Motley Crue Biography

Mötley Crüe (IPA pronunciation: ) is a popular American rock band from Los Angeles, California. The band is made up of Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, and Vince Neil. Despite their notoriety, Mötley Crüe is considered one of the most successful American hard rock bands, having sold over 41 million albums worldwide and 24 million records in the US alone.

Mötley Crüe were often regarded as 'hair metal' and compared to their peers such as Warrant, Poison, Whitesnake and Faster Pussycat. But one could argue that Mötley Crüe's music was in reality much closer to 1970's hard rock pioneers like Cheap Trick and the New York Dolls. These bands such as Poison were formed in a response to success of Mötley Crüe and owe much to them. As such, being labelled 'hair metal' led Mötley Crüe to be critically panned by the music industry throughout the 1980s, despite being one of the key architects in 80s rock and roll and having amassed a legion of fans.

Mötley Crüe are often cited by many contemporary artists as an inspiration. Artists such as Green Day, Moby, Murderdolls, The Living End , Mana, Wednesday 13 and Marilyn Manson have praised them in recent years, most notably for Too Fast For Love and Shout At The Devil. They've also been parodied for their early glam rock look in music videos by a variety of artists such as Bowling for Soup, Beck, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the Backstreet Boys.

In the Beavis and Butt-Head movie, it is revealed that the duo's fathers were Mötley Crüe roadies.

Besides music, Mötley Crüe also set the scale for decadent rock and roll behavior. Since the release of "The Dirt", the band has been known as one of the most decadent and self-destructive groups in rock music history, if not the most.

Nikki Sixx's autobiograpy, The Heroin Diaries: A day in the life of a shattered rockstar, is due out in November 2006.