Mick Mars blasts his Mötley Crüe bandmates: “I carried these bastards for years”

Former Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars has given his first interview about his decision to file a lawsuit against the band, claiming that he “carried these bastards for years” and insisting that he is “not gonna let anybody take” away from him his “part of this company” that made Mötley Crüe what it is.

The paperwork was filed in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court Thursday filed through Mars’ attorney, Edwin F. McPherson, and says the band has deliberately withheld information about the various Mötley Crüe businesses that he has a 25% ownership share in. Mars says the group has demanded he sign a severance agreement that would divest him of those and other future interests, in return for a 5% stake in Mötley Crüe’s 2023 tour, which is going on with John 5 replacing him.

Mötley Crüe issued their own statement on the suit a few hours later, calling it “unfortunate” and asserting that Mars’ inconsistencies in his guitar-playing led to his departure from the group. They also mentioned an agreement that all four members signed in 2008, which said, “In no event shall any resigning shareholder be entitled to receive any monies attributable to live performances.”

Mars also repeatedly accused bassist Nikki Sixx of “gaslighting” him about his guitar skills diminishing, although Sixx didn’t “play a single note on bass” during a recent tour, according to the guitarist. Mick claims all of Nikki’s parts were pre-recorded.

In a new interview with Variety, Mars said about his bandmates: “Those guys have been hammering on me since ’87, trying to replace me. They haven’t been able to do that, because I’m the guitar player. I helped form this band. It’s my name I came up with [the Mötley Crüe moniker], my ideas, my money that I had from a backer to start this band. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere. And then to be hearing stuff from people like Bob Daisley from Ozzy Osbourne’s band, when we were touring with them, and Carmine Appice…”.

Mars continued: “The thing that they keep pushing, for many years, is that I have a bad memory. And that’s full-blown, out-of-proportion crap. Around 2012, when they first started saying that my memory was bad and I didn’t remember the songs, I came home and saw all my doctors, because I keep myself together, because I’m an old bastard. They had all the 10th Street people there [from the band’s management] — probably about five or six people — [versus] all my doctors going: “There’s nothing wrong with him.” And now they’re still playing that game with me.

“So, no, the truth is: I want to retire from touring because of my AS [Ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory, arthritic disease that causes vertebrae to fuse]. I don’t have a problem remembering the songs. I don’t have a problem with any of that stuff. But I do have a problem with them, constantly, the whole time, telling me that I lost my memory. No. Wrong. That’s wrong. Absolutely wrong.”

Regarding his allegations in the suit that 100% of the bass parts were pre-recorded and some of the singing and drum parts were not live, Mars assured: “Yes, on this particular tour, Nikki’s bass was 100% recorded. Tommy’s [Lee] drums, to the best of my knowledge, there was a lot. I can’t say he did all of it recorded, but there were some reports from people in the audience that said, ‘Oh, I heard the drums playing, but there’s no Tommy on there. The song started, and there’s no drummer.’ Stuff like that. And actually everything that we did on that stadium tour was on tape, because if we didn’t, if we missed a part, the tape would keep rolling and you’d miss it.”