Kramer is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a golden new line of S-types, treating its most popular models to a glow-up.

The guitar brand was at the height of its powers during the 1980s shred scene, with Eddie Van Halen, Mick Mars, and Richie Sambora among the advocates of the shred-friendly axes. Its fortunes nosedived the following decade, with Gibson buying it out of bankruptcy in 1997 as it bid to restore the Kramer brand.

Half a century, then, is a major milestone, and all the big hitters are here to celebrate, and caked in a 2026 exclusive Anniversary Gold finish for good measure. Each model – taking in the 84, SM-1 HH, NightSwan, Baretta, Pacer Carrera, and Volante – features a Floyd Rose 1000 Series vibrato and black hardware.

The 84 is an alder body, bestowed with forearm and belly contours and deep double cutaways for oodles of upper-fret access. It's paired with a satin-finished bolt-on K-Speed SlimTaper maple neck with a walnut skunk stripe. That, in turn, is capped with a maple fretboard and 22 jumbo frets.

A single Kramer Eruption PRO humbucker benefits from a push/pull series/parallel switch via the Volume knob. It is priced at $999.

The SM-1HH, meanwhile, doubles its money with two Eruption PRO Humbuckers wired in with premium CTS pots and boasting Volume and Tone controls. In contrast, the series/parallel control is moved to a dedicated mini toggle.

Also featuring a full-length mahogany neck with mahogany body wings, the gilded shredder has the same fast-playing profile as the 84, but swaps in a 12” radius ebony fretboard. It’s well-specced, but also refreshingly no-nonsense for $1,199.

As for the NightSwan, the revival of a late-’80s gem packs its two Eruption Pro humbuckers closely together and benefits from a lightweight alder body with comfy contours. Its Slim-Taper maple neck, complete with a black Kramer four-bolt plate, features a 22-fret ebony fingerboard and the model’s iconic offset “Ping-Pong” inlays.

See, too, its reverse Explorer headstock and a retro-styled Volume knob that, again, has a push/pull series/parallel control, all for $999.

The headline with Baretta, which was EVH’s Kramer of choice, is its offset and uncovered single Eruption Pro humbucker, which nods to its lineage with zebra bobbins and more streamlined controls.

It sports a double-cutaway maple body, satin-finished, three-piece maple neck with ebony fretboard, and a Kramer Thin profile. There’s absolutely no fat on this 25.5” scale six-string, and it sits at the lower end of the price scale at $999.

The Pacer Carrera, meanwhile, is a more traditional Super Strat, with twin Eruption PRO buckers, expanded Master and Volume controls, and a sleek, inlay-free ebony fingerboard. Its contour-strewn body is made of maple and has a bolt-on Kramer Slim-profile maple neck, all for $1,199.

It’s no surprise that the Volante HHFR, which roughly translates to “flying” in Italian, features a lightweight alder body and is designed for lightning-fast play.

It’s a three-piece, thermally aged maple neck with a satin finish that bolts on using five ferrules for enhanced stability and should help nicely with arpeggio practice. And, more still, its KeyLock system, engineered by Senior Product Development Engineer Richard Akers, is said to eliminate neck-pocket movement and improve tone transfer.

Its ebony fingerboard is built with a 10-14” compound radius and has 24 frets and small diamond inlays. It also steps away from the rest, bucker-wise, with a Kramer USA Neptune humbucker for a wide palette, especially when paired with its five-way switch. Each position is said to be hum-canceling and uniquely voiced, hence the slightly larger $1,299 pirce tag.

“Performance has always been at the core of what Kramer stands for, and that spirit is deeply personal to me,” says Aljon Go, Product Manager at Kramer. “Every detail of this series reflects the uncompromising quality, precision craftsmanship, and player-first design that define Kramer at its best.”

Gibson has taken the Kramer essence and dialed it up to 11 here.

See Kramer for more.

And in more recent news, Gibson President and CEO Cesar Gueikian has announced that he intends to step down from those executive roles.

In light of Mötley Crüe’s infamous penchant for bad behavior, you’d think trying to get a coherent performance out of them in the studio would be like trying to train a pack of hyenas as valet attendants.

It’s easy to picture the band members anointing the walls of Hollywood’s Cherokee Studios with liquor, spray paint, lighter fluid and various unsavory emissions as their hapless producer begs them to pick up their instruments and give Looks That Kill a run-through.

The Shout at the Devil liner notes do little to dispel that notion: “This album was recorded on Foster’s Lager, Budweiser, Bombay Gin, lots of Jack Daniels, Kahlua and brandy, quackers and krell [the band members’ nickname for their favorite illegal nasal decongestant] and wild women!”

Jonathan Little, owner of the L.A.-based audio gear company Little Labs, had a front-row seat to the bedlam while working as a tech during the Shout sessions.

“I saw all the well-known Mötley Crüe debauchery,” he says. “There would be chicks getting champagne bottles inserted in their private parts, [and] for most of one night, I sat in a little back room with Nikki Sixx and [Doors keyboardist] Ray Manzarek doing blow.”

He adds that even engineer Geoff Workman “always had a big Coca-Cola glass full of ice and Jack Daniels. He’d go through a bottle of Jack each night.”

However, Shout at the Devil producer Tom Werman says the Crüe’s antics didn’t impede recording progress.

“There was a lot of partying in the studio, but it was really softcore,” he says. “They didn’t get near the heroin thing, which they did later, but not in the studio, really. Alcohol and party-favor drugs – that was normal in probably the majority of recording sessions in L.A. in the ’80s, but we got it done. They wanted good music, and they wanted to be successful, so they took the partying only so far.”

Werman adds that working with Crüe guitarist Mick Mars was the best part of the recording experience, largely because Mars came into the studio with his guitar parts worked out in advance.

“The only thing I really contributed to Mick’s playing was fills. He would have the basic guitar lines down, but he wouldn’t have any fills between verses or between a verse and a chorus, so I would suggest stuff to him, and he would be very cooperative.”

The late Geoff Workman’s experience with Mars was less pleasant, according to Little. “Geoff was getting frustrated with Mick[’s performances]. He claimed to me that he would take the tapes to [Toto keyboardist] David Paich’s place, which was called Hog Manor, and overdub his own guitar tracks [in place of Mars’]. Not even the band knew about it.”

Leaving aside the question of whose playing made it onto the record, the rhythm guitar track on Looks That Kill consists of a single performance split to two separate tracks. One track was close-mic’d with a Neumann U 87 and panned left. The other, recorded with a microphone in the back of the room, was panned hard right.

“I was a rhythm guitar player, so that was really the basis of my whole approach to making records; put a good rhythm guitar [track] down, double it and spread it left and right,” Werman says. “That was the cushion on which the whole song sat.”

As the first thing mainstream audiences heard from the Crüe, the Looks That Kill riff was the battering ram the band used to smash their way into popular music’s hall of victors. It played a crucial part in transforming Mötley from underground sensation to the unchallenged trash sultans of the heavy metal world. In the process, it helped set the template for the commercial metal sound that ruled the 1980s.

Werman acknowledges the powerful impact Looks That Kill and Shout at the Devil had on music. “[Mötley Crüe] were as new and influential as Guns N’ Roses was when they came along. It established a new bar for metal achievement and attitude.”

Looks That Kill – Axology

GUITAR: 1972 Gibson Les Paul Standard or Gibson Les Paul Custom with T-Top pickups

AMP: Marshall JCM800 or late-’60s/early-’70s Super Lead plexis with master volume mod and extra gain stage (Volume 1: 7, Volume 2: 8, Presence: 3, Bass: 8, Middle: 4.5, Treble: 4.5, Master Volume: 9 o’clock), Marshall cabinets loaded with Celestion V30 or G12M Greenback speakers

STRINGS: Ernie Ball Light Gauge

TUNING: D standard

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

In early 1984, MTV bubbled with cheery pop acts like Culture Club and the Human League. It was a Crayola-colored world where girls just wanted to have fun, Huey Lewis wanted a new drug and spontaneous group dancing in public was as common as sneezing.

Enter the four-headed glam-metal beast known as Mötley Crüe. Looking and sounding like supervillains from the underworld, the Crüe marauded mass consciousness by way of a pseudo-Satanic, post-apocalyptic-themed video for Looks That Kill, the first single from their breakout sophomore album, late 1983’s Shout at the Devil.

The song’s brash, sawtoothed guitar riff had a Pavlovian effect on millions, pulling America’s alienated teens toward their TV screens with tractor-beam efficiency.

The Looks That Kill riff is a four-second summation of everything that was awesome about ’80s metal. It’s one of those instantly iconic guitar figures that sound like they fell from the sky, fully formed and howling for blood. In truth, however, this riff took many incarnations on its way to becoming a sonic weapon in the Crüe’s hands.

Its origin story takes us into the heart of Neon Decade-era Hollywood, where Mötley and their fellow Sunset Strip rockers were blazing a musical trail that reeked of booze and Aquanet.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Stop reading now and listen to the song Young Girls by the pop-metal band Dokken. No, really – do it.

Yep, the opening riff is damned near identical to the one from Looks That Kill – a rhythmic pattern built from twin palm-muted tonic pedal tones interspersed with descending chords played an octave higher. Structurally speaking, a single half-step is the only thing setting these two chord progressions apart. Like the Looks That Kill riff – and, for that matter, all the others we’ll be exploring – Dokken’s riff kicks off the song without accompaniment.

On first impression, despite Dokken guitarist George Lynch’s undeniable guitar prowess, the Young Girls riff comes off as a no-calorie Looks That Kill knockoff, lacking the rude, dirty tone that gives the latter its sledgehammer wallop.

However, closer inspection reveals that Looks That Kill might be the imitator here; the European release of Breaking the Chains, the Dokken album that contained Young Girls, came out almost exactly two years before Shout at the Devil.

Precluding any premature assumptions that Young Girls was written before Looks That Kill, Mötley Crüe premiered the latter song live at Pasadena’s Perkins Palace on April 19, 1982, according to setlist.fm.

Since Mötley formed in January 1981, it’s possible, if unlikely, that Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx had already written the song by the time the European version of Dokken’s Breaking the Chains came out in September of that year.

However, Looks That Kill doesn’t appear on live Crüe bootlegs from ’81, so the odds are far greater that Lynch and vocalist Don Dokken penned Young Girls before Looks That Kill was a glimmer in Nikki Sixx’s twisted imagination. Could a gig that Mötley Crüe played with Dokken at the Roxy in November 1981 have sown the seeds of inspiration inside Sixx’s skull?

Breaking the Chains also featured a tune called Stick to Your Guns, which, like Mötley Crüe’s debut single of the same name, used the line “You gotta fight!” to drive home a message of perseverance in the face of hardship.

The Crüe’s single came out in May 1981 – four months before the European release of Breaking the Chains – so once again, no definitive conclusion on which song was written first can be made until one of the songwriters lets that information out of the cellar.

Out on the Streets, That’s Where We’ll Meet

The chord progression from Young Girls wasn’t the first – nor the last – to bear a strong resemblance to the one from Looks That Kill. For example, the rhythm guitar performance that opens a song called Tell the World by Mötley Crüe’s glam-metal brethren in Ratt belongs to the same family of riffs.

Tell the World first appeared on the compilation album Metal Massacre, which was released June 14, 1982, about two months after Mötley’s onstage premiere of Looks That Kill. A new version of Tell the World surfaced on Ratt’s self-titled debut EP, which came out roughly one month before the September 1983 release of Shout at the Devil.

Notwithstanding the musicians’ well-known passion for intoxicants, there’s little chance that the similarity between the Looks That Kill and Tell the World riffs escaped both bands’ notice.

However, considering the close timing of the two songs’ releases, it’s possible that, rather than this being a case of one riff directly inspiring the other, these guitar lines emerged side by side during group rehearsals or songwriting sessions between Nikki Sixx and the late Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby.

In his book Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll, Ratt vocalist Stephen Pearcy recalled that certain members of Ratt and Mötley were thick as thieves, at one time forming a street gang called the Gladiators. “Robbin Crosby and I were closest with [Crüe drummer] Tommy [Lee] and Nikki, and we started tripping around with them frequently,” Pearcy wrote.

Sixx and Crosby, the latter of whom co-wrote Tell the World with Pearcy, were especially tight, eventually sharing a living space. As told in Sixx’s book The Heroin Diaries, the bassist moved in with Crosby after Mötley wrapped up their Shout at the Devil tour.

Naturally, the friendship between Sixx and Crosby sparked some musical collaboration. Sixx confirmed this in a Facebook post from July 2025. After writing that Robbin “had a heart of gold,” he noted, “[I] look forward to finishing some of these songs we started down the road.”

During a conversation with SiriusXM radio personality Tommy London in 2022, Pearcy revealed that he and Crosby rehearsed with Sixx and Lee “a couple of times” in the early ’80s. “I don’t know if we wanted to start a band or if we were just jamming, but something was getting intense in there,” he said.

The singer added that while Sixx ultimately decided to go his own way, “if that would have been a band, it would have been a great band, actually. I don’t know what songs we played, but we were very supportive of each other back in the day.”

Did the alliance between these musicians give rise to the Looks That Kill and Tell the World riffs… or might Ratt, Dokken and Mötley Crüe all have drawn inspiration from an unexpected source that predates glam metal?

The Journey Begins…?

Various rhythm guitar performances from songs that came before Young Girls, Tell the World and Looks That Kill vaguely foreshadow these later songs’ signature riffs, perhaps even helping inspire them. One example is the guitar line that drives You Don’t Have to Be Old to Be Wise from Judas Priest’s 1980 album British Steel.

The link between this tune and Looks That Kill is especially evident at the song’s end, with the group’s shout-along “You! Don’t!” chant prefiguring the gang vocal in the chorus of the latter song.

That said, Where Were You by Journey might be the song that started it all. It appeared on Departure, released in early 1980 and co-produced by future Shout at the Devil engineer Geoff Workman.

Listening to Where Were You and Looks That Kill back to back is a study in the contrasting directions a musical idea can take in the hands of two different bands.

Rather than flying headlong into over-the-top metal aggression, Journey used their riff as the starting point for a high-energy pop-rock tune whose vibrance outweighs its bitter lyrics. The song’s buoyant feel stems in part from guitarist Neal Schon’s relatively moderate use of overdrive.

He likely got his gritty tone on this song by playing a Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall or a “jumped-up Hiwatt head,” the latter of which was one of his go-tos in the early ’80s. Regardless of this song’s possible status as a forerunner to Looks That Kill, Schon’s searing lead playing on Where Were You is worth checking out.

Thus, the journey of the Looks That Kill riff appears to have begun at the dawn of the Decade of Decadence, when Schon cooked up a rhythm guitar part that might make him the unlikely godfather of ’80s glam metal.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

After a years-long dispute, Mötley Crüe have won a comprehensive legal battle against their former guitarist, Mick Mars.

The bitter conflict between Mars and his former bandmates was set in motion back in 2022, when the guitarist – who suffers from ankylosing spondylitis – retired from touring due to health issues.

The split soon took an ugly turn when Mars filed a sensational lawsuit in 2023, which not only alleged the band had conspired to fire him and remove him as a stakeholder in Crüe’s business holdings, but also accused bassist Nikki Sixx and other bandmates of miming their parts during Mötley Crüe’s North American tour in ’22.

These claims were denied by Mötley Crüe and their reps, with Sixx alleging that Mars was “confused and being misled by his team”. The band swiftly hired John 5 as their new guitar player.

At the time, Mars asserted he had not retired from the band altogether, but had only taken a step back from touring, claiming continued entitlement to a 25% share of touring revenue. The band dismissed this, stating, “retiring from touring is resigning from the band”, resulting in a dispute over pay and royalties.

In 2024, Mars scored a minor victory over a dispute concerning the handling of wide-ranging business dealings, after Mars sued the band for corporate documents.

However, a January 2026 legal hearing has ruled decisively in favor of Mötley Crüe, with independent arbitrator Hon. Patrick J. Walsh demanding Mars pay the band a portion of the advance he received for the gigs he did not perform. The ruling also settled the matter of miming allegations, which were found to be false.

“Mars was given a $1,500,000 advance in exchange for his agreement to perform 138 shows,” Walsh concludes (via Louder). “He understood when he received the advance that it was an advance and that he had to pay it back if he stopped touring.

“Mars stopped touring. Therefore, he must pay it back. Mars is ordered to pay to MCI [Mötley Crüe Inc] the pro rata rate for the shows he missed between September 2021 and today. He is not required to pay for shows that have not taken place.”

A press statement from the band’s legal reps said, “The arbitrator’s ruling not only vindicates the band contractually and financially but also dismantles the public narrative Mars promoted in interviews with major outlets.

“Mick Mars was forced to admit under oath that his statements were false. His expert confirmed that the band performed live, and Mars formally recanted his prior claims during sworn testimony.

“This dispute was about protecting the integrity and legacy of one of the most successful bands in rock history. With the arbitrator rejecting every claim and enforcing the parties’ agreements as written, the band has been fully vindicated – legally, financially, and factually.”

According to reports, Mötley Crüe has filed to confirm the Final Arbitration Award in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Mars has not responded to the lawsuit ruling.

For over four decades, Mötley Crüe thrived as on-off glam rock mainstays – with the core lineup of guitarist Mick Mars, drummer Tommy Lee, and singer Vince Neil, completed by bassist Nikki Sixx, remaining a near-constant.

Yet in October 2022, Mars publicly announced his retirement due to ongoing health issues, a move that initially seemed voluntary. He was swiftly replaced by John 5.

A series of very public disputes followed, culminating in an ongoing lawsuit over unpaid royalties. Further claims include accusations that the band forced Mars to sell off his remaining share in Mötley Crüe and public comments alleging that the rest of the band mimed their parts during the 2022 stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Sixx has shed more light on the circumstances surrounding the lineup change.

“Listen, we were forced. Guy's gotta choose: you want to break up? Do you want to fuck over Live Nation? You want to screw Def Leppard? All those tickets, all that planning that we'd done because one of your band members is too ill to perform live?” Sixx tells GW.

As for the decision to force Mars out after a 41-year career, Sixx insists making the call was far from easy.

“We really had to think about it, bro. Like, do you think we wanted to take the grief we took, and end up in a lawsuit? But what were we supposed to do? Go home and fucking mow the lawn? It's like your fucking football team; if one of your guys can't play anymore, they bring in another guy.”

All the necessary decisions were made to keep the band going – no easy task, considering the group are coming up on its 44th anniversary in 2025.

“We're still here, and we are still creative,” he asserts. “We're able to tour – and not tour to the point in the old days where you break the spirit of the human beings. We get to go out, play some badass shows, reinvent the band here or there, and really enjoy this time.”

Guitar World's full interview with Nikki Sixx will be published later this month.

Here at GW, we’ve been celebrating 70 years of the Fender Stratocaster by seeking out Strat-playing cover stars from over the years to talk about their association with Leo Fender’s iconic electric guitar design – and to talk about the Strats that have graced our cover.

When Mick Mars appeared on the cover of the April 2024 issue, his first in-depth interview after his exit from Mötley Crüe, he of course brought a Strat. But this was a ’96 Strat in Sparkle Pink. Where was Isabella? Well, as Mars explains, he wanted to show us something different…

How did you obtain this Strat? It’s certainly different from your typical choices.

“Yeah, the pink champagne. [Laughs] I bought it from a friend of mine. He has a vintage guitar place. His name is Lloyd; I can’t remember his last name at the moment. I called him and [said] I wanted some pink sparkle guitars. That particular Strat happened to be one of them. It is really an eye-grabber for sure.”

You’re usually seen playing your worn-looking white Strat. Why did you choose a pink sparkle one?

“You know, that one right there, the white one, good lord, I bought before they even started coming out with the aged Stratocasters; I had my own aged [one]. But I don’t know… I just liked the pink one. I think it’s a 1996, though I’m not positive. But I think it’s a ’96, and it came like it is.”

Have you modified the pink sparkle Strat at all?

“I did put a Seymour Duncan in the bridge [position].”

What do you like about the Seymour Duncan electric guitar pickup in a Strat?

“The [Seymour Duncan] has a bit more output; I think a standard Strat [pickup] has a 5.6, or even a 5 ohm. Seymour’s have like a normal humbucker [sound], which is like around 7.5 or 8 [ohms]. I wanted a little more power in the back to make less treble and top end and still sound even.”

Did the pink sparkle Strat make it onto your new record?

“Actually, no. But I did use it in a lot of photos [Laughs], and I’ve played it to write songs and stuff, but it didn’t end up on any of the songs. [It was] mostly the normal, beat-up white one that I have, Isabella. That’s the one I used the most.”

You’ve had Isabella for a long time and have been seen mostly with it. How did you acquire it?

“It came from Fender, actually. I had an endorsement with them, so I would normally get a couple of guitars through the endorsement thing. That’s where that one came in; it was in one of the first bunches, and again, I changed the pickup on it to the one I used, which was 16 ohms, not 8. I’m overkill on everything, I guess. [Laughs]

“But that guitar sounds different from any of the other guitars I have. Maybe that particular guitar has a bit more of the lower midrange, which is what I like – lower mid-range and higher highs to give it a distinctive sound. You know, it’s a real player. You can tell by how beat up it is.”

How does the pink sparkle Strat from the GW cover compare to your trusty white Strat?

“The sparkle one has less output, of course. Like I said, it’s about 8 ohms, but it also has a rosewood neck, which makes the guitar sound warmer. A maple neck like Isabella’s gives it more of an edge – a brighter, edgier sound.”

