Motley Crue earns first top-10 rock single in 10 years with "The Dirt (Est. 1981)"

Posted By: Staff
April 10, 2019 @ 3:00 pm
Music News

Masters 2000 Inc./Eleven Seven Music

Masters 2000 Inc./Eleven Seven MusicMotley Crue‘s new song “The Dirt (Est. 1981),” from the band’s new biopic The Dirt, has reached #10 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Songs chart, making it the band’s first top-10 single on that tally in over 10 years.

No one in Motley Crue had expected to record new music for the film, but when bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee — who hadn’t seen each other since the Crue’s farewell tour ended on New Year’s Eve 2015 — crossed paths while The Dirt was being made, Sixx decided to broach the subject.

“I was kinda nervous to see Tommy, and Tommy said he was nervous to see me,” Sixx tells ABC Radio. “We saw each other, all the B.S. was behind us, we left the baggage at the door, and we just started talking about music and the movie and each other’s lives and how long we’ve known each other.”

When Sixx first brought up the possibility of new music, he didn’t have high hopes — after all, he thought, “We’re never gonna talk again, much less record new music.” But it turned out that Lee had some ideas, too.

“So we kinda played [our ideas] for each other, and we were, like, ‘Whoa! That’s pretty cool, and that’s pretty cool, let’s get [guitarist] Mick [Mars] online,'” Sixx recalls. “Then we got Mick, and Mick had some ideas, and that’s how it started.”

Crue ended up recording three new songs for The Dirt, plus a cover of Madonna‘s “Like a Virgin.” As for the possibility of more new music, that’s up in the air.

“We just recorded for the first time in, what, 10 years?” Sixx remarks. “So in another 10 years when we record in 2029…I don’t what we’ll be writing about. Rocking chairs?”