Los Angeles – The original members of 1980s glam metal band Motley Crue, which made hard living and wild sexcapades a centerpiece of their music and their lives, on Monday announced a world reunion tour.
After a five-year hiatus, the big-haired, leather-clad Crue members are eager to slip back into the music, if not the lifestyle depicted in hit rockers like “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room.”
The band arrived Monday at the Hollywood Palladium in a hearse, sporting eye makeup. About 1,000 people cheered as the group opened with “Dr. Feelgood” following a news conference.
With support from cable music television network VH1, the band – vocalist Vince Neil, drummer Tommy Lee, guitarist Mick Mars and bass player Nikki Sixx – plan a world tour beginning in February in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The band will hit more than 60 cities in North America during two legs and play several festivals in Europe before wrapping up the tour in southeast Asia and Australia.
The band will release a double-CD greatest hits compilation with three new songs entitled “Red, White & Crue” in February.
“We’re just ready to go out and rock,” Neil said at the news conference. “We’re still Motley. We still rock.”
The band originally formed in 1981, but its members have been known less in recent years for their music and more for their personal troubles, particularly Lee.
He has been in and out of probation for years stemming from charges in 1998 that he abused ex-wife actress Pamela Anderson, with whom he has two children. He also faced charges of child abuse and a firearms violation.
In 1989, Sixx nearly died from a heroin overdose. Mars is recovering from hip replacement surgery to treat a degenerative illness.
