Former Motley Crue Member John Corabi Is Skeptical About Mick Mars’ Retirement, Thinks Mars Was “Shown The Door”

Last month, Mick Mars, the guitarist of the legendary Los Angeles-based heavy metal outfit Motley Crue, announced that he would be retiring from touring, and will no longer perform shows with the band. While Mars has stated that he is only retiring for health reasons, and will continue to work with Motley Crue in the studio, one person is skeptical of Mars’ story: John Corabi, the former guitarist for the metal band.

In an interview with the Life In The Stocks podcast, John Corabi shared his thoughts on the news of Mick Mars retirement. Consequence of Sound quotes the musician explaining that “I don’t totally believe Mick’s reasons for leaving Mötley. ”

He floats the possibility that it wasn’t Mars’s decision to leave the band, and that Mars was booted for not playing guitar to the band’s liking: “And I don’t even know if he left Mötley. I believe maybe he was shown the door. Because as long as I can remember… Fuck, when we were doing the Generation Swine record, they were complaining about his guitar playing then.”

According to Mick Mars, the decision to leave the band stemmed from his Ankylosing Spondylitis, described by his agent as “an extremely painful and crippling degenerative disease, which affects the spine.” Mars’ agent noted that he can “no longer handle the rigors of the road,” he will “continue as a member of the band.”

To the contrary, Corabi notes that he does not even believe that Mick played on Motley Crue’s last few records: “I don’t know if he played on New Tattoo — I’m not sure — but I know on Red, White & Crüe, it was D.J. Ashba; on Saints of Los Angeles, it was DJ Ashba; and on The Dirt [soundtrack], it was John 5.”

Corabi goes on to recall that he attempted to reach out to Mick, but never received a response, saying that “Since that announcement came out, I’ve reached out to Mick and his wife a few times, and Mick hasn’t responded at all. And I sent [his wife] — she’s from Switzerland — so when I was there last week, I sent some photos of the Alps — I was in the Alps — and I wrote to her, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m in your motherland.’ And she wrote back. Then I came back, and I was, like, ‘Hey, man, how’s Mick?’ And she goes, ‘He’s fine.’ [And I said], ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ Crickets. So that’s kind of unusual behavior for Mick and [his wife]; they would normally [be] just, like, ‘Yeah, dude. Everything’s cool. Whatever.'”

After Corabi announced his retirement from touring, Motley Crue announced that the former Marilyn Manson band guitarist John 5 would be playing in his stead. The band recently announced their first set of shows with the new guitarist, with the band to play alongside fellow heavy metal titans Def Leppard.