Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee admits it was “really important” to make new music with new guitarist John 5.
The ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ hitmakers’ longtime axe-slayer, Mick Mars, was shocked when Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil and Tommy issued a statement announcing he had resigned from the band entirely, when in fact, Mars claims he had retired from touring.
The group – who have gone through a legal tussle with Mick – have moved on with their new guitarist and feel reborn after penning new tunes together with their regular producer Bob Rock.
Speaking to Japanese rock radio personality, Masa Ito, on TVK’s Rock City, Tommy said: “Going to record was really important to us because during that tour (The Stadium Tour 2023), we felt all this new energy. Having John 5 in the band really, really inspired us to share with our fans what we’re feeling. This new energy is like a rebirth in many ways, and so we started writing some music, and we were, like, ‘Well, let’s get Bob Rock (producer), let’s go in and let’s put this on tape and record it.’ The whole tour and having John in the band, all of it was very inspirational in getting us to share some new music with our fans, because, also, we’re really strong believers in you’re only as good as your last effort, and we hadn’t recorded anything new in a while.”
In April, they released their first new music in five years, single ‘Dogs Of War’.
Bassist Nikki recently told NME: “There was no plan to actually record ‘Dogs Of War’.
“We were in the studio doing demos, and it always happens where we have a vision of a song but then other riffs come out from there. So while we were working on a song, this riff came out.
“We had a ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ [The Ramones] cover that we were talking about doing, but essentially we were just getting together to be creative. Then ‘Dogs Of War’ came out, as well as a couple of other ideas.
“At the end of that day I went home and was watching A Handmaid’s Tale on Netflix, and here’s a saying in the show, ‘Don’t let the bastard grind you down’. So I wrote it down, then I wrote a lot of the lyrics pretty much from there.”