A shiny new toy — specifically a Dolby Atmos for his house studio in Los Angeles — has revived Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee‘s curiosity in a few of his previous musical playthings.
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On Friday (Might 22), Lee will launch Tommyland Rides Once more, a freshly refurbished and expanded remedy of 2005’s Tommyland: The Trip, his second solo album after his short-lived facet venture Strategies of Mayhem. Full of friends — together with Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden, Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter, Sum 41′ Deryck Whibley, Dave Navarro of Jane’s Habit, Andrew McMahon (One thing Company, Jack’s Model), Gas’s Carl Bell and others — the 12-song set peaked at No. 62 on the Billboard 200 and hit the Scorching 100 with the Butch Walker collaboration “Good Occasions,” which was the theme for that 12 months’s NBC/VH1 actuality collection Tommy Lee Goes to Faculty.
“A pair years in the past, my youngsters have been tripping out and like, ‘Dad, you gotta re-release this,’ ’trigger it was 20 years because it got here out,” Lee tells Billboard by way of Zoom. “I didn’t actually assume a lot of it, however then the studio received performed being constructed and I used to be like, ‘I wanna remix a few of my stuff’ — one being Tommyland: The Trip, for its anniversary.
“So I realized the method, and when you hear Dolby Atmos, it’s insane. I’ll by no means take heed to common stereo once more. And now we’re taking place the rabbit gap and I’m remixing something.”
On the time of its launch, and with its visitor record, Tommyland: The Trip was a type of snapshot of rock music circa 2005. Extra within the realm of Lee’s 2002 solo debut By no means a Boring Second than Motley Crue’s heavy glam rock or the commercial roots of Strategies of Mayhem, Tommyland was decidedly extra melodic and centered on songcraft, even downright light in spots. “At any time when I do one thing solo, with out Motley Crue, I’m like just a little child in a sandbox,” Lee explains. “It’s simply you, and also you type of have the liberty to do no matter it’s that’s blowing your skirt up.
“The duvet artwork type of says all of it; it’s principally a, like, curler coaster (monitor) going into my ear, into my f***in’ loopy, eclectic musical types thoughts, and that’s what it’s all the time been.”
Along with the brand new combine, Tommyland Rides Once more provides one other monitor, “Silly World” with Chad Tepper, an uncharacteristically topical music that Lee wrote in the course of the Covid pandemic. “I discovered a bunch of stuff,” Lee says, “and the second I heard it I used to be, ‘I gotta do that. The timing couldn’t be higher,’ simply due to the content material. It’s actually about how ridiculously silly the world we dwell in has change into. Issues have gotten even crazier since (he wrote it), and I used to be like, ‘I’m rolling with this. That is meant to be, ’trigger shit’s fairly silly proper now.
“I imply, no person is aware of what’s actual anymore, whether or not it’s {a photograph} or a video, a political assertion or…simply the whole lot. No person is aware of if something is actual, and that’s a very f***in’ silly place for us all to be in.”
As excited as he’s to current the newly blended Tommyland to the world — he recommends “Hi there Once more” and the helicopter impact on “Making an attempt To Be Me” — Lee acknowledges that rock music, and the trade basically, was “in a really totally different place” when the album first got here out.
“Again then there was house for issues, for music and movies to come back out and be heard and seen and paid consideration to,” he says. “Now…Spotify releases, what, a half one million songs a day? Extra? Who the f*** is listening to that? We’re f***ing inundated with content material, not solely music however all the humanities. So how does somebody reduce by all the static to truly discover one thing that they love?” However, Lee notes, he’s nonetheless impressed to maintain creating amidst these challenges.
“It does encourage me to make issues actually particular in order that they do stand proud of the static,” he explains. “There’s a lot noise on the market that it conjures up me to be higher. Nevertheless it additionally bums me out as a result of we’re the place we’re. You may’t actually undo it. So it’s undoubtedly extra for me, one hundred pc.”
Lee did benefit from the journey down reminiscence lane in revisiting Tommyland for its new version. “It nonetheless means what it meant to be then,” he says, together with the presence of his numerous friends. The Nick Carter look raised eyebrows on the time, however Lee maintains that it was as pure as having any of the rockers on the set.
“It wasn’t like I sat round saying, ‘Who do I need to collaborate with?’ It simply type of occurred monitor by monitor,” he recollects. He met the Backstreet Boy when each have been featured on an episode of MTV’s Punk’d, “and we turned actually, actually cool buddies. I used to be engaged on this tune (‘Say Goodbye’) round that point and we have been at my home and I performed it for Nick, and he simply began singing and I used to be like, ‘Oh, shit, what are you doing for the following couple days, bud?’ He’s such a cool man, such an unbelievable voice. I used to be like, ‘Let’s do it. I’m in all probability gonna hear a bunch of flak from some steel heads, however f*** them!’”
As Tommyland Rides Once more comes out, Lee is remixing extra of his catalog, together with his different solo albums and his Strategies of Mayhem releases. He’s eyeballing some brand-new materials for 2027 and likewise “wouldn’t thoughts having a crack” at remixing some Motley Crue in Dolby Atmos.
Earlier than all that, nonetheless, he’ll be on the street with the Crue for a The Return of the Carnival of Sins! summer season tour, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of that live performance tour and the band’s forty fifth anniversary. The 33-date largely amphitheater trek, which additionally contains Tesla and Excessive, begins July 17 close to Pittsburgh and wraps Sept. 25 in Ridgefield, Wash.
“It’s gonna be enjoyable,” Lee predicts. “The final run we did was all stadiums, which was f***ing phenomenal. However I actually do love an excellent outside amphitheater, shed vibe. That’s all the time enjoyable in the summertime.” Motley Crue additionally polled followers for setlist options, which he says “made us return and mud off 4 or 5 tunes that we haven’t performed in a very long time, so I believe the followers are gonna be pumped.” He declined to call what they’re, nonetheless.
The group has additionally launched some new songs lately — “Canines of Warfare,” “Cancelled” and a canopy of the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Struggle For Your Proper (to Get together)” — however Lee says Crueheads should be affected person for extra. “We’re all the time writing, and we do have some stuff kicking round,” he notes, “however proper now the one factor in entrance of us goes out to do these summer season dates. However after that I believe it’s protected to say you’ll in all probability be listening to some new stuff in ’27.”