What drew you to Strats in the ’80s, a time when most people weren’t really using them aside from you and maybe a few others?

“That’s exactly right. Nobody was playing them except me! [Laughs] I like to… I don’t know… step out of the thing. It’s like, ‘He’s playing blah, blah, blah,’ and, ‘He’s playing all the pointy, sharp guitars.’ I wanted to, of course, take a Strat. I played a Tele for a while, but I loved Strats forever, and I had to step away from the pointy era. [Laughs]”

Given your history with your white Strat, why did you choose the pink sparkle Strat for your GW cover shoot?

“I thought it jumped. I thought it was, like, a cool thing, and a lot different. For me, anyway, to come out with a pink Strat, I’m sure a lot of people would expect to see my white one out there. But yeah, I threw that one in to give them a curveball.”

It’s safe to assume you still own this guitar. Have you ever played it live?

“No. That one has not seen the road. I have a couple other sparkle ones – a purple sparkle and a gold sparkle. They saw the road once on the final tour – well, not the final tour, but the last stadium tour that we did when I was in Mötley [Crüe].”

What does the Strat mean to you?

“It’s a very iconic guitar. I chose the Strat because I just like ’em. I like the way they look; I like the way they sound; everything about them is me. One of my first real guitars I had was a 1954 Stratocaster ’burst. They had two-tone ’bursts, more like a tobacco ’burst thing, and I got that in high school from a friend.

“He gave it to me because he really liked the way I play guitar, and he didn’t play, so he gave it to me. The serial number, I remember, [was] 0140, and I wish I still had that thing. I kick myself in the butt all the time; that was actually the very first Strat I had. And it was a very low serial number!”

Mick Mars’ custom Girls, Girls, Girls Kramer KM-1 is to be sold at auction as part of Julien’s mammoth Music Icons collection. 

The guitar, which featured heavily during the glam metaller’s heyday is part of a dizzying collection of historic instruments. 

That includes Prince’s yellow Cloud 3, John Lennon’s Framus 12-string thought to have been “gone forever”, a ‘65 Bob Dylan Telecaster, and 200 guitars from Randy Bachman’s personal collection. 

The 1987 Kramer, which bears the serial number #E10670, was used extensively during Motley Crüe’s 1987-88 Girls, Girls, Girls world tour. It was also immortalized in the music video for You’re All I Need. 

Its visual aesthetic locks into the four-times-platinum selling record’s cover, with its red neon font, painted by Dennis Kline, all over its steel grey finish.  

Its Telecaster-style body also sports a painting of, erm, “disembodied breasts” on its rear – stay classy, guys.

Mick Mars’ signature can be spotted near the bridge, along with the note “Keep Rude Dude, Mick Mars -91-”.

The six-string offers a 25.5” scale length, with 22 frets making up its rosewood and dot inlay pocked fretboard. It also has two humbucker pickups (not specified), a black Floyd Rose for divebomb bombast, and black Schaller tuners. 

There are three black control knobs – two volumes and one tone – and a three-way pickup switch, with its potentiometer resistors dating to the final weeks of 1986.

The guitar’s modesty is bolstered with a black hardshell case with a black interior.

At an estimated $60,000-80,000, it represents one of the more modest guitars in the Music Icons collection. The haul includes a plaque and a Creem Guitar Heroes of Metal Collector Series magazine. Mars features in that issue and can be seen ripping a different Girls, Girls, Girls guitar.

The guitar will be displayed at an exhibition at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville between May 15 and 18. 

It then moves to Times Square’s Hard Rock Cafe between May 22 and 28, before the auction, which will be held at Hard Rock Cafe New York on May 29 and 30.  

Head to Julien’s to learn more about this iconic glam metal guitar. 

Mötley Crüe have shared Dogs of War – the band’s first official single to feature John 5 following the electric guitar star’s appointment.

The track presumably paves the way for the long-awaited upcoming Crüe album – again, the first to feature the former Rob Zombie guitarist – which John 5 himself hinted would be “heavy and aggressive”. 

Such teases seem to have been fully justified: Dogs of War sounds exactly how you’d imagine a Mötley Crüe/John 5 collaboration would. 

A cameo of the guitarist’s virtuosity is immediately apparent in the intricate opening, which is followed by a crushing main riff and – of course – a blistering solo crammed with two-hand taps and lightning-fast alternate-picking runs.

Some unsettling off-kilter action occurs in the verse, but this merely emphasizes the pummeling chorus progression and its bold declaration: “Don’t let those bastards get you down.” A nod to Mötley’s recent off-stage troubles, perhaps?

After all, Dogs of War is also marks “the start of a brand new chapter” following the departure of Crüe’s former guitarist Mick Mars, who departed during a rather public and acrimonious split that spanned across ‘22 and ‘23.

Mars initially announced his retirement from touring as a result of his struggle with ankylosing spondylitis but, despite insisting he would remain a member of the band, he was later formally replaced by John 5.

The situation soon took an ugly turn when Mars filed a lawsuit against his former bandmates, alleging they conspired to fire him. He also accused bassist Nikki Sixx of gaslighting him, and miming his parts on stage.

In a response, the claims were denied by Crüe’s reps, who asserted retiring from touring was equal to “resigning from the band”.

Despite the conflict between Mötley Crüe and Mick Mars, John 5 has entered the fray with both the support of his new bandmates and the blessing of his predecessor. It's a strong start from John 5 and his new band, and we imagine the as-yet-unannounced album will follow suit.

Mars – who has a few new solo singles of his own under his belt – recently stated that a reconciliation with Mötley Crüe was off the table, saying it would be “impossible” to hash things out with his former bandmates.

Dogs of War is the band’s first release on new label Big Machine Records. For more information on upcoming tour dates and album news, visit Mötley Crüe's website.

You don’t start a conversation with Mick Mars by asking, “How are you?” It comes out more like, “How are you?” He’s used to it. Ever since the guitarist went public in 2001 with his decades-long battle with ankylosing spondylitis – a pernicious, inflammatory form of arthritis in which the vertebrae grow together and fuse the spine – he’s become accustomed to discussing the state of his health. 

“I actually feel pretty good,” he says. Speaking via Zoom from his home in Nashville, Mars sits in a chair and his body is rigid; he’s lost most of the mobility in his spine and has a pronounced head-forward posture. His arms and hands, however, are completely unaffected; he waves them around freely and frequently. 

He looks frail and almost ghost white, but the truth is, he’s never been the robust sort. “The condition has progressed,” he says matter-of-factly. “Most of the pain nowadays is in my neck, my head and my hips. When I walk, it feels like I’ve got a cinder block on my head.” He smiles a tight-lipped smile. “I deal with it. I have to.”

Mars wasn’t exactly a spring chicken when he hit it big with Mötley Crüe. By the time the band released their breakthrough album, Shout at the Devil, in 1983, he was 32, making him the elder statesman among his young-buck bandmates.

He’s 72 now and has finally gotten around to recording the debut solo album he’s talked about for the past 20 years. 

I mention to him a chat we had in a Portland, Maine, dressing room in 2005 during the Crüe’s Carnival of Sins reunion tour. Sunk into a black leather couch, he laid out his plans to mix the blues with African rhythms while using multiple drummers on the same song. There would be horn sections, too, he said; the music would be as far-and-away different from Mötley Crüe as could be.

“I remember that conversation,” he says, “talking about flying to Africa just to hear somebody beatin’ on logs. I think that’s still a possibility. Musicians are always talking about how they want to do something different, blah, blah, blah. I’m just trying to create what I hear in my noggin, and I’m open to a lot of things. 

“I haven’t really flown around and searched for things, but I intend to. There’s some stuff I’m writing now that would sound good with saxophones – not like the band Chicago, although I love them. Always have.”

Much of the music that Mars did eventually record for the album that would become The Other Side of Mars is pummeling metal and anthemic hard rock that he co-wrote with fellow Nashville resident Paul Taylor, a former member of Winger and Alice Cooper’s touring band. 

The guitarist surrounded himself with a new core of players – bassist Chris Collier and Korn drummer Ray Luzier, along with two vocalists, Jacob Bunton and Brion Gamboa – but in choosing a co-producer and engineer, he reached out to a key figure from his past: Michael Wagener, the German metal specialist who engineered and mixed the Crüe’s 1981 debut, Too Fast for Love.

“It was funny how I wound up working with Michael,” Mars says. “I wrote to him and asked if he knew anybody to help me engineer, and he wrote back, ‘Will I do?’ I said, ‘Of course!’ He introduced me to Paul Taylor, and everything started falling into place. We did everything at my house. I’ve got Pro Tools and a ton of stuff.” He chuckles. “I call my studio the Dungeon because I’ve got this big dungeon door on it.”

The music sounds like it came from inside a dungeon. Mars’ guitar tone is rude and sinister throughout the album, which includes thrashy rockers (Ain’t Goin’ Back Again), heavy riff bangers (Broken on the Inside), doomsday grinders (Ready to Roll) and ominous power ballads (Alone). As one might expect, there are boatloads of teeth-gnashing solos. 

The angst-ridden mood changes dramatically on two cuts: the piano-driven ballad Memories is laced with violins and violas, and the lone instrumental, LA Noir, evokes the steamy, sin-soaked aura of the 1980s Sunset Strip scene from Mars’ past life.

One could make the case that the guitarist responsible for good-time anthems like Girls, Girls, Girls and Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) was in a foul state while recording his new tunes – an assessment Mars doesn’t entirely dispute. 

“I was thinking about a lot of things that bothered me,” he says. He points to the stinging single Loyal to the Lie and says, “Look at Charles Manson, Jim Jones and David Koresh – how can people fall for this stuff? You wind up either dead or mentally fucked up. It’s frustrating that people believe this crap, and it’s all lies.”

To the best of his recollection, he never played any of these song ideas for the guys in Mötley Crüe. “Without trying to be the butt man of anything, I was kind of left out of a lot of the band’s writing right after [1989’s] Dr. Feelgood,” he says. “When Generation Swine came out [1997], I was pretty much omitted – and New Tattoo [2000].”

Understandably, the subject of the Crüe hangs around like an elephant in the room. Mars announced his retirement from touring with the band in October 2022, and John 5 was recruited to step in.

Months later, the situation turned ugly. Mars sued the band, alleging that they had attempted to divest him as a major stakeholder in the group’s corporation and business holdings. Directly afterward, an attorney for the Crüe maintained that Mars’ decision to cease touring amounted to quitting the band outright, a contention that Mars disputed.

Since then, accusations have flown back and forth in the press between both sides about miming to tapes in concert – an issue that Mars is now reluctant to take up. 

“I can’t do that because of a gag order,” he says, then clarifies: “I don’t have a gag order, but it’s like anything you say can and will be used against you. I have to be pretty cautious about what I say because it could be relevant to what’s going on.” Similarly, when asked if he stands by his lawsuit assertion that Nikki Sixx “gaslit” him about his guitar playing abilities, Mars tenses up and says, “I can’t comment on that. Sorry, you know how it is.”

On most other Crüe-related matters, he’s surprisingly candid and chatty – to a point. He’ll start to let it fly, but then a look comes over him and he becomes self-aware; it’s as if he’s asking himself, “Am I saying too much?”

He’s not the first musician to take his bandmates to court, but clearly the lawsuit is weighing on him. At one point, I ask him if he ever considered simply sitting down with the rest of the group to hash things out. “I would say it’s past… impossible,” he says with a slight, regretful smile.

He brightens when talking about the new music he’s making. “It’s like when you find a new love in your life – the thrill isn’t gone,” he says. “When I do stuff with Mötley, I know what Nikki wants. I know what Tommy’s hearing. We sort of mash it together. Working with new guys, it’s new blood, new energy, and we’re trying to figure it out. It’s a refreshing vibe.”

You’ve often been lauded for your rich, powerful guitar tone. Is that something you can just dial up?

“I’m glad you asked about that because a lot of people think tone comes from your amps. Mostly, it’s in your hands. How can I describe it? I don’t know the way it works. I could play through a different amp, but the tone you hear is from my hands. If you had put Eddie Van Halen through different amps, you’ll still hear his tone; it came from him.”

The album is very aggressive and dark. You’ve talked about your influences quite a bit – people like Hendrix, Beck, Clapton and Michael Bloomfield. Did you ever record that kind of stuff?

“Not more blues-oriented songs. I wrote these songs when I had the blues, so I guess they’re blues songs – the dark side of the blues. [Laughs] I was thinking about that because I get texts from people like, ‘Hey, I wanted to hear some blues.’ You never know – maybe I’ll add a Paul Butterfield-type song, like when they did The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw [1967], some really cool stuff and tight horns. I can go any way I want.”

Did you think that would be too much of a left curve for your old Crüe fans?

“I think Mick Mars fans understand that I love the blues, and I think a lot of them were expecting a blues record. I don’t know; I had to do something a little more than that.”

On Killing Breed, your use of the whammy bar is quite melodic. You’ve been known to go all sorts of ways with a whammy – sometimes heavy gonzo, other times very light.

“Well, I love Jeff Beck, and boy, he knew how to use his whammy. He used it like a speaking voice or singing voice. Ritchie Blackmore uses a whammy and it sounds like it’s supposed to, but Beck, like I said, he made more like a voice. That’s how I hear it.”

Are we hearing a little bit of a Jeff Beck vibe in LA Noir? Those distorted jazz chords are reminiscent of his style.

“Yeah, maybe. I wrote that initial riff – the really sleazy, sleuth-y thing – maybe 20, 25 years ago. I’ve had it for the longest time. My album needed one more song, and I said, ‘Okay, just put that together,’ and that’s what came out.”

Do you think you might ever do an album of instrumentals?

“Not really. I mean, I like LA Noir, but I don’t think I do instrumental things that well. That song took a while.”

Ain’t Going Back Again has a distinct Alice in Chains vibe – the sound and feel.

“Yeah, well, that was like, ‘I don’t want to go back to that bullshit again.’ I think you’re reading me pretty well on that.”

I didn’t expect a song like Memories, a languid piano ballad with strings. Did you actually sing on the demo?

“[Laughs] Oh, no, no. Jacob sang on that. I wrote the song long ago, right about during the final tour. I wrote it on guitar, added some drums and a little of this, that and the other. I asked Paul Taylor to put piano on it, and he did it exactly right. I went, 'That’s all I want to hear.' I was hearing something like Freddie Mercury walking out, and he just started playing piano and singing. Paul captured that.”

Did you have a dedicated guitar-and-amp setup for the record?

“I used the white Strat that I used on tours, the one I call Isabella. It was a lot of that guitar, and I also used a Melody Maker. They were plugged in, mic'd up and that’s it. On The Right Side of Wrong, I went through an old Magnatone to get a lo-fi kind of thing. I used my Marshalls, of course; [noted amp builder] José Arredondo modded them out. I used Soldano amps, too. I think that’s about it.”

I imagine some pedals come into the picture.

“Yeah, but not many. I used that MXR Cry Baby thing [Dunlop Cry Baby Q Zone Fixed-Wah]. You can set it and get a Leslie West tone. There also were some octave dividers and the [DigiTech] Whammy.”

Your playing overall is tip-top. Do you ever feel your condition affecting your fingers or hands at all?

“Ankylosing spondylitis rarely goes into your hands or feet or anything. I have some in my shoulders, but does it affect my playing? No. Does it affect my mind? No, it doesn’t take your memory away. It doesn’t take the dexterity away from the fingers or anything. It’s mostly spinal arthritis, actually; it seizes your whole back up your spinal cord, up in your brain. A solid bone. If I was to break my back, I’d die.”

All right, let’s shift gears. The lawsuit – any second thoughts about filing it?

“I couldn’t do it anymore – the traveling part. I mean, I’m 72 and I have this crap. It gets a little bit strenuous for me to travel around the world and keep doing that for months at a time with a two-week break. It’s just gotten to be too much for me. So yeah, that’s about it.”

In 2022, you announced that you were retiring from touring with Mötley Crüe. Were you surprised when “retired” was interpreted as “resigned”?

“Two different words, two different meanings. It was just retiring from the touring part. I’d actively be involved in every entity of Mötley Crüe. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for them. I don’t regret anything we’ve ever done – good, bad or ugly, whatever. My body just couldn’t do it anymore.”

In your view, what was the peak period for Mötley Crüe? When did the band sound the way you wanted?

“I mean, Mötley Crüe was a whole different animal from what I’m doing. Writing the anthems and Girls, Girls, Girls was what the band was all about. I like some of the early stuff, like Too Fast for Love. Then it got a little sideways and then it got back on track. It’s ups and downs. Mötley Crüe is what it is – and still is.”

Every band has drama, but I get a real sense that at one point it all started to be too much for you and things weren’t so fun anymore. When was that?

“Well, there were a lot of times, but when I look back on it now, it’s almost comical – the atypical thing of what all the up-and-coming rock star people think rock ’n’ roll is about. It isn’t about heroin, it isn’t about drinking, and it isn’t about all that stuff that, granted, they did anyway. That isn’t part of it. The up-and-coming rock star should really concentrate on music.”

You’ve said that at a certain point the band didn’t really include you in the songwriting.

“I was kind of left out of the loop right around Generation Swine. I mean, I’d play solos on the songs, but as far as writing and playing a lot of the songs, it was different things, different people.

You’ve stated that you didn’t play a note on that album and that the band didn’t want your guitar to sound like a guitar. You’d play a part, only to see it erased and then played by somebody else.

“Yeah, unfortunately, they had a lot of my guitar parts… That was [co-producer] Scott Humphrey going, ‘It sounds like a guitar.’ I’m going, ‘Because it is.’ Erasing and taking stuff… I don’t know. That was the toughest time I had.”

Do you know who was playing guitar over your parts?

“John.”

John…?

“[One-time Crüe vocalist] Corabi. I don’t know who else could have. And I’m not accusing John; he just told me that he replaced my parts, and he felt like a dog. I was just completely devastated that it could happen. I think at the time they were trying to go in a different direction, but it’s not acceptable to me. Generation Swine was a removal of what Mötley Crüe was about.”

Did the band discuss any of this with you, like, “What sound are we going for, and how can we all get it together?”

“I would sit in a room with the tape for hours trying to get something that would never work, if you know what I mean. It’s like, the producer at the time would be like, ‘No, that’s not right. That’s not right.’ I didn’t know what else to do. I’m a guitar player. That’s what I do.”

You told Rolling Stone that you played “one lick” on 2000’s New Tattoo but you didn’t write any songs because you weren’t invited. Nikki maintains that you played all the guitars on the album.

“Well, I was invited and I played all the guitars. But I don’t remember writing any of them, even though I was told I wrote one of the songs.”

You’re credited as a writer on three songs.

“Right. I did play on that album. Was that after… I must’ve said it was after Generation Swine. Was New Tattoo before that or after?”

New Tattoo was afterward.

“You’re right. Not trying to be a liar. I did play the guitars on that particular album – all the guitars, rhythm and solos. But there was a different producer than on Generation Swine. I can’t remember his name [Editor’s note: It was Mike Clink]. After that was Saints of Los Angeles [2008], am I correct?”

Yes. What was the story on that album? Nikki said you were struggling to play your parts, and that the album is a mix of you and DJ Ashba, who was uncredited.

“DJ Ashba played all the guitar parts except for the solos.”

You were battling opiate addiction at that time. Is that right?

“At that time I was recovering, but it was more… Let me think about what year that album was. I mean, in 2004 and 2005 is when I got pretty addicted to opiates, and I wasn’t very… I was alone. This was during the last of New Tattoo. I had to have my guitar tech start driving me to the studio. I couldn’t move anymore.”

Was playing pretty tough at that point?

“Not really. The pain was… but I was filled with opiates. I didn’t have a problem playing. I had more of a problem not being addicted. [Laughs] It’s hard to explain, but let’s say I could tolerate it better by taking the crap I was taking. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without that crap. I was already addicted.”

You were taking opiates to deal with your medical condition?

“Yes, for the AS. There were times when I would get up or try to stand up off the couch or get out of bed where my whole back would go into this big… You know when you get those charley horses in your calf? My whole back.”

We’ve talked about three albums that don’t sound like they were very much fun for you. Did you ever talk to the guys about ways to improve the situation?

“No, I never complained. Mötley Crüe was my life. It’s what I did. Whining is about… I tried to show a lot of strength, that I was determined to do this no matter what. Except for Generation Swine – I couldn’t get that one. [Laughs]’

In your view, should the band have stuck to their guns and quit touring after the “farewell” tour?

“Do you know what I was really thinking at that point when we signed that big huge contract thing and made a big deal of it and stuff? That Mötley actually were over touring. There was no mention about putting out a record again or anything else. I was into that.”

You were hoping the farewell tour really was the farewell tour?

“Yes. Yes. I actually thought it was like the farewell tour, because… bands are bands. They get into arguments, they get into this, they do this. Even the Stones, the Beatles, all of those people, man, it’s like eat, sleep and drink with the same people every day for 40 years. There can’t not be disagreements or seeing things differently.”

There’s been stories and speculation about the band potentially firing you back in the day. When did you hear any of that?

“1981.”

What was the circumstance?

“I don’t want to give a source for it because it would be a little bit too messed up for me to do that. He was a very famous singer in a band right around the same time we were.”

That was right around when the band formed. Did you hear those stories after that, through the years?

“I just heard about it maybe a year or so ago. Less than that…”

But while you were in the band?

