Chronological Crue - The History of Motley Crue in 2000

3/1/00
Beyond Music signs an exclusive licensing deal with EMI Music Canada that will enable Canadian fans to get their hands on Mötley Crüe albums much more easily. The band enjoyed album sales in excess of one million copies during 1999.

It seems Tommy Lee’s departure from the Crüe last year was even less amicable than it first seemed. In the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Tommy admits that he hasn’t spoken with his former band-mates since he left. He also discusses the Las Vegas airport brawl between himself and Vince Neil that resulted in Tommy insisting on a separate dressing room and tour bus for the rest of the tour. Vince responds in the New York Post newspaper by saying Tommy “sounds confused and a bit hypocritical” and retorting, “Dreadlocks and artists like Lil’ Kim and Snoop Dogg in your video don’t make you an urban or alternative act.”

5/1/00
During his second day of tour rehearsals Tommy thanks his fans as his Methods of Mayhem album moves up to number seventy one on the charts from number one hundred and twenty.

10/1/00
The first single Do Your Own Thing from Union’s second album The Blue Room is added by seventeen radio stations to their playlists on its first day. The band is currently planning a video for the single utilising footage from their recent show in Argentina, amongst other scenes. Jack Sawyers, who worked with Bruce Kulick when he was in Kiss and more recently on the Tale of the Fox home-video, will be directing/producing the clip. Fans will be able to catch former Mötley front-man John Corabi early February when Union hits the east coast of the U.S. for a short press tour.

11/1/00
The first single from Methods of Mayhem is released on 12” vinyl. Side one is Get Naked (Filthy Version and Instrumental Version) while side two contains the album version of Hypocritical. Tommy also attends his regular six-month probation progress hearing.

12/1/00
The Coconut Teaszer in Los Angeles provides a heap of action for Mötley fans as Krunk, featuring Tommy’s sister and brother-in-law, plays with Nikki Sixx’s Americoma Records band Laidlaw. John Corabi is invited on stage at the end of the night and he sings backups on Fortunate Son and lead vocals on Honky Tonk Woman, followed by guitar on a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Rock’n’Roll. Laidlaw is preparing to open for ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd for a month starting in six days.

The debut album from Methods of Mayhem is certified Gold status in the U.S.A. by the Recording Industry Association of America, shipping in excess of half a million copies. Meanwhile Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters visits Tommy in tour rehearsals, providing him with tips on singing and playing guitar, as well as participating in a jam session of four drummers.

15/1/00
While seeing LA Guns perform at The Whisky, Randy Castillo says the Crüe has written half of the songs for the new studio album, emphasizing that the music is old-school style and more Too Fast for Love than Generation Swine. The band still plans to release the CD in June or July in time for a summer tour. Randy says Megadeth will be joining them on tour as well as a third band to be named – possibly Buckcherry.

17/1/00
Now minus his dreadlocks, Tommy presents an award with Deborah Cox at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles.

18/1/00
After two years in the making, the much-anticipated Kickstart My Heart – A Tribute to Mötley Crüe CD goes on sale. Produced by Paul Miles from Chronological Crue and Steve Friess from Pulse Records, the CD includes Tommy’s sister drumming on one track, and Lizzie Grey on lead vocals and guitar on Public Enemy #1 – the track he co-wrote with Nikki Sixx when they were band-mates in London shortly before the formation of Mötley Crüe.

23/1/00
Tommy says his new video for New Skin was finished at 7:30am and in a tired state, he dozed off three times driving home from the shoot. Kid Rock’s people didn’t allow him to participate in the video, so a previously recorded version of the song is used with Tommy singing Kid Rock’s verse. Methods of Mayhem prepares for a European promo tour in a few days, prior to their concert tour starting on March 16 in Portland, Oregon.

24/1/00
Nikki says the Mötley Crüe rehearsals have been “amazing” recently, and the band has more songs under their belt. He says Mick Mars wrote the music to the most beautiful song the band has ever done, to which Nikki just wrote lyrics for and titled New Tattoo. It’s described as Angel by Hendrix mixed with the Crüe’s Without You and he feels that “this song will get you laid.” Another new song he has begun is titled Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am.

Nikki also says he met with Sharon Osbourne and Miguel from Coal Chamber a few days ago. Miguel will join John Bush as the second A&R rep for Americoma Records. It is now confirmed that the Maximum Rock 2000 tour will be Mötley Crüe with Megadeth and Coal Chamber.

Nikki’s side project 1958 has changed its name to just 58 and they are now leading their promotions with the track Piece of Candy, which has been leaked to radio. The album cover is now complete as the CD is prepared for release in a couple of months.

Later in the day Nikki gets arrested for a speeding violation and spends time in jail before wife Donna bails him out. The police take away his license for the fifth time, and also his BMW 740iL that he’ll get back in thirty days. Nikki needs to go to court and prove why he has to be able to drive.

28/1/00
Vince says he’ll soon be re-releasing his Exposed and Carved in Stone albums on his VNS record label with new additional tracks and new cover artwork. He also says he’s no longer affiliated with the Kool Racing Team, even though he’s good friends with driver Paul Tracey. He is currently involved with Budweiser and Ritchie Hearns Racing Ventures in some capacity. His BadBones clothing label is gearing up for merchandising at the Long Beach Grand Prix and maybe the big bike run in Laughlin in the spring.

It’s around this time that Vince and Heidi celebrate having set a date for their wedding by going to see the L.A. Kings ice hockey game. They party afterwards at the private cigar club called the Havana Room, where Vince is a member. Actor Mel Gibson joins their party and the staff goes home at 3am leaving them to finish their cigars. Mel joins Vince and Heidi at their house where they play pool to 6am until Heidi puts Mel in a cab after Vince falls asleep. On the news the next evening they see a story about how the Havana Room had burned down overnight after two gentlemen threw their lit cigar butts in a trash can that caught alight, setting the club ablaze.

Tommy and TiLo travel to Europe for a Methods of Mayhem European promotional tour that runs into next month.

30/1/00
Nikki says Mötley will be back in rehearsals tomorrow working on new songs God Drives a UFO, Crash-o-matic, Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am, Hollywood Ending, New Tattoo and Penthouse 57 as the band feels it’s time to decide on a producer.

Nikki has been writing tracks with a friend James Michael, who has an album coming out in a few months on Beyond Records. When Mick didn’t return Nikki’s phone calls as he tried to get him to help write songs for the new album, he asked James to assist instead. That first afternoon at James’s house they wrote God Drives a UFO and Hollywood Ending – a song James had written for Duran Duran but didn’t end up pitching it at them.

The entire album art for Nikki’s 58 project is now ninety percent done. The 58 album will include a demented version of Alone Again (Naturally) by Gilbert O’Sullivan, a ballad that topped the U.S. pop charts in the early ‘70s.

3/2/00
Having now left Italy, Tommy reports from Germany that Crazy Town will be supporting the first part of the upcoming Methods of Mayhem tour. He says the press loves the CD and he and TiLo are very happy so far with the response that Europe has given them, as he now prepares to head to Amsterdam.

10/2/00
In Paris, Tommy says TiLo puked during an interview in Madrid, Spain as the duo continues their Methods of Mayhem European promotional tour. They head to Japan next, before Australia in a week’s time. Their video for New Skin, featuring them performing in the middle of a Los Angeles freeway, is soon to be released. Tommy says he’d like to do a cover song live on the upcoming tour, possibly Black Sabbath’s Sweet Leaf.

