Nikki Sixx breaks silence on Mick Mars’s legal battle with Mötley Crüe

Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx discussed Mick Mars’ continuing legal dispute with the band in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, as reported from blabbermouth.net. The guitarist claimed that the band was excluding him after he announced his retirement from touring. When Mars said in October 2022 that he would no longer be performing with Mötley Crüe due to deteriorating health, he insisted that he would still be a part of the band, with John 5 filling in for him. However, he sued Mötley Crüe in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County just six months later, alleging that the other members of Crüe attempted to have him removed as a major shareholder in the group’s corporation and business assets at a shareholders’ meeting.

[Mick] came to us and said, health-wise, he couldn’t fulfill his contract, and we let him out of the deal. Then he sued us because he just said that he can’t tour. We were like, ‘Well, if you can’t tour, you can’t tour.’ I will probably come to that too someday.

In his lawsuit, Sixx also addressed Mars’s claim that Nikki “did not play a single note on bass during the entire U.S. tour” and that the guitarist was the only member of the band to perform live during Mötley Crüe’s 2022 The Stadium Tour.

Anything we enhance the shows with, we actually played. If there are background vocals with my background vocals, and we have background singers to make it sound more like the record. That does not mean we’re not singing.

The fact of the matter is that Mötley always plays live. Even Mars’s expert witness in the litigation, who Mars hired and who reviewed hours of footage, agreed and said that the band played live while performing. He disputed Mars’s own claims. Sasha Frid, Mötley Crüe’s attorney

Saying he played in a band that didn’t play, it’s a betrayal to the band who saved his life. People say things like, ‘Well, if you guys are really playing, then I need isolated tracks from band rehearsal.’ … It’s ludicrous.