“There were some… that happened… If you read Bob Daisley’s book [For Facts Sake, 2013], it was in 1984, and they were talking about replacing me. There’s a few other times that I heard of or read in a book or something.”

Did you just let that blow off your shoulders, or did you go to the band members, like, “What the fuck?”

“At that point, I was just going, ‘That won’t happen.’ I was determined – ‘No, no, I’m not going anywhere.’ It’s like, ‘You guys can hallucinate all you want, but I stand.’”

What was the last record you remember on which the band, including you, was happy and unified?

“It would be kind of a toss-up between… Dr. Feelgood felt pretty good. The Corabi album [1994’s Mötley Crüe] felt really comfortable to me, because everybody was… I guess that thing you feel when you first fall in love. And then when the thrill is gone, it’s like… you know.”

The thrill was definitely gone on Generation Swine, right?

“[Laughs] Generation Swine is like… I can’t say that I remotely enjoyed any minute of that. I was so distraught – you know, lost. No, I didn’t have fun.”

When we spoke during the 2005 tour, you seemed to be in decent spirits.

“Yeah, that’s when I started to go more, if I remember correctly, off opiates. That was better. I didn’t feel like I was the walking dead. You know how that stuff works. It’s like, ‘Oh, my God…’”

Do you miss being friends with those guys? Were you ever friends?

“Yeah, at one point. It’s like, I don’t hate anybody. In the band there’s a lot of stuff that I wasn’t particularly fond of that would happen through the years. Wiping your ass on my doorknob wasn’t exactly fun. That kind of stuff – lighting my doors on fire. And like I said, when I look back at it now, it’s kind of comical. But this happened, and it wasn’t funny at the time.”

Let’s circle back to your record. Do you plan to tour at all? You’ve said you probably wouldn’t do a real tour.

“It’s about the same as I said with Mötley. I’m not quitting, I’m just retiring from this amount. Touring is too much – I’m retiring from that. I’ll do a one-off if people really want to see me, or a residency three days out of five, wherever. As far as the extensive stuff you do with world touring and the major touring in the United States, buses and planes and trains and all that other stuff is a beating. It’s a beating.”

You could do a residency thing at that new Sphere in Las Vegas.

“That would be cool because it could make the whole sphere Mars.”

There you go. And your head could be as big as the sphere.

“Heck, no! My head will never get that big. [Laughs]”

You do live in Nashville. What about holding some sort of blues jam? I imagine a bunch of players in town would show up.

“We’re thinking along the same lines. I’d love to find some sort of speakeasy – a damp, dark cellar that we turn into a café. Players could show up, but they would need a password to get in. I’d love to do something like that.”

• The Other Side of Mars is out now via 1313 LLC.

The June 2014 issue. That's how long it's been since Mick Mars last appeared on the cover of Guitar World magazine. And, as we all know by now, a lot has happened in Mars' personal "guitar world" since then.

So it's safe to say that – in some circles, anyway – Mars' return to our cover is just as "long awaited" as his debut solo album, 2024's window-rattling The Other Side of Mars. It's an album he's been talking about for years, and it was definitely worth the wait.

For this issue, Joe Bosso sat down with the former Mötley Crüe guitarist to discuss the making of the album and – to be frank – as much Mötley Crüe content as Mars felt comfortable discussing (and it's actually quite a lot). We've also spotlighted 10 of Mars' greatest lesser-known guitar riffs and provided a lesson dedicated to his technique, complete with tab and audio.

This issue also features...

>>> These days, somewhere amid the fire and the flames of DragonForce’s extreme power metal, you’ll detect a little something extra in Herman Li’s playing: an emphasis on melody and dynamics.

>>> Former Blondie guitarist (and former Jersey City lad) Frank Infante revisits his classic riffs and solos on One Way or Another, Heart of Glass, Call Me, Rapture and more.

>>> How guitarist Sam Shipstone’s sidewinding riffs (and G&L ASAT) keep Yard Act’s dark, dancey post-punk-funk deliciously off-kilter

>>> Veteran engineer/producer Eddie Kramer – the closest thing Jimi Hendrix had to a sonic wingman – looks back on his sessions with the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Kiss and (of course) Mr. Hendrix

>>> The GW guide to Adrian Belew’s 10 definitive guitar moments.

>>> In 1992, Boston’s Drop Nineteens became unlikely stars of the overwhelmingly British shoegaze rock scene. A year later, they fell off the map – but their legend only grew. Now, after nearly three decades in the dark, the band has returned with Hard Light.

>>> In Lost Classics, we check in with Adam and the Ants guitarist Marco Pirroni, who discusses the making of 1980's Kings of the Wild Frontier.

This issue – aka the dashing April 2024 issue of Guitar World – is available right here, right now.

But wait, there's more...

We have new interviews with Stone Mecca, Logan Ledger, Robin Trower, Dan Hawkins of the Darkness, Alena Ciera, Ryujin's Ryoji Shinomoto, Alex Skolnick, Sue Foley and Robby Krieger.

Meanwhile, Joe Bonamassa shows you how to play like East Coast blues great Ronnie Earl, while Andy Aledort, Josh Smith and Andy Timmons provide new columns with tab and video.

This month's transcriptions are Joe Satriani's Satch Boogie, Ayron Jones' Blood in the Water and Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

We have reviews of the PRS SE Series SE Custom 24 Quilt and SE Swamp Ash Special, the Xotic XW-2 Wah - Red Limited, the SOMA Cosmos Drifting Memory Station, Shed Pickups' HA-59 PAF Set and the Gibson Falcon 20 amp.

Over in Power Tools, Chris Gill explores the history and mystery of the 1974-present MXR Phase 90.

You can buy new issues of Guitar World at Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Hudson News, Books a Million and other stores – and online from Magazines Direct. And, while you're at it, why not save on every issue by subscribing?

Mick Mars has opened up to Guitar World about the current situation surrounding his relationship with his former Mötley Crüe bandmates, seemingly suggesting that there is no hope for a future reconciliation.

The fallout from the Mick Mars/Mötley Crüe split is still being felt today. The saga, which was first set in motion back in 2022 when Mars announced his retirement from touring, soon took an ugly turn when Mars filed a lawsuit against his former band.

In his suit, the electric guitar player alleged his former bandmates had conspired to fire him and remove him as a significant stakeholder in Crüe’s business holdings. He also accused Cruë bass guitar player Nikki Sixx of gaslighting him, and claimed Sixx and some of his other bandmates had mimed their parts during Mötley Crüe’s 2022 North American tour.

These claims were denied by Mötley Crüe and their reps, who went on to say Mars’ move to retire from touring was equal to “resigning from the band”.

Now, in the new issue of Guitar World, Mars has discussed the situation surrounding his relationship with Mötley Crüe, and while he understandably remains coy on the specifics, he did imply that a future reunion – or a mere reconciliation, for that matter – was off the table.

When asked whether it would be possible for him to sit down with his former bandmates and “hash things out”, Mars flatly responds: “I would say it’s past… impossible”.

“I don’t have a gag order, but it’s like anything you say can and will be used against you,” Mars goes on when asked about the details of the case. “I have to be pretty cautious about what I say because it could be relevant to what’s going on.”

It’s not the first time Mars has suggested that his relationship with Mötley Crüe was broken beyond repair. Last summer, the guitarist revealed he hadn’t properly spoken to his bandmates since 2019, and stated that he never wanted to speak to them again.

In his new Guitar World interview, Mars did reflect on some aspects of the saga, and addressed one of the most contentious issues that sits at the center of the dispute: whether his retirement was tantamount to a resignation.

“Two different words, two different meanings. It was just retiring from the touring part,” he explains. “I’d actively be involved in every entity of Mötley Crüe. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for them. I don’t regret anything we’ve ever done – good, bad or ugly, whatever. My body just couldn’t do it anymore.”

And, in his new interview, Mars was also asked whether he harbored any second thoughts over filing the lawsuit that started the back and forth, to which he replies: “I couldn’t do it anymore – the traveling part. 

“I mean, I’m 72 and I have this crap [inflammatory disease Ankylosing Spondylitis]. It gets a little bit strenuous for me to travel around the world and keep doing that for months at a time with a two-week break,” he continues. “It’s just gotten to be too much for me. So yeah, that’s about it.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full cover story with Mick Mars.

Former Mötley Crue guitarist Mick Mars is back with the second single from his debut solo album, with Right Side of Wrong showcasing a heavier and darker side to his string-bothering exploits.

It follows Loyal to the Lie, which was released last month, with the album, entitled The Other Side of Mars, releasing February 23.

On Right Side of Wrong, Mars channels Zakk Wylde-era Ozzy riffs across a one-riff wonder song that also boasts big, open choruses and a wailing, airy guitar solo that steps away from the more aggressive, bluesy solos he was known for in Mötley Crue.

While its chug-heavy riff doesn't re-invent the wheel, it’s refreshing to hear Mars sound so weighty, with the track adopting a slower pace than the record’s energetic lead single.

“When it comes to my playing, there’s the Mötley side and the Mars side,” the guitarist explains. “Either way, I always have a very clear vision of what I want to do. People are going to hear my tone - my sound. I am what I am. My feeling has always been, I might gain some fans, I might lose some fans. But what they’re hearing, it’s all me.”

In the video for the song, he can be seen plying a crisp white Fender Stratocaster with a black pickguard, which mirrors the track's lyrical theme of "the oxymoron of two individual minds viewing their position as the right one". 

The speckless guitar is a far cry from his road-beaten fiesta red 1962 Stratocaster, with which Mars is arguably most synonymous.

When Mick Mars stepped down from touring with Mötley Crue at the end of 2022, many may have expected the guitarist to slip into the background. Having battled with Ankylosing Spondylitis all his life, making touring the world an increasingly challenging feat, the 72-year-old has instead dived headfirst into writing a solo album.

“Like everyone, I’ve got a limited number of years,” Mars explains, “so, I'm gonna do all I can to do a lot of stuff.”

In a recent tell-all interview with Guitar World, Mars expanded on that feeling of gung-ho urgency, saying: “I’m all about new ideas now! I’ve been wanting to do this solo thing for a very long time. First thing’s first, there are always priorities; I had to do stuff with Mötley… now it’s my time! In fact, I’m already working on my next album. Why stop the momentum, right?!”

The band he’s assembled is certainly interesting. He says that Korn drummer Ray Luzier “insisted” on playing on the record, after Mars had co-written much of The Other Side of Mars with Winger and former Alice Cooper keyboardist, Paul Taylor. Vocal duties are split between Jacob Bunton (Orianthi, Gus G) and Brion Gamboa, whilst Chris Collier, another Nashville resident, handled bass, mixing and mastering.

Mars also reunited with producer Michael Wagener for the record, with the pair having first worked together on Mötley Crüe’s 1981 debut, Too Fast For Love. Mars promises new musical territories, with the promise of everything from blues and power ballads to “gothic-tinged soundscapes” and “cinematic instrumental workouts”.

The record isn't even out yet, but Mars is already working hard on its follow–up.

“I'm trying to keep growing,” says Mars, “because if you stop learning new things, if you stop playing new things, if you close your mind, you’re done. You have to keep moving and creating!”

For more information and pre-orders, head to the Mick Mars website.

It’s been an eventful year for the man born Robert Alan Deal, best known around the world under the pseudonym Mick Mars. As the co-founding guitarist of Mötley Crüe, his iconic riffs and solos were instrumental in popularizing a new sound for the 1980s, leading to an entire wave of leather-loving glam bands falling under the umbrella ‘hair metal’.

And though it was bassist Nikki Sixx who responsible for penning the lion’s share of their material, Mars did have a hand in co-writing some of the group’s most famous tracks, from the bluesy brilliance of Same Ol' Situation (S.O.S.) to strip club anthem Girls, Girls, Girls and palm-muted juggernaut Dr. Feelgood.

This time last year, it was announced the guitarist would be retiring from touring with the quartet, and the following day it was revealed that John 5 would be leaving Rob Zombie’s band to take his place. No huge surprise there, given the 72 year-old guitarist’s long-standing battle with Ankylosing Spondylitis – a chronic, inflammatory form of arthritis that mainly affects the spine and pelvis – from his late teens onwards, and the newly announced live replacement’s passion for all things Crüe.

Behind the scenes, however, things were starting to unravel and get more and more complicated, resulting in the well-documented and ongoing court case launched by Mars against the band in April of this year.

Accusations have been thrown in both directions – Mars contending that the group were ‘faking’ their live performances while his ex-bandmates and their entourage claim the guitarist is “confused and being misled” and also in the habit of “forgetting chords and songs”. The group have since started working on new music with John 5, for what will be their first-ever recordings without Mars on guitar duties.

There are, however, more positive avenues of discussion when Guitar World connects with Mars just before Halloween. The guitarist is in the process of launching his first solo album, titled The Other Side of Mars, which will feature Ray Luzier from Korn on drums.

In one of his very first interviews about the new music, our conversation naturally begins with one of many questions being asked by fans across the world – what took you so long, Mick?

“There were a lot of stumbling blocks!” laughs Mars, dressed from head-to-toe in black, as he always has.

“I started writing this stuff during The Final Tour [2014-2015] with Mötley Crüe. Then that TV show [The Dirt] came out, so we went back to playing. I had a lot of stuff written at that time but I couldn’t get it finished. Then there was another stumbling block, because I gave the record to a distribution company who didn’t distribute, so I had to get it back and it took me a little while to do that, but it’s okay!

“The first single, Loyal to the Lie, will get premiered on Eddie Trunk’s show [Trunk Nation] because I promised him many years ago. That’s pretty much how it’s going – I’m all about new ideas now! I’ve been wanting to do this solo thing for a very long time. First thing’s first, there are always priorities, I had to do stuff with Mötley… now it’s my time! In fact, I’m already working on my next album. Why stop the momentum, right?!”

So is this a band or a project with a revolving door of members?

“It isn’t really a band. I’ve hired some singers – Jacob Bunton did a lot of stuff, Brion Gamboa is also on the record. He’s so cool… a contractor/construction guy with a voice like that? Come on! Listen to him on the songs Undone and Killing Breed, that’s Brion. Then the other songs are all Jacob. 

“They have pretty different voices. Brion had a little more angst for those two particular song. I hired in Paul Taylor [Winger/Alice Cooper/Steve Perry] to do keyboards and also write with me. He knew Brion and brought him in, and the best part is Brion did those songs in just one take, which was unreal! I had to say ‘Please don’t do it again!’ I knew we could correct any off-notes if needed, though there weren’t any. Those first takes made me go, ‘Oh, man!’”

And you have Ray Luzier from Korn on drums, which must be pretty exciting…

“He actually insisted on playing on this album! I’m now working on new stuff, not to get ahead of what we’re talking about, and he’s in Bakersfield right now with Korn but he’s coming over tonight and tomorrow he’ll be playing drums on this new song I’ve written. And the other half of the rhythm section is a guy called Chris Collier on bass.”

Broken on the Inside is one of the heaviest riffs we’ve ever heard you play. What’s the story behind it?

“Thank you! I was just goofing around and thought to myself, ‘This could be something!’ It turned out to be pretty thick. Some of these songs were ideas I had rolling around in my mind. I could sense the direction I was going in, on this track as well as other ones like Killing Breed and Undone – which are more about people draining you so much. 

“If you listen to the lyrics of Killing Breed, it’s like hearing from someone who has given up on life, feels like they’re stuck somewhere worse than prison and going numb from all the pain after going through too much. It’s about a gang of people or whatever called the Killing Breed, because they are killing this individual by whatever means they can. Not like in terms of murdering or stabbing anyone, but killing him mentally to remove him from life. I guess I was thinking out of the box there.”

Could those be things you can relate to, somehow?

“Yes, mm hmm, yes.”

You went for a really interesting sound for the guitar solo in Loyal to the Lie –there’s this really cutting midrange that seems to leap out of the speakers…

“Yeah! I’ve been playing around with tones – I’m a tone-crazy guy! My wife bought me a Cry Baby [Q Zone Fixed Wah]. It’s a box with knobs on it so you can dial it in exactly how you want it. I found a tone I liked and that’s how it ended up on the track.” 

You’ve used all kinds of guitars over the years – from Floyd Rose-loaded Fenders to Les Paul Customs, PRS and Gretsch guitars. What are we hearing on the new recordings?

“I mainly used my Fender – there’s a white one that I’ve played a lot. And there was some Paul Reed Smith. I have so many guitars – probably around 50 or 60 different models in my studio – so I try to guess which one will work best for the sound I’m imagining. Then I’ll pick it up, restring it and I’m ready to go. Obviously, sometimes I will pick one up and realize it doesn’t sound how I need it to, so then I’ll try something else I know I like the tone of.”

So how many guitars do you own in total and which would you say are the most collectible and rare?

“Overall, I probably own about 120 different guitars… or maybe 121, as I just bought a new bass today. There are some really old ones from as far back as 1948, and I even have one of the first National steel guitars from 1930… the kind of stuff old blues guys like Johnny Winter would play.

“I guess my most expensive guitar is a 1960 Les Paul. That’s probably worth the most. I like the ’68 and ’69 Customs before Gibson got bought out by Norlin and they started sticking those ugly [volute] lumps on the back of the neck. Yuck! Get those away from me. But, who knows, maybe the white Strat I’ve used extensively over the years could fetch more money…”

We’re guessing you have quite a sizable collection of Marshall amps, too. Which models do you like best?

“I have at least 64 Marshall stacks from different eras, going as far back as the early ’60s. I have some of the original cabinets with 20-watt speakers. My collection goes on and on and on. I bought a lot of the 2202s and 2203s, which were pre-JCM models. I guess I’m a bit crazy – I just like equipment, whether it’s old stuff or new stuff. In 40 years’ worth of touring, I’ve bought a lot!”

So which head won the shootout for the new album?

“I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the name [amp-modding legend] Jose Arredondo, but I used one of my Marshalls modded by him. And I also occasionally used a Soldano, depending on what kind of sound I was going for. I’d have an idea in my head and then play around with stuff to get that tone... 

“I’m stumbling a bit because people can be a bit like ‘Mick Mars blah blah blah’. I’m not really about playing fast, I’m all about the tone and melodies. I don’t dislike shredders – I think they’re cool because I’m amazed at how they do it – but if you listen to what they play, are people going to leave arenas humming those solos? Probably not. I wanted people to hum my solos, a bit like Jeff Beck. I try to think like him. He would leave you with ideas that would stick in your head.”

Was there much in between your guitar and your amp?

“I used that Cry Baby thing which stays at whatever setting you stick it on. There was also a [DigiTech] Whammy thing. Tom Morello’s really famous for using that one. I used it for a lower octave to make my guitars thicker, tucking those tones in at the back.

“It’s funny – if I took you into my studio and played some parts for you, I guess you might think it sounds like a keyboard or synth. That’s because of the Whammy – when you hit the notes, they can have this strange harmonic [glitch] sound. You can also get it to harmonize a fifth or fourth or whatever, higher or lower, so it sounds odd… but it’s good odd!”

A lot of your solos, from Smokin' in the Boys' Room to Dr. Feelgood, draw heavily from the blues. You’re clearly more interested in what the song calls for than going overboard… 

“That’s exactly it. I love the blues, of course. There are elements of that in my playing – it’s the more melodic side of me and I bunch it together with my other influences into one box.”

Too Young to Fall in Love has probably one of your shreddiest solos, with some ambitious single-string alternate picking ideas…

“Even if everybody knows I’m not a shredder, every now and then, it’s okay to stick in a fast idea like that. As long as it fits the song, I’m open to it.”

Dr. Feelgood features some heavy usage of the whammy bar and harmonics. What do you remember about writing it? 

“Usually songs like that would start with a strong initial riff that will stick in your head. Girls, Girls, Girls was actually the same way. We were dropping all the strings down to D standard, so they sounded even thicker.

“There were some tracks that had intros that didn’t feel right. So I would go home and sit with my guitar until I came up with something felt really good. Then I would go back to rehearsal and play it. The guys would all be smiling and looking really happy! That’s basically how I knew it would work.”

You’re part of a generation of guitar players who benefited from the development of the Floyd Rose tremolo system – using it in various riffs and leads and, perhaps most famously of all, for the motorcycle-inspired intro of Kickstart My Heart…

“Yeah, though I never thought about it too much. I just play me, you know? I think it was the same with Edward Van Halen: he was pretty natural. I’d known him since he was 19 years old. I’d watch him when I was playing in a band called Whitehorse and saw him grow as a player from there, using all these crazy hammer-ons.

“When they [Van Halen] came out in 1975, I had a massive smile on my face. He was such a great person. It was incredible to watch him develop. Mötley Crüe didn’t come around until 1981, so we were separated a little bit by time but we’d run into each other once in a while at places like Donington and other European festivals. We’d always hang out a bit and have fun.”

Your work inspired a whole movement of bands – some bad, some great. Which ones impressed you most?

“That’s a hard one! It was a bit like the British Invasion, but this time it was the Los Angeles Invasion. The record companies started signing everybody and anybody. I don’t want to say names of bands, but there were a lot that left me wondering, ‘What is this about?!’ Just like with the British Invasion you had The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks and then came all this poppy stuff. In Los Angeles, we started hearing a lot of cheesy things, too!”

Guns N’ Roses were the other ‘big’ 80s/early 90s rock band. Clearly you and Slash are friends – he posted about you using his wah pedal a while back…

“Yeah, he was excited about that, going, ‘Woah!’ And I remember thinking his wah was the same color as my boots! He asked if I liked his pedal and I said, ‘Yeah, Slash… it sounds great!’ And yeah, it’s nice that we’re friends. When I look back on those days, we were up to some really exciting stuff. And now I’m me… solo!”

