Published: July 02, 2008 03:33 pm            

MUSIC: Crue Fest hits Darien Lake

Motley Crue’s new album, “Saints Of Los Angeles,” is justifiably being lauded as a return to the group’s classic rowdy hard rock form.

There are probably those who would guess that Motley Crue consciously wanted to make an album that recalled such career-defining albums as “Shout At The Devil” (1983), “Girls, Girls, Girls” (1987) and “Dr. Feelgood” (1989).

The reality, according to bassist Nikki Sixx, couldn’t be much different.

“I think this band has a horseshoe up its ass because we are so lucky,” Sixx said, referring both to the band’s decadent lifestyle and to its music. “I mean, we’re not even supposed to be here, first of all. We’re not supposed to be alive, first of all. Second of all, we’ve made so many left and right turns when we shouldn’t have — in everybody else’s opinion, that we should have just gone right off the tracks and not even been played on the radio.

“I think if we had thought about it too much, we probably definitely would have made a different record,” Sixx said of “Saints Of Los Angeles.” “If we were trying to appease radio, appease a video channel, appease the press, we probably would have made a different kind of record, because let’s face it, a raw, dirty, heavy, smelly Motley Crue record in 2008 is not what’s in. Maybe that’s why it will work.”

If Motley Crue didn’t premeditate the music that emerges on its albums, that doesn’t mean some thought didn’t go into “Saints Of Los Angeles” as work on the record began.

In making the CD, Sixx and his bandmates, singer Vince Neil, guitarist Mick Mars and drummer Tommy Lee, tapped two members of Sixx’s side band, Sixx: A.M. — singer James Michael and guitarist DJ Ashba — to co-produce and write for the CD.

Michael, who participated in mid-June on a conference call with Sixx, described how the direction for the album was developed, saying the project started with a decision to use Motley Crue’s tell-all autobiography, “The Dirt,” as inspiration for the lyrics of “Saints Of Los Angeles.”

“It was really a process to first off figure out what this Motley Crue record needed to be,” Michael said. “Because I was producing it as well as writing (on) it, the onus kind of fell on me to make sure we started off on the right foot and knew what the project had to be from the very beginning.”

“Saints Of Los Angeles” pretty much tells the story of Motley Crue in chronological order. The song “Down at the Whiskey” is about the group’s beginnings on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles from roughly 1979 to 1981. From there, songs follow Motley Crue’s rise as one of the leading bands on the so-called hair metal scene of the 1980s, complete with tales of the group’s drugs-booze-women lifestyle that accompanied those years (“Chicks = Trouble”).

Motley Crue eventually crashed after its years on top. First Neil left in 1992, and the band tried to push ahead with new singer John Corabi. But the lone CD by this version of the band, 1994’s “Motley Crue,” stiffed. By the late-1990s, Neil had rejoined the fold.

The group released a studio CD, “Generation Swine,” in 1997 and went on tour, but the band was not back on solid footing. In 1999, Lee left to start his own group, Methods Of Mayhem. Drummer Randy Castillo came on board for the 2000 CD, “New Tattoo,” but severe stomach ailment made his stint a short one (Castillo succumbed to cancer in 2002).

In 2002, Neil was booted, and before long, Motley Crue had entirely broken up.

But three years ago, all four original members reunited for a highly successful reunion trek, the “Carnival Of Sins” tour. Soon the group started planning to make new music again. But even as word about the “Saints Of Los Angeles” project was getting out, not all was quiet in the Crue camp.

Last September, there were rumors that Lee was once again leaving the band. Lee, though, is on board this summer as the band launches its first festival tour, Cruefest, and the band has declined to specifically address the situation.

“We just choose to focus on where we’re at now, which is not there anymore. We’re here,” Sixx said. “What’s happened has happened, and what’s been fixed has been fixed.”

Sixx and his bandmates have good reason to look forward at this point. Cruefest looks like a box office success. With a lineup that includes support acts Papa Roach, Buckcherry, Trapt and Sixx: A.M., it figures to offer a lively bill of gritty rock.

Sixx said the idea of putting together a festival tour had been kicked around for some time.

“We feel something that’s really, really missing is a rock and roll festival, a festival that’s about good songs, it’s about showmanship and it’s about lifestyle,” Sixx said. “We feel that as much as we love all kinds of music, that this music was not being represented properly in any way ... I love going to Lollapalooza and Coachella and Ozzfest and (having) a great time, but you don’t see Aerosmith, you don’t see AC/DC, you don’t see Motley Crue, you don’t see Guns ‘N Roses, you don’t see Buckcherry. You don’t see these kinds of bands on those festivals. So for us, it’s about creating a home for those kinds of bands.”

Sixx hopes Cruefest will become a recurring summer festival that will grow larger in the years ahead.

“There are so many cool bands out there I wish we could have taken out with us (this year). We didn’t have a second stage,” Sixx said. “We wanted to take Eagles of Death Metal, wanted to take Turbonegro ... There are a lot of (expletive) killer rock bands out there, and the only way to help them is to make Cruefest continue to go every year so that we can grow into second stages and bring new bands out and (expose) them to a community that likes this kind of music.”



—Alan Sculley is a St. Louis-based freelance writer.



IF YOU GO

* WHAT: Crue Fest starring Motley Crue with Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Sixx: A.M. and Trapt

* WHERE: Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, 9993 Allegheny Road, Darien Center

* WHEN: 5 p.m. Wednesday

* MORE INFORMATION: Visit darienlakeconcerts.com

        

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