Former OZZY OSBOURNE and current LAST IN LINE bassist Phil Soussan has apologized to Nikki Sixx for making a disparaging comment about MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s “The Stadium Tour”.
After attending CRÜE‘s September 9 concert with DEF LEPPARD, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS in Las Vegas, Soussan took to his social media to share a few photos from the show, and he included the following message (as per Metal Sludge): “Went to see these guys yesterday at #allegiantstadium 2nd row center was pretty awesome! #poison were literally nothing but a good time – Bret and CC were terrific. #defleppard of course we’re spectacular and pristine! Motley sadly not so much…never seen a place empty out so fast after only a few songs.”
Sixx caught wind of Soussan‘s post on Instagram and responded by simply writing “Thanks Phil” and adding a middle-finger emoji.
Phil addressed his CRÜE remarks in a new interview with Artists On Record Starring ADIKA Live! Speaking about the Las Vegas gig, which marked the final date of the 2022 leg of “The Stadium Tour”, he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It was a great show. It was good. Where I was, the sound wasn’t that great. I was actually right in the front, but the sound was… either [because of] where I was sitting or [they had a] bad soundman. I said something about that inadvertently, without thinking, just really stupid, and I think I might have offended Nikki. So I wrote to him. I said, ‘Man, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything.’ It wasn’t bad; it was just, like, [I was] hoping it was gonna be better [than it was].”
Soussan continued: “I’ve always tried to go through this world just trying to say something positive, bring something positive… You’ve gotta say something nice about things. And then sometimes you don’t think and you say something without thinking. And mea culpa; I have to own that stuff. My bad — totally my bad.
“It’s just one of those silly things,” he added. “You say a thousand nice things and nobody remembers them; you say one bad thing and everyone still makes a comment [about it]… And thank God for, like, Blabbermouth. I open up my mouth and that’s some kind of newsworthy shit? Are you kidding me? Who are these people? Aggregate all this nasty stuff and just try to stir the pot.”
Soussan went on to say that he has “a lot of respect for the guys in MÖTLEY CRÜE. I’ve got a lot of history with them,” he explained. “I always wish them the best going forward. I hope they continue going forward and [continue] doing well. And like I said, if I offended anybody, I felt… The minute I saw that, I pulled it right down and wrote a letter of apology. I mean, that’s it. It’s, like, c’mon.”
Phil also praised Nikki personally, saying: “He is a marketing genius. He’s a songwriter. He’s the guy who keeps that whole machine going. And again, mea culpa. And for me to say something unnecessary and careless, yeah — my bad.”
Three and a half years ago, Soussan opened up about his contributions to Vince Neil‘s debut solo album, 1993’s “Exposed”. Despite the fact that he co-wrote five of the 11 songs on the MÖTLEY CRÜE singer’s disc, Soussan isn’t credited with having played on the record. Claiming that he laid down “some” the bass tracks that ended up on “Exposed”, Soussan said that the story of his involvement with the LP “was an unfortunate one. I had put the whole project together with Vince and we started writing songs and many of those songs were songs that were leftover that I had been writing for Ozzy,” he said. “When I left Ozzy, I took those songs with me. That’s why a lot of that material comes in. So, when you listen to ‘The Edge’, it’s ‘S.A.T.O.’, when you listen to ‘The Look In Her Eyes’, it’s like ‘Bark At The Moon’. Equivalent tracks. And you can hear that. The unfortunate thing is Steve Stevens [Neil‘s guitarist for the album], who turned out to be, you know, a bit of a snake in the grass. I don’t know what his personal issues were, but he walked into the project and once he got in there, he basically had expressed his frustration. He was planning on writing all the songs and playing bass on the record and doing all these things. And I said, ‘No, that’s not how it’s gonna work. It’s gonna work as a band.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s how I do it with Billy Idol.’ I said, ‘Okay, that’s Billy Idol. That’s not Vince Neil.’ And then he started a process of manipulation. Not a pleasant guy. I don’t know to this day why he did that. I sort of backed out.”
He continued: “At a certain point, it looked like it was going to be very challenging going forward. We had so many problems. The manager had just passed away — Bruce Bird. He was keeping Vince and everybody together, and at that point, it started becoming a mess, and I backed out. And that would’ve been the end of it. Then one day my business manager called me up and said, ‘Oh, you need to know that Steve Stevens has not only put his name on some of your songs, but he’s cut you out.’ I said, ‘That’s it,’ and I served an injunction on Warner Brothers. He had no evidence to support his claim. We had everything. We had all the demos. We had all the lyrics. We had tapes that were recorded that were pre-dated Steve being in the band. He had no way of substantiating this. At the end of the day, that’s how it worked out. But, unfortunately, if you look on the credits on the album, his name is on a bunch of songs even though he did not participate. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
Soussan added: “It’s sad when you meet somebody who’s kind of a jerk and that’s kind of how he was. Nothing against Vince. I still see Vince all the time. And the guys in the band as well. Robbie [Crane]. I love Robbie, who was originally playing guitar in the band [before switching to bass].”
Neil recruited Stevens, Crane and rhythm guitarist Dave Marshall for the “Exposed” tour, which saw Neil opening for VAN HALEN.
A critically acclaimed effort, “Exposed” peaked at No. 13 on the U.S. album chart and failed to earn gold certification.
Neil eventually rejoined MÖTLEY CRÜE in 1997.
Nikki Sixx photo credit: Jason Shaltz / SiriusXM / Screenshot below courtesy of Metal Sludge