When guitarist Mick Mars announced his retirement from Motley Crue, he maintained that he would remain with the band in a recording capacity while John 5 took his place on the road.
However, since that announcement, Mars sued Motley Crue claiming that the band attempted to remove him as a stakeholder in the group’s corporation and business interests. Mars also claimed that he was the only member of the band to play live on last year’s tour.
The band and their attorneys refuted those claims, and there was a very public back-and-forth between the parties.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Crue bassist Nikki Sixx talked about the band’s decision to carry on without Mars.
“We never saw it coming that Mick wasn’t going to be able to tour and was going to have to quit the band,” Sixx said.
“In the middle — not even the middle — of a huge tour, we had to ask ourselves, ‘Do we want to let the fans down? Do we want to let Live Nation down? Do we want to let Def Leppard down? Do we want to let ourselves down because an original member of our band can’t tour anymore?’ We had to have a deep, deep look into what we were going to do.”
Sixx said replacing Mars with John 5 was an obvious choice.
“With John knowing all the members of the band, and me having this relationship with him writing and as friends, and even being in the studio with him writing stuff with the band for ‘The Dirt’, it felt like a no-brainer in a horrible situation something we did not ask for or want. And then it was just kind of obvious. If there was ‘the guy’, John was the guy. Like I said, we didn’t choose this, but since we had to be put in this position, we’re very happy with where we’re at right now.”
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