BLACK VEIL BRIDES' ANDY BIERSACK Says MÖTLEY CRÜE's 'Generation Swine' Album Is 'F***ing Awesome'

BLACK VEIL BRIDES frontman Andy Biersack as defended MÖTLEY CRÜE's poorly received 1997 album "Generation Swine", calling it "fucking awesome".

Released in June 1997 via Elektra Records, "Generation Swine" dipped its toes into techno and is widely considered CRÜE's most experimental and most diverse album, with "Beauty" described by one critic as a track that "sounds nothing like MÖTLEY CRÜE."

On Thursday (January 2),Biersack took to his account on X (formerly Twitter) to write: "I've been wanting to say this since I was 6 years old, and I think it's finally time to tell you once and for all that the 1997 album 'Generation Swine' by MÖTLEY CRÜE is objectively fucking awesome, and if you don't like it, you are, regrettably, incorrect."

When asked by one of his followers why he waited so long to share his thoughts, he responded: "It's like they always say; sometimes it takes 28 years to defend a late 90's outlier grunge record."

CRÜE began recording "Generation Swine" with John Corabi as lead singer, but ended up bringing original vocalist Vince Neil back into the fold and releasing the record with Neil's vocals.

Last April, Neil told the "Outsider" podcast that he was not a fan of "Generation Swine". "I hated that record. I still hate that record," Vince said. "[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."

During an August 2024 interview with Joshua Toomey of the Talk Toomey podcast, Biersack reflected on the "cringe-inducing" experience of opening for MÖTLEY CRÜE more than a decade ago. He said: "We toured with MÖTLEY CRÜE in soccer stadiums in Europe, and I thought, 'This is the greatest thing that's ever gonna happen to us.' And I'll never forget, the first show was in [Warsteiner Hockey Park in Mönchengladbach, Germany in June 2012], and after the first song was done, it wasn't booing, it was total silence, like strong, arms crossed, angry silence. And you'd almost prefer them boo at that point, because if it's 20,000 people and you can see them all be dead silent, it's more unnerving than hearing at least some noise. So it would happen after every song. And so I'm the singer, I'm the M.C., I've gotta like, I got to say something. So I just started saying to our drummer C.C. [Christian Coma], I go, 'Just go into the next song as soon as this one's over.' We basically played a medley of our songs because we would never stop between the songs 'cause it was too cringe-inducing to have to deal with the silence. We were coming off stage early every night on that tour, which a lot of times the production people for those big tours love it. So at the very least they liked us."

Biersack previously talked about BLACK VEIL BRIDES' tour with MÖTLEY CRÜE during a 2021 appearance on the "Drinks With Johnny" podcast. He said at the time: "I've always said one of the tours that, I guess, it didn't surprise me 'cause I didn't know what to expect, but it certainly didn't go the way that I thought or that I had dreamed or imagined was we opened for MÖTLEY CRÜE in soccer stadiums in Europe — this is 2012 or something — and we were really excited. We had become friendly with Nikki [Sixx, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist] and Mick [Mars, MÖTLEY CRÜE guitarist] and a few of the guys and we were just so excited to do it.

"We were used to playing festivals or things where people would be upset that we were there," he continued. 'I had never experienced such a level of just crushing disinterest where we'd get done with a song, and my job as the vocalist is to be, like, 'All right, everybody,' and then there would just be just a soccer stadium full of silence and people just looking at us with their arms crossed — not mad, just not interested in the slightest. And then you're stuck with that weird thing of, like, 'All right, well, here's the next one.' And you're just trying to get through the set so that you don't have that really awkward time in between."

In May 2024, BLACK VEIL BRIDES released the title track from their "Bleeders" EP, inspired by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's "Sweeney Todd". The band paid tribute to the classic musical with a music video for the title track that is inspired by the musical's 2007 Tim Burton-directed film adaptation.

Released in June 2024, the three-track EP, which included "Bleeders", a cover of "My Friends" from the Sondheim classic, and a cover of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday", was BLACK VEIL BRIDES' first release for Spinefarm.