14/2/00
Tommy’s Methods of Mayhem album is released throughout Europe, Australia and New Zealand this Valentine’s Day but instead of celebrating, Tommy’s life is turned upside down again as Pamela says to him on the phone that she can’t be in a relationship with him anymore, before taking their children and disappearing. Last year the couple were said to be planning to re-marry on this day.

In a press release for his Americoma Records, Nikki says to look for an announcement regarding a unique cyber-kinetic launch of his 58 project soon, as he prepares for release of their debut Diet for A New America set for 16 May 2000. The band also features Steven Gibb, son of the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, noted studio percussionist Bucket, along with Dave Darling from The Boxing Ghandis. Americoma have teamed up with Allen Kovac’s Beyond Music in a joint venture as marketing partner and distributor.

17/2/00
After a promo tour in Japan, where the Methods of Mayhem album is making a huge debut, Tommy and TiLo arrive in Australia. During a radio interview, Tommy says they have just been confirmed a slot on the upcoming OzzFest tour. The band is taking Tommy’s portable studio on the road in preparation for a sequel to their debut. Tommy says that the favourite song of his wife Pamela is Narcotic but doesn’t mention anything of his current relationship issues with her. Talking about his departure from Mötley during a chat session with AOL Live, Tommy says, “I’ve had a lot of music inside of me for the last five or six years and ever since Vince returned to Mötley Crüe, I lost interest because it was very forced and unnatural to be back together.”

18/2/00
Nikki places a call to VH1’s The Rock Show as part of an all-star request line. He requests the video for Primal Scream and talks a bit about the new album, saying it will be called New Tattoo. The Crüe is currently recording tracks at Nikki’s home ranch Americoma Studios.

An article published in Florida’s St. Petersburg Times newspaper states that Nikki’s attorneys have listed Mick, Vince and Tommy on the defense witness list in the personal injury lawsuit that stemmed from a flying bass incident at the 1997 Livestock rock festival in Zephyrhills. A judge has ordered the two sides to attempt mediation next month but with Mötley’s attorney Kent Whittemore feeling the two parties are far from settling the issue, the scheduled hearing on April 10 could see all original Crüe members appear together in court.

21/2/00
Pamela calls Tommy a week after splitting and encourages him to sign an agreement to give her most control of their two boys, to which Tommy refuses.

22/2/00
The second studio album from Union is released on Spitfire Records. Titled The Blue Room, it features ten songs: Shine (influenced by the recent Columbine shootings and the reaction of John’s son to it), Do You Know My Name (about greed, jealousy, envy and being condescending), I Wanna Be (John’s message to his girlfriend Layla and his son), Everything’s Alright (an optimistic homage to The Beatles), Dear Friend, Who Do You Think You Are, No More, Do Your Own Thing (a criticism of the follower mentality), Dead and Hypnotized (inspired by the real-life saga of the late porn star Savannah). Bruce Kulick and John share lead vocals on the track Dear Friend, which is a tribute to the late Eric Carr of Kiss. The Blue Room is named after producer Bob Marlette’s blue-painted studio where Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting is reproduced on a wall.

24/2/00
Union hosts a CD release party at the Coconut Teaszer in Los Angeles, while Tommy says during an Internet chat that he’s working on a cover version of a 16 Volt song for his upcoming tour. Los Angeles radio station KROQ reports that Tommy has been forced to move out of his house because he’s drinking again. Tommy responds by saying they are fortunate enough to have two houses and some idiot saw Pamela move some belongings into their new beach house, which started all the rumours. Pamela had however moved out without telling Tommy, who was in Australia at the time.

Nikki tells Metal Sludge that he’s currently in a partnership with some technology companies that are developing a broadband lifestyle channel for him called The Outlaw Channel.

27/2/00
The Los Angeles Times reports that Tommy and Pamela are being sued in the Superior Court in Van Nuys by a woman who says she was bitten on her left buttock by their Rottweiler dog Justice during a visit to their Malibu home. In her negligence and personal injury suit, Doreen Cott claims she was bitten on 3 July 1997 (the day after the Crüe’s Generation Swine album was released) while she legally entered the couple’s property. Her suit, filed nearly a year later, seeks unspecified damages for medical expenses, loss of wages and other inconveniences caused by the dog bite. A hearing in the case is scheduled for April 5.

1/3/00
Nikki says Mötley starts pre-production work on March 6 before recording commences in Los Angeles two weeks later. Song titles so far are God Drives a UFO, Dragstrip Superstar, Time Bomb, Treat Me Like the Dog I Am, Hollywood Ending, 1st Band on the Moon, Porno Star, Hell on High Heels, American Zero, I’m a Fake (Just Like You), Whoreable and Punched in the Teeth by Love; the title of the track that was forced off the Crüe’s 1991 Decade of Decadence release to make way for the inclusion of their Sex Pistols cover of Anarchy In The U.K. Nikki also says they are going to try Baba O’Riley, the opening track from the Who’s 1971 album Who’s Next, and White Punks on Dope from the Tubes’ 1975 debut, for covers or bonus tracks but doesn’t know if they’ll end up being recorded. The band is also working on the tour set design, the album cover and merchandise, which he says is all very “white trash American tattoo-ish.”

2/3/00
Nikki attends a three-and-a-half hour mediation in Florida after concert-goer Josephine Allen sued him, the band’s management team, and Mötley Crüe Touring Inc. in July 1998, alleging Nikki hit her in the head with a stray piece of his guitar when Mötley Crüe played the Livestock VII concert. The suit is settled with the terms of the deal remaining undisclosed.

4/3/00
Vince performs with an all-star band at the WorldBestBuy.com All-Star Party at The Drink nightclub in Las Vegas. The band includes former Vince Neil Band members Brent Woods and Phil Soussan (ex-Ozzy Osbourne), as well as former drummer for Alice Cooper, Anthony Focx, who recently joined Beautiful Creatures.

5/3/00
The Los Angeles Times reports that adult film star Jenna Jameson is putting together a compilation album that will include a Methods of Mayhem track along with contributions from Kid Rock, Orgy and Staind amongst others.

7/3/00
Tommy is convicted of assaulting a security guard during the Greensboro Mötley concert in 1997. Attending court with his lawyer Harvey Slovis from New York City, Tommy pleads no contest to the assault charge, so it’s treated as a guilty plea although he does not admit guilt to the misdemeanour charge of simple assault for pouring a cup of beer over the head of a security guard. Superior Court Judge Henry Frye Jr. sentences him to unsupervised probation. Tommy also pays $161 in fines and court costs. A prosecutor dismisses the second charge against him – felony riot with ethnic intimidation – as part of the plea bargain. Nikki still has three charges pending that stem from the same concert, which will be heard at some stage over the next two weeks. A year after the Greensboro concert John Allen, a security guard at the Greensboro show and his employer, Show Pros Entertainment, filed a lawsuit against Nikki, Tommy and Mötley Crüe Touring Inc. claiming that band members shouted racial slurs at him and incited the crowd of more than two thousand to attack him. Allen also has a civil lawsuit pending that is set for trial in May, where he is seeking more than $75,000 in damages for the verbal assault, battery, intentional infliction of mental distress and other claims.

9/3/00
Public speculation builds that Tommy and Pamela have separated. The Los Angeles Times newspaper reports Pamela has leased a four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot house on the water in Malibu Colony for a year at $16,000 per month. The house was built in the 1920s and was one of two in the Los Angeles area that were being leased by the late rapper Tupac Shakur when he was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. Photos of Pamela and her two boys with former boyfriend Kelly Slater taken while Tommy was in Australia recently, appear in weekly magazines worldwide.

