Tommy Lee
Tommy Lee (* 3. October 1962 in Athens , Greece as Thomas Lee Bass ) is an American drummer and rock singer . He became known both as the drummer for the band Mötley Crüe and through his excesses and scandals.
Life
Tommy Lee is the son of a US soldier and a Greek woman. A year after he was born, his parents moved with him to California . He has a younger sister named Athena Lee who also plays drums. She was married to James Kottak .
Lee began playing the drums during his youth. He was a fan of Deep Purple , KISS and Led Zeppelin . He played u. a. in the school band at Royal Oak High School in Covina . Shortly before graduation, he dropped out of school to focus on his music career.
His first band was Suite 19 and existed during the early 1980s. During this time he met his later band colleague Nikki Sixx . This persuaded him to leave Suite 19 and start a new band with him. From then on, Lee had his middle name as his last name and was jokingly called T-Bone by Sixx. Shortly thereafter, guitarist Mick Mars joined the band called Mötley Crüe . Vince Neil finally came to the band through Tommy Lee .
Mötley Crüe quickly won many fans. Tommy Lee thrilled the audience with his spectacular drum solos, some of which he even played upside down and rotating around his own axis. On the Dr. On the Feelgood tour, Tommy Lee had a serious accident during a concert in the city of New Haven , Connecticut , on April 7, 1990 in the New Haven Coliseum : With a flying drum set, Lee was turned from a roadie at a height of 30 meters below the ceiling Railway pulled across the hall, while one foot fell from an elastic rope into the auditorium and hit the head of a visitor there with his skull, then Lee hit his head on the hall floor and lost consciousness. The drummer only came to in the ambulance. Lee suffered a concussion in the accident. A few days later, Mötley Crüe resumed the interrupted tour, with the same show performance The Flying Drums by Tommy Lee, but much more slowly.
During a four-month jail stay in 1998, the idea of leaving Mötley Crüe in order to devote more time to his family grew in him. Tommy Lee was arrested as a consequence of an escalating domestic violence dispute between him and his wife Pamela Anderson . After Anderson gave him a painful punch in the lower jaw in the shared villa, Lee shoved his wife and kicked her buttocks. Subsequently, two police officers called by Anderson arrested Tommy Lee at home. He was released on a million dollar bail. A court sentenced Lee to six months in prison, which Lee spent in solitary confinement. The ostensible trigger for the violent argument was the lack of a pan for cooking in the kitchen. Since Lee had been caught at an airport four years earlier with a semi-automatic pistol in his luggage and was prosecuted for it, he violated probation conditions, which made the penalty worse. Tommy Lee was serving his sentence at the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail . However, because of good conduct, Lee was released in early September 1998 after four months. While in detention, Tommy Lee was abused and bullied by fellow inmates who wanted to teach him a lesson about how a man shouldn't hit a lady. Therefore, Lee had to spend his break in a separate cage on the prison roof in the open air, where all prisoners were given temporary exits, as protection from the other convicts who aggressively insulted him and threw dirt at him in the cage. In order to be prepared for any conflict during the prison term, Lee had done some muscle building training for a month before the start of the prison sentence. On the other hand, there were prisoners who found it exciting to have a famous rock star in their ranks. In the 2002 German Mötley Crüe autobiography The Dirt, there are some emotionally fickle letters from Tommy Lee, which he wrote to his wife Pamela Anderson and his two young sons during his time in prison in 1998. In these letters, Lee wavers between fear, hope and resignation, to be able to restore the relationship with his wife and the family happiness with his two children. Also in the book is a letter to TV talk show host Jay Leno , whose TV show featured his wife Pamela Anderson while Lee was in prison. In this letter, he criticizes Jay Leno for the way the TV host reported on Tommy Lee's wrongdoing. When Tommy Lee was in prison, he read a number of non-fiction books on relationships, child rearing, spiritual life, and Buddhism in order to improve his character and become a better person. In addition, Lee composed some songs for a solo project in his solitary cell. Meanwhile, in the absence of her husband, Pamela Anderson entered into a relationship with her childhood friend Kelly Slater , who is a well-known surfing athlete. Tommy Lee, in turn, began a brief affair with actress and star model Carmen Electra after his imprisonment .
