So I didn't race out to the nearest Waldenbooks or Borders or B. Dalton to get The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band back in the halcyon brick-and-mortar bookstore days of 2001.
There's a lot to unpack here. But first- in case you're asking, "What's Mötley Crüe?" Short answer: a decadent 80's heavy metal/ hard rock band. (They kept making music through the 90's and beyond, but I'm not familiar with any of that latter period stuff.)
You've probably heard OF their songs, even if you haven't heard them- "Home Sweet Home," "Same ol' Situation," "Smokin' in the Boys' Room," "Looks That Kill," "Shout at the Devil," "Piece of Your Action," "Wild Side," "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)," "Too Young to Fall in Love," "Girls, Girls, Girls," "Dr. Feelgood" (favorite), "Primal Scream" (second favorite), "Kickstart My Heart" (third favorite), "Without You," etc.
Their drummer married Heather Locklear in the 80's and Pamela Anderson in the 90's. He probably married the hottest blonde in the 00's, as well, but that falls outside the purview of this 2001 book.
Their lead singer is the notorious rocker you may have heard about who killed Hanoi Rocks' drummer in a 1986 drunk-driving incident.
They basically invented the glam metal genre. They were emulating the legendary but short-lived 70's punk band New York Dolls with their look and attitude. But taking it to the realm of heavy metal- that was their innovation. All the hairspray and makeup that metal bands drowned themselves in throughout the 80's can be traced back to these jokers.
The Dirt tells their story from the perspective of every band member, often circling around the truth and sometimes even hitting it. We get a few chapters from outside perspectives to lend balance- their managers, their label representatives, ex-members, and the Elektra CEO that the bassist vigorously trash-talked in the press.
And the book is funny. Every chapter starts with a brief hoity-toity Dickensian summary, like "CHAPTER 4- IN WHICH OUR HEROES DISCOVER THE QUOTIDIAN DILEMMA OF EXCESS TIME AND INADEQUATE SELF-CONTROL."
An easy summary would be: they drank, drugged, shagged a lot of groupies, got into shenanigans, and had disastrous attempts at families and relationships.
Now in fairness, the band sobered up together for recording and touring Dr. Feelgood- which probably explains how amazing that album is- but up to that point, they were all full-blown alcoholics or helpless junkies, constantly nodding off in public or starting fights or wrecking everything in sight.
But their stories from that time come across as more sad and mundane than celebratory. There's a handful of disturbing anecdotes about drunk women backstage, OD'ing on heroin, and disgusting things they witnessed (like Ozzy Osbourne snorting a line of live ants and licking up a puddle of urine). At times, it feels less like a band bio and more a true crime book.
But they never seem to glorify any of it or make it sound awesome. They freely admit that they were inundating themselves with sensation to cover up the emptiness they felt inside. (Except for drummer Tommy Lee, who was mostly a happy-go-lucky ne'er-do-well.) They all came from messed-up families and continued to make messed-up families of their own because they didn't know any better.
Bassist Nikki Sixx is revealed as the band's mastermind, writing nearly all of their songs during his rare not-completely-blitzed moments. He openly admits that their 3rd and 4th albums- Theatre of Pain and Girls, Girls, Girls- were garbage and he was embarrassed when they went multi-platinum.
Vince Neil and Tommy Lee both come across as unreliable narrators, as they constantly contradict each other and are accused by others- in the band and outside- as being narcissists and liars. They do the most he-said, he-said snarking of the bunch. So their stories are always interesting, albeit dubious.
There's a revelation halfway through the book about Mick Mars, their low-key, grouchy guitarist. He's a minor character up to that point and doesn't say much about the band, its members, or...anything. He's older than the rest of band members and doesn't party, just minds his own business for the most part.
Well, he spent so much time alone because...(SPOILER) he had chronic pain issues. Ankylosing spondylitis. (Google it, it's horrifying.) The poor guy's bones were heavy as concrete and fused together, giving him a constant hunched posture.
And he never told anyone about it. He just let them think he was weird and solitary, when in fact he was struggling with constant physical agony. Fascinating.