12/3/00
Mötley prepares to head into a Los Angeles studio in two weeks to record their next album titled New Tattoo with Mike Clink at the production helm, since Bob Rock’s schedule is full. Most known for his production of the Guns N’ Roses landmark album from 1987 Appetite For Destruction, as well as Megadeth’s Rust In Peace opus from 1990, Nikki says Clink’s feel and head is in the same space as the Crüe’s – raw, loud and packed with hooks. The album cover art is designed and is due to be finalised in a week. Nikki says the set design for the tour is nutty, loud, cocky, full of itself, and sleazy. Meanwhile Vince is now involved with Nikki in an extremely outrageous broadband channel.

14/3/00
Cleopatra Records releases an album titled Mötley Crüe Tribute – Shout at the Devil that is full of industrial-style remixes of Crüe songs from their first two albums.

16/3/00
Nikki is convicted of inciting a riot and assaulting a security guard at the Greensboro Mötley Crüe concert in October 1997. He pleads no contest to three misdemeanour charges for kicking security guard John Allen in the head and urging fans to attack him. Wearing blue jeans and a black leather jacket, Nikki sits in the front row of the courtroom and is able to give his side of the story through his attorney, Greensboro lawyer Joe Williams. He tells the court that his client regrets what he said that night after becoming outraged when he saw the security guard manhandling the crowd by roughing-up people, including women. Allen does not attend the hearing. According to the plea bargain, the felony charge of riot with ethnic intimidation is reduced to a misdemeanour charge of inciting a riot. It’s consolidated with the other two misdemeanour charges of simple assault and disorderly conduct. Nikki’s plea of no contest is treated as a guilty plea, but he does not have to admit guilt. He is given a thirty-day suspended jail sentence, eighteen months of unsupervised probation, and has to pay a $150 fine and court costs.

Meanwhile Tommy, who received a similar conviction last week for charges stemming from the same incident, kicks off the first-ever Methods of Mayhem tour at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, Canada. With Crazy Town in support, the show features an arena-sized production of quadraphonic sound and racks of moving, strobing, and stationary lights tucked into almost every square foot of available space in the thousand-seat club. Snoop Dogg had been scheduled to make a guest appearance at the show, but the rapper, who is in Vancouver shooting his movie Bones, was called back to Los Angeles for a family emergency the previous night.

17/3/00
The album cover for Mötley’s New Tattoo release is complete. Nikki says the Crüe home-video This Shit Ain’t Brain Surgery has been put on the back burner until the new album is finished, but it’s a must-finish project. He also hopes to have his Gibson Blackbird bass available for the public to purchase this summer.

18/3/00
Vince attends the First Annual Mark & Brian Charity Golf Tournament held at Coyote Hills Golf Course in Fullerton, California. Proceeds from the event benefit the KLOS Food Bank, the T.J. Martell Foundation, and the Neil Bogart Memorial Fund for Children’s Cancer, Leukemia and AIDS Research at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

20/3/00
Mötley Crüe commences the recording of their new New Tattoo album in Los Angeles with Mike Clink producing.

29/3/00
A press release says Mötley’s first studio album in three years will be in stores on June 20. It also says the Crüe will soon announce details of its headline summer amphitheatre tour, a tell-all book and a major-release PC game to coincide with the album’s release.

30/3/00
The civil lawsuit stemming from the Crüe’s concert at the Greensboro Coliseum in 1997 where security guard John Allen accused band members of assaulting him, encouraging the crowd to attack him and using racial slurs, reaches a settlement and puts an end to a federal lawsuit scheduled for trial next week. Allen had been seeking more than $75,000 in damages for verbal assault, battery, infliction of mental distress and other claims in the lawsuit. Terms of the settlement can not be disclosed due to a confidentiality clause.

1/4/00
Nikki announces the first forty nine dates for the Maximum Rock 2000 tour with Megadeth. The dates travel through the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 24 in Washington state and winding up on September 2 in Ohio. Coal Chamber will no longer be on the bill.

2/4/00
Photos for the New Tattoo album packaging are shot at the Lava Lounge in Los Angeles.

5/4/00
Tommy and Pamela settle a dispute out of court with their former masseuse Doreen Cott who claimed their Rottweiler called Justice took a chunk out of her rear in 1997. The matter is settled through binding arbitration and avoids the trial scheduled to begin today.

7/4/00
Nikki says studio work on the new album is going well and they have a couple of new songs brewing. The Crüe is also going to be doing the music for a video game. Anthrax is now signed as the opening band on the Maximum Rock 2000 tour with Megadeth and Mötley.

8/4/00
In Toronto, Methods of Mayhem is presented with Gold records for Canadian sales of the self-titled debut album.

10/4/00
Vince is amongst the celebrities that tee off in Project A.L.S.’s first celebrity golf classic at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, where proceeds benefit research for A.L.S. and Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Nikki and his 58 side project film a video for the first single from their forthcoming album.

11/4/00
Nikki says Randy has now completed his drum tracks for the new album and the band now has fourteen songs and is continuing to write more, including two new songs titled The Honeymoon Is Over plus the title track New Tattoo. Bass tracks are scheduled to be finished this week before they change studios for Mick and Vince to record their tracks. The band has also recorded four pieces of music for the online action-strategy game Tribes 2, including the title track. Nikki says they recently found the missing tape containing the track Nobody Knows What It’s Like To Be Lonely that was recorded along with Toast of the Town and Stick To Your Guns back in June 1981, about a month after the band’s first gig. This track may be included in the Mötley Crüe book The Dirt due out in a few months.

The Ready to Rumble movie soundtrack is released and includes Mötley Crüe’s Girls, Girls, Girls. Also released is the Jailbait! soundtrack that includes Methods of Mayhem’s song Who the Hell Cares.

12/4/00
Lil’ Kim joins Tommy on stage during Get Naked for the final performance of the first Methods of Mayhem tour at Irving Plaza in New York City. Methods of Mayhem will next hit the stage in Germany for two festival shows in June before hitting the road on OzzFest 2000 come July 2 in Florida.

During a VH1 interview Tommy says that he and wife Pamela are going their separate ways, confirming last month’s reports that she has moved out of their house and they’ve scrapped plans for a second wedding.

15/4/00
After celebrating his daughter’s sixth birthday, Nikki says Mötley finished a fifteenth song for the New Tattoo album yesterday – an up-tempo rock’n’roll song called Whoreable.

17/4/00
Donna D’Errico phones husband Nikki at the studio where he is recording his bass tracks for the new Crüe album and tells him, “We’re pregnant!” The couple’s first baby together is due in December.

19/4/00
As he’s about to record his bass lines on the track American Zero, Nikki says he completed four songs yesterday and has completed New Tattoo and Dragstrip Superstar so far today. You can hear Nikki burning rubber in his ‘57 Chevy at the start of Dragstrip Superstar. The new Mötley Crüe logo is now finalised for the album cover. As the tour draws closer, Vince says, ‘‘the stage set right now is based on the streets of Hollywood, [but it] is in the Twilight Zone and warped out. There’s a strip club, a tattoo parlour and you have a rock club called Dirty Dick’s Rock Room. And we’ll have a lot of cool drum effects and a huge lighting rig.’’

20/4/00
In a post to his mailing list, Zakk Wylde says he’s, “trying to get on the road with Mötley, Megadeth and Anthrax” before going out with Pantera after OzzFest. Zakk was a band-mate of Crüe drummer Randy when they played together with Ozzy Osbourne.