After the Crüe's Greatest Hits Tour in 1999, which he had been routinely drumming down on his solo project, but without burning passion and in his mind, Tommy Lee got out of Mötley Crüe and later founded the rap metal band Methods of Mayhem . During the Greatest Hits tour, there was a fight at Las Vegas airport between singer Vince Neil and drummer Tommy Lee, who was on probation, so Lee almost turned his back on the band during the ongoing tour. Even before that, it was between Vince Neil and Tommy Lee who would have preferred if interim member John Corabi had remained the singer of Mötley Crüe in order to leave the glam metal that had fallen out of time behind and reinforce a harder alternative rock Going into pace, there was increasing hostility. In terms of artistic direction, Vince Neil accused his bandmate Tommy Lee of adapting to any current trend and not staying true to his original musical profile. Methods of Mayhem's first and so far only album was a flop and received bad reviews.
Although Lee had distanced himself from these after separating from Mötley Crüe, he worked with his former colleagues on the biography "The Dirt".
Tommy Lee also works with Stuart Hamm ("The Urge"), industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails ("Downward Spiral") and Rob Zombie ("Hellbilly Deluxe"). For the film Barb Wire , in which his then wife Pamela Anderson played, he composed the title melody "Welcome to Planet Boom". For the "Electric Love Hogs" he acted as the producer of their first album.
After only one year, Methods of Mayhem disbanded due to unsuccessfulness. After guest appearances at Incubus and Deftones , Lee released his first solo album "Never a Dull Moment", which was reminiscent of old Mötley Crüe times.
In 2004 he rejoined Mötley Crüe because of the reunion tour. The reunification of the glam metal band brought a lot of media hype. "The Red, White & Crüe Tour 2005: Better Live Than Dead" was the band's first tour after a 6 year hiatus. They played 81 concerts and raised $ 33 million ( excluding Billboard Boxscore - Australia tour 2005).
In 2004 the autobiography "Tommyland" was published. This year he also attended the University of Nebraska to uphold the reality show "Tommy Lee Goes to College" ( NBC to film). He attended various courses and played in the college band. The following year "Tommyland - The Ride" was released, his second solo album.
In the US talent show Rock Star: Supernova , he was looking for a singer for the band resulting from the show together with Jason Newsted , Dave Navarro and Gilby Clarke . It won Lukas Rossi . On November 21, 2006 the album Rock Star Supernova was released, on which the band around Tommy, Jason, Gilby and Lukas can be heard.
He recently started an electronic music project with DJ Aero, which they WTF? called.
In 2009 he reunited his band Methods of Mayhem, and with them brought out the album A Public Disservice Announcement in 2010 .
On November 19, 2019 Mötley Crüe announced a comeback.
In the film biography The Dirt - They Wanted Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll (2019) about Mötley Crüe, he is played by Machine Gun Kelly .
Private life
The level of awareness of the band increased proportionally to that of the individual members. In 1984 Lee married stripper Elaine Starchuk. The marriage lasted a few months. Two years later, he finally married actress Heather Locklear . After Lee had intercourse with actress Debi Diamond on a porn film set at the invitation of his friend Ron Jeremy , Locklear divorced him in 1993. Tommy Lee cited the narcissism of both spouses and the irreconcilable efforts to advance their own careers, Locklear in the acting business and Lee in the music business, as the deeper causes of the failure of the marriage . When his ex-wife married guitarist Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi a little later and had a baby daughter with him, this news depressed Tommy Lee, because the drummer had always wanted children to be with Heather Locklear, but she refused to plan the family to get through a pregnancy not to endanger their acting career.
