Chronological Crue - The History of Motley Crue in 1982

1/82
Vince Neil is arrested at the Troubadour after punching out a female patron, who takes offence at the official US Marines uniform he is wearing.

29/1/82
An international distribution deal is signed with Greenworld Records Ltd, which helps spread the Crüe’s debut album throughout the United States and to the UK, where it receives rave reviews. This six-page contract grants Greenworld the right to license, manufacture, advertise, distribute and sell the Too Fast For Love album from their Torrance, California headquarters. Twenty thousand copies of a third pressing of Too Fast For Love are manufactured and distributed, this time with red lettering on the cover and a black label on the vinyl. Greenworld later goes bankrupt in 1986 but spawns Enigma Records.

The band and their manager are interviewed live at midnight on the top-rated Los Angeles rock radio station 95.5 KLOS with Joe Benson.

Record store employee Vicky Hamilton works out a management consulting role with Mötley's manager Allan Coffman, so she starts doing display merchandising for the album, putting up posters advertising the album in all the record stores around town.

11/2/82
As Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil leave the Rainbow with girlfriends Lita Ford and Beth Lynn, some bikers start pushing their girlfriends around after making advances on them. Displeased with the treatment handed out to his girlfriend, Nikki removes a chain from his waist and wields it around in the air during the fight that begins in the carpark between the Rainbow and The Roxy. Two undercover police officers arrive, one of them grabbing Nikki’s hand as he reaches for his chain, and biting it to the bone. Not realising it is a cop, Nikki retaliates by hitting him across the face with his chain until the cop pulls his gun on him to arrest him. They hit Nikki in the face with their clubs seven times, fracturing a cheekbone and giving him a black eye in the process. Vince runs off as Nikki is driven to the West Hollywood Police Station, but the cops stop in an alley on the way and repeatedly kick Vince in the stomach and face. Charged with assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon, the police tell Nikki they will send him to state prison for five years, with no parole or probation. The incident is dubbed the sequel to Riot on Sunset Strip.

12/2/82
Nikki spends the night in jail before Lita hocks her Firebird TransAm for one thousand dollars and gives the money to the cops, who drop the charges. They walk the three miles back from the police lock-up to The Mötley House in time for their show at the Whisky. Nikki only has to wear black eye makeup on one eye for a while. 

The concert is the first for Nikki’s new seventeen-and-a-half-year-old bass tech Tim Luzzi, as they play the Whisky three nights in a row.

2/82
Mötley continues to sell out shows at the Troubadour, the Whisky and the Country Club. Crüe gloves are now available through mail-order in the U.S. as record stores continue to sell out of their debut album. One store even has a painting of Vince on the wall outside. Mötley invites lots of record companies to shows, but are shown no interest, even though they have sold thousands of albums within four months.

British rock magazine Kerrang! publishes the first magazine photo of a Mötley Crüe member: a full-page, full-colour picture of Vince. The Crüe is rumoured to tour the U.K. late in March and early April as the support act for Wishbone Ash but it never eventuates. Another rumour in the press says the Crüe will perform a co-headlining tour with Anvil in August, including playing the Reading Festival but it also does not eventuate.

12/3/82
The Los Angeles Department of Health Services issues an official notice of violation to Nikki Sixx for the non-removal of rubbish from The Mötley House.

3/82
At The Mötley House, Nikki writes lyrics for a song called Knock ‘Em Dead Kid about his recent run-in with the Los Angeles Police outside the Rainbow. The following morning, an eviction notice is served by a lawyer, bringing The Mötley House days to an end after nine months of complete mayhem. Nikki moves into Lita Ford’s residence at Apartment 6, 4859 Coldwater Canyon, Sherman Oaks, CA, while Vince moves into Beth’s apartment one block east. Mick is still living with his girlfriend Linda in Redondo Beach.

Tommy Lee moves into a small house with a pool in the backyard with his new Canadian stripper girlfriend and Penthouse Pet named Candice Starrek, having recently dumped Lisa for her. They met when Tommy was helping a stripper friend of Nikki’s to move into Candice’s house. Candice was seeing Greg Guiffria from the band Angel at the time, who also lived at the house. Tommy asked Candice to come and see him play with Mötley at the Whisky A Go-Go about three weeks ago and they have been seeing each other since.

Tommy and Vince give new band Metallica a major break, as they help them land a support performance with Saxon at the Whisky for their second gig. They introduce Metallica’s bass player Ron McGovney to the Whisky’s booking agent, who locks in their performance after hearing a demo tape.

