Mötley Crüe - Dr. Feelgood
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 28.08.1989
In October 1988, singer Tanita Tikaram released "Twist in My Sobriety". At around the same time, American glam metal band "Mötley Crüe" checked themselves into rehab, hoping to regain some sobriety of their own.
Yes, this was one of those make-or-break moments. The members of "Mötley Crüe", led by bassist and co-founder Nikki Sixx, had become completely consumed by drugs. Sixx later wrote in "The Heroin Diaries": "Alcohol, acid, cocaine... they were just affairs. When I met heroin it was true love." He estimated that he overdosed "about half a dozen times."
On December 23, 1987, Sixx overdosed on heroin once too often. He was reportedly declared clinically dead for two minutes before a paramedic, who happened to be a "Mötley Crüe" fan, revived him with two shots of adrenaline, indirectly keeping not only Sixx alive, but the band's career as well.
That shocking event did more than save "Mötley Crüe"'s career. Some might say it ultimately upgraded their lives. With a clearer, healthier outlook, and with a gifted producer named Bob Rock, who would later work with bands such as "Metallica" and "Bon Jovi", "Mötley Crüe" recorded their fifth studio album, "Dr. Feelgood", released on August 28, 1989.
Sixx was born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr. on December 11, 1958, in San Jose, California.
He was raised partly by his single mother, Deana Richards, and partly by his grandparents after his father abandoned the family. Feranna grew up listening to "Deep Purple", Harry Nilsson, "The Beatles", "The Rolling Stones", Elton John, "Queen" and "Black Sabbath". He later discovered "T. Rex", David Bowie, and "Slade".
While living with his grandparents, Feranna became a juvenile delinquent. As a teenager, he broke into neighbors' homes, shoplifted and was expelled from school for selling drugs. His grandparents eventually sent him to live with his mother, who had moved to Seattle. Feranna stayed there for a short period and learned to play bass guitar after buying his first instrument with money he made from selling a guitar he had stolen.
At the age of 17, he moved to Los Angeles and supported himself with odd jobs, including working at a liquor store and selling vacuum cleaners over the phone, while auditioning for various bands. Among them was "Sister", before he went on to form "London" in 1978. During this period, Feranna legally changed his name to Nikki Sixx.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Sixx left "London" in search of a new band. He had already become familiar with the drumming abilities of "Suite 19" member Tommy Lee and approached him. Lee and Sixx began playing together while continuing their search for a guitarist.
Then an advertisement in the Los Angeles newspaper "The Recycler" caught their attention:
"Loud, rude, aggressive guitar player available."
The guitarist behind the ad was Bob Deal, who would later legally change his name to Mick Mars. A former member of "White Horse", Mars was already an experienced player on the Los Angeles club circuit. Sixx and Lee contacted him, and after a brief audition, Mars joined the developing band.
Now all they needed was a singer. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt with another vocalist, they turned to "Rock Candy" frontman Vince Neil, whom Tommy Lee knew from high school. Neil initially resisted the invitation but eventually agreed to join.
The name "Mötley Crüe" came from Mick Mars, who remembered an incident from his days with "White Horse" when one of the band's members described the group as "a motley looking crew". Mars remembered the phrase and wrote it down as "Mottley Cru". The members played around with the spelling, eventually settling on the name "Mötley Crüe".
During their early days, the four musicians played around Hollywood and Los Angeles, where they met their first manager, Allan Coffman. The band's debut single, "Stick to Your Guns / Toast of the Town", and first album, "Too Fast for Love", were both initially released independently through their own Leathür Records label.
"Mötley Crüe"'s growing success on the Los Angeles club circuit, along with approximately 20,000 copies of "Too Fast for Love" sold independently, helped earn them a contract with major label "Elektra Records".
But as mentioned earlier, the destructive lifestyle of the band's members nearly tore "Mötley Crüe" apart. From Vince Neil's fatal car accident in 1984 to Nikki Sixx's clinical death and return to life following his heroin overdose, the excesses were rapidly catching up with them.
