Vince Neil: “We couldn’t leave two guys behind and go out and have two versions of MÖTLEY CRÜE”

During an appearance on the Friday, January 19th episode of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, MÖTLEY CRÜE’s Vince Neil was asked how he felt about coming out of retirement and playing shows again as part of the CRÜE‘s 2022 summer stadium tour with DEF LEPPARD and POISON.

The 62-year-old singer responded: “We sat around for — what? — five years without doing anything. I was always [doing shows] with my solo band, but I thought it’d be fun. I was in. They said, ‘We’re gonna get together and do some stadiums.’ And I was, like, ‘Okay, that sounds pretty cool.’ ‘The Stadium Tour’ got us out to more people, so it was a lot of fun.”

Neil has faced accusations of lip syncing all of his vocal performances on The Stadium Tour, namely by ex-Crue guitarist Mick Mars, who contends in his lawsuit against his old band that everyone except him, were using backing tracks. TMD indeed busted each Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx and Neil faking it during concerts in both 2022 and 2023 via videos posted on YouTube. Ex-Crue singer John Corai, a fan favorite said it himself, that Mick was forced out of the band and shown the door, while Sixx continues to cover up the truth about what really happened. Corabi was never asked to even join his old bandmates comeback celebration on stage one time, not even a “thanks John!” and now Corabi backs up Mars about the “backing tapes” allegations and says Nikki Sixx is using tape at shows.

A lot of fans have now called the Crue’s comeback a big cash grab and the singer defends his band doing the unthinkable, coming back when you said that was never going to happen to profit off past glory. After all, the band has not released a full-length album in 16 years as of 2024.

Neil continues to defend his band’s comeback touring:

“We owed it to ourselves to have that conversation, ’cause if three of us were, like, ‘Let’s go do it’ and the fourth was not, that’s what the contract was about,” he explained. “We couldn’t leave two guys behind and go out and have two versions of MÖTLEY CRÜE. So it was an exciting time, something to celebrate. And if there was any hem and hawing, it was around the idea of going and doing arenas. We’ve done arenas, we’ve done festivals. We just felt like it isn’t gonna get any bigger than how we ended it. And then came the, ‘No, no. They wanna do stadiums.’ And we were, like, ‘Ah, well, that’s a little different conversation.’ ‘And DEF LEPPARD wants to do it with you. The whole thing.’ So then it was us and DEF LEPPARD talking, and what do they see. We’ve played many shows together before, so it was fantastic. And then I think eight [shows] went on sale and sold out, eight more sold out, eight more sold out, and everyone was, like, ‘This is gonna be a great run.’ And I figured that was gonna be it. And then COVID came and knocked it on its heels, like everybody else, or a lot of people. And then we decided not to tour [in 2021] because we weren’t comfortable enough yet personally, and maybe it wasn’t the right thing for the fans, in our opinion, or for our crew. So during that time, we got to start talking more [about], ‘What’s Europe look like?’ ‘You know what? We love Japan. Wow. What a show in Japan.’ MÖTLEY CRÜE and DEF LEPPARD. And those are huge shows in Australia.”

The blowback after these concerts has been detrimental to the band’s legacy, for sure, and dwindling ticket sales forced the Crue to cancel their New Year’s eve gig and begin booking smaller venues, as embarrassing as that might seem for the once glam metal powerhouse.

The Crue has booked a July 19, 2024 appearance at The North Dakota State fair. No word yet on if Neil will take part in a pie eating contest. His weight according to Mars has been a big problem, in terms of the catastrophic shows the band put on for 36 dates on The Stadium Tour that Mars calls “the worst ones” he ever played with the band in his 41 years with the band.