by Tommy Lee
Fortunately, I soon met a booking agent named Doug Thaler, and he knew a guy, Doc McGhee, who had a lot of money and wanted to start a management company. Doc was a charming little guy who knew how to say all the right things. “We’re going to make Mötley Crüe the biggest rock-and-roll band in the world,” he said. “And whatever money Elektra won’t put up to make this happen, I will.”
Everything seemed perfect: Mötley Crüe had money, they had a guy named Barry Levine helping them with their image, and they became a record-company priority. Thanks to Doc’s masterful manipulation, generous imagination, and under-the-table gifts, Nikki was finally on the verge of moving his rebellion from the Whisky to the stadiums. But, of course, nothing happens for those guys without a struggle.
I woke up a few weeks later to find out that Joe Smith had been fired and a guy named Bob Krasnow was running the company. He fired Tom Werman and replaced him with Roy Thomas Baker, which was fine because now there were even more reasons to go to RTB’s parties and Werman still wanted to produce the record. But just as we were getting ready to record, Krasnow flew to Los Angeles and called Werman and me into a meeting.
“Rock and roll isn’t happening,” he told us. “I’ve decided that I don’t want any rock bands on the label. I wouldn’t take Ozzy Osbourne if you gave him to me for free on a silver platter.”
“Why would you drop a group who are selling lots of records? That doesn’t make any sense, Bob!”
“This is Elektra Records, Tom,” he said. “We have a tradition of fine, talented acts like Linda Ronstadt, the Doors, and Jackson Browne. I’m not in the circus business. And I’m not giving them a penny.”
“Their managers are willing to take care of some of the promotion and touring costs.”
“Listen,” he said. “The group is just awful. I saw their video and it’s embarrassing. I had it taken off MTV.”
“What?! We just lined up a tour for the band with Kiss. You can’t do that.”
“I heard about that, and I’ve canceled the dates.”
I called Doug Thaler and Doc McGhee in to meet with Krasnow, and he told them the same thing. They responded by asking him what they needed to do to release Mötley Crüe from their contract with Elektra.
“I’ll tell you what,” Krasnow relented. “You make the best record that you can make. Don’t worry about money, but keep the budget reasonable. I won’t promise you that I’ll put it out, but I will promise you that I’ll make it easy for you to take it someplace else.”
If they had been dropped then and lost the momentum they had built up, it probably would have been the end of Mötley Crüe. But fortunately something happened to change Bob’s mind. And that something was the US Festival. Less than a year later, Krasnow would be dressed in a Mötley Crüe bandanna at Madison Square Garden, presenting the band with awards for gold and platinum album sales.
It was the day that new wave died and rock and roll took over: May 29, 1983. Day two of the three-day US Festival.
Circling above hundreds of thousands of kids in a helicopter—the first helicopter we’d ever been in—it seemed as if the scene on Sunset Strip on Friday and Saturday nights had suddenly been transported to a field in the middle of nowhere on a sweltering hot spring afternoon. Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, the Scorpions, and Van Halen were performing in front of three hundred thousand kids. And so were we.
Every city in America must have sprouted its own equivalent of the Sunset Strip. This wasn’t an underground thing anymore. It was a mass movement, and finally we were all meeting to put a new nation on the map. Looking down on it all from the helicopter, with a bottle of Jack in my left hand, a bag of pills in my right hand, and a blond head bobbing up and down in my lap, I felt like the king of the world. That lasted for about a second. Then I got scared shitless.
We only had one album out, and it had just grazed the pop charts at number 157. Most of these kids probably didn’t even know us. They’d been in the heat all day, and would probably hate us because they were impatient for Ozzy and Van Halen.
I took another swig of Jack as we landed and met our new managers, Doc McGhee, who was basically a drug dealer with good business sense, and Doug Thaler, his yes man. The guy who had signed us to Elektra, Tom Zutaut, was there with his girlfriend, a surprisingly hot chick considering Tom’s luck with women. I went to the dressing room to put on my makeup and costume, and see what I could do for the line of girls and reporters waiting outside. After what seemed like just a few minutes, there was a frantic knocking on the door.
