Mick Mars has expressed dissatisfaction with his level of involvement in Mötley Crüe’s 1997 album “Generation Swine,” stating that he played hardly “one note.” He has once again accused his bandmates of attempting to diminish his musical “legacy.”
Despite the ongoing legal process resulting from Mars’s lawsuit in April, the conflict between the two sides persists. Notably, Mötley Crüe is preparing to release new music featuring John 5, who took over Mars’s role as a touring guitarist last year.
After making significant allegations in the initial lawsuit, Mars has now publicly claimed that his fellow Mötley Crüe members have been trying to replace him since the late ’80s. These new statements align with earlier remarks made by his friends and colleagues.
During a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Mars echoed John Corabi’s doubts about his contribution to the band’s ’97 album and the subsequent 2000 release, “New Tattoo.” Regarding “Generation Swine,” Mars expressed his frustration:
“I don’t think there’s one note that I played. They didn’t want my guitar to sound like a guitar, basically. They wanted it to sound like a synthesizer. I felt so useless. I’d do a part, they’d erase it, and somebody else would come in and play.”
According to Mars, a similar situation occurred with the follow-up album. He stated:
“I didn’t write any of those songs, since I wasn’t invited. I think I got one lick on that album.”
In response to Mars’s claims, Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx provided a contrasting perspective to Rolling Stone:
“Mick played lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and any other guitar that’s on that record. And Mick is a guy who wrote some pretty cool riffs, but he’s not a songwriter. And everyone forgets Mick’s health during this time. This is during the period that he had disintegrated into opiate addiction.”
Regarding Mötley Crüe’s last album to date, “Saints of Los Angeles” in 2008, both sides agree that a significant portion of the guitar work was performed by D.J. Ashba, although he was not credited for it. Nikki Sixx added:
“Mick was struggling to play his parts. So there’s [a] mixture of D.J. and Mick, and we would always make Mick the center focus unless, of course, he couldn’t play his parts or remember his parts.”
Mick continued:
“When they wanted to get high and f*ck everything up [in the 80s], I covered for them. 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? 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.”
Nikki Sixx, on the other hand, told Rolling Stone the following:
“We were there watching him physically fall apart, mentally fall apart, his memory fell apart. We really were, with kid gloves, always trying to support Mick. We’ve always stood by his side. But we couldn’t let his side of the stage just be a train wreck. And now he’s only saying these things because he’s trying to hurt us. What’s the point? He’s destroying his own legacy.
“Dude, we love the f*ckin’ guy. It’s really scary, [him] being in this complete hallucination.”