During a new appearance on the “Outsider” podcast, MÖTLEY CRÜE singer Vince Neil spoke about the band’s 1997 album “Generation Swine”. CRÜE began recording the album with John Corabi as lead singer, but ended up bringing original vocalist Neil back into the fold and releasing the record with Neil‘s vocals.

“I hated that record. I still hate that record,” Vince said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “[There are] no good songs on it. And I told ’em, I go, ‘This record sucks.’ ‘No. We love it. We love it.'”

Asked why he reunited with MÖTLEY CRÜE after stepping away from the band for four years between 1992 and 1996, Vince said: “Well, when MÖTLEY went out [on tour with Corabi as the band’s singer], their tickets stopped selling. And I was doing pretty good. But I wasn’t selling out places. I was opening for guys. And so their manager called me up and said, ‘We’d like to meet with you in New York.’ So I flew to New York and sat there and talked to ’em.’ And it took a while for me to say ‘okay.’ But I finally gave in and went to the recording studio where they were making ‘Generation Swine’, which was at [MÖTLEY bassist] Nikki‘s [Sixx] house. And… I don’t know. It was bad for a while, ’cause I didn’t wanna be there.”

Back in August 2008, Neil told the Plain Dealer about MÖTLEY‘s then-just-released “Saints Of Los Angeles” album: “It’s definitely not a new CRÜE [sound]. MÖTLEY CRÜE could do a blues record and still sound like MÖTLEY CRÜE. This record is just a great rock ‘n’ roll record. The last record, ‘Generation Swine’, wasn’t. It was a terrible record, ’cause there was too much experimenting. With this record, it’s just straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll. That’s what we do best.”

Less than three years ago, Corabi reflected on the making of “Generation Swine”, telling Rob’s School Of Music: “We worked on that record for, God, almost two years. Now, the difference is I’m not a fan of the record that came out. ‘Cause you’ve gotta understand we had recorded a bunch of those songs, and they brought Vince back. Then they went back into the studio with him for, like, another year. And they switched things around, then they started playing with sound effects.

“I don’t mean this in any disrespect to MÖTLEY at all, but the bottom line of it is we did a record and it didn’t sell well — per their standards,” he continued, referencing 1994’s “Mötley Crüe” LP. “I mean, it went gold, but it didn’t sell well. The tour was a disaster. And I think, to be honest with you, Tommy [Lee, drums] and Nikki [Sixx, bass] and Scott [Humphrey, co-producer] were trying to reinvent themselves to be current. And at the time, bands like MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS, ROB ZOMBIE, MINISTRY, PANTERA — all these bands were heavy, a lot of ’em were industrial, and they were just trying to figure out how to be relevant again. Which kind of led to a little bit of my demise, because I was just, like, ‘This is fucking bullshit. Just do what you do. You’re MÖTLEY.’ And I’ve done the same thing. Even after I got out of MÖTLEY and I was in RATT, then I decided I was gonna do a solo record, I would record a few songs and I would do ’em and I’d go, ‘Man, I’ve gotta be relevant. I’ve gotta be relevant.’ So everybody gets caught up in it. But the bottom line of it is it took a manager, or a friend mine, to just sit there and go, ‘You know, Crab, listen, man. Fuck that. You are what you are. You’re a bluesy kind of BEATLES, [LED] ZEPPELIN, AEROSMITH… That’s who you are. Don’t try to be something that you’re not. Stop looking at trends and just do what you do. There are people out there that like what you do.’ And at that point, once I just said, ‘You know what? Fuck it. I’m just gonna do my own thing,’ then I was a lot better off.”

Circling back to the musical direction of “Generation Swine”, Corabi said: “I’m not real happy with the record the way it came out, because I think they went so far left… We wrote a song, and then they turned it into a song called ‘Glitter’. And if you listen to some of the guitar parts that Mick‘s [Mars] doing, it’s like this weird random noise. One song, I don’t remember which one it is, but there was a guitar solo on it; it sounded like a chainsaw. And I’m, like, ‘Why the fuck…?’ Mick Mars has got the most awesome guitar tone; he’s a very underrated guitar player. Why would you do that to his tone? So, it is what it is.

“A lot of that record was written while I was in the band,” he confirmed. “And there was a bunch of other songs that are probably in a vault somewhere that we wrote.”

When interviewer Rob Spampinato suggested that it would be cool for MÖTLEY CRÜE to one day release the demos for “Generation Swine” with John‘s vocals, Corabi said: “To be perfectly honest with you, I think they were panicked. It was the first time for Tommy and Nikki to actually really produce a record. And to be perfectly honest with you, my vocals, if they were ever to release any of that shit, I would wanna go back in and re-sing. Because I was so mentally… I couldn’t figure out what they wanted.

“The thing that I was struggling with Tommy and Nikki and Scott, as far as producing was, they would say, ‘Nah. That’s not it,'” he recalled. “Then I’d go, ‘What are you hearing?’ And they wouldn’t sing me anything back. They really didn’t know what they wanted. They would give me these random bands… Like, Nikki would say, ‘Something on the lines of MANIC STREET PREACHERS and old David Bowie.’ And then Scott would go, ‘CHEAP TRICK.’ And then Tommy would go, ‘No, dude. Like, heavy. Like PANTERA. But lush, like OASIS.’ And I’m sitting there going, ‘Half of these bands I’ve never even fucking heard of before. Who are the MANIC STREET PREACHERS? Never heard of ’em.’ And I’m trying to process, how do you blend PANTERA with OASIS or CHEAP TRICK or Bowie? I was trying to process it, so my singing was not peak, let’s put it that way. So I would definitely wanna re-sing a lot of that shit.”

Last Friday (April 26),MÖTLEY CRÜE released a new single, “Dogs Of War”. The track was made available via the band’s new deal with Nashville’s Big Machine Records.

MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s new deal with Big Machine Records sees the band working together again after making the 2014 project “Nashville Outlaws: A Tribute To Mötley Crüe”, which featured CRÜE tracks covered by country stars RASCAL FLATTS, FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE, Darius Rucker and more. Big Machine also partnered with John 5 for the release of his 2021 album “Sinner”.

MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s last studio album was the aforementioned “Saints Of Los Angeles”, which was followed by a 2009 “Greatest Hits” compilation.

In 2018, MÖTLEY CRÜE recorded four new songs for “The Dirt” movie, including the single “The Dirt (Est. 1981) (Feat. Machine Gun Kelly)”, “Ride With The Devil”, “Crash And Burn” and the band’s own spin on Madonna‘s “Like A Virgin”.

John 5 joined MÖTLEY CRÜE in the fall of 2022 as the replacement for the band’s co-founding guitarist Mick Mars. Mick announced his retirement from touring with MÖTLEY CRÜE in October 2022 as a result of worsening health issues.

Mars suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS),a chronic and inflammatory form of arthritis that mainly affects the spine and pelvis. After years of performing through the pain, he informed the other members of MÖTLEY CRÜE in the summer of 2022 that he could no longer tour with them but would still be open to recording new music or performing at residencies that did not require much travel.

When Mars announced his retirement from touring with MÖTLEY CRÜE, he maintained that he would remain a member of the band, with John 5 taking his place on the road. However, in early April 2023 the now-72-year-old musician filed a lawsuit against CRÜE in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court claiming that, after his announcement, the rest of CRÜE tried to remove him as a significant stakeholder in the group’s corporation and business holdings via a shareholders’ meeting.