MÖTLEY CRÜE's TOMMY LEE: 'I Still Pinch Myself On A Daily Basis That We've Been Blessed To Still Be Here'

In a new interview with Fox 32 Chicago, MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee spoke about the band's upcoming "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins" tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of CRÜE's groundbreaking 2005-2006 "Carnival Of Sins" tour and the 45th anniversary of the band. The 33-city Live Nation-produced trek will kick off on July 17, 2026 in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania at the Pavilion at Star Lake and will feature support acts EXTREME and TESLA. Asked what feels "the most different" to him about CRÜE's success and "what feels exactly the same", Tommy said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Um, oh, boy. God, what a loaded question, dude. Well, first of all, the original 'Carnival Of Sins' tour was absolutely insane. The production was — it was a carnival, and it was insane. So we're bringing that back, because there's so many fans out there that never got to experience that. And I was just telling somebody else, my favorite thing in the whole world is that our music has transcended. And there's nothing cooler on the planet than seeing somebody out there and they got their son or their daughter on their shoulders, singing, 'Shout, Shout, Shout.' As a musician, I'm looking out there while I'm playing. I'm, like, 'Man, that kid's, like, nine years old. What the hell?' That just tells me that we're gonna be around for quite a long time."

Tommy added: "When you're starting out, you don't know what you're doing. You're just going at it. But when you start to see that kind of stuff, that's when it all goes, 'Whoa, whoa. What is happening?'"

Asked what keeps him excited creatively at this point of his career, Tommy said: "Creatively, what keeps me excited is… I'm kind of a tech nerd in the studio. There's so much new technology. It's kind of crazy, even for me, to keep up. I'm inspired daily. And I still pinch myself on a daily basis that we've been blessed to still be here and still entertain people and leave them walking out of the venue going, like, 'What the hell? That was insane.' So I'm inspired by a lot — by a whole lot."

Earlier this month, Tommy's bandmate, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx, told Mike Hsu of the 100 FM The Pike radio station about "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins": "Listen, two of our biggest and most successful tours was the 'Dr. Feelgood' tour. And that's not to negate 'Girls, Girls, Girls' or any of that stuff, but that was a big peaking time for us and that album connected with people. And then the 'Carnival Of Sins' tour 20 years ago. That was unbelievable. It was such a fun experience. And we were just, like, 'It's an anniversary of that and that DVD and people still talk to us about that show.' We were, like, 'Well, what can you do now with technology that you couldn't do back then?' They didn't have video screens back then, and anything that you could do that would encompass and take over the imagination of all the people there. And that we had an opportunity to do that in [Las] Vegas on a couple things. 'In The Beginning', [which] starts off the 'Shout At The Devil' album, we had an amazing visual presentation of 'In The Beginning'. Mid-show, everything went dark and there's this, basically, devil talking to you, narrating that, which then led into 'Shout At The Devil'. And these are the kind of things, when you think about the 'Carnival' environment, how far we can take it — it's super exciting for us."

Regarding MÖTLEY CRÜE's choice of support acts for the tour, Nikki said: "We're really stoked with TESLA and EXTREME, because the idea of TESLA and EXTREME and MÖTLEY CRÜE is it's all about songs, however you interpret them. You can play 'em RAMMSTEIN style or you can play 'em George Thorogood style or you can play 'em whatever. A good song is a good song, and that's what I'm really excited about. We've had the best time when we look out at the fans. We did 'The Stadium Tour' [in 2022]. They were singing every Joan Jett song, all the POISON songs, all the DEF LEPPARD songs, all the MÖTLEY CRÜE songs. So this has a little feel of that. They're in sheds and stuff — they're not stadiums — which is a cool place to play in the summer outside."

Asked if the upcoming extensive tour is MÖTLEY CRÜE "putting a cap on it", considering his recent comment that leaving his family behind to go on the road was becoming increasingly difficult for him, Sixx said: "No. It's summertime. It's great to be able to go out and be with the band and the fans and not leave my family behind 'cause they're in school and all this kind of stuff. So, summers are a great time for bands that have been around for a while and have families because we can go out and play and still be able to be with our families. That's always kind of been the hardest part for me, is being separated from that. I'm a dad and a husband and a sobriety advocate and a musician before I am a rock star. Though that doesn't equate to me, but I understand that. But I'm just saying, I don't put all my eggs just in that basket 'cause it would feel very one-dimensional to me. I have a lot of dimension that I like to enjoy in my life. I have an animation company. That brings me amazing amount of creative joy, and great partners. And there's so many other things that I do as well as MÖTLEY CRÜE. So I'm really grateful, dude — really grateful."

He added: "And no, this isn't a cap on anything. And then plugging it into summertime, it just works for everybody. It's just a blast."

MÖTLEY CRÜE said that $1 from every ticket sold for "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins" will be donated to ASAP! (After School Arts Program) through the Mötley Crüe Giveback Initiative to fund hands-on arts programs for young people.

MÖTLEY CRÜE's Las Vegas residency launched on September 12 and at Dolby Live at Park MGM and ran through October 3. The shows had initially been set for spring but were rescheduled after frontman Vince Neil revealed he had suffered a stroke last Christmas.

In September, Vince revealed that he had actually had a series of strokes before he suffered the "big one" in his sleep last Christmas night, rendering him unable to get out of bed when he woke up the next day.

When MÖTLEY CRÜE originally postponed the Las Vegas residency, the band said it was because Neil needed a "medical procedure," but offered no further details.