Motley Crue to Release Single on Rock Band Game

`Rock Band` went on sale last November, and now has more than 80 tracks available for download in addition to the 58 tracks in the original.

In a nod to the ascendancy of video games, rock 'n' roll bad boys Motley Crue will become the first group to release a new single through Rock Band, said the developer of the wildly popular game.

"Saints of Los Angeles," the first single from the group's upcoming album, will be available for download for 99 cents beginning Tuesday via Microsoft Corp's Xbox Live Marketplace and Thursday via Sony Corp's PlayStation store, said Viacom Inc's MTV Games.

In "Rock Band", gamers play along to songs with controllers shaped like a guitar, drum set, or microphone. The game is sold for about $170 for consoles such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It competes with the similarly popular "Guitar Hero" series, made by Activision Inc.

Their success has underscored the potential of video games as a new source of revenue for a music industry grappling with falling CD sales.

"Rock Band" went on sale last November, and now has more than 80 tracks available for download in addition to the 58 tracks in the original game. MTV Games said players have bought more than 6 million downloadable songs for Rock Band. Tunes range from classics by the likes of the Who and the Rolling Stones to more-contemporary fare from the Killers and Fall Out Boy.

Details of Motley Crue's album are expected to be announced during a news conference in Hollywood Tuesday.

The hard-living metal band, which rose to prominence during the glam-metal era in the late-1980s, is famed for such tunes as "Dr. Feelgood" and "Shout at the Devil."

From Javno.com

Nikki Sixx

Nikki Sixx (born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna, Jr. December 11, 1958 in San Jose, California) is an American bassist, author, photographer, and the main songwriter for the rock band Mötley Crüe. He has also played bass for glam metal band London, the experimental band 58, the hard rock band Brides of Destruction, and SixxA.M.

Sixx was born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna on December 11, 1958 in San Jose, California.[1] He was raised by his single mother, Deana Richards, and her abusive boyfriend, after his father and namesake, Frank Ferrana abandoned the family. When he was six, he and his mother moved to New Mexico for a short time, after which they moved to Jerome, Idaho, with his grandparents. The family moved several more times, to El Paso, Texas, then to Anthony, New Mexico, back to El Paso, and then returned to Jerome.

While living in Idaho, Sixx became a teenage vandal, breaking into neighbors' homes, shoplifting, a drug addict and being expelled from school for selling drugs.[2] His grandparents sent him to live with his mother, who had moved to Seattle. He lived there for a short time, and learned how to play the bass guitar after buying his first instrument with money made from selling a guitar he stole from a guitar shop that he stopped by while waiting for a bus.

At the age of 17, he struck out on his own, moving to Los Angeles and working at jobs at a liquor store and selling vacuums over the phone while he auditioned for bands. He auditioned for the band Sister, with Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P. before joining London, a local glam outfit whose lineup saw numerous changes and whose major claim to fame was that its singer, Nigel Benjamin, had sung with a late version of Mott the Hoople. Nikki soon left the band, convinced that his ideas for world domination would never come to fruition with Dane Rage and Lizzie Grey as his partners in crime.

From Amazines.com

Mick Mars

Mick Mars (born Robert Alan Deal,^[1] May 4, 1951,^[2] in Terre Haute, Indiana^[1]) is the lead guitarist for heavy metal/glam metal band Mötley Crüe.

After his family relocated from Indiana to California, Deal dropped out of high school and began playing guitar in a series of unsuccessful blues based rock bands throughout the seventies, taking on menial day jobs to make ends meet. After nearly a decade of frustration with the California music scene, the 30 year-old Deal reinvented himself, changing his stage name to Mick Mars and dying his hair jet black, hoping for a fresh start. In April of 1981 he put in a want-ad in the Los Angeles "Recycler" newspaper describing himself as a "Loud, rude, and aggressive guitar player". Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee contacted him and the three decided to form a band together. Upon Mick's prodding, they persuaded local Rock Candy singer/frontman Vince Neil to hop on board. It was Mars' suggestion that the band be called Mötley Crüe, a name that had stuck in Mars' head from his days as a member of a band called White Horse, who had once considered the name for their own use.

