“He had a private nurse. It was like a hospital room in his bus”: Don Dokken gets “teary eyed” thinking about Mick Mars’ final tour with Mötley Crüe

Don Dokken has opened up about Mick Mars’ health struggles during his final tour with Mötley Crüe, saying the thought of it still gets him “teary eyed”.

• READ MORE: “The Beatles were also really just a blues cover band when they started out” Mick Jagger revisits Paul McCartney’s claim that the Beatles were “better”

The musician was speaking in a recent interview with Artists on Record Starring Adika Live!, where he looked back on how Mars had coped with his condition during his last tour with the Crüe.

“I really love him and I feel terrible, because my brother, who’s 18 months younger than me, has ankylosing spondylitis,” Dokken says [via Blabbermouth]. “So your spine fuses together. It’s very painful.”

“And I don’t know how he got through that farewell Mötley tour.”

Recalling the methods Mars used to recover his strength between shows, Dokken says: “I saw him four times. He had his own bus, but they got morphine bags. He had a private nurse. It was like a hospital room in his bus.”

“And I really had to… Even when I think about it now, I started getting teary eyed,” he adds. “It choked me up, ’cause I loved Mick, and I was, like, ‘Man, this sucks. This just sucks.’”

“He would go on stage and he’d say, ‘Well, the good thing about my ankylosing spondylitis is sometimes your neck’s like this frozen [looks up], or [to the left], or [to the right], or down. And he goes, ‘Luckily, my head turns down, so I can see the [guitar] neck.’ And that’s how he got through the tour, ’cause he could see his neck. And that’s the truth. He said, ‘My neck was frozen down, so I could still play guitar.’”

Elsewhere in the chat, Dokken – who’s known Mars for over 40 years – also calls the guitarist the “most underrated guitar player”.

“Forget about chops. Forget about fucking hammer-ons and Eddie Van Halen copies. His rhythm playing, man, it’s the shit,” he says. “Mick Mars wrote a ton of Mötley Crüe songs. He is an amazing rhythm guitar player, and he wrote all those great rhythms in Mötley Crüe.”

Mötley Crüe will play a series of shows in Japan and Australia in November. For a full list of dates, head to the band’s website.