Vince Part 7: Dr. Neil, 1988-1989

Vince was sober, recording Dr. Feelgood in Vancouver, Canada on the weekends, & apparently not getting along with his then wife, Sharise Ruddell. Sometime in perhaps mid 1988, Sharise talked to the folks at Blast! Magazine about her relationship with Vince, the making of Motley's new record & what she was getting herself up to as Mrs. Neil.

In May 1989, in the locker room after a charity baseball game, Coach Vince Neil talks to Gerri Miller of Metal Edge Magazine about the loss to Sam Kinison's team & updates her on the final stages of the recording of Dr. Feelgood.

Gerri Miller of Metal Edge once again gets the scoop on the new Motley record & Vince talks about everything including the new video, tour, acting & much more in this circa August 1989 article, 'Vince Neil On The Line':

Vince talks to Anne M. Raso at Powerline Magazine circa October-November 1989. He speaks at length about Motley's longevity, the scuffle-up at Moscow in August that saw them separating ways with manager Doc McGhee, the then European tour, the security necessary for big rock bands & an anecdote about an imposter who convinced a Las Vegas casino that he was the real Vince Neil & left a bill for 10 grand! The Crue would be jetting to gigs on their new private plane for the first time.

Vince's turn as an actor in some bigger budget movies is mentioned in all these interviews. He gets killed in Andrew 'Dice' Clay's The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane from 1990. He also voices regret that his scene in Police Academy Part 6 got cut from the final feature. Here's the trailer for the 'Dice' movie. Most of Vince's appearance is featured in the first 13 seconds!

Motley contributed 'Rock N' Roll Junkie' to the soundtrack. I actually bought this thing, I was such a Cruehead. I didn't know they were going to release it on Decade Of Decadence in 1991 but I couldn't have waited that long anyway. A fun & funky Motley B-Side!

We actually have about 6 minutes of Vince on the set of Police Academy 6 in late 1988. We see him in 'Hair & Make-up', going over his lines at his trailer & then being interviewed about Motley. Vince says they're taking holidays 1988 off & then pre-production with Bob Rock in January 1989 with recording starting February 1st. We even see the cut scene as the crew films it!

More Vinnie to come at The Sleaze Patrol Files!!

Nikki Sixx Part Sixx: Fashionista

 

Mr. Motley Crue was born with Rock Star genes & sure did cut a figure back in the ‘80s. By 1986-1987 the street punk had accumulated some wealth & began enjoying the finer things in life & photo sessions from those days reveal a more mature & stylish gent.

As early as Shout At the Devil Nikki showed a flair for fashion when he wasn’t studded up in his Road Warrior gear:

You could say that Nikki was almost a bit too pretty, maybe looked a little too perfect a Rock Star & this coloured many people’s appraisals of the man as a musician.

Add to the attributes of beauty & talent a predilection for heroin use & general rowdiness &, Ladies & Gentlemen, you have the makings of a Rock God (or, a fashion model: it’s a little hard to tell the difference with some of these glamour shots!).

We’ll leave you with some Sleaze Patrol TV of Nikki & Mick from 1991 when they made it up to Canada to promote Decade Of Decadence. Motley had recently turned 10 years old & the world was their oyster (or so they thought) . . .

Nikki & Mick in Canada, Late 1991–Part 1

Nikki & Mick in Canada, Late 1991-Part 2

Motley ‘Ultimate Backstage Pass’ Stickers, Hostess Chips, 1987

 

Motley, Bon Jovi & a host of other artists were featured in a set of potato chip bag stickers touted as ‘The Ultimate Backstage Pass.’ I’ve somehow held onto 6 of them & here they are in all their 1 1/2" x 1 3/4" glory.

A Google search found a few of these floating around on EBay & even full sets for sale. Apparently there were 10 Crue stickers, probably 2 of each member (studio & live shots) & 2 band photos. I also remember a same sized patch of the band’s name in the Theatre Of Pain font but that may have been around earlier than 1987. The live shots show the band on their Girls, Girls, Girls tour which didn’t start until June of 1987 so these may have been in circulation as early as that summer.

Motley have always been infamous & their reputation has carried a lot of clout. Bon Jovi became a household name by selling tens of millions of records & writing catchy, safe pop hard rock whereas the Crue became a household name on a lot less record sales & an almost scary public reputation & more aggressive sound. That a Canadian potato chip company would market them equally is a testament to the band’s popularity in the late 1980s.

