John Corabi said he’d been told that Motley Crue would have fired any singer who wasn’t Vince Neil in 1994 – even if it had been Paul McCartney.
Corabi was shown the door after recording just one album with Nikki Sixx’s band, so that the previously-fired Neil could return. In a recent episode of the SDR Show (video below) the vocalist recalled band manager Allen Kovac’s words.
“There was a meeting at Nikki’s house, and Allen Kovac, the manager, came in and he was very frank,” Corabi said. “He goes, ‘Listen, man, I don’t give a shit who’s fronting this band…’ A year before I joined, they had just signed a massive record deal with Elektra for like $40, 50 million guaranteed money. And, and then, like six months later, Motley calls Elektra… ‘Oh, yeah, hey, by the way, the singer’s out.’ And they’re like, ‘Uh, not what we paid for!’”
The dispute with the label was one reason why Motley Crue weren’t “huge supporters” of Corabi, he said, although he added that “they were always cool to me.” He continued: “And so Allen came to me and he said, ‘Here’s the deal, dude. No disrespect to you, but this isn’t what the record label paid for.’
“His words were, ‘I don’t give a fuck if Paul McCartney was fronting this band – It’s not what they paid for. They want Vince Neil, or they’re doing nothing.’ I understood that. And, you know, that was that.”
Corabi aims to provide more detail in his memoir Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Tales from the Other Motley Crue Frontman, which is published via Rare Bird on June 14.
Watch John Corabi on the SDR Show
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