Show 192 – The Dirt on Motley Crue

Show Notes

• 2 full hours of Motley Crue dirt and music!
• Dirt you won’t find in The Dirt movie!
• Rare hair by Motley Crue side projects
• The Dirt on Motley Crue, their friends, and the entire Motley Crue shared universe!
• Who urinated on Cheap Trick’s guitarist?
• Who pissed off David Letterman?
• Who drank another guy’s urine?
• What songs were written about Motley Crue?
• A Motley Member drunk on one of the most famous Crue songs off all!

Playlist

Own the hits and deep cuts you hear on Hard, Heavy & Hair! Click the iTunes/Apple Music or Amazon Digital Music icons to the left of each song.

Mötley Crüe – Saints of Los Angeles

Buckcherry – Lit Up

Pretty Boy Floyd – Rock & Roll

Bruce Dickinson – Tattooed Millionaire

Aerosmith – Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

Lita Ford – Falling In and Out of Love

Methods of Mayhem – Metamorphosis

Vince Neil – You’re Invited (But Your Friend Can’t Come)

Crashdïet – I Don’t Care

Sixx-A.M – Stars

The Dead Daisies – Make Some Noise

Ozzy Osbourne – Miracle Man

Hinder – Take It to the Limit

Alice Cooper – Feed My Frankenstein

Cheap Trick – The Flame

Slaughter – Up All Night

Hanoi Rocks – Up Around the Bend

Guns N’ Roses – You’re Crazy

Mötley Crüe – Home Sweet Home

Brownsville Station – Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room

Mötley Crüe – Girls, Girls, Girls

Beds by Audionautix.

Transcript of the Show

[INTRO]

So come right in ’cause everybody sins

This is the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show, show number 192, and this show is all about the Dirt on Motley Crue, the Saints of Los Angeles

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Mötley Crüe – Saints of Los Angeles [Gang Vocal Version] —————————————-

Welcome all you head bangers and horn throwers, moshers and hairballs, foot stompers and air guitar strummers. Thank you for joining me for the biggest Hard, Heavy & Hair Show of Motley March. I’m your hard rocking, heavy drinking, hairball rock n’ roll historian and show host, Pariah Burke.

Hard, Heavy & Hair broadcasts to 5 continents all over planet earth, tainting the purity of FM and AM airwaves and dozens of Internet stations with the hard, heavy, and hairy music you and I both love. Depending on where you are on the globe, you may be hearing this show before watching the Motley Crue biopic The Dirt, or after you’ve seen it. For example, if you’re in Los Angeles, you’re probably listening right now on K-A-R-L KARL Radio at 9:06 PM on March 22nd, the day The Dirt premieres on Netflix.

Have you seen it yet?

I got an early preview of part of the movie, and it was thrilled with it. I didn’t stay for the whole screening because I’m having a watch party at my house Friday, March 22nd.

Whether you’ve seen the Dirt yet or not, you’re going to love this show. Exactly half of this two hour Hard, Heavy & Hair Show is devoted to trivia and tunes related to Motley Crue. You’ll hear a few Crue songs, of course, but you’ll also hear some surprises. AND, no matter how well you know the stories and legends of Motley Crue, whether you’ve read the Dirt or watched the movie already, I guarantee you’ll learn something about them you didn’t know tonight on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

Let’s get back to the music. I’ll tell you more about what you’re going to hear on the show after we hear from two bands that were heavily influenced by Motley Crue, bands that might not exist without the Crue. First up is Buckcherry with “Lit Up.” I’m Pariah Burke.

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Buckcherry – Lit Up
Pretty Boy Floyd – Rock & Roll
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Rock & Roll from Pretty Boy Floyd, a Glam band that was so influenced by the Crue, they’ve often covered Motley music.

Coming up in the show are tracks by Motley Crue, together and various solo projects, as well as tracks by Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Lita, Crashdiet, Slaughter, Cheap Trick, Hanoi Rocks, deep cuts and rarities from AC/DC, the Scorpions, Guns N Roses, and more.

In a 2007 interview with Blender magazine, Sixx said this next line…

[clip “Money for Nothing”]

…was written because Mark Knopfler and others from Dire Straits were in an appliance store looking at a wall of TVs all playing a Motley Crue music video on MTV.