The band's management finally intervened and sent the members to rehab, with the exception of Mick Mars, who got sober on his own. Before long, "Mötley Crüe" were clean, sober and ready to begin the chapter that would lead to the biggest album of their career.
The traumatic experience the band had endured, combined with their meeting with producer Bob Rock, pushed "Mötley Crüe" toward a more polished and accessible sound.
Bob Rock's production style was completely foreign to the band. They were accustomed to recording quickly and leaving much of the work in the hands of producer Tom Werman. The perfectionist Rock approached things very differently. Nothing was left unresolved in the studio, even if that meant spending days working on the same guitar part. Mick Mars, for example, was pushed to repeat and perfect guitar lines again and again until Rock was satisfied with the result.
Rock's perfectionism made a real impression on both Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx, who had grown up listening to artists such as "Cheap Trick" and David Bowie, for whom production was an integral part of the music.
The result was the album that propelled "Mötley Crüe"'s career to another level. Commercially, "Dr. Feelgood" would eventually sell more than six million copies in the United States alone, while musically the band's playing sounded tighter and more focused than ever, helped enormously by the fact that the musicians were finally recording without the cloud of drugs and alcohol hanging over them.
"Dr. Feelgood" also revealed more dimensions than the decadent glam-metal image that had defined "Mötley Crüe" throughout much of the decade. Alongside the familiar sex, drugs and Sunset Strip excess, the album occasionally looked beyond the party. "Time for Change" offered an unusually idealistic call for social change, while "Same Ol' Situation (S.O.S.)" dealt, with the band's typically provocative sense of humor, with a man discovering that the woman he desires is involved with another woman. It was hardly a philosophical reinvention, but it showed that the Crüe could occasionally look beyond their familiar world of hedonistic excess.
The album opens with the short intro "T.n.T. (Terror 'n Tinseltown)", which includes a sampled female voice saying, "Dr Davis, phone please." The same sample can also be heard on "Queensrÿche"'s "Eyes of a Stranger", released the previous year.
The album's first single and title track, "Dr. Feelgood", takes us straight back into the streets of Los Angeles. Sixx wrote it around the intersection between the Sunset Strip scene and the drug trade, focusing on the dealers who supplied the lifestyle that had almost destroyed the band.
The second single, "Kickstart My Heart", turned Nikki Sixx's near-death experience into one of "Mötley Crüe"'s most explosive anthems. Sixx wrote it after his 1987 heroin overdose and the dramatic attempt to revive him, with the title referring to the story of paramedics using adrenaline to get his heart beating again. Instead of celebrating drugs, the song channels that near-death experience into speed, adrenaline and the rush of being alive.
The ballad "Without You" was written by Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars about the relationship between their bandmate Tommy Lee and actress Heather Locklear, who was then best known for television series such as "Dynasty". Lee and Locklear had married in 1986, and the song presented a surprisingly romantic side of "Mötley Crüe", far removed from the band's usual tales of excess.
"Metallica" drummer Lars Ulrich was impressed by Bob Rock's production on "Dr. Feelgood". When "Metallica" began searching for a producer for their next album, Rock was brought in to work on what would become their self-titled fifth album, "Metallica", better known as "The Black Album".
Rock would go on to produce "Bon Jovi"'s "Keep the Faith" as well as "Metallica"'s subsequent studio albums through "St. Anger". His involvement with the latter went even further, as Rock also performed the bass parts on the album following Jason Newsted's departure from the band.
"Dr. Feelgood" also featured an impressive collection of guest musicians. Steven Tyler of "Aerosmith", Bryan Adams, Sebastian Bach of "Skid Row", and Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander of "Cheap Trick" all contributed backing vocals, adding even more star power to an album that already sounded bigger and more ambitious than anything "Mötley Crüe" had recorded before.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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