Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “West Coast Bands,” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore psychedelic tunes from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Mötley Crüe is an band formed in Los Angeles in 1981. The group was founded by bassist Nikki Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee, lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil. Mötley Crüe has sold over 100 million albums worldwide.

Often identified as one of the best heavy metal bands of all time, Mötley Crüe soon became known as one of the prominent so-called hair metal groups of the 1980s, releasing their debut album, Too Fast for Love in 1982. From the beginning, the band’s crew became known for living licentious, hedonistic life styles. Their brushes with the law were numerous and members struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. During the worst of it in 1984, singer Vince Neil was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and spent 18 days in jail and was fined $2 million. Then on December 23, 1987, Sixx was declared dead for two minutes after a heroin overdose. He was revived by paramedics and taken to the hospital, which he escaped to rush home and shoot up in his bathroom. Then the crew collectively entered rehab in 1989 and subsequently released Dr. Feelgood, perhaps their greatest album ever.

Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood album spawned its fourth hit single nine months after the LP’s release: the sarcastic breakup anthem “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).”

Nikki Sixx credited the band’s collective sobriety and the strong work ethic of producer Bob Rock for making Dr. Feelgood a highlight of their career. “In eight years together and with millions of albums sold, we had never recorded properly,” he explained in the band’s 2001 autobiography The Dirt. “No one had ever pushed us to the limits of our abilities before. I wanted ‘Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)’ to have a chorus you could destroy your room to. … I wanted an album I was finally proud of.”

The inspiration for the song’s title came from Hollywood.

“I saw that line in a movie somewhere, I can’t even remember what movie,” Sixx said of the song’s title in a 2009 Rolling Stone interview. “I thought, ‘Great idea for a song.’ A little tongue-in-cheek. A little sarcasm there.” It’s likely the line came from Clint Eastwood’s 1986 war movie Heartbreak Ridge, which features Mario Van Peebles uttering “Don’t go away mad, just go away” at the 1:17 mark in the scene below.

“Don’t Go Away Mad” turns 30. Released on May 28, 1990, “Don’t Go Away Mad” became the third Dr. Feelgood single to reach the Top 20 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 19. Both the title track and the ballad “Without You” reached the Top 10, while “Kickstart My Heart” topped out at No. 27. On July 31, a fifth single, “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.),” was released, ending the album’s yearlong radio campaign.

Three days after the release of “Don’t Go Away Mad,” Motley Crue kicked off the fifth and final leg of a grueling 154-show tour that reportedly netted each member $8 million, but it also left them burned out and completely sick of each other. “Dude, you’ve never seen four motherfuckers split up and go their own way faster than we did,” drummer Tommy Lee noted in The Dirt.

The next three decades were filled with breakups and reunions and retirements and comebacks, but “Don’t Go Away Mad” has remained a permanent fixture in the band’s set lists.

“That’s a great song,” singer Vince Neil told Rolling Stone. “We’ve been playing it for years. I love to play guitar and sing that song. It’s kind of a feel-good song. When that song comes on, everybody wants to sing along with you.”

To conclude, Mötley Crüe has won many awards and is included on numerous ‘best of the metal bands” compilations.

Mötley Crüe has a Stadium In the works. A co-headlining tour by British rock band Def Leppard and American rock band Mötley Crüe. Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts are special guests on the tour. The tour was announced on December 4, 2019.