8/4/82
Mötley plays a sold-out show at the three-and-a-half-thousand-seat capacity Santa Monica Civic, which is produced by racing car promoter Steve Quercio, who has seen them play the Whisky and wanted to help get them to the next level. The evening is compered by Elvira and Mötley shares the stage with a couple of Funny Cars owned by John Force. As they play, they set fire to various instruments, set off thirty two red smoke bombs, and debut their new song Knock 'Em Dead Kid. The performance and number of ticket sales for a local Hollywood club band finally attracts the attention of record labels and the event becomes a turning point for the Crüe.

4/82
Tom Zutaut, a sales assistant at Elektra Records, heads out for a bite to eat at a coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard one night, when he sees a huge crowd of kids trying to get into the Whisky a Go-Go, underneath a marquee that says “Mötley Crüe Sold Out.” He then notices a Mötley display in the shop window of record store Licorice Pizza on the corner, which was created by Vicky Hamilton and featured mannequin parts holding their album cover, along with tarot cards, whips, chains, handcuffs, and a pair of dirty female underpants from Vince that were left by a girl he was with the night before. Telling the club's owner Mario Maglieri at the door that he is an A&R representative for Elektra, Zutaut makes his way inside the Whisky and is impressed by the show in front of five hundred punters. He talks with Allan Coffman afterwards about having the band come into Elektra for a meeting, who refers him onto their distributor, Greenworld. Visiting their booth at a local trade show, Greenworld’s Alan Niven puts Zutaut back in touch with Allan Coffman. After first rejecting Zutaut’s request to sign the band, Elektra chairman, Joe Smith agrees to allow him to sign the band, so he wines and dines the band on his company expense account until they are about to sign.

7/5/82
Virgin Records staff sees a great show at Glendale Civic Centre billed as "An evening of thrills and chills with the original boys of metal madness: Mötley Crüe" and offers to sign them. The band receives a performance fee of four thousand dollars for the night’s show. Virgin then brings a briefcase filled with ten thousand dollars as a cash advance on a one hundred thousand dollar deal to a meeting with the band, and tells them all about how their label operates out of England.

Wearing a Crüe construction hat, Vince now starts to cuts the head off mannequins on stage with a chainsaw during Piece Of Your Action, which is the first track Mick plays slide guitar on.

13/5/82
W.A.S.P. headlines a Friday the 13th concert at Perkins Palace in Pasadena with Ratt and Armored Saint in support, which is promoted by Gina Zamparelli. Nikki is a special guest and joins W.A.S.P. on stage to play I Wanna Be Somebody.

5/82
Mick gets his first tattoo: a small scorpion design on his right hand inked by Robert Benedetti at Sunset Strip Tattoo. It is later detailed further by Sunset Strip’s Greg James. As Mick now starts to become well known in the Crüe, Michelle Meyers, the last vocalist in his former band Whitehorse who used the stage name Micki Marz, tries to sue him for stealing her ‘thunder’, as she is receiving favourable reviews for her performances around Los Angeles in a Janis Joplin tribute band. The meteoric rise of the Crüe overwhelms her complaint and she bitterly leaves the music industry.

Tom Zutaut puts a comparable offer on the table to that of Virgin Records. The band says they will accept the deal from the local Los Angeles base of Elektra, over the Virgin offer of about twenty five thousand dollars more. A celebration at Mexican Restaurant Casa Cugats follows, where band manager Allan Coffman gets drunk and starts thinking he’s back in Vietnam. After ripping a payphone off the wall, Tom Zutaut drives him back to his hotel room, but not before he rolls out of the car in the middle of the intersection of La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevard, crawling on his belly like a soldier with a rifle. Zutaut calls Mick the Purple People Eater as he says he has a purple aura.

20/5/82
Mötley Crüe signs their record deal with Elektra Records; a 41-page agreement between Elektra Records and the four band members that details the terms and condition related to their new seven-year engagement. A further four-page Royalty and Advance Agreement between Elektra and the band members is also signed as an agreement to the splits, royalties and advances for the re-release of Too Fast For Love, as well as the next five albums to which the band contractually obligates itself. An advance cheque for $28,500 is received as part of the execution payment for the agreement. This follows the signing of an eleven-page agreement between Greenworld and Elektra Records to transfer the Too Fast For Love license from Greenworld to Elektra Records.

They celebrate with a dinner at Benihana on La Cienega Boulevard. After drinking the heaviest throughout the night, Vince keeps biting and cracking his margarita glass as he hassles the waitress. The manager kicks them out while the waitress calls the police.

