MÖTLEY CRÜE Drummer Featured In 'Show Your Soft Side' Campaign

MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee is featured in "Show Your Soft Side", a campaign developed to combat the alarming incidence of animal abuse in Baltimore, Maryland. Many of the more horrific cases have been perpetrated by teens, thus leading the Mayor’s Anti-Animal Abuse Advisory Commission to look for ways to change the mindset of young people who often view the maiming and torturing of defenseless dogs and cats as a sign of "toughness" or "manhood." The campaign puts forth a very different message — a message that subtly shows that "being a man" has many facets to it, including a "soft side" when it comes to animals. The goal is to reach kids early because research shows that kids who abuse animals soon graduate to even more violent crimes. Featuring acknowledged hard men of Baltimore with their pets, the campaign's posters, billboards and print ads make the point that only a punk would hurt a cat or dog.

Lee recently urged his fans to adopt, not buy, their pets. Lee and his girlfriend, singer and dancer Sofia Toufa, recently adopted a new pup Bowie, named after rock legend David Bowie because of his "crazy gray-green eyes." "We went to a couple of different shelters and we ended up over at East Valley in Van Nuys [California] and there he was, just sitting there with three other dogs," Lee told RollingStone.com about his new dog. He continued, "And we were like, 'Oh my God, we gotta get this guy a home. Who could abandon this fucking thing? This is the cutest thing on the planet. I want to kill whoever let him go."

Lee said he become inspired to speak out about adoption because there are so many homeless pets out there that need loving homes. He said, "The [shelter] is scary. It is loaded with beautiful dogs and I would highly encourage people not to buy animals from a pet store."

He added, "If you have any compassion at all, it doesn't take a building to fall on me to go, 'Hey, man, look at all these amazing pets that have been abandoned or abused.' And they have literally seven or eight days in a lot of these shelters before they get euthanized and it's like, 'Oh, man, you're kidding me? No one's come to get this dog? It's got two days left and you're sitting there going, 'If I could, I would steal all of you guys.' But I can't.'"