UPDATE: April 7, 2023
Mick Mars has responded to his former Mötley Crüe bandmates’ retort, following his April 6 filing of a lawsuit again members Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and Tommy Lee, saying that they have been trying to oust him from the band since 1987.
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Mötley Crüe sued Mars and is trying to force him into arbitration, to relinquish claims that he is still an official member of the band and a stakeholder in their business dealings, according to a Variety report. The band contends that when he announced he was quitting touring, that translated as a resignation from the band.
“Those guys have been hammering on me since ’87, trying to replace me,” said Mars in a new interview. “They haven’t been able to do that, because I’m the guitar player. I helped form this band.” He added: “It just makes me really upset that they want to try and bully me more or less out of the band, so it’s the last man standing that collects everything.”
In the interview, Mars also said that his final tour with the band in 2022 was the worst he has ever experienced. In the lawsuit, Mars said the band extended the tour from 12 to 36 dates, which he initially did not want to do but went along with it.
“That was the worst 36 gigs I ever had with the band,” said Mars. “It was 36 [instead of the originally scheduled 12] because they knew I wanted to retire from it after that. I don’t know, and I can’t say I positively know, but I have a pretty good feeling that they wanted me gone anyway. Because they’ve been wanting that since forever. It’s just frustrating for me. I’m pretty upset that they’re even pulling this crap when I carried these bastards for years.”
The guitarist said he’s ready to fight, but he never imagined his 41-year history with Mötley Crüe ending in court. “I think that those guys are hoping that I’ll just fold and lay down because I’ve done that many times,” said Mars. “But this thing that I helped build for 41 years, I’m sorry, you’re not gonna take that from me,” he declared. “I worked very hard for that. It’s mine. I’m keeping it. You can’t have it. Sorry.”
He continued, “I’m not backing down. I’m not gonna fold. And we’ll see what happens. I’m most definitely not afraid of them, or intimidated or anything else.”
Mars said that the band was also trying to claim for years that he had a bad memory, which he says is “crap.”
“That’s full-blown, out-of-proportion crap,” he said. “Around 2012, when they first started saying that my memory was bad and I didn’t remember the songs, I came home and saw all my doctors, because I keep myself together because I’m an old bastard.” He continued, “They had all the 10th Street people there [the band’s management]—probably about five or six people—[versus] all my doctors going ‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ and now they’re still playing that game with me. … I don’t have a problem remembering the songs. I don’t have a problem with any of that stuff, but I do have a problem with them, constantly, the whole time, telling me that I lost my memory.”
In the interview, Mars said that he wanted to retire from touring because of his inflammatory arthritic condition, ankylosing spondylitis, which he has suffered from since the age of 27, but he didn’t resign completely from the band and other projects, including one-off shows, residencies and other projects that would not require extensive travel.
“Forty-one years of hard work, mentally and physically—of course, I miss it, but I don’t, you know what I mean?” shared Mars. “Playing-wise, playing in front of a large crowd and seeing the world, I miss that. But my body says, ‘You can’t do that, Mick.’ I’m more at peace, for sure. My body just doesn’t wanna do it. I don’t like old, because my brain wants to go and my body goes, ‘Nope, you ain’t going nowhere, bud.’ But I didn’t know you had to get sued to retire.”
Read more on Mötley Crüe’s response to Mars’ lawsuit HERE.
Original story, posted on April 6, 2023:
Former Mötley Crüe guitarist and co-founding member Mick Mars filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday (April 6) against the band’s Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and Tommy Lee. Mars claims his bandmates ousted him from the group, and that they have removed him from receiving profits associated with band.
Mars, whose real name is Robert Alan Deal, claims that records regarding various Mötley Crüe business dealings, in which he has a 25 percent stake, are being deliberately withheld from him. The guitarist has asked the judge for an inspection of the band’s business records so he can be awarded an unspecified amount due to him.
Defendants mentioned in the suit include Mötley Crüe Touring, Inc., Mötley Crüe, Inc., Mötley Records, LLC and Masters 2008, LLC, Red, White and Crue, Inc., Masters 2000, Inc., and Cruefest, LLC, among other unnamed business entities and individuals associated with the band’s corporations.
“It is a tragedy that after 41 successful years of playing together, a band would callously attempt to throw out a founding member who is unable to tour anymore because he has a chronic disease,” said Mars’ lawyer, Ed McPherson. “Mick has been pushed around for far too long and we are not going to let that continue.”
The guitarist also stated that the band demanded that he sign a severance agreement, which would remove him from future interests in return for a five percent stake in the group’s 2023 tour, featuring Mars replacement guitarist John 5. Mötley Crüe is currently on a co-headlining world tour with Def Leppard.
In the lawsuit, Mars also revealed that he could no longer tour with the group as a result of his ongoing battle with ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disease that can cause some of the bones in the spine to fuse over time, but that he wanted to continue to participate in other concerts or residencies with the band that didn’t involve excessive travel. As a result, Mars alleges that he was fired after a shareholders’ meeting as an officer of Crüe’s corporation and six additional related businesses linked to the band.
In October 2022, a statement by the three remaining band members announced that Mars was retiring from touring and that he would remain an official member of the band, presumably to continue writing and recording with Mötley Crüe.
The lawsuit also claims that Mars founded the band and chose vocalist Vince Neil, who knew Lee since high school and also named the band Mötley Crüe. Bassist Nikki Sixx and Mars were the two constant members of the band since its formation in 1981, according to the lawsuit, which makes them the two consistent shareholders in the band’s business dealings over the years.
Mars also accused Sixx of “gaslighting” and said that the bassist would tell him that he had “some sort of cognitive dysfunction and that his guitar playing was subpar, claiming that Mars forgot chords, and sometimes started playing the wrong songs.”
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Read Mötley Crüe’s response to Mars’ filing here.
(Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)
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