Annoyed that Zutaut had gone over his head to sign the band, Elektra’s head of A&R, Kenny Buttice, convinces the label that the Too Fast For Love album needs to be remixed before they release it, so it is up to radio standards. Roy Thomas Baker is chosen to perform the work; he has previously produced classic albums with Journey, Foreigner, the Cars and Queen. Vince re-records his vocals and the whole album is re-mixed at RTB’s house in the hills on Sunset Drive. Roy throws huge parties full of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, which Mötley takes a liking to.

With his limited experience in the music industry, Crüe manager Allan Coffman feels he needs further assistance to take the band to the next level. Elektra Records also places pressure on him, as they now want to hand the band over to a major management company. He decides he needs someone with experience in radio and touring, and subsequently hooks up with Bill Larson, a young Michigan concert promoter with a background in radio promotions. Coffman’s house is mortgaged to cover the band’s expenses, and he sees an opportunity to sell some of his fifteen percent ownership in Mötley Crüe Inc.

3/6/82
As the remixing of Too Fast For Love nears completion, Allan Coffman and his assistant of four months, Eric Greif (who also manages Greg Leon), decide a Crüesing Through Canada tour will provide Mötley with valuable road experience, and possibly keep them out of trouble on the Los Angeles streets for a while. The tour is designed to have maximum controversial impact to gain important media attention from outside L.A. Coffman plans to meet up with Bill Larson after the tour and bring the band to Detroit for a welcome back to the U.S.A. show. The Crüe flies north, as their luggage travels by truck with the roadies. Vince forgets to include his luggage on the truck, so he has to take it on the plane. Nikki instructs the band members to wear their stage gear on the plane and when they land at Edmonton International Airport, Canada's federal police and Immigration officials interrogate them for over three hours. They confiscate around two thousand dollars worth of stage gear, including whips, chains, studded belts and spiked wristbands, deeming them to be 'dangerous weapons.' Vince's small bag of Playboy and Hustler magazines is also confiscated. The road entourage is delayed for around seven hours as Canadian border guards search for contraband. The small Calgary booking agency, Performing Artists Consultants, had told them to be expecting to play 800-1700 seat halls depending on whom they were supporting, but on arrival they find no such venues booked. Coffman knew the venues were small but never let on to the band.

7/6/82
Booked at Scandals Disco in the Edmonton Sheraton Caravan Hotel, the Crüe plays four sets. Rudy Sarzo and Don Airey from Ozzy Osbourne’s band watch the show. Nikki has a beer bottle thrown at him, which cuts open his right hand. He keeps playing while throwing blood onto the small crowd. A guy goes to take a swing at Tommy backstage between sets, but ends up having his teeth knocked out by Allan Coffman’s knee. Coffman breaks a finger in the fight. Nikki tells an interviewer backstage, “We’re going to be huge because we’re entertainment. Our next album will be called TV & Violence. We’re the television. Our audience is the violence. Together, we’ll take over the world!”

8/6/82
Mötley Crüe is rushed by police to evacuate their show after a call is made threatening to “waste the band on stage.” Six policemen arrive and search the complex, and once satisfied, allow them to continue to play. The Crüe members refuse to play unless the police are present, so two policemen stand vigil by each side of the stage as they finish their set. Decades later, it is revealed that the death threat call was actually made by Allan Coffman's assistant Eric Greif to the Edmonton Sun newspaper as a successful publicity stunt for nationwide press and great stories to tell back in the States.

10/6/82
The manager of the Sheraton and two bodyguards waiting at the Riviera Rock Room where the Crüe is about to play, demand two hundred and sixty dollars for damage caused to a trashed eighth floor of their hotel. The bill is cheap considering a bored Tommy threw a small Sony television out the window of his room onto the pavement below.

After playing their last two nights in Edmonton, Coffman ends the tour because he had run out of money to keep it going. The remaining shows in British Columbia are cancelled and the Crüe returns home to L.A. amid national press coverage on the horrific exploits of the American band. The booking agent considers suing the Crüe for a million dollars. Eric Greif wears the financial brunt of the cancellation since he took personal responsibility for the gigs through his company Kondor Recording and Production. By the time the band's confiscated stage clothes are approved for return, the items have already been destroyed.

1/7/82
Elektra Records proposes a two-page addendum to the band’s record contract detailing their intention to decrease royalties just six weeks after the contract’s signing, but the band doesn’t sign it.

2/7/82
A Scandinavian tour for the first two weeks of August is negotiated with a Finland agency but the tour doesn’t eventuate.

7/82
Vince is the last Mötley member to get a tattoo. His first inking is of a snake with a musical note on his upper left arm.

Tom Zutaut calls Doug Thaler at Contemporary Communications Corp. in Manhattan to try and get Mötley on the bill for the forthcoming Aerosmith tour, but Doug has just added an old agency client of his to the tour in Pat Travers.