Regardless of how it all seems to be ending, you must still be immensely proud of your many achievements in Mötley Crüe…

“In terms of that body of work, I’m very proud of it. I have all my plaques hanging around. For me, it became too much of a burden for me to tour. I tried to be as up-front as I could with them, saying, ‘I just can’t do this anymore!’ because of my AS [Ankylosing Spondylitis] condition. It stunk, but yeah… I’m proud of everything Mötley Crüe did and everything we achieved together.”

Are you still on speaking terms with John 5?

“Well, I’ve never disliked John, I’ve always liked him and still do. He’s been a really good friend of mine for a long time. So I think they’ve made a very, very wise choice with John.”

• The Other Side of Mars is out on February 23 2024, and available to preorder now from MickMarsOfficial.com.

When it was confirmed that bassist Nikki Sixx would take part in Guitar World’s Mötley Crüe cover story (he agreed to respond to emailed questions), it was requested that we keep the focus on “what’s happening now – the tour, music, nothing about Mick Mars.” 

At the time, this didn’t strike us as outwardly odd or significant (somewhat rock-star quirky, perhaps), and there was nothing to indicate that there was any kind of drama, legal or otherwise, surrounding Mars’ departure as a touring member of Mötley Crüe.

A short time later, news broke of Mars’ lawsuit against the band, and it became clear why Sixx preferred to sidestep the elephant in the room. Seeing as we were very careful to steer clear of asking the bassist even the vaguest question about Mars, we were more than a little surprised when he brought up the guitarist by name and provided his own account of the events.

When and how did John 5 get on your radar? When did you become aware of him?

“I had heard of John years before I met him. Then we met and became friends first. We’d be hanging out and things would come up. I remember working on a Meat Loaf song with Desmond Child, and John’s name came up to work on the song with us. I was like, 'That’s great.'

“As we became friends over the years, I was doing some songwriting, and we wrote Lies of the Beautiful People, which was the Number 1 song for Sixx: AM. We’ve been friends, musicians, just sitting on the back patio playing guitar and noodling around, making jokes about Hee-Haw and the ’70s. He became a really good friend, a collaborator – and now he’s in the band.

What was it about his playing that stuck out to you? How did he seem different from his contemporaries?

“John has the ability to play so precisely, and at the same time he keeps so much emotion in his playing. He obviously can play any style of music, and even blend them together. As a collaborator, it’s amazing with John; you’re like, ‘Could you do…?’ And he’s like, ‘Yes.’ ‘Hey, could you do…?’ ‘Like this?’ 

“He’s fun and exciting to hang out with – whether it’s his guitar playing, as a writer, and now on stage. It’s literally like having your little brother right by your side. It’s such a nice feeling.

“We never saw it coming that Mick wasn’t going to be able to tour and was going to have to quit the band. In the middle – not even the middle – of a huge tour, we had to ask ourselves, ‘Do we want to let the fans down? Do we want to let Live Nation down? Do we want to let Def Leppard down? Do we want to let ourselves down because an original member of our band can’t tour anymore?’ We had to have a deep, deep look into what we were going to do.

“[In regard to] John, knowing all the members of the band, and me having this relationship with him writing and as friends, and even being in the studio with him writing stuff with the band for The Dirt, it felt like a no-brainer in a horrible situation – something we did not ask for or want. And then it was just kind of obvious. If there was 'the guy,' John was the guy. Like I said, we didn’t choose this, but since we had to be put in this position, we’re very happy with where we’re at right now.”

Did you ever think, “If we needed somebody, John 5 would be the guy”?

“No, we’ve never been like that – never, like, ‘Nikki’s not in the band. Who are we gonna get?’ I mean, Nikki’s in the band. Tommy’s in the band. Mick’s in the band. Vince is in the band. It was Mick saying, ‘I can’t be in the band’ that forced us into making a decision – one that we didn’t expect, by the way.”

Take me inside the band discussions about who to bring in. Was John always the top pick in your mind? You said he “checks all the boxes.”

“I sat down with Tommy and Vince and said, ‘We’re in this situation. What do you guys think we should do?’ We kind of talked about it for a while, and John’s name came up. We were all like, ‘I mean, if he’s available.’ It would be like the perfect solution, not only as a friend, just as a human being, as a player – obviously, as a player comes first, being in a band. 

“So I called John, and I said, ‘OK, this is gonna be kind of weird… ‘ And since we talk almost every day, he was like, ‘What could be weirder than some of your off-color humor?’ [Laughs] I go, ‘Well, this one’s gonna top all of our shit.’ There was quiet, and he said, ‘I’d be honored.’ We were like, ‘OK, here we go.’

“You know, we were, ‘This is a major change for us.’ I remember going to rehearsal, and it felt, well, seamless, if that makes sense. It has nothing to do with anything other than John was so prepared. The very first rehearsal, I was like, ‘What do you want to do?’ Vince or someone said, ‘Let’s try a song.’ We were like, ‘Let’s just do the first song in the set,’ which is Wild Side at this point. We played Wild Side – it segues into Shout at the Devil. 

“We ended Wild Side and we’re kind of grinding, and then this sequence with some of the sounds of the ’97 Shout at the Devil remake – a lot of backward loops and swells. John started swelling up. I looked at Tommy and Shout at the Devil started. We ended that, and we didn’t even say anything, and we went right into Too Fast for Love. We played the whole show – seamlessly. And we were like, [Laughs] ‘Well, I guess band rehearsal’s over.’ 

“We started laughing. His personality, his professionalism, his sense of adventure as a guitar player, his understanding of what’s so important about so many of the solos Mick played on; him wanting to honor that, not wanting to do something different during Home Sweet Home; wanting to stick to what fans expected and want to hear and grew up hearing… has been just a really wonderful experience.”

Did Tommy or Vince have any other candidates in mind?

“No, we talked about John, and that was that. I mean, it’s just like we kind of knew. Because we knew him, too. It wasn’t like, ‘We’re in a shitty situation. Let’s just get a guitar player, and then we’ll get another guitar player, and then we’ll get another guitar player.’ We were looking for somebody that wanted to be here permanently with us.”

As for that first rehearsal, what would you have done if, for whatever strange reason, things didn’t click with John and the band?

“[Long pause] We would have been fucked, I guess.”

How much musical leeway are you affording John?

“Within the song structure, it’s important that John delivers what people are used to listening to – the solos, and honoring the songs. Outside of that, complete freedom. If he wants to do a guitar solo or ad-lib at the end of a song, it’s completely free-form at that point.”

Obviously, these are songs the band has played thousands of times. But in some small ways, did you notice anybody making any kinds of musical adjustments to suit how John plays?

“I think, in general, the band – bass, drums and guitar – is a rock band at our core. But any time you play with another musician, it’s going to change a little bit. Such I’ve found being in Brides of Destruction or Sixx: AM… I guess we’re more aware because suddenly John is playing the songs, and we’re hearing John and us… and it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, it sounds right. It sounds tight. It sounds right on the money.’ And it feels energized. It feels positive.” 

Last year saw a sizable – and rather high-profile – shake-up in Mötley Crüe’s electric guitar department: after Mick Mars retired from touring, citing health reasons, his boots were filled by John 5.

Though what seemed like a straightforward switch soon turned into a drawn-out and bitter legal battle between Mars and Mötley Crüe, John 5 himself has been focused on one thing: nailing his new gig.

Before his recruitment, the former Rob Zombie guitarist was well-placed for the role. A close friend of bassist Nikki Sixx and a fan of Mötley Crüe’s work, John 5 had been including Crüe covers in his solo setlist for some time prior to Mars’ official departure from the band.

Plus, following his appointment, the guitarist began posting solo performances of Crüe tracks on social media as he warmed up for the band’s first rehearsals ahead of their ongoing world tour.

The feedback at the time was glowing: Chad Kroeger said he heard John 5 play “every single Mötley Crüe riff” flawlessly, and Sixx reported the first rehearsals were “fucking epic”.

But John 5 had to start somewhere, and as he explains in the new issue of Guitar World, he spent “every day for months” going through Mötley Crüe’s back catalog in order to learn every solo and every refrain note for note.

“I wanted to play those solos exactly as they were written,” he explains. “Those solos are so important to me as a fan, and they’re so important to the audience. The squeals in Looks That Kill or the harmonics in Dr. Feelgood – these are very important to me and the world.”

Indeed, John 5 strictly stuck to what had already been recorded, giving himself no leeway for improvisation over particular parts of classic Crüe tracks. Explaining his approach, the Fender signature artist likened learning Mötley Crüe to approaching the work of Mozart.

“It’s like you’re looking at some sheet music; you’re looking at Mozart, and you’re like, ‘Well, I’m gonna improvise over this part,’” he says. “No. That’s how those songs were written, how they were recorded, and how they should be performed. I wanted to give those songs respect.”

But despite his desire to stay true to the solos as heard on the records, the band ended up giving John 5 their blessing to go completely “berserk” on his own ideas.

He continues, “I checked with the guys and said, ‘I’m going to play them as they are on the records.’ They said, ‘Okay, well, you can have a solo.’ And that’s when I go completely berserk. It’s kind of a perfect situation.”

Solos aside, John 5 already had a solid grasp on Mötley Crüe’s catalog going into the gig. In fact, the only thing he had to learn was “the arrangement of the medley that’s in the middle of the band’s live setlist.”

“Honestly, I really did know all the Crüe songs,” John 5 admits. “I’ve known all the songs for as long as I can remember.”

As mentioned above, John 5’s promotion to the ranks of Mötley Crüe came while the band was locked in legal disputes with outgoing guitarist Mars, who sued the band for conspiring to fire him and accused Sixx of miming on stage.

Sixx – who denied the accusations – also sat down in the latest issue of Guitar World to discuss the personnel shake-up, saying Mars’ exit caught the rest of the band all by surprise.

“We didn’t choose this,” he reflected, “but since we had to be put in this position, we’re very happy with where we’re at right now.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the new issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with John 5 and Nikki Sixx.

One of the biggest guitar stories of 2022 – and, indeed, of 2023 – was the high-profile electric guitar personnel shakeup enacted by Mötley Crüe.

What first seemed to be a straightforward six-string swap turned into a bitter and protracted legal disagreement between outgoing guitarist Mick Mars – who first announced his retirement due to health reasons – and the band, who employed John 5 in his place.

Shortly after the swap, Mars sued the band alleging they conspired to fire him, and accused bass guitar player Nikki Sixx of miming his parts live onstage – accusations that the bassist strongly denied.

There have been various developments over the months, the most recent of which came from the Mars camp: in an extended interview with Rolling Stone, the guitarist claimed Mötley Crüe were “trying to take away my legacy”, and said he never wants to speak to his former bandmates again.

Now, in a new interview with Guitar World, Sixx has offered his own take on the Crüe drama, explaining how Mars’ decision to leave came completely out of the blue.

When asked specifically about John 5’s appointment, Sixx discussed the circumstances surrounding the former Rob Zombie player’s recruitment, and noted the decision was made to fulfil tour commitments.

“We never saw it coming that Mick wasn’t going to be able to tour and was going to have to quit the band,” he explained. “In the middle – not even the middle – of a huge tour, we had to ask ourselves, 'Do we want to let the fans down? Do we want to let Live Nation down? Do we want to let Def Leppard down? Do we want to let ourselves down because an original member of our band can’t tour anymore?' We had to have a deep, deep look into what we were going to do.”

Sixx went on to describe John 5’s appointment as “a no-brainer in a horrible situation”, given their existing relationship to each other.

He continued, “[In regard to] John, knowing all the members of the band, and me having this relationship with him writing and as friends, and even being in the studio with him writing stuff with the band for The Dirt, it felt like a no-brainer in a horrible situation – something we did not ask for or want.

“And then it was just kind of obvious. If there was 'the guy', John was the guy. Like I said, we didn’t choose this, but since we had to be put in this position, we’re very happy with where we’re at right now.”

For Sixx, the swap has been a positive one – one he likens to “having your little brother right by your side” while on stage.

“John has the ability to play so precisely, and at the same time he keeps so much emotion in his playing,” Sixx enthused. “He obviously can play any style of music, and even blend them together. 

“As a collaborator, it’s amazing with John; you’re like, ‘Could you do…?’ And he’s like, ‘Yes.’ ‘Hey, could you do…?’ ‘Like this?’ He’s fun and exciting to hang out with – whether it’s his guitar playing, as a writer, and now on stage. It’s literally like having your little brother right by your side. It’s such a nice feeling.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with Nikki Sixx and John 5.

Last month, Mick Mars sat down for an in-depth interview with Rolling Stone, which saw the former – and co-founding – Mötley Crüe guitarist open up on the ugly legal battle that he and his old bandmates are currently engaged in.

The conversation touched on the topic of legacy, and, specifically, had Mars arguing that the group were trying to take his away: “I’m not going to let them,” he said at the time.

Now, Rolling Stone has published 15 outtakes from that interview, which explore the soured relationships between the two parties even further, with Mars apparently going as far as to say he never wants to speak to the band again.

“I think all of us would be okay with that,” Mars said. “And I don’t just mean me with them. I mean them with each other. I don’t plan on having a funeral. If I did, I think maybe they’d show up for that just out of courtesy. But for me, there’s no funeral. There’s no nothing.”

According to Mars, a breakdown in communication had already happened: the guitarist claimed that no one spoke to him in 2022 while Mötley Crüe were on the road as part of an extensive stadium tour. 

“Nobody spoke to me in 2022. A lot of the time felt like I was just playing by myself,” Mars reflected. “You know how you can be in a crowd of people and still feel alone? That’s how I felt that whole tour. 

“I felt used, sad and inferior. When we played the last show [in Las Vegas on September 9, 2022] I felt relieved. A lot of the pressure was gone. But I was very emotionally wounded. They weren’t just shallow wounds. They were deep ones; the kind you can’t get over.”

Even before the 2022 tour, though, the relationship between Mars and his bandmates was faltering, with the guitarist claiming the last time the band really talked was at the premiere of The Dirt – the Netflix adaptation of their group memoir – in 2019.

Elsewhere in the outtakes, Mars doubled down on his assertion that the current legal battles aren’t about money, but his memory as a member of Mötley Crüe.

“Just let me retire and have my legacy,” he said. “I don’t want to be a drama guy. I want to be a fuckin’ happy guy. But what do I get handed? Plates of shit. I don’t want it. I’m beat up on that shit. Let me have my legacy so that I can enjoy what I’ve done.

“I’m not asking for a right arm or left arm. But dammit man, I’ve never seen anybody have to go through this shit when they want to retire. I’m not an employee of Mötley Crüe though. I’m an owner.”

As well as the question of “ownership,” part of the divide between Mars and the rest of the Crüe crew stems from the former’s allegations that Nikki Sixx didn’t play bass live while on tour.

Here, he elaborated on the point, claiming tracks were used because Sixx “felt too much competition from the other bands on the tour, like Def Leppard.”

He said: “I think they made him feel inadequate about his bass playing.” Sixx strongly denies these allegations and is supported by seven members of the crew, who produced sworn declarations in his favor.

Mars retired from touring last year due to his struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.). Shortly after John 5 was announced as his replacement, Mars sued the band alleging they conspired to fire him, and had cut him out of future profits from all of their corporate entities.

The band responded to the lawsuit by asserting “retiring from touring is resigning from the band.”

In the land of Mötley Crüe, Mick Mars is gone but not forgotten.

Sure, Mars and his bandmates are sparring in the media – and apparently through the courts – and yeah, John 5 is holding down guitar duties for the band. And while John 5 and his stunning Ghost Tele aren't exactly hard on the ears, there's no denying that seeing Mötley on stage without its veteran six-stringer quietly shredding off to the side is a bit weird.

Moreover, after years away from the studio, Mötley seemed all too eager to climb back on their proverbial hair-metal horse as soon as Mars was out of the way. But regardless of whether the guitarist was holding them back – if he's to be believed, he wasn't – his towering legacy over Mötley's musical history remains.

As an elder statesman, capable songsmith, soloist extraordinaire, and a master of heavy metal riffage, Mars often sidestepped drugs, drama, and generally disparaging comments, always putting his bandmates and the music they created first.

Alas, physical maladies, age, and simply having enough left Mars in a position of not wanting to tour anymore. But, if he's to be believed, he was willing to do one-off gigs and additional studio work. So, what happened? Why was the man that penned and shredded over so many of Mötley Crüe's iconic hits cast by the wayside?

For now, at least, we don't know. And the truth is that perhaps we'll never know. But we do know that throughout his career with Mötley Crüe, Mick Mars has proved himself a master of showstopping guitar playing – as evidenced in our countdown of his 10 greatest solos.

10. Merry-Go-Round (Too Fast for Love, 1981)

Mötley Crüe's debut record, 1981's Too Fast for Love, is the group's rawest overall. But don't tell that to Mick Mars, whose riffs, and solos careen across the median and rumble head-on into oncoming traffic.

One of the the best examples of his no-holds-barred approach is Merry-Go-Round, a cut with a plucky riff that seemingly out of nowhere launches into a blistering solo for the ages. At their most seething, Mars' notes reach soaring highs once thought reserved for young Vince Neil's stout vocals.

9. Too Young to Fall in Love (Shout at the Devil, 1983)

At the time of Shout at the Devil's 1983 release, Mick Mars was 32 years of age, nearly a decade (or more) older than his bandmates. And across tracks like Too Young to Fall in Love, Mars' maturity is apparent.

Indeed, his riffs are chunky, but it's Too Young to Fall in Love's short burst of a blistering solo that steals the show here. It's a lightning bolt that simply refuses to be ignored. Mars summons demons to his fingertips, allowing them to howl with fury as he casts his seedy spell unto unsuspecting listeners.

8. Welcome to the Numb (Mötley Crüe, 1994)

If Mars' statements via his recent interviews are to be believed, 1994's Mötley Crüe, aka 'The Corabi Classic,' is the last full album to which Mick lent his licks. And if that's the case, he certainly went out with a bang.

With Corabi – a capable rhythm guitarist and riffsmith – on board, Mars seemed to open up more than ever. The result was some of his finest solos, Exhibit A being the nastier-than-nasty Welcome to the Numb. It's a deep cut, but Mars' tone and phrasing are simply sublime. What's more, it was refreshing to see a forgotten hair-metal six-stringer show the world that he, too, could grunge and grind with the best of 'em.

7. Looks That Kill (Shout at the Devil, 1983)

As one of Mötley Crüe's most well-loved cuts, the appearance of Looks That Kill should surprise no one. As for the song and solo itself, Mars blasts through the track with brain-bending riffage before ripping open the listener's chest and injecting heaping doses of heavy metal magic via his well-worn Strat.

But the best part has to be Mars' pacing, meaning that while others were looking to play faster, Mars dialed it back just a bit, eliciting raw, unladen emotion while choking the song's sonic registers within an inch of their lives.

6. Piece of Your Action (Too Fast for Love, 1981)

Yet another early example of Mars' proto-hair metal mastery, 1981's Piece of Your Action is a simple but scintillating thrill ride. But beyond that, it's quite literally the prototype for all things Mötley Crüe as it pertains to the guitar.

If you listen closely, there are bits and pieces that would ultimately be scattered throughout Mötley's career. And while some would say that means Mars drained his proverbial musical well on Too Fast for Love, a counter to that would be that Mars identified a working blueprint and rode it to unmitigated glory with startling regularity.

5. Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.) (Dr. Feelgood, 1989)

As a preeminent cut from Mötley Crüe's most preeminent record, Same Ol' Situation also represents Mick Mars at his glammiest. Sure, to look at Mars, you might liken him to a biker strolling into a dive in the wake of a rainstorm, but don't let his look-what-the-cat-dragged-in persona fool you. No, Mars could priss and preen with the best of them in his heyday, even if he was most of his contemporary's senior by a country mile.

And so, we direct you to the fiery whimsy that is the solo Mars dropped right in the middle of Same O' Situation. If you're into hair metal, this solo has all the things you've come to know and love, which by the way, are things that Mick Mars, at least in some cases, invented.

4. Knock 'Em Dead, Kid (Shout at the Devil, 1983)

Mars' participation in the creation and execution of many hits we've come to know and love has been well documented. But what of the deep cuts? Knock 'Em Dead, Kid is a prime example of all the things that made Mars and his merry band of Mötley cohorts great when they thrust themselves onto the scene. Remember, in '81, hair metal wasn't a 'thing.' But in one fell swoop, all that changed, and Knock' Em Dead, Kid being a prime example.

But of course, it's the solo we're after, and it's a doozy. Just as the second chorus wraps, Mars, seemingly out of nowhere, pinballs into frame with fast-as-lighting but still oh-so-soulful sweeps of six-string wizardry. It's a sight to behold and a harbinger of the hellish antics to come.

3. Dr. Feelgood (Dr. Feelgood, 1989)

Mötley Crüe's hair metal magnum opus, Dr. Feelgood, dropped in '89, serving as a crescendo for the decade of decadence. And while there were big hooks, massive drum fills, and thumping basslines aplenty, it was Mars who found himself in the middle of the action.

With a sleazy vibe and a gargantuan, hard-hitting solo that seems to have been sent from the bowels of hell to detonate and destroy, Dr. Feelgood represents one of Mars' most iconic and belligerent moments.

