Tommy Lee – founding member and drummer of Mötley Crüe – has opened up about the injury that left him with four broken ribs prior to his band’s comeback tour.
In a video posted to her Snapchat account (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), Lee’s wife Brittany Furlan revealed that the drummer had fallen down a set of stairs while the couple were on vacation in Nashville. “The stairs outside were made out of stones,” Furlan said. “They were really uneven, and the roots were pushing them up from the tree… I actually fell up the stairs a few times.
“The day that we were leaving Nashville, our driver came and we had all this luggage and he wasn’t helping us – he just stayed in the car. Tommy was trying to carry all of our luggage for us. He fell down these crazy stairs and broke four ribs. Not fractured, not bruised… broke.”
Furlan went on to note that Lee still got on the plane from Nashville to Philadelphia, where he was scheduled to meet with the rest of the band for rehearsals. Upon meeting with doctors, Lee’s broken ribs were confirmed. “They wanted to keep him there, but he did not want to stay,” Furlan added. “He’s just a fighter. He’s the toughest guy I know.”
Lee ended up joining Mötley Crüe for the first few songs of their set when their tour began earlier this month (June 16) in Atlanta. The show marked the band’s first in nearly seven years. Following the conclusion of ‘Saints Of Los Angeles’, however, Lee revealed that he would be unable to drum for the rest of the performance due to his injury. “I wish I had a fuckin’ badass story, like me and Conor McGregor fuckin’ scrapping out in some fuckin’ bar or something, but I don’t,” he joked to the audience.
Lee was then replaced on-stage by session drummer Tommy Clufetos for the remainder of the show, although he did return to play piano on the band’s 1985 ballad ‘Home Sweet Home’. Machine Gun Kelly, who portrayed Lee in the Netflix film The Dirt, also made an appearance during the set.
Nikki Sixx, Mötley Crüe’s bassist, later took to Twitter to praise his bandmate for persevering through part of the performance. “The fact that Tommy was told by the doctor to not play with four broken ribs, and he beasted half our show, is a miracle,” Sixx wrote. “We are a band, and are proud of his strength. He is doing the whole tour, and day by day adding more songs. What a fucking animal.”
Blabbermouth also reports that the drummer kept up his good humour surrounding his injury by throwing ribs of meat into the audience at Mötley Crüe’s Washington D.C. show. At the band’s most recent show this past weekend in Philadelphia (June 25), Lee performed eight of the set’s 15 songs (per Setlist FM).
Mötley Crüe are currently on ‘The Stadium Tour’, which pairs the band with Poison, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and Def Leppard. It is the band’s first tour since they officially reunited in 2018.
The post Tommy Lee reveals cause of broken ribs: “I wish I had a fuckin’ badass story” appeared first on NME.
