John Corabi: "There Was Only Two Singers In Motley"

We find John Corabi sitting on the front porch of his house in Nashville, Tennessee. Corabi explains he's "in the process of getting all [his] stuff together" before The Dead Daisies head out on a "big run" of tour dates, Corabi specifically means things like "strings", "batteries" and "guitar picks". This is important business for Corabi, who admits he's prone to arriving "somewhere like Siberia in Russia" before realising, "I didn't bring my winter coat!" Corabi laughs, "I'm that guy, so..."     

If you arrived in time to see the KISS support band during their Australian tour last year, you would've experienced The Dead Daisies (although with Dave Leslie from our very own Baby Animals masterfully filling in for Richard Fortus, who has since left The Dead Daisies to tour with Guns N' Roses, on guitar). Corabi recalls, "Richard had a motorcycle accident right before we came down there." Founding guitarist David Lowy also "couldn't make" a couple of the KISS support shows Down Under so Rose Tattoo's Randall Waller stepped up.

Even though it appears The Dead Daisies have rotated through "35 members or whatever", Corabi points out, "There is a core band."

"A lot of people that are on the list — like, Dave and, you know, we had Damon Johnson and a few other people fill in at different times; we had Tommy Clufetos fill in for a few weeks for Brian [Tichy]... The Dead Daisies just said that: 'It's a no stress thing, man. You know, we're gonna book shows and if you can make it that would be awesome and, if you can't, just tell us what dates you can't make, we'll just get somebody else to fill in for you and, when you're done, come back.'"

"My wife is just showing me a T-shirt. There's somebody selling a T-shirt that says. 'John Corabi For President' [laughs]."

On how long he's been in The Dead Daisies, Corabi enlightens, "This February was one year," before observing, "In this last year-and-a-half we've actually picked up quite a bit of momentum," to the point where we're "it's been snowballing". "We did a lot of the festivals last year, we toured Europe with KISS, we toured Europe with Whitesnake, we were in Australia with KISS — we're actually going back to Europe and doing all the festivals again and then we are coming back here and we're doing America with KISS. So, you know, we've been very blessed to have some of our friends, and some of these amazing bands that we all grew up listening to and admiring have taken us under their wing and said, you know, they love what we're doing — and we've always loved what they did — and, you know, they're giving us these great opportunities.

"Hold on a minute," Corabi directs, before addressing whoever has wandered out onto the porch. "What's that? It's hilarious. Where'd that come from?" After instructing the interrupter to "save that", Corabi explains, "My wife is just showing me a T-shirt. There's somebody selling a T-shirt that says. 'John Corabi For President' [laughs]."

The Dead Daisies premiered their Long Way To Go video on YouTube and Corabi marvels, "I was just talking to my wife earlier today, we went and had some lunch and I was just looking online." While reading a comment someone posted under the video, Corabi noticed it had racked up the views. "[I] looked at it and I'm like, 'Oh, my God! We've literally — in two-and-a-half days we've got, like, 50,000 views already!' It's great!" 

Corabi believes the band's music business model sees them stepping back in time "to the '60s or '70s". "MTV's no longer — they're not even acknowledging a band like us and radio is, you know, scarce," he tells. "So basically what we're doing is: we're doing the interviews, we're meeting the fans at the shows, we're interacting through Facebook directly with the fans instead of having to go through the radio stations and MTV. But what we're doing is we're releasing a record and we're going out and we're touring, touring, touring, touring, and it's all about how it used to be back in the day: word of mouth."

If Corabi's name rings a bell for a reason other than The Dead Daisies, that could be because he was hired as Vince Neil's replacement in Motley Crue for five-and-a-half years. When asked how he looks back upon his time with Motley Crue, Corabi exhales slowly. "One of the guys asked me today — when I was doing an interview — he goes, 'Do you mind me bringing up the Motley Crue thing?' And I'm like, 'No, not at all,'" he offers. "You know, honestly, I was in a band called The Scream that was doing well — it wasn't doing amazing, but it was doing really well. And then I got a phone call, and I got asked to join one of — if not the biggest band in the world at the time. I mean, I dare anybody to do anything different than I did. And I talked to my band about it, I talked to my family about it, I talked to my managers about it and everybody was like, 'Dude, you've gotta do this, this is a no-brainer,' and so I did it.

"Because I did that [stint with Motley Crue], that has opened a lotta doors for me."

"And it's funny, I mean, the story played out the way it played out...  I was a bit naive. I thought I was gonna be there forever, you know what I mean? Whatever - it played out the way it played out, it's alright. But because I did that [stint with Motley Crue], that has opened a lotta doors for me. I haven't been in the band for 15 years, you know, and so I don't look at it as a bad thing. I just look at it as one of the stones — stepping stones — to where I am right now and I'm very proud of the record [Motley Crue]."

The band's eponymous sixth studio album (1994) is the only one to feature Corabi, but he's also credited for a couple of song/lyrical co-writes on its follow-up, Generation Swine (for which Neil was reinstated midway through recording sessions). " I have no regrets, you know," Corabi stresses, "and, it's funny, Vince and I were just talkin' about a couple of weeks ago and, you know, we were kind of baffled over the fact that a lot of fans think that him and I should hate each other or we do hate each other. And it's not — it couldn't be farther from the truth, you know? Like, I've met Vince before and he's been nothing but absolutely cordial to me, he's always been friendly. He even said, he goes, 'I so wanted to dislike you, but I met you and I'm like, Nah, you know what? You're just a good dude,' you know what I mean? Um, and we were laughin' about it... I even said it to him, I'm like, 'Look, dude, you know, I was just grateful to take your place. I had nothing to do with you leaving or coming back, I took your place and the one thing: I can go to my grave — there was only two singers in Motley [laughs].' So it's all good, man, and I've been blessed."

Corabi acknowledges his time with Motley Crue "allowed [him] to continue to get record deals and do other things like The Daisies", which is obviously "not a bad thing". "Now would my career have been any different if I didn't do it?" he ponders. "I don't know... As many people that write to me about how awesome the Motley record was, that many people write to me about how awesome The Scream record was. So maybe The Scream would've kept going and maybe we would've blossomed and become our own entity, I don't know. And I can't [pauses] — I'll never know, you know what I mean?  

"That band [The Scream] could've been something really special but, you know, who knows? But the one think I do know is: because of Motley it gave me a name all throughout the music industry. If I was to stop tomorrow, I can honestly say that all the records I did were quality records: The Scream, Motley, Union, The Dead Daisies — it was all quality stuff. And even my solo stuff."

Corabi celebrated 20 years since the release of Motley Crue by performing it in full with his solo band at a bunch of Stateside shows. Corabi's Nashville, Tennessee performance was actually documented for an upcoming live audio and DVD, which Corabi estimates will be released "end of September, beginning of October".