What rare and incurable disease caused Mötley

Crüe’s Mick Mars to spiral into addiction?

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.

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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