When Motley Crue introduced their plans to embark on a ultimate tour on Jan. 28, 2014, they positioned themselves as veteran street warriors making a unanimous resolution to exit whereas they had been nonetheless on the high of their recreation.
In hindsight, they had been really planting the seeds for a comeback tour that will dwarf each different trek of their profession.
However boy, they positive did sound convincing throughout the dramatic press convention the place they introduced their ultimate street journey, which featured assist from Alice Cooper and would finish on New 12 months’s Eve 2015 of their hometown of Los Angeles. Arriving to the press convention in a hearse and sitting behind tombstones emblazoned with their names, Motley Crue swore up and down earlier than dozens of reporters that the merely titled Ultimate Tour would really sign the top of their touring profession.
“We began speaking about it a couple of years in the past,” frontman Vince Neil mentioned. “, we did not wish to be a kind of bands that possibly have one man left in it or any person’s brother or one thing like that. We wish to exit with the 4 founding members of Motley Crue and exit on high, and go away a legacy of a band referred to as Motley Crue.”
“We wish to have some dignity,” bassist Nikki Sixx added. “We really feel there’s numerous bands on the market that do not have dignity. We began this band ‘trigger it is one thing we believed in — rock ‘n’ roll — and we wish to name it a day and be proud. It is fairly embarrassing what’s taking place with the state of music with bands on the market. I do not wish to identify names as a result of I simply do not assume it is actually my place, however you recognize there’s so many bands on the market that simply, they’re ripping you off. And we’re not gonna try this.”
READ MORE: The Greatest Music From Each Motley Crue Album
To illustrate their level, all 4 band members ended the press convention by signing a “Cessation of Touring Settlement” that will legally forestall them from touring underneath the identify Motley Crue after Dec. 31, 2015. “That is not a phrase that anybody has used earlier than,” band lawyer Doug Mark mentioned. “There has by no means been such a factor so far as I do know. It is an settlement that binds the 4 of them to not make the most of the trademark for touring sooner or later.”
The one approach for Motley Crue to nullify the Cessation of Touring Settlement can be for all 4 members to conform to return to touring — a conspicuously huge loophole that the band nonetheless insisted would haven’t any impact on their future. “If we did agree [to another tour], the best way we have set it up — together with this dialog proper now — we might have a lot egg on our face,” Sixx informed Rolling Stone. “We have now a lot pleasure that that alone would cease it.”
However all people is aware of Motley Crue by no means shied away from making a large number.
Motley Crue Shortly Reneged on Their Cessation of Touring Settlement
A humorous factor occurred within the years following Motley Crue’s alleged retirement from touring: Younger rock followers embraced them greater than ever. That was due largely to Netflix’s 2019 adaptation of their scandalous 2001 memoir The Grime. The raunchy band biopic sparked an enormous increase in streams and gross sales of Motley’s music, significantly among the many 18-to-34-year-old demographic.
How may Motley Crue, a band of the individuals, deny these new followers the chance to see them within the flesh? Deciding that egg on their face for cash in the financial institution was a worthy commerce, the rockers introduced their official return in November 2019 by blowing up their Cessation of Touring Settlement and plotting a stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett.
Watch Motley Crue Blow Up Their Cessation of Touring Contract
READ MORE: 46 Farewell Excursions: When Rock Stars Mentioned Goodbye
After two years of COVID-related delays, the Stadium Tour lastly launched in June 2022. It earned $173.5 million and bought 1.3 million tickets, changing into the most profitable trek of any of the bands’ careers. Some followers scoffed at Motley Crue’s eagerness to return on their phrase just a few years after allegedly calling it quits — however hey, at the very least they nonetheless had “all 4 founding members,” proper?
Proper?
This, too, would show negotiable in October 2022, when guitarist Mick Mars introduced his retirement from touring. Motley Crue introduced they might soldier on with John 5 in Mars’ stead, plotting one other world tour with Def Leppard for 2023. Issues bought uglier that April when Mars filed a lawsuit towards his bandmates, claiming they had been ripping him off financially and making an attempt to completely oust him from the band, whereas additionally accusing them of onstage fakery in the course of the 2022 Stadium Tour.
The lawsuit prolonged into 2024, as did Motley Crue. The band continued touring with John 5, shirking allegations of onstage fakery, insisting Mars’ crew was feeding him lies and writing new music with longtime producer Bob Rock. By all of it, they stored shaping their legacy — whether or not it is the identical legacy they envisioned throughout that fateful 2014 press convention stays to be seen.
Motley Crue Lineup Adjustments: A Full Information
The entire story of Motley Crue’s lineup adjustments.
Gallery Credit score: Matthew Wilkening
