Synopsis
Gripping and compulsively readable, Motley Crue's entry in the tell-all autobiographical stakes is a tour de force of a genre that had its genesis in books like S.T.P., Robert Greenfield's memoir of life on the road with the Rolling Stones, and Stephen Davis's classic Led Zeppelin saga HAMMER OF THE GODS. THE DIRT transports us from the band's early days in digs that were slum-like and unhygienic enough to draw attention from the City of Los Angeles health department, to their later, no less seamy Hollywood mansions. Though occasional outside reality injects itself into the story, especially in the heartbreaking episode of singer Vince Neil's daughter's tragic death from cancer, and there's a smattering of rock & roll, the more consistent themes here are drugs and girls (plus a few high performance cars), and the permanently unapologetic attitude with which the band consumes all of the above. The price, of course, is wrecked personal lives, addiction, and death (Vince Neil's method of dealing with killing his passenger in an auto accident is simply to continue drinking), but, with an oddly refreshing lack of morals or moralizing, the Crue carry on partying, sneering at any attempted happy endings.

Details
Publication Date:	2002-07-01
Edition Description:	Reprint

Size
Height:	9.3 in
Width:	6.3 in
Thickness:	1.2 in
Weight:	24.8 oz

Publisher's Note

Whiskey and porn stars, hot reds and car crashes, black leather and high heels, overdoses and death. This is the life of Mötley Crüe, the heaviest drinking, hardest fighting, most oversexed and arrogant band in the world. Their unbelievable exploits are the stuff of rock 'n' roll legend. They nailed the hottest chicks, started the bloodiest fights, partied with the biggest drug dealers, and got to know the inside of every jail cell from California to Japan. They have dedicated an entire career to living life to its extreme, from the greatest fantasies to the darkest tragedies. Tommy married two international sex symbols; Vince killed a man and lost a daughter to cancer; Nikki overdosed, rose from the dead, and then OD'd again the next day; and Wick shot a woman and tried to hang his own brother. But that's just the beginning. Fueled by every drug they could get their hands on and obscene amounts of alcohol, driven by fury and headed straight for hell, Mötley Crüe raged through two decades, leaving behind a trail of debauched women, trashed hotel rooms, crashed cars, psychotic managers, and broken bones that has left the music industry cringing to this day. All these unspeakable acts, not to mention their dire consequences, are laid bare in The Dirt.

Here -- directly from Nikki, Vince, Tommy, and Mick -- is the unexpurgated version of the whole glorious, gut-wrenching story. In these pages, published for the first time anywhere, are Tommy Lee's letters to Pamela Anderson from prison: Mick's confession to having an incurable disease that is slowly killing him; Vince's experience burying his own daughter -- and the train wreck that his life became afterward; and Nikki's anguished struggle to deal with an entire life fueled by anger over his childhood abandonment, his discovery of the family he never knew he had -- and his subsequent loss of them. And all of it accompanied by scores of rare, never-before-published photographs, mug shots, and handwritten lyrics. No one is spared. Not David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Vanity, Aerosmith, Heather Locklear, AC/DC, Lita Ford, Iron Maiden, Pamela Anderson, Guns N' Roses, Donna D'Errico, RATT, or those two girls from Dallas, Texas.

Make no mistake about it: these guys are geniuses. They invented glam metal and then left it in the dust; sold more than forty million albums from Shout at the Devil to Dr. Feelgood; toured the world dozen times and have the scars to prove it it; and maintained a rabid following in an era of throwaway pop stars. Mötley Crüe has done nothing less than tattoo the psyche of the entire MTV generation. They are the ultimate rock 'n' roll band. And if you don't believe it, read The Dirt. You don't know what decadence is...