Knopfler’s recounting of how he was inspired to write the song lends some credence to Sixx’s claim. Knopfler, who wrote the entire song save four words Sting contributed, said he was in an appliance store observing an employee of the store watching MTV and commenting such things as “what are those, Hawaiian noises?…that ain’t workin'” and other lines Knopfler used verbatim in the song.

Knopfler doesn’t say whether the working-class man, a man whose outfit was faithfully reproduced in the video to “Money for Nothing,” was actually inspired to his now immortalized utterances by a Motley Crue music video.

Here’s another song Nikki Sixx says is about him because he slept with the writer’s wife. Here’s Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickson with his first and biggest solo song, “Tattooed Millionaire.”

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Bruce Dickinson – Tattooed Millionaire
Aerosmith – Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
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And that, of course, was a song everyone knows is about Vince Neil… or is it? Most people believe Aerosmith wrote “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” about Vince Neil who, when Joe Perry and Steven Tyler met him at the Whisky A Go G, was dressed in a tube top, high heels, and makeup–his standard Glam Metal stage wear in those days. Vince himself once said on Swedish television that he and Steven Tyler were at a New York bar one night where the waiters were dressed in women’s clothes. He says Tyler said, “dude looks like a lady,” coining the title for the song.

Ready for your first Cover Song of the Week clue? See if you can guess from the clues the Cover Song of the Week, the artist doing the cover, or the original recording artist before I reveal all in the second half of the show. The first clue is always the hardest, but they get easier as we go along.

The artist who first and most famously recorded the Cover Song of the Week is a household name, even today, 35 years after the song’s release. The original song actually MADE her a household name, and then she got bigger, and much, much more controversial from there. But, this pop singer didn’t write her most song, although she did write many of her other hits. This particular song, the one being given a Hard, Heavy or Hairy interpretation in the Cover Song of the Week, was written by the songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg who also wrote these #1 number hits.

[Clips: Eternal Flame, So Emotional, and Alone]

The first clue is always the toughest. They get easier as we go.

More clues later.

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Lita Ford – Falling In And Out of Love
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“Falling In And Out of Love” from Lita Ford, co-written with Nikki Sixx. You probably know Lita used to date Nikki Sixx back from 81 to 84. Lita also had romantic encounters with Jon Bon Jovi, Ritchie Blackmore, Dee Dee Ramone, Tony Iommi, WASP’s Chris Holmes, and Nitro singer Jim Gillette.

Something you probably don’t know, is that radio stations and shows like Hard, Heavy & Hair are prohibited from playing more than 4 songs by the same artist in a short time frame. We also can’t play more than 3 songs from the same album, which is why you almost never hear radio shows and stations–even Internet stations–playing an entire album or even just one side of an album.

So, on this biggest show in Motley March, a show almost entirely about the Motley Crue shared universe, I can’t play more than a total of 4 Motley Crue songs. But I found a way to get out of it, let me tell you about…

[clip Smokin’ in the Boys Room]

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Methods of Mayhem – Metamorphosis
Vince Neil – You’re Invited (But Your Friend Can’t Come)
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Each of the guys in Motley Crue have had other projects or solo works. You just heard Methods of Mayhem, a supergroup founded by Tommy Lee on the eve of his divorce from Pamela Anderson. Tommy played drums–of course–but also sang and played guitar on “Metamorphisis”. Methods of Mayhem was short-lived, but kept Tommy busy after he’d left the Crue.

You also just heard Vince’s first solo hit “You’re Invited (But Your Friend Can’t Come)”, which he recorded after HE left the band in ’92. His second solo album, Carved in Stone, would be heavier with a more Industrial influence.

Here’s a ballad from that album, a song about the daughter Vince lost to cancer when she was only four years old. This is “Skylar’s Song”.

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Vince Neil – Skylar’s Song
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Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars have also had projects outside of Motley Crue. Mick co-wrote two songs for Crashdiet’s 2007 album the Unattractive Revolution. Here’s one of them, “I Don’t Care,” on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

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CRASHDÏET – I Don’t Care (feat. Mick Mars)
Sixx-A.M – Stars
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Sixx A.M. with “Stars” from the 2014 Modern Vintage LP. That song went up to number 6 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.