Unlike many of the hard rock/heavy metal guitarists of his era, Mars' guitar style is steeped in the blues tradition. He employs frequent use of a metal slide in his soloing and takes on both the rhythm and lead guitar duties of the band. In the studio and live, Mars frequently tunes his guitar down to D (rather than the standard E) to get a stronger and crunchier rhythm sound. The altered tuning also increases string slack to enable his characteristic hammer-on trills, pitch bending, and pinch harmonics during soloing. Mars has introduced the pedal steel guitar to many of Mötley Crüe's later recordings and live sets.

For the sum of his career with Mötley Crüe, Mars has created the aura of being a somewhat mysterious figure, letting the other members of the band speak for him in public and in print, despite being the eldest and most articulate member of the band. In what public interviews he has conducted, Mars often comes off as a very reserved and somewhat quiet individual, though not shy by any means. A home video made in 1984 and posted on the web by one of his former White Horse bandmates reveals Mars to be a rather jovial, wisecracking, down-to-Earth person-- one who obviously saw his fair share of adversity during his long rise to the top.

From Amazines.com

Tommy Lee

Tommy Lee (born Thomas Lee Bass; October 3, 1962) is an American musician. He is known as the drummer for heavy metal band Mötley Crüe and ex husband of actress Pamela Anderson.

Lee was born in Athens, Greece. His mother, Vassiliki "Voula" Papadimitriou, was Miss Greece in 1957, and his father, David Lee Thomas Bass, was a US Army serviceman of Welsh descent.^[1] He has one younger sister, Athena Kottak (b. 1964), who is currently the drummer of Kottak. His family moved to California a year after his birth. Lee received his first drum when he was four. However he received his first real drum kit when he was a teenager. At that time, he was listening to Kiss, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Judas Priest. After transferring from South Hills High School; he joined the marching band at Royal Oak High School in Covina, California, but dropped out of school in his senior year to focus on his musical career. His first successful band Suite 19 played the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles during the late 70s. At this time he met future bandmate, Nikki Sixx. Casually, Sixx was forming a theatrical band that would specialize in anthemic heavy metal, and was impressed by Lee's drumming. Sixx, Lee and Leon started jamming together, but Leon decided not to continue. At this time, he changed his name to Tommy Lee and earned the nickname "T-bone" from Sixx. He got this nickname due to his tall 6ft 2 ½ inch (189cm) skinny physique. Shortly afterwards, guitarist Mick Mars joined the band. Mars recommended a singer Tommy had met while in high school, Vince Neil, who soon joined the group, and the famous Mötley Crüe was formed.

Mötley Crüe quickly built a strong fan base and they released their debut album, Too Fast for Love in 1981, on their own independent label (Leathür Records). Elektra Records decided to sign the band shortly thereafter, reissuing their debut in 1982. The band then began a string of hit releases throughout the decade -- 1983's Shout at the Devil, 1985's Theatre of Pain, 1987's Girls, Girls, Girls, and 1989's Dr. Feelgood -- establishing the quartet as one of the biggest hard rock/metal bands of the '80s. During this time, Lee used several memorable gimmicks during his drum solo at concerts, such as having his entire kit revolving and spinning, or having the entire kit float above the crowd while he continued to play. He also was legendary for mooning the crowd at nearly every show. The band was known for their decadent behavior both on and off the stage, often dabbling in excessive amounts of hard drugs, such as cocaine, heroin and pills and drinking in excess. In 2004, Lee reunited with the original Mötley Crüe line-up to release the double-disc album of hits entitled Red, White & Crüe launched a monumental reunion tour to support it, The Red, White & Crüe Tour 2005 Better Live Than Dead, the band's first in six years. They also finished the year number 8 on the top concert money earners list. They played 81 shows and grossed $33 million US (Billboard Boxscore). This figure did not include a tour of Australia in December 2005. In 2005, Lee appeared in the claymation film Disaster!

