Not so motley anymore

By GRAHAM REID

The heavily tattooed Tommy Lee is on the terrace of his Malibu home enjoying the first day of a Californian heatwave. He's relaxed and, with his 40th birthday coming up in a few months, reflective. Tommy Lee has quite a lot to reflect on.

For two decades he was the drummer in Motley Crue, the appropriately named band which took hard rock to new heights and the rock'n'roll lifestyle to new, and extremely dirty, depths.

You name it, he drank it, smoked it, got it written on his body, had sex with it or simply trashed it in the hotel room. He's been in trouble across the globe.

He quit the Crue in 98 and went solo - well, as solo as you can when you've married Baywatch's most pneumatically enhanced babe, Pamela Anderson.

Their notorious home movie - hey, big rig, Tommy! - turned up as internet porn. They had two kids (with the 90210 names Brandon and Dylan) then split acrimoniously.

Fair enough. He beat her up (along with that photographer outside the Viper Room) and was given a suspended sentence and put on parole.

Pamela is now with Tommy's old buddy Kid Rock, who, as someone recently observed, makes Lee look like Pierce Brosnan. He's used to losing his women to other musicians.

His first wife was model Elaine Bergen - the marriage lasted a month - who became Mrs John Mellencamp. He also married actress Heather Locklear and that lasted quite a few years. She later married Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora.

The separations from Pamela were bizarre: they divorced, remarried, re-divorced then reconciled at least twice. Then he beat her up again and it was all over. In March she announced Tommy had given her hepatitis C when they shared a needle in some self-branding session. Ouch!

Oh, and along the way Tommy made music: almost a dozen albums with Crue, a solo album under the name Methods of Mayhem two years back (he has the name tattooed on his butt, apparently) and now a new album under his own name. And it's pretty good. It's called Never A Dull Moment. It would be, wouldn't it?

So it's fair to first ask Tommy not, "How are you?" but "Are you keeping out of mischief"?

Lee laughs loud and long then gets alarmingly serious. This man now seems to work from the rehab book of rules. He speaks in a dark brown voice, measures his words and his thoughtfulness is a surprise, especially to this journalist, who once interviewed Motley bandmate Nikki Sixx who came off, and we say this charitably, as a very dim light.

But we catch Lee at a signpost in his life, another stage on a 12-step programme to somewhere.

"I think I'm finally at the point where I'm looking over my shoulder at my life behind me and going, 'Phew, I'm glad that's over'. I am really on the tail end of all that stuff."

Being almost 40 with two little kids can do that. "Yeah but I'm still 40 going on 14," he laughs.

Much like the ex-missus, Lee has recently been more known for his headlines than what he does. This LA wild child, who melded glam rock and new wave with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals, is the first to admit that what he's done mostly lately is make tabloid fodder.

"Yeah, the last few years have been a rollercoaster ride of speed bumps and blind curves. It used to bother me because it overshadowed everything I'm trying to do. But in the last two years I've tried not to let it consume me and just do what I do - which is make music," he adds, as if we needed reminding.

"But everything passes and everyone moves forward."

Not everyone. Pammy's hep C announcement is just part of the ongoing custody battle for the kids.

"It's ugly and that was just another thing to make me look like shit in the press. But that's been done before," he says, with no discernible bitterness.

True, but wasn't it demeaning as a big-time star being on probation like some off-the-rails teenager?

"It was. It's not something you walk around with your chin up about. It was embarrassing, but what are you going to do? You made the mistake and you move on. But I've finally said goodbye to my probation officer, and now I'm cut loose it's such a nice feeling.

"At some point you feel, 'How much longer am I going to have to pay for this mistake?"'

Well, mistakes plural - but let that pass. And is it just coincidence that much of the madness happened as he was leaving the Crue and moving into a solo career?

"At one point I wasn't happy in Motley Crue, creatively. Music was changing and I was changing and wanted to do something different. I felt that in my relationship at that time, too. I wish I knew then ... you know what I'm going to say. It's been a crazy few years."

We should have some sympathy for him. More than just a drummer whose stage riser turned a complete flip, he is a multi-instrumentalist who plays piano and guitar, sings more than competently, worked uncredited on Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, and hangs out with people from the hip-hop community.

The Methods of Mayhem album included Lil Kim, Mix Master Mike, rapper Tilo and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst on a volatile mix of road-rage rap'n'metal. But, of course, it went past many because he'd buried himself under a band name.

"I sometimes think that was a mistake. My producer and manager heard the demos [of the new album] and said I should call it what it was, 'Tommy Lee'.

"It sounds egotistical and I've never been one to stick my name up front but they said, 'Dude, you've been doing this business for 20 years and everybody knows you. Whatever perception they have of you, at least they know who you are.' And so I thought, 'they're right and I'm wrong'."

Never A Dull Moment deals with some of what has happened recently, and while he says he doesn't like tootin' his own horn - an unfortunate choice of image - he feels that lyrically he did a good job. Agreed. You can believe him when he asks "Why can't we be satisfied with what we've got?"

There's also a cover of Bowie's Fame where the lyrics are reworked to "Do what you like, do what you want to do". But Tommy, you did - and look where it got you?

"Yeah, it's kind of ironic but that's the ****ed up part of fame, it's a double-edged sword. It can bring you success and happiness, but also a bunch of extra shit you never thought about."

The recent Crue biography The Dirt was full of tales of debauchery and filth and was a good way to put a cap on 20 years of pretty unbelievable history.

He sees it as a how-not-to public service announcement, a kind of self-help book for those only too keen to help themselves to whatever's going.

"I wouldn't say I was embarrassed by it but there are a few things I consider to be a bit of an overshare, like 'Oh, did I say too much'?"

"But I also think there's maybe somebody out there who is a rock star or up-and-coming or just a person going through the same thing and if this helps them get a little more clarity then I've done my job."

You've done much more than that, man. You provided hours of great internet entertainment if nothing else, and the new album's pretty damn good too. But Tommy Lee, after it all do you have any regrets?

There is a long pause. "No. I really don't. I think everything that happens is meant to be and, in some form, teach you a lesson or change you or enlighten you."

Well, you can say that now - but did you think that 10 years ago?

"You're right. I didn't," he laughs. "But I can't complain."

And you know, despite it all, he didn't.