Mick Mars facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mick Mars
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Mick Mars in 2012
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Robert Alan Deal |
| Born | May 4, 1951 Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S. |
| Genres |
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| Occupation(s) | Guitarist |
| Years active | 1974–present |
Robert Alan Deal (born May 4, 1951), known professionally as Mick Mars, is an American musician best known as the former lead guitarist and co-founder of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. He is known for his aggressive, melodic solos and bluesy riffs.
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Early life
Mars was born Robert Alan Deal, in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1951. Soon after, his family moved to Huntington, Indiana. Before he was nine years old, his family relocated again, this time to Garden Grove, California. He was inspired to play guitar, after seeing his first concert in Indiana.
Early career
At age fourteen, he played in his first group, a Beatles cover group called The Jades, with Mars on bass guitar. He switched to guitarist shortly after. He dropped out of high school and began playing guitar in a series of unsuccessful blues-based rock bands throughout the 1970s, sometimes using the name Zorky Charlemagne and occasionally taking on menial day jobs. His first recorded output were two unsuccessful singles with the band Video Nu-R, in 1978 and 1979.
Mötley Crüe
After nearly a decade of frustration with the California music scene, he reinvented himself, changing his name from Robert Deal to Mick Mars and dyeing his hair jet black, hoping for a fresh start. In April 1980 he put a want ad in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler, describing himself as "a loud, rude and aggressive guitar player". Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee, who were putting together a new band which would soon become Mötley Crüe, contacted him, and hired him after hearing him play.
The name Mötley Crüe came about after Mars remembered someone referring to an old band he was in as a "motley looking crew".
One of the most influential heavy metal groups of the 1980s, Mötley Crüe has sold over 100 million albums worldwide. They have also achieved seven multiplatinum and five platinum US certifications, nine Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, twenty-two Top 40 mainstream rock hits, and six Top 20 pop singles.
During the recording of their Dr. Feelgood album in 1989, reportedly, Mars used so many amplifiers on his guitar, that sounds of his guitar could be heard on the recordings of Aerosmith's album Pump, which was being recorded in the same studio at the time:
Steven Tyler was doing vocals with producer Bruce Fairbairn next door, and I remember them yelling at me, 'You've gotta turn your stuff down, Mick! It's leaking into our vocals.' I didn't turn down, though. I just told them, 'Hey, that's the way I play – loud, so yeah, I'm all over the record they were doing. Somewhere in the mix, you'll hear me.
In 2015, he played with the band on what was reported at the time to be its final tour.
Mötley Crüe reunited in 2018 and started touring again in 2022.
Retirement
On October 26, 2022, Mars announced his retirement from touring with Mötley Crüe. The next day, the band confirmed that John 5 had taken his place. That same week, they announced Mars' complete retirement from the band, supporting his decision, with John 5 taking his place starting with the 2023's The World Tour with Def Leppard.
Hear 'n Aid
In 1986, Mars contributed to the compilation album Hear 'n Aid. Featuring 40 heavy metal musicians, the project album was organized by Ronnie James Dio, Jimmy Bain, and Vivian Campbell, all from the band Dio. Proceeds from the album were used to raise money for famine relief in Africa. Hear 'n Aid took large inspiration from the pop and rock Charity supergroup, Band Aid, which took place a year earlier.
Solo
In February 2023, amidst the controversies surrounding the band lawsuit, Mars began works on a solo album again, titled The Other Side of Mars, produced by Cory Marks in Los Angeles. Marks has described the album, saying:
The rock world is in for something weird, special, great and loud.
Mars stated that plans surrounding a solo album had previously been discussed since 2014. The album, titled The Other Side of Mars, has a February 23, 2024 release date.
The first single from the album, "Loyal to the Lie", was released on October 31, 2023.
Other works
Mars has contributed songwriting to John LeCompt, a former member of Evanescence and the other band members of Machina, and to the Swedish band Crashdïet. Their second album, The Unattractive Revolution, was released on October 3, 2007, and featured two songs co-written by Mars.
Mars played guitar on the title track of Hinder's 2008 album Take It to the Limit, and contributed a guitar solo to the song "Into the Light" by Papa Roach, on their 2009 album Metamorphosis. Mars also contributed a guitar solo to the song "The Question" on Rock Star: Supernova runner-up Dilana's U.S. debut album Inside Out. In 2010 he co-wrote a song with Escape the Fate for the band's self-titled album, which was instead withheld from the album and reserved for a later release. Mars co-wrote and appears in the music video of the song "Boss's Daughter" by Pop Evil on their 2011 album War of Angels.
In November 2019, Mars released a new song, "The Way I'm Wired", with Black Smoke Trigger. Mars was also featured on the hit single "Outlaws & Outsiders" by Cory Marks.
Equipment
Mars in his early career used guitars that were popular at the time: Kramer, and other Superstrats; on occasion he used a black Gibson Les Paul, and sometimes a B.C. Rich. However, according to an interview published in September 2009, Mars' main stage guitars for that tour were Fender Stratocasters with an "HSH" (humbucker, single coil, humbucker) configuration. He frequently used a Stratocaster modified from components of 1963, 1964, and 1965 models with J.M. Rolph pickups and a licensed Floyd Rose bridge system turning it into a Superstrat.
Personal life
Mars currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee. He was married to Emi Canyn (1954–2017) from 1990 to 1994. Since 2013, he has been married to former "Miss Zürich" model Seraina Schönenberger, who is a little over thirty-three years his junior. He has three children: Les Paul, Stormy (born to his first girlfriend, Sharon) and Erik. Andy Greene's 2023 Rolling Stone profile states: "Mars is in touch with Les Paul today, but estranged from his two other kids."
Health
For most of his professional career, Mars has openly struggled with ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic, inflammatory form of arthritis that mainly affects the spine and pelvis. It was initially diagnosed when he was 17 years old and has increasingly impaired his movement and has caused him pain. This led to hip-replacement surgery at the end of 2004.
Over the years, the illness has caused his lower spine to seize up and freeze completely solid, "... causing scoliosis in [his] back and squashing [him] further down and forward until [he] was a full three inches (7.6 cm) shorter than [he] was in high school." Mars reported in 2013 that his neck is so stiff he could not even turn his head, preventing him from driving a car. He also said in the band's 2001 autobiography, The Dirt:
My hips started hurting so bad every time I turned my body that it felt like someone was igniting fireworks in my bones. I didn't have enough money to see a doctor, so I just kept hoping that I could do what I usually do: will it away, through the power of my mind. But it kept getting worse.
Influences
Mainly influenced by the Blues rock music of the 1960s, he has pointed out the likes of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix as influences:
When I started out on the guitar, I was influenced by people like Michael Bloomfield, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. Those guys sort of taught me how to play 'real' guitar. But again, with riffs, you have to look into your soul and see what comes out.
Mars also claims that the albums: Axis: Bold as Love (1967), Truth (1968), Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds (1965), Disraeli Gears (1967), Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970), Bad Company (1974), Band of Gypsys (1970), Led Zeppelin II (1969), and various songs by Mike Bloomfield helped "change his life".
Discography
Solo
- The Other Side of Mars (2024)
With Mötley Crüe
- Too Fast for Love (1981)
- Shout at the Devil (1983)
- Theatre of Pain (1985)
- Girls, Girls, Girls (1987)
- Dr. Feelgood (1989)
- Mötley Crüe (1994)
- Generation Swine (1997)
- New Tattoo (2000)
- Saints of Los Angeles (2008)
With Hear 'n Aid
- Hear 'n Aid (1986)
See also
In Spanish: Mick Mars para niños