Tommy Lee decided to leave Mötley Crüe during his stay in jail in 1998, and stuck to his promise after the completion of the Crüe's Greatest Hits tour in 1999. With the popularity of rap metal, Lee formed a band called Methods of Mayhem. The band released a self-titled album the same year and toured in support of it. Although Lee distanced himself from Mötley Crüe after splitting, he agreed to take part in their 2001 autobiography, The Dirt. In addition to Mötley Crüe and Methods of Mayhem, Lee has made guest appearances on albums by other artists, such as Stuart Hamm, Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie. He also contributed a song, "Planet Boom" (originally on Mötley Crüe's Quaternary EP) to the soundtrack of then-wife Pamela Anderson's 1996 movie, Barb Wire, and produced an album for the pre-Goldfinger project from John Feldmann and Simon Williams, the Electric Love Hogs. Lee parted ways with Methods of Mayhem partner Tilo and began recording with members of Incubus. He then released his first solo album. The album, 2002's Never a Dull Moment, has tones of rap metal and electronica. The song "Blue" features guest vocalist Rodleen Getsic (the credits read "Rolleen"). In August of 2002, Tommy Lee and his solo band joined Ozzfest, mainstage. He formed a new band called Rock Star Supernova with Jason Newsted (Voivod, ex-Metallica) and Gilby Clarke (ex-Guns N' Roses). The 2006 season of Rock Star selected Lukas Rossi as the lead singer

for Supernova. Dilana, the runner-up, accepted an offer to go on tour with Supernova along with assistance in producing an album of her own. Rock Star Supernova released their debut album on November 21st, 2006.

From Amazines.com

Vince Neil

Vincent Neil Wharton (born February 8, 1961) is the lead singer for American glam metal band Mötley Crüe.

Neil was born in Hollywood, California to Odie and Shirley Wharton. During the 1960s, his family moved around Southern California from Inglewood to Watts, before finally settling in Compton. Growing up in Compton was sometimes tough; Neil once had his face slashed by a gang member. Neil eventually got in trouble at school for fighting and drug use, and he was subsequently expelled. As well as having an interest in music while a teenager, Neil was also interested in surfing, baseball, football, wrestling, tennis, cricket, and golf.

Neil was discovered while performing with his band, Rockandi (pronounced Rock-Candy) in 1980, and joined Mötley Crüe in 1981. Mötley Crüe released its first album, Too Fast for Love the same year. In 1983, Mötley Crüe released Shout at the Devil, a blockbuster success that established the band as one of the biggest acts of the 1980s.

In 1985, Neil regrouped with Mötley Crüe to record Theatre of Pain. The band subsequently recorded the hugely successful Girls, Girls, Girls (1987). The band then released their highest-selling album, Dr. Feelgood, in 1989 after going through drug rehabilitation. The band's stint in rehab was due to bassist Nikki Sixx's overdose on heroin in December 1987. Sixx was revived by two adrenaline shots to the heart, but the band's management nevertheless cancelled an upcoming European tour and insisted that all members of the group go to drug rehabilitation with the admonition "If you guys go to Europe, at least one of you will be coming back in a bodybag."

From Amazines.com

heavy metal rock group

Mötley Crüe's loud, irreverent, and hard-driving heavy metal music has drawn sneers from rock critics and nothing short of adulation from millions of teenaged fans. The songs, both in sound and substance, are precisely calculated to echo the aggressions and sexual fantasies of alienated younger Americans—and are just as precisely calculated to disturb parents and other adult authority figures. The members of Motley Crue do more than just preach a musical ethic of parties, fast women, and immediate self-satisfaction, they live those values from day to day, a phenomenon that is no small part of their appeal.

As David Handelman noted in Rolling Stone, heavy metal of the Motley Crue variety "has caught on as a sort of Lite punk: it smells and tastes like rebellion but without that political aftertaste. Its main selling points are that adults find it unlistenable, preachers call it blasphemous, and Tipper Gore blushes reading the lyrics. Fans at Crue concerts say they like the group because the music is hard and fast, but they also like the band's reckless hedonism, which they read about in the metal fanzines."