2. Misunderstood (Mötley Crüe, 1994)

It would seem that Misunderstood is aptly titled as many who have heard it haven't returned. Jokes aside, Mötley Crüe's 1994 self-titled record has amassed a cult following over the years, even if the band all but refuses to play, let alone acknowledge its greatness. We made note of John Corabi's presence earlier. Once again, he was crucial here, as his ability to carry Misunderstood's heavy rhythms allowed Mars to unhinge his inhibitions and unload one of his most emotive and tone-perfect solos ever.

On the one hand, it's a breathtaking listen, but on the other, it's more than a tad bit depressing as it's a shining example of one of the final things Mars would lay to tape for Mötley, if his recent comments are to be believed.

1. Home Sweet Home (Theater of Pain, 1985)

If you've accidentally stumbled upon Sirus XM's Hair Nation, only to not-so-accidentally leave it on for a long road trip (OK, speaking from experience here), you'll know that power ballads were par for the course in the '80s. Yet by the end of the decade, several of them seemed to lack that certain je ne sais quoi that made many of those early sappy anthems so endearing in the first place.

But not to worry, because in the case of Mötley's 1985 power ballad to remember, Home Sweet Home, they brought home the bacon and allowed Mick Mars to fry it up. Of course, we're talking about the slow-burning, then suddenly volcanic solo Mars laid down – with vigor – toward the ending of Theater of Pain's side one closer.

Whatever the future holds for the guitarist, the lasting image of Mick Mars depicts him preparing to launch into Home Sweet Home's solo with a wry smile while looking out and being greeted by row after row of Bic lighters swinging and swaying with each spine-tingling note.

Since it was announced that Mick Mars would be retiring from touring last year as a result of his ongoing struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.) – and that he would be replaced in Mötley Crüe by John 5 – relations between the electric guitar player and the band have soured.

In April, Mars sued the band alleging they conspired to fire him, and accused bassist Nikki Sixx of miming on stage. In response, the band asserted “retiring from touring is resigning from the band”, while Sixx denied all allegations of miming and claimed Mars was “being misled by representatives”.

Now, during an in-depth interview with Rolling Stone, Mars has gone on the offensive, saying that his former bandmates are “trying to take my legacy away”.

The core of the issue stems from Mars’ claims that the band had attempted to “gaslight” and fire him, and had cut him out of future profits from all of their corporate entities. 

“When they wanted to get high and fuck everything up, I covered for them,” Mars told Rolling Stone. “Now they’re trying to take my legacy away, my part of Mötley Crüe, my ownership of the name, the brand.”

“How can you fire Mr. Heinz from Heinz ketchup?” Mars adds. “He owns it. Frank Sinatra’s or Jimi Hendrix’s legacy goes on forever, and their heirs continue to profit from it. They’re trying to take that away from me. I’m not going to let them.”

Throughout the conversation, Mars also reflected on his Crüe career, and recalled how he felt as though the band were squeezing him out of decision-making while recording their 1997 effort, Generation Swine – an album he sees as his one Mötley Crüe regret.

Specifically, Mars said he felt “useless” while the band recorded the album, alleging he'd “do a part, they’d erase it, and somebody else would come in and play”.

“I don’t think there’s one note that I played. They didn’t want my guitar to sound like a guitar, basically,” he stated. “They wanted it to sound like a synthesizer. I felt so useless.”

According to Mars, it was a similar case for the recording of New Tattoo, with the guitarist claiming he “wasn't invited” back to the studio and only “got one lick on that album”.

Sixx disputed this, countering, “Mick played lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and any other guitar that’s on that record.”

For the 2022 tour – during which Mars alleged Sixx mimed his parts – the guitarist also said he had been “sabotaged musically so they’d have an excuse to get rid of me”, and that his on-stage struggles were exploited in an effort “to make me look bad”.

“The feed of guitar into my in-ear monitor was horrible,” he said. “It would break up, and nobody else’s seemed to break up but mine. And then they’d switch to prerecorded crap from rehearsals, when I was just relearning the songs.”

Again, Sixx countered the claim, labeling it “insanity”. In his response, the bassist said tapes were only used to cover for Mars who “couldn’t play guitar properly” during rehearsals.

Elsewhere in the interview, Mars briefly discussed his long-awaited debut solo album, Another Side of Mars, which is described by Rolling Stone as “darker and more aggressive than anything in the Crüe catalog”.

Understandably, though, he has no plans to take it on tour: “I’m done touring,” he says. “If somebody really, really wants a one-off, or a couple of nights, I would probably do it. But all that travel stuff and planes… I’m way over it.”

It’s been a fairly eventful few months for Mötley Crüe, who started 2023 with John 5 as their new guitarist to fill in for the outgoing Mick Mars.

Mars, who stepped back from his role due to health reasons in October last year, was officially replaced by the Rob Zombie guitarist not long after, with the electric guitar star receiving votes of confidence from each remaining Mötley member.

It turns out John 5 also received a message of support from his predecessor following the announcement of his appointment, with Mars personally reaching out to him after the news broke.

Speaking to SiriusXM's Eddie Trunk, John 5 discussed his relationship with Mars, revealing the long-standing Mötley Crüe guitarist was wholly supportive of his successor, who was drafted to fulfill a handful of live commitments.

“When I was announced as the guitar player, he was one of the very first texts that I got,” John 5 recalled (via Loudwire). “He said, ‘You're going to kill it.’ It's good. It's not like it's some stranger coming in. We have a great respect for each other.”

Unsurprisingly, the support for John 5 was warranted. Having practiced his Crüe chops beforehand by sneaking in their songs to his live solo sets, and by uploading video footage of him playing a handful of their hits, John 5 soon made a spectacular live debut in February.

The relationship between Mick Mars and Mötley Crüe has soured somewhat in recent months, however. In April, Mars sued the band for conspiring to fire him, and claimed his former bandmates had attempted to remove him as a significant stakeholder in Crüe’s various businesses.

At the time, Mars also accused the band of miming onstage, saying bassist Nikki Sixx mimed all his parts, while the rest of the band – Tommy Lee and Vince Neil – did for some of theirs.

The band – through their attorney – responded to Mars by affirming that the band “always performs their songs live”, and that “retiring from touring is resigning from the band”.

In his recent conversation with Trunk, John 5 weighed in on the conversation by saying, “Not 99 percent, not 98 percent, but 100 percent – Nikki is playing every single note on that stage.

“When people say we're playing to backing tracks, I take it as a compliment because we rehearse so hard,” he went on. “We even have penalty flags if someone messes up at rehearsal – we throw a penalty flag at them. 

“We rehearse so much and I take it as a compliment because it means we sound that good live. In my heart of hearts, I know that we're playing live.”

The most recent development in the exchange between Mars and the band came from Nikki Sixx, who alleged Mars was “a little bit confused and being misled by representatives”.

Nikki Sixx has alleged that Mick Mars is “confused and being misled” by his team, according to an interview with Planet Rock.

Mars retired from touring with Mötley Crüe due to his ongoing struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.) – a painful degenerative disease that affects the spine – in October 2022, and was replaced in the band's live line-up by longtime fan and friend of the group John 5. 

The founding guitarist has since filed a lawsuit against Mötley Crüe, alleging that the band were attempting to “gaslight” and fire him. In the process, the suit alleges the group attempted to divest Mars of his 25 percent stake in the band’s business interests in exchange for a 7.5 percent take in their 2023 world tour takings. 

Speaking to the UK radio station’s host, Wyatt, Sixx commented on the situation and the reasons the band decided to continue without Mars.

“If a member of a band tells you that they can’t tour because of health reasons, you have two choices,” says Sixx. “You can quit as a band (after) 42 years of work. Or we could look at each other and go ‘are we done yet?' 

“We’re really peaking and we understand (Mick’s) health issues. We wish him the best and we know that he’s a little bit confused and being misled by representatives right now. But we still have to stay focused on why we’re here.”

Amid the more salacious claims in Mars’s lawsuit are allegations that the other members of Mötley Crüe mimed onstage during their 2022 stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. The band have firmly denied the accusations.

This isn’t the first time Sixx has pointed the finger at Mars’s representatives. At the time of the band’s initial response to the lawsuit, he took to Twitter, writing: 

“Sad day for us and we don’t deserve this considering how many years we’ve been propping him up. We still wish him the best and hope he find’s [sic] lawyers and managers who aren’t damaging him. We love you Mick.”

Elsewhere in his Planet Rock interview, Sixx discusses his warm relationship with new guitarist John 5. 

“I’ve been friends with John forever and I would make jokes [like] ‘as long as you’re a 5, I feel good being a Sixx.’ Y’know, stupid best buddy jokes,” says Sixx. 

“He’s just a great guy and a great musician, and he gives us a great opportunity as a three-piece, so to speak, to really lock in. He’s just such a great guitar player.

“It’s nothing against any other musician that you play with,” Sixx continues, referring to Mars. “[It’s] just that when you play with new musicians you play differently… It kind of, like, re-inspires you. And I’m sure the same thing would happen if they got a new bass player. [They'd be] like ‘oh wow, he’s attacking it differently.’ So it’s never about how bad anybody was.”

Mötley Crüe are currently between dates on their 2023 world tour with Def Leppard. Mars, meanwhile, has been recording his first solo album, involving drummer Carmine Appice and guitarist Paul Taylor, as well as Canadian country rocker Cory Marks.

This Thursday (April 6), electric guitar player Mick Mars filed a lawsuit against his former band, Mötley Crüe.

Mars retired from touring with the band last October – and was subsequently replaced by John 5 – but said at the time that he would formally remain a member of the group.

In the lawsuit, though, Mars alleges that after he announced his retirement, the band moved to remove him as a significant stakeholder in Crüe’s corporation and business holdings via a shareholders’ meeting, and – via lawyers – instructed him to sign a severance agreement that would divest him of his 25 percent stake in the band's various business interests in return for a 5 percent stake in the band's 2023 tour, a stake that would be reduced to 0 percent for subsequent tours. 

When Mars – after the 5 percent offer was upped to 7.5 percent – still refused to sign the papers, the band took him to arbitration in an effort to keep the dispute private.

In the suit's most eyebrow-raising point, Mars also accused the rest of the band – bass guitar player Nikki Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee and vocalist Vince Neil – of miming some (or, in Sixx's case, all) of their parts during Crüe's 2022 stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

Now, Mötley Crüe have responded to the lawsuit, calling it – in a statement provided to Rolling Stone – "unfortunate," while maintaining that Mars "publicly resigned" from the band.

The band – through their attorney, Sasha Frid – also refuted the lawsuit's miming allegations, maintaining that the band "always performs their songs live." Mars, the band countered, "struggled to remember chords, played the wrong songs and made constant mistakes [on the band's 2022 tour] which led to his departure from the band."

At the core of the dispute is Mars' status as a member of Mötley Crüe, and how that factors into his share of the band's business holdings. In Mars' lawsuit – first reported by Variety – the guitarist says the band essentially conspired to fire him. In their response, Mötley Crüe say that Mars' decision to retire was tantamount to a full resignation from the band.

"In 2008, Mick voted for and signed an agreement in which he and every other band member agreed that ‘in no event shall any resigning shareholder be entitled to receive any monies attributable to live performances (i.e., tours),’” the band said in their response.

"Retiring from touring is resigning from the band,” Crüe lawyer Sasha Frid explained to Variety. “The band’s primary function is to tour and perform concerts. And as you saw from the amendment, if a shareholder resigns, he cannot receive any compensation from touring – which is what Mick is trying to get. It’s clear-cut that Mick is not entitled to any more money.” 

In his lawsuit, Mars contends that the band, particularly Sixx, "gaslighted" him into believing that his playing was sub-par and inconsistent. In their response, Mötley Crüe said that his playing was indeed below par.

To prove their point, the band provided signed declarations from seven members of their 2022 touring crew, each of which maintains that Mars struggled with his performances throughout the tour. These declarations were seen and confirmed by Variety.

Mars has Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.), a painful degenerative disease that affects the spine, an affliction that ultimately led to the guitarist's decision to retire from touring.

While his lawsuit acknowledges that he made some mistakes on the band's 2022 tour, it says that these were due to faulty in-ear monitors.

In a statement of his own – published on Twitter – Sixx said, "Sad day for us and we don’t deserve this considering how many years we’ve been propping him up. We still wish him the best and hope he finds lawyers and managers who aren’t damaging him. We love you Mick." 

According to Variety, Mars will still receive royalties from publishing and recordings he made with the band, but will not be a shareholder in any of the band's businesses going forward.

No date has been set yet for the arbitration between Mars – whose lawsuit served as a request to inspect the band's business records, and to be awarded attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with the lawsuit – and the rest of the group.

One-time Mötley Crüe electric guitar player Mick Mars has filed a lawsuit against his former band, Variety reports.

Mars, a co-founding member of the band, announced his retirement from touring with the group last October, following the conclusion of their 2022 North American stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

At the time, Mars maintained that he would remain a member of the band, with John 5 taking his place on the road.

In his lawsuit, though – filed, according to Variety, through his attorney, Edwin F. McPherson, in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court today (April 6) – Mars says that, after his announcement, the band moved to remove him as a significant stakeholder in Crüe’s corporation and business holdings via a shareholders’ meeting. 

Mars, the lawsuit says, was asked to sign a severance agreement that would divest him of his 25 percent stake in the band's various business interests in return for a 5 percent stake in the band's 2023 tour. This stake, the lawsuit alleges, would be reduced to 0 percent for future tours.

According to the legal filing, Crüe's management later upped the offer from 5 percent to a 7.5 percent stake in the band's 2023 tour, which would remain contingent on Mars divesting himself from the band and their businesses. When Mars refused to sign the papers, the band took him to arbitration in an effort – the lawsuit alleges – to keep the dispute private. 

The guitarist also accused the band's long-tenured bass guitar player, Nikki Sixx, of gaslighting him. "During much of the band’s recent tenure, Sixx continually ‘gaslighted’ Mars by telling him that he (Mars) had some sort of cognitive dysfunction, and that his guitar playing was sub-par, claiming that Mars forgot chords, and sometimes started playing the wrong songs," the filing – also obtained by Rolling Stone – says.

In return, Mars' suit contends that Sixx "did not play a single note on bass during the entire [2022 North American] tour,” and – additionally – that "a significant portion" of Vince Neil's vocals and "some" of Tommy Lee's drum parts were pre-recorded.

Mars has spent decades battling Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.), a painful degenerative disease that affects the spine, an affliction that ultimately led to the guitarist's decision to retire from touring.

While the lawsuit acknowledges that Mars made occasional mistakes on the band's 2022 tour, it chalks these up to faulty in-ear monitors.

Mars has ultimately asked to be awarded attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with the lawsuit, and to inspect the band's business records. According to Variety, the suit does not involve any requests for damages.

Guitar World has reached out to Mötley Crüe's representatives for comment.

John 5 made his highly anticipated debut with Mötley Crüe in Atlantic City on Friday night (February 10), using a number of custom Fender Telecasters to tear through an epic set culled from all eras of the Los Angeles metal institution’s career, and it looked like he had been there for years.

Fan-shot footage has emerged of the set that confirms what everyone suspected all along; that John 5 was the smart choice – perhaps the only choice – to replace long-standing Crüe guitarist and co-founder Mick Mars, who announced his retirement from touring in October. 

Mars, who has had the painful and degenerative condition ankylosing spondylitis since he was a teenager, remains a member of the band, but decided that after years of managing the condition, it has become too much on his body to tour.

That John 5 – aka John William Lowery – was to replace Mars was one of the worst-kept secrets in rock. He has always been close to the band. And his playing style, all OTT theater and spectacle, is to the manor born.

Once it was confirmed, John 5’s social media feed was soon building anticipation  for what Crüe fans could expect once they saw him onstage. Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx said the lineup’s first full rehearsal together “was fucking epic”.

Mötley Crüe lit up a cold New Jersey evening on Friday with a hard-to-beat opening trifecta of Wild Side, Shout at the Devil and Too Fast For Love – John 5 using his custom ‘Ghost’ Tele. 

As revealed a couple of weeks ago, John 5’s guitar rig for the blockbuster tour is relatively straightforward. He has his Telecasters running into a series of Marshall JVM tube amp heads, and only a small pedalboard populated with Boss Compact Series pedals. 

His ‘board features an SD-1 Super Overdrive, CH-1 Super Chorus, OC-5 Octave, NS-2 Noise Suppressor and DD-8 Digital Delay, with a Radial Engineering SGI-44 line driver for good measure.

John 5 might be new to the band but the set did feature The Dirt (Est. 1981), a track he co-wrote for the soundtrack from the 2019 Crüe biopic of the same name. And, of course, there was a guitar solo. After all, what’s the point of hiring all that technical excellence and not putting it on display? 

The band played a second night in Atlantic City with an identical setlist – though expect this to change over the course of the tour. Although they did not play Bastard on either night, that old Shout at the Devil favorite was one of a number of tracks John 5 had been teasing online.

Crüe are on the road with Def Leppard on the World Tour. Their two-night stand at Atlantic City’s 7,000 capacity Etess Arena will be followed on February 18 in Mexico City. Saturday afternoon, in Mexico, at a Crüe show… Should be a lively one. See Mötley Crüe for full dates.

Mick Mars, who announced his official retirement from touring late last year, was recently in the studio working on his long-awaited debut solo album.

Though it was confirmed Mars would remain a part of the band when his touring retirement was announced, Mötley Crüe are currently gearing up for a mammoth world tour with new live guitarist John 5, and so the group’s founding member has found himself with a fair amount of spare time.

As such, it seems as though Mars has put the time to good use, and has continued work on his highly anticipated solo outing with the help of country rock singer-songwriter, Cory Marks.

Writing on Instagram, Marks teased Mars’ upcoming project sounded “huge”, and claimed “the rock world is in for something weird, special, great and loud”.

“Spent my Saturday hanging out with one of the coolest, sweetest, most kind down to earth bad asses on this planet that I’m lucky to call a friend,” Marks wrote. “So many stories and a lot of laughs talking music, guns, planes, guitars, drums, travel, road stories (he’s got cooler ones than me), health, fitness, zombies, sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

He continued, “Thank you for having me over and letting me hear your new project…which sounds huge. The rock world is in for something weird, special, great and loud. 

“Surreal walking into your studio and the first thing I see is a gold record on top of a bunch of Marshall amps stacked up together with my face and name on it and I’ll be sending you a couple more very soon. 

“Don’t be surprised if you see Mars & Marks on more songs together down the road. Outlaws And Outsiders forever.”

It’s the latest tease we’ve had regarding Mars’ premiere solo effort following tidbits we received from drummer Carmine Appice and guitarist Paul Taylor last year.

Speaking to Sonic Dorms podcast in April 2022, Taylor hinted that Mars’ album was “definitely heavy and very versatile”, and claimed it had the potential to “blow some people away”. In the same interview, Taylor estimated the album would arrive at the end of the year – something, of course, that didn’t quite go to plan.

In November, Appice followed this up with a tease of his own, suggesting that Mars would be open to doing some smaller, intimate live shows to support the album when it finally arrives.

“[Mars] said he's gonna do a solo album and go out and do some gigs,” Appice recalled. “I said, 'Look, if you need anyone to play drums, I'll play with you.' He goes, 'That would be great.' So maybe I'll do some gigs with him. 

“But it's not gonna be big tours. It'll be a weekend maybe somewhere and then go home. Two weekends later, maybe a weekend and go home.”

Even before Taylor and Appice’s hints, the topic of Mars’ solo album has been around for almost 10 years, with Mars himself telling Eddie Trunk in 2014 he had plans to release “at least an EP” of his own material.

Since then, details have filtered through slowly over the years, with vocalist Jacob Bunton – reportedly the lead singer on Mars’ record – telling AL.com the record itself is packed with “insane riffs”.

“The songs are really cool, the record is really cool,” Bunton said back in 2020. “He's such an inventive player and his riffs are insane and it's definitely going to be what people are expecting. When they hear it… It's really cool.”

Now Mars has some more time to himself and his own musical project, we may see more developments regarding his solo album arriving in the near-future.

Mars retired from touring last year as a result of his ongoing struggle with ankylosing spondylitis.

While Mars works on his solo material, Mötley Crüe will hit the road with the help of John 5, who was announced as the band’s new live guitarist following weeks of intense online speculation.

Rehearsals for the tour began a few weeks ago, with bassist Nikki Sixx reporting they had been “fucking epic”. To further stoke anticipation ahead of the tour, John 5 took to social media to show off his entire guitar rig for the upcoming string of shows.

For a number of reasons, the 1989 Moscow Music Peace Festival was unlike any other rock festival that had come before it – or, really, any that has been held since.

Envisioned as a "Russian Woodstock" that would, in theory, raise global awareness of drug and alcohol abuse, the festival gathered the biggest (not to mention craziest) acts in hard rock – Cinderella, Scorpions, Skid Row, Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne and Bon Jovi – behind the Iron Curtain, at a time when the Soviet Union had only just begun to open itself up officially to American and Western European popular music.

The festival inspired one of the billed acts to write an inspirational power ballad that would become one of the biggest hit singles in the history of popular music, and the drummer of another one of the bands to physically fight their manager, but more on that later...

Political and tabloid intrigue aside, the festival – held at Central Lenin Stadium (now known as Luzhniki Stadium) – had some truly killer performances, among them a set-closing jam session featuring the members of Skid Row and Mötley Crüe jamming on Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll with Zakk Wylde and Jason Bonham on drums. 

