Former Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars recently discussed finishing his new solo album and his desire to keep its sound away from his former band during an interview with Kylie Olsson.
Mars shared details about the production of the record and how he expects listeners to react to the new material.
“Well, my new record is finished,” Mars said. “Chris Collier did on for Korn and a lot of those heavier bands like that. I predict there’s going to be people that really go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know Mick could do that.’ And there’s people going to be like, ‘That doesn’t sound like Mötley Crüe.’ I don’t want it to sound like Mötley.”
During the interview, Mars was also asked if he is happy with how his life has turned out.
“Yes. Not the AS though,” Mars responded. “That’s the demon that got me. The way I describe it to like my band cuz they don’t get it. I go, ‘Okay, try this. Take a 40 lb cinder block, put a band around your head with a chain and walk around with that rock.’ That is what it feels like. I got to hold my head up all the time. So, it’s like, you know, that’s what it feels like. You can’t bend your head up to see where you’re going. I can see the ground perfectly, of course.”
Mars has been open about his battle with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) throughout his career, and his latest remarks tie his new music to both his health struggles and his long, complicated history with the band that made him famous.
The new record is not Mars’s first step outside Mötley Crüe. The guitarist has been working on the album with producer Chris Collier, who has also worked with Korn, and he has previously released solo music, including the single “Loyal to the Lie.” That pedigree helps explain Mars’s claim that fans will hear a heavier, unfamiliar side of his playing on the new material.
The album arrives after an especially turbulent period for Mars. He stepped away from Mötley Crüe’s 2022 U.S. stadium tour because of health issues, and a later arbitration ruling found that the band was within its rights to remove him as an officer and director of Mötley Crüe Inc. The same ruling ordered Mars to repay $750,030 and to sell his ownership stake for $505,737.
The decision closed a legal fight that had run for years. Mars sued his former bandmates in 2023, claiming they had unilaterally pushed him out and cut his share of profits, and the case ended in a January 2026 final arbitration award in the band’s favor. His departure from the road followed “his chronic illness of ankylosing spondylitis,” with the original filing previously obtained by the outlet.
Reaction to the outcome was pointed. The ruling concluded plainly: “Mars stopped touring. Therefore, he must pay it back.” The arbitrator also dismissed Mars’s claims against the band, which declared the result a decisive victory in a dispute that had played out publicly for years.
Mars’s health remains the backdrop to all of it. Ankylosing spondylitis is a degenerative bone disease that made touring increasingly difficult, and it is the condition he described in his own words as a 40-pound cinder block chained to his head. For Mars, the new album is less a farewell than a chance to prove what he can still do outside the shadow of Mötley Crüe — even if he is happy to admit that sounding like them was never the goal.
