The Crüe is back!

Web posted on:
Thursday, December 10, 1998 4:09:27 PM EST

Special to CNN Interactive
Story by Donna Freydkin
Pictures by Meg Goldman

• The glops of makeup are gone
• Longevity credited to being 'the real thing'
• A concert Cruesade
• Internet a 'double-edged sword'
• Photo gallery: Straight from New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- Welcome to '90s heavy metal, in best '80s style.

The stage fills up with hazy gray smoke, thudding music emits from massive speakers, and throngs of fans clap wildly as an ominous voice instructs them on the various acceptable uses of a certain profane word. Moments later, in truly ostentatious tradition, Mötley Crüe, the poster boys of gleeful, exhilaratingly glorious glam rock, dash on stage, and the audience goes mad.

Sixteen years after the brash Los Angeles foursome released its first album, the jolting "Too Fast For Love," the Crüe still has that elusive magnetic star quality that seems to be missing from so many of the bland, insipid acts of today. From their resplendent tattoos and flamboyant stage garb on down, they're just as spectacular, as overstated, as the carnal poster boys who defined '80s glam rock. And their fans eat it up, maybe because so much of today's music just isn't fun anymore.

"We are so out of sync right now with what's going on that we're actually on the forefront, the innovators of the music scene," laughs bass player Nikki Sixx, two hours before the band's New Orleans show.

Mötley Crüe is the quintessential guilty pleasure, the perfect swaggering antidote to the doom-ridden, depressing and self-aggrandizing whining of celebs recoiling from the fame they pursued, but all too happy to perform at fawning awards ceremonies. The band's embrace of celebrity and all its trappings is a panacea to fans fed up with the dismal rants of grunge acts wailing about life's tribulations while stashing millions in the bank.

And the Crue's massively powerful, unflaggingly energetic shows are a blessed break for listeners tired of shelling out good money for a concert, only to watch a reticent singer on a bleak stage staring down and warbling weird, tedious lyrics no one can begin to grasp.

But it would be misleading to proclaim that Mötley Crüe is back, because the band says it never really left.

"We've been around going on 20 years. For us it's been an evolutionary process musically, it's been about focusing on the music," adds Sixx.

The Crüe is in the midst of a 35-city North American tour in support of its greatest hits album, which hit stores in late October and features the two new songs "Enslaved" and "Bitter Pill." In truly genteel Crüe fashion, the band launched its album by playing "Bitter Pill" on "Raw Is War," the World Wrestling Federation's highly rated Monday-night TV show. The payoff: After only being out for a week, the album debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard 200.

Nevertheless, the band that once defined celebrity excess has grown up, somewhat. The hairspray has dried up, pierced brows have taken the place of preposterous eye makeup, and water seems to be the beverage of choice backstage. But nevertheless, Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, 35, still manage to tangle with the law on a regular basis, most recently for allegedly assaulting a security guard at an Arizona concert last December.

Hours before the New Orleans show, the guys lounge in a dim room while their unfailingly polite managers sit hunched over laptops and printers, hammering out tour details in a cramped war room. Not a single groupie is in sight. Even the reportedly incendiary and famously unpredictable Lee, wearing bellbottom jeans and a long-sleeved flowing shirt, is peacefully leaning against a wall and talking to guitarist Mick Mars. So much for the crazed world of music.

Next: The glops of makeup are gone