What rare and incurable disease caused Mötley

Crüe’s Mick Mars to spiral into addiction?

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Keep watching to find out.

Mick Mars was born on April 4, 1955, in Terre

Haute.

When Mars, who was then known by his birth

name Robert Deal, was just three years old,

he saw a country music act perform at a fair

in Indiana and decided that music was what

he wanted to do with his life.

In 2012, he told The Guardian that he immediately

knew he wanted to play the guitar.

“I saw this country musician play at the fair;

his name was Skeeter Bonn, and he had on this

orange outfit with sequins all over it, and

he wore this large Stetson hat and he played

guitar and sang […] I said, ‘That’s what

I’m doing with my life.’”

Following the show, Mars’ mother gave him

an Elvis Presley haircut, the first step in

becoming a rock star.

Mars told Goldmine that he never wavered from

following his dream.

“I had every intention of being who I am today.

It didn’t matter how many days, or years,

it took, or how many dues I had to pay.”

Fans of Mötley Crüe may be surprised to

learn, though, that Mick Mars’ early musical

inspirations were not hard rock at all but

country music.

Eventually, though, his musical tastes broadened,

with some of his other early influences being

The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and legendary

surf rock guitarist Dick Dale.

()

As a Baby Boomer, it’s unsurprising that Mars

is roughly a decade

older than the rest of the Crüe.

As a teen, Mars dropped out of high school

and relocated to Los Angeles to pursue his

music career, performing blues rock and working

odd jobs.

He even used the stage name Zorky Charlemagne

in this period, as he had yet to adopt the

famous Mick Mars moniker.

One of Mick Mars’ pre-Mötley Crüe projects

was called White Horse.

Fatefully, the members of White Horse were

once described as a “motley crew,” and Mars

noted the name for use in a future project.

Around 1980, though, White Horse stalled out.

It was then that Mars placed an ad seeking

musicians for a new group.

The ad read in part,

“LOUD rude aggressive lead guitarist [seeks]

working band […]”

In a scene dramatized in the 2019 film “The

Dirt,” future Mötley Crüe band members Tommy

Lee and Nikki Sixx responded.

Mars knew of Vince Neil from a group Neil

was playing in at the time called Rock Candy,

and it was at Mars’ urging that Neil joined

the band.

And Mars wasn’t just helping to form a new

band, he was also forming a new identity,

as he stopped going by Robert Alan Deal and

instead adopted the Mick Mars pseudonym.

He told Goldmine,

“I was reinventing myself […] things were

changing, and I needed to change, too.”

()

It wasn’t long after Mötley Crüe got together

before they were playing sold-out shows at

Whiskey a Go Go and The Roxy Theatre, pioneering

a Sunset Strip hard rock and heavy metal sound

that would take off on the radio and on MTV

just a few short years later.

That later chart-topping success for Mötley

Crüe was directly related to the songs Mars

either wrote or co-wrote with the band, including

some of Crüe’s most memorable material, like

“Girls, Girls, Girls,” and “Dr. Feelgood,”

leading many music fans and critics to credit

Mars as the engine behind the Sunset Strip

sound.

And even though he was a good deal older than

the rest of the group, he didn’t act like

it or think like it, which he says was key

to his success.

He told Goldmine,

“My age wasn’t my age.

I was 30, but I wasn’t thinking like a 30-year-old.

I was thinking more like a teenager.

I was hungry, and I wanted to make it.”

Soon, Mars and the band began their meteoric

rise after they performed at a major metal

festival called Heavy Metal Day and were signed

to Elektra Records who reprinted their first

album.

Mars told Goldmine Magazine:

“We started recording that just a few months

after we were together.”

()

By 1984, Mick Mars’ band was on top of the

rock ‘n’ roll world, opening for veteran heavy

metal singer Ozzy Osbourne on a U.S. tour.

It was at this point, though, that the Crüe

reportedly considered axing their primary axman.