“You were supposed to be onstage ten minutes ago,” Doc yelled. “Get the fuck out there.”
From the moment we played “Shout at the Devil,” I knew that we had made it. I had nothing to worry about. These people had never heard the song before: We had hardly even begun recording the album. But by the end, they were singing along, pumping their fists into the air. I looked out and with every word I sang, with every guitar lick Mick played, the crowd rippled in response. I understood then why rock stars have such big egos: from the stage, the world is just one faceless, shirtless, obedient mass, as far as the eye can see.
Mick left the stage first and walked back to the trailer that doubled as our dressing room. Waiting for him inside was his girlfriend, who we called The Thing, a big mean brunette whose sleeves were rolled above her elbows. As soon as he walked in the door, after having played the biggest concert of his life, she hauled off and punched him square in the face without a word of explanation. (Back in Manhattan Beach, she would sometimes get drunk, beat him up, and kick him out of the house, after which Nikki or I would get a desperate phone call from Mick asking us to pick him up at his doorstep.)
Afterward for me was a blur of alcohol, drugs, interviews, and chicks. I remember walking offstage and seeing Tom Zutaut’s girlfriend, who had stripped down to a leopard-skin bikini because it was so hot outside. I grabbed her, pressed my sweaty face against hers, and stuck my tongue down her throat. She pressed her body against me and bit my lip.
I brought her back to the trailer—past Mick, who was sitting on the steps holding his head in his hands—and buried my face in the girl’s tits. Just then, there was a knock on the door and a squeaky voice said, “Hey, it’s Tom. Can I come in?”
“What do you want?” I asked, worried that he had seen me.
“I just wanted to tell you that you were a-a-amazing. That was the best show I’ve ever seen you play.”
“Thanks, dude,” I said. “Listen, I’ll be out in a minute. I just need a little while to chill out.”
Then I tore off his girlfriend’s bikini and fucked the shit out of her while he waited outside.
Nikki turned red when I told him what I had done. “You fucking asshole!” he screamed. “Can’t you keep your dick to yourself ? That dude signed us. If he finds out, he’s going to hold it against us and seriously fuck up our new album.”
“Sorry,” I replied. “But that’s only if he finds out.”
Tell me about the US Festival.
I just remember driving into the middle of nowhere and the band getting paid a lot of money by some guy from Apple to play this concert in front of all these people.
Do you remember anything else notable about that day?
Well, it was kind of weird seeing them play outside in the middle of the day.
Did you go to the festival with anybody?
I went with Doc [McGhee] and Doug [Thaler].
Anybody else?
Yeah, my girlfriend went with me.
Did anything strange happen with your girlfriend that day?
No, not that I can remember.
Because Vince said he slept with her.
He slept with my girlfriend?!?
That’s what he told me.
No, it couldn’t have been her.
He said she was wearing a leopard-skin bikini.
Okay, then it was a different girl. The real meaningful girlfriend wouldn’t have worn a leopard-skin bikini. It was pr
obably some trashy date I was with. Nikki has probably been worried about it all these years, but she didn’t mean anything to me.
It was Vince, not Nikki.
It was Vince? Well, Vince had a never-ending stream of girls. He would do ten girls before the set and ten after. You used to look at him and say, “Man, where does he get it?” He never stops. I used to be amazed because he had a steady girlfriend. When she was around they were like married, but the minute she turned her head he’d be fucking someone else. I’m not surprised. I think if I try and go back and remember, there was a girl I used to take out on some dates every now and then for a good time and it might have been her. Her name was Amanda something from San Diego. It was before I met the girlfriend I was initially thinking about. As I think about it more, I remember her wearing some skimpy leopard-skin kind of stuff.
Were you upset?
If someone was important to me, I wouldn’t take them to a rock show like that. I definitely wouldn’t leave anyone in a trailer with any member of Mötley Crüe.
