DEF LEPPARD's RICK ALLEN Says 'It Didn't Take Much Persuasion To Get' MÖTLEY CRÜE To Come Out Of Retirement

In a new interview with Rodrigo Altaf of Sonic Perspectives, DEF LEPPARD drummer Rick Allen spoke about what it was like to hit the road with MÖTLEY CRÜE as part of this past summer's "The Stadium Tour", nearly seven years after the Vince Neil-fronted outfit played what at the time was being billed as the group's last-ever show.

"It's great touring with those guys," Rick said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). We thought they were done. Then we asked them to come out with us, and it didn't take much persuasion to get them to get back out on the road. Now it's fantastic, because now we're seeing the friendship between Nikki [Sixx, bass] and Tommy [Lee, drums] is back where it was. For many years they just really didn't like each other, and I think for them to see things in hindsight and realize all the good that they've done, they realize that their legacy was intact. So it's great to be touring with those guys."

According to Billboard, "The Stadium Tour", which took place between June and September, sold 1.3 million tickets and earned $173.5 million, making it the biggest tour of either band's career. The biggest market on the tour, which featured support from POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS, was Boston, where the four acts performed two concerts at Fenway Park on August 5-6 and sold 64,000 tickets for total earnings of $9.3 million. Four individual shows broke the $6 million threshold: Charlotte, North Carolina; Denver, Colorado; Glendale, Arizona; and Inglewood, California. Average nightly earnings hit $4.96 million.

"The Stadium Tour" averaged 37,520 tickets each night, drawing more than three times the audience that each band previously reached on their own.

MÖTLEY CRÜE announced "The Stadium Tour" in 2019, just months after the band supposedly noticed a massive surge in interest following the huge success of the CRÜE's Netflix biopic "The Dirt".

Sixx told Entertainment Tonight that returning to the road with his bandmates has been "unbelievable. I'm so grateful to be doing this, and it started, like, three years ago when the movie came out — two and a half years ago," he said. "We kind of, we broke up the band. We just decided to quit touring. We've been doing it for, god, 35 years at that point."

According to Sixx, he was initially opposed to the idea of touring again with MÖTLEY CRÜE, especially since CRÜE fans who shelled out for the band's 2014/2015 "farewell" tour were led to believe that the group would never return after playing its final show on December 2015 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The band touted the signing of a pre-tour "cessation of touring" agreement as cementing the fact it truly was the end of CRÜE's life on the road.

"Tommy does other stuff, and I do other stuff, and I remember getting the phone call from management, and I was, like, 'No,'" Sixx said. "And they go, 'You haven't even heard what I have to say.' And we were friends, and we were fine and everything's good. We're just like, 'No, it's a lot of work.' When you see the show out there, you're gonna go, 'Wow.' I mean, it's years of work putting it together, and then they were like, 'No, not eight arenas, eight stadiums,' and I was like, 'Let me call Tommy.'"

He continued: "I was like, 'Hey, dude, they're talking about us touring,' and he's like, 'No.' Because we wanted to be — stand by what we said, and then it was 16 and 36, which we just entered our 36th stadium, and there's, what, another 120 next year and the year after that, so, we're grateful we said yes."

CRÜE's long-delayed North American trek with DEF LEPPARD, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS was originally planned for 2020 and later moved to 2021 and then to 2022.

Three years ago, Sixx said that "The Dirt", about MÖTLEY CRÜE's formative years, sparked a renewed interest from younger fans who wanted to see them live, contributing to the band's decision to renege on its infamous "cessation of touring" contract.

Former MARILYN MANSON and ROB ZOMBIE guitarist John 5 recently revealed he will step in for guitarist Mick Mars on the upcoming MÖTLEY CRÜE tour after Mars, who is 71, decide to retire from the road due to his battle with the debilitating disease ankylosing spondylitis. Ankylosing spondylitis is a type of arthritis that causes inflammation in the spine joints and ligaments and can lead to stiffness over time, according to the National Institute Of Arthritis And Musculoskeletal And Skin Diseases.

Produced by Live Nation, MÖTLEY CRÜE and DEF LEPPARD's co-headline "The World Tour" will kick off on Saturday, February 18, 2023 at Foro Sol in Mexico City. Both bands will bring their electrifying stage shows across the globe with stops throughout Latin America before heading to Europe in May 2023 — which includes a stop at the iconic Wembley Stadium on Saturday, July 1, 2023 — then wrapping up in Glasgow, U.K. at Hampden Park on July 6, 2023.

MÖTLEY CRÜE and DEF LEPPARD will return to the United States in August 2023, with Alice Cooper as a special guest for the series of dates. The U.S. dates will commence on August 5 with a show at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, New York, and will make stops in Columbus, Ohio; Fargo, North Dakota; Omaha, Nebraska; and Tulsa, Oklahoma before concluding in El Paso, Texas, on August 18.