In a new interview with KNAC.COM, former MÖTLEY CRÜE singer John Corabi was asked which song he would be most looking forward to hearing if he went to catch a show on the band’s “The Stadium Tour” with DEF LEPPARD next summer. He responded: “I probably wouldn’t go. I went to go see MÖTLEY back when my tenure with the band ended. I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl, they were playing with AEROSMITH. It was brutal, because I wound up answering questions from the fans that recognized me. For that reason, I probably wouldn’t go. There’s multiple reasons why I wouldn’t go, but I use that one for this interview.
“I do have to say that, for me, one of my absolute favorite MÖTLEY songs is ‘Primal Scream’. I love that tune, I love the riff, I love the drum beat, everything about it. I loved performing that one live.”
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.
After a recent article emerged online claiming — falsely — that bassist Nikki Sixx issued an ultimatum to Neil to lose a significant amount of weight for the band’s comeback tour or be fired and replaced by Corabi, John posted a statement on social media denying that he had held “secret rehearsals” with CRÜE and shooting down the possibility of him rejoining the band, saying that he was “not even remotely interested in doing that again.”
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.
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.