 

Nikki Sixx Part 3 – Feelin’ Good, 1989

In 1989 Nikki Sixx was a new man. We’ve been through all of the following already in this blog: sobriety, creativity, a new-found lease on life, a poetry book that never gets published . . . and here’s more!

This early to mid-1989 Metal Edge interview catches Nikki on a break from recording Dr. Feelgood. Sixx boldly predicts the album will sell 6-7 million (he was right) and recites lyrics for ‘Same Old Situation’ that did not make the final cut.

 

Dr. Feelgood Era Part 3

 

I’m a little all over the place with some of these posts, apologies. For part three of the Feelgood era we’re going to back track a few months before the tour started & there was nothing but excited talk in the Crue camp & the Hard Rock media about Motley’s fifth album.

(click to enlarge & READ)

It is really quite astounding how much hype was generated for this album. The Crue were really quite beloved in their own way & if history has proved anything, WERE the Kings of Sleaze Glam Metal Rock or whatever they were. Their continued success is a result of their ability to generate hype & to highlight their 1980s heyday, which, despite being outsold by others, was never as surely defined or as fondly remembered, it seems.  

A magazine called Hot Rockers took the opportunity to do a retrospective article on the boys & I distinctly remember picking up this issue on a family trip & nestling into the back seat of the family car & reading the rather long article. I seem to have lost the accompanying pin-ups which were pretty rad if I remember: one centerfold from their gnarly Too Fast ‘Satanic’ session (see B&W Vince pic above). Michelle Avello & Amy Kinder weren’t the best writers but that opening paragraph had me hooked (click to read).

This was one of my favourite Crue articles & I recommend you read the last page (if not the whole thing) to see how beloved the Crue were & how much they meant to their fans (in those days & even today). You do not get this kind of writing for bands like Poison or even Bon Jovi. Crue fans knew the difference & I’d have to say the excellence & early presence of the Crue’s first two albums especially is what made them a different beast than their later 1980s contemporaries.

Above is some random stuff, an incomplete Nikki interview from Hit Parader which almost waxes philosophical at the end; a Girls tour shot of Vince with a Dr. era quote & an interview with Tommy when he was up in Canada in September 1989. Tommy discusses Moscow, the new record & another mention of a Ballads record the Crue were talking about at that time but never saw the light of day (thank God).

To round out today’s post I got a bunch of pages I ripped out of a friend’s Kerrang! from late 1989. Kerrang! is a UK publication (beginning in the same year as Motley) & you can read more about it HERE (& it’s still in operation!). Above, we see a not-so-flattering Ross Halfin photo of Tommy from a classic photo session taken just before the band’s sound check at Wembley Arena on November 2nd, 1989.

Kerrang! must’ve been in a retrospective mood, detailing Rock & Metal events from years past. We get a great Motley shot & mention for the year 1981 & then a big shot of Nikki in Moscow for the year 1989.

Above is an ad for the new Crue single & also a listing of some of the Crue’s UK dates. Next, we get a mention & a photo of Matthew Trippe, the man who claimed to have impersonated Nikki Sixx after Nikki’s 1984 car crash apparently left him incapable of performing his Motley duties for several years. Take a look at the dude: sorry bud, but you just don’t look like the Sixxster. You can’t impersonate those genes.

In the above left-hand page we have a fan writing into Kerrang! to defend our Mr. Mars. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Mick & the band got some bad reviews from a UK journalist when they performed in Europe in late 1989, something to the effect that Mick proved you could be a mediocre musician & still be in a major Rock act . . . must’ve been having a bad night. Finally we have a page of quotations, one from Nikki & notice the aggressive one from Bon Jovi concerning our Mr. Lee. I’m assuming this was a result of the Moscow madness from earlier in the year. Kerrang! was also kind enough to furnish us with a pic from the 1984 Motley tour with Ozzy . . . one that has gone down in the annals of decadent Rock tours. As a kid I did not know what to make of such photos as these: Ozzy dressed up like a woman & the Motley’s pawing at him & gesturing to stick bottles in his orifices . . . ah, 1980s backstage fun!

More SP Files to come . . .