t want to know about it. Some did, obviously, but coming off of seven million records with Dr. Feelgood and Decade…, a million and a half is considered a flop.

Isn’t that frightening, the scale of it all?
I know, dude. A million and a half records is still a lot of fuckin’ records, bro!

You’re going to have to dig way back for this, but remember the days of duping 100 copies of your cassette and trying to sell ’em at gigs? Remember the days of fighting for space to hang flyers and then having other bands rip ’em down or paste their flyers over the top? And now a record’s a flop if it only sells 1.5 million!?
I know, dude, it’s scary shit. I was that guy at the telephone pole with the staple gun, bro. Me and Nikki, man, fuckin plastering Hollywood with our flyers.

What’s John doing now?
John’s workin’ with Bruce Kulick, who was in Kiss the whole time until the reunion. I heard some of the stuff, and it sounded really good. It doesn’t sound anything like Kiss, and it doesn’t sound anything like Mötley.

So they’ve got something in common, they both got their asses booted when the original line-up got back together.
Oh yeah, I’m sure they sat down and wrote a song about it. Uh-huh. Actually, I know John’s happy about us getting back together. He was a fan, first and foremost, ya know, so he wanted what was best for the band.

Tell me about doing “Planet Boom” for Barb Wire.
I sang on that, played drums, played guitar, the whole jam. Production and everything. That song ripped. Inside the self-titled record, there was an order form for an EP you could mail order called Quaternary. It has “Planet Boom,” a song called “Father” that Nikki did, John did a song called “Friends,” and Mick did a song called “Bittersuite.” It’s only available by mail order and Japanese import. When I got married, my wife heard the track and thought it was insane. She wanted it in her movie, so I remixed it, did a couple of edits, and put it on her soundtrack. I shot a video for it too.

Yeah, that was at the end of the video.
Really, no way! Fuckin’ rad, I didn’t know they put it on the end.

Maybe it was at the end of The Making of Barb Wire, I’m not sure.
Yeah, could be. I dunno. That’s cool though. We sent that video out to MTV, and man, that place is just sooo political. I remember, they called and said they loved the video, they thought it was great, but the new Mission: Impossible with Tom Cruise was coming out, and they’d dedicated all their play spots to that. I was trippin’. The song’s insane, the video’s insane, my wife looks fuckin’ insane, what else could they possible want? Every rock pig on the planet would totally groove on it, but they just wouldn’t play it.

The production on both “Planet Boon” and “Father” was fuckin’ incredible, almost industrial, but in a rock way. Generation Swine was co-produced by you and Nikki, as usual, but produced by Scott Humphrey. Who is he?
Scott has worked on so many different records, dude. He used to work with Bob Rock, so he’s worked with everyone. But he never got any credit. Scott never got any thank you or any of that, and we could tell he was really bummed by that. He is so fuckin’ talented. Behind every famous producer, there’s an amazing assistant. Scott was that guy.

It’s just two short names, Bob and Rock, but they seem to take up all the space in the credits.
And that’s not cool. Credit should be given where it’s due. So we snagged Scotty, and I’ll tell you what, soon everyone’s gonna know who Scott Humphrey is. Scott and I worked together on the drums tracks I did for a couple of the remixes for the “Closer (I Wanna Fuck You Like An Animal)” CD single.

You did drum tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remix album?
Trent and I met at A&M Studios when we were mixing the self-titled record. Trent was around when I was mixing “Planet Boom,” and he liked it. So I played drums on two of the six remixes of “Closer.”

You know I’ve got to ask why you revamped “Shout at the Devil.”
That was inspired by a fan and the American Music Award. A fan had sampled the original, stuck it into his computer, and hacked together a remix. So we thought that’d be a great song to redo. We sped it up, and hotrodded the fuck out of it.

This is kinda like the one cover song you often do.
Now we’re covering ourselves.

And this record only had a few guest appearances, like David Darling.
Right, the guitarist for the Boxing Gandhis. David and Nikki did a side project called 1958, the year both of them were born. That record is smokin’, dude. The record hasn’t been released yet, but one of the songs is on the Japanese version of Generation Swine. It’s called “Songs to Slit Your Wrists By.” He wrote that song about his ex-wife.

Speaking of wives, I do have to ask you about your newfound domesticity. Somehow I can’t see you as house-broken hubby. And I hear you both made quite a nice scene on Saturday Night Live.
Oh yeah. I went to New York to see the show ’cause my wife was going to be on it, so I get there and my wife’s volunteered me to be on the show. She’s like, “Hey, baby, check it out,” and she hands me a script. I’m like, “What the fuck is this?”

What are you, Gene Simmons or something?
She’s telling me it’s so easy, and it’ll be fun and shit. So I’m looking at the scripts, and I’m having a big laugh. And dude, I had one of the best times I’ve ever had. My face hurt for a week. These are really funny people. We did a skit where Norm MacDonald, the guy who does the “Weekend Update,” was dressed up like me. They’d taken Polaroids of my tattoos and drew them on his arm. He came out, and he played the full pain-in-the-ass that people make me out to be. So Pamela is filming this scene, and he storms on the set yelling, “Hey! Hey! I saw you winking at my wife. Fuckin’ cool it with the winky-winky shit!” And the director cuts the scene and explains that it’s a scene, a fake scene, and the actor is not winking at my wife. So “I” keep disrupting the scenes, until finally someone’s about to kiss my wife when I run out and beat the piss out of ’em. It was a lot of fun. It was a total parody of what lunatics the media make us out to be.

What about Pamela doing the monologue naked?
That’s my wife for ya. She went on Howard Stern the day before and said she was going to do it, but nobody thought she actually would. They thought she was just trying to get people to watch the show. One thing I gotta tell ya, dude, never fuck with my wife. She’s got big balls.

Is that what they’re calling them now?