AAP General News (Australia)
12-01-2005
Fed: Tommy Lee enjoying the best of both worlds
EDS NOTE - Attention to language in 18th and 28th pars
By Jonathon Moran, National Entertainment Writer
SYDNEY, Dec 1 AAP - Tommy Lee is enjoying the best of both worlds.
As drummer for Motley Crue he's a rock 'n' roll party boy, but at home, he's a dad
just like any other.
"I'm living the dream, baby, always," said Lee, who arrived in Australia this week
for the Motley Crue national tour.
"I wear several hats these days.
"I have kind of learned to balance my life out with being responsible when it is time
and being completely irresponsible when it is time for that, too.
"It is a nice balance."
Most people would know of the hard rocker, multi-tattooed Lee, a man who takes hard
drugs, drinks to excess and has a wild sex life.
But with two kids to ex-wife and former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson, he's also a doting father.
"I am just Tommy the dad," he says proudly.
"The boys came out on tour a bunch this summer. They are getting old enough to know
what dad does now, they're eight and nine.
"When they come out on the road, all of a sudden my tour bus turns into the funny farm,
with video games and popcorn."
It has been a big year for Lee with Motley Crue getting back together, making his own
TV show and recording a solo album which was released in Australia today.
"It has been absolutely bananas," said the 43-year-old who was also once married to
Heather Locklear.
Motley Crue, the self-described world's most infamous band and one of the biggest selling
groups of the 1980s and 90s, arrived in Australia this week.
The four original band members - Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars -
this year re-united for a world tour.
The band, whose hits included Dr Feelgood, Girls Girls Girls and Kickstart My Heart,
had not played together for six years.
"We have been going since February," said Lee.
"So once in a while you are like, Jesus, I need a fucking break. But me being the true
professional that I am, we have got about two more months of this and then I will get
a nice break."
Motley Crue toured Japan last week, are in Australia this month and will play Hawaii
before taking a break over Christmas.
Despite plenty of friction within the band in the past, Lee claimed the atmosphere was "awesome".
"We are having more fun than humans are allowed to have," he said.
"It was just nice to take a break from each other.
"When you do that, you really appreciate what is the special thing that the four of
you guys do together."
The group's Australian tour kicks off at the Sydney Superdome on Saturday, December
3, before they perform dates in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Motley Crue also this year released a
2-CD greatest hits collection entitled Red,
White and Crue, with three
new songs including, If I Die Tomorrow.
The ballad, which Sixx wrote with the members of Canadian pop-punk band Simple Plan,
confronts the Crue's tawdry past: Neil was at the wheel in a 1984 car crash in which a
friend died, Sixx flatlined and nearly died during a 1989 heroin overdose, Lee went to
jail in 1998 for beating Anderson, and Mars is battling a debilitating disease that fuses
his vertebrae and forced him to undergo hip replacement surgery earlier this year.
Lee almost died during this tour also, with a stage mishap where he suffered burns
to his arms and face.
"It was such a fucking Spinal Tap moment," he laughed.
"I just kind of closed my eyes and took the hit and I got like second and third degree
burns on my forearms, singed the eyelashes back, got the hair a little bit but I am good
now.
"I am all healed up and better."
Lee's TV show - Tommy Lee Goes to College - premiered in Australia on the Seven Network
this week.
A high school dropout, Lee spends a term at the University of Nebraska.
He takes classes in chemistry, literature and the history of rock'n'roll.
"I never had the opportunity to go to college because I had been touring and making
records since I was 17," he said.
"This time I went there with one sort of mission - to kick some arse.
"I really wanted to do well and prove to myself I could do it, my kids, friends family and fans.
"I am not there just jerking around, I am actually there to do well."
Lee said his friends and fans would see a different side to him if they watched the show.
"People will get a true sense of who I am and I think that is important because a lot
of times misconception has been my worst enemy," he said.
"And you are powerless because people are going to write what people are going to write
so this is a good opportunity for people to just kind of check me out."
Not a week goes by that Lee isn't in some gossip magazine or tabloid newspaper, usually
focussing on his drug or drinking binges or whether or not he and Pamela Anderson are
back together.
Although the couple are not together, Lee said they were better friends than they had ever been.
"Pamela and I are probably better friends now than probably we were when we were married,"
he said.
"The two of us benefit and our boys really benefit.
"Everything is in a really good place right now so I don't have a complaint."
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