John Corabi On MÖTLEY CRÜE: “Who Knew That The Record That I Did With Them Would Be As Disastrous As It Was?”

John Corabi says that there was talk about MÖTLEY CRÜE being expanded to a five-piece shortly after Vince Neil was brought back to sing for the band in 1997.

“[The idea] was floated for a minute,” Corabi, who originally joined CRÜE in 1992 as the replacement for Neil, told Scotty Mars of the Live 105 radio station in Halifax: “I don’t know if it was management or what the deal was, but they were, like, ‘We’re bringing Vince back. And maybe we could keep you as a guitar player and you could maybe give Vince a break midway through the set and do a couple of your tunes.’ And I was just, like, ‘Yeah, sure. Whatever. Let me know.’ And I actually was going to the studio with them for about a month, even after they told me Vince was back; I was in the studio with them and Vince pretty much daily for about a month, and then it just kind of stopped.”

With Corabi on vocals, MÖTLEY CRÜE released one critically acclaimed full-length CD, which ended up being a commercial failure in the wake of grunge despite a Top-Ten placing on the album chart. When Neil returned to the fold, Corabi was left on his own and formed the band UNION with ex-KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick.

“Everything happens for a reason,” John told Live 105. “Like I kind of hear people go, ‘Man, you’ve been in a lot of bands.’ Yes, I have. I’ve also been married several times too, and every time I get into something, I think, ‘This is the one.’ I think that’s just human nature. When I was in THE SCREAM, I thought I’d be around for 30 years, playing with THE SCREAM guys. Who knew I was gonna get a call from MÖTLEY? And then I joined MÖTLEY and everything was peachy.

And the way they were talking about Vince, I thought it was a done deal. I thought I was gonna retire with MÖTLEY, go into the [Rock And Roll] Hall Of Fame and call it a day. Who knew they would bring Vince back? Who knew that the record that I did with them would be as disastrous as it was? I mean, at that point, when I joined that band, they could fart on record and it would sell three million. Who knew?”

Corabi in 2016 said that he would avoid talking about MÖTLEY CRÜE in the future because he didn’t want his comments about bassist Nikki Sixx to descend into a feud.

In an interview with Sweden Rock Magazine, Sixx said that writing the “Mötley Crüe” LP with Corabi was a prolonged and difficult experience. He went to call it “a very unfocused record” that was “painful for me, because John Corabi can’t write lyrics, and I had to do all that work.”

Corabi initially responded to Sixx’s comments by saying that he didn’t “give a shit” about what his ex-bandmate had to say, but later told an interviewer, when asked about it again, “I have no idea why Nikki feels that I’m the biggest piece of shit to roam the Earth.” He then proceeded to take to his Facebook page to claim that he would “officially have nothing to say about any member of MÖTLEY CRÜE ever again,” adding that he was “not backing this bullshit stirring that is happening to start a feud.”

Via Blabbermouth.com