27/4/00
Vince hosts the annual Skylar Neil Memorial Golf Tournament at the Malibu Country Club.

Tommy takes a holiday in the Cayman Islands now that his Methods of Mayhem tour has wound up.

2/5/00
A Def Leppard tribute CD titled Leppardmania is released and features the drumming of Randy on all twelve tracks, including the opener Wasted sung by John.

3/5/00
Vince completes his vocals on the track Hell on High Heels and is ready to record She Needs Rock N Roll tomorrow, which used to be called God Drives a UFO. One of these tracks will be the first single from the New Tattoo album that has now been re-scheduled for release on July 11. Nikki says Tommy wouldn’t do his interviews for their forthcoming book The Dirt so the release date has been pushed back further due to this.

8/5/00
Tommy attends a progress hearing behind closed doors at a Malibu court for his probation, hoping to have it suspended. Prosecutors for Los Angeles District Attorney’s office say he may have violated his probation’s terms by drinking alcohol, and apparently have a witness. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lawrence Mira orders Tommy to return to court on May 31 for a probation revocation hearing, following investigation of the allegations. If the allegations are proved to be true it would be a violation of his probation conditions and Judge Mira could send Tommy back to jail for upwards of three years.

9/5/00
She Needs Rock N Roll is the first track to have its final mix completed. New Tattoo is also set to be released in vinyl LP format throughout Europe and Japan but it never eventuates. The band is thrilled with the stage set for the new tour as they prepare to start tour rehearsals in two weeks. Inspired by their hometown, the set depicting a strip club, a tattoo parlour and a rock club will bring the streets of Hollywood to the fans.

Methods of Mayhem will have the track Crash included on a new MTV compilation CD called Return of the Rock that also includes songs from the likes of Kid Rock, Slipknot, Korn, Machine Head, Coal Chamber, Sevendust and Powerman 5000.

17/5/00
Nikki says Hell on High Heels will be the first single to be released to radio from the New Tattoo CD. The song is about a hooker and was the title of a Zeppelin-esque song written by the band for their 1994 self-titled album, which they could never finalise the chorus of into a state that fully pleased them.

18/5/00
Nikki attends the annual SFX Music Convention at the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood, featuring on an A&R panel with a number of music industry executives, entitled Let’s Make A Deal: The Ultimate Rate-A-Record. The convention is attended by music industry executives, radio executives and personalities, and talent agents. Later in the evening, the Crüe hosts a listening party on the rooftop of the Sunset Strip hotel to preview the first two songs off the forthcoming New Tattoo album – She Needs Rock N Roll and the first single Hell on High Heels – to press and radio representatives. The band finishes mixing the two tracks just hours before the party, which Mick does not attend as he is still in the studio working on the track I’m In Love with a Porno Star. While business is at hand, it’s still a Crüe party with an open bar and several scantily-clad strippers who brand partygoers with tattoos of Mötley Crüe’s new Asian-inspired logo created by No Fear designer Eric Casillas, who also drew the caricatures on the Greatest Hits album.

19/5/00
Nikki re-writes the lyrics to Hollywood Ending as work continues on the new album. He then goes downtown with wife Donna and hears Hell on High Heels on their car radio after radio station KLOS snagged it from the listening party. Nikki encourages fans to make an MP3 of it.

20/5/00
Chatting online on AOL, Nikki says the album cover is all black with a tattoo gun in the centre and a dragon wrapped around it. The track Time Bomb doesn’t make the final track listing of the album.

22/5/00
On the Rockline radio show, Nikki says he still plans to release his book of poetry at some point in the future, which has been talked about for many years. He also says Mötley will tour behind the new album until the end of November at least, hoping to take it through until the middle of next year. It seems that Mötley and Megadeth will not get together to perform their versions of Anarchy in the U.K. as Dave Mustaine is preferring to play all Megadeth songs during their allotted time on stage.

Tommy says the Methods of Mayhem song Crash will be in the new movie Gone in 60 Seconds that stars Nicholas Cage and Angelina Jolie.

26/5/00
Malibu Superior Court Judge Lawrence Mira finds Tommy in violation of his probation and orders him to be immediately remanded to Los Angeles County Jail for the next five days. The judge also extends Tommy’s probation to 26 May 2003, reinstating random drug testing and ordering him to enroll in Alcoholics Anonymous. The court hearing is conducted behind closed doors in Mira’s chambers, making many details of his violation unavailable. However a press release from Tommy makes it clear that it was his estranged wife Pamela Anderson who came forward as a witness and testified, alleging that the supposedly sober Tommy had fallen off the wagon after she offered to share a drink with him on New Year’s Eve while discussing forthcoming Valentine’s Day wedding plans and after several refusals he accepted. The five-day sentence is a relative wrist slap as he could have received three years in jail for the violation, but the court seemed to believe his defense that he had been set up and Pamela was trying to use the criminal courts to resolve issues in her ongoing custody battle with Tommy. He is yet to complete the four hundred and fifty hours of community service amassed. The new jail time now jeopardises the Methods of Mayhem festival tour of Europe which is to kick off next week, as Tommy is now due back in court next week for another hearing.

27/5/00
Mötley Crüe members star as the voices of their cartoon selves in a satirical CampChaos.com response to Metallica’s recent lawsuit against peer-to-peer MP3 application Napster.

28/5/00
Vince Neil marries his fiancée of six years Heidi Mark at a very intimate and private ceremony before forty five friends and family members at the four-star L’Orangerie French restaurant. Nikki is the best man while Heidi’s best girlfriend and host of the Playboy Channel’s Night Calls, Tiffany Granath, is the maid of honour. When Vince sees Heidi, tears start to stream down his face. Wearing a strapless gown layered with chiffon and pearls, and Van Morrison’s Crazy Love playing, Heidi walks to Vince (wearing a white dinner jacket for the occasion), who places a seven-carat diamond ring on his bride’s finger. The refined sounds of actor Jeff Goldblum’s jazz combo is the live music for the event while everyone dines on steak and salmon before dancing the night away. Around midnight, the newlyweds return to their four-bedroom Beverly Hills home.

29/5/00
Nikki says the song Time Bomb will now be included on some international versions of the New Tattoo CD, taking the total number of songs to twelve. Tour rehearsals are set to commence tomorrow.

John completes the recording of his vocals on a cover of Alice Cooper’s Elected, set to be released on Rikki Rockett’s Glitter For Your Soul album.

30/5/00
Tommy is released from jail after serving five days over the Memorial Day weekend for violating his parole by drinking alcohol. He spends his time in solitary focused on improving his love life and makes three promises to himself, including getting to know a girl’s mother before marriage and not marrying a celebrity again. Tommy also promises to himself that he will never re-unite with Pamela and he will keep his Malibu mansion so his boys can always come back to their birthplace whenever they want. Judge Mira tells Tommy to return to court on September 5 for a progress report. He prepares to head to Europe tomorrow for festival dates with Methods of Mayhem.

1/6/00
Hell on High Heels is the number four most-added tune at Rock radio and the number five most-added at Active Rock radio stations.

3/6/00
After four days of rehearsals, Methods of Mayhem plays their first European show at the Dynamo Festival in Nijmegen, The Netherlands sharing the bill with Korn, Iron Maiden, Sevendust, Kittie, Testament, P.O.D. and Suicidal Tendencies. Bassist Marty O’Brien relocated to Los Angeles in April and after just three weeks of living there he was asked to audition for Methods of Mayhem, joining the band that same day of the audition.