There was another time where I had another girlfriend that Nikki actually fucked. She was a party girl, and she was hanging out with me backstage. And Nikki pretty much in front of me took her and bent her over and did her. She was having her period. It was gross. She didn’t even try to stop him. I had only known her for a couple of weeks and it was our second or third time out. She didn’t become that serious of a girlfriend after that. But I didn’t blame Nikki. Part of it was that girls would use me to get backstage. So I figured it was a pretty good way to find out what someone was made of. I was like twenty-one years old. I wasn’t ready to get married or have a serious relationship. I mean, at least Nikki wasn’t hiding anything. I think he said, “That chick you’re with is really cute. Do you mind if I bend her over?” And I said, “No, I don’t mind. It’s nothing serious.”
But the Vince thing I definitely didn’t know about.
I’m sorry to have to break it to you.
Yeah, I do think that with Vince it was the girl from San Diego. And, you know, our relationship broke up shortly after that. She started acting really weird after the festival, now that I think about it, like something had happened. I remember after that weekend dumping her and never seeing her again because she was acting weird. It was probably because of Vince. At first, she probably thought, “Oh I’m going to be Vince’s new girlfriend and forget this A&R guy.” But then she realized that she was one of five girls that he did in those fifteen minutes. So probably then she felt trapped: She had nothing with him, but if I found out about it she was toast. I remember her being really weird after that, so weird that I don’t remember ever seeing her again.
fig. 2
Record contract signing at Elektra office. Clockwise from left: Joe Smith, Mick, Allan Coffman, unknown, Vince, Nikki, Tom Zutaut, Tommy
It was the beginning of the end as far as fun was concerned: unlimited cocaine. Tommy knew these shady characters in Simi Valley who would stop by Cherokee Studios, where we were recording Shout at the Devil, and bring ounces of coke. We would stay up for three days straight making music and not even think we were working hard. Vince had taped pictures from porno magazines all over the wall, and girls were streaming in and out of the studio, getting fucked with microphones in the control room, bottles in the kitchen, and broom handles in the closet because we were running out of ideas of what to do with them.
Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist from the Doors, was working next door, and he’d stop by almost every day, chug our booze, and leave us high and dry. We were never big Doors fans, so it really pissed us off. Out of respect, we didn’t say anything, but we always wondered: If Ray was that big of a fiend, how bad was Jim Morrison?
Later, cocaine would make me reclusive and paranoid. But then, it was simply a party drug, something more fun to put up my nose than air. One night, Tommy, his drum tech Spidey, and I were getting drunk in a dive bar around the corner from the studio to take off the edge the cocaine was giving us. Two cops sitting nearby started getting aggressive with us, making unoriginal comments like, “Nice hair, girls.” So after the alcohol kicked in and we popped some painkillers to even out the ride, we walked outside to their patrol car. The window was down, so we all lined up, pissed onto the seat and took off running. Back at the studio, Tommy was so amped up he threw a brick through the control room window. We didn’t really know what we were doing or how to record a professional album.
fig. 3
The next morning, we were still in the studio recording “I Will Survive.” There was a gong hanging by a rope over our heads and we wound the rope as tight as it would get and then let go, so that the gong spun in circles, producing an eerie shimmering sound. As it spun, we lay on our backs and tried to chant “Jesus is Satan” backward, which sounded like “scrambled eggs and wine” or something like that. Our engineer quit that day. He said that we were all possessed by Satan. And maybe we were.
We were experimenting with black magic, reading any kind of spell book or occult tome we could find, and recording invocations like “God Bless the Children of the Beast,” which was actually inspired by the introduction on David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album. And, maybe we were imagining it, but we were starting to attract something evil.