On February 19, 1995, he married the actress Pamela Anderson , who has two sons with him and who filed for divorce in 1998 after repeated abuse and infidelity with her husband. The private porn video of Anderson and Lee, which was recorded by the couple in an amateurish way during a houseboat vacation on Lake Mead in 1995, became well known. The celebrity couple kept the videotape in a 500-pound safe that was let into the floor of Tommy Lee's home recording studio, located in the basement of his villa, and covered with a carpet. When Anderson and Lee were on a trip to London, there were craftsmen in their mansion, including an electrician who used to be a porn actor and was well connected to the adult industry. When the couple returned from the trip, the massive safe was stolen, in which next to the sextape and jewelry was. Lee and Anderson suspect that the electrician with the porn past stole the videotape and resold it. A short time later, the Internet Entertainment Group published the holiday video with the couple's sex scenes in the internet, which was still a new medium at the time, and as a high-volume copy in stores. The couple took legal action against it, but were unsuccessful in court: The judge ruled that Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee are famous personalities of public interest and that the distribution of such a video film is therefore legitimate. The video is now considered the best-selling porn film in the world. In 1998, Lee served a four month sentence for pushing and kicking Anderson. After his release, the two tried to reconcile, but without success. She again reported Lee for breaking his parole not to drink alcohol. A judge locked him up for five days and added another three years probation. When Lee and Anderson got married, they had each other's first name tattooed around a finger as a symbolic replacement for wedding rings. After the breakup, Anderson had the first name Tommy override the word Mommy , while Tommy Lee had the first name Pamela completely removed.
From 2001 to 2003, Lee was in a relationship with Mayte Garcia , Prince's former wife . In 2014 Lee announced that he was engaged to his girlfriend Sofia "Sofi" Toufa. She is German with Greek roots and lives in Los Angeles , where she works as a singer and dancer. However, the engagement was broken off in 2017. Since then, Lee has been in a relationship with actress Brittany Furlan, whom he married on Valentine's Day 2019.
Conflicts with the law
Marriage to Pamela Anderson earned him the reputation of a drinking thug. This wasn't Lee's first conflict with the law, however. In 1980 the then unknown Mötley Crüe were reported by the Los Angeles Health Department because their garbage was piled up in their apartment by the meter. The lock on her apartment door was constantly broken as police officers kicked the door several times due to drug use and noise pollution. An argument with a friend was so intense that several police officers had to storm the apartment with guns drawn.
In 1987, a stockbroker who had been in the front row at a concert sued the band for damages because of hearing damage. The band was fined $ 30,000. During another concert, two young men were injured by pyrotechnic objects. One of the two lost an eye. The insurance company compensated them by paying over $ 175,000.
During the same period, Lee was known to undress completely at concerts in front of an audience. In 1989 he was briefly arrested in Cincinnati for causing public nuisance .
In February 1994, he was sentenced to one year probation for attempting to board a machine with a semi-automatic weapon and ammunition in his luggage at Los Angeles International Airport .
In the same year, after a fight in a Los Angeles nightclub, he was handcuffed to the police and released a little later. A few days before Christmas, Lee was arrested again after an argument with his fiancée Bobbie Brown . Lee alleged that Brown only called the police for reclaiming a $ 15,000 engagement ring and throwing it out of his home. After Tommy Lee had spent three hours in a cell, the two had reconciled.
On June 16, 2001, the actress' son Ursula Karven drowned in the drummer's pool during a children's party. The boy's parents charged Lee with neglect of custody and also filed a lawsuit. However, the allegations against him were dropped.
Trivia
- Tommy Lee is a member of the animal rights organization PETA .
- In 2016 Rolling Stone listed him as 85th of the 100 best drummers of all time .
Discography
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- 1999: Methods of Mayhem
- 2002: Never A Dull Moment
- 2005: Tommyland: The Ride
Web links
- Tommy Lee at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- official homepage
Individual evidence
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 258–260
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. p. 422
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 402–406
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. p. 427
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 420–427
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 411–419
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. p. 423
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 410 + 434
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 435 + 444
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 435 + 439
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. P. 436 f.
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 339–341 + 435
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. p. 438
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. p. 286
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. p. 287
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 389–391
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 445 f.
- ^ Mötley Crüe : The Dirt . Autobiography of the glam metal band Mötley Crüe, co-authored with Neil Strauss , from the American by Kirsten Borchardt , Hannibal Verlag , Höfen , 2nd edition, 2002. pp. 376 + 434
- ↑ blabbermouth.net
- ↑ spiegel.de
- ↑ 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Rolling Stone , March 31, 2016, accessed August 6, 2017 .
- ↑ Charts DE Charts US
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lee, Tommy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bass, Thomas Lee (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American drummer and rock singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 3rd October 1962 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Athens |