Tommy Lee has revealed the deteriorating health of guitarist Mick Mars is one of the reasons Motley Crue are hanging up their boot straps.
The veteran band have announced their intention to retire from touring soon and drummer Tommy Lee says, “The farewell tour is next. This will be it. Our guitar player, Mick, he has a spinal disease that’s slowly fusing his vertebrae together. It’s one of those things that’s treatable, but not curable.”
The guitarist has famously suffered from ankylosing spondylitis since he was 17 and had hip-replacement surgery in 2004.
“So it’s just progressively getting really worse and it’s painful for him, so he doesn’t wanna tour much longer. I can’t say I blame him… The last thing we ever wanna do is go out running on two cylinders with some hired guy playing guitar; that’s just wack. So we wanna go out with one big hurrah with the original guys and be done with it.”
Speaking on a videotaped ‘Coffee Run’ ride with Canadian progressive-house music producer and performer Deadmau5 Lee adds, “That’s such a bad look when bands are still playing the fucking fairgrounds — those county-fair shows — and it’s just like two of the original guys, or one original guy, and the rest, no one knows who they are. We don’t wanna do that.
We want to go out on top. We don’t want to be one of those bands that people are like, ‘Oh, they’re playing a little club now.’ We still sell out arenas and do stadium shows and stuff like that, and that’s how we want to be remembered.”
Motley Crue recently returned to Las Vegas for an exclusive twelve-show engagement September 18th through October 6th at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
additional source: classicrockmagazine.com
8 Responses
I just saw the Crue in Vegas on October 2, 2013. I have seen them many times over the years. I was shocked by how amazing they still are. It was like no years have passed. Mick Mars was brilliant. I’m so sorry that his medical problems are causing him pain. However, it did not show, he played like a monster. I was in the front row (paid a lot of money for the tickets) and I got choked up watching these guys playing within arms reach. The amazing thing is, it was my daughters 17th birthday and that is what she wanted as a present. My family drove 20+ hours from Oregon to see them. To see my 13 year old son and 17 year old daughter light up to see Motley Crue was amazing. They had the same look in their eyes I did in 1983. I felt like a kid again at the Vegas show and I have seen them many times just in the last few years too. They just keep getting better. They still deliver the goods!!!!
Absolutely! Saw them last year with kiss and Crüe just blew them out of the arena! I applaud their desicion! But I’m sad to see them go. Bands of that caliber just don’t exists any more. I hope all the best for Mick and hope his health holds enough so he can at least continue to write and record. Mick Mars is one of the best in the biz folks, one of the very best
^^Nice story about you and yer kids. And a fellow ORegonian to boot! ;>}
I was at the second to last show in Vegas and was extremely impressed as well. You know what setlist you’re going to get with them, but the intensity kept it fresh…even Vince sounded great! Motley rules!
Tommy sees the Skid Rows of the world in clubs. Last “Tour”…..don’t kid yourself, they’ll do twice a year Hard Rock runs in ’15,’16.
Haha, and of course as always with Mötley, we never get the truth. Mick says Tommy and Vince are full of it.