7/6/00
As mixing at A&M Studios winds up, Nikki says the new album will have some enhanced features, such as an MP3 player that plays the album, some demos of the new tracks, plus more goodies like videos. Pre-production with the full show commences next week as the band will wrap-up the album in a week’s time. The band rehearses the full set and break out Knock ‘Em Dead Kid, Ten Seconds to Love and Piece of Your Action, which may make their way into the set list.

11/6/00
Vince participates in the Third Annual David Cassidy Celebrity Golf Tournament benefiting Special Olympics at The Rio Hotel’s Secco Golf Course in Las Vegas.

12/6/00
In the early hours of the morning, Mötley Crüe drummer Randy Castillo undergoes emergency surgery in Los Angeles when a stomach ulcer explodes. After playing a gig with his flamenco band Azul hours before on Sunday night, he experiences stomach pain and knows something is not right. A cocktail of vodka and Red Bull on an empty stomach at the club acts as gasoline on a fire causing his ulcer to explode. As he heads home from the gig the pain doubles him over, so the cab driver takes him to Cedar Sinai Hospital where he collapses while waiting in the emergency room. Hospital staff advises him that his stomach acids had gotten into his lower intestines and wreaked havoc just prior to entering his blood stream. Another ten minutes and it would have traveled to his heart through his blood stream and killed him.

14/6/00
Even though Randy is expected to make a full recovery from his stomach operation in time for the upcoming Maximum Rock tour, Hole drummer Samantha Maloney has been rehearsing with Mötley Crüe and is the expected temporary tour replacement should Randy not recuperate in time. Hole’s website reports that Mötley Crüe are Samantha’s career idols while Nikki says she is a very hard hitter and came in knowing all the songs. Nikki emailed her advising of Randy’s condition and she replied, “It’s six o’clock New York time. I’ll be on a plane at eight.”

15/6/00
Vince completes vocals to the track Hollywood Ending as the final mixes are made to the album before it heads to the pressing plant at 10pm. The band commences rehearsals with the full stage set in the morning. Almost a quarter of a million MP3 downloads of the band’s first single Hell on High Heels have been reportedly soaked up by fans from their official website in the first half of this month.

18/6/00
Extreme Championship Wrestling’s Dawn Marie will soon be using Hell on High Heels as her theme song when entering the wrestling arena.

19/6/00
The new Mötley Crüe full-length animated video clip for Hell on High Heels has its world premiere on VH1. The clip was created by Camp Chaos Entertainment who recently made a parody clip of Mötley Crüe and the Metallica v Napster lawsuit.

Nikki says the stage set is the biggest since the band’s Dr. Feelgood world tour a decade ago. The set is designed by Randy’s first drum roadie when he was in The Wumblies back in the early ‘80s. The band rehearses with the full set at Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. Two female background singers ala the Nasty Habits have been hired for the tour that kicks off in just under a week. A press release confirms that Hole drummer Samantha Maloney will be taking up the Mötley Crüe drum stool for at least the first few weeks of dates on the Maximum Rock tour as Randy recovers fully from his recent stomach surgery. Samantha says, “Playing with Mötley Crüe has been a lifelong dream for me – it’s like winning the lotto,” while according to her multi-Platinum-selling Hole band-mate Courtney Love, “It is a great moment in the history of rock when Samantha Maloney gets to play Girls, Girls, Girls with Mötley Crüe.” Born on 11 December 1975 (exactly seventeen years after Nikki), Samantha was raised in Queens, New York and attended the Performance Arts High School of Fame fame.

20/6/00
Nikki’s side project 58 releases their eleven-track debut album titled Diet For A New America.

Union’s second single Who Do You Think You Are? from The Blue Room album is released to radio.

21/6/00
A few days before heading out on the New Tattoo tour Nikki receives a phone call from his brother Randy telling him that he has located his sister Lisa. Nikki calls the sanitarium in Santa Cruz where she stays, determined to see her when he comes home from the tour. He asks a nurse to tell him more about his sister and he is told she was born on November 12 with Down Syndrome. Weighing less than sixty pounds, she is blind and mute but absolutely loves to listen to the radio all day long. She has never walked, and can’t feed herself – she has literally had the mind of a newborn child all her life. She also has a very weak heart and wears diapers while confined in her wheelchair. The cover of Nikki’s recently released 58 album ironically shows a man confined in a wheelchair and blindfolded with an American flag.

24/6/00
Mötley Crüe kicks off the Maximum Rock 2000 tour in front of a near-capacity eighteen-and-a-half thousand people at the Valley Amphitheatre in Sacramento, California. Megadeth entertains the crowd for an hour following Anthrax’s half-hour set. Before the Crüe enters the stage, Frank Zappa’s song Crew Slut is played to the audience, as it was during the Dr. Feelgood world tour ten years ago. Following the song, the sounds of a helicopter and police cars wail while a spotlight circles the stage. Kickstart My Heart begins proceedings and is hence the first song that replacement drummer Samantha Maloney plays live with Mötley Crüe. Vince introduces her to the crowd later in the show, saying how she was inducted into the Crüe by the band taking her to a strip club and getting a Piece of the Action. Punched In The Teeth By Love is the first new tune played as it arrives a few songs into the set, while the current single Hell on High Heels receives a loud response from the audience. New backup singers Marty and Pearl Aday, who is the daughter of Meat Loaf, change outfits many times during the night and perform solidly from their high positions either side behind the drum kit. New cover tune White Punks on Dope and the classic Live Wire are performed as encores with the latter seeing a huge amount of pyro, including ten-foot flames being shot out of Nikki’s bass guitar. The crowd disperses as the ballad New Tattoo plays through the house speakers. The tour travels from show to show in five trucks along with three buses for Mötley. Load-in takes about fours hours with breakdown after the show taking no more than two hours. The Crüe’s traveling entourage totals thirty seven people including band members.

Methods of Mayhem plays in front of one hundred and twenty five thousand people at the Glastonbury Festival in England. Tommy says it’s definitely the highlight of their European Tour that winds up at the Vienna Music Hall in Austria tomorrow.

27/6/00
Nikki’s pre-Mötley Crüe London demo tape is released as bonus tracks on Lizzie Grey’s band Spiders & Snakes’ album titled London Daze. The songs feature Nikki, Lizzie and Nigel Benjamin (ex-Mott the Hoople) doing three tracks: Nobody Loves You Like I Do, Straight From The Heart, and Dream Girl. Lizzie Grey was also the co-writer of the track Public Enemy #1 from the debut Mötley album.

Portrait Records releases a compilation called Naughty Platinum Rock featuring Mötley’s Girls, Girls, Girls as well as songs by Aerosmith, Kiss, Skid Row, Warrant, Winger, Slaughter, Whitesnake, Cinderella, Judas Priest, Mr. Big, Ratt, Danger Danger, Ted Nugent, Great White, Quiet Riot and Lita Ford.

28/6/00
Nikki says he is continuing to write songs with friend James Michael for Sammy Hagar, Deanna Carter and Meat Loaf. They also have two songs they will submit to Aerosmith. Nikki met James through Allen Kovac, as he has an album coming out soon on Beyond Records. They became friends and started hanging out together, sitting around playing guitars before demoing a few songs. When Nikki played them to the rest of the Crüe, they loved them so much they wanted to give them the Mötley makeover. Subsequently James Michael now has writing credits on more than half the songs on New Tattoo, including Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am, Dragstrip Superstar, She Needs Rock N Roll, Hollywood Ending, Fake and the title track. James is also a classically trained pianist.

