Motley Crue

On his way to Knebworth for a slot at Sonisphere Festival with the legendary sleazers, the controversial singer makes a stop in London to talk about the future, with and without his notorious partners in crime.

Vince Neil currently owns several businesses, replaced roasted cockroaches with Mexican food and he ditched Sunset Strip for Las Vegas! Is the old rock’n’roll hellraiser still hiding in there somewhere? Let’s see if we can get him out…

Sonic Shocks: Welcome back to England!

Vince: Thank you!

Sonic Shocks: So, it’s not just an album we are promoting today, but also a book and a tequila brand!

Vince: I had the tequila brand for five years, just getting the word out that it’s out there.

Sonic Shocks: Both your new album and book are entitled “Tattoos and tequila”, was that done to promote your tequila or the other way around?

Vince: (laughs) No, tattoos and tequilas is a way of life! I have lot of tattoos and own two tattoo parlours… It sounded like a good name, one that represents who I am really.

Sonic Shocks: Two tattoos parlours… But you don’t do tattoos, do you?

Vince: No, you don’t want me to do that on anybody!

Sonic Shocks: You’ve never tattooed anyone?

Vince: Just once, a few lines really, it scared the shit out of me!

Sonic Shocks: Who let you do that?

Vince: Actually one of my artists! (laughs)

Sonic Shocks: Does he still speak to you?

Vince: Oh yeah, he has to, I pay him!

Sonic Shocks: Let’s talk about the album “Tattoos and tequila”, which is a cover album… How did you choose the artists to cover?

Vince: When you’re driving your car you hear a song, and you remember what you were doing at that time. For me, each song has a specific memory attached to it, and I know exactly what I was doing in that part of my life. I wanted this record to be like a soundtrack of my life.

Sonic Shocks: Are they in chronological order?

Vince: No. (laughs) I never thought about that. It’s like… ‘Another piece of meat’ from Scorpions, it brings me back to when Tommy and I where 15 years old and would listen to that song over and over and over, driving around his van and trying to look for girls; ‘Nobody’s fault’ by Aerosmith, we were 15-17 then and going to the beach surfing every day, and listen to the “Rocks” album.

Sonic Shocks: I really like ‘He’s a whore’ from Cheap Trick!

Vince: I used to sing that song when I was 15 in a band called Hard Candy, before Motley Crue, and when Motley Crue wanted to do a cover on the Theatre Of Pain album, I brought in two suggestions: one was ‘He’s a Whore’ and one was ‘Smokin’ In The Boys Room’. We tried them both, and obviously ‘Smoking In The Boys Room’ made it on the record and became a hit, but it could have just as easily been ‘He’s a Whore’. I played it the other night in Vegas and Rick Nielsen came on stage to play guitar on it.

Sonic Shocks: Oh, I wish I was there for that!

You also have two original tracks on this album: the title track, which is pretty much what I expected from a Vince Neil song called Tattoos and Tequilas, and the second one, ‘Another Bad Day’, that didn’t make it to the New Tattoo album…

Vince: Well, actually everybody say that but Nikki and I are not sure if that was even before, because we remember it didn’t make it on the album because Tommy didn’t like the song, and Tommy didn’t play drums on New Tattoo, so we’re not entirely sure when it was written and what album for!

Sonic Shocks: It was just there lying on a shelf…

Vince: Out of all the songs we’ve done with Motley Crue and not released this one really stuck out, I just loved the song, love to sing it.

Sonic Shocks: What’s your band’s line up at the moment?

Vince: Still the same one:  Dana Strum on bass from Slaughter, Jeff Blando on guitar and Zoltan Chaney on drums.

Sonic Shocks: When is the book coming out?

Vince: In September.

Sonic Shocks: It’s your first personal autobiography; how does it compare to “The Dirt”?

Vince: The Dirt was written by four guys, this is MY story. I touched a lot of things in The Dirt but I really didn’t get into details; me growing up, my neighbourhood, I grew up in Compton and there were murders and such… It’s the story of me growing up, getting into rock’n’roll, the tragedies in my life, things in and out of Motley, and it’s also ten years on so a lot of things happened since then. It’ s not only my perspective on my life, a lot of other people are in there: my mum and dad, ex wives, managers, friends, band members from other bands…

Sonic Shocks: Bandmates from Motley Crue?

Vince: Nikki is in there.

Sonic Shocks: Is he the one you feel closer to now?

Vince: I talk to him a little bit more than the other guys, but you know, we don’t even live in the same cities: they live in LA and I lived in Vegas and San Francisco, so we mainly get together when we’re rehearsing or something.

