Former MÖTLEY CRÜE singer John Corabi recently completed work on his autobiography. Titled “Horseshoes And Hand Grenades”, it was written wih the help of MÖTLEY CRÜE historian/author Paul Miles, and is due on April 12, 2022 via Rare Bird Books.
Corabi joined CRÜE in 1992 as the replacement for the group’s original singer, Vince Neil, who was dismissed due to personal differences. With Corabi on vocals, MÖTLEY CRÜE released one critically acclaimed full-length CD, which ended up being a commercial failure in the wake of grunge despite a Top 10 placing on the album chart. When Neil returned to the fold in 1997, Corabi was left on his own and formed the band UNION with ex-KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick.
In a new interview with 80’s Glam Metalcast, Corabi was asked if he is concerned at all about what his former bandmates will think about his book. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “To be honest with you, I don’t really think that I’m telling anybody anything that they didn’t already know. What the book really kind of goes through is me joining the band, being in the band, leaving the band, and it really kind of explains my mental state. Obviously, the MÖTLEY thing, all of it’s been so publicized with [the band biography] ‘The Dirt’ and just interviews and different things like that. I’m just explaining how I was feeling while certain things were happening and how I feel like I fit with the band but I never really did. So I’m kind of talking about my mental state through the whole thing. So I don’t really think I’m saying anything that will surprise anybody. And to be honest with you, and I don’t mean this to sound weird, but I don’t really care what those guys think… The minute they told me they were bringing Vince back, I walked away from it and I kind of accepted everything. It’s not me who keeps bringing it up. I’m still writing new music. I’ve done — in the last 10 years, between my solo records and the records I did with THE [DEAD] DAISIES and the new music that I’m doing, I think I’ve done five or six records. So I’m past it, I’m over it, I don’t even think about it.
“Paul talked to me about doing a book, which I really didn’t want to do in the beginning,” he continued. “But he said, ‘You know what, dude? You’re just one of these guys that, like, even though you kind of had a few chapters in ‘The Dirt’, you’re largely a mystery. There’s not a lot of stuff that people know about you. And I think your story is pretty fascinating.’ So I was, like, ‘Okay. Whatever. We’ll do the book.’
“It’s not a tell-all book about any band that I’ve been in; it’s not a tell-all book about any of my marriages; it’s basically a tell-all book about John Corabi from the minute I took my first breath till about a year ago or six months ago,” he explained. “I have an ex-wife or two that it might piss off, and I don’t give a shit about them either. So, whatever… [The book] is about perseverance and it talks about my life from the beginning to now. And the title is just about somebody that’s been close a lot. It’s a book about a guy that’s been in all the right places but at all the wrong times. So it’s pretty cool. It’s fun.”
Corabi went on to say that he doesn’t hold a grudge against any of the guys in MÖTLEY CRÜE. “Honestly, it may not seem it, but I don’t have any issues with the guys in MÖTLEY at all,” he said. “I love those guys. I don’t know why Nikki‘s [Sixx, CRÜE bassist] had a hair up his ass for the last couple of years about me; I couldn’t tell you why. I don’t know. I don’t care. My only beef with those guys was I really wish they would have just left me out of [‘The Dirt’ biopic]. I really felt like — I don’t know if it was intentional, if it wasn’t intentional, but I really felt like my portrayal in the movie just made me look like a complete fucking babbling moron. And they also made it look like we were playing in high school gymnasiums to 10 people. Obviously, it wasn’t great — we all know that; it’s common knowledge — but the attendance wasn’t that bad; not as bad as they made it look. So I wish they would would have just left me out of the movie altogether and whatever. But it is what it is. I don’t care. I’m over it.”
Corabi in 2016 said that he would avoid talking about MÖTLEY CRÜE in the future because he didn’t want his comments about Sixx to descend into a feud.
In an interview with Sweden Rock Magazine, Nikki said that writing the “Mötley Crüe” LP with Corabi was a prolonged and difficult experience. He went to call it “a very unfocused record” that was “painful for me, because John Corabi can’t write lyrics, and I had to do all that work.”
Corabi initially responded to Sixx‘s comments by saying that he didn’t “give a shit” about what his ex-bandmate had to say, but later told an interviewer, when asked about it again, “I have no idea why Nikki feels that I’m the biggest piece of shit to roam the Earth.” He then proceeded to take to his Facebook page to claim that he would “officially have nothing to say about any member of MÖTLEY CRÜE ever again,” adding that he was “not backing this bullshit stirring that is happening to start a feud.”
In February 2018, Corabi released a live album of his performance of MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s entire 1994 self-titled album, recorded on October 27, 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee. “Live ’94: One Night In Nashville” documents the album in its entirety along with the bonus track “10,000 Miles”, which was originally released as a bonus track on the Japanese version of the “Quaternary” EP.