You can see footage of the jam – which features Skid Row electric guitar player Snake Sabo, and Mötley guitarist Mick Mars in addition to Wylde – below.

Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil and Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, trading off lead vocals, are each in prime form, but the guitarists bring plenty of energy, too. Rather than one-upping each other with head-cutting leads, Wylde, Sabo and Mars focus on the Zeppelin classic's crushing rhythm parts, aided by a wall of what must've been indescribably loud Marshalls between them.

Despite the fun all participants were evidently having, the festival, perhaps inevitably, didn't close out without some fireworks – both onstage and backstage.

Given that there were numerous stadium-headlining acts on the bill, there was some degree of conflict about who would "headline" the show. According to Rolling Stone's oral history of the festival, the day the festival began, Ozzy Osbourne threatened to drop out if he did not receive higher billing, leading Doc McGhee – who at the time managed all the festival's biggest acts sans Osbourne – to make the Prince of Darkness second on the bill, below Bon Jovi.

Mötley Crüe, already miffed about being second on the bill, were dropped to third. Furthermore, they were told in no uncertain terms by McGhee that pyrotechnics – a major feature of their typical stage show – were strictly off-limits, for all acts. 

Imagine their – and the crowd's – surprise, then, when there was a massive pyrotechnic explosion during a climactic moment in Bon Jovi's set. 

"I heard Tommy [Lee, Mötley's drummer], coming down a ramp, [yelling] fuck you Doc McGhee, fuck you!" Sabo – who was backstage at the time – told Patrick Radden Keefe on his Wind of Change podcast. 

"I immediately ran back, backstage, and found my manager, and I remember shoving him," Lee told Rolling Stone. "Like a big chest push, just ‘boom.’ And I pushed him on the ground, like 'Fuck you, you fuckin’ lied to us. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be working for the fucking Chipmunks.'"

Avoiding – as they typically did – the backstage blow-ups that consumed many of their contemporaries, Scorpions, for their part, came away inspired by the festival. The energy and excitement they felt from the Russian audience would go on to inspire Wind of Change, a power ballad that celebrated the political changes coming to Eastern Europe. It would go on to not only become their biggest hit, but one of the best-selling singles of all time, in any genre.

"We went on a boat on the Moskva [River] down to Gorky Park, where they had a barbecue," Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine told Rolling Stone in 2017. "I think it was the night before the first show [of the festival]. Stas Namin was running a so-called Hard Rock Café. There were some banners in the trees in this place they picked in the park, and they put speakers in there with music from all the bands. 

"The entire world, musicians from America, England, Russia, Germany, all joining together in this boat with Red Army soldiers, MTV, media people – and everybody [is speaking] the same language: music."

Last week, months of intense speculation was put to bed when it was confirmed that John 5 would be joining Mötley Crüe as the glam-metal outfit’s new live guitarist.

The Rob Zombie electric guitar star was drafted into the Crüe crew shortly after it was announced the band’s co-founding and original guitarist, Mick Mars, would be taking a step back from touring duties.

Many suspected that John 5 would be the man to fill Mars’ boots, with the guitarist recently adding Mötley Crüe covers to his setlist, posing for a photo alongside the band’s drummer Tommy Lee and seemingly leaving the Rob Zombie lineup.

He also has a musical history with the band, having received writing credits for three original Mötley Crüe songs on the band’s The Dirt film soundtrack.

Now, Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx has shed some light on the decision to choose John 5 as Mars’ replacement, labeling him an “insane player” while answering fan questions on social media.

“He checks all the boxes,” Sixx wrote. “He's a insane player. Has respect for our music, is funny as fuck and has history with us and we've written some pretty big hits together.”

The hits Sixx references include The Dirt (Est. 1981), Ride with the Devil and Crash and Burn. As for their “history”, John 5 has played alongside Sixx as part of the L.A. Rats supergroup, and once told Outburn that Sixx is “one of the most inspiring people” he’s ever known.

Sixx also tapped John 5 for an episode of his My Favorite Riffs video series, which saw the pair record a version of Zombie’s I’ve Been Everywhere.

When news of John 5’s appointment broke, the guitarist issued a statement that said, “I'm honored to carry on Mick's legacy and am looking forward to playing these songs.”

Prior to John 5’s appointment, it was announced that Mars would be retiring from touring as a result of his struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis – a form of inflammatory arthritis he has battled since his late teens.

A statement shared with Variety read, “Mick Mars, co-founder and lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe for the past 41 years, has announced today that due to his ongoing painful struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.), he will no longer be able to tour with the band.

“Mick will continue as a member of the band, but can no longer handle the rigors of the road. A.S. is an extremely painful and crippling degenerative disease, which affects the spine.”

As such, John 5 will replace Mars when Mötley Crüe head out for their The World co-headlining tour with Def Leppard next year.

Mars played his last show for Mötley Crüe in September this year, with footage capturing the guitar hero tearing through Kickstart My Heart.

For a list of upcoming The World tour dates, head over to Mötley Crüe’s website.

Earlier this week, electric guitar titan Mick Mars announced his retirement from touring with Mötley Crüe, a band he's been a part of since their inception in 1981.

Mars has spent decades battling Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.), a painful degenerative disease that affects the spine, and a statement from his representatives said that his decision stemmed from his no longer being able to "handle the rigors of the road" due to the condition. 

After they first disbanded in 2015, the glam-metal mainstays reunited for a North American stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts that was originally scheduled for the summer of 2020, then subsequently postponed first to 2021, then 2022 due to COVID-19. 

The trek wrapped up with a September 9 gig at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, at which the band played a 15-song set loaded with hits like Dr. Feelgood, Girls, Girls, Girls and Shout at the Devil.

Last up on the setlist was Kickstart My Heart, an adrenaline shot of a rocker defined by Mars' riffing and motorcycle-evoking Floyd Rose antics. 

You can see fan-filmed footage of the band's performance of the song – the final song of the final show of Mars' onstage career with the band – below.

The cumulative wear and tear of the full tour certainly shows on frontman Vince Neil's voice, with the band's over-the-top props and wild onstage pyrotechnics also competing for viewers' attention.

Through it all though, just as he did for decades, Mars stands steady, anchoring the song's riff-heavy attack with precision, even through what one could only imagine was significant pain.

• Mick Mars on his favorite Mötley Crüe solo, how he (unintentionally) ended up on Aerosmith's Pump, and the Dr. Feelgood Garnet amp

“To say ‘enough is enough’ is the ultimate act of courage,” Mötley Crüe said in a statement following the announcement of his retirement. “Mick’s sound helped define Mötley Crüe from the minute he plugged in his guitar at our very first rehearsal together. The rest, as they say, is history. We’ll continue to honor his musical legacy."

Mars's place in the band is set to be taken by John 5, who added in a statement of his own that he was "honored" to carry on Mars's legacy.

John 5 has been officially confirmed as the new touring guitarist for Mötley Crüe, after it was announced the band’s original and co-founding guitarist Mick Mars would be retiring from live duties.

Mars’ retirement was confirmed yesterday (October 27), with the electric guitar hero stepping back from touring as a result of his ongoing struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis – a form of inflammatory arthritis he has battled since his late teens.

In a new statement posted to Mötley Crüe’s social media, the band heralded the Rob Zombie guitarist as an “absolutely outstanding musician” and announced he would be joining Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx on the road ahead of their The World tour with Def Leppard.

It read, “While change is never easy, we accept Mick’s decision to retire from the band due to the challenges with his health. We have watched Mick manage his Ankylosing Spondylitis for decades and he has always managed it with utmost courage and grace.

“To say ‘enough is enough’ is the ultimate act of courage,” it continued. “Mick’s sound helped define Mötley Crüe from the minute he plugged in his guitar at our very first rehearsal together. The rest, as they say, is history. We’ll continue to honor his musical legacy.

“We will carry out Mick’s wish and continue to tour the world as planned in 2023. No doubt will it take an absolutely outstanding musician to fill Mick’s shoes so we are grateful that our good friend, John 5, has agreed to come on board and join us moving forward. We’ll see all of you Crüeheads out on the road!”

In response to the appointment, John 5 said, “I'm honored to carry on Mick's legacy and am looking forward to playing these songs.”

The news ends weeks of speculation surrounding the guitarist, with many spectators predicting John 5’s Mötley Crüe recruitment following his absence from Zombie’s Aftershock Festival appearance earlier this year.

At the same time, John 5 posted a picture of him posing with Crüe drummer Lee, with podcast host Jason Green further fueling the fire by asserting, “I am reporting it as fact: that John 5 will be joining Mötley Crüe for their upcoming foreign tour.”

Unbeknownst to the public, John 5 has inadvertently been prepping himself for his stint with Mötley Crüe during his recent solo shows, which have included a variety of Crüe covers such as Kickstart this Heart and Home Sweet Home.

The new-look Mötley Crüe lineup will hit the road next year for their co-headlining The World tour with Def Leppard, which is scheduled to kick off on February 18 in Mexico City. The six-month tour will see the two bands visit the UK, Europe and South America, before concluding on July 6 in Glasgow, Scotland.

For more information, and a full list of tour dates, head over to Mötley Crüe’s website.

The following is a classic edition of Dear Guitar Hero with Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars, taken from the Guitar World archives.

He’s survived prescription drug addiction, inflammatory arthritis and 30 years with Mötley Crüe. But what Guitar World readers really want to know is…

Mick, your riffs have set you apart and placed you in a class of your own. Could you shed some light on what goes into making a killer riff? – Tyler Cleroux

"Thanks, Tyler. As far as making up killer riffs, I don’t have any special tricks or techniques. Everything I play comes right from my soul. I do try to have a plan in mind – I try to hear something in my head, and I go for it. That’s about it, though.

"When I started out on the guitar, I was influenced by people like Michael Bloomfield, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. Those guys sort of taught me how to play 'real' guitar. But again, with riffs, you have to look into your soul and see what comes out."

It’s been well-documented, often by all the other guys in the band, that Mötley Crüe epitomized Eighties rock decadence. As the one guy in the band who’s had his head on straight, what stands out for you as the craziest moment on the road? – Brian

"I don’t know. They’ve all been crazy! [laughs] I guess it depends on what era and what tour – there’s been different levels to Mötley’s craziness. One thing that stands out in my mind is the night in Vegas when everybody in the band got arrested, except me. The rest of the guys were pushing cops around, but I had the sense not to get involved. I had already been in jail once when I was a teenager, and no way was I going to go back. 

"Getting into fights with cops? That’s pretty bad. I knew that was only going to lead to big-time trouble. I told the guys, 'Don’t do it. Don’t go messin’ with cops.' They didn’t listen. I’ll tell you, so much of being on tour is kind of a haze. Getting drunk, doing drugs, falling off the stage – sure, I’ve done all of that. But I always kept playing, no matter what."

I heard that when you were in the studio for Dr. Feelgood, you used so many amps that your guitar leaked onto the Aerosmith album being recorded in the same building [1989’s Pump]. Is this true? And what happened to the Garnet amp from those sessions? – Justin Hachey

"That’s right. Steven Tyler was doing vocals with producer Bruce Fairbairn next door, and I remember them yelling at me, 'You’ve gotta turn your stuff down, Mick! It’s leaking into our vocals.' I didn’t turn down, though. I just told them, 'Hey, that’s the way I play – loud.' [laughs] So yeah, I’m all over the record they were doing. Somewhere in the mix, you’ll hear me.

"The Garnet amp was something [producer] Bob Rock brought in for me to use. I said, 'This sounds like crap!' But Bob liked it because it sounded real trashy. I used it mostly for low-end stuff. 

"Originally, I was using Mesa/Boogie amps for most of the low-end stuff, and that’s all I wanted to use, but Bob thought the Garnet would make for a nice blend. At first, I didn’t think so – I really didn’t like its sound at all; it was just so horrid. But in the end, Bob was right. The Mesa and the Garnet work well when mixed together. I never owned the amp, though. It was always Bob’s."

I love that distressed Fender HSH Strat that you’ve been playing for the last couple of years. Any chance that you would do a signature version with Fender? – Matt Liddelow

"I think they were talking about doing a line of guitars like that at one time. I’m a Fender endorser, but I’m pretty uncomfortable with the whole idea of doing a signature Mick Mars guitar. To me, it’s kind of egotistical. Put it this way: as much as I love Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, I would never play their signature models onstage. That’s just the way I feel. 

"The whole thing is weird to me. Like, I can’t picture Slash playing a Mick Mars guitar. It just seems odd. I’m not trying to put down guitar players who put out signature guitars. But, nope, it’s not for me."

I’ve always seen you as a mellow character, and I just want to know, what’s the secret to surviving 30 years of Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil and Tommy Lee? – Justin Michael Hughes

"I have my own bus! [laughs] Personal space – my own bus, my own hotel room, my own dressing room, my own private time – that’s the secret. A lot of the times, the rest of the guys will fly from one gig to the next. It takes them an hour to go from one city to another, whereas it might take me a day and a half on the bus. But the payoff is I’m rested, I’m in a good place mentally, and nobody’s driven me crazy. [laughs] 

"In the early days, I couldn’t do that, so I had to deal with Nikki blasting his music all the time, Tommy running around with no clothes on, Vince doing whatever he was doing... all sorts of behavior. I’m glad to travel with a little sanity now."

Like you, I’ve had ankylosing spondylitis [a.k.a. AS, an inflammatory form of arthritis Mars has battled since age 19] since my early twenties. It’s tough, but I've gotta keep going. I’m wondering this: do you approach the instrument and performing differently than before the disease really took hold? Any advice for guitarists with health challenges? – Charles Potter

"My approach hasn’t changed, really. My posture, yes; my playing, no. AS gets into your hands, wrists, feet, your ankles. It rarely, rarely gets anywhere else, like into your spine, but in my case, yes, it did spread there. My case is pretty severe in that it’s traveled all the way up to my brain stem. 

"My posture has changed pretty drastically. I’ve shrunk about five inches. There’s a way I could’ve not shrunk, and that would’ve been to lay flat when sleeping. The only problem with that, though, would be that I couldn’t look down at my guitar – I’d be standing totally straight and unable to bend my neck. 

"Luckily, the doctors didn’t tell me this, so I’m kind of bent now, a little hunched over, but at least I can look down at my guitar when I play. AS hurts, but I don’t use steroids or anything like that. Sometimes I have really good days, sometimes I don’t.

"My advice would be this: don’t take the quick fix. Don’t just go to a doctor and start taking all the drugs he pushes on you. I got hooked on pills and didn’t play guitar for two years. Play through the pain if you can."

Out of all your recordings with Mötley Crüe, which guitar solo is your personal favorite, and why? – Blake Burleson

"Probably the solo on the song Primal Scream [from 1991’s Decade of Decadence], because it’s very bluesy and it’s a lot of fun for me to play. The solo just screams the blues. I put a lot of different guitar players’ styles in it, everyone from Jimmy Page to Johnny Winter to Michael Bloomfield. I took all of those influences and used them to create that solo."

I once read that you consider yourself a blues-based player. If you had to pick three of your biggest blues guitar influences, who would they be, and why? – Billy Boy

"Mike Bloomfield is number one. Not only did he play over the top well – and I mean stupidly well – but he also played what I call 'real' guitar. If you’ve ever heard Mike Bloomfield, then you know what I’m talking about. It just came from his heart. 

"I never got a chance to see him because he died at an early age, but he was a big influence on me as to the way I learned to bend strings and get everything I could out of a note. One of the best players ever.

"Jeff Beck is great, but he’s not really blues. I’d call him more of a rocker. Eric Clapton… now there’s a blues player. What’s interesting about him is he had multiple tones. In John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers his tone was much different than when he was in Cream. He was constantly changing and reinventing himself, but it was always blues-based.

"My third guy would be Jimi Hendrix, because he actually changed the whole face of blues. Voodoo Child, Hear My Train A-Comin, Purple Haze – it’s all blues, but man, he took it all to another level and beyond."

What pickups do you use to get your heavy sound that stays clear and sweet? – Greg Meisenzahl

"My pickups are mostly custom-wound. The first Gibson humbuckers are known as PAFs – that stands for 'Patent Applied For.' A few years after they were introduced, Gibson came out with another kind of pickup called the 'T' humbucker – you can see the letter T on them if you remove the cover. 

"I like those a lot, but I like the PAFs a whole lot more. So I had a bunch of those early pickups, but I had them rewound to make them hotter. I guess the reason that they sound so good is because I have Alnico magnets in them instead of ceramic."

Have you ever thought about releasing a solo album so you could stretch your legs a little further beyond Mötley? – Larry Kelly

"Yes. I’m working on some things right now. I probably have about seven or eight songs, but I’m not totally happy with them yet. I want to go in a totally different direction from Mötley. Not in some weird and wacky way that will alienate friends and family and fans, but more in the way that Hendrix did Electric Ladyland, the Beatles did Sgt. Pepper’s and the Beach Boys did Pet Sounds. 

"Those records were still them, but they were really removed from what those artists had done before. You went, 'Wow! Now that’s a record.' The [Beatles'] White Album – that’s where I’m going. I’m not saying I’m going to play like them, but I want to do something… see, I don’t want to use the word landmark, because people will think that’s really stupid and egotistical. But I want people to say, 'Wow! I didn’t know Mick Mars could do that.' 

"Think Eric Clapton with the Layla album or Hendrix with Electric Ladyland… something you can listen to for hours."

Mötley Crüe co-founding member and electric guitar icon Mick Mars has officially retired from touring, as a result of his ongoing struggle with ankylosing spondylitis.

Though the guitarist will no longer be hitting the road with his Mötley Crüe bandmates Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee, he will remain a part of the band.

A statement from Mars’s camp shared with Variety reads, “Mick Mars, co-founder and lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe for the past 41 years, has announced today that due to his ongoing painful struggle with Ankylosing Spondylitis (A.S.), he will no longer be able to tour with the band.  

“Mick will continue as a member of the band, but can no longer handle the rigors of the road. A.S. is an extremely painful and crippling degenerative disease, which affects the spine.”

The news comes after Mötley Crüe announced a co-headlining tour with Def Leppard, dubbed The World tour, which will see both bands travel across UK, Europe and South America from February to July next year.

Mars has suffered with A.S. since his late teens, though has managed it to the extent whereby he has been able to fulfill his Motley Crue duties over the decades.

Rumors of Mars’s retirement have been circulating for a few weeks now, with many speculating that Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 – aka John William Lowery – has been drafted to replace him as Crüe’s live guitarist.

There’s been no official word regarding who will replace Mars on the road, though the evidence overwhelmingly suggests John 5 is the player Crüe have called upon to fill the spot.

John 5 was notably absent for a Rob Zombie gig at the Aftershock Festival in California, with the vocalist recruiting his former guitar player Mike Riggs for the show. No acknowledgement was made over John 5’s absence at the time, fueling speculation he may have left the band.

Further flames were stoked when John 5 posed for a picture alongside Crüe drummer Lee, with one commenter noting, “Word is that you're gonna [be] spending more time with Tommy.”

Around the same time, musician and podcast host Jason Green said it was a “fact” that “John 5 will be joining Motley Crue for their upcoming foreign tour” during an episode of his Waste Some Time with Jason Green show.

That, coupled with the fact John 5 has been incorporating Mötley Crüe covers into his solo setlist – footage of his Kickstart my Heart rendition can be found above – has left fans convinced he’ll be filling Mars’ boots.

It remains to be seen whether the confirmation of Mars’ touring retirement will be followed up with an official announcement of John 5’s appointment, but we’ll bring you more news as we have it.

Next year, Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard will embark on a mammoth co-headlining stint around the UK, Europe and South America – dubbed The World Tour – with news of an upcoming tour serving to intensify certain rumors that have been circulating the internet for the past few weeks.

Namely, is John 5 poised to be announced as Mick Mars’ replacement and the new electric guitar player in Mötley Crüe? If spectators on the internet are to be believed, then the answer is a resounding “yes”, and there’s a fair amount of evidence to support such a claim.

Recently, rumors began to report that Mars – who has long battled health issues as a result of his ankylosing spondylitis – will be stepping back from the band’s touring duties due to the painful arthritic condition that impacts his physical movements.

Though seemingly unrelated at the time, John 5 was not present at a recent Rob Zombie gig at the Aftershock Festival in California, with the guitarist’s position in the band coming into question after the surprise return of Zombie’s old guitarist Mike Riggs and the lack of official word explaining John 5’s absence.

When speculation arose concerning John 5’s potential switch to Mötley Crüe, the guitarist issued a denial in response to the “rumor” on social media, though has since deleted the comment. John 5 further stoked the flames by posting a picture of himself alongside Crüe drummer Tommy Lee.

The timing of the post has sent the guitar world into a further frenzy – that, and the fact musician and podcast host Jason Green seemingly confirmed John 5’s appointment in a recent installment of Waste Some Time with Jason Green.

“A lot of people are tuning in right now for the hot [John 5 story],” Green said via Metal Sludge. “I am not saying it’s a rumor, I am reporting it as fact: that John 5 will be joining Mötley Crüe for their upcoming foreign tour.”

Another high-profile commentator on the topic is LA Guns guitarist Tracii Guns – a close friend of Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, who acknowledged the speculation in a post on social media.

“I have got a ton of messages about the rumor of Mick leaving Mötley and what my opinion is if John 5 replaces him,” he wrote. “First of all it's a rumor and who knows? But, if it's time for Mick to tap out then that's his business. John 5 in my opinion is a great choice if the rumor is true.”

