Unpacking Motley Crue’s Mess: Manager Slams Mick Mars’ ‘Smear Campaign’; Guitarist’s Lawyer Says He Is ‘Tired of Being Bullied’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Metallica came in strong on this week’s Billboard 200 with a No. 2 bow for the group’s latest album, “72 Seasons,” which came in almost within sight of the chart’s recently indomitable leader, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time.” Wallen extended his run at No. 1 to seven weeks at a time, and counting, with 166,000 more album-equivalent units added to his tally, while Metallica debuted with 146,000 units. On the Billboard Hot 100, meanwhile, SZA finally landed in the No. 1 spot she’s been circling for many weeks with “Kill Bill.” The song had spent eight weeks at No. 2, then dipped to No. 4 last week, before getting the boost it needed to finally become a chart-topper in this latest frame.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Red” was unfortunately more than just a metaphor for Taylor Swift over the weekend, as fans took to social media after her Houston three-night stadium stand wrapped up to share photos and video of what looked like a gnarly injury to her hand midway through the second of three concerts in the city. On Monday, Swift took to social media and acknowledged the injury, while downplaying it, much as she had done by going on with the show Saturday despite suffering what appeared to be a bloody incident during an off-stage costume change. “For those asking how I cut my hand,” Swift said in a tweet, “I’m totally fine and it was my fault completely — tripped on my dress hem and fell in the dark backstage while running to a quick change — braced my fall with my palm. It was all very Mercury in retrograde coded. Don’t worry about me I’m gooooood,” she added, blowing fans an emoji kiss.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Drummer Bill Kreutzmann, one of the founders of the Grateful Dead and a member of spinoff group Dead and Company, will not be a part of the latter group’s farewell tour this summer, the band announced in a social media post Saturday. Although fans might assume his exit could be health-related, since he has had to sit out some Dead and Company shows in recent years, the group declared that was not the case in its post, and added that he is not retiring from music. Rather, the statement said, Kreutzmann’s departure was due to a “shift in creative direction.” No further explanation of what that might mean was forthcoming in the statement.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The LA Phil has announced the full summer season for Hollywood Bowl’s sister venue across the gorge, the Ford, with a typically eclectic and cross-cultural lineup that includes Mac DeMarco, Lucinda Williams, Jorge Drexler, the Milk Carton Kids, Darren Criss, Arooj Aftab, Meredith Monk, José James, a kids’ show by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a dance project from Serpentwithfeet and many more attractions. The smaller-sized amphitheater is one of the most prized venues for musicians to play in Los Angeles, although the Phil’s emphasis in its four months of annual shows there is far less on commercial acts than in maintaining intriguing blend of all possible arts, with jazz, Americana and Latin and global music definitely getting a leg up on pop in the programming.

Nikki Sixx has confirmed that Mötley Crüe are in the studio and working on new music.The founding member and bassist of the hair metal icons shared a picture of himself, drummer Tommy Lee and new guitarist John 5 in a songwriting session. Sixx also said the band were working with producer Barry Pointer.Sixx shared the photo on Thursday night (April 13) before following up with more news yesterday (Friday, April 14).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Variety asked the members of Boygenius in an interview earlier this month about the setlists for their upcoming shows, they made it clear — no solo material, just band stuff, because that’s sufficient to fill festival-length sets anyway. On top of that, perhaps unspoken is the idea that keeping to Boygenius selections helps keep everything democratic, which would become just a little tougher if suddenly “Kyoto” earned the supergroup’s loudest roar out on the road each night. But the trio is doing some headlining shows this spring and summer, outside of festival dates. Do they really have enough in their arsenal from 2018’s initial EP and the full album that just came out to make a full show feel like a full meal?

Mötley Crüe's manager claimed Mick Mars' representatives are "taking advantage" of the guitarist amid the group's recent touring dispute. In court documents obtained by Fox News Digital, Mick Mars accused the band of forcing him to resign after he chose to stop touring. However, the band's manager Allen Kovac and a lawyer for the band claimed representatives for Mars, including the guitarist's lawyer, "manipulated" him into the dispute.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Bob Dylan made a performance film, “Shadow Kingdom,” that streamed via the Veeps platform for one week in July 2021, Variety reviewed the special, writing that it had “new arrangements so good that pretty much everybody who was watching Sunday was clamoring for a soundtrack to the event, preferably on LP.” That wish is coming true, two years later. (But not just on vinyl.) The music from “Shadow Kingdom” will be released in album form in June. The album version shall be released June 6 on streaming platforms and as a CD and double-LP. The film itself, out of circulation since that initial one-week pay-per-view window, will become available for rental and download for the first time in June, as well.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress has issued its annual list of 25 recordings that will be added to the esteemed list, covering a range that runs a gamut from the very first time mariachi music was captured for posterity in the early 1900s to Daddy Yankee’s “Carolina” about a hundred years later. In-between are some curiosities and monster hits that the Library deems worthy of preservation for all time — although, in the case of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the prospect of it the recording falling into disrepair due to neglect will probably not be an issue any century soon. Among the enduring smashes from the second half of the 20th century that made the list: Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Queen Latifah’s “All Hail the Queen,” Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s “Déjà Vu,” Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” Irene Cara’s “Flashdance… What a Feeling,” Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and the Police’s “Synchronicity.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a development that may land somewhere between Woodstock 1999 and “Staying Alive” on the list of all-time unnecessary sequels, Billy McFarland is promising that there will be a “Fyre Festival II,” even though there was never a Fyre Festival I. “Fyre Festival II is finally happening,” the promoter posted on Twitter alongside a flame emoji. “Tell me why you should be invited.” The immediate responses or quote-tweet comments includes such remarks as “Imagine having this level of audacity,” “I’ll just wait for the documentaries” and “Because I hate myself.” McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after doing four years of a six-year sentence as a result of pleading guilty to charges involving defrauding investors and scamming ticket buyers. He was fined $26 million, as well, and has vowed to find a way to pay the investors he owes.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Amazon has come on board this month’s Stagecoach Festival in California to provide a livestream of the country music gathering. Live action from the April 28-30 festival in Indio will be streamed on both Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. It marks the second year that the festival will be extensively streamed, albeit the first involving Amazon. In 2022, Stagecoach livestreamed most of the main attractions on its own YouTube channel. In some years prior to that, Yahoo had had exclusive rights to stream select artists’ sets. Coverage from the festival will begin at 3 p.m. each of the festival’s three days. Stagecoach and Amazon did not immediately reveal how many or which sets will be streamed from the festival; a press release promised that performances from the Mane Stage will be seen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Muse was making its eighth visit to downtown L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena, frontman Matt Bellamy reminded the audience, shortly into the trio’s return engagement Thursday night — except rather than call it by its current name, he said the venue would always be Staples Center to the band. He added a joking, mumbled reference to “weird fucking con artists,” presumably a reference to his lack of faith in the state of cryptocurrency. Digital assets are fleeting, but office supplies are forever, right? There is some kind of loose analog there — no pun intended — to the situation with Muse, which is forever using futuristic imagery in its shows but reigns as one of rock’s best bands by its rootedness in a slightly pre-digital past.

Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars has spoken out about his recent legal battle with the band, following the lawsuit he filed against them over his share of profits.In a new interview with Variety, Mars detailed his thoughts on the ongoing arbitration, as well as his feelings towards his ex-bandmates.“Those guys have been hammering on me since ’87, trying to replace me,” he said. “They haven’t been able to do that, because I’m the guitar player.

Mars announced he’d be retiring from touring due to a chronic inflammatory disease.The lawsuit, obtained by the New York Times, claims the rest of the band (Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil) called an emergency shareholders’ meeting in which they schemed to fire Mars from the band’s corporations and entities. “It is beyond sad that, after 41 years together, a band would try to throw out a member who is unable to tour anymore because he has a debilitating disease,” Edwin F. McPherson, Mars’ lawyer, told The Times.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In 2002, director Sam Jones made what is widely considered a benchmark for 21st century music documentaries with “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco,” a movie that lucked into just about all the subject matter that could make B-roll footage of the making of an album into A-list material. It had conflict within the band, between an auteur and another member of great talent; conflict with the soon-to-be-ex-record label, over the basically unwanted classic-to-be “Yankee Foxtrot Hotel”); and said auteur doing his own demon-wrestling, outside foils notwithstanding. Now, it’s easier to see that Jones’ good fortune in happening upon all that wasn’t all luck. More than 20 years later, Jones has come up with another gold-standard music doc, in the form of “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” newly streaming on HBO Max. This time, as the creation of another amazing record — Isbell’s “Reunions” (recorded in late 2019 and released a few months later) — is put under the filmic microscope, there are no record-company bookkeepers as unseen baddies in the backdrop to a making-of. Major labels and the conflicts that come with them are so 2002, right? But one common thread is intra-band tension… as it probably will be in most good rock docs now or 20 years from now. It gets more interesting than that, though. In this instance, the difficult vibes are between bandmates who double as a married couple — Isbell and his fiddler-spouse, Amanda Shires. Here, unlike the by-now iconic beefing between Jay Tweedy and Jay Bennett, we know no one’s ultimately going anywhere, right?

Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars has filed a lawsuit against the band over his share of profits.Mars has alleged 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 last October. As a result, he claims his profit share was cut from 25 per cent to five percent.According to legal papers filed in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court yesterday (April 6) Mars’ attorney, Edwin F.

Mick Mars countersued Mötley Crüe on Thursday and accused the band of forcing him to resign after he chose to stop touring. Mötley Crüe previously claimed that when Mars announced that he couldn't tour anymore, he was resigning from the band. However, Mars alleges that he told the band members that he could still play in a residency situation and could still record, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.

The situation between Mötley Crüe and guitarist Mick Mars has turned litigious, with Mars suing his bandmates over his claims that he’s being forced out of the band.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “I carried those bastards for years,” says Mick Mars, telling Variety how he thinks his 41-year history with Motley Crue should not end with him facing off with the other three members in the halls of justice. The veteran band, now down by one original member, has sued to force Mars into arbitration, looking to get a ruling that he is officially a member or shareholder, with any of the rights that confers. They contend that when he announced he was quitting touring, that amounted to a resignation. Mars, 71, counter-sued on Thursday morning, contending that he didn’t give up anything, at all, by announcing last fall that effects of his longstanding arthritic disease made him no longer fit for the road. His legal filing was full of provocative assertions about the others, and so was the response Thursday afternoon from Crue’s lawyers, who believe he gave up all rights by putting away his touring suitcases — and further, the Crue camp maintained, Mars had become an instrumentally erratic drag on the band.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Motley Crue has responded to Mick Mars’ lawsuit alleging that the band is trying to force him out after 41 years, with the group’s attorneys contending that Mars already is out — having resigned, effectively, in their view, when he announced he was halting touring for good. Motley Crue’s attorneys also provided Variety with signed declarations from seven members of the touring crew that was out with the band when they toured with Mars for the last time on 36 stadium dates in 2022, alleging that his performances at the shows were under par and created problems for the entire group. “After the last tour, Mick publicly resigned from Mötley Crüe,” said Sasha Frid, the band’s litigation attorney. “Despite the fact that the band did not owe Mick anything — and with Mick owing the band millions in advances that he did not pay back — the band offered Mick a generous compensation package to honor his career with the band.  Manipulated by his manager and lawyer, Mick refused and chose to file this ugly public lawsuit.”