Ex-MÖTLEY CRÜE Singer JOHN CORABI Says He Was ‘Insulted’ By His Portrayal In ‘The Dirt’ Movie
Former MÖTLEY CRÜE singer John Corabi says that he was “insulted” by the way he was portrayed in the band’s released biopic “The Dirt”.
Corabi joined CRÜE in 1992 as the replacement for the group’s original singer, Vince Neil, who was dismissed due to…
Former MÖTLEY CRÜE singer John Corabi says that he was "insulted" by the way he was portrayed in the band's released biopic "The Dirt".
Corabi joined CRÜE in 1992 as the replacement for the group's original singer, Vince Neil, who was dismissed due to personal differences. With Corabi on vocals, MÖTLEY CRÜE released one critically acclaimed full-length CD, which ended up being a commercial failure in the wake of grunge despite a Top 10 placing on the album chart. When Neil returned to the fold in 1997, Corabi was left on his own and formed the band UNION with ex-KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick.
Corabi discussed the way he was name-checked in "The Dirt" in a recent interview with The Metal Summit. He said: "The portrayal in the movie, it was pathetic. It really made it look like I was really pissed when [the guys in the band are seen] basically walking into a high school gymnasium to, like, eight people. And I'm sorry — regardless of what the ticket sales were like [while I was in MÖTLEY CRÜE], it was never that bad. So I just kind of took it as a little bit of back-handed compliment — not even a compliment; it was like an insult. I was insulted. And I'm, like, you know, dude? If you're gonna be a fucking asshole about it, whoever's choice it was to put that in there… At the end of the day, I didn't appreciate it."
John, who is played by Anthony Vincent Valbiro in the adaptation of CRÜE's 2001 memoir "The Dirt: Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band", went on to say that he would have preferred it if he had been left out of the film altogether. "I think I'm in the movie 20 seconds," he said. "So, take that 20 seconds out and skim over it completely."
Released in March 2019, "The Dirt" currently has a 36% critic score from 74 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, the online review aggregation service that allows both critics and the public to rate movies. The same site has an 94% audience score for "The Dirt" from more than 6,000 reviews.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx addressed the fact that fan turnout was poor while the band toured to support 1994's "Mötley Crüe" album. "Maybe we needed to make that record that we did without Vince but not call it MOTLEY CRUE," Nikki said. "We were burnt the fuck out. But we made a great record and we went out on that tour and there was fucking no one there, dude."
Corabi in 2016 said that he would avoid talking about MÖTLEY CRÜE in the future because he didn't want his comments about Sixx to descend into a feud.
In an interview with Sweden Rock Magazine, Nikki said that writing the "Mötley Crüe" LP with Corabi was a prolonged and difficult experience. He went to call it "a very unfocused record" that was "painful for me, because John Corabi can't write lyrics, and I had to do all that work."
Corabi initially responded to Sixx's comments by saying that he didn't "give a shit" about what his ex-bandmate had to say, but later told an interviewer, when asked about it again, "I have no idea why Nikki feels that I'm the biggest piece of shit to roam the Earth." He then proceeded to take to his Facebook page to claim that he would "officially have nothing to say about any member of MÖTLEY CRÜE ever again," adding that he was "not backing this bullshit stirring that is happening to start a feud."
In February 2018, Corabi released a live album of his performance of MÖTLEY CRÜE's entire 1994 self-titled album, recorded on October 27, 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee. "Live '94: One Night In Nashville" documents the album in its entirety along with the bonus track "10,000 Miles", which was originally released as a bonus track on the Japanese version of the "Quaternary" EP.