In a recent installment of the “Outsider” podcast, MÖTLEY CRÜE’s vocalist Vince Neil delved into the band’s 1997 album Generation Swine.
Initially, the album’s production commenced with John Corabi as the lead vocalist. However, the band eventually reunited with its original singer, Neil, and released the album featuring his vocals.
“I hated that record. I still hate that record,” Vince expressed. “[There are] no good songs on it. And I told ’em, I go, ‘This record sucks.’ ‘No. We love it. We love it.’”
When queried about his decision to rejoin MÖTLEY CRÜE following a four-year break from the band between 1992 and 1996, Vince replied: “Well, when MÖTLEY went out [on tour with Corabi as the band’s singer], their tickets stopped selling. And I was doing pretty good. But I wasn’t selling out places. I was opening for guys. And so their manager called me up and said, ‘We’d like to meet with you in New York.’ So I flew to New York and sat there and talked to ’em.’ And it took a while for me to say ‘okay.’ But I finally gave in and went to the recording studio where they were making Generation Swine, which was at Nikki‘s [Sixx] house. And… I don’t know. It was bad for a while, ’cause I didn’t wanna be there.”
In 2021, Corabi offered his perspective on the creation of Generation Swine during an interview with Rob’s School Of Music. He mentioned at the time: “We worked on that record for, God, almost two years. Now, the difference is I’m not a fan of the record that came out. ‘Cause you’ve gotta understand we had recorded a bunch of those songs, and they brought Vince back. Then they went back into the studio with him for, like, another year. And they switched things around, then they started playing with sound effects.
“I don’t mean this in any disrespect to MÖTLEY at all, but the bottom line of it is we did a record and it didn’t sell well — per their standards,” he continued, referencing 1994’s Mötley Crüe LP. “I mean, it went gold, but it didn’t sell well. The tour was a disaster. And I think, to be honest with you, Tommy [Lee, drums] and Nikki [Sixx, bass] and Scott [Humphrey, co-producer] were trying to reinvent themselves to be current. And at the time, bands like MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS, ROB ZOMBIE, MINISTRY, PANTERA — all these bands were heavy, a lot of ’em were industrial, and they were just trying to figure out how to be relevant again. Which kind of led to a little bit of my demise, because I was just, like, ‘This is f*king bullsh*t. Just do what you do. You’re MÖTLEY.’ And I’ve done the same thing.
“Even after I got out of MÖTLEY and I was in RATT, then I decided I was gonna do a solo record, I would record a few songs and I would do ’em and I’d go, ‘Man, I’ve gotta be relevant. I’ve gotta be relevant.’ So everybody gets caught up in it. But the bottom line of it is it took a manager, or a friend mine, to just sit there and go, ‘You know, Crab, listen, man. F*ck that. You are what you are. You’re a bluesy kind of BEATLES, [LED] ZEPPELIN, AEROSMITH… That’s who you are. Don’t try to be something that you’re not. Stop looking at trends and just do what you do. There are people out there that like what you do.’ And at that point, once I just said, ‘You know what? F*ck it. I’m just gonna do my own thing,’ then I was a lot better off.”