That hedonism has become legend in less than six years: two Crue members, Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx have married starlets, singer Vince Neil was convicted of felony manslaughter for a drunk driving accident, and Sixx was a heroin addict during much of the band's early days. Handelman claims that the four rockers in Motley Crue "have continued to indulge in every conceivable rock & roll vice," and have celebrated their lifestyles in ear-splitting concerts with fireworks and other dazzling pyrotechnics. "I've always thought of us as the psychiatrists of rock & roll," Sixx told Rolling Stone, "because the kids come to see us get all this anxiety and pent-up aggression out. That hour and a half is theirs. No one can take it away. No parent can tell them to turn it down."

All four members of Motley Crue are high school drop-outs who displayed rebellious tendencies in early youth. They met in California in the early 1980s after each had worked some time in various heavy metal club bands. Nikki Sixx was the founder of the group, originally called Christmas, but the band's name comes from the imagination of guitarist Mick Mars. Handelman recounts that Sixx and Tommy Lee recruited Mars after seeing his ad: "LOUD, RUDE, AGGRESSIVE GUITARIST AVAILABLE." Handelman quotes Lee as saying, "We didn't even have to hear him play. We went, This is the guy—he's disgusting.'" The band was rounded out with singer Vince Neil, whose onstage theatrics were more valuable than his vocal prowess.

By 1983 Mötley Crüe was a favorite new band among the heavy metal aficionados. Handelman notes that Crüe "has consumed more than 750 bottles of Jack Daniel's in its quest for musical excellence." In 1983 Sixx was quoted as saying: "We could just fall apart tomorrow or go straight to the top, because we're such extremists as personalities. It's like riding a roller coaster twenty-four hours a day. Every time you turn around, somebody's in jail or 100,000 kids are buying our album."

As with many heavy metal bands of the 1980s, Motley Crüe was helped immensely by the advent of MTV (Music Television). The band's graphic music videos delighted teens and enraged would-be adult censors such as Tipper Gore, wife of congressman Albert Gore. The adult antipathy to Crüe's style only intensified the appeal for some teens; what surprised Crüe, and many other observers, was the age of the audience. Fan letters from ten- and eleven-year-olds were not uncommon, and the average age of a Motley Crüe fan was fifteen—albeit a rather sophisticated fifteen.

"We play and write for the kids," Sixx told Rolling Stone.

"We've never had peer acceptance. They couldn't see past the costumes. . . . Kid's don't buy Whitney Houston. People that buy one record a year buy that. In the golden age of rock it was all kids playing for kids. Now it's that again." Neil added: "We don't write songs to be messages. . . . When I was younger, even now, I don't listen to the words. If I like the melody, I like the song." Sixx claimed: "I'm not a parent. I don't want to tell kids what to do."

Admittedly, Mötley Crüe music is not strong on lyrics. Most songs deal with the band, touring, male exploits with buddies or women, and parties. The tunes are classic hard rock, with insistent drum beat and catchy guitar riffs. What has made Mötley Crüe famous, however, is its road show—ninety minutes of special effects, racy leather clothing, and macho antics, all delivered at the peak of amplification. "We try to go overboard with the stage show," Neil told Rolling Stone, "so the kids get their money's worth. I'd be bummed if I went to a concert and they just stood there and played. That's not my idea of show business." Handelman comments that the music "stirs the kids up only to dump them back in the malls, as exhausted and aimless as ever."

Motley Crue has managed to maintain its original personnel despite occasional run-ins with the law and infrequent stays in substance abuse rehabilitation clinics. Marriages and drinking or drug problems are kept somewhat quiet, as they're seen to conflict with the band's wild and hedonistic image. In Esquire magazine, Bob Greene polled some Crue fans for ideas on the source of the group's attraction. One nineteen-year-old girl replied: "I think they're all gorgeous. When I see them, I just naturally think of leather and whips and chains. I think that means that they're aggressive. I happen to love that image; it's a neat image. I think it's that kind of aggressiveness that a woman is always looking for." A thirteen-year-old female fan put it even more succinctly. "They're really good-looking," she said. "Good and mean. They just look like guys who are out to party and have a good time."

From enotes.com

biography

The poster boys for Eighties hair metal, Mötley Crüe parlayed whip-lash hard-rock songs, melodic power ballads and a hedonistic image into platinum-level heavy-metal superstardom, topping the charts with Dr. Feelgood (Number One, 1989) and coming close with Theatre of Pain (Number Six, 1985), Girls, Girls Girls (Number Two, 1987) and a greatest-hits collection, Decade of Decadence — '81-'91 (Number 2, 1991).

