Vince Neil Dishes it Out!!!

If one was to attempt to choose one individual who epitomized the glory days of the heavy metal LA scene in the 1980’s, one couldn’t go wrong by picking Vince Neil. Blond, boisterous and bursting with more charisma than James Bond, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt put together, this native Californian served as the high-pitched vocalist for the infamous Mötley Crüe, a band probably known more for its exploits off stage than on. Here are some quotes taken from Vince’s autobiography titled Tattoos & Tequila (ISBN: 978-0-446-54804-5). Enjoy!

“I was born Vince Neil Wharton on February 8, 1961, in the Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles County. My mom, the former Shirley Ortiz, is half Mexican and half white. My dad, Clois Odell Wharton-known as Odie-is half native American. Some people would say that makes me biracial or tri-racial or whatever. But I consider myself Californian. Even though I don’t actually live there anymore, I feel like that’s my home. I’ve always thought that people from California should carry a special passport. We’re a special breed-for better or worse. They used to call California the Land of Fruits and Nuts. I just call it home.” Pg. 22

“Basically, I confess, I was always a terrible student-with the exception of Mrs. Anderson’s class. To be honest, I had a hard time even writing a simple sentence. I found out eventually that I had dyslexia, but not really bad-I can read okay, though I don’t prefer to. I’m just so slow when it comes to reading. When I write it’s worse. When I go to write something down it really takes me a while because I will mix up numbers and it’s just, it takes me forever.” Pg. 41

“Meanwhile, my friend John Marshall and I started going to this roller-skating rink not far from school. We would try to pick up girls there. For some reason we got it in mind to sign up for this lip-synching contest they had. We really got into it. We dressed up in bell-bottom flares and polyester shirts. Some people say we wore huge wigs, but I don’t remember that part. We did a Bachman Turner Overdrive song, “Let it Ride.” It was like air guitar-type stuff. That’s when I realized I liked to perform. I jumped around on stage, danced, threw the microphone around. The crowd ate it up. Particularly the girls. Not only did we win our first contest-I got laid that night.” Pg. 51

“A big milestone of high school for me was the time, during freshman year, that somebody stole my surfboard racks. His name was Horace. He was an asshole. A football player. This one time I came out to my truck at lunchtime and I noticed that somebody had stolen my racks. I’m pretty sure I was amped up on speed and dust at the time. This was just, like, before shop class. Being pissed off, I obsessively looked in everybody’s car until I found my surfboard racks in the back of this guy Horace’s car. Horace was a barrel-chested muscle head who was constantly victimizing underclassmen and anyone else who came within range of his beady eyes. I went looking for him and found him inside school, walking with a bunch of football players in the hallway. I confronted him, you know? I was, like, ‘Did you fuckin’ take my surf racks, you fuckin’ asshole? He looked at me and lied to my face. He was like, ‘No. Fuck you.” So I go, ‘You know what? Fuck you, you motherfucker.’ And boom! I fucked punched him in the face and knocked him out cold. I was suspended for two weeks. But when I got back…The funny thing was…all the football players liked me after that. They hated that guy. I became like an honorary jock.” Pg. 53-54

“After I made the baseball team, the coach told me I had to cut my hair if I wanted to play. I thought about it. I really did. By my hair was pretty important to me then, as now. It was long, down below my shoulders, a sandy blonde color. I wanted to play ball, but I didn’t want to, you know what I mean? What I really didn’t want was to become one of the jocks, I didn’t want to alter my appearance. I didn’t want to have to change the person I was. I just wanted to play ball. (Not to mention the fact that I was good enough to make their team, right? And as a freshman.) But I wasn’t going to cut my hair. No way. So that was it. I quit the team. Who knows? If I decided to cut my hair I could’ve been a pro ballplayer. Maybe my life would have went that way. But I decided to keep my hair-I made the choice about what was important to me. And wouldn’t you know: It was literally my hair that ended up getting me into rock ‘n’ roll.” Pg.55

