"You're the Felons, Not Me"
Mick Mars is turning up the heat in his legal fight with Mötley Crüe, saying in a new interview that he “carried those bastards for years.”
“Those guys have been hammering on me since ’87, trying to replace me,” Mars told Variety. They haven’t been able to do that, because I’m the guitar player. I helped form this band. It’s my name I came up with [the Mötley Crüe moniker], my ideas, my money that I had from a backer to start this band. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
This week, Mars filed a lawsuit against Mötley Crüe over a dispute his share of profits. Mars specifically alleges that he was “unilaterally” removed from the band after announcing his retirement from touring due to ongoing struggles with an arthritic disease called ankylosing spondylitis. As a result, his profit share was cut from 25 percent to a five percent.
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“That’s an insult to me that they’re offering me that,” Mars told Variety. “No. It’s my name. It’s Mick Mars, it’s Mötley Crüe, the four of us that made the band. You would have to have a good reason to be fired. I don’t. I could come back with this and go like, “Hey, you know what? I’m gonna counter because you assholes are felons. You [Tommy Lee] for spousal abuse; you [Vince Neil] for manslaughter.” I’m not doing that. It just makes me really upset that they want to try and bully me more or less out of the band, so it’s the last man standing that collects everything. And if there’s any real justice to it, I’d be the one that would be the only one that has no criminal record. I’m pure. I’m clean as a freshly washed baby.”
“And I’m being beat up, mentally — and I’m already physically ruined. But the hazing, the gaslighting and all that stuff, when they tell me that I’m losing my mind and I’m this, that and the other — oh my God. What’s the matter with you guys? You’re the felons, not me,” Mars added. “You can’t be fired from your own company, unless you do something horribly bad — like, be a felon. That’s mean, but, sorry!”
“Retiring from touring is resigning from the band,” said Sasha Frid, Mötley Crüe’s litigation attorney, said in a statement in response to Mars’ lawsuit (via Variety). “The band’s primary function is to tour and perform concerts… If a shareholder resigns, he cannot receive any compensation from touring — which is what Mick is trying to get. It’s clear-cut that Mick is not entitled to any more money.”
Source: Consequence