Sonic Shocks: How do you plan to promote this book?

Vince: I will be doing a tour in the States, then come back over here for a world tour too. I would be doing it now, but I had some time off then Motley all of a sudden threw these shows at me, and the Ozzfest! (laughs)

Sonic Shocks: Since Motley are doing Ozzfest in the US, any chance to see them at the UK Ozzfest in September?

Vince: I don’t have the time really, I took time off Motley to do this stuff, although it would be good if I could come back with my solo band and do it.

Sonic Shocks: Any chance that’s gonna happen?

Vince: Not that I know of!

Sonic Shocks: Well, Ozzfest promoters reading this… (laugh)

What else is happening with Motley Crue, just live shows or is there anything new being recorded?

Vince: No, just these five-six shows in Europe and America, that’s it.

Sonic Shocks: Anything coming up in the future?

Vince: Probably we’ll have something out at the beginning of next year for our 30^thanniversary.

Sonic Shocks: How is Mick getting on?

Vince: He’s doing good, thanks.

Sonic Shocks: You’ll be playing the second UK Edition of Sonisphere this weekend, a young but extremely successful Festival; do you think it’s going to rival Download?

Vince: I don’t know, we just show up and play! (laughs) As long as there are a lot of people there who wanna come out and see us, that’s great.

Sonic Shocks: You’ve been around for a while now; do you still enjoy doing this or is it just a job?

Vince: No, I love it, and this is why when Motley are not touring, I’m always touring! I haven’t had a vacation since we started.

Sonic Shocks: Do you have the same fun on your own that you have with Motley Crue?

Vince: Yes, I have the best of both worlds! With Motley I get to do Festivals and headline on big stages, and with my solo band I play smaller places, sometimes clubs, more intimate venues.

Sonic Shocks: What difference did you find between Festivals here and in the US?

Vince: The Festivals here are just amazing; I wish the US would put together Festivals like those in the UK. People here are more passionate I think.

Sonic Shocks: Reading your recent press releases, you come across as a grown up businessman, yet report on your antics tell a different story. Do you have a double personality, someone looking after the business side of things for you or are you just throwing money down the drain?

Vince: I only choose businesses I have fun with. I have clubs playing live music and I can see new bands coming up, and bands like Ratt and LA Guns come to my club to play. And my place in Palm Beach is bars and dancing girls, I have tattoo parlours and I get my tattoos for free now (laughs), I just opened a Mexican place in Vegas, a Mexican Cantina, because I love Mexican food…

Sonic Shocks: So hold on, the plan is to make money with rock’n’roll and buy places to get everything you like for free? Is that how it works?

Vince: Yeah, but you have to remember I make money on those things too! (laughs)

Sonic Shocks: Would you ever consider getting them all together and organizing a Tattoo Convention with live bands where Mexican food and Tequila are served?

Vince: If the American laws would allow it, but at least in Vegas you cannot serve alcohol in tattoo parlours.

Sonic Shocks: Really? Not even conventions? I think you can in the UK…

Vince: We’ll have to do it over here then! (laughs)

Sonic Shocks: When are you going to Sonisphere?

Vince: Going there tomorrow and playing on Saturday.

Sonic Shocks: Any act you’re particularly looking forward to see?

Vince: I don’t even know who’s on the bill!

Sonic Shocks: Alice Cooper is playing tomorrow night. Rammstein headlining on Saturday, Iron Maiden on Sunday.

Vince: I’d like to see Iron Maiden, haven’t seen them for a while.

Sonic Shocks: You’re a ladies’ man, what’s your take on the size zero debate? Who would you pick between a size zero model and a full figured Marilyn Monroe sized kind of girl?

Vince: (laughs) I’m more a curvy girl kind of guy, you just have to look at the women in my life! Would go for Marilyn Monroe.

Sonic Shocks: Writing your autobiography, you must have been looking back at your life quite a lot; if you could go back in time and do only one thing differently, which one would it be?

Vince: I don’t know, because what I’ve done in my life, the mistakes that I’ve made, I learned from them, or tried to learn from them, and apply that to my life, so everything that I’ve done there’s always been some good coming out of it.

Sonic Shocks: So you wouldn’t change anything?

Vince: No.

Sonic Shocks: A lot of people my age grew up with Motley Crue, and if you asked them what they would put on their dictionary next to ‘rock’n’roller’, they would say ‘Vince Neil’. What would be Vince Neil’s definition of a rock’n’roller?

Vince: I guess a musical person that just does things his own way!

Interview by The Wicked Witch and Elvira