“Growing up, I never thought for a minute I’d end up in music, I had no idea what I wanted to be. I never even thought about it. Sure there were daydreams. What kid in those days didn’t imagine what it would be like to be Magic Johnson, Buzz Aldrin, Mick Jagger? But me ending up where I did? I would have bet a million dollars against it. I know all my teachers would have, too. And probably my parents if you asked. Let’s face it. I was going nowhere fast.” Pg. 56

“It all started when James Alverson showed up in school. He was a transfer. This was the beginning of my junior year at Charter Oak High School, a month or so before my son, Neil, was born. James was a long-haired rocker guy-he looked like a surfer, you know, with blond curly hair. He fit right in. I’d seen him in the hallway, but that was kind of it. Never talked to him. Never gave him one minute’s thought. He was just the new kid in school, you know? He was obviously a guitar player; he wanted everyone to know. He carried his axe with him wherever he went; he was always playing it. One day he comes up right out of nowhere asks me ‘Would you like to sing in a band?’ And I’m like ‘Why did you ask?’ And he’s like, “’cause you have the longest hair in school.” Pg. 57

“People ask me all the time how I became a singer. It’s a good question. I never sang in the school choir. I don’t really remember ever going to church. I never even sang in the shower. Nobody in my family sings. I never took a lesson. I never knew what I was doing. Basically, I just faked it from the jump. When I think about it now, I guess I just built on the lip-synching-I had the act down; all I needed was the voice to go with it. It was all about the attitude. What they call ‘selling the song’. Out of that came the voice-not that this was conscious on my part. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. That’s pretty much another subtitle for this book; it kind of defines my whole life. I didn’t even think about; I just did it. So it was with singing too.” Pg 58

“Back then, at these weekend parties, we weren’t doing it because we imagined someday we’d be rock stars. At least I didn’t. James wanted to be a rock star and he made no bones about it. But for me, in high school (and really, in a way, for the rest of my life), being in a band meant free beer and a steady supply of girls. That’s why I was into it. Girls wanted to get with the guys onstage, especially the singer. That was pretty much it. What else was important in high school? That was my entire reason for getting into a band. Fate has obviously been at work on me. To some degree, I’m the object lesson: What happens to someone who always takes the path of least resistance? I’ve never been the type to swim upstream. It’s just too much effort. I don’t want to hassle. I’d just as soon cut bait.” Pg. 60

“Say what you want about me, I’ve always stayed true to the music I love. I never tried to change with the times; I never rode the trends-well, there was that solo album with the Dust Brothers, but that was more of a case of ‘before its time.” Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s for you-you know what I mean? I know who I am as a performer. I sing rock music. That’s what I do. I knew it then and I know it now. Like somebody once said: ‘Keep it simple, stupid.’ It works for me.” Pg. 61

“Needing a handle for this lofty enterprise, we started throwing names around almost immediately-the idea was to find a commonly used word or phrase, something we could kind of turn upside down, you know, something that would have some shock value, or so Nikki conceived, another one of his high concept ideas. Mick suggested Mottley Cru. He’d been saving the name for, like, five years; it had come to him one night like a vision as he was rehearsing with his old band Whitehorse. We were a motley crew, there was no doubt about it, a foursome of high school dropouts dedicated only to partying and music. Nikki took to the name immediately, but he hated Mick’s spelling. Instead he made it ‘Motley Crue,’ which he felt was more symmetrical or something. Inspired by the typography on the logo of the beer we were drinking, this friend of Mick’s, a guy named Stick, suggested adding an umlaut over the o to give it a militant, German feel. Nikki took it one step further and added the umlaut over the u as well. Mötley Crüe was launched.” Pg. 89-90

“Having a manager is like a necessary evil. In the business world, nobody will do business with you as an artist unless you have a manager. It doesn’t matter who you are, you could be Mick Jagger or fuckin’ Paul McCartney and they’re like, ‘Yes, you’re the greatest, I love you, now lemme talk to your manager.’ They don’t take us seriously. I don’t know if it’s a good ole boy system or what it is, but that’s the way it is.” Pg. 109