Mötley promotes their next shows back in Los Angeles at the Country Club with a new photo of the band taken by Debra Meyers, featuring a large white on black pentagram backdrop, candelabras, skulls on sticks, dry ice, and Nikki holding a red smoke bomb.

16/8/82
Live Wire is the first release on Elektra for the band. The 7” single is backed with Take Me To The Top and Merry-Go-Round, as the Crüe is back playing to big crowds in Los Angeles again.

Nikki meets Alice Cooper for the first time, who is working on his new album Zipper Catches Skin in a neighbouring studio at Cherokee in Hollywood. Alice is holding scissors when they meet, which are later heard as an effect in the song Tag, You’re It from the album.

20/8/82
The Too Fast For Love album is re-released on Elektra and enters the Billboard chart at #157. A few changes to the album cover are made with the front photo and logo being enlarged and the rear album photo getting reduced. A new band picture by Debra Meyers is included on the lyric sheet inside. The song Stick To Your Guns is omitted from this new version, due to copyright issues since Nikki sold the song amongst others to former nightclub manager and now KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer prior to its recording. Nikki instructs Tom Zutaut to ensure the song Toast of the Town is excluded, so Kim Fowley will not make any money from publishing of the release. Kim told Tom that Nikki begged him for $500, so he gave him the money in return for the publishing of Toast of the Town, but Nikki felt Kim took advantage of him during a weak drug-impaired moment as a starving kid on the streets. In Canada only, Elektra releases the original Leathür version of the songs with a re-vamped Too Fast For Love cover. Around five hundred Canadian promo copies of the album are pressed, along with 1-2 thousand regular copies.

Elektra’s promotional priority is Australian band Cold Chisel, and after a lack of support for Mötley is shown, the label’s head of promotions is fired. Tom Werman is brought in to Elektra as head of A&R around this same time and he instantly clicks with Nikki.

9/9/82
Mötley performs at The Keystone in Palo Alto, California with Saxon and Trauma, the latter band featuring a bass player named Cliff Burton who goes on to join Metallica.

26/9/82

After performing shows at The Roxy the last two nights, which were promoted with a tagline of "Hell's Revenge - from the boys you love to hate", Mötley starts to demo songs for their next album, including Looks That Kill, Hotter Than Hell, Knock ‘Em Dead Kid, Red Hot and Running Wild.

29/9/82
Under the Power of Attorney in his management contract, Allan Coffman sells five percent of his fifteen percent stake in Mötley Crüe to Bill Larson for twenty five thousand dollars, which he acquires from the life savings of his parents; his father being a retired school professor and his Swedish mother, a housewife. Twenty-one-year-old Larson drives from Davison, Michigan and stays with Coffman for a couple of days, before they head into Los Angeles where they meet with industry executives. Larson meets the band at SIR Rehearsal Studios, but Coffman does not tell them what the arrangement is.

10/82
Mötley does a photo shoot with Mark Weiss and interview for porn magazine Oui. Afterwards, Tommy disappears for three days with one of the female models. The article and pictures are published in the November 1982 issue of the magazine with Cheryl Rixon on the cover.

31/10/82
The Crüe plays an awesome Halloween show at the Concord Pavilion in San Francisco with Y&T and Jimi Hendrix impersonator Randy Hansen and the Machine Guns in support. Three new songs are performed for the first time: Looks That Kill, Shout At The Devil (written at Lita Ford’s mother’s dining table in Long Beach as she cooked dinner) and Red Hot. During the encore song Red Hot, Nikki walks over to a candelabra on stage and touches his shoulder to the candle’s flame, instantly igniting his leather jumpsuit while he continues to play. Within seconds, the Concord Fire Department gets on stage putting Nikki out and subsequently fines the band one thousand dollars for starting the fire on stage, since it was against their orders.

1/11/82
Wishing to clarify his position with Mötley Crüe, Bill Larson makes copies of his legal agreements he had entered into with Allan Coffman, and gives them to Mötley’s merchandise guy. He in turn gives them to Nikki and Mick who don’t realise that Larson’s percentage was provided out of Coffman’s share, and they think that Coffman is ripping them off. Miscommunication and misunderstanding aside, the trust is broken and Coffman makes an attempt to provide a workable solution where he removes himself from the band as a shareholder but remains involved as a personal manager for the next three years. In exchange for this transaction, Coffman seeks financial compensation for his investments of the past eighteen months, all to no avail as the Personal Management Agreement dated this day is never reached.

12/82
A video clip is made for Mötley’s single Live Wire. An unreleased video of Take Me To The Top is also filmed and edited very similarly to Live Wire, also displaying the Crüe’s live stage show at the time.

Mötley begins recording their second album at The Annex in Northridge with Jeffers Dodge engineering, which Nikki wants to call Shout With The Devil, as he and Lita fool around with satanic black magic. They record songs that include the unreleased Run For Your Life, Running Wild In The Night and I Will Survive. One night Nikki, Tommy and his drum tech, Clyde ‘the Spide’ Duncan, get hassled by a couple of policemen as they have a few drinks in a bar around the corner from a North Hollywood recording studio, so as they leave, they urinate through the open window into their patrol car before running off. Tommy throws a brick through the control room window upon returning to the studio, causing Jeffers to be banned from the facility even though it is managed by his girlfriend. The following morning they work on the track I Will Survive at The Annex. It is Nikki and Vince’s idea to do some backward masking, so they lay on their backs chanting into microphones above, while Jeffers suspends a gong on a rope above them, making a shimmering sound effect as it spins in circles. When the half-track is played backwards they hear “Jesus is Satan.” Jeffers’ second engineer disappears, found hours later praying in the back forty of the ranch studio, believing they are all possessed by Satan. The motor in Tommy’s car blows up as he drives home from this recording session, while Mick pulls over because his car alarm comes on and his lights keep flicking on and off. One of Nikki’s picks flies off the table in the studio and sticks in the ceiling. Tom Zutaut witnesses a knife and fork rise off Nikki and Lita’s table and stick into the ceiling.

18/12/82
A week prior to Christmas, Allan Coffman is advised by an attorney on the telephone to cease and desist as their manager. Coffman has been trying to get them to stop taking drugs while record company executives encourage it. He is also against them progressing towards a more satanic image. The Crüe feels he is not able to manage their success growth and they can’t understand where all the money from sell-out shows and the record company advance is going. It also seems that he is contributing substantial amounts of band money to the political campaign of George Deukmajian, the arch conservative Republican who runs for Governor. The news devastates Coffman, who has mortgaged his home three times to pay for the Crüe’s stage show theatrics and other expenses, personally contributing around three hundred thousand dollars over the time of his management. Coffman files for Bankruptcy. Bill Larson’s association with the band also ends, as his contract is tied in with Coffman’s.

21/12/82
Allan Coffman takes his termination very hard. His wife Barbara comes home to find her husband pacing their back yard with a gun in his hand, contemplating suicide. He later gets divorced from her and marries another lady named Barbara and becomes a born-again Christian. Bill Larson’s father passes away six months later, after suffering a heart attack from worrying about the fate of his son and their lost life savings. Bill suffers clinical depression for a couple of years following the incident and eventually files a lawsuit to try and get his twenty five thousand dollars back, but it is thrown out of court as no-one is able to find Coffman to serve the subpoena. Bill Larson continues to work in the music industry and goes on to become a co-founder of HardRadio. Mick’s friend and band production guy John ‘Stick’ Crouch is also ousted from the Crüe camp, due to his relationship with Coffman.

31/12/82
L.A's own black leather demons Mötley Crüe plays a show in front of three thousand people called New Year's Evil at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, said to be one of the greatest glam shows ever! Currently without a manager, Mötley is assisted by Barry Levine as a creative consultant/manager, and in-turn introduces photographer friend Neil Zlozower to the band who begins shoots them. Levine also helps them to invite as many potential managers as possible to see the show, as they feel this performance is a do-or-die event in their careers. Big Crüe fan, Ronnie James Dio, tips off his booking agent friend Doug Thaler about the Crüe. Doug played in Ronnie Dio and The Prophets back in the late-sixties before almost losing his leg when their tour van was involved in a head-on collision in Massachusetts. Pat Travers' manager Doc McGhee is keen for Doug to join his company, so they both attend the Mötley showcase from Florida and love it. They ride home in an empty merchandise truck after the entire product is sold. Santa Monica authorities ban the proposed Miss Nude Heavy Metal prelude, citing laws prohibiting "depravity of minors", as a band called The Wigglers open the show, featuring Vince's former Rockandi guitarist James Alverson. Before playing Red Hot, Vince says their next album will be called Theatre of Pain and out in March. The Crüe is fined one thousand dollars by the local fire marshals as they come off stage for the use of fire in their show, which included twenty-foot high mortars. Backstage, Nikki takes a black makeup pencil and walks over to a wasted Joe Perry from Aerosmith before smearing the pencil under his eyes, inspired by the Road Warrior characters in the film Mad Max. Joe thinks it looks cool on Nikki. Meanwhile Vince is in tears as his phone has been cut off, due to the band's desperate financial state.

On with the show