Why Mick Mars Shelved the Solo Songs He Recorded With John Corabi

Fans of Motley Crue co-founder Mick Mars may wonder why the songs he recorded circa 2016 with one-time Motley Crue singer John Corabi don't appear on the track list for Mars' first post-Crue solo album, 2024's The Other Side of Mars.

Mars announced the solo effort on Wednesday (Nov. 1) with its first single, "Loyal to the Lie."

Well, it turns out that Mars had a reason for shelving those songs with Corabi, even though the guitarist had teased two Corabi-assisted solo songs — "Gimme Blood" and "Shake the Cage" were the titles — around seven years ago when he started woodshedding solo material several years before his 2022 retirement from Motley Crue. (Hear the teasers down toward the bottom of this post.)

"I felt the songs were just a little — not strong enough," Mars admits to the rock radio host Eddie Trunk of the Corabi-sung tunes in an Oct. 31 interview, as Blabbermouth reported.

He continues, "There is a certain person that kinda interfered with that. I'm not gonna say his name, but he kind of like messed some things up. The songs were wrong, parts in there that shouldn't be there, and blah, blah, blah. It isn't a long story, but it was kind of like, 'That ain't gonna fly.' So I shelved it."

Pressed to identify who interfered, Mars only offers that he was "kind of duped, that's all I have to say, by a third party. And that's it, that's all. I got rid of him and went on and searched for other people."

Corabi in 2011 (Larry Marano, Getty Images)

Mick Mars' Retirement From Crue

It was first revealed that Mars would stop performing with Motley Crue in an official statement in October 2022. His longtime battle with ankylosing spondylitis, a type of advanced arthritis, reportedly spurred the decision. But the guitarist later sued Motley Crue for apparently "unilaterally" removing him from the band, among other assertions.

In April, Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx claimed that Mars was "a little bit confused" and was being "misled" by his business team. "We've always been really supportive of Mick no matter what Mick was going through," Sixx added. The guitarist John 5 has now taken Mars' place in Crue.

Pre-orders for The Other Side of Mars are now available. Configurations include a 180-gram 12" album or CD, signed or unsigned. The Other Side of Mars is being released through Mars' own label, 1313 LLC, in partnership with MRI. Two weeks ago, Mars launched a countdown anticipating it.

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