I had ideas for the album and the tour that had to do with the mass psychology of evil behind Nazism and with the Anton LaVey books on Satanism, which was really more a personal philosophy with a shocking title than an actual religion. I had grand ideas of creating a tour that looked like a cross between a Nazi rally and a black church service, with Mötley Crüe symbols instead of swastikas everywhere. I even truly believed that Ronald Wilson Reagan, since each of his names was six letters long—666—was the Antichrist. It says in the Bible that the Antichrist will have the voice of a lion to be heard throughout the nations. I told everybody that he would be shot through the heart and recover quicker than any man could, and he did. He was the devil I wanted everybody to shout at. I was getting carried away. Then, while driving home from the Satanic “I Will Survive” session, Tommy’s car blew up. Vince kept wiping out in his car. And objects would levitate and fly around Lita’s and my house. We were starting to freak ourselves out. And then I had my accident.
I had bought my first real car, a Porsche, after landing a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell. It was my pride and joy. Tommy and I would drive down Sunset Boulevard with the pedal to the floor at 2 A.M., swigging off fifths of Jack. We didn’t realize how stupid drunk driving was until a year later. Even the cops, when they pulled us over for speeding, would just make us dump our drinks out and then let us go. And we didn’t think we were lucky at all: We were pissed because it was too late to buy more alcohol.
After a few months spent giving that car more attention than I’d ever lavished on a girl, I went up to one of Roy Thomas Baker’s parties. We all did lines off his glass piano, then took our clothes off and jumped in the Jacuzzi. There were about fifteen of us piled in there, including Tommy. He had finally dumped Bullwinkle and was dating a wanna-be model from Florida named Honey. All of a sudden, Tommy popped a huge erection, turned to Honey, and ordered, “All right, bitch, suck my cock.” She bent over and sucked him off in front of everybody. When she finished, he made her to do it again. She went back to work, but this time it was taking too long for Tommy and he started to get pissed. He started chewing her out for not doing a good job, telling her she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. Eventually, she got it right, considerately swallowing so as not to contaminate the pool with Tommy’s unborn children. Five minutes later, Tommy put her to work again.
I think a lot of RTB’s friends gained a newfound respect for Tommy that night: not only was he built like a skyscraper, not only did he have a never-ending orgasm, but when he was done, he shared. He looked up at the ring of guys around the Jacuzzi staring in shock and amazement, and ordered Honey to work her way around the tub, blowing everyone. It was hard to get that image out of my mind when I sat around the d
inner table with the happy couple and Tommy’s parents in West Covina a few months later. She just didn’t seem like the kind of girl you’d want to take home to your mother, unless you were raised at the Bunny Ranch.
I passed on Tommy’s offer, not out of respect for him, but because I was too fucked up to get turned on. In fact, I decided that I wanted to leave the party altogether. I was drug-sick, confused, and wanted to see Lita. The problem was that RTB had the doors locked and blocked, like usual, to make sure no one left too fucked up to drive. To make matters worse, I had no idea where I’d put my clothes.
I ran to the wall and scaled it, completely naked. As I dropped down on the other side, I noticed that the stones had cut up my chest and legs, which were trickling blood. Outside, two girls who couldn’t get into the party were waiting in a ’68 Mustang. “Nikki!” they yelled. Fortunately, I always left my keys in my car then—I still do. So I hopped into my Porsche and gassed it down the hill. The Mustang screeched on the gravel and took off after me. I floored it to ninety, looked back to see if I had lost them, and, as I did so, was suddenly thrown against the dashboard. I had crashed into a telephone pole. It was sitting next to me in the car in a decimated passenger seat. If anyone had been sitting there, their head would have been smashed flat.
I stepped out of the car, in shock, and stood in front of the steaming mess that was once my true love. It was totaled, useless. The girls who were chasing me were gone, probably more scared than I was. And I was alone—naked, bloody, and dazed. I tried to raise my arm to hitch a ride, but a sharp pain raced from my elbow to my shoulder. I walked to Coldwater Canyon, where an older couple picked me up and, without saying a word about the fact that I was butt-naked, drove me to the hospital. The doctors put my shoulder in a sling—it was dislocated—and sent me home with a bottle of pain pills. I spent the next three days unconscious, whacked out on painkillers.