Shout at the Devil
is the second album
by the American
heavy metal band
released on
September 23, 1983.
It was the band's
breakthrough album,
establishing
Mötley Crüe
as one of the
top-selling
heavy metal acts
of the 1980s.
The singles
"Looks That Kill",
"Too Young to Fall in Love"
and
"Shout at the Devil"
were moderate hits
for the band.
Overview
Shout at the Devil
was
Mötley Crüe's breakthrough success,
selling 200,000 copies
in its first two weeks.
The album's title
and the band's use of
a pentagram was briefly
referenced by
Tom Jarriel
in a news piece on ABC
about Christian groups
concerned about Satanism.
The pentagram was something
Nikki Sixx
brought with him
from Sister,
a very theatrical band
he had been a member of
along with future
W.A.S.P. vocalist
Blackie Lawless
in the late 1970's
prior to the formation of
Mötley Crüe.
Sister
fused occult symbolism
such as the Pentagram
into a theatrical
'heavy metal show
incorporating blood and facial makeup.
Sixx asked Lawless
for permission to use
some of Sister's
occult-related imagery for
Shout at the Devil,
as at that point Lawless
was intent on moving in
a different direction.
"I said 'take whatever you want'
because at that point,
I realized that with
an image like that,
you end up painting yourself
in a corner and
you can't get out,"
said Lawless.
Just prior to returning home
to Los Angeles
to begin recording the album,
Mötley Crüe
had a brief five show support spot
on The Kiss
Creatures of the Night tour.
Sixx later said that
Gene Simmons
commented on their hard partying.
At the December 31, 1982
"New Years' Evil" show
in Santa Monica,
Vince Neil announced from the stage
before playing the then-new song
"Red Hot"
that the band's next album
would be titled
"Theater of Pain"
and will be released in
March 1983.
The title - taken from the
then-unreleased song
"Black Widow"
ended up being used for
their following album in 1985.
The actual title track
"Shout at the Devil"
was also played at this show
and introduced by Neil as being
"about what happens when
H.P. Lovecraft and Beelzebub
come to visit your house"
The title change was probably
to avoid confusion
with the then-recent
"Only Theatre of Pain" album
by another
LA band,
Christian Death.
During recording,
bassist Sixx
was involved in a serious
car crash after drunkenly
stealing a friend's Porsche
in Los Angeles.
At around the same time,
actress and friend
Demi Moore
told Sixx he needed
Alcoholics Anonymous,
though Sixx dismissed her concerns.
Sixx badly injured his shoulder
in the crash and was
prescribed Percocet,
a combination of
acetaminophen
and the
powerful opioid oxycodone
which was commonly prescribed
to treat severe
short-term pain.
Sixx's use of Percocet
transitioned directly to a
crippling addiction to heroin
which would cost him
$3,500 a day
and almost claim his life
later in the decade
.the band toured with
Ozzy Osbourne
in support of
Shout at the Devil,
they discussed replacing
guitarist
Mick Mars.
Mars was several years older
than the other
members of the band,
and his bandmates were
eager to add a more
technically proficient
guitarist in the vein of
Yngwie Malmsteen.
Bob Daisley,
Osbourne's bassist,
was present during the
tour-bus discussion
and told the band
"do not try to fix something
that isn't broken"
when asked for his opinion.
Daisley has said the band
was serious at that time
about replacing the guitarist.
"They didn't have the balls",
Mars said when asked about
the prospect of being replaced.
"But one day at rehearsal they went,
Jake E. Lee
would look good right here.'
I went,
'I'm the guitar player
in the band.
Nobody else needs to be there.'"
As the tour continued,
the band was invited to
take part in the
1984 Monsters of Rock festival
supporting
Van Halen and headliners
AC/DC.
Guitarist
Eddie Van Halen
was bitten by
Vince Neil
during a dinner,
with drummer
Tommy Lee
also biting
Malcolm Young
at some point.
Van Halen
and Young
were both reportedly
furious over this behavior.
Lee also became
involved in a
fistfight with
David Lee Roth
which saw
Mötley Crüe
expelled from their hotel.
AC/DC and Van Halen
both subsequently demanded
Mötley Crüe
be removed from the bill,
but the band's popularity
at that time made such
a move difficult.
The promoter came up with
an unusual solution:
Mötley Crüe
would enter their trailer
immediately upon arrival
at the concert venue,
and a large crane
would then lift the trailer
several meters off the ground
to prevent the band members
from leaving and causing trouble
prior to their performance.
They would also be required
to leave the concert venue
immediately following
their performance.
"You apologized every day",
said manager
Doc McGhee of
Mötley Crüe's behavior
during this period,
which eventually resulted in him
having to pay a
$15,000 deposit
before any hotel
would allow the band to stay.
McGhee also established
a rule in which each band member
would submit to him
a list of everything
they had destroyed
in a hotel before he'd allow
them to check out.
[It was an article published
in the June 1984 issue of
Hit Parader magazine
that brought the band's
shocking antics to national attention
for the first time.
Andy Secher,
the magazine's editor,
traveled to Mexico
for an interview with the band
and was shocked to find
"this young woman,
spread eagle on
the bed, naked,
and they're going at her
with a wine bottle".
Though Secher
had to heavily sanitize
the story before it
could be printed,
the depiction of the
band's behavior
nonetheless shocked America
and created a firestorm
of controversy which
saw some retailers
threaten to remove the magazine
from its shelves.
The magazine not only survived,
but soon saw its readership
increase dramatically,
with Secher saying
"We happened to hit perfectly
with Mötley Crüe.
That June issue
was on the stands in April,
just when
Shout At The Devil
was peaking.
""Looks That Kill"
was a moderate hit
for the band and played
a large role in exposing
the band to a wider audience.
The music video
produced for the song
was shot over the course
of an 18-hour day
on the main sound stage
at A&M Records
in Los Angeles.
Model
Wendy Barry,
who portrayed the
"warrior princess"
in the
"Looks That Kill"
music video,
has said her experience
with the band was
very positive,
describing
Mötley Crüe as
"all very nice.
Really down-to-earth and fun",
in stark contrast with their
growing reputation for depravity.
While Barry acknowledges
the music video
"generated a stir",
she later said of it
"I personally thought it was just
a well-executed video
as far as production,
and the song was killer."
A year later
Barry would appear again
with Sixx and Lee
in the music video
for Ratt's
"Back For More".
The song
"Bastard"
was targeted by
Tipper Gore
and the PMRC,
who were behind the move
to have warning labels
placed on albums
with lyrics or other content
they found disturbing.
According to Mick Mars,
the song wasn't a call to violence
but rather was about
"a certain person that we used to
work with that we felt we were
stabbed
in the back by."
"Knock 'Em Dead, Kid"
was inspired by a
violent encounter
between Sixx
and a group of
Hells Angels.
Sixx somehow wound up in a fight
with a group of bikers,
even hitting one member
in the face with a chain
he had been wearing as a belt.
The Hells Angels
turned out to be
undercover cops,
and the bassist
was subsequently
badly beaten and jailed,
resulting in a black eye
and broken cheekbone.
After being released from jail,
he was inspired to write
a song about the ordeal.
The album also
features a cover of
The Beatles' 1968 song
"Helter Skelter",
a song that allegedly
inspired cult leader
Charles Manson.
Sixx was not a Beatles' fan
but he lists
"Helter Skelter"
and
The White Album
among his favorites
of all time.
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