TOMMY LEE Talks About Touring With KISS, Defends His Facebook Rant

Joe Lynch of Fuse.TV recently conducted an interview with MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Fuse.TV: So you're going on tour with KISS, which is incredible. You guys had a few shows with them back in 1982. What do you remember most about that time?

Tommy: I just remember it being really quick: I was so bummed! I was like, "Wait, that's it?" I was so dead-set on seeing what they really looked like. That was my thing. I was like, "Oh man, I'm finally gonna be able to see what these dudes look like in soundcheck and shit," you know? And, of course, I never got to see that because when they did walk into soundcheck they had a scarf on their face or they were covered up, so I never did get to see what they looked like. In one way I was bummed, but in another way I was like, "That's fuckin' cool." You know what I mean? Just that surprise and mystery of it all is what I was infatuated with. More than the show or the music or learning anything it was just like, "What do they really look like?"

Fuse.TV: Recently you wrote on Facebook asking fans to stop asking for pictures in your free time. Since you posted that, have you been hassled any less?

Tommy: It's weird listening to everybody's reaction. I've seen a bunch of people going, "I totally agree, I get it," and then you got others saying, "You're a fuckin' douchebag, fuck you!" I've seen 'em both and I don't spend a whole lot of time on it because I just needed to say what I needed to say. It's so funny because no matter what you say, fans only read and hear what they want. I swear to God, I could've reworded it eight different ways and the people who were hatin' on me would still only read and see what they wanted to. That letter wasn't addressed to fans. I mean, I did address the fans, but the whole thing started with me saying, "Fuck, I'm so over taking pictures with randoms and meeting randoms." I'm not talking about fans, I'm talking about people that don't even know who the fuck you are; they just want a picture with you. That's how this all started. My point was, everybody has a fucking camera in their phone these days. In the past, if someone wanted a picture with you and they had a camera on them it was like, "Fuck yeah, let's rip a picture, this is cool!" And now everybody has a fucking camera, so if you stop and take a picture with a fan, somebody sees that and you got yourself a fuckin' 30-minute or one-hour meet-and-greet, my friend. And some people don't even know who you are. They don't even know your music but they've seen you on TV. So here you are, just trying to sneak into Starbucks for a quick coffee, and it turns into a fuckin' meet-and-greet at a record store.

Fuse.TV: I can see that.

Tommy: And that was my point, I swear to God. You know, God bless their little cotton socks, certain people only read what they want to hear and they're like, "Fuck you, you fuckin' owe everything to your fans! You're a fuckin' douchebag!" And I was like, "You guys are not even getting this." So to tell you the truth, at the end of the day, I really don't care. I said what I needed to say and hopefully the people who got it, got it.

[At this point in the interview Tommy Lee told Fuse.TV a really messed up story about how a receptionist repeatedly asked for his photo when he was picking up his mother's ashes from a mortuary. That portion of the interview was published last week.]

Read the entire interview from Fuse.TV.