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“Maybe because I don’t fly over the frets and do as many notes as I can between the clicks?”: Mick Mars on being called an “underrated” guitar player of the ’80s
The former Mötley Crüe man also names the guitarist whose paying speed he’d love to match.
Credit: Brian Rasic/WireImage
Is Mick Mars one of the most underrated guitar players of the ’80s? The man himself chimes in on the debate in a new interview with Detroit’s WRIF radio station.
Speaking with host Meltdown, the former Mötley Crüe guitarist says [via Blabbermouth]: “Well, that’s okay. It’s okay with me [if] you think I’m underrated. I think there’s a lot of people who think like you, as well [as those who don’t feel that way] so much.”
“Maybe because I don’t fly over the frets and do 900 – how many notes can I fit between the clicks? I don’t know,” Mars muses, before singling out Alvin Lee of Ten Years After as a guitarist who deserves praise for playing fast and playing well.
“Probably the guitar player that played a speed that I would have liked to play, but I never really delved into that deep was Alvin Lee when he did I’m Going Home,” he says.
“That, to me, was fast playing. ‘cause it was melodic and the notes were clean, and it fit the song. And so, that was where my face went, like, ‘Oh, you can do that too? Okay.’”
And when Meltdown points out how Mars’ guitar solo for Mötley Crüe’s Home Sweet Home was “the perfect guitar solo”, the guitarist replies: “Oh, thank you. That just came up. I didn’t really have anything planned. I just winged it, actually, and just played it and perfected it, of course. It was real minor things, but it is what it was when I played it. It’s pretty much how it is.”
In the meantime, Mars’ solo debut album The Other Side of Mars is set to arrive on 23 February. The 72-year-old has also confirmed that more new music is in the works, saying: “I’m working now on ideas for the second [solo] record — if I live that long; no, I’m kidding — I’m working right now on my second thing with some ideas and stuff. And it’s, like, what I’m hearing is another step further.”
Listen to the album’s lead single, Loyal To The Lie, below.