A further piece of evidence fans are employing is the fact that during a handful of his solo shows earlier this year, John 5 incorporated Mötley Crüe covers into his setlist. On August 24, for example, John 5 performed Crüe’s Home Sweet Home.

Later, on August 31, John 5 performed another Crüe cover – Kickstart My Heart – footage of which can be found above.

It's unclear whether we’ll get an official confirmation of John 5’s supposed recruitment any time soon, but we imagine we’ll be made aware of any lineup changes well before Mötley Crüe’s The World tour kicks off in February next year.

For updates, and a full list of tour dates, head over to Mötley Crüe’s website.

This interview first appeared in the October 2013 issue of Guitar World.

The number of guitars that Mick Mars has gone through over the past three decades in the limelight with Mötley Crüe is enough to make any guitarist jealous.

Literally hundreds of instruments passed through his hands in the '80s alone, from the trusty black 1972 Les Paul Custom that he used to record the band’s early albums to various Kramers, Charvels and Hamers in every imaginable shape.

“I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs over the years,” Mars explains. “The ’72 Les Paul Custom that I used to play in the early days is now hanging in a Hard Rock Café somewhere in Florida. I didn’t want to let go of that guitar, but I was forced to do it. I don’t miss the pointy guitars. They all sounded really bad to me, and I hated all of them. They just didn’t work for me.

"Companies kept giving me all of these different guitars to try, and I would end up trying to break them. Now they’re all either kindling or I sold them off long ago.”

Although Mars acquired a few vintage instruments during the '80s, he began to pursue them in earnest during the early '90s, around the time that the band recorded its 1994 Mötley Crüe album with singer John Corabi.

“That’s when I started playing Fender Strats,” Mars says. “I owned a few vintage Stratocasters by then, and I loved how light a real Strat felt. One of the first real Strats that I ever owned was pieced together using ’63, ’64 and ’65 parts. I bought it for $1,200 while we were on the Girls, Girls, Girls tour in 1987. The pickups didn’t work, so I put humbuckers in it and installed a Floyd Rose. Even though it’s really beat up, it’s a player’s guitar. I still use it onstage and in the studio.”

When Mötley Crüe hit a rough patch during the late '90s, Mars was forced to sell off many of his prized vintage guitars. Thanks to the band’s recent resurgence in popularity and much more efficient (and honest) management team, he’s been able to build up his collection once again.

“I’ve slowly and carefully rebuilt my collection,” he says. “I got really serious about collecting guitars again about 10 or 12 years ago. I now have about 100 guitars. I managed to keep some really cool instruments, but I like to have a lot of different things to play around with, so I’m always adding something new to my collection.

"I have guitars from the '50s and '60s as well as a few '70s guitars. Some are really cool, and some are my player guitars. I don’t have very many guitars that I don’t play much. Even if I don’t take a particular guitar on tour because it’s too valuable and difficult to replace, it usually gets played in the studio.

“In the studio I go for a lot of different tones,” he explains. “I never record an album using just one guitar and one amp. Sometimes I’ll start a track with a stock Strat and do overdubs with something funky, like an old Harmony. I like to put something that sounds trashy behind something that sounds really good. That makes the track jump. I’ll use just about any guitar you can imagine in the studio. It’s all about what you do with the different tones and how you mix and match them.”

Because Mars has remained a dedicated Strat player since the early '90s, a considerable chunk of his collection consists of vintage Strats, mostly from the Sixties. Notable pieces include three 1962 models with black, Fiesta Red and Olympic White finishes, a 1964 with a beautiful Shoreline Gold finish, a black 1965, a Dakota Red 1966 and an Olympic White 1969.

“I started buying stock Strats after I got that pieced-together one in ’87,” he says. “My earliest one is from the early '60s. I’d love to get a '50s Strat, but they cost too much now. At one time I had every year of Stratocaster, including a ’59 and a ’58 ‘Gloria’ Strat that I really loved, but I had to let them go. 

"I’d really love to find another ‘Gloria’ Strat. This lady at the Fender factory back in the '50s named Gloria [Fuentes] put them together. She did the final assembly - bolting the neck on, putting the pickups in, installing the pickguard and so on. She’d put a piece of masking tape with her name and the year the guitar was built on it in the guitar’s body cavity. That ‘Gloria’ Strat was one of the best-sounding stock Strats I’ve ever owned. When I plugged it into a Marshall, it would just scream.”

Mars’ favorite '60s Strats were made in the mid '60s just after the company first increased the size of model’s headstock. “Strats with the transition logo [combining the gold lettering and black outline appearance of the earlier spaghetti-style logo with the thicker script of the post-1967 CBS-era logo] and larger headstock sound better,” he says, “although I personally prefer the look of the all-black CBS-era logo. I’ve been looking high and low for a ’67 Strat for that reason.

“Sometimes I’ll just run across things and go, ‘I want it.’ When Fender made the Eric Clapton Blackie replica, I just had to have one. John Cruz at the Fender Custom Shop makes a lot of guitars for me, and when I told him I got a Blackie, he asked if mine says ‘Blackie’ on it. 

"I took a look at it and told him no, and he said that mine is one of the earliest ones that they made, and that it’s worth more than the others. My Fiesta Red ’62 is a real player. It’s in great condition, but I had to have it re-fretted. It only had wear on the first three or four frets, but they were worn all the way down to the wood. The previous owner must have only played open chords on it, but he played the hell out of them!”

Although the Strat remains Mars’ favorite guitar, he also has a soft spot for Telecasters. Old-school Mötley Crüe fans may remember the Telecaster-shaped Kramers that Mars played on tour during the mid '80s. “That was a transitional guitar for me,” he recalls. “Nobody was playing Teles back then, so that inspired me to play one. The problem with those Kramers is that they were really heavy. I loved the way they looked, though.”

One of the most valuable guitars in Mars’ collection is a stock 1951 Esquire.

“I found that through a vintage guitar dealer,” he says. “I traded it for several guitars that I wanted to get rid of. The dealer needed some less-expensive guitars that he could turn around and sell more quickly. I had various '70s guitars and a few acoustics, including some older Ovations, that I wasn’t using, so I traded them for the Esquire. 

"A while later the guy called me back and asked if I was interested in trading the Esquire for Waylon Jennings’ leather-covered guitar, which he had just gotten. I tried it out, but it was so out of whack that I didn’t really want it. The leather chokes off the tone.”

Mars may be an avowed Fender player, but he still appreciates classic Gibsons, like the Les Paul Custom he played during Mötley Crüe’s early days. At one time he owned three sunburst Les Paul Standards - two 1959s and a 1960 - but he currently owns just one 1960 Les Paul Standard, which was a relatively recent replacement for the ones he was forced to sell.

“It’s one of the later 1960 Les Paul Standards with the metal cap knobs,” he explains. “The red in the sunburst is still nice and bright. It needs to have a couple of things done to it to make it 100 percent original again, so I was able to get it pretty cheap. The original tuning pegs had shrunk and crumbled. The guy I bought it from replaced the tuners, but he used the wrong ones.

"I’m looking for some original 1960 tuning pegs for it, but I’m having a heck of a time finding the right ones. Everything else is straight on it. It’s a beautiful guitar with just a little wear and tear, but it sounds and plays incredible. The other Les Paul Standards I owned didn’t sound nearly as good as this one, so I don’t mind that I had to sell them, even though they were more valuable. I bought this guitar to play it.”

Mars also owns a few Gibson Firebirds, including a 1965 reverse Firebird III with a standard tobacco sunburst finish and a mid-'60s Firebird with a very rare Inverness Green finish. “The ’65 is very clean,” he says. “A lot of Firebirds had their headstocks broken off over the years, but this one is intact and completely stock. I love the sound of its two mini-humbucker pickups. They have a lot of character and sound different than my other guitars.”

Mars’ main stage guitars are heavily modified Strats with custom-wound 16k-ohm humbuckers made by JM Rolph in the neck and bridge positions, a middle single-coil and a locking Floyd Rose tremolo. Still, he’s more of a purist when it comes to vintage guitars, preferring to buy instruments in original stock condition.

“I don’t mind guitars with a little wear and tear on them,” he explains. “That just means that they’ve been played. Many vintage guitars in mint condition don’t sound that great because they’ve never been played or they never sounded that good to begin with. A lot of great older guitars got ruined when people started replacing pickups in the Seventies. It wasn’t really necessary to do that on a lot of those guitars, but guitarists didn’t know any better back then. It was just the thing to do. I’ve had to pass on a lot of guitars that were otherwise great because the original pickups were replaced.

“If I could afford it, I’d go to Japan to buy guitars,” he concludes. “The Japanese generally won’t buy a guitar unless it’s 100 percent original. The problem is that they’re willing to pay more, so prices in Japan are too damn expensive! Some of the stuff they’re selling is in such good condition that you don’t even want to look at it!”

He laughs. “Sometimes it’s worth paying the extra money, though. I’m having a heck of a time finding tuning pegs for my ’60 Les Paul, and I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I bought one that was already in original condition. But these days, a 100-percent-original sunburst Les Paul can cost anywhere from $300,000 to half a million. I’d rather buy a Ferrari for that much money. I’m a guitar nut, but to me that’s way too much money!”

Here, you can listen to two new tracks from Motley Crüe.

The two new songs, "Ride with the Devil" and "Crash and Burn," were written for the soundtrack of the new Netflix biopic on the band, The Dirt. You can listen to the former track above and the latter track below.

"During the filming of our movie we got excited and inspired to write new music," bassist Nikki Sixx said. "Getting back in the studio with Bob Rock just fueled the creative fires for us. To me, the music sounds like classic Motley. The lyrics were written for the movie and are a reflection of our life."

The Dirt was directed by Jackass’s Jeff Tremaine, and stars Daniel Webber as Vince Neil, Douglas Booth as bassist Nikki Sixx, Machine Gun Kelly as Tommy Lee and Iwan Rheon as guitarist Mick Mars, as well as Tony Cavalero as Ozzy Osbourne and David Constable as former Crue manager Doc McGhee.

The film premiered on Netflix Friday, March 22, with the soundtrack released on the same day.

Motley Crue have shared a new song, “The Dirt (Est. 1981),” the title track to their forthcoming Netflix biopic, The Dirt. You can check it out above.

“The Dirt (Est. 1981),” which features Machine Gun Kelly, who also plays drummer Tommy Lee in the film, is the band’s first new music in four years, and one of four songs the Crue recorded for The Dirt. The remaining three are "Ride With The Devil," "Crash and Burn" and a cover of Madonna's "Like A Virgin." The Crue recorded the songs with producer Bob Rock, who helmed their 1989 smash album, Dr. Feelgood.

Said Crue bassist Nikki Sixx: "During the filming of our movie we got excited and inspired to write new music. Getting back in the studio with Bob Rock just fueled the creative fires for us. To me, the music sounds like classic Motley. The lyrics were written for the movie and are a reflection of our life."

The Dirt was directed by Jackass’s Jeff Tremaine, and stars Daniel Webber as Vince Neil, Douglas Booth as bassist Nikki Sixx, Machine Gun Kelly as Tommy Lee and Iwan Rheon as guitarist Mick Mars, as well as Tony Cavalero as Ozzy Osbourne and David Constable as former Crue manager Doc McGhee.

The film will premiere on Netflix on March 22, with the soundtrack released on the same day. You can check out the full track list for the album below.

The Dirt Soundtrack track list:
1. The Dirt (Est. 1981) (feat. Machine Gun Kelly)  
2. Red Hot
3. On with the Show
4. Live Wire
5. Merry-Go-Round
6. Take Me to the Top
7. Piece of Your Action
8. Shout at the Devil
9. Looks That Kill
10. Too Young to Fall in Love
11. Home Sweet Home
12. Girls, Girls, Girls
13. Same Ol' Situation (S.O.S.)
14. Kickstart My Heart
15. Dr. Feelgood
16. Ride with the Devil
17. Crash and Burn
18. Like a Virgin

Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil was released on September 26, 1983—35 years ago today. 

Their second full-length overall, the record, which arrived in stores with a controversial black-on-black pentagram-emblazoned cover, proved to be the band’s mainstream breakthrough—elaborate videos for “Looks That Kill” and “Too Young to Fall in Love” were mainstays on MTV, and Motley’s stint as the opening act for Ozzy Osbourne on his Bark at the Moon tour has become legendary both for their performances as well as the band’s offstage hijinks.

In recognition of the album’s 35th anniversary, check out this live performance of “Shout at the Devil” from Motley’s set at the US Festival in San Bernardino, California. Filmed on May 29, 1983, it predates the release of the song and record by roughly four months. Indeed, Vince Neil introduces "Shout" by calling it the “title track from our up-and-coming album.”

As previously reported, Motley Crue, who wrapped up their Final Tour in 2015, have been in the studio with producer Bob Rock working on new material that is likely to be included in the film adaptation of their 2001 autobiography, The Dirt—Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band.

"Exciting news!" wrote Vince Neil on Twitter earlier this month. "I'll be going back in [the] recording studio in a few weeks with the boys to record four brand new Mötley Crüe tracks! Rock on!"

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of the latest episode of String Theory, starring Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars. Watch it below.

A web series created by Ernie Ball, String Theory explores the sonic origins of influential and innovative musicians. In the episode, Mars discusses early inspirations, his creative process, how he gets his signature tone with Ernie Ball strings, and much more. 

Below, you can find five facts revealed in the episode.

1. He started playing guitar at age seven (0:20): “I started playing guitar when I was seven years old. One of those little wind-up Mickey Mouse guitars. I learned how to tune it and started picking out whatever was popular at the time—Frankie Avalon and Elvis Presley."

2. The Kinks were a huge inspiration (1:05): "Kinks changed my life quite a bit. They introduced me to raspy, gnarly guitar."

3. He's experimented with many string gauges over the years (4:49): "I used to use 10-48 for quite a while. And then I decided to go up to 11-50. When I drop tune, I use 52 or 54. [They] give just the right amount of that ballsy sound." 

4. Mars joined Mötley Crüe through a newspaper ad (5:16): "Mötley started in L.A. Nikki and Tommy were already playing together. I put an ad in a paper. They were looking for a guitar player and they found my ad. I actually auditioned them, they don't know it. But anyway, we went over there and it clicked."

5. He wants to keep evolving as a musician (5:54): "When I come out with my solo project, my first record will give me a key to that door I need to open. I'm definitely going to lose some fans because it doesn't sound like my old band. If it does well, then I know I can go another further, another further, another further, and keep reinventing. I want to keep evolving, keep moving, keep that motivation going. When you stop learning, might as well just put your guitar down." 

Of course, these are just five facts pulled from the clip. Be sure to watch the entire episode below.

For the latest on Ernie Ball, visit ernieball.com.

As guitarist for Mötley Crüe, Mick Mars racked up Platinum album sales and built up a covetable collection of rare Gibson and Fender guitars.

After all that, one thing he says he doesn’t need is an award for making music.

“All the times we were up for a Grammy—I could care less,” says the irascible guitarist. “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—I could care less.”

“I don’t need a golden star—like what you got in kindergarten for taking a nap?—I don’t need that to tell me my music was good.”

Mars’ statement, shown in the video below, is one of the many memorable moments in Mötley Crüe: The End, a new film that captures the group’s final concert performance.

On December 31, 2015, the Crüe completed their 35-year touring career as a band with a spectacular final concert at Staples Center in their hometown of Los Angeles, just 10 miles from the Sunset Strip where they launched their infamous and decadent career.

Fans can now relive the moment when Mötley Crüe: The End comes to select cinemas for one night, on June 14.

Presented by Fathom Events, Live Alliance, Eagle Rock Entertainment and Tenth Street Entertainment, Mötley Crüe: The End includes performances of hits like “Kickstart My Heart,” “Girls, Girls, Girls,” “Home Sweet Home” and “Dr. Feelgood.” In addition to the concert footage, the film includes behind-the-scenes scenes of the band’s last global tour, featuring Mars, singer Vince Neil, bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee.Tickets for Mötley Crüe: The End can be purchased online by visiting FathomEvents.com or at participating theater box offices. For a complete list of theater locations visit the Fathom Events website.

You can view the movie trailer below the Mars clip.

Mötley Crüe recently announced the details of their final round of North American dates.

The tour—Crüe’s last, ever—will conclude on New Year’s Eve in their hometown of Los Angeles, the same city where they began their career more than 34 years ago.

Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee first announced plans for their two-year-long Final Tour last year, when they signed a "cessation of touring" document. It was an agreement that solidified the end of their touring career.

To celebrate their legacy and thank their fans, Mötley Crüe are offering exclusive VIP packages for their final tour dates; these packages include opportunities to meet the band and offer up-close-and-personal views of the show from a newly designed stage setup.

In addition to accumulating worldwide album sales in excess of 80 million units over the course of three decades, Mötley Crüe also have garnered three Grammy nominations, four best-selling books and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I recently spoke with guitarist Mick Mars about the final Mötley Crüe shows, new music and more.

GUITAR WORLD: With these last few tour dates in LA being announced, has it begun to sink in that this is the last go-around for Mötley Crüe?

Yes, absolutely. This is it. We're done after this one. I think ending in LA is kind of like coming full circle. Although the place we actually started in, [the Starwood] is torn down and the venues we’re playing now are a lot bigger than when we started! [laughs].

What will you miss about not touring with Mötley Crüe?

It's a bittersweet thing, but all four of us are still in business together as a corporation. So we’ll still see each other. And even though I may not see the guys on stage, I'll still be touring myself.

What were some of the challenges the band faced coming up in the LA scene?

From what I recall, a lot of the LA bands that were going around at the time were trying to copy Quiet Riot, who were already signed. So it really came pretty easily for us because we came out with a different look and sound. We were something that was different.

I’d like to ask you about a few Mötley songs and get your thoughts on how they began, starting with "Dr Feelgood."

Usually when I write a song, I’ll first write a chorus and a verse part and then throw in some other chords to bridge the song together. That song came about from a riff that was going around in my head. I remember going in and recording it on my eight-track recorder and putting down the initial lick and a few chords. Then Nikki came over to my house about a week later and started singing the lines to it. We brought it to rehearsal and started working on it from there.

"Girls, Girls, Girls"

Tommy and I started out collaborating on that one. I remember going to his house and he showed me the chords he had for it. I didn't like them that much so I went home and started thinking about it more. Then I went into my room, popped open a bottle of Jack and worked on the riff until I felt that it was right. I took it to rehearsal the next day and played it for the guys and they started freaking out. But it all started with a lick.

Are there any other projects you’re working on at the moment?

Having some down time has given me a chance to go in and look at some of the older stuff I've written over the last few years and also to work on some new material. Right now, I’m working with Tommy Henriksen and have written about nine songs in the past month and half. I’m coming up with some really cool, aggressive stuff that’s far removed from what I would be writing for Mötley.

If you could write an epitaph to the career of Mötley Crüe, how would you like the band to be remembered?

That's easy. I'd like to be remembered as the best fucking band on the planet.

Congratulations on all of your success and thank you for all of the years of great music.

Thanks so much, but it’s not over. I've still got many more of them to go!

For more about Mötley Crüe, visit motley.com.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

This is an excerpt from the June 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the rest of this story, plus features on Nikki Sixx, Pantera, Carlos Santana, the history of MXR pedals, Nergal, columns, tabs and reviews of new gear from EVH Gear, Dunlop, Randall, Taylor Guitars and more, check out the June 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Crüe Cüt: After more than 30 years together, Mötley Crüe are calling it quits. Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx talk about their past excesses and achievements—and what the future holds for them all.

“After this, Mötley’s done!” proclaims Mick Mars. He’s talking about Mötley Crüe’s recently announced Final Tour, which will see the band crisscross the globe—with Alice Cooper in tow for the North American leg—for one last hurrah. It’s a farewell celebration of the highest order, and one that is, Mars assures, truly a farewell.

Indeed, lest anyone think the guitarist and his Mötley mates—singer Vince Neil, bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee—are, like too many bands before them, merely setting the stage for their next reunion, think again. This past January, the Hollywood-bred foursome staged a press conference under the banner “All Bad Things Must Come to an End,” at which they signed a legally binding “cessation of touring agreement.”

The document prohibits the band members from hitting the road, individually or in any configuration collectively, as Mötley Crüe after 2015, effectively putting a cap on what has amounted to more than three decades of onstage decadence.

Why now? According to Sixx, the idea is to end it the way it began, all the way back in 1981. “We want it to be the same four guys,” he says. “We want it to be while we’re still at the top of our game. We want to go out with dignity.”

Below is an excerpt of the Mick Mars portion of the interview. The entire interview — including the Nikki Sixx portion — can be sound in the new June 2014 issue of Guitar World.

EXCERPT: Nikki mentioned that the two of you have been working on a new song together. What can you tell us about it?

This song is for the Final Tour, and it’s about the Final Tour. The working title is “All Bad Things Must Come to an End.” It’s probably about half finished. We have to wait for Vince to sing it, and then I’ll do my soloing and ear candy all over it and stuff like that. But what happens with us after that, music-wise, is kind of vague, I guess. I’m not gonna paint myself in a corner and say, “Oh, yeah, there could be more music coming out,” when I don’t really know. I don’t really have the answers. I know that the contract we signed says that in no way will any of us go out playing Mötley Crüe music as Mötley Crüe. And it’s pretty binding and pretty heavy. So that’s it.

You’ve teased the idea of doing a solo album for years. Now that Mötley-related activity is winding down, will this become a reality?

