‘Nobody Gave a S—‘ About Hard Rock in the ’90s

Former Motley Crue vocalist John Corabi was never far from the stage throughout the ’90s and into the 2000s. During that time, he witnessed hard rock fall on hard times as new genres, including grunge, gained popularity.

Corabi recalls one particularly dark moment while he was taking part in a package tour that was selling poorly. Previously, each of the bands could have drawn thousands on their own, but they were now collectively struggling to draw hundreds. “It was bleak,” he tells UCR. “I just remember getting offstage and having a panic attack.”

With the passage of time, a lot of those same bands are now benefiting from the power of nostalgia, Corabi notes. Though plenty have declared that “rock is dead” over the years, the reality is that the genre, featuring groups both new and old, continues to thrive. Corabi himself has been helping to keep that momentum with the Dead Daisies, a powerful all-star collective that’s featured players from some of classic rock’s biggest bands.

The Daisies will release Light ‘Em Up, their seventh studio album, on Sept. 6. Ahead of its release, Corabi checked in with UCR for a candid, wide-ranging interview. In the first part of the conversation below, the frontman remembers his encounters with former Great White vocalist Jack Russell and shares stories of his memorable adventures with members of Aerosmith and AC/DC. 

As you and I are talking, it’s been about a day since we found out about the death of Jack Russell.
I know, that sucks. It was probably about a year ago, I did an acoustic set. It was me, [former Danger Danger vocalist] Ted Poley and Jack with [his guitarist] Robbie Lochner. I was shocked. I hadn’t seen Jack in a while. He came in and had two crutches and just looked super frail. But you know what? He got in there, sat down on a stool and sang his balls off. I was just like, “Wow.” It’s amazing. He looked physically frail, but if you closed your eyes and listened to him, it didn’t sound like [any time had passed]. It sounded like old Jack. But yeah, I was sad when I heard that yesterday.

I saw him in 2018 and it was the same thing. Through it all, he always had that amazing voice. I know as a singer, you appreciate things like that.
Listen, I respect anybody that can get out and do what we do and have some success at it. Great White was one of the first bands I saw when I moved to L.A. I saw them at the Roxy and they were kind of in between record deals. I think they were writing for what became [Once Bitten]. They were just kind of in between. I saw them play the Roxy and I was just like, “Wow.” Then they did some [Led] Zeppelin stuff and I just thought it was amazing. It’s sad, dude. You know, you hate to see any of your heroes or musical peers [die]. We’re all getting up there in age, man. So we’re starting to lose ‘em all.

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Things like this and the recent news that Aerosmith is retiring from the stage, it’s sobering to see. You’re a fellow music fan; these are our rock heroes.
Obviously, the big ones for me — I’m going way back — but John Bonham passing away and then a few months later [the death of] John Lennon. The loss of Bon Scott, all of these cats. It’s been happening all along the way. But now we’re getting into [more of it happening]. Mick Jagger is 81. Paul McCartney is 82. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, all of these guys I grew up listening to. We already lost [David] Bowie and Prince — [his death] was an accident, but still. You know, it’s hard. These are guys that I looked up to, all of them. Then you start thinking, “Well, shit, you’re 65. You need to start taking better care of yourself.” It does give you a sense of mortality.

In your memoir, you talk about the many things you’ve been lucky enough to experience, and there’s a mention of jamming with AC/DC and Aerosmith.
Well, the AC/DC [story]: Motley’s tour manager, our good buddy and day-to-day guy, Mike Amato, got married in Catalina. I had been in the band about a month and got invited to go to the wedding. My wife and I went over to Tommy Lee’s house. We flew over in a helicopter, which was already freaking me out. I’d never been in a helicopter. As we’re landing, I could see Mike pulling up on a golf cart. There was another guy there. He had the hat, and I’m sitting there looking at him, thinking to myself, “I know this guy from somewhere.” I wasn’t putting two and two together. Mike said, “Hey, this is Brian.” I went, “Oh, hey man!” I think I had a look on my face, because Mike was like, “No, this is Brian Johnson from AC/DC.” I was like, “Oh, shit!” We went back to the hotel, dropped off our luggage and then Tommy and Heather [Locklear], my wife Valerie and I, Mick [Mars] and his wife, Emi [Caryn], Brian and his wife, Brenda, we all went to a Mexican restaurant. We sat there the entire afternoon on Catalina, right by the water, and we proceeded to eat and then get completely shit-faced drunk.

On the walk back to the hotel, we walked into this bar and just asked the guys [there] if we could use their gear. We started jamming. We were doing “Back in Black,” “Walk This Way,” all of this crazy stuff. [As we were playing] “Back in Black,” Brian’s singing, Mick is playing guitar, Tommy’s playing drums and I was playing the bass. I had this epiphany moment: “Holy shit, I’m in Motley Crue and I’m literally jamming with the lead singer from AC/DC.”

The [other moment], when we went up to do the record, we wound up being in the studio with Aerosmith. I was doing some guitar parts and [producer] Bob Rock didn’t like the tone, the mic placement on my amps or whatever. He said, “Go take a break.” I was sitting in the lounge and goofing off playing acoustic guitar by myself. I was doing [Led Zeppelin’s] “Over the Hills and Far Away,” and then I started playing the beginning of [Aerosmith’s] “Seasons of Wither.” Right when the voice started, where the vocals would come in, I heard the voice. I turned around and it was Steven [Tyler]. He was standing behind me and he started singing in my ear. He sat down with me on the couch, retuned the guitar to some weird-ass tuning that he uses and told me the whole story about he wrote it. Then we actually sat and played it on the couch together. I was like, “Fuckin’ pinch me, I can die right now.”

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Thinking about Great White brought me back to something I think about a lot: how all of these bands weathered the storm in the ’90s and 2000s. You saw that in a couple of different ways, including your time with Ratt, and the separate experience of putting out new music with Union.
It was weird. You know, you say “weathered,” but I don’t think anybody that was “weathering” at the time [felt that way]. Everybody was freaking out. I remember doing a tour in 2002 where I was going, “What the fuck is going on?” We were somewhere in Iowa doing this big outdoor thing. It was Dokken, Ratt, Warrant, L.A. Guns and Firehouse. Five bands. I just remember that we got out there and Firehouse went on. I’m looking and there were maybe 12 people in the audience. It was just this parking lot. Nobody was there. L.A. Guns went on and there were maybe eight more people, and then Warrant went on. I’m just sitting there and when Ratt went on — we were right before Dokken — when we went on, there were maybe 200-250 people there. In an area that could have held 4,000 or 5,000. It was bleak. I just remember getting offstage and having a panic attack. I was going, “Any one of these bands 10 years ago, or five years ago, would have sold this out by themselves. There’s five bands on this bill and we couldn’t even break 1,000 people.”

Everybody had the same mindset: “Fuck, what is happening?” How do you go from 10,000-20,000 arenas to being completely irrelevant? It’s a little bit of a sting. The ‘90s and 2000s were weird. But some of these bands said, “Let’s just suck it up. I’m going to keep doing my thing.” Like you said, they weathered the storm and came out on the other end. Just recently, all of these bands that nobody gave a shit about, now there’s these people that are reminiscing about their youth. They want the soundtrack to their youth while they’re reminiscing. All of these bands, your Great Whites, Motley Crues, Poison, L.A. Guns, there’s a resurgence for the live shows. You know, unfortunately, nobody’s buying anybody’s records anymore. It’s all about streaming. But the live shows, there’s been a resurgence.