Vince will take on the role of label head later this year when he establishes his own Rat Daddy Records on which he will reissue his two early-‘90s solo albums Exposed and Carved in Stone, the latter produced by the Dust Brothers before the production duo achieved fame with Beck and Hanson. Vince will also begin work on a third solo album for Rat Daddy Records after completion of the Crüe’s Maximum Rock tour this summer. The label eventually plans to release albums by other artists as well.

29/6/00
Mötley Crüe is nominated in the Best Metal/Hard Rock Band category in the annual L.A. Weekly Music Awards. The award is won by Rage Against the Machine, with Coal Chamber, Rollins Band and System Of A Down also receiving nominations.

1/7/00
Still recovering from stomach surgery, Randy watches Mötley Crüe perform at the Universal Amphitheatre in California. It seems he will be ready to return to his drum stool for his hometown show in Albuquerque, New Mexico in about a week. Courtney Love and her daughter also attend the show.

Michael ‘Cub’ Koda, the singer and songwriter behind the 1973 Brownsville Station and later Mötley Crüe hit Smokin’ In The Boys Room, dies in the early hours of complications from kidney dialysis. His father says he actually made more money from Mötley Crüe’s version of the song than he did off his original that rose to number three on Billboard magazine’s charts and sold more than two million copies.

2/7/00
Methods of Mayhem commences their slot on the OzzFest 2000 tour in Palm Beach, Florida. The main stage line-up is Ozzy Osbourne, Pantera, Godsmack, Static-X, Incubus, Methods of Mayhem, P.O.D. and Queens of the Stone Age.

6/7/00
John Corabi announces he is to play rhythm guitar for Ratt on their forthcoming summer tour with Warrant and LA Guns in a few weeks. Having just come off the road after Union shows in Europe, John has some time before they go overseas for some more dates. He jumps at the chance when the position in Ratt opens up, due to Kerri Kelli leaving to play with Slash’s Snakepit who is supporting AC/DC. It seems John will marry his girlfriend Layla Dawn later this year. Layla was previously dating new Ratt front-man Jizzy Pearl before meeting John in March 1998.

7/7/00
Mötley Crüe’s New Tattoo album is released in Japan with the demo versions of 1st Band On The Moon and Porno Star included as bonus tracks. Nikki says Hell on High Heels is really taking off on radio in all formats as well as the Internet, and it’s doing heaps better than expected. Radio is currently the strongest since the Dr. Feelgood days a decade ago.

11/7/00
Mötley Crüe holds a midnight three-hour in-store signing appearance at Best Buy in Plano, Texas that is attended by three and a half thousand people. The event is covered by VH1 and is the band’s first in-store appearance for many years. The New Tattoo album is released across the U.S. with certain music store chains having their own version containing special software on the CD with links for fans to download free tracks, including the demo versions of 1st Band On The Moon and Porno Star, as well as the song American Zero. The album’s artwork was again created by Erik C. Casillas who was responsible for the Greatest Hits album cover caricatures. The piano on She Needs Rock N Roll was played by Michael Boddicker, who has previously played on albums by artists including Aretha Franklin, Barbara Streisand, Barry Manilow and Bette Midler. The track Penthouse 57 is put into the vaults for later use. Nikki’s wife Donna can be heard saying “bad dog” in the track Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am, while Randy’s neighbour’s dog Joker howls at the end of the song.

13/7/00
Nikki and wife Donna find out their baby will be a girl, due on December 17.

Tommy tells U.S. Weekly that he had suicidal thoughts when he was in jail two years ago, thinking he’d end it all by hanging himself with his pants.

14/7/00
Randy’s doctor advises him to sit out the first leg of the Mötley tour to enable his body to heal more effectively after his surgery. Samantha Maloney will continue to fill-in for the rest of the year now, with Randy expected to return to the stool early next year when touring kicks off again.

15/7/00
Wild scenes interrupt Mötley Crüe’s performance in Mexico City. A small group of Megadeth fans close to the stage take offence at Nikki’s usual water spraying of the crowd in the pit to keep them cool and retaliate by throwing plastic bottles at him. Verbal jousts continue and one person manages to move Nikki’s mike stand away from him. After further insults and flying objects, Nikki jumps into the crowd taking on the attendees during Knock ‘Em Dead Kid, smashing his porno picture covered bass in the process. With security failing to eject the taunters, Nikki again dives into the crowd and is closely followed by Vince later in the set during Home Sweet Home. Nikki and Vince then head to the dressing rooms after making it back on stage, signaling that the show is over while security finally removes the three offenders from the venue. Mötley is encouraged by management to return to the stage after ten minutes or so, after the crowd is warned not to throw objects on stage. The set is cut short by four songs.

17/7/00
As New Tattoo is released in the U.K. on Beyond/Virgin Records, Mick, Nikki and Samantha are interviewed on the Rockline radio show from Houston while Randy participates from Los Angeles.

20/7/00
New Tattoo debuts at number forty one on the Billboard charts selling around forty thousand copies in its first week. The album comes in at number three on Billboard’s Internet charts behind BB King and Eric Clapton albums. Mötley performs Hell on High Heels on the Jay Leno Tonight show.

Scott Ian reports Anthrax is not taking any further part in the Maximum Rock Tour, unwilling to disclose his reasons due to legal requirements. Nikki says they were getting heaps of requests to add more songs to the Crüe set list, including more from New Tattoo, and as such they had to let Anthrax go.

24/7/00
A Mötley press release states that “due to financial constraints, Anthrax will not continue on the Maximum Rock Tour.” Five years later, Anthrax vocalist John Bush sheds retrospective light on the situation saying, “At the time there was a lot of competition during the summer of 2000. It was really busy. We were probably playing bigger venues than the bands at that time should have played. Ticket sales were struggling, and Mötley wanted to cut everybody’s pay. We couldn’t afford to do that because then we would have been losing money. Now, to take a loss to do that tour would have been an error, so three weeks in when they came to us wanting to cut our pay in half, we couldn’t do it. All we had out at that time was a greatest hits record that wasn’t even that recent. We were bummed because we had blocked off ten weeks for this tour, and we were back in three. It kind of screwed us up.”

Meanwhile as the Crüe’s new album is released in Australia, Nikki says the band has chosen the next single from New Tattoo. The band is rehearsing Fake, New Tattoo, Dragstrip Superstar, Treat Me Like A Dog, Too Fast For Love, Bastard, Red Hot and She Goes Down to have ready to add to the set as required. The final chapters of the Mötley Crüe book The Dirt are also being worked on by Nikki and author Neil Strauss.

25/7/00
Nikki says after he walked off stage in Charlotte he was told that Hell on High Heels is the number four most-requested song on American radio. Nikki starts taking prescription pills to help deal with stress. It’s not long before he starts drinking and taking cocaine.

Vince sings Paranoid on the new Ozzy Osbourne tribute album called Bat Head Soup – A Tribute to Ozzy released today on Cleopatra Records. George Lynch plays guitar on the track with Stu Hamm on bass and Greg Bissonette on drums.

1/8/00
The 58 side project of Nikki Sixx premieres an animated video clip for Piece of Candy – the first single from their Diet for a New America debut CD. Only available on the Internet, the Shockwave single that combines the impact of full-screen Flash animation and MP3 audio compression, Piece of Candy is created as an animated comic strip detailing Candy’s rise to fame on the Internet and her ultimate demise.

