llllill|[illllilillllltilfi

@@

@@

fuffiWffiffiffiffi
ffiWffiffiffi ffiffiSflHruAMffD s'ffi@@trHhffi@ ffiffiffitrffiEilRffift@ffitrffiS
ffiy flffi1
may have noticed that she accentuated the business end of that phrase, and that may help you understand the megabuck succeaa of Mdtley Crtie. Despite the leather and makeup, these Euys are rock'n'roll Reaganites. The concept of bands-as-businesa certainly isn't nervi that's the basis of the music industry and of many of the performers themselves, who know that art and 4oCI will get you a cup of coffee. Miitley Criie, howevery has perfected the concept: When Nikki Sixxl the bass player and principal song-scribblery thought a reporter would write negatively about the ban4 he did his best G. Gordon Liddy-spreading lies and rumors-to try to have the reporter removed from the story. This particular attempt failed, but it goes to show that the band's "bad boy" ima$e has aome truth to it-even though the members are more likely to use rnemos than meat cleaverg. That irna$e, of course, is a reworking of the succeesful Kiss/ Alice Cooper forrnula, by which the delightfully superficial the- .. ater and gaudy sta$e preaence of glitter rock catered to the requirements of Tbp aO radio. Mdtley Criie has aped the fop mula most profitably. The twist is that while Kiss was a paragon of self-parody, these guys are the flip-side: self-proclaimed bad-ass rock'n' rollers.
tfffi

&@WEGffi
sandwich shop-"we got paid $rz and our beer tab came to $rBz." Despite such credit-debit debaclee, the band aoon learned that turning heavy metal into precious metal would take aome shrwd maneu$erin$. Fortunately for Miitley Criie, when it comes to business, the Exxon Corporation could pick up Sixx. "We started investing our own money in adei' he details. "We always invested what we made." The band's rise to prominence he describes aB "a building process. We're not an overnight suclcess. Thke a band like Quiet Riot. They went platinum six months after they formed. Now they're under tre. mendous presaure to follow up." (That's what's known aa out-of-control $rornrth" in cop porate lingo.) "I/Ve've built up slowly, kept building fans. We got a lot of stuff ready for when we hit." (fhe trickle-up philoso. phy, you might say.) In his best here's" a- bar$ain- f on you- voice; Neil even describes Miitley in concert as "a $5O show for a $ro ticket." As a lot of arnbitious bands do, Mdtley Criie pooled its capital resources about a year a$o to form Leathur (sic) Records, a do-it-yourself label that pressed a thousand copies of a single, "Stick to Your Guns" backed with "The Tbast of the Tbrvn.,, After that, relates Six5 "We took our club act and pressed our own LP, Tbo Fastfor Lovel' distributingi, he estimates,

Miitley Criie is, howeveri no ffil he late Ethel Merman waa no There's business rigfrt: less a put-on. Even though Sixx [.',r.l Iil like sffow businees. You insists that, "Our ima$e is our lifestylel" the band showed up for their interview in the conventional male-Flas hd.anc eblack-leather uniforms of soooo many other new groups. Since Sixx also insists that, "IVe don't owe anything to an ima$e," the contradiction reveals the artifice. The band began in Los Angeles a little more than three years ago. As Sixx puts it, "I waa a local star, " playing around L.A. in a band called London. But "I was frustrated. I wanted to do harder rock." He obtained a drummeri Tbmmy Lee, from a band called Suitg 19i a vocalist, Vince Neil, from Rock Candy; and a lead guitarist, Mick Mars, from the want ads. The music was, as it is now, horny-teenatte angst, deliberately and extrernely sexist. The makeup and sta$e routines became more and more extravagant as it became evident that the surf waa up once again for heavy-metal bands. Yet while one is ternpted to recall the line from The Maltese Falcon-"The cheaper the punk, the gaudier the patter"-it turns out that Miitley Criie, irnage aside, has worked Horatio- Algen hard these three years. "We played cowboy bars, if you can believe that/'says Neil. "Behind chicken wirez like in The Blues BrothersJ' Sixx recalls that, "At Pooky's Sandwich Shop"-not a colon fully named club, a real
ALL P]IOTOGRAPIIY BY TARK WEISS

30 FACES

about 4OTOOO coplee. Thenr in an Shoutis a lumU"iir"g mockecho of Boston-whose demo epic- formulaicl but apparently with the right formula to eell ;trp", prod.uced in Tbm Sholz's basementz ended up, easentially aome records. If you want to intact, as that band'g first album pound your head without havCrtie'e "demo tape on ing to bear Tbd Nu$ent's -Mdtley vinyl" waa plcked up by screeching or Jim Steinman'g pretentiorlg Shout fille the Elektra/Asyltinr, remixed by producer Roy Thomae Bakeri little, if anything There's need. and released as the self-titled ngw or adventuroue to threaten Miltley Criie. That album ie now you. In fact, the album concept playing catch-up to their seceven swipes from Black Sabon4 Shouf at the Devi\ whlch battr, Uriah Heepr and all those has gone platinum. other peeudemystical bande

from the rather innocently fun firet era of hard-pomp (as in pompous) rock. The cover of Shout at the Devil displaye a pentagram, whichr as readere of H. P. Lovecraft and other tellers of horrific talee already knowl is a symbol eaid to ward off werewolveg. Aside from being an obvioue way ofz uh, keeping up heavy metal's traditions, howeveri the band chose a penta$rflrn, explaine Sixxr straightfaced because "it

32 FACES

what about what Elektra Re. swastika." corde wante you to do, not to (A swastika. That probably mention the compromieee inwould have limited the market. herent in busineee? ('I like ('but the Bad business, right? At leaet Blektrai' answere Sixx, that's what the similarly blind day they cut our freedom, we,ll , Motorhead found out Dig thie: cutout" A swastika rnentality is eelling It all comes down to what recorde by the trainload.) Mdtley Criie's pr6ss bio eaye ie Sixx $oes on, obliviouo. (.I lis" an image "dripping with impure ten to the kids. And what and adulturated (sic) lust and a we're telling them is not to take take- no- shit- grab- eome tit atti. any ehit from anybody, to be tudei' The imagemaking game what you wanna be. If you want is ol4 but these guys-ranging to do something, I say do it.,, But from 2l to26 yeare of age-

rvaa the only thing as heavy ae a

aren't. That's what makes Sixx, Nixonian efforts to kill a storyand the calculated outrage generated by the swastika remark dieturbing. -so Regardlees, the man and his band are, for the momentz near the top of their profeeeion. Al. bum eales are phenomena! so are concert crowds. Some where, at this very moment, someone is listening to their album, while watching The A-Tbamor Three,s Compafllt ? McDonald'e burger in hand. n
37