“When you listen to Queen or the Cars, the sound is very polished. But Mötley Crüe didn’t need to be polished. You polish it up too much and it loses the rawness. I think I can honestly say that we made up for not having the greatest talent in the world with having great attitude and delivery. It’s that entertainment thing again. A lot of the critics say-and I agree-that the first album we did ourselves was better. It had real emotion to it; RTB took all that out of it. I just felt his production techniques were way too polished for how a Mötley Crüe record should sound. And I still think it sounds terrible to this day. Sorry, Roy. Fact is fact, man.” Pg. 112


“Mostly by word of mouth, Too Fast for Love entered the Billboard chart at #157. It sold over one hundred thousand copies right out of the gate. The record company fat cats might not know what fucking day it is half the time, but the fans vote with their wallets.” Pg. 113

“I was living in Redondo Beach and I was driving to my apartment. It was just a beautiful summer day, like always near the beach. Amazing waves, amazing blue sky, that great cool breeze. And then ‘Live Wire’ comes on the radio. I stopped the car. I was like, Oh my god. But I didn’t…there was nobody…I couldn’t….There were no cell phones then. I was all by myself and there was nobody to call and nothing to do. I was just sitting there by myself, you know, thinking. Holy shit, that’s me on the radio. Yeah. Yeah! I was sitting in Beth’s orange 240Z. Or maybe it was a 260. I always get those confused. But yeah, man. I heard it come on and it was just greater than anything you could describe. It was a pretty proud moment. It was very surreal.” Pg. 129

“We were fucking playing our asses off. I mean we weren’t blowing Kiss away, but we were definitely, like, competition. People were loving us. Which apparently pissed the fuck out of Gene Simmons. He did not like it one bit that these nobodies were hogging the spotlight. At least that’s what I heard. He never hung out with us. There was maybe this little, like, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ But that was basically it. They didn’t stand around and watch us play. We were basically, you know almost still a club band. But we were just doing really good. Every show there were a lot of people there to see us. Most time, people don’t give a shit about the opening act. They come late because all they want to see is the headliner. Which was still the same with the Kiss tour, but there were a lot of people there to see us, way more than it would usually be.” Pg. 137

“In September 1986, we signed a six-plus album deal with Elektra. I don’t know how much money we got, but it was a lot. Suddenly I was rich.” Pg. 184

“When we hit Japan things just got even crazier. There’s something about the Japanese-they were so polite and worshipful that I think it made you want to act out even more than usual. The stories about that trip are well known-if not exactly accurate. It is true that the first official happening of our Japanese tour was Tommy getting busted by customs officials at the airport; they found some marijuana in his drum kit. Luckily, he was saved by our Japanese promoter, who managed to smooth things over without any changes being laid.” Pg. 188

“One thing a lot of people don’t know about me is that for years I studied Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art, I have a red belt. Which isn’t a black, I know, but I can still kick some ass if I want, I have the arrest record to prove it.” Pg. 199

“As G N’ R was playing, I made my way back to the wings. When Izzy came offstage, I was like, ‘Hey! You fucked with my wife’-or something like that. I don’t remember the exact words I said, but I said something. And he’s like, ‘Fuck you!’ And then I’m like, ‘Yeah really!’ And then I fucking hit him with a solid right and he went down. He was out cold. Suddenly there was security everywhere-these awards shows are lousy with moonlighting cops and other paid thugs. It was a fucking madhouse. Finally they take me into custody or whatever; there’s a guard on either side, holding an arm. That’s when big, tough Axl Rose comes up. He’s so brave with cops holding me back. He’s like, ‘I’m going to fuckin’ kill. How could you hit my guitar player?’ What a fuckin’ puss. I’m like, ‘I’ll fucking go right fuckin’ now, bitch!’ And then security dragged me away.” Pg. 199-200