Although Sixx, Mick, Vince Neil, and Tommy Lee are the original, current, and most familiar lineup of Motley Crue, the Crue has had other members. Sixx and Mick never left, but Vince and Tommy both did at different times. When they did, other musicians played in their places.

First, while Vince was out of the band, the Crue brought in John Corabi from the Scream. Corabi, aka “Crab,” sang and played rhythm guitar on the disastrous 1994 self-titled album. The album was actually quite good, giving us such rockers and “Hooligan’s Holiday.”

[clip Hooligan’s Holiday]

The failure with public perception happened because the band kept the name Motley Crue and even named the name Motley Crue, which many fans took to be a defiant proclamation by the band of “THIS is Motley Crue, not what we had with Vince.”

Again, I’m limited by the number of songs I can play by the artist named Motley Crue, so here’s former Motley vocalist John Corabi with his new band, the Dead Daisies. This is “Make Some Noise” on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

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The Dead Daisies – Make Some Noise
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The Crue didn’t just replace Vince for a stint. When Tommy left in 1999 and started Methods of Mayhem, the rap metal supergroup you heard just a few minutes ago, Motley needed a new drummer. They brought in long-time friend of the band and former Ozzy drummer Randy Castillo. Here is playing with Ozzy on “Miracle Man”. I’m Pariah Burke.

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Ozzy Osbourne – Miracle Man
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That was Ozzy, a man who drank Nikki Sixx’s pee. You know about this one, right? It was back when Motley Crue was opening for Ozzy on tour. They were in New Orleans, standing outside. Ozzy urinated on the pavement, got down on all fours, and licked up his own urine. He then told Sixx to do the same. Sixx pissed, but when he went to lick it up, Ozzy got there first, drinking Sixx’s urine. Ozzy then took his drinking draw and snorted a line of ants that had been crawling by.

The man was insane! I’m sure you join me in wishing him a speedy recovery from his latest health concerns. Get well soon, Ozzy!

Getting back to Motley contributions to other artists’ works, did you know that Mick has played guitar on songs for Papa Roach and Hinder? And did you know that Sixx played bass on one of Alice Cooper’s biggest hits?

I’ll give you the next Cover Song of the Week clue after we hear Mick with Hinder and Sixx with Alice. Let’s start with “Take It To The Limit,” the title track to Hinder’s 2008 LP, right here on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

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Hinder – Take It To The Limit
Alice Cooper – Feed My Frankenstein
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“Feed My Frankenstein,” Alice Cooper’s 1991 smash featuring Nikki Sixx on bass. Another song on Alice’s Hey Stoopid album, a power ballad titled “Die For You,” was cowritten by Alice with Sixx and Mick, and Mick played guitar on the track.

Ready for another Cover Song of the Week clue?

The artist doing the Cover Song of the Week is infamous for many things, among them, peeing in unusual places and on unusual things. One member of this band urinated on Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen. Another member of the band, while doing telephone interviews, would often pee during the interview right on hotel room floors. All the members of the band once urinated in the same police car. The officer had been reportedly hassling the band members for being drunk and boisterous at a bar. When they left the bar, the band members noticed the patrol car had its window down, so they all pissed on the driver’s seat. Years later, now more sophisticated, they used squirt guns loaded with urine instead of whipping out their trouser snakes.

Of course, the original recording artist of the Cover Song of the Week ALSO made headlines for HER urination habits.

Let’s stay up all night with Slaughter, which shares members Dana Strum and Jeff Blando with Vince Neil’s solo band, after we hear from that poor, pissed on guitarist. This is 1988 hit “The Flame” from Cheap Trick. I’m Pariah Burke.

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Cheap Trick – The Flame
Slaughter – Up All Night
Hanoi Rocks – Up Around the Bend
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Covering CCR, that was Hanoi Rocks with “Up Around the Bend.” Playing drums on that track was the late Nicholas Dingley, better known as Razzle. As any Motley Crue fan knows, Razzle died in a car crash on December 8th, 1984. Vince Neil was driving. He and Razzle had gone on a beer run to keep the joint Motley and Hanoir Rocks party at Vince’s going. Vince lost control of his Pantera and hit an oncoming vehicle. The accident and some of the effects it had on Vince and the rest of Motley Crue are document in the Netflix film The Dirt.

If you don’t have a Netflix account, borrow someone’s or go to one of the many public and private watch parties going on around the world.

