The Dead Daisies and ex-Mötley Crüe frontman John Corabi sat down recently for an interview conducted by Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice.
During their time talking, he answered a number of questions about his time spent in Mötley Crüe.
Transcribed by The Metal Voice with slight edits, when asked what was it like to join Mötley Crüe, Corabi said: “Mötley Crüe had done the Dr. Feelgood tour and they were relatively, relatively is a big word, sober when I joined the band. They weren’t really partying. When I first joined everybody was trying to keep their act together and eventually as we got rolling everyone started falling into old habits. I didn’t know what to expect. No disrespect to the band I was familiar with their videos on MTV. I got to be honest with you but a lot of the stuff in the ’80s kind of went over my head. I was into classic ’70s bands. I had to ask them for the records when it came to putting together a set list. It was funny I had been in the band two and a half years and they were laughing their a*s off, wait a minute you don’t have any of our records and I’m like no, not really.
Tommy Lee said, ‘Have you ever seen us live before? ‘No.’ And they were laughing their a*s off, like ‘OMG! We picked a guy to sing in our band that wasn’t even a fan of the band!’”
Speaking on his audition songs for Mötley Crüe, Corabi stated: “The first two songs I ever sang for Mötley Crüe, which were covers, the first one was “Helter Skelter” and the second one was “Jailhouse Rock.” I knew those. I knew the original versions. The first Mötley originals I sang were “Dr. Feelgood”, “Live Wire” and “Shout At The Devil”.”
hen asked how the parting of ways went with the Mötley Crüe, Corabi advised:
“When we were writing the next album Generation Swine. their was rumblings on the street. the thing that kind of bugged me about the exit wasn’t about them bringing Vince Neil back. I knew at any moment the band could kiss and make up. the thing that bugged me is nobody from the management company came to me and leveled with me. They eventually told me the day Vince was coming back but there were months prior to that where people were talking about Vince coming back and I would ask management about it and they would say no it’s never going to happen. I just wished that everybody could have been a little more on the table about everything.”