According to Ozzy bassist Bob Daisley, the

other three members of Motley Crüe conspired

to get rid of Mars behind his back, with the

goal of replacing him with Ozzy guitarist

Jake E. Lee.

But Daisley told music site Blabbermouth that

he talked them out of it.

“I said, ‘Well, if you want my opinion, for

what it’s worth, I would say do not try to

fix something that’s not broken.

You’ve got a chemistry there.

You’ve got a functioning unit.

Mick Mars is part of that.

Don’t f— it up.

That’s my opinion.

Just don’t do it.’

And I think I saved Mick’s neck that night

’cause they were getting serious about getting

someone else.”

Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx has disputed

Daisley’s story, saying it was completely

made up, but Lee has confirmed Daisley’s account.

Still, Sixx clearly values Mars’s friendship,

as he got a tattoo of Mars on his leg.

“I wanted to honor him with this portrait

tattoo.”

“I wish more people could be like Mick Mars.”

()

Professional struggles aside, Mick Mars has

also managed several mental health challenges

throughout his life, as he revealed in 2001’s

“The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most

Notorious Rock Band,” a Mötley Crüe autobiography

Mars co-wrote with the other band members.

Mars wrote in the book that he has been diagnosed

with schizophrenia, which according to Psychiatry

magazine is characterized by delusions, hallucinations,

disorganized speech, trouble with thinking,

and lack of motivation.

He’s also struggled with depression and suicidal

thoughts.

Mars also recounted a particularly harrowing

experience when he was so inebriated he walked

into the ocean in order to kill himself, only

to wake up a short time later.

When he returned to the rest of the band,

he wondered if he might be a ghost.

Additionally, substance use disorder has also

been an ongoing challenge for the musician.

“To help me get through the pain of the disease

that I have, I started taking opiates.

I became dependent on them.

It turned into an addiction.”

But in 2012, he told The Fix that he has since

gotten sober.

“I don’t smoke.

I don’t drink.

I don’t have many vices, except playing my

guitar too much.

I guess I’m kind of a boring guy these days.

But that’s how I’m gonna keep going with Mötley

Crüe as long as I can.”

He added that while being sober has definitely

helped his musicianship, it hasn’t helped

his attitude.

“I’m still no gentleman.

I’m still as big an a—— as ever.”

()

Substance use disorder and mental and emotional

well-being are not the only life challenges

managed by Mick Mars.

According to Yahoo!, Mick Mars was diagnosed

at the age of 17 with a rare spinal disease

called ankylosing spondylitis, which causes

parts of a person’s spine to fuse together,

and in the case of Mick Mars, leads to his

hunched-forward appearance.

“But it doesn’t work on the back side of your

spine, it works on the inside, so when you

get the disease, you come from straight to

being bent.”

It also causes a great deal of pain, which

Mars pushes through when he performs.

He told Goldmine,

“I am able to keep touring.

I have days that are worse than others, and

there is always some amount of pain with my hips.

There are good days and bad days, but it is

more of an inconvenience than anything else.

I don’t feel sick.”

The condition has also led to Mars losing

several inches off his full adult height,

and according to MTV, he had to have hip replacement

surgery.

But Mars told Goldmine that there are some

unexpected benefits.

“There is one thing that is cool: I ended

up bent.

I can always see my guitar.”

According to the Spondylitis Association of

America, a combination of environmental and

genetic factors contribute to the condition,

described as a chronic form of arthritis.

There is no known cure, but through early

detection and treatments and therapies, progression

can be slowed and the pain caused by the disease

can be managed.

()

Mick Mars met his first wife, Sharon Deal,

when he was 19 and Sharon was only 16 years old.

The two would go on to have two children together.

The first, a boy, named appropriately enough

Les Paul after the legendary guitar maker,

and the next, a girl named Stormy.

But it didn’t last.

Deal divorced Mars before Mötley Crüe, and

she even had Mars thrown in jail over unpaid

child support.