Let’s take a break from the Motley Crue shared universe–heheh–for the next generation of metal music.

[indie]

This is Indie & Unsigned, the showcase for hard rock, metal, glam, and hair rock local bands, unsigned artists, and artists signed to small, independent labels.

When I got this next track, I absolutely had to play it for a reason that will become obvious when I tell you the title.

Dayton, Ohio-based Alternative Metal band Poetic Descent sent me their take on a song written by their manager and guitarist for Mayfly, Joel Holycross. The song is called “Pariah,” which is why I just had to play it.

[drop-in]

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Poetic Descent – Pariah (ft. Joel Holycross)
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Poetic Descent in the spotlight on Indie & Unsigned. That was there song titled “Pariah.” That track will be available to stream or buy on March 29th. Jared Lacey and the guys in the band were nice enough to give me permission to spin the track ahead of its release date.

If you’d like to check out Poetic Justice, hit the show notes on PariahRocks.com. I’ve linked to PJ’s Facebook fan page. This is show number 192, titled “The Dirt on Motley Crue.”

If you’d like to hear YOUR band’s music on the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show, send it to me! Just hit PariahRocks.com slash I-N-D-I-E, Indie, for submission instructions.

Speaking of dirt on Motley, they fight as hard they play–and not just with each other. At their first show playing the Starwood club in Los Angeles, an audience member hucked a giant looney [SFX] onto Vince’s white leather pants. Vince immediately jumped into the audience and started beating the crap out of the guy. Other concert goers got involved, but Nikki had Vince’s back, cracking his bass guitar on another guy.

Vince got into another brawl with a drag queen who sold him baby powder made to look like cocaine.

He ALMOST fought Guns N Roses frontman Axl Rose. I’ll tell you all about that after we hear from Axl and the Gunner Vince DID punch, Izzy Stradlin. This is “You’re Crazy,” a deep cut from Appetite for Destruction.

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Guns N’ Roses – You’re Crazy
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Back in 1988, G N R guitarist Izzy Stradlin allegedly assaulted Vince’s future wife and then girlfriend Sharise.

[clip]

That was Vince himself talking to VH1’s Behind the Music. The next year, at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, Vince saw Izzy and let his anger flow. Again talking to VH1, Vince said:

[clip]

Just like Vince’s bandmates had his back in fights, Axl Rose backed Izzie. Neither Vince nor Axl ever struck each other, but they went back and forth verbally sniping at each other through the remainder of ’89 and well beyond. Vince even went on MTV to challenge Axl to a fist fight.

[clip]

The challenge got the rock world excited with everyone from Sammy Hagar to members of Tesla publicly commenting that they’d like to see such a fight. Everyone was picking his or her favorite at the time, and there some people I knew who were taking actual bets on the winner of a Vince Neil / Axl Rose brawl. Even fight promoter Don King got in on the action!

[clip]

Several times Vince named an actual time and place, and then he waited at those locations, but Axl never showed. The feud continued in interviews and public statements for a while longer but eventually cooled into a cold war that persists today and once every few years comes out in something Axl or Vince says to the press or on social media.

The 30th anniversary is coming up this year, on September 14th, of the one punch that was actually thrown, the one Vince landed on Izzie’s face backstage at the MTV Video music awards.

Here’s Tommy Lee playing the beautiful piano intro on the Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

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Mötley Crüe – Home Sweet Home
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The Cover Song of the Week sparked a LOT of controversy in the mid-80s, probably as much as the covering artist did at the same time for their antics and use of religious symbols. The iconic Pop song’s meaning was debated hotly by many parents and teens, but it was also debated on film.

In the 1992 Quinten Tarantino film “Reservoir Dogs” Mr. Pink postulates his theory of the song’s meaning, while Mr. Blue rebukes him. I’m going to play you a clip of that discussion. It’s not a clip you want children to hear. If you’ve got kids around, send them out of the room.

The title of the Cover Song of the Week is mentioned several times in the clip, so I’ve bleeped out the actual title. You should be able to get it from context, though.

[clip Reservoir Dogs]

We’ve heard from bands that were influenced by Motley Crue and from artists on whose songs Motley members have played. Let’s flip it around and check in with a couple of bands who were influences ON Motley Crue. Here’s rare AC/DC. From the band’s 5th studio album, 1978’s Powerage, the first with Cliff Williams on bass. Rare Scorpions follows AC/DC. Here’s “Cold Hearted Man” on Hard, Heavy & Hair. I’m Pariah Burke.

