TOMMY LEE Credits 1984 Tour With OZZY OSBOURNE With Catapulting MÖTLEY CRÜE's Career

In a new interview with Spotify's "Rock This With Allison Hagendorf", MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee credited the band's 1984 tour with Ozzy Osbourne with helping break CRÜE in America. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "When Ozzy Osbourne took us out, that was the first time we got the opportunity to play in front of 18, 20 thousand people every single night in sold-out arenas. And we went from being this cool new band to [makes exploding sound]. It literally catapulted [our career]. We were, like, 'What is happening? This is insane.' And we were just hanging on. It was that crazy. And I really believe that that tour — it was the 'Bark At The Moon' tour; I think that was around our 'Shout At The Devil' era time — and it just took off. So I'm always indebted and grateful to Ozzy for doing that, because that really launched us into some crazy shit."

The celebrated moment from MÖTLEY CRÜE's tour with Ozzy is recalled in CRÜE's biopic "The Dirt". In the film which premiered two years ago on Netflix, a young Ozzy Osbourne (played by Tony Cavalero) holds an impromptu gross-out contest of sorts with Sixx at a Lakeland, Florida hotel swimming pool in 1984 during the two acts' joint U.S. tour. After exposing himself to some hotel guests, Ozzy asks CRÜE for cocaine. Sixx (played by Douglas Booth) hands over a straw, and Ozzy kneels on the ground and snorts a crawling line of ants. Then he urinates on the ground and licks it up, challenging Sixx to do the same. Pressured, Sixx urinates on the ground as well — but before he can get to it, Osbourne kneels down and laps it up first.

In MÖTLEY CRÜE's 2001 autobiography, "The Dirt: Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band", Sixx recounted the episode in detail, writing: "I handed [Ozzy] the straw, and he walked over to a crack in the sidewalk and bent over it. I saw a long column of ants, marching to a little dugout built where the pavement met the dirt. And as I thought, 'No, he wouldn't,' he did. He put the straw to his nose and, with his bare white ass peeking out from under the dress like a sliced honeydew, sent the entire line of ants tickling up his nose with a single, monstrous snort.

"He stood up, reared back his head, and concluded with a powerful rightnostriled sniff that probably sent a stray ant or two dripping down his throat. Then he hiked up the sundress, grabbed his dick, and pissed on the pavement. Without even looking at his growing audience — everyone on the tour was watching him while the old women and families on the pool deck were pretending not to — he knelt down and, getting the dress soggy in the puddle, lapped it up. He didn't just flick it with his tongue, he took a half-dozen long, lingering, and thorough strokes, like a cat. Then he stood up and, eyes blazing and mouth wet with urine, looked straight at me. 'Do that, Sixx!'"

Ozzy told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that what little he remembers of the tour with the CRÜE was pretty wild. "The 1984 tour was the most craziest tour I think I've ever done in my life," he said. "I don't remember it, but I remember I used to wake up every morning or come around thinking, 'What the fuck went on last night?' I mean, everybody keeps asking me, 'Hey, Ozzy, did you really snort a line of ants?' You know what, the answer to that is: I don't know, but it's very possible."

When asked by Page Six if the story was true, Sixx reconfirmed it. "Of course," he said. "We were a wild young band and he kind of took us under his wing. We thought we could compete with that, but you can't with Ozzy. He won."

Photo credit: Dustin Jack