Nikki Sixx was a member of a successful L.A. metal band called London when he decided to form his own band. Tommy Lee came aboard as drummer, and they decided to call themselves Christmas. Guitarist Mick Mars was discovered through a classified ad reading, "Loud Rude Aggressive Guitarist Available." Vocalist Vince Neil was plucked from a Cheap Trick cover band. Mars came up with the new, strangely umlauted name. Their eponymous, independently released debut was picked up by Elektra Records and retitled Too Fast for Love (Number 77, 1983).

Shout at the Devil (Number 17, 1983), with its canny hints of Satanism, followed, but the band did not catch on in a big way until Theatre of Pain. Fueled by a cover of Brownsville Station's 1974 hit "Smokin' in the Boy's Room" (Number 16, 1985) and the power ballad "Home Sweet Home" (Number 89, 1985), the album sold more than two million copies.

For all the album sales, Crüe also was known as an extravagant live band, a scrappier Van Halen doing a rock version of a Vegas review, with elaborate sets and lighting, revolving drum platforms, pyrotechnics and dancing girls. Still, subsequent albums Girls, Girls, Girls and Dr. Feelgood continued the band's streak of platinum discs, selling two million and four million copies, respectively. In addition to its selection of greatest hits, Decade of Decadence included new material, such as a hard-rock cover version of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K."

Off stage, Mötley Crüe lived the rock & roll lifestyle to its fullest, with celebrity marriages — Tommy Lee to actress Heather Locklear, from 1986 to 1994, then to Baywatch bombshell Pamela Anderson from 1995 to 1998; Nikki Sixx to former Prince protégée Vanity in 1987 — substance abuse and scrapes with the law. Sixx spent more than a year addicted to heroin. In 1986 Neil was convicted of vehicular manslaughter after a drunken car accident two years earlier resulted in the death of Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley. Neil served twenty days in jail, performed 200 hours of community service and was assessed $2.6 million in damages.

After the band replaced Neil with singer John Corabi in 1992, Neil filed a $5 million wrongful termination suit and released a couple of solo albums, Exposed (Number 13, 1993) and the weak-selling Carved in Stone (1995). Mötley Crüe (Number Seven, 1994), the band's first album without Neil, produced two songs that charted on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks, "Hooligan's Holiday" (Number Ten, 1994) and Misunderstood (Number 24, 1994). The band fired Corabi two years later to bring Neil back on for a reunion of the original lineup. The resulting album, Generation Swine (Number Four, 1997) attempted to cash in on the alternative-rock craze, with songs exploring grunge and industrial metal, but despite the band's carbon-copy re-recording of an old hit, re-titled "Shout at the Devil '97," the album quickly fell off the chart.

Greatest Hits (Number 20, 1998) and Live Entertainment or Death (Number 33, 1999) continued the Crüe's commercial skid. Shortly after completing the subsequent tour, drummer Lee spent four months in jail for assaulting his then-wife, Anderson. Upon being released, Lee left the band and formed the rap-metal band Methods of Mayhem, in which he played guitar and sang. Mötley Crüe replaced Lee with former Ozzy Osbourne drummer Randy Castillo and returned to its original hard rock formula for its final album, New Tattoo (Number 41, 2000). Castillo died of cancer two years later. The band went on a recording hiatus for five years but its members, appearing on reality shows and in gossip columns, never left the public eye. In 2005, the Cr ü e hit the road for a reunion tour that coincided with another greatest-hits compilation, Red, White & Crüe (Number Six, 2005), that included three new tracks, "If I Die Tomorrow" – penned by pop-punkers Simple Plan - (Number Four, Mainstream Rock, 2005), "Sick Love Song" and a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man."

All four members of Mötley Crüe convened in 2008 to record Saints of Los Angeles, a musical autobiographical companion to the band's 2001 tell-all book, The Dirt. A planned movie stalled in the production stages. The title track holds the honor of being the first single to be debuted in the influential Rock Band video game series, and the album debuted at Number Four.

From Rolling Stone.com