Depending on which source you believe, today is Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars' 70th birthday.
Born Robert Alan Deal in Indiana, Mars moved to the Los Angeles area with his family at age nine. During the 1970s, Mars played in a variety of unsuccessful local bands. Then, in early 1981, Mick joined the group that became Mötley Crüe when bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee gave him an audition after seeing an ad he put in a local newspaper that read, "Loud, rude and aggressive guitar player available."
Singer Vince Neil joined the group a few months later, and Mötley Crüe was born. Mars is credited with naming the band; he'd recalled that a member of an old group he'd played with had once referred to their band as "a motley looking crew."
Mötley Crüe soon became one of the most popular and successful bands to emerge from L.A.'s 1980s glam-metal scene. While Sixx always has been the group's main songwriter, Mars has co-written several of the Crüe's best-known songs, among them "Girls, Girls, Girls," "Dr. Feelgood," "Without You" and "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)."
Mars has played with Mötley Crüe throughout the band's entire history, despite having to deal with a chronic form of arthritis that mainly affects his spine and pelvis, and that led to him getting hip-replacement surgery in 2004.
Mötley Crüe mounted a farewell tour that wrapped up on New Year's Eve 2015, and the band vowed never to play live again. However, in December 2019, the rockers announced that they were reuniting for a massive stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts that originally was scheduled for the summer of 2020 but was postponed until this summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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