Vince Neil's advice to young bands

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By ( Louder ) published

Motley Crue singer tells acts not to chase trends and to stick to their guns

Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil says young bands should stick to their guns and not follow trends.

Neil says too many acts fail to fulfil their potential because they try to tap into what’s popular at the time, rather than hone their own sound.

He tells The Huffington Post: “Stay with what you’re good at. I find that a lot of bands will start out as a great rock ‘n’ roll band but then the times will change into rap, so they’ll try to incorporate that because they think it’ll bring in more fans.

“Then it’ll change again to boy band stuff, then they’ll try to change to that. You can’t do that. You’re chasing your tail. You’ve got to just stick to your guns and if rock ‘n’ roll isn’t in right now, who cares?

“Be the best rock band you can be, or the best pop band you can be. Don’t try to be something you’re not. I think a lot of people fail because they try to write too much for the times and not for their hearts.”

It’s a tactic Neil says worked for Crue. He adds: “The interesting thing about Motley is we could play country music and we’d still sound like Motley Crue. When we come on the radio you know who it is before they say it.

“I think that the trip for us from point A to point Z is we were always consistent in our sound and our songwriting; we know what the Motley Crue fans wanted and what we sounded like was what we wanted, so we’ve always stuck to our guns and never veered off too much.”

The band are currently on what will be their last ever tour. They’ll play this year’s Download at Donington Park on the weekend of June 12-14 and have scheduled their final gig for December 31 at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles. Tour buddy Alice Cooper has offered to “kill” the band onstage as part of the farewell celebrations.

Stef Lach

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.