1. HOW IT ALL BEGAN

According to the principle, formulated by Nikki above, it all began the day Nikki Sixx spotted Tommy Lee killing the drums at Suite 19's gig. The orthodox version of the Crue Myth says it was the same day that Nikki got kicked out of London for alcohol abuse (sic!). Most versions of that very myth also state that the day was Jan 18, 1981. We'll take it for historical truth.

And so, remember the date: the 18th of January, 1981! This was the day when the first two ingredients were put together and the chain reaction began to take effect.

Sixx stole Lee from Suite 19, just like he had stolen so many things before him. Lee, fascinated by the attention he was getting from "that very Nikki Sixx from London, the dude from my posters!" and intimidated by his looks, had no contra arguments. In fact, they had a lot in common - and they understood that immediately. "Nikki was a driven dude," Tommy wrote in the Crue's autobiography, "and I had the same obsession. We wanted to blow up the scene, rule the Strip and fight or fuck anything that moved." Well, that was all that mattered.

They began jamming at Sixx's lair in Northern Hollywood and looking for a guitarist. They had Greg Leon who Tommy had dragged along from Suite 19, but Sixx fired him, because Greg, though talented, obviously wasn't "driven" enough. Then they had some guy named Robin who was even more talented, but disgustingly regular.

And then there came Mick Mars.

The bespoken ad in The Recycler went like this: "Loud, rude, aggressive guitar player available." Sounds good, huh? At least Tommy must have liked the way it sounded, because he dialed the number given there and made some history. A week later Mick appeared at Sixx's doorway. Now we know he's a very talented musician and a unique guitar player. Back then it wasn't the thing that got him in the band. What got him in was... you know. Of course, looks. For Tommy, he looked like Cousin Itt from Addams Family. To Nikki, he was yet "another one like them" - so he was in. Once in, Mick did a lot of important things. Like firing their second guitarist, the disgustingly regular Robin, distorting riffs from Nikki's songs to unrecognizable lines of VERY loud sounds and... finding them a vocalist.

Actually, they had a vocalist. A guy named O'Dean, who, if you believe Tommy's judgment, was a very good singer. But he wasn't "yet another one like them", he argued with Nikki way too much, he was an object of Mick's constant hatred and dude, he was overweight. Don't forget that was 80s. You couldn't get much pussy being in a band with an overweight frontman! So O'Dean was doomed. Especially after Mick spotted a guy at Rockandi's gig. The frontman of Rockandi was very dynamic, good-looking - the effect he had on the chicks in the audience was undeniable - he liked Sweet as much as Nikki and well, with all of the above it didn't really matter if he could sing at all. Tommy remembered him from Royal Oak High.

The guy's name was Vince Neil.

You bet your ass Vince wasn't happy in the slightest when Tommy cornered him after the show. Leaving Rockandi for a band that didn't even have a name didn't seem that much of a prospect. Just to be polite with Tommy, who, after all, was his high-school bud, Vince took some demo tapes home, and listening to them only made him feel he was right about turning them down. For awhile Vince kept hiding from Tommy around the neighborhood, then he heard they had found another singer and relaxed. A bit too early. As it happens, he was the frontman of Rockandi, but he wasn't the leader - one thing that is obvious, given he didn't even know the way the name of the band was spelt... The leader was a dude named James Alverson. And exactly when Vince was congratulating himself on making the right choice, James was struck by a fateful idea to leave hard rock behind and hit new wave. So he cut his hair and changed his style. Nobody knows if he was expecting the same from Vince - if he really was expecting a David Lee Roth wannabe to cut his hair, he was fuckin' nuts. So Vince quit and was in a very unstable state of mind when Tommy, obeying his sixth sense of timing, called again. This time he shot to kill.

Vince joined the band in Crystal Sound Studios on one of April Saturdays of 1981. Anyone who wants to define the four most likely dates, feel free to find a 2-decade-old calendar and look it all up. Anyways, the Myth (as well as Tommy Lee) says that as soon as they did the first song together, five minutes into the audition, they new that was IT. The last piece of the puzzle was placed into its place and clicked.

Motley Crue was officially born.

Yeah, right, Motley Crue, because by then the band already had a name. 'Mottley Kroo' was suggested by Mick who remembered the word-combination from the old times when somebody called one of his former bands 'a motley looking crew'. Well, this one was no less motley, indeed, and so after Nikki had tidied the spelling, they added umlauts - out of a bunch of reasons, the two most important being the aggressive, militant German feel it gave to the words and the bands' love for Lowenbrau beer - the 'o' in there is umlauted, too, but don't you know it yourself.

They also had a very calculated image. Calculated isn't meant to say they were faking it. But this all definitely had a concept, and the authors of this historical research believe deeply, that the concept was DENIAL. Denial of peaceful ideals of AOR, denial of masculinity that NWOBHM brought along, denial of unflashy pseudo-punk style that the dying remnants of punk scene tried to keep in LA. Thus the lifestyle of juvenile delinquents, pentagrams, make-up and bright costumes. Getting a bit ahead of our story, that worked OK!

Now they also had music. Vince's screaming vocals, Mick's guitar and Tommy's drums... and Nikki's bass and songs. His songs, indeed, dealt with a range of things American youth could relate too - street fights and fucking (not having sex or making love - it just wouldn't express the idea; with Motley Crue it's always fucking). The perfect choice.

Now that they had a name, an image and a repertoire. What was left was a sheer trifle: how to land a gig?