Motley Crue Doesn’t Actually Play Live, Says Guitarist
Motley Crue's Mick Mars says he was the only member that played entirely live on the band's recent tour.
Pulling off a stadium tour is no easy feat, and it truly takes a village to set up, break down, run a soundcheck, handle security, and of course throw one heck of a show. But in the case of Motley Crue, it turns out that their 2022 tour dates were also made possible through the egregious use of backing tracks, according to Deadline. This revelation was made public when guitarist, and founding member, Mick Mars filed a lawsuit against the band on April 4 in response to the band’s efforts to dissolve his ownership of the band due to his inability to tour.
While using backing tracks is a common practice for bands, Mars’s complaint stems from how the backing tracks were in fact used on his last tour with Motley Crue. In live music, sometimes a four-piece band has a few prerecorded synthesizer parts that they’d like to incorporate into their live show instead of bringing another musician on the payroll. And in some instances, the lead vocalist simply wants to be accompanied by a number of canned backup vocal tracks to fill the sound out while performing the lead parts.
In the case of Motley Crue, however, Mars claims that he was the only member of the band who fully played all of his own parts during the highly successful Live Nation-promoted stadium tour last year. He even went as far as to claim that bassist Nikki Sixx relied on prerecorded parts for his entire performance, Vince Neil’s lead vocals were heavily supplemented with backing tracks, and even some of Tommy Lee’s drum parts were prerecorded. Fans of the band have even noted that there were drum sounds coming from Lee’s kit before he had even sat down to play, so there is certainly some truth to Mars’ claims.
It seems as if Mars has gone into DEFCON 1 defense mode after Sixx tried convincing him that his playing was sloppy, and fans were upset with his performance. Mars and his attorney have gone on record stating that Mars missed some cues during the last tour, but it was due to faulty in-ear monitors, which can happen to any band. It’s simply just a reality when it comes to putting on a massive show.
But messing up occasionally is an indication that Mars was performing his own parts, unlike the rest of Motley Crue, according to his claims.
This animosity between the founding members of Motley Crue stems from Mars announcing this past October that he decided to stop touring with the band. Mars has openly struggled with ankylosing spondylitis, a debilitating inflammatory disease that can cause one’s bones to fuse to the spine, throughout his career, but otherwise still wanted to be a part of the band. The rest of Motley Crue, at that point, decided to announce that Mars retired from the band, which isn’t necessarily true because he still wanted to perform with them for one-off shows and contribute to any studio efforts.
A debate over earnings is what sparked this feud between Motley Crue, and Mars, who up to this point has been a 25 percent owner/participant. As the rest of the band is gearing up for an upcoming tour later this spring, Sixx, Neil, Lee, and the band’s management supposedly wanted to cut Mars’s compensation to somewhere around 5 percent, in addition to having him sign over his rights to the band’s assets.
In an ideal world, Mars would have still been considered a full member of Motley Crue, but they would rely on John 5 to fulfill the live touring duties that Mars couldn’t do because of his health issues.
These kinds of legal proceedings often happen with legacy bands, and more often than not, it’s the same old song and dance in regard to rights and ownership. Though in case of Motley Crue, this current song and dance will probably rely heavily on backing tracks, and prerecorded material according to Mars.