Mars would go on to marry Mötley Crüe backup

singer Emi Canyn but they would divorce only

four years later.

Today he is married to Swiss model Seraina

Schönenberger.

Being a world-famous rock star puts a strain

on a father’s relationship with his children.

This is particularly true in Mars’ situation.

His third child, Erik Deal, keeps out of the

spotlight and his biological mother has not

been made public.

For her part, Stormy Deal, who inherited ankylosing

spondylitis from her father, also keeps a

low profile, while Les Paul has followed his

father’s footsteps to become a musician.

()

In the early `90s, original Crüe singer Vince

Neil was fired from the band.

Replacing Neil on vocals was John Corabi,

best known for fronting The Scream.

Corabi sang for Crüe on their eponymous 1994

album, and on a follow-up EP, but ultimately

left the band during the recording of their

next album, “Generation Swine.”

Neil was brought back in to record the vocals.

Although never as successful as earlier Crüe

records were, Mars has a special place in

his heart for the one complete Crüe album

the band recorded with Corabi.

He said,

“I thought that was probably — to me, and

I can only speak for me, I think that was

probably the best album we’ve done.

Musical-wise, the songs, I felt, were strong.

And just musically, to me, it was, I guess,

my Beatles ‘White Album’; that’s kind of how

I feel about that one.

I’m not saying that any of my other albums

are crummy or anything like that — I love

every album that we did — but that one just

has a special thing for me.”

()

Mötley Crüe has had an undeniable influence

on generations of young musicians, none more

so than John LeCompt and Rocky Gray, former

members of the popular Millennial-era hard

rockers Evanescence.

After they left the band, both LeCompt and

Gray formed Machina, and their hero Mick Mars

sat in with the group, producing a track in

his home studio.

Machina drummer Rocky Gray said of the experience,

“[T]o play with Mötley and Mick Mars and

Nikki Sixx and Vince [Neil], stuff like that

— it is really, really, really cool to be

able to have those experiences and do that.

Play those songs that you love listening to

with the people that wrote them you know.

It’s awesome.”

Mars has also collaborated with a number of

other artists as well, including Pop Evil,

Papa Roach, and Hinder.

“Mick Mars was all for working with us, and

being huge Mötley Crüe fans we jumped at

the opportunity.

We took the song to him, and he killed it!

He heard the final version and said, ‘It was

a beautiful thing.’

We went to his house, and it was like the

Batcave — nothing but guitars and amps.

He is a vampire and so are all of us.”

()

With all the time Mars has spent playing with

Mötley Crüe, he’s still managed to branch

out into some projects of his own.

A few years ago there were rumors of Mars

working on a solo project, which he confirmed

in his Goldmine interview.

“Everybody is saying that I’m doing a blues

record.

It will be a blues record, per se, but it

will be more like how

Edgar Winter interprets the blues.

It will have a ’70s kind of feeling, but I

will be writing in a more current style of music.

I want to mix those two styles together.”

Promotional teasers released in 2016 revealed

that none other than John Corabi will be appearing

on at least one track.

And in 2020, one of the musicians collaborating

with Mars on his solo debut, Jacob Bunton,

told AL that the album was almost finished.

Bunton couldn’t give a release date, but he

did take the liberty to describe Mars’ guitar

playing:

“The power goes out it’s so loud.

It’s louder than anything you’ve ever heard

in your life.

Louder than a jet engine — I’m not exaggerating.

He runs through so many cabinets and heads

and everything it is insane, but his tone

is just the most incredible thing you’ve heard.”

The solo album combined with a 2022 stadium

tour planned with his old band, means we definitely

haven’t heard the last from Mick Mars or Mötley

Crüe.

“You’re Mick Mars!

You’re Mick Mars, dude!”

“Don’t forget it!”

If you or anyone you know is struggling with

addiction issues, help is available.

Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health

Services Administration website or contact

SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP

.