It’s time for the

[cow]

Did you figure out the Cover Song of the Week, the artist doing the cover, and the original recording artist?

Some of the clues were pretty obscure, but I also gave other hints throughout the show that might have helped.

Who is the covering artist, the one infamous for antics involving urinating in or on weird places? It’s the same band featuring a member whose pee Ozzy drank. Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen wore a black rubber jacket to dinner with Robin Zander, Queen drummer Roger Taylor, and Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx. Nikki, drinking like a fish and coked up, became fascinated with the idea of urinating on Nielsen’s rubber jacket. After hours of threatening to do just that, he finally did–while Nielsen was wearing it. Later, Nikki said he felt terrible for having pissed on his hero.

All four Motley guys peed in the cop car, and would, in 2014 on the Final Tour, allegedly, use squirt guns to spray their own opening act, the Raskins, with urine. Raskin was understandably pissed off, aaand pissed on.

Of course the original artist, Madonna, also made headlines for her urination habits. On March 31, 1994 Madonna appeared as a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. I remember watching–I’ve always been a big Letterman fan–and Madonna was high on… something. Endo, I think. She kept dropping F-bombs on network TV. She took off her panties and insisted Dave Letterman sniff them. (He tossed them into the trash instead.) Madonna was really pissing off Letterman while drawing boos from the audience. She also said this:

[clip letterman, 17:20]

Um. Yeah. The next morning, she made headlines the world over for the peeing in the shower statement. Her career went down hill from there, in my opinion. Madonna was part of the reason I didn’t turn on the radio throughout most the 90s. NSync was another reason, but they have nothing to do with the Cover Song of the Week.

The Cover Song of the Week is Madonna’s biggest hit, one written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, “Like A Virgin.” Motley Crue covered it for the Dirt film. Nikki Sixx said in an interview “It was weird to hear Vince singing, ‘I’m like a virgin.'” End quote.

Here’s Vince Neil, one of the most notorious cocksmen in Hollywood, singing “Like a Virgin” with buddies Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, and Tommy “Python in His Pants” Lee.

—————————————-
Motley Crue – Like a Virgin
Madonna – Like a Virgin
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I never thought I’d play THAT song Hard, Heavy & Hair, but that’s the way the Cover Song of the Week works. I play a hard, heavy, or hairy cover version followed immediately by the original, regardless of the genre the original comes from. This week’s Cover Song of the Week was the brand new Motley Crue cover of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

I wish I could play for you Motley Crue’s most famous cover song, but, again, I’m already close to my limit of Motley songs I can play in a two-hour span. Instead, let’s hear the original of that most famous cover by the Crue. This is Brownsville Station with their original version of “Smoking’ in the Boys Room’.

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Brownsville Station – Smokin’ in the Boys Room
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This is the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show with me, your hard rocking, heavy drinking, hairball of horny hedonist host and producer, Pariah Burke. Hard, Heavy & Hair is a weekly show that features the biggest hits, deepest cuts, and rarest hair from the entire history of hard rock, heavy metal, and hair bands from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 20-teens, and today along with awesome rock trivia and insight.

If you missed any part of this show you can stream it any past show on-demand from PariahRocks.com, that’s P-A-R-I-A-H-R-O-C-K-S-dot com.

Thank you for joining me for this week’s Hard, Heavy & Hair that wraps up Motley March.

Next week I’ll be on a yacht sailing down the California coast in the U.S. and Mexico on a… Well, let’s just say a naughty, naughty cruise with some friends of mine to celebrate my birthday in a most debaucherous way. So next week’s show will be a rebroadcast of one of my favorite shows from the last year or so. I’ll know you’ll miss me, but take comfort that a past version of me will be here to tickle your ears and rock your soul on this station, at this time.

Motley Crue is going to officially end Motley March with one of their greatest songs, a song that needs no introduction. When Mick Mars recorded the staccato guitar line for this song, he was so drunk he fell out of his chair. That’s the take used in the song.

I’m Pariah Burke. This is Hard, Heavy & Hair.

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Mötley Crüe – Girls, Girls, Girls