Mick Mars, the guitarist of the multi-platinum glam rock band Mötley Crüe, has filed a lawsuit against his bandmates, alleging that they have financially ripped him off. Mars announced his retirement from touring due to his painful struggle with ankylosing spondylitis, making it challenging to handle full tours. However, he stated that he was still willing to record with the band or do limited performances. In the lawsuit, Mars claims that the band forcibly removed and stripped him of his shares in the corporation that manages the group’s business interests. He also accuses bassist Nikki Sixx of “gaslighting” him about his guitar skills diminishing and claims all of Nikki’s parts were pre-recorded. Mötley Crüe’s camp has fired back at the countersuit, stating that in stepping down from touring with the group, Mars has met the eligibility criteria of resigning from the band, thus leading to his diminishing revenue stakes in the group. The entire lawsuit can be found on Deadline. You can view the entire lawsuit via Deadline at this location.
Yesterday (6th), there were a few back and forth exchanges:
Mars spoke to Variety and explained in detail on his side of the story:
“I don’t really know if I should say this, but… Those guys have been hammering on me since ’87, trying to replace me. They haven’t been able to do that, because I’m the guitar player. I helped form this band. It’s my name I came up with [the Mötley Crüe moniker], my ideas, my money that I had from a backer to start this band. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere… The thing that they keep pushing, for many years, is that I have a bad memory. And that’s full-blown, out-of-proportion crap. Around 2012, when they first started saying that my memory was bad and I didn’t remember the songs, I came home and saw all my doctors, because I keep myself together, because I’m an old bastard. They had all the 10th Street people there [from the band’s management] — probably about five or six people — (versus) all my doctors going: “There’s nothing wrong with him.” And now they’re still playing that game with me. So, no, the truth is: I want to retire from touring because of my AS [Ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory, arthritic disease that causes vertebrae to fuse]. I don’t have a problem remembering the songs. I don’t have a problem with any of that stuff. But I do have a problem with them, constantly, the whole time, telling me that I lost my memory. No. Wrong. That’s wrong. Absolutely wrong. But my stupid body is telling me “No, don’t do that” [stay on the road]. You know, I’m gonna be 72 years old, and I’ve been touring with these guys 41 years, helping build the brand, helping do this and that. And you’re served with papers and going, this is crazy. This is stupid. I mean, come on. I call bullshit on that. I know the songs. I’ve even said to those guys — when we were on the phone, when they were all gonna fire me — I go, “You take your drums and play this song. You take your bass and play this song. And I’ll play the song correct.” And prior to this particular stadium tour, when we rehearsed, the first thing that happened when I walked in was, Nikki Sixx was like, “Hey, Mick, how did that part go? I can’t remember it.” So that’s how our rehearsals went. I rehearsed all of these songs for three months, every day, solid, twice a day. When I walked into this rehearsal for the stadium tour and I said, “Pick a song, I know them all,” (the response was) “Uh, we aren’t gonna do it that way,” to quote Nikki Sixx. And yes, on this particular tour, Nikki’s bass was 100% recorded. Tommy’s drums, to the best of my knowledge, there was a lot. I can’t say he did all of it recorded, but there were some reports from people in the audience that said, “Oh, I heard the drums playing, but there’s no Tommy on there. The song started, and there’s no drummer.” Stuff like that. And actually everything that we did on that stadium tour was on tape, because if we didn’t, if we missed a part, the tape would keep rolling and you’d miss it.” What was going in my ear wasn’t really my guitar. It was some kind of weird, out-of-phase kind of a thing. And I have it here, on my iPad. I’m telling my sound guy, Scotty, to turn up my guitar, and I go, “Wait a minute, that ain’t mine.” Because mine’s a big, huge, fat sound. And so when I started getting at it, it was a lot better. But there was parts with that tape on my guitar that were so horrible, yes, I did lose my spot a couple of times. But not all the time. And it is very difficult. And then it’s also difficult when they have a bunch of old-school 808 bass drums going and turning up the bass guitar. Do you know what that does to a guitar frequency? It drowns it out. And that’s what was going on a lot out front. … You’d have to be me to know it was the truth. Anyway, that was the worst 36 gigs ever had with the band. It was 36 [instead of the originally scheduled 12] because they knew I wanted to retire from it after that. [He says in the suit he did not want to do the extra two dozen dates that got added but went along with it.] I don’t know, and I can’t say I positively know, but I have a pretty good feeling that they wanted me gone anyway. Because they’ve been wanting that since forever. It’s just frustrating for me. I’m pretty upset that they’re even pulling this crap, when I carried these bastards for years. I think that those guys are hoping that I’ll just fold and lay down. Because I’ve done that many times. But this thing that I helped build for 41 years, I’m sorry, you’re not gonna take that from me. I worked very hard for that. It’s mine. I’m keeping it. You can’t have it. Sorry. But they’re well prepared, I can already tell you, because I’ve known them that long too. But I’m not backing down. I’m not gonna fold. And we’ll see what happens. I’m most definitely not afraid of them, or intimidated or anything else.”
Mötley Crüe’s attorney Sasha Frid shared the following statement to Variety on the situation:
“After the last tour, Mick publicly resigned from Mötley Crüe. Despite the fact that the band did not owe Mick anything — and with Mick owing the band millions in advances that he did not pay back — the band offered Mick a generous compensation package to honor his career with the band. Manipulated by his manager and lawyer, Mick refused and chose to file this ugly public lawsuit. Mick’s lawsuit is unfortunate and completely off-base. In 2008, Mick voted for and signed an agreement in which he and every other band member agreed that ‘in no event shall any resigning shareholder be entitled to receive any monies attributable to live performances (i.e., tours).’ Equally unfortunate are his claims about the band’s live performances. Mötley Crüe always performs its songs live, but during the last tour, Mick struggled to remember chords, played the wrong songs and made constant mistakes which led to his departure from the band. There are multiple declarations from the band’s crew attesting to his decline.”
The group’s longtime production manager Robert Long weighed in on the rift:
“When he is off, the band’s entire performance suffers. Mick’s performance during the Stadium Tour was unworkable and very difficult to manage. It began with the band’s rehearsals in April 2022. Mick would consistently forget chords and songs so the band would have to stop and re-teach those parts to Mick to remind him of the arrangements. …Mick’s performance issues continued throughout the tour. He would consistently miss notes; play out of tune; play the wrong chords during a song; stay within a chorus of a song and never come out of it; forget the song that he was playing and start a different one; and would get lost in songs. This happened at every show. … Our playback engineer put in cues for Mick so that he would stay on course but he would miss the cues.”
Nikki Sixx added the following via Twitter:
“Sad day for us and we don’t deserve this considering how many years we’ve been propping him up-We still wish him the best and hope he finds lawyers and managers who aren’t damaging him. We love you Mick -”
Sad day for us and we don’t deserve this considering how many years we’ve been propping him up-We still wish him the best and hope he find’s lawyers and managers who aren’t damaging him. We love you Mick –https://t.co/dhpu7ejxSi
— 📷 (@NikkiSixx) April 7, 2023
