Circus Collector's Issue, 1994 (1984 Crue Article)

This Circus Magazine Collector's Issue was published in early 1994 and features classic interviews from the 1960s to the 1990s. Motley joins such illustrious company as Led Zeppelin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. This would have been published before the band released their self-titled record with new vocalist John Corabi. The table of contents blurb says

"Til death do they party. It's 1984 and the gates of hell have opened siccing Nikki, Vince and their pack of wacks on a shocked music scene."

Richard Hogan's article, "Motley Crue: Glad To Be Bad," begins by telling us that everyone (except the Rock magazines) seem to be putting the Crue down. Hogan says that MTV Host J. J. Jackson recently reported that Vince punched out a female patron at The Rainbow Bar and Grill when she objected to his Marine outfit (Paul Miles' Chronological Crue page has this happening at The Troubadour in January of 1982). Jackson drops the script and surmises to the camera that Vince may not have been so tough if the objector was an actual Marine!

J. J. Jackson

This video of Nikki and Vince on MTV talking to host Martha Quinn comes from January-February 1984, after the Shout at The Devil album and the premier video "Looks That Kill" had been released. At around three minutes and thirty seconds Martha says that just a few weeks back Vince was in the news regarding the assault. Vince says that it was a man he hit, not a woman  ("You know, everyone in Hollywood looks like a woman  . . . I hit somebody but it wasn't a girl"). This is one of the many stories that never made it to "The Dirt" book or movie.

The Circus interview is likely from December, 1983 when the Crue were in Massachusetts rehearsing for their opening slot on the Ozzy Osbourne Bark At The Moon tour in 1984. Nikki and Vince illustrate their violent and wild temperaments with stories of a recent (Nikki) car crash and a (Vince) Halloween incarceration. "We are extremists," explains Nikki. The band members and their current ages are shared as well as the circumstances of the making of their independently-released Too Fast For Love back in 1981. 

Motley were going out of their way to gain notoriety in these years and the Metal magazines ate it up and shared the debauched details. The above video clip also shows that the band was singled out by the PMRC. Nikki's x-rated groupie stories in the pages of the magazines would land the band in hot water soon after this interview and 1984 would end with the death of Razzle Dingley of the group Hanoi Rocks at the hands of drunk driver, Vince Neil.

The Motley Crue drama played out in real time in these years. Fans devoured these popular rags to hear news of their Rock God heroes and to get images for their teenybopper shrines. Circus Magazine almost exclusively featured live shots of the bands on tour. The mixture of video channels, Rock magazines with articles and posters and LPs or cassettes blaring the music was a heady mixture.



Above is the Classified page (for some more flavour of the age) and an ad that reminds us when this Circus was published: 1994. Motley were about to release the self-titled album with new singer John Corabi and Vince was a semi-successful solo artist. This back page ad for Gibson Guitars shows Mr. Neil with two members of his band. He is still playing solo shows today. Vince would get back with Motley by 1996-1997 when the magic of the 1984 years was long gone. That a movie biography of the band would be released in 2019 is a testament to the strength of the music and the allure of the notoriety of the group in the 1980s.

More Rock Magazines to come at The Sleaze Patrol Files!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!