Former Mötley Crüe frontman John Corabi sat down with Ultimate Classic Rock for a new interview and recalled the dark days of rock back in the day.
While talking about Mötley Crüe’s tour with Dokken, Ratt, Warrant, L.A. Guns and Firehouse, the rocker said no one was there to listen to them.
“I remember doing a tour in 2002 where I was going, ‘What the f*ck is going on?’ We were somewhere in Iowa doing this big outdoor thing. It was Dokken, Ratt, Warrant, L.A. Guns and Firehouse. Five bands,” he recalled the day. “I just remember that we got out there and Firehouse went on.”
“I’m looking and there were maybe 12 people in the audience, he continued. “It was just this parking lot. Nobody was there. L.A. Guns went on and there were maybe eight more people, and then Warrant went on. I’m just sitting there and when Ratt went on — we were right before Dokken — when we went on, there were maybe 200-250 people there. In an area that could have held 4,000 or 5,000. It was bleak. I just remember getting offstage and having a panic attack.”
The rocker referred to the 90s as ‘weird times’: “Everybody had the same mindset: ‘F*ck, what is happening?’ How do you go from 10,000-20,000 arenas to being completely irrelevant? It’s a little bit of a sting. The ‘90s and 2000s were weird. But some of these bands said, ‘Let’s just suck it up. I’m going to keep doing my thing.’”
“Just recently, all of these bands that nobody gave a sh*t about, now there’s these people that are reminiscing about their youth. They want the soundtrack to their youth while they’re reminiscing. All of these bands, your Great Whites, Motley Crues, Poison, L.A. Guns, there’s a resurgence for the live shows,” he added.
John Corabi was Mötley Crüe’s frontman in the early-to-mid 1990s, and he’s admitted that he’s not a fan of their 1997 comeback album with Vince Neil. He thinks they were trying too hard to change their sound to stay relevant.
“I think, to be honest with you, Tommy [Lee] and Nikki [Sixx] and Scott [Humphrey] were trying to reinvent themselves to be current,” the vocalist said during an interview with Rob’s School of Music. “[Motley Crue] were just trying to figure out how to be relevant again, which kind of led to a little bit of my demise, because I was just, like, ‘This is f*cking bullshit. Just do what you do. You’re Mötley.’”
Corabi replaced Vince Neil in 1992 and sang on the band’s 1994 self-titled album. Although it peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, it didn’t do as well as their earlier albums, especially since 1989’s ‘Dr. Feelgood’ hit No. 1.