3/8/00
Mötley Crüe plays live at the Pennsylvanian home of Deb Prelewicz after she sent in a photo of her house and a poetic essay on why she should win The Bear-WXBE radio contest Mötley Crüe: Live in Your Living Room. About fifty of her friends party to the Crüe’s seven requested songs in her backyard for her thirty-eighth birthday celebration for over an hour. The event is covered by the radio station and local TV as part of the promotion. The Bear won the right to host the contest from one-hundred-and-thirty-plus rock stations across the U.S. after placing the Mötley Crüe logo on their website and then having the highest percentage of hits based on population.

5/8/00
On stage at the Meadows Music Theatre in Hartford, Vince is hit in the forehead by a two-inch bolt thrown from someone in the crowd as he is about to start singing Home Sweet Home. Paramedics say he doesn’t need to go back on stage after checking him out backstage, but the show continues after a fifteen minute break. Nikki says security apprehended the guy and they have witnesses, and for a change the band are pressing charges and suing the offender.

11/8/00
Mötley Crüe guests on the Live with Regis TV show. Mick says he has a fiancée of many years now in Robbie Mantooth, while Samantha Maloney has been with her boyfriend for the last eight years – the owner of a Queens, New York dry cleaners. Nikki says he’ll be getting a vasectomy soon. Later in the night the band plays Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am live for the first time.

12/8/00
In New York City, Nikki says they’re booking tour dates in Australia, Japan, Canada, South East Asia, Hawaii and even looking into some South African concerts for the next leg.

14/8/00
From Canada, Nikki says they talked with Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine last night about doing a version of Anarchy in the U.K. together that may be included in their set. Nikki is looking forward to a nine-day vacation with his pregnant wife once this leg is completed in a couple of weeks. Randy is running five miles each day in preparation for his return on more tour dates that will be announced soon.

16/8/00
New Tattoo has almost reached Gold status in Canada so the Mötley camp is talking about doing a Canadian tour sometime later in the year. Nikki says the pre-show rituals and after-show events of Crüeheads in the parking lot will be captured on film in Detroit, so Vince can edit it together for publishing on the Internet. It is inspired by the classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot documentary that was filmed outside a Judas Priest concert in 1983.

21/8/00
Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am is confirmed as the second single about to be released to rock radio. Nikki says the Crüe will be off the road next month and some of October. They will be doing other forms of promotion for the New Tattoo album until they leave for Japan and Australia. Nikki also says he spoke with Def Leppard front-man Joe Elliot yesterday and there’s a possibility of a co-headline U.S. tour with them next year.

22/8/00
The Vince Neil solo albums Exposed and Carved in Stone are set to be re-issued on his own Rat Daddy Records before Christmas. Now that the discs have been turned over from Warner Records, Vince says, “We’ll probably repackage them, put an extra couple tunes on each one – stuff we had leftover from both eras.”

With his mobile studio set up in his OzzFest tour bus, Tommy is currently demoing new tracks for the second Methods of Mayhem release.

24/8/00
After arriving in Tampa, Florida, Mötley heads off to radio station WXTB to jam. The band Hanson is also at the studio and they ask if they can have a photo taken of them with Mötley Crüe.

27/8/00
Nikki says once this leg of the tour is over, the Crüe won’t play live in America and Canada again until February or March. They are planning on touring on and off until this time next year. Nikki also says that Korea has banned the Crüe from playing there.

The Mötley Crüe book The Dirt is almost complete and looks set to be handed in to the publisher in a few weeks before being sent to print. Nikki says he would like to sign the first five hundred copies and number them for diehard fans.

1/9/00
Nikki says time is being booked with Mike Clink to mix the track Nobody Knows What It’s Like To Be Lonely for inclusion in the first run of the forthcoming Mötley Crüe autobiography The Dirt. This was the unreleased track from Mötley’s very first recording session back in early 1981. Nikki says, “I don’t think anybody has ever heard this before.” Even though many fans have had the song for many years on a bootleg video of their first show at the Starwood, the actual recorded song has yet to be heard.

Tommy throws a big party at his house for a couple of hundred people as he celebrates the end of the OzzFest tour and the end of his probation and alcohol ban the previous day, which stemmed from his 1998 felony spousal abuse no-contest plea involving ex-wife Pamela Anderson. Tommy says the celebrations were enjoyed by Ozzy and all the bands from the tour.

3/9/00
Mötley Crüe plays the final show of the first leg of the Maximum Rock 2000 Tour at the Van Wert County Fair in Ohio. Tour support Megadeth played their final show with the Crüe the night before in Columbus.

A small taste of a new Mötley Crüe & National Hot Rod Association tie-in with Chuck Etchells Racing is seen over this weekend at the U.S. Nationals in Indy. The Etchells-owned Matco/Kendall Chevy Camaro driven by Whit Bazemore features the Mötley Crüe album cover on both sides of the wing. Next year the whole car will be emblazoned with Mötley Crüe branding for three races. Additionally, a special video for Hell on High Heels created from pay-per-view footage and racing footage is shown on the video screens at the event to promote the new album.

5/9/00
The New Tattoo Tour of Australia 2000 is first announced as an exclusive by Chronological Crue. The band is set to play five shows on the east coast of Australia straight after the Japanese shows finish towards the end of November. It’s to be Mötley’s first shows in Australia for a decade.

7/9/00
As the forthcoming Crüe autobiography book The Dirt is turned over to the publishers, Nikki gets a call from band management advising that the police want to speak with him. After he brushes it off, Vince calls Nikki and tells him that the police wanted to advise him that his sister Lisa had died of a heart attack in the morning. Nikki soon goes to Santa Cruz to arrange her funeral where he sees his sister for the first and last time, before she is cremated. He holds her little hand in the casket and looks down at her face, noticing they have the same eyebrows. Back in Los Angeles, he buries the urn containing her ashes under a statue of an angel with wings, on a small plot of land at the top of a mountain that he bought for her resting place.

8/9/00
James Michael goes to Nikki’s home where they work on writing a couple of tracks for Meat Loaf’s next album. Nikki says the first of them is a ballad in the epic sense. Nikki wants to get Meat Loaf’s daughter Pearl, who is also the Crüe’s backup singer, to sing on the demo with James and Nikki later in the week.

14/9/00
Union is looking at possibly hitting the road for a tour of Europe in October/November.

18/9/00
Nikki works on a track Man of Steel for Meat Loaf’s album with James Michael at James’ studio. Nikki plans on doing more with it the next day before meeting Mick to re-do his guitar on Hollywood Ending. Vince will add his vocals again the next day, before strings are added to it. Nikki says they feel Hollywood Ending needs a facelift if it’s going to be a single some day, or part of a movie soundtrack. The track Nobody Knows What It’s Like To Be Lonely also has to be mixed for inclusion in the band’s book The Dirt set for release next April. The song will likely ship to radio as a single to tie it all in.

23/9/00
James Michael and Nikki may be producing some more acts, both together and separately, as Nikki says they are on a song-writing binge again. There is an offer for Mötley Crüe to tour Europe next year with Alice Cooper and another cool opener, who Nikki says he would love someone like Queens of the Stone Age, the Donnas, or Powerman 5000. Nikki’s signature Blackbird bass is finally out and hitting stores. He says it’s a dream come true and acknowledges his bass tech Kevin Briers for helping make it all happen.

28/9/00
Mötley Crüe announces that Hole drummer Samantha Maloney will continue handling drumming responsibilities for the Crüe on their New Tattoo Japanese and Australian tours. Sam was universally well-received by fans and critics alike during the recent North American Maximum Rock Tour as Randy recovered from stomach surgery. Randy will take the remainder of 2000 off for health reasons and will re-join the band next year.

