Motley Crue bassist and main songwriter Nikki Sixx says making full-length albums is a thing of the past.
The glam metal icons’ most recent album was 2008’s Saints of Los Angeles. And it seems that album – their ninth – could be the last we see from Motley Crue, with Sixx more keen on releasing singles or EPs to fall in line with the way the music business operates in the modern era.
They released the EP Cancelled in 2024, which marked their first release featuring John 5 on guitar after he replaced Mick Mars.
The band will most likely continue with shorter releases in the future, Sixx tells Joann Butler: “Honestly, I know fans don’t want to hear this, but I don’t believe in making full-length records anymore.
“The amount of work that goes into. it. If you’re doing 10 songs on a record, you gotta write 20. And you better hope five of them are stellar.
“It’s a lot of lyrics, a lot of notes, a lot of chord changes, a lot of time in the studio, which is all fine. That’s what we do. We work hard.
“But what I don’t like is that when people hear one song, and you recorded 10 or you recorded 20, and then 10 of them were demos and 10 was an album, they only hear one.
“Radio’s changed, streaming is changing and evolving as we go. So I’m really into the idea of lightning strikes, something comes down, I call the guys. I got this song.”
He adds: “I love the idea of like we did for The Dirt. We did five songs.
“We did three songs on this EP we just did. So I think we’re just gonna keep going, like whenever something comes up, you feel something – heartbreak, joy, rebellion – let’s write a song about it, and let’s go cut it in the studio.”
Motley Crue have lined up an extensive North American tour for next summer.