The Dirt, excerpt 5

(In honor of National Drugged and Drunk Driving Month, Rock Club will be running random excerpts of the Motley Crue autobiography The Dirt. Read more on our community-oriented campaign here.)

(Also, I want to reiterate, these are random selections from each band member's chapter. I've tried to rotate through the Vince/Mick/Nikki/Tommy chapters, but really, I'm just flipping through this thing. That's how good this book is. Consider giving it as a Christmas gift.)

In this excerpt, the Vince-less band auditions lead singers, and Mick Mars admits his hatred of hippies:

We auditioned a round, dumb fellow named O'Dean, who sang in a voice somewhere between the Cult and the Scorpions. He was an amazing singer, but Nikki didn't like him because he didn't sound like Brian Connolly from the Sweet. O'Dean's other problem was that he was very uptight about this pair of ultraclean white gloves he always wore. He was under the impression that the gloves constituted having a look, and we tried not to say anything to the contrary because he was all we had...

...During the last song we recorded for our demo, "Toast of the Town," O'Dean refused to take off his gloves and clap in the background. He thought that removing his gloves would ruin his mystique, despite the fact that the only mystique he had was the mystery of how he had such a good voice. Nikki was enraged when O'Dean wouldn't clap like the Sweet did in "Ballroom Blitz," and Mick hated him anyway because he thought he was a fat fuck, a shitty singer, and a closet spiritualist.

"I don't like that guy," Mick kept muttering during rehearsals. "He's a hippie. And I hate hippies."

I told Nikki, "Mick doesn't think O'Dean's God."

"Fuck no," Mick said. "I want that skinny blond fucker I saw at the Starwood the other night in that band Rock Candy."

"You mean Vince?!" I asked.

"Hell yeah, I mean Vince." Cousin Itt scowled at me. "That's the guy. I don't even care if he can sing or not. Did you see what he was doing with that crowd? Did you see what he was doing to those girls and the way he carried himself on stage?"

(Tommy, p 55)