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Motley Crue Bassist Speaks Out On "Entertainment Or Death"
Fans of Motley Crue live and die with their stadium-sized riffs and their plug 'em in and play attitude, so it should come as no real surprise that the veteran outfit stuck like crazy glue to that formula as they picked the 15 tracks for "Live 1983-1999: Entertainment or Death." Pegged for a Nov. 23 release on their own Motley/Beyond Records label, bassist Nikki Sixx outlined the band's philosophy in constructing Motley Crue's first live album.
''Ninety percent of the stuff, there's no fix-ups. That was a big deal for us. A lot of albums out there are overdubbed to death. If there was a bad bass note that would ruin the whole recording we'd go back and punch it in, but other than that it was drums, bass, guitar, vocals,'' Sixx said.
''We wanted it to be more like a bootleg, a good quality bootleg. It sounds like a motherfucker, not like the Metallica thing where they went back and fixed every drum track and every guitar track. Some bands replay the whole album. That kind of thing is cheesy. It's like lying to the kids.''
Blending surefire hits ''Shout At the Devil'' and ''Girls, Girls, Girls'' with lesser known tracks such as ''Knock 'Em Dead Kid'' and ''Primal Scream'' -- and adding a cover of ''Helter Skelter'' for good measure -- Motley Crue tried to cover all the bases. It was a process that Sixx -- a father of four -- said is about as easy as having to settle on a favorite kid.
''When they're your songs, you like them all. They're like your kids; they all have their own personalities. We asked the fans. A lot of them wanted to hear older stuff and some things like ''Kickstart My Heart'' and Dr. Feelgood, we thought maybe we shouldn't even put them on the record,'' Sixx said. ''But as a fan, if I bought a Bowie live album and it didn't have 'Jean Genie,' I'd be bummed. So we tried to appease the cult and the masses and still keep the overall feeling of a live record.''
Fresh off a summer tour with the Scorpions -- Motley Crue's first minus long-time skinsman Tommy Lee -- Sixx described the transition from working with Lee to newcomer drummer Randy Castillo as ''seamless,'' and said that the Crue hopes to embark on a similarly-styled outing next summer. ''The difference was that Randy wanted to be there and Tommy didn't,'' Sixx said. ''It was stressful when Tommy was around because he was very into doing new stuff that sounds like other bands.''
In the latest of Motley Crue's tangles with the men in blue, charges of attempting to incite a Las Vegas crowd to violence against Sixx were dropped by prosecutors recently. Sixx said it was a trumped up charge that cost him a big business deal.
''They arrested me and had no idea why they arrested me,'' Sixx said. ''They came up with a bullshit charge of trying to incite a riot and later they reviewed the tapes with my attorney and decided to let it go. I lost a multi-million dollar contract with a major video game maker.''