“As you might remember, this started a whole feud. I don’t even know how Axl got into it. This had nothing to do with Axl. It was between me and Izzy. And as far as I was concerned, the Izzy shit was over. But Axl goes to the press and starts running his mouth, saying that I sucker punched Izzy and all this other shit. Fuckin’ Axl-I had taken that ungrateful motherfucker under my wing when they were touring with us on the Girls tour. I helped him out with his throat when he was having problems; I showed him a few tricks to help his voice. And here he is, challenging me to fight him. He came up with several different challenges. He’d say Tower Records on Sunset. He’d say the boardwalk at Venice Beach. I actually went a few times, but fuckin’ Axl never showed up. Meanwhile, Izzy called me and apologized for his behavior.” Pg. 200

“First of all, let me tell you, when they issued this, the racing season was over. I wasn’t even driving at the time. Then they blame my tardiness all the time? Are you fuckin’ kidding me? There was a fuckin’ storm that day-did they mention that in the press release? Was I racing cars that day? They just wanted an excuse to get rid of me. It was a them-or-me situation-and it’s always been that way, since the accident days. It’s always them against me. They’re just not nice people. They don’t know what friends really are. They think friends are, ‘what can you do for me?’ It’s like Tommy and Nikki were the center of things and Mick was the yes-man. Mick always agreed with whatever Nikki and Tommy said.” Pg. 295

“If I told you the breakup of Mötley Crüe didn’t affect me, I’d be lying. At first I was pissed, especially about the way they announced it on Valentine’s Day and said I was ‘the only Crüe member who didn’t regularly participate in the song writing process.’ That’s pretty funny, because when you look at the songs, all the hits, you see the name Neil there. I wrote the melody for ‘Home Sweet Home.’ I wrote the melody for ‘Same Ol’ Situation.’ You look at all my songwriting credits and there can be only one conclusion. Fuck yeah, he contributed.” Pg. 207

“Kovac remained calm while I went through my rant. Once I finished, he looked at me calmly. ‘Vince,’ he said, ‘you can get as angry as you want with me, but you have to ask yourself, are you a star as a solo artist?’ I answered him with a glare. He knew he had me. Okay, so I hadn’t exactly been filling arenas with the Vince Neil Band. One tour had to be closed halfway through ‘cause we were spending more than we were making. Kovac continued. ‘In the environment of four guys in a band called Mötley Crüe, you are a real star. The audience that comes to see you gets its money’s worth. Is the audience that comes to see the Vince Neil Band really getting what it pays for? The same, he went on to say, was true of Mötley Crüe without me in the lineup. The paying public had voted resoundingly, as was evidenced by sales and critical reviews.” Pg. 249

“Nobody tells me anything. I swear to you. When I have my tombstone they can put that on the B side. “Nobody Told Him Anything.” I’m not sure what I want on the front. That line hasn’t been written yet. You know when the new Motley Crue album came out, the new Greatest Hits? I had no fuckin’ idea that was coming out. It was funny. I was doing this interview with some reporter and they go, ‘So tell us about the new Motley’s Greatest Hits album.” And I go, ‘What are you talking about?’ Nobody told me I had an album coming out. It happens that way all the time.” Pg. 2

“The funny thing is, I really do take pride in being early. I am usually always early. I’ve always been early to everything I’ve ever done. Seriously, that’s why I thought it was pretty hilarious when Motley said they fired me that first time ‘cause I was chronically late for rehearsals. Dude, I am never late for shit.” Pg. 2

“Mel Gibson is a cool guy, no matter what anybody says. Some people drink and a switch goes off. I know it does for me. They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. Believe me, they’re telling the truth. I got to know Mel a little bit during my years living in Malibu-I think we drank together a few times at moonshadows.” Pg. 5

“I know, I know. I was the last one to join the band. I’m just the singer. I’m just the entertainer. I’m the person in front; I’m not the one bringing the songs. But I don’t care about all that. I don’t mind if somebody else writes the songs. It’s my job to interpret the songs, to sell them, to sing the shit out of them. To perform them and make them memorable enough to sell 80 million copies.” Pg. 14