But the two grabby parts of the book that merit discussion here are a) drummer Tommy Lee's thoughts on having children with Pamela Anderson and b) singer Vince Neil losing his four-year-old son to cancer.
I'll address the latter first- the singer discussing how his son's slow death affected him and his ex-wife is totally heartbreaking. His grief and pain are inconceivable and I found myself turning the pages with dread at the thought of something like that happening to my own child.
Tommy Lee married Pamela Anderson because he could. But he genuinely wanted kids with her. He loved kids. But he says once they had kids, he got ignored while all of his wife's attention went to the children. And he bitterly claims this is just how life is- once a woman has kids, the marriage as you know it is over and the woman naturally gives the child all her unconditional love.
This is incredibly sad and wrong-headed. That's a horrible cultural assumption and an awful way to look at life, marriage, and love. If you neglect your spouse or disregard them in favor of your kids, what kind of message are you sending your kids? Is that the kind of relationship or family you want your kids to grow up and have?
When I got married, the officiant told my wife and I to always make sure our kids knew that we loved each other more than we loved our kids. And we've stood by that.
We are NOT here to sacrifice everything, including each other, for our kids. We're here to love our spouses and be good and kind to them and do the best we can to raise our kids. But our kids should not be our whole world.
It left me wanting to sit Tommy Lee down and tell him the following: "Dude- find someone who can value you over your kids. And make sure you're contributing equally as a parent." (We're not reading Pamela Anderson's take on this relationship- I wouldn't be surprised if she was annoyed with Lee for slacking on childcare work. Changing diapers isn't as fun as getting wasted and playing drums.)
The book ends on a surprisingly heart-warming note, implying emotional healing and life going on and maturity and growth. (Except for in the life of the singer, who's like, "I'm not sorry for any of it, and I'm gonna keep on keepin' on.")
And little did I realize it, but Mötley Crüe just retired a few months ago. Here's Nikki Sixx's farewell speech from the final concert.
Happy trails and godspeed, you wonderful, horrible people.
Here are some choice quotes from the book:
“We were Mötley Crüe, we had a platinum record, and we were bigger than the New York Dolls ever were. We were young, f**ked up, and worshiped for it. Words like consequences, responsibility, morality, and self-control didn’t apply to us. Or so we thought.”
“They weren’t like Poison, who raised hell because they
thought that was what rock stars should be doing. Mötley Crüe did stupid things because they were Mötley
Crüe. There was no reason for
anything, just a Mötley reason.
They didn’t even have to try: Their life was rock-and-roll life.”
“I understood then why rock stars have such big egos: from
the stage, the world is just one faceless, shirtless, obedient mass, as far as
the eye can see.”
“I had always thought that age and success had enabled me to
overcome the shyness and low self-esteem I had developed from constantly
switching homes and schools as a kid, but in reality I hadn’t changed at
all. I had just drowned those
feelings in heroin and alcohol. As
a human being, I had never really learned how to act or behave.”
“My dreams had come true, but they weren’t what I thought
they would be.”
“I had thrived on attention ever since I was a kid doing
things like opening up my window so that neighbors could hear me play
guitar. In some sick sense, as
much as I loved Pamela, she was also the guitar that I wanted to show all the
neighbors I knew how to play. Only
it turned out that I couldn’t play it that well. When the lights dim and the disco biscuits are gone and
you’re sitting alone in a house with another person, only then does a
relationship begin; and it will succeed if you can work through your problems
and learn to enjoy the other person for who they really are without all the
pats on the back and thumbs up from your bros. Perhaps that’s why celebrity relationships are so
difficult: everybody puts you both
on such a high pedestal that it almost seems like a disappointment when, at the
end of the day, you discover that you’re just two human beings with the same
emotional defects and mother-father issues as everybody else.”
“It was the first step toward straightening out all the
crooked roads of my past. I never
realized before that I had the power to break the chain of secrecy and
dishonesty and irresponsibility that I had inherited. And I could do that simply by having a solid relationship
with my wife and family, so that my children wouldn’t spend their lives lost
and hiding from everything like I had.”
-Phony McFakename
No comments:
Post a Comment