Absolutely. I’ve been writing for quite a long time, and I’m going through some of the archives that I have, things I’ve written going back to ’95, ’96. And I think what a lot of people may say—and I have to say “may” because I don’t know—is, “This is crap.” [laughs] Or, they may say, “Wow! I didn’t know Mick could write like that! I didn’t know Mick could play guitar like that!” Hopefully that happens. If it doesn’t, then that’s okay too. I mean, it took 20 years for a lot of the fan base and everyone else to realize how groundbreaking the [1994] Mötley Crüe album with John Corabi was. So you never know.

There have been rumors that you and John Corabi might also be working together again.

There’s been a lot of talk about it, but we haven’t gotten together yet. John’s built his name up pretty big here in Nashville, and I would never want him to do something that would take him away from his thing. But to sit and collaborate and write songs together would be cool for both of us, I think. So if it happens, then great. If not, that’s cool too. We’re still friends.

• As far as Mötley’s music is concerned, is there anything you look back on and think, “We could have done that better”?
• Well, there are two albums that aren’t my favorites: Theatre of Pain and Generation Swine, although there’s a couple good songs on each one. Theatre of Pain has “Home Sweet Home,” and on Generation Swine there’s a song called “Glitter” that’s real good. But those are two records where I felt we could’ve done better.

Guitar playing in the Eighties, especially in hard rock and metal, was heavily dependent on flash and tricks and speed, which was not your style at all. Do you feel your abilities were overlooked as a result?

Sometimes. Because everybody and their mother was playing all scales, all the time. Like, “Oh, I’m a great guitar player now!” But everyone was just doing the same licks over and over and over. My schooling came from listening to records, and thinking about how I felt about the song and following the melody. My goal was always to play something that fit and something that was memorable, not just a barrage of notes. And because I didn’t play all the scales or do this or that, you know, people thought that I was this crap guitar player.

After more than 30 years playing with Mötley Crüe, how would you most like the band to be remembered?

I’d be happy if people thought of us in the top 100 iconic bands that ever came along, like the Stones and Hendrix and Zeppelin and those guys. That’d be nice. If I could get in that category, then yeah, I’d be a happy man.

Photo: Justin Borucki

For the rest of this story, plus features on Nikki Sixx, Pantera, Carlos Santana, the history of MXR pedals, Nergal, columns, tabs and reviews of new gear from EVH Gear, Dunlop, Randall, Taylor Guitars and more, check out the June 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Last night at around 5:30 p.m. EST, Kiss and Motley Crue officially announced that they would be embarking on a massive co-headlining North American tour.

"The Tour," as it has been simply titled, kicks off July 20 in Bristow, Virginia, and will see Kiss closing each night. The full list of dates can be found below, and you can also watch the official press conference video below the dates.

"Growing up, I had a Kiss poster, Aerosmith poster and Sweet on the wall," said Motley bassist Nikki Sixx during the press conference, "and for me to go out and do this together, it's an honor."

“It’s going to be really cool because Kiss is bringing their full stage show, and Motley will be bringing our full stage show so you are going to see two huge headliners at the same time," said Motley Crue's Vince Neil, speaking to the Las Vegas Sun last week. "It’s going to be one of the biggest tours of the summer, if not the biggest."

Kiss just finished work on their new album, Monster, which is expected to be released sometime this summer. Meanwhile, Motley Crue recently entered the studio to begin recording new music, although no official plans have been announced. Maybe today's press conference will clue us in.

Kiss and Motley Crue 2012 Tour Dates

• Jul. 20 - Jiffy Lube Live - Bristow, VA
• Jul. 21 - Farm Bureau Live - Virginia Beach, VA
• Jul. 22 - Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion - Raleigh, NC
• Jul. 24 - Aaron's Amphitheater at Lakewood - Atlanta, GA
• Jul. 25 - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre - Charlotte, NC
• Jul. 27 - Cruzan Amphitheatre - West Palm Beach, FL
• Jul. 28 - 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheater - Tampa, FL
• Jul. 31 - Oak Mountain Amphitheatre - Pelham, A\L
• Aug. 03 - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion - Woodlands, TX
• Aug. 04 - Gexa Energy Paviliion - Dallas, TX
• Aug. 07 - Hard Rock Casino Presents: The Pavilion - Albuquerque, NM
• Aug. 08 - Comfort Dental Amphitheater - Englewood, CO
• Aug. 10 - Ashley Furniture Home Store Pavilion - Phoenix, AZ
• Aug. 11 - Mandalay Bay Arena - Las Vegas, NV
• Aug. 12 - Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre - Chula Vista, CA
• Aug. 14 - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater - Irvine, CA
• Aug. 16 - Sleep Train Pavilion - Concord, MA
• Aug. 18 - White River Amphitheatre - Auburn, WA
• Aug. 19 - Sleep Country Amphitheater - Ridgefield, CT
• Aug. 24 - Rock Jam - Grand Junction, CO
• Aug. 26 - BOK Center - Tulsa, OK
• Aug. 27 - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre - Maryland Heights, MO
• Aug. 29 - Minnesota State Fair - Minneapolis, MN
• Aug. 31 - Riverbend Music Center - Cincinnati, OH
• Sep. 01 - Klipsch Music Center - Noblesville, IN
• Sep. 02 - First Niagara Pavilion - Burgettstown, PA
• Sep. 04 - Bridgestone Arena - Nashville, TN
• Sep. 05 - DTE Energy Music Theatre - Clarkston, MI
• Sep. 07 - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre - Tinley Park, IL
• Sep. 08 - Alpine Valley Music Theater - East Troy, MI
• Sep. 11 - Allegan County Fair - Allegan, MI
• Sep. 12 - Blossom Music Center - Cuyahoga Falls, OH
• Sep. 13 - Molson Amphitheatre - Toronto, ON
• Sep. 15 - Darien Lake PAC - Darien Lake, NY
• Sep. 16 - Comcast Center - Mansfield, MA
• Sep. 18 - Toyota Pavilion - Scranton, PA
• Sep. 19 - Susquehanna Bank Center - Camden, NJ
• Sep. 21 - PNC Bank Arts Center - Holmdel, NJ
• Sep. 22 - Nikon at Jones Beach - Wantagh, NY
• Sep. 23 - Comcast Theater - Hartford, CT

As the hard-rocking Crüe Fest tour gets underway, Mötley Crüe’s Mick Mars and Buckcherry's Keith Nelson discuss their bands’ latest albums and why guitarists have the toughest job in the business.

"Put on your shades, grab a wine glass, and smash it on the bar.” When Mick Mars talks, people listen. The Mötley Crüe guitarist is perched on a stool at the Rainbow Bar & Grill, the West Hollywood club that’s been the site of countless debauched moments in Mötley history, not to mention those of many of their rock-and-roll forebears, peers and followers. He is observing intently as a photographer snaps away at Buckcherry guitarist Keith Nelson. Which is when, black cap pulled low over his eyes and peering out from behind dark sunglasses, Mars gives the aforementioned command.

Crash!

Nelson sends broken glass flying in every direction. Unfortunately, the shot is missed.

“Do it again,” Mars instructs him. “But this time fill the cup with ice—it’ll look like glass when it smashes.”

Crash!

Nelson brings his arm down hard, and shards of glass and ice erupt off the bar and spray around the room like BB pellets. The shot is captured (and looks very, very cool). Mars smiles. “Done it a million times,” he says of the glass and ice combo. “Always works like a charm.”

Despite his apparent photographic expertise, Mars has not been summoned to the Rainbow on this day to act as an impromptu lensman for this Guitar World shoot. Nor have he and Nelson been brought together merely to bust up the joint. Rather, the two guitarists are here with Guitar World to talk shop—and there’s lots of shop to talk.

At the top of the list for Mars is Saints of Los Angeles (Mötley/Eleven Seven), Mötley Crüe’s first new studio disc in eight years, and their first in almost a dozen to feature the original lineup of Mars, singer Vince Neil, bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee. Taken as a whole, the album’s songs loosely recount Mötley’s rise to fame—it’s something of a “soundtrack” to the band’s 2001 best-selling autobiography (and soon-to-be film) The Dirt. Without a doubt, it’s the most vibrant, engrossing and downright rocking Crüe effort in a very long time. From the sinister churn of the title track to the punk-trash stomp of “Face Down in the Dirt” to the glammy pop of “Down at the Whisky,” Saints of Los Angeles succeeds where recent Crüe discs have come up short, retaining the classic Mötley sound while updating it for the modern musical world.

As with every record throughout the band’s 27-year recording career, at the center of it all is Mars’ thick, grinding guitar riffs—rarely celebrated, always underappreciated. “There are some people that recognize what I do,” Mars says, “but a lot more that don’t. I’m used to that. I will say, though, a few years back when we were on the road with Aerosmith, those guys were bowing to my playing and my tone.”

Nelson, for his part, concurs with the Aerosmith men. “The first Mötley record I ever heard was Shout at the Devil, and Mick’s guitar on that was where it all came together for me. You could sing the riffs. You could sing the solos. It hit me right between the eyes like a hammer.”

Nelson and his Buckcherry bandmates are currently in the studio putting the finishing touches on their upcoming full-length. However, their most recent album, 2006’s 15, has not yet finished its run. The album’s fifth single, the smash power ballad “Sorry,” is still riding high on the charts, and, along with the raunchy “Crazy Bitch,” has pushed 15 past sales of one million. Not bad for a band that, after rising to fame with their 1999 debut single, “Lit Up,” crashed, burned and dissolved in fairly short order, and as recently as 2005 couldn’t convince an American record label to give them the time of day.

The one that did was Mötley’s label, Eleven Seven, which brings us to another reason Guitar World has brought Mars and Nelson together on this day: to discuss Crüe Fest, Mötley Crüe’s summer tour with Buckcherry. Rounding out the bill are several artists associated with either Eleven Seven or its allied management company, 10th Street Entertainment, including Trapt, Papa Roach and
Sixx:AM, the band headed by Nikki Sixx. The jaunt—part rock extravaganza, part sly marketing move—is shaping up to be one of the hottest tickets of the summer.

On a warm afternoon in Hollywood, Mars and Nelson broke bread—and a few wine glasses—with Guitar World and talked Crüe Fest, their respective bands and the state of the music industry. They also discussed their favorite pieces of gear, their shared love of the blues, and why guitarists have the hardest job in rock and roll.

GUITAR WORLD So what’s the idea behind Crüe Fest?

MICK MARS Mötley could have just toured the new album, like we always do, but we wanted to put something together that was more of an event. We’re trying to reach the next step on the ladder, you know? We wanna get up to that Aerosmith/Rolling Stones level. And Mötley built our reputation on playing live. We once did a tour that we called “Any Place There’s Electricity”: we’re happy to go anywhere and play any place, at any time. So we have plans to do Crüe Fest as an annual thing, just like any other festival: Ozzfest, Lollapalooza... And festivals are always good, because you get great bands and also great guys to hang out with, like, well, Keith!

KEITH NELSON [laughs] Mick should watch what he says. He doesn’t know this yet, but I’m actually riding on his bus for the whole tour.

GW Festivals may be a good time for the bands involved, but they also seem to have become a necessity. These days, you have to offer people as many options as possible in order to compete for their dollars.

NELSON That’s true. One thing that we noticed in Buckcherry over the past two years of being on the road is that there are festivals for everything: your metal bands, your alternative bands, your lesbian acoustic singer-songwriters… They’ve got it all covered! But there hasn’t really been a festival for rock bands; the genre is so scattered. So when the powers-that-be came to us and asked us to be a part of this tour, we jumped at it.

GW Mick, Mötley Crüe are touring behind their first new album in eight years. At this stage in the game, how does a new Mötley
record come about?
MARS We’d been going out and doing the same thing over and over again, releasing greatest-hits albums and playing all the classic
songs on tour. That gets old. And we had done [1997’s] Generation Swine and [2000’s] New Tattoo, but truthfully, those were big disappointments, not only to us but to our fans as well. So we decided, You know what? It’s time for us to sit down and concentrate. We need to do a real modern-sounding rock record but still be Mötley Crüe about it and show people how we’ve progressed as a band and as songwriters.

GW There are contributions from several outside writers on Saints of Los Angeles, including Marti Frederiksen and Nikki’s Sixx:A.M.
bandmates James Michael and DJ Ashba.

MARS They all added their own thing to the songs. Marti’s cool. He’s done a bunch of stuff with Aerosmith and these guys [Buckcherry]. DJ’s a great guitarist. He came up with some pretty cool ideas, some stuff I wouldn’t think of. And James Michael is just an all-around good songwriter. He writes really strong—let’s call them “radio-friendly”—songs.

GW You say “radio friendly” with a bit of a smirk.

MARS You know, I’ve always been about the music. I could give two fucks about radio or any of that. But I shouldn’t say that because the programmers might get wind of it and stop playing us! But I couldn’t care less about radio, TV—even money. I’m about music, not hits.

GW But speaking of hits: Keith, Buckcherry are currently enjoying some of the biggest of your career. People have likened one of them, “Crazy Bitch,” to a 21st century version of “Girls, Girls, Girls.”

NELSON They’re definitely both strip-club anthems. My first thought about “Crazy Bitch” was, Well, it’s never gonna get played on the radio! But to me, it’s so tongue-in-cheek and over-the-top, it’s hilarious. Because who the fuck, other than maybe Mötley, would write a song like that? Even women seem to like it and, more importantly, to get the joke. When we finished 15, we put the song up on our MySpace page, just as a sort of, “Hey, we’re back, for anyone who cares.” All of sudden, satellite radio picked up on it, and then next thing we knew terrestrial radio stations were going to MySpace, downloading the song and overdubbing duck quacks over all the “fucks.” We were on tour at the time, and I had to hop a plane home to do a quick edit and take out all the
f-bombs so radio could play it.

GW And now you have a Platinum album. Pretty good for a band that had more or less been completely written off just a few years back.

NELSON No one in the industry really believed in us. All of the industry people we spoke with had no interest in the band. They were all about, “You guys can go do county fairs with… Styx!”

MARS Oh, god!

NELSON Yeah, like the music wasn’t relevant anymore, that it was all just nostalgia. Without hearing a note of it. So I had pretty low expectations, but we made a very honest record that accurately represents who we are and what we’re about, and I think that came across and connected with people.

GW You’re both rock players who are very much rooted in the blues. Who were your influences growing up?

NELSON I’m from Pennsylvania, and I was very into Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen…because that’s what I was hearing coming out of the radio. But then when I started playing guitar it was Billy Gibbons, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. But I also went backward to the blues, to Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker and Hubert Sumlin. It’s funny, because Josh [Todd, Buckcherry singer] comes from a very punk rock background. Growing up, he never even owned a record longer than a
seven-inch. So we get up onstage together, and he’s screaming his punk stuff, while I wanna be an old black dude with a slide. We kinda meet somewhere in the middle. Though I will say that the music I make in Buckcherry is about the heaviest I’ve ever played.

GW Mick, you could probably say the same thing about your situation in Mötley.

MARS Totally. Nikki’s like the punk, and I’m the classic rock and blues guy: Jeff Beck, Clapton, Hendrix... Nikki doesn’t know a lot of my music, and then there’s a lot of stuff he’ll play for me and I’ll just go, “Yeah, um, that’s nice…” But I listen to it, because you can learn something from everything.

GW Is Mötley a band you would have ever been into had you not been a member?

MARS Well, it was hard for me to get into the whole thing at first. I was a blues guy, but I had played in cover bands that had done a lot of hard rock, so I was used to that, too. But on the first few Mötley albums I really felt restricted in terms of how I could play. I still do, somewhat, because I can play so much better than I do on our records.

GW What about the first time you had to put on the makeup…

MARS Hated it!

GW Did you look in the mirror and say, “What am I doing?”

MARS The way I always thought about it was, at least it wasn’t Kiss or Twisted Sister. I was never into that. I just wanted to be a raw rock and roll band. And I mean, I’m not a very pretty person; I’m ugly as fuck and I don’t give a shit. But again, it’s about the music. I just wanted to play my guitar, you know?

GW Let’s talk guitars a bit. Keith, I know you’re something of a gearoholic.

NELSON I am. On 15 I played mainly Gretsches; most of the rhythm tracks were done with a Gretsch 6120. And I stick to vintage
Marshalls: I have an old JTM 45, a ’68 small-box “Plexi” and a ’71 Super Lead. Those are the three workhorses. And then I have a couple others: a Vox AC30 and an old Fender Bandmaster.

GW Do you prefer vintage guitars as well?

NELSON I do. I have a couple great old [Gibson] PAF guitars I use in the studio, a ’62 SG and a ’62 355 that get a lot of work, some old Les Paul Juniors, a ’54 Gold Top that I love, a ’53 Fender Esquire... I also have some cool, newer stuff, like a Zemaitis. Like Mick, I have a lot of gear, but I stick to my favorites, because I don’t wanna drag 60 guitars down to the studio or out on the road.

GW Mick, what did you use on Saints of Los Angeles?

MARS I still use my Strats. I have my main one that Fender built for me custom in 1996. There’s no particular model to it. Like, it’s not a ’69 reissue or anything; it’s just a custom shop model. Fender actually copied it off a guitar I had bought back on the Dr. Feelgood tour in ’89. It never sounded good, so I hacked it up, and Fender based my custom Strat on that.

GW I know you’ve favored Soldano amps in recent years, in particular the Super Lead Overdrive.

MARS Actually, on Saints of Los Angeles I mostly used this new amp plug-in for Pro Tools called Eleven [manufactured by DigiDesign]. It’s a virtual amp thing, where you choose from all these different classic models and cabinets and mix-and-match them with different microphones. I played through that, and [producer] James [Michael] and I stacked a bunch of amp models together: some Marshalls, a Soldano Super Lead and this custom Eleven plug-in. And it actually sounds like true, off-the-floor amps in a studio. It’s a great application.

GW Can you talk about your gear setup on some of the classic Mötley albums, like Shout at the Devil [1983]?

MARS That was all my black ’72 Les Paul Custom guitar. I bought it for 400 bucks and sold it years later for 25 grand. That was a good investment! And the amp line was all Marshall. In the old days I had two: a ’71, and another that was also pretty ancient. They had master volumes, but on the back of the amp; I had them built-in. I used an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 [linear power booster] on the front and had the amps stereo-ed off. And that’s how I played in those days.

GW How about Theater of Pain [1985]?

MARS That record was also pretty much all black Les Paul. Though I remember when I was cutting the solo for “Home Sweet Home” the guitar wouldn’t stay in tune or something, so I sent someone out to get me another one. The guy brought back a Kramer Baretta with a Floyd Rose on it. So that’s why you hear some whammy dives on that one.

GW What about Girls, Girls, Girls [1987]?

MARS Well, Theater of Pain was the beginning of my using the Kramer and Charvel Strat and Tele-style guitars, and that continued on through Girls and Dr. Feelgood. Also, around that time I was working with Eddie Van Halen’s old tech, Rudy [Leiren], and he came in and set me up with this bi-amp system that changed a lot for me. I started to combine a lot of different amps, mixing and matching Hiwatts and Marshalls and Vox AC30s—all this different stuff. So I’m always open to trying new things.

GW Keith, Buckcherry is currently in the studio recording the follow-up to 15. You cut that album in roughly two weeks and on a very small budget. How did that experience, and the album’s unexpected success, affect the way you’ve been approaching the new one?

NELSON A lot and not at all. On the one hand, there’s a much bigger pile of money for us to work with. We could have gone to the Bahamas or something for two months to do the record, you know? But instead we’re doing it in L.A. in two weeks again. That seems to work for us. It’s funny, but now I hear people say “We’re gonna do it the Buckcherry way”—circumventing the major labels, getting the music out through MySpace and YouTube and all that. But we just did it that way out of necessity.

MARS With all the stuff that’s going on today, who cares about the major labels? If you sign a deal with a major record label now, you’re making a big mistake. With a major you’re making maybe 10 cents on a record, and you can do so much better—not only from your albums but also from touring. And there are ways to get so much more out of it.

GW Hence, Crüe Fest.

MARS Exactly. It’s funny though, because I always said to myself, “I don’t wanna be on tour when I’m fucking 40 years old!” But here I am in my fifties and still doing it. But I’ll tell you now, I don’t wanna be in my seventies and still on the road. Maybe my
early sixties, at the oldest. And even that’s getting to be too gnarly.

GW Due to your health issues [Mars suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative bone disease] people have speculated for years whether you’re still up for this.

MARS I always have to prove myself. I’ve been dead twice according to rumor. And there’s always stuff like, “Mick has to be carried onstage” or “Mick has to play in a wheelchair.” It’s all garbage. This thing that I have, I don’t call it a disease; I call it an inconvenience. And the doubters can come and see me live and get their asses kicked by my playing. Here’s a true story: A few years back I was in the hospital getting hip replacement surgery, and my nurse told me she overheard this guy ask someone, “Who is Mötley Crüe?” And the answer he got was, “Well, Tommy’s the drummer, Nikki’s the bass player, Vince is the singer, and Mick doesn’t do anything.” And I just went, “What? That’s crazy!” People are so dismissive, but they don’t realize that when you’re the only guitar player in a band, you’re really the only musical element coming off the stage. Other than the guitar,
there’s just the vocals and the rhythm section. I mean, not to degrade the other guys…

NELSON …but let’s do it!

MARS Well, bassists only have to play one string…

NELSON And drummers sit down all night. And singers, they don’t even have to carry any gear.

MARS Shit, we’ve got the hardest job in rock and roll!