Former Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars believes he’s “probably just going to live another seven or eight years.” That’s just one of the topics the veteran rocker opened up about in a wide-ranging new interview with Rolling Stone, also touching on his legal battle with the Crüe, his upcoming solo album, and more.
Mars recently sold his publishing rights, securing his financial freedom for the rest of his life. In revealing that news, he also put a cap on his lifespan. “I sold my publishing,” he said. “The deal was just finalized. Now I can relax and don’t have to worry about anything, since, like I said, I’m probably just going to live another seven or eight years.”
It has been noted that for most of his adult life, Mars has suffered from the degenerative bone disease ankylosing spondylitis, causing his body to disfigure. “I’m not going to live to be 85 or 90, I just have a feeling,” he continued. “I don’t want to, either. My brain doesn’t want this ugly-ass body that’s all fucked up to keep going. I wish I could just take the information out of my brain, put it on a chip and into somebody else, or a robot. There’s still a lot of stuff going on up there.”
The guitarist added that he’d like to be cremated when he dies, and that, “I want them to take [my remains] into an airplane and drop it into the center of the Bermuda Triangle. I want people to be able to say, ‘Mick Mars is lost in the Bermuda Triangle.’”
In addition to the morbid topic of death, Mars talked about his nasty split from Mötley Crüe, accusing the band of pushing him out. “I was sabotaged musically so they’d have an excuse to get rid of me and bring in another person,” he alleged. “The feed of guitar into my in-ear monitor was horrible. It would break up, and nobody else’s seemed to break up but mine. And then they’d switch to prerecorded crap from rehearsals, when I was just relearning the songs. They did it to make me look bad.”
Rolling Stone noted that they contacted Crue bassist Nikki Sixx for a response, and he insisted, “That’s insanity! Why would we do that to our fans? It’s really heartbreaking that Mick and his representatives are lying to the fans while we were trying to protect his legacy. Dude, we love the fuckin’ guy. It’s really scary, [him] being in this complete hallucination. When Mick came into rehearsals, he couldn’t play guitar properly. He just couldn’t pull it off, so we have to use tapes and cover it up. He was the only person in the band on tape.”
Mars was replaced by longtime Rob Zombie guitarist John 5, who is now touring and recording with the Crüe. In the months since the split in late 2022, Mars and Mötley Crüe have been embroiled in an ugly legal dispute.
Elsewhere, Mars offered new details on his long-in-the-works solo album, revealing that it will be called Another Side of Mars. The tracklist features such song titles as “Broken on the Inside,” “Alone,” “Lonely in Your Grave,” “Loyal to the Lie,” “Decay,” “Fear,” “Memories,” and “Erased.”
