What if Stephen Pearcy had auditioned for Motley Crue when Vince Neil left and had become their new singer instead of John Corabi?
I know, I know… of course that didn’t happen, but there were actually a lot of things happening at that time that could have resulted in the planets and stars all aligning and actually making this pairing possible.
Let’s start with the obvious. Motley Crue, especially Nikki and Tommy were good friends with Ratt and Stephen Pearcy. Think back to the Ratt video for “Back For More” and you’ll remember both Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx portraying police officers in the video.
Vince Neil left Motley Crue in February 1992. Oddly enough, also in February 1992, Pearcy exited Ratt to form a new band called Arcade.
So, clearly, Pearcy was not tied to Ratt at the same time The Crue was looking for a singer and he was looking to continue his singing career with a different band.
While Pearcy’s vocal range and Vince Neil’s are slightly different, they’re actually not that far apart and it’s not too hard to imagine Pearcy belting out the words to “Shout At The Devil”, “Looks That Kill”, “Dr. Feelgood” or hell, even “Home Sweet Home” for that matter.
In my own humble opinion, I actually think Motley Crue would have worked with Stephen Pearcy as the vocalist and would have been far more successful commercially than they were with John Corabi for the one album that he sang on. Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate the album that Motley Crue did with Corabi. I actually like it a lot, but it was pretty far removed from the sound of the band prior to its release. Pearcy had name recognition with Ratt, having already been in a band that came up on the Sunset Strip around the same time as Motley Crue and coming over from another successful band might have actually made him the best choice, at least commercially, similar to Van Halen picking Sammy Hagar to replace David Lee Roth.
Unfortunately, we’ll never know what a Motley Crue fronted by Stephen Pearcy would have sounded like or if it would have been successful.
Ultimately, Vince Neil belongs in Motley Crue and Ratt isn’t Ratt without Stephen Pearcy but it is interesting to ponder what might have been.
Currently, the word is Stephen Pearcy is looking to record at least one last record with the remaining classic members of Ratt and Motley Crue with Vince Neil are all set to do an arena tour with Def Leppard as soon as the pandemic situation improves.
