Motley Crue Lineup Changes: A Complete Guide

4 names come to thoughts whenever you consider Motley Crue: Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Vince Neil and Mick Mars. However the group has undergone a number of lineup adjustments at numerous phases of its 40-plus-year profession.

Granted, half of the band’s lineups consisted of the twice-reunited well-known unique foursome, with Sixx and Mars all the time remaining on board till the guitarist’s ongoing well being points compelled him to lastly retire from the street in 2022. The tales of how first singer Neil after which drummer Lee left and got here again to the group — and what occurred whereas they had been gone — function nice examples of the extent of chaos that circled the band for a lot of its profession.

After a quick march to the highest and a decade-long reign as arduous rock’s most notorious unhealthy boys, Motley Crue discovered simply how fickle mainstream music followers may very well be once they fired Neil and experimented with heavier and extra serious-minded music on 1994’s Motley Crue. Bringing Neil again however persevering with to experiment with new sounds on 1997’s Technology Swine did not work significantly better.

So the band obtained again to fundamentals on 2000’s New Tattoo. Effectively, three of them, anyway. Lee determined he was sick of taking part in the identical sort of music time and again, so he cut up. 5 years later, all of them realized as soon as and for all that they had been happier collectively. A decade after that, they introduced their retirement and made a giant present of signing a “legally binding” contract to forestall any future reunions. 4 years later, in 2019, they actually blew up that contract and reunited for a profitable stadium tour that was delayed by the pandemic for 2 years. As soon as that was concluded, Mars was lastly compelled to name it a profession.

That is the brief model. You possibly can learn the whole historical past of Motley Crue’s lineup adjustments — together with the 4 drummers who briefly stuffed in after numerous Lee accidents — beneath.