MTLEY CRE's TOMMY LEE: 'The Days Of Making A Record, For Me Personally, Are Over'

Steve Baltin of AOL's Noisecreep recently conducted an interview with MTLEY CRE drummer Tommy Lee. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Noisecreep: I know there was talk last year of working on some new CRE material. Is there any new material at this point?

Tommy: We haven't really started. Our plan was to have some music for 2011 and between METHODS OF MAYHEM and SIXX: A.M., Nikki [Sixx, bass] and I have been busy. Nikki and I and Mick [Mars, guitar] are the primary songwriters, so if the two of us have been busy the chances of that happening have been not so good because we've been doing some other things. But our plan was to get some new music together for 2011. It's early in the year. We're going on tour this summer, [so] maybe we'll write some stuff. We've been known to write several things during soundchecks. I always have a studio on my bus. Who knows, maybe we'll get some new stuff going or I don't really know. Maybe our plan now is to hold off on new music until "The Dirt", for the movie, which I think would be really a cool place to rip out some new music too.

Noisecreep: Is there a certain type of acceptance where you realize people just want the big rock show, so you give them that and the best version of that spectacle you can?

Tommy: Yeah, we've tried to switch it up in many different ways. Recently we played an album in its entirety. We did "Dr. Feelgood", and that was cool, because it wasn't us playing a bunch of new music that people may or may not want to hear. But we altered the show so when you did buy that record you probably listened to it from top to bottom, so we played it in that order and maybe tried to relive some of that experience. As far as new music goes, and people say it all the time, "When are you guys gonna make a new record, dude?" It's like, "Really, why?" No one buys them anyway anymore. And I'm not sure what the reason is. To tell you the truth, I think the days of making a record, for me personally, are over. After this last METHODS record I did I'll never make another full record, I think. It's a waste of time, 'cause people can only ingest a song at a time, so why not make bitching songs at a time and release them? If you want to call them singles, great, whatever; or at its maximum, an EP, four songs, done, boom. I just really feel like the days of the entire record are long gone.

Noisecreep: I think a lot of artists though make new music for the sake of creation or to tour to keep it interesting. Would that be a possibility for you?

Tommy: That's kind of a group decision, but I just know me, personally I think it's just a waste of time, it really is. I don't listen to anybody's full record anymore and when I did, I don't think I listened to the whole record. I'm sorry, and I don't care who it is, if it's THE BEATLES, I can't listen to an hour and a half of anybody straight, so I guess that's just my personal preference. And I guess I'm just a fan of switching it up. I want to hear some of this, some of that. I don't really do that anymore. Maybe it's my child-like short attention span, but I'm not a fan of that long, drawn-out fucking album anymore. I don't think most people are; if you look at sales, most people are buying songs at a time and they're just not really buying records. That's just a sign of the times. There's so much more out there to play with that grabbing anybody's attention and keeping it there for an hour and a half, good luck.

Read the entire interview from Noisecreep.