MAKING OF THE ALBUM: Mötley Crüe – Girls, Girls, Girls

The making of Mötley Crüe‘s third album, 1985′s Theatre of Pain, had been fraught with tension and tragedy, from their raging drug use to the accidental death of Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle, who had died due to frontman Vince Neil driving whilst intoxicated. Personal issues from relationships to internal feuds would also drive the four members apart, making the recording of their next album, Girls, Girls, Girls, all the more difficult. Bassist and songwriter Nikki Sixx was no longer full of inspiration and energy, as he had been during the band’s early days performing on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, and found the writing process to be a frustrating struggle. Theatre of Pain had failed to impress critics, despite producing two hit singles, and pressure was on for the group to prove they had not past their prime.

As the band prepared to return to the studio, drummer Tommy Lee had become distracted by his marriage to actress Heather Locklear (Dynasty, T.J. Hooker), whilst Sixx and Neil were battling personal demons. Guitarist Mick Mars (who was a decade older than his bandmates), however, had been struggling for some time with ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that caused severe pain and fusion to the spine. But the group had reaped the rewards of years of hard work and now had an endless supply of drugs and girls, their own jet and constant parties to keep themselves distracted. As with their last album, Girls, Girls, Girls would feature nine original tracks and one cover, this time being a live rendition of Jailhouse Rock, a song which had first been made famous by Elvis Presley thirty years earlier.

Sessions for the album commenced in November 1986 with producer Tom Werman, who had helped shape the hair metal scene with his work on Twisted Sister‘s You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll and Stay Hungry and would later become an in-demand producer of hair metal with Poison‘s Open Up and Say… Ahh!, L.A. Guns‘ Cocked & Loaded and Stryper‘s Against the Law. Recording would take place in Los Angeles at One to One, Rumbo Recorders and Conway Recording Studios and would last until February 1987. Although the band felt confident about both the title track and the song Wild Side (both of which would be released as singles), enthusiasm for the album was low, with personal issues and drug abuse taking priority over the creative process. The themes that Sixx would explore on the album would range from drugs (Dancing on Glass) to women (Girls, Girls, Girls), whilst the third single released from the record, You’re All I Need, focused on a darker subject matter… murder (‘You’re all I need, make you only mine. I loved you so I set you free, I had to take your life’).

Girls, Girls, Girls was released by Elektra Records on May 15, 1987, almost two years after Theatre of Pain. The music video for Wild Side featured Lee playing in a spinning drum kit, something that would be used during subsequent tours, whilst the uncensored clip for Girls, Girls, Girls included several topless girls stripping in a nightclub. Although the album would receive more praise than its predecessor, two months later fellow Los Angeles group Guns N’ Roses released their debut, Appetite for Destruction, which would take the metal scene by storm and eclipse all other albums of the year (including offerings from Faster Pussycat, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper, Whitesnake and Kiss (which, whilst all would produce hit singles, would fail to have the same kind of impact).