2/10/00
Tommy says his Tommyland Studios is almost completely wired-up in his home in preparation for the second Methods of Mayhem CD to be out by February or March next year, after the first one went Gold in the United States, Canada and Japan. A home-video is also in the works for release around the same time with all this year’s live M.O.M. footage currently being edited by Tommy’s tech Viggy. Tommy also says his DJ may fill TiLo’s place in the band, as he is no longer a member of Methods of Mayhem. He says Methods is also confirmed for next summer’s OzzFest tour.

14/10/00
Nikki says that he and James Michael have now finished their song for Meat Loaf who was completely blown away by it. It is likely to be produced in January in Los Angeles. The pair is also writing a song for fellow Beyond Music label artist Deanna Carter. Nikki is also set to produce one song for English artist Overseer with Meegs and Dez from Coal Chamber. The Columbia Records artist’s style is in the vein of Fat Boy Slim and Prodigy.

19/10/00
In New York City for the CMJ Convention, Nikki meets with the publisher of the Mötley Crüe autobiography The Dirt to finalise the artwork. He then sees P.J. Harvey, Disturbed and The Donnas play live across three different venues, after seeing Halford at Roseland the night before.

20/10/00
After listening to panel speakers all day at CMJ, Nikki attends a Spin magazine party at CBGB’s where he hangs with new band Creeping Lagoon. He then goes to some other venues and sees the bands At The Drive-In and Swinging Lovehammers before heading back to Los Angeles the next day.

24/10/00
The long awaited self-titled official debut from Fozzy is released on Megaforce Records. Led by Mongoose McQueen, who looks suspiciously like WWF wrestling star Chris Jericho, and others who look suspiciously like members of the band Stuck Mojo, Fozzy is said to have been stranded in Japan twenty years ago, but have now returned to the U.S.A. The album contains many recognisable hits such as Live Wire, thought to have been performed originally by Mötley Crüe. Fozzy’s tongue in cheek humour is reminiscent of Spinal Tap.

27/10/00
Mötley Crüe cancels their forthcoming Australian Tour that was to be the band’s first there in a decade and only their second ever in the country. Their press release says the cancellation was due to “personal circumstances beyond the band’s control” while Nikki says later in the day that it was “due to low ticket sales.” He goes on to say that Vince has been sick with the flu, delaying him from re-doing his vocals for a new version of Hollywood Ending before they leave for Japan. The song is set to be included with the Crüe book next year.

Meanwhile in the U.S. a new Hewlett Packard commercial hits prime-time TV on all the major channels featuring Girls, Girls, Girls being played on a portable CD player.

31/10/00
A limited two-disc Tour Edition version of New Tattoo is released in Japan, available for two months until December 31. Disc one contains the regular album with the bonus track 1st Band On The Moon (demo), while disc two comprises six tracks recorded live in Salt Lake City earlier this year, rather than the ten live tracks previously anticipated.

4/11/00
From Japan, Nikki says he has been asked to write a song for Santana’s next album, which he’ll work on with James Michael after the Japanese tour. He says he loves the art of song-writing and hopes to write and produce a lot of music for other artists over the next six months, which will also help prepare him for the writing of Mötley’s next album.

5/11/00
Mötley Crüe kicks off their Japan 2000 Tour at Tokyo Bay NK Hall. Mick’s guitar doesn’t fire-up for the opening song Kickstart My Heart, forcing the band to leave the stage and re-start the show.

7/11/00
Anthrax is suing Mötley Crüe and its management because of the money lost when they were kicked off this year’s Maximum Rock tour. Meanwhile, Japan’s Burrn! magazine presented the Crüe with the Best Live Band of 1999 award in Tokyo last night.

Bruce Kulick says he is to tour soon with Grand Funk Railroad, which places a real question mark over the future of his band Union with former Mötley front-man John Corabi. Whilst he says, “the door is not shut with further things happening for the band” he also says, “the market has made it very tough on all of us” and states that he hopes that Union fans “will be happy with whatever musical journeys we take, together or apart.”

13/11/00
Nikki says that after the Japanese tour he will take the rest of the year off and just write and produce music. He told his kids that he wasn’t going on tour for at least a year and they ran around the house shouting at the top of their lungs, “Dad’s not leaving! Dad’s not leaving!” He says the band hasn’t really stopped touring since Vince returned early in 1997 and it will be a well-deserved and much needed break.

15/11/00
Nikki says he got a bass clef tattooed on his hand a few nights ago when he went out after a show with his bass tech Kevin, who got a hanya mask inked on his leg. He also says Vince got branded the night before, which is something he could never bring himself to do. Vince is now branded with a butterfly at the top of his outside right arm.

22/11/00
Now back from the Japanese tour, Nikki says he is working on a new song called If You Hurt The Ones You Love (I Must Really Love You). He also says he is going underground for some time as he prepares for the birth of his daughter next month. He hints at a name with the initials F-J.M.S.

23/11/00
As a Thanksgiving exclusive, Chronological Crue reports Randy Castillo is currently undergoing radiation treatment following his surgery on Friday the Thirteenth of October when he had a cancerous lump removed from his throat. After recovering from emergency stomach surgery earlier in the year, the diagnosis and treatment of his cancer prevented him from playing on Mötley’s recent tour of Japan. Randy’s spirit and attitude is very positive and he says he “wants people to be aware of cancer and the devastating effects it can have on someone who doesn’t take it seriously enough.”

25/11/00
A new song titled We Won’t Die From This is written by Nikki. He says lyrically it’s about knowing that no matter how much your heart may ache, you won’t die from it, but it still hurts like hell. He also says he has read the final chapters of The Dirt (Pt.1) - Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Band and it’s going to blow our minds.

4/12/00
The multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by Vince last August against a subsidiary of the Boeing Company claiming that the deliberate dumping of toxic waste and other hazardous material on property adjacent to his former Simi Valley home contributed to his young daughter’s death from cancer, has been dismissed by a district court judge. Vince’s attorney failed to provide documents that the aeronautics company requested to prepare for its case and neither Vince nor his attorney appeared in court to contest the dismissal.

11/12/00
Nikki says he got a nice email from Tommy wishing him a happy birthday as he spends his forty second birthday in his studio locking his Pro Tools to his Yamaha SU700 Loop Factory sampling unit, before receiving gifts and cake from his family. It’s also Samantha Maloney’s twenty fifth birthday and Nikki says he would dig playing bass on the next Hole album.

12/12/00
During a U.S. radio interview, Randy says he was anxious about losing his hair from his chemotherapy treatment so he decided to shave his head to deal with the stress.

14/12/00
Radio station KNAC reports that a reliable source has confirmed Zakk Wylde will write and record guitars on the next Ozzy Osbourne album, with Geezer Butler on bass, and Tommy on drums. It further states that recording will begin next month with a release anticipated before OzzFest 2001 with this same line-up participating in the tour. Tommy does not end up playing or touring with Ozzy.

18/12/00
Craig DeFalco from Laidlaw says his band has parted ways with Nikki Sixx’s Americoma Records and Beyond Music. He says, “Nikki and I talked about it and decided it would be best to part ways. We, as a band, are very happy to have been able to record and work with Nikki and everyone at Beyond Music. I’m glad we did this record with Nikki and all the tours he got for us! He personally exposed us to a lot of people over the last two years. And that’s something Laidlaw will never forget!”

On with the show