Tommy Lee: Recording albums is a waste of time

Motley Crue stick flinger claims that in today’s music business, albums are a waste of time and money and that he won’t record another full record.

Reported by Bruce Henne

Published: June 14, 2011. © Rock AAA.

Tommy Lee raises a glass to single releases

It’s a sign of the times.
Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee has accepted the concept that singles are outselling albums, and has lost his interest in the art of making an album.
“As far as new music goes, and people say it all the time, ‘When are you guys gonna make a new record, dude?’ It’s like, ‘Really, why?’ No one buys them anyway anymore. And I’m not sure what the reason is,” Lee tells Noisecreep.
“To tell you the truth, I think the days of making a record, for me personally, are over. After this last Methods [Of Mayhem] record I did, I’ll never make another full record, I think. It’s a waste of time, ’cause people can only ingest a song at a time, so why not make bitching songs at a time and release them? If you want to call them singles, great, whatever; or at its maximum, an EP, four songs, done, boom. I just really feel like the days of the entire record are long gone.”
And what about the long-standing practice of creating albums as a means of touring?
“That’s kind of a group decision, but I just know me, personally I think it’s just a waste of time, it really is,” he says. “I don’t listen to anybody’s full record anymore and when I did, I don’t think I listened to the whole record. I’m sorry, and I don’t care who it is, if it’s The Beatles, I can’t listen to an hour and a half of anybody straight, so I guess that’s just my personal preference.”
“And I guess I’m just a fan of switching it up,” continues Tommy. “I want to hear some of this, some of that. I don’t really do that anymore. Maybe it’s my child-like short attention span, but I’m not a fan of that long, drawn-out fucking album anymore. I don’t think most people are; if you look at sales, most people are buying songs at a time and they’re just not really buying records. That’s just a sign of the times. There’s so much more out there to play with that grabbing anybody’s attention and keeping it there for an hour and a half, good luck.”
There was some talk last year of the Crue working on some new material; what’s the latest on that?
“We haven’t really started,” the drummer explains. “Our plan was to have some music for 2011 and between Methods Of Mayhem and SIXX: A.M., Nikki [Sixx, bass] and I have been busy. Nikki and I and Mick [Mars, guitar] are the primary songwriters, so if the two of us have been busy the chances of that happening have been not so good because we’ve been doing some other things. But our plan was to get some new music together for 2011. It’s early in the year. We’re going on tour this summer, [so] maybe we’ll write some stuff. We’ve been known to write several things during soundchecks. I always have a studio on my bus. Who knows, maybe we’ll get some new stuff going or I don’t really know. Maybe our plan now is to hold off on new music until “The Dirt,” for the movie, which I think would be really a cool place to rip out some new music too.”
The Mötley Crüe /Poison/New York Dolls tour opened last week in Dallas and will play more than 40 shows throughout the summer; things wrap up August 17 in Chula Vista, California.