TOMMY LEE Says He Has 'Lost His Appetite' For Making Full-Length Albums

Steve Baltin of RollingStone.com recently conducted an interview with MTLEY CRE drummer Tommy Lee. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RollingStone.com: Have you hung out with Keith Richards?

Tommy: Yeah, man, I've hung out with him and Ronnie Wood a couple of times. One time in particular just absolutely blew my mind, when MTLEY CRE was opening for THE [ROLLING] STONES. The STONES guys sent their tour manager in to come and grab me, 'cause I wanted to say hello to the guys. This is literally five minutes before they're about to go onstage. I walk in and Ronnie and Keith Richards are fucking wasted. I've played many shows wasted, but I'm talking about, these guys could barely walk, and they were about to go on. And I'm just sitting there going, "There's no fucking way these guys are gonna be able to play. They can't even find the stage, never mind playing the right notes." And, dude, I was so blown away. What true professionals. Somehow they made it to the stage, and as soon as the house lights went off, it was just flawless. I was like, "I cannot believe what I just saw."

RollingStone.com: What are a couple of your favorite Strip memories?

Tommy: The very first time we sold out a Friday, Saturday and Sunday that goes down as pretty landmark, because in my green-ass, naive, 17-year-old way, I literally was calling my parents, calling everybody I knew. I had no clue I thought we'd made it. I was like, "Oh my god, we sold out a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Dude, I'm done." Little did I know, what an idiot (laughs). I don't think we ever paid for anything while we lived on the Sunset Strip. It was always free drinks, free food, free everything, everywhere we went. So you gotta mark that up as a highlight. We never paid for anything, ever. Maybe the club owners and such saw something there, who knows (laughs)? Either that, or we were just really nice guys.

RollingStone.com: When we did the interview prior to the tour, you talked about not wanting to make albums. Has being on the road changed your views on that at all?

Tommy: As far as making new music, I'm sure we will. There's nothing official laid out yet. What I meant was just making records to make records doesn't seem like that's got much of a point anymore, when people don't buy records, they buy singles. Why not make more singles more often than these big, long records over two-, three-, four-year spans? Give the fans more music and better music, like doing EPs. I just think that would be a way better thing. Now, making a full-length record, I think, serves a purpose, like, let's say, when "The Dirt" [movie] finally gets made. I'd say that totally warrants a full record and soundtrack album. But just to make long-playing records now, I don't know. I've lost my appetite for it, and if you look around at the facts, so has the rest of the